Chapter 46
Anton’s head is bleeding.
He regains consciousness with his every thought scrambled, barely able to make sense of where he is, what he’s done. A horrible whine rings through his ears. His vision is unfocused. Some racket is sounding nearby. It’s cold, he thinks—who has left the window wide open?
In a snap, he recalls his circumstances. Waiting, waiting until the last possible moment beside Calla’s body. Still, she did not return. The sun threatened to rise, and Anton stashed her where she would not be seen from the road. His heart thudding as he ran for the horse, as he rode into Actia.
His conversation with August. Sinoa Tuoleimi, waiting outside the window and throwing him back in a rage. They’re gone now. They left him.
Anton winces, hurtling to his feet.
If she’s not here, why are her rebels attacking us?
Thunder rolls over the desert. It is only in its wake that Anton isolates the clash of swords, the clang of metal as it parries and strikes flesh.
Anton staggers out from the yamen, scrambling to gather his bearings.
The line of Weisannas that he pushed through earlier—it has moved.
As have the rural dwellers who were making a ruckus, though he supposes most of them have fled.
Because the battlefield has formed right outside the yamen.
Sand dunes swirl with the wind. August is nowhere to be found.
His lithe physique and his blond hair make him an easy mark during a battle, which also makes it immediately obvious when he is not present.
Anton performs a second sweep of the vast scene before him, confirming that August has surely fled.
Sinoa Tuoleimi, meanwhile, has found herself a sword. Her sleeves are rolled back. Her skirts blow to either side of her. Every surface of her skin is covered in sigils. Meanwhile, her attackers are dressed in white. Typical for those who operate near the snow—near the borderlands, up in Rincun.
Anton slinks forward. In the direction of a body he’s spotted half-buried in the sand.
How long was he out? One minute? Ten? This battle must have broken out fast if August didn’t spare the time to put a knife in his throat and kill him while he was down.
Anton reaches the dead guard, her blue eyes unblinking. Anton takes the sword from her hand.
Then he swipes a finger along the blood on the blade and finishes the half-drawn sigil he had prepared on his arm.
His father’s sigil. King of the heavens, the most powerful god among the pantheon.
Anton feels the rush of qi as a sensation unlike anything else.
Light trembling in his every cell, flaring in his veins.
Others on the battlefield sense it too, because they turn toward him.
Anton moves. He can’t fathom what spurred rebels from Rincun to attack in Actia, but they do not act to combat him, so he must assume they are on his side. He slashes at a Weisanna, moving on without pause.
Sinoa’s summoned old gods. It isn’t hard to identify them by the light flaring from their hands. Raw qi, rippling through the desert.
But there’s… less of them than Anton would have thought. Sinoa wasn’t present when he jumped and spied on August’s front line; she was already collecting them. How long was August marching across the provinces with his front line? Several days, at least.
And Sinoa could only recruit three?
There are gods on the rebels’ side too. It takes Anton a beat to parse the difference.
While he fights his way closer, he counts two—one with the appearance of an elderly man, and another a young woman—but they’re too far for Anton to see anything save the frenzy of motion while Weisannas combat them.
Anton swings his sword, pushing out with the sigil’s power in concert.
He does not linger long on any one opponent.
The sand surges, lifting into his eyes. The smell of blood and seared flesh emanates across the battlefield.
Wounds open with a blink. His sword does more far damage than he expects when he has qi tearing through his lungs.
This must be how it feels to be a god.
Light screams from the clashing line. Anton’s attention whips over. He’s finally close enough to identify the young woman.
“Venus?” he bellows. He shoves forward. “Venus!”
Venus Hailira does not turn around. She does not respond.
A band of Weisannas are struck together when she shoves her arms, releasing a clap of qi, but she’s quickly circled by two of Sinoa’s marked gods as a result.
Sinoa herself stands at the outer periphery of the battlefield, her eyes fluttering.
A new flash of light enters the other side of the battlefield.
The rebels have acquired a third proponent on their side.
But something is unfolding.
Anton blocks the guards who attack him. He is distracted. Whoever is wearing Venus Hailira, she is strong: straining, then momentarily breaking free from the two other gods. For a scarce beat, she seems victorious, picking up a blade and shoving it against one of her marked brethren.
Then her blade freezes in place.
Anton tries to make his way forward. He needs to stop this. He doesn’t quite understand where the drive comes from, but he must. Venus cannot die.
“You’ve always thought yourself so mighty.
” Sinoa’s voice booms from the edge of the battlefield.
She begins to walk, dragging her sword behind her, cutting a trail through the sand.
“I’ve never much liked you. Godling of qi, only gifting the mortals who supplicate at your feet and shunning the ones who don’t. You are not our savior.”
Venus shakes her head. Her mouth moves, but Anton can’t hear her. Anton grunts, cutting through the palace guards, blood clogging the air and the sigil on his arm stinging, and still he can’t hear her.
“I don’t care,” Sinoa says in answer. He calls out, “Stop!” but Anton’s plea is lost to the din of battle.
When Sinoa draws before the godling of qi, the sand begins to tremble. Across the battlefield, across Actia, those meager specks quake against her power, the earthen realm threatening to break as the heavens did.
“The divine crown’s power will not fade, and that is all I need.”
She swings her sword. Venus’s head drops to her feet, blood spurting from the nub of her spine, qi leaking with haste.
A faint drone starts in Anton’s ears. He is distracted enough that he doesn’t see the guard lurching toward him, sword pointed for his heart, and Anton barely rolls onto the sand in time.
He waves his arm, meaning to emit qi, meaning to release power… but nothing happens.
Anton, panicking, picks up a fallen dagger in the sand and throws it directly between the guard’s eyes.
In the moment he has afforded himself, he whirls to stare at the pool of blood, at Venus Hailira’s fallen form.
Sinoa has already cast her attention elsewhere.
Striding toward the new god who joined the battle. Venus is dead, as is the godling of qi.
As are the sigils. Her sigils.
“Fuck,” Anton whispers aloud. His sword slips in his grasp.
Without the king’s sigil, he is not a god. He’s barely a general.
Anton is left defenseless.