Chapter 36
It was his light that steered her back to the mural.
Calla doesn’t say this, doesn’t divulge any further details. She watches Anton as he tips his head back, gazing upon the ceiling, and the glare behind his eyes responds to the picture. Bright, blazing, and Calla takes him in.
Takes his power in.
Stop. Stop. Stop—
Anton doesn’t notice her agitation. He must assume it was sheer pattern recognition.
Rather excitedly, he pulls a knife from his pocket and presses it to his elbow.
Calla says, “Maybe you don’t need to try it right now,” but his blade pierces skin anyway.
Nausea presses up her throat, violently and without warning.
Anton has drawn the prongs of the sigil.
It comes naturally to him. He was made for this sigil. He was born for it.
If he grows as powerful as a god, what does that make her? If he inherits this legacy, this calling from the heavens, who does Calla become in the face of their war, not their primary weapon but only the instigator?
“Anton, wait—”
He loops the body of the sigil. The winding tail. When Calla blinks, she can’t see past the light that is pouring from him, cascading out of control.
“Here goes,” Anton says. “I’m going to test this out.”
“Wait.”
A scream of sensation. Noise, blasting in her ears, tearing down her throat. Thousands and thousands of pinpricks, stabbing in her palms, her chest, her stomach.
Then: it all disappears. Anton’s body falls to the floor, an empty vessel. Calla, with a halting breath, wipes her eyes. She didn’t think she had started to cry, but there is liquid dripping down her cheeks. It’s sticky.
Her hands come back with blood.
Dew in the grass. No rain.
For a brief second, Anton hasn’t a clue where he jumped, how far he went, who he invaded.
He must resist reacting and keep his stride steady because he’s trailing at the back of a group.
There are horses ahead. The smell of their exertion.
And swords. Clanking metal of scabbards nudging against heavy boots.
These are guards, he realizes. These are Weisannas.
This is August’s traveling front line.
Anton looks down. It would be laughable if he accidentally invaded August a second time, but this is the clothing of a guard. Gauging by the sight ahead of him, the nobles have been sent away, leaving only fighting forces.
Anton runs a rough head count. Two hundred, give or take…
That’s significantly less than he thought August had with him.
There’s August Shenzhi at the front, riding tall and surrounded by Weisannas on their horses.
Wearing a cheap circlet, because his greatest fear is that the kingdom would forget who was supposed to inherit the throne, after all that work he put in.
No Otta. Anton makes the realization later than he would expect. It wouldn’t be hard to spot her if she were present.
Anton pulls forward in the cluster, his heart starting to race.
Whoever he entered, they are exhausted, muscles straining from hours of nonstop movement.
The Weisannas keep a slow pace on their horses because the rest of them are forced to walk, marching a long trail through the overgrown grass.
A low breeze blows from the fields beside the path.
This must be Lankil. He remembers when the palace delegation was last here. Off toward the east, in the distance, the outline of an abandoned city shows through the fog.
“Where is everyone?”
“What?” Marra Weisanna doesn’t turn to address him fully. His voice comes out sharp and reedy. He can’t guess who he is—whether he made acquaintance with the guard he’s invading.
“Where did everyone go?” Anton pushes. He’s had years of practice in San-Er.
Years to perfect being a temporary intruder, because without a birth body, he got very good at identifying the exact moment he had pushed too far and needed to flee.
The limits were always further than he expected.
This is a kingdom where their bodies are not their own, where such thefts rob a person’s self from right underneath them.
Civilians live constantly afraid; civilians are always performing quick once-overs as second nature.
When Marra glances at him, Anton doesn’t avoid her eyes, but rather looks somewhere a little to the left. When Marra takes a beat to answer, Anton doesn’t rush to supplement the question in a fit of guilt. He lets it stand.
It passes the test.
“You need to be listening instead of wandering off to take a piss every hour,” Marra Weisanna snaps. “We split off half to Janton. Obviously we are missing people.”
“Ah.” Yes, of course. As soon as Janton is blocked, supplies from the northwest halt instantly. San-Er loses most of its produce. “I heard there were gods in Janton.”
“It’s only an appraisal. Occupy if there are no threats. Retreat if there are gods in the way.”
This is not good. August has pivoted.
“But we are still going through Laho,” Anton states.
“No, we’re veering into Ximili. Entering where we have reinforcements.”
Anton nods. He hastens his steps. The guards wouldn’t be expecting it if he pulled his sword. If he ran up to the front and targeted August in a quick, brutal assault.
The problem is that, even if Anton has invaded this traveling front line, he cannot penetrate the circle of Weisannas surrounding August. On the very likely chance that he fails an assassination attempt, he has warned August about his presence, and August will pivot gears.
Anton pushes through the troops until he’s almost directly behind August. He stares into the back of his head, bleached once more, a gleaming white blond. You can’t have the kingdom in reward, he fumes silently. You don’t deserve it after what you’ve done.
It is as if August hears him. He glances over his shoulder, his nose wrinkled. Anton does not look away.
And August meets his eyes.
When Anton jumps, he is caught in momentary darkness.
Lankil’s dull daylight turns to nothing.
He’s floating. His arm burns—the sigil stutters.
It is hissing in tongues, whispering something that he cannot catch, that he cannot hold no matter which way he twists and turns while he is still in a void.
Then he’s back in the manor. Staring up at the mural, lying supine on the cool floor. Calla sits beside him, her legs crossed. Her hair pouring off one shoulder, her head propped on a fist. As soon as he moves his head, signaling that he has returned, Calla grows alert.
“His forward march is a distraction,” Anton says before he does anything else, before he sits up, before he wipes off the blood smeared on his arm. “He halved his army and sent a force to block travel in Janton while he continues into Actia. He’s starting on the siege sooner than we thought.”
Calla takes a beat to digest his words. She blinks. Then she offers her hand, helping him up.
“Okay,” she says. “We will meet his army in Janton and wipe them out.”