Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

Galipei brings his collar to his nose, breathing in deep. He can’t tell if he’s imagining it, or if the sterile hospital smell has really followed him back to the palace. He followed August’s instructions: enough poison has been dropped into Otta Avia’s intravenous lines day by day that her heart should stop soon, for no apparent cause save that San-Er stops hearts on the regular.

“It’s done,” he says when August finally comes to stand beside him. The palace is a flurry of activity, the final details of the banquet being put into place. All they need to fill are the vases and the seats. The palace doesn’t send a mission out for flowers until the very minute the final two players are called: an effort to make sure the petals don’t wilt and the leaves remain plump and green. It’s always a variety of bright-red blooms from Gaiyu Province, where the trees grow them in abundance, trailing down the branches like wind chimes. If Galipei were an angry rural dweller, he would cut down every tree just to put a thorn in the palace’s side.

August’s gaze is piercing when it snaps over to him, like he heard more than those two simple words, like he can hear Galipei’s treacherous thoughts. What’s the matter? He was the one who put them in there to begin with.

“Dead?”

A pair of guards pass by. The foyer sees a stream of movement coming in from the left, exiting from the right. Only August and Galipei stand by the wooden table in the middle, where a statue of a creature sits atop a beige cloth.

“Not yet. But soon. It’ll be a full-body shutdown by tomorrow night at the earliest.”

August thins his lips, a flicker of impatience crossing his face. Still, there’s nothing more that Galipei could have done. Death is easy to summon in San-Er, though one cannot go offending it either.

Galipei touches August’s wrist. It is a small brush, nothing more than the pad of his finger making contact with his prince’s exposed skin just below the cuff of his sleeve.

“Relax,” he urges. “The crown will soon be yours.”

There are six players left.

Calla twirls the dagger in her hands, watching the metal glint and flash under the artificial light. On the television screen in the corner of the diner, one network’s reels begin their rerun for the morning crowd, and Calla’s jaw tightens, her dagger stilling. Before she can slam the blade into the table, Anton’s hand snakes out, catching her wrist. His other hand is braced around her ankle, where she’s got her legs thrown over his lap.

“Princess, perhaps refrain from doing that.”

“Yes, don’t make us get a new table,” Yilas remarks. She approaches from behind, carrying a pot of steaming tea in one hand and a plate of egg tarts in the other. When she sets the glistening tarts down, the yellow custard filling wobbles in movement, pushing against the firm pastry sides. “Here’s your food, Anton Makusa.”

Anton lifts a brow. “Thank you. You don’t have to call me by my full name.”

“You’re welcome, Anton Makusa. Enjoy, Anton Makusa.”

Yilas walks off, taking the pen out from behind her ear. The diner is empty, having just opened for the day, so Yilas doesn’t bother being careful about the name she is flinging around. In fact, she looks quite entertained.

“Ignore her.” Calla sets the dagger down. “She likes being a pest.”

“She reminds me of a palace attendant.”

“That’s because she was my attendant.” Calla pours herself a cup of tea, sparing a glance up when the diner doors open and bring in a group of people. They look engrossed in their conversation, making no cursory glances around while they punch their numbers into the turnstile, so they are unlikely to be threats. Just ordinary civilians, excited that the king’s games are nearing the final battle. “I wonder who took Seventy-Nine out.”

His image had flashed on the screen as part of the death count from the previous night, but without attribution to another player. Perhaps his own security team, sick of being bossed around. Perhaps someone in the palace, at last catching on to his funny business.

“As long as he’s not our problem anymore,” Anton says, putting an egg tart in his mouth.

But Calla only voices a small hmm under her breath, staring at the leaves swirling around in her tea. There’s a foul taste in her mouth, and it’s not because Yilas lost her touch at brewing. Six players. This could end tomorrow if they are fast about it. Yet August has not agreed to her plan. She’s running out of time.

“We may have to begin avoiding the pings,” Calla says.

Anton’s brows shoot up. “ Avoiding ? Don’t we want to end this?”

“Yes.” She pushes the answer out sharply. “But on our terms. Or else we will both land in the arena.”

There’s a sudden chime from Anton’s belt, and his attention pivots, whatever reply he had on his tongue lost. He glances at his pager. Calla watches him swallow hard.

“I have to go. I’ll meet you later.”

Now it is Calla’s turn to be surprised. “I beg your pardon?”

He unclips his pager and presses a button to clear the screen. “The hospital is summoning me. It won’t take long. I need to see Otta.”

Otta . The one he’s risking his life for. The one that has him refusing to withdraw, even though it would be so easy if he would just eliminate himself and let Calla enter the arena with another player. Despite Calla’s best effort, she can’t quite block August’s warning from ringing incessantly in her head.

Mark my words, Calla Tuoleimi. When it involves Anton Makusa, what you have is not love. It is obsession.

Anton slides out from the booth. She turns and snags him by the sleeve as he is standing, halting him in front of her. Some dark shadow presses into her throat, turns her warm blood into acidic bile. He is hers now, no one else’s.

“I love you,” Calla says, the declaration snaking off her tongue and dropping into the space between them—as red as her mouth and as sharp as her sword. Like everything else she has wielded, her words are a weapon.

A smile presses to Anton’s lips, though he appears confused. “What a strange time you have chosen to say so,” he replies, “but I love you too.”

Relief washes through her coolly, tamping down the flames that burn within her ribs. But it is not enough. Calla tilts her head, letting a strand of hair untuck from behind her ear.

“How much?”

“How much ?” Anton smooths her hair back. “There’s beggary in a love that can be counted and calculated.”

She catches his hand, grips it hard. From the diner counter, Yilas is watching her with mild concern. “Can’t I be curious about how far your love stretches?”

Anton laughs then, shaking her grip off gently. “You would have to find new skies and new earth, or else it would never stop stretching.” This time, when he takes a step away, she knows she cannot grab him again. “I’ll find you later, Princess.”

He walks out of the diner, clipping the pager back onto his belt. Calla watches him go, her jaw tight.

At the first sign of danger, it’s their lives over everyone else’s. You remember Otta, don’t you?

“Why won’t you let go of her?” she whispers aloud.

Of course, there is no answer. The diner only offers another clatter of its turnstile, bringing in more patrons.