Page 89 of Immortal Longings
August splays his hands flat on the balcony rail. He looks so much like a diplomat prince, his hair shining under the light, his white robes with nary a stain upon them. Beneath him, Calla might as well be a peasant again, slammed right back into the body of the girl the rest of the kingdom—including herself—has forgotten about. Her hands are bloody; her forehead is bruised. Her hair is a mess, as is her clothing, ripped and torn and disheveled.
“What is more important to you, Calla?” he asks. “Your lover or the kingdom?”
Calla doesn’t say anything.
“You cannot answer me,” August continues. “So I chose for you.”
He points forward. Calla whirls around. From the farthest end of the coliseum, a figure ducks under the velvet ropes, looking dazed. Calla almost doesn’trecognize Anton, but then he stumbles closer, and she identifies him by the jacket he was wearing earlier in the day.
Anton throws a hand up over his eyes, adjusting to the lights of the arena. Bruises mar the skin along his cheek and down his jaw. Though he continues forward, looking like he can barely comprehend where he is and how he got there, he does draw his knives, pulling them from his jacket.
“Ask yourself, cousin.” August’s voice floats down more softly now, each word delivered like gentle poison. “If you refuse to kill him, will he refuse to kill you? Was winning for Otta important enough to risk both your lives?”
He steps back, receding into the balcony’s shadows. Though he doesn’t say it aloud, his unspoken question reaches her all the same.
All this time, has Otta been more important to him than you?
Calla clenches her fists. She starts to stride forward, toward the center of the arena.
“WELCOME,”a voice booms across the coliseum. She doesn’t know where it’s coming from. She doesn’t know whose voice it is, only that it must be accompanying the reels, broadcast out to every viewer who cannot bear witness in person.“WELCOME TO THE FINAL ARENA BATTLE. NUMBER FIFTY-SEVEN. NUMBER EIGHTY-SIX. PREPARE YOURSELVES.”
From the other end of the arena, Anton begins to move at a quicker pace. His expression is stricken, brows knitted together in bewilderment. He waits until he and Calla are close. Then, he halts where he stands, raising his arms as if to indicate surrender.
“Princess,” he calls, and Calla curses him: curses him in the name of every old god, because even looking at him makes her flesh and blood and guts hurt like they are being strewn apart. It doesn’t take a blade to carve open a heart. It only takes a soft glance.
“They took you,” Calla says. Her voice cracks. She has to shout to be heard, voice muffled through her mask, but her volume doesn’t matter. The rest of thecoliseum can’t hear her, words drowned by the vast space and stamped into the red dirt before it reverberates outward. “They took you, and I couldn’t stop them.”
Anton shakes his head. There’s a faint purple imprint across his neck, like the burn of rope, marking him alongside the rough scratches on his cheek. They must have tied a bag around his head to prevent him from jumping until they brought him to the Juedou. They must have planned this with every intention of forcing her hand.
“It doesn’t matter.” Anton surges forward. “Calla, we can leave. We can cut a line right through the crowd, run for the wall, and leave.”
Bitter anger crawls up her throat. He should have pulled the chip from his wristband and exited the games before they ended up here, head-to-head in the arena. Because he knows that she can’t leave. She will not leave before her task is complete.
“BEGIN THE FINAL BATTLE.”
“It’s too late, Anton,” Calla says, and she draws her sword. “It’s too late for us.”
Something is breaking in her chest. By every known rule, qi is as incorporeal as light, too sacrosanct to be felt by the ordinary human, known only in concept and never in perception. But at that moment, Calla thinks she can feel hers. Her qi splitting into two, becoming two separate beings with two separate souls. One half is an inferno, a deep, visceral rage that has been burning since Talin rode into her village. The flames fuel her bones, breathe life into the first inhale she takes every morning. The other half is a lonely breeze. It searches for a distraction, an oasis, an escape. It doesn’t want to save the world; it wants more moments in the dark of night, staring at the neon that streams through the gaps of the blinds, held in someone’s arms.
Calla swings. Anton shouts out, like he hadn’t expected she would actually do it. Like he can’t comprehend that they are fighting—truly fighting, witnessedby thousands upon thousands who scream for blood to be spilled, who scream to satiate a different hunger in their stomachs.
“This isn’t the only way,” Anton says. His words come short, his breath winded as he blocks Calla’s next swing. She had been aiming for his ribs, but with his quick block, she only cuts a shallow surface wound. Nevertheless, the draw of first blood is enough to send a roar through the crowd. “We don’t have to play by their rules.”
“Wedo.” Calla grits her jaw tight, her teeth ringing when metal clangs against metal, her sword colliding with the bend where Anton’s two curved knives meet.
She pulls back and kicks out, but Anton only meets her with defense, grasping her ankle and throwing her off-balance. Calla falls, elbows colliding with the brittle dirt for the barest second before she rolls up again, both hands around the grip of her sword. One inhale. Forward. Exhale. Lunge to the left. Anton stops when she stops, attacks when she attacks, but with every clang of metal, Calla hears August’s voice curling in and out of her ear, tainting her thoughts. She can’t stop fighting now.
Anton blocks her hit, angling her sword down. In the process, his knives slash the back of her arms, and Calla cries out, almost dropping her weapon when a deep cut tears through her jacket and blood appears.
“Calla, there will be no end to this,” he heaves. “Look at us. We’ve fought before. We are evenly matched. We will both be dead by the day’s end.”
I know,Calla thinks.You will die. But once King Kasa is dealt with, I’ll follow you.
“I love you,” Calla says aloud. She swings her sword even harder. She breaks through the block that Anton makes with his knives and cuts at his thigh. The gash opens deep. “I love you, so this is a favor to you. I will spare you from having to land the blow on me. I will take the burden.”
Anton’s lips thin. Though the arena is uproarious and overspilling with havoc, Calla catches the exact moment that his eyes darken.
“That’s ridiculous,” he spits. “You take no burden. Kill me, Calla, but tell the truth. Kill me because you love your kingdom more.”
