Chapter 10
Anton returns to his body right in time to see Calla fall.
He is stuck, unexpectedly. He is behind the furniture in Kelitu again, hiding while his parents scream.
He is a child, unable to jump, unable to wield his qi.
The slash from that first attacker has replayed in his mind too many times over the course of his life.
Bright, ugly red, splashing onto the white walls.
Maybe his father could have jumped on that first cut, but he’d locked eyes with Anton.
He did not leave; he took that second cut in his throat, and then it was too late, there was too much qi leaking to attempt escape.
It was over in a matter of seconds. The rural dwellers fanned out in the house, calling instructions to find the children and discard them.
Anton didn’t move. He didn’t move for hours. Not until the palace guards came.
Otta steps forward. Whatever she did to overwhelm Calla, she is assured. Her shoulders sit relaxed. Her hands are steady. Calla does not get up. Even her crown has lost its luster.
Rain pours from the skies. Otta’s going to kill her. That is the only way the divine crown comes off.
The realization finally spurs Anton to move. He is no longer a child. His arm swoops on a discarded weapon as he cuts across the battlefield. There’s melee on every side.
Anton aims as soon as he’s close enough. When the trigger releases, the bullet fires wrong, ammunition flying astray and studding into the walls, but a partial fragment still hits Otta in the shoulder. She hisses, her eyes snapping up and locking on Anton.
A horrible burning smell wafts from the firearm. He hasn’t a clue how to reload the weapon, but he keeps holding it all the same.
“Step back,” he demands.
“Anton,” Otta says. Her hand clutches her shoulder, keeping pressure on the bleeding.
She greets him as though he has come home after a grueling day at work.
As though they have only spent hours apart, not years and years since the moment they decided to run away together, bookended with her coma and his bullet.
“How nice of you to join the party too.”
Some of the Crescents have realized that Calla is down. They’re calling the news. Tsosia is going to pull back her forces when she hears. Without Calla, there is only surrender and retreat.
“Where’s August?” Anton asks.
“Wrong question,” Otta retorts. “What’s this about, Anton? I thought we had an agreement.”
Anton doesn’t dare move. He is—depending on how quickly he could run—at least ten paces away from Calla’s unconscious body, and that’s if he throws himself forward without bracing for an attack.
“You were a pain in my ass every second I was on the throne,” Anton snaps. “I don’t know if that qualifies as an understanding.”
“The understanding was that you could be good for me. You only had to be patient.”
“What are you—”
Otta lifts her foot. She sets it on Calla’s ankle. Anton freezes, his finger locking on the trigger.
“I will tell you now, because she won’t,” Otta says, smiling until her eyes curve.
The shape of half-moons, the glint of sunsets over the horizon.
She was always like this—in the palace, in the smoky parlors, in their hidden corners.
“You are unbelievably powerful, Anton. That’s why I kept you around. That’s why she keeps you around.”
Blood from her wound flows steadily over her fingers. Otta will have to get help soon, and the question is whether Anton can pull Calla out from beneath her first.
“I am aware that I am good at jumping, Otta,” he says evenly. The bodies left on the battlefield behind them is an indication alone. “That’s hardly a unique skill.”
Otta’s smile drops. This was usual too. Her moods changing with the flip of a switch.
“You’re being dense on purpose,” she snaps.
“You already know who I am, and you won’t face it.
You know what that means for this”—she kicks Calla in the leg, and Anton suppresses a sharp breath—“trickster of yours, but that would mean asking questions of her. And, oh, you are already on such thin ice. You asked for so much. You have triggered total war to avoid your fate at August’s hand. ”
“Otta,” Anton says again, because he knows when she’s reaching the end of her fuse. He learned well and early exactly what it took for Otta Avia to blow.
“Don’t be pathetic, Anton,” Otta yells, and a wave of qi ripples from her body to the ground, shaking the earth. “San-Er killed your father while he was still mortal, but it didn’t kill you. The old gods have healed their heavenly qi. Take from it!”
A projectile flies across the battlefield.
It strikes Otta in the chest with a brief white flash, and she slams back into the vestibule, half the entryway catching aflame alongside her.
She was distracted; she didn’t have time to pull her qi and block the hit.
But she is already getting up, barely affected despite her bleeding shoulder, her charred silk blouse.
Anton tosses the firearm aside and lunges for Calla, pulling her into his arms in one sweep.
“We’re going,” he says to her, as if she might be able to hear him. Then, louder, to the Crescents, “We’re going! Retreat!”