Page 106 of Vilest Things
Calla shifts with a soft exhale, her legs propped on either side of him, kneeson the floor. The moment her arms slide around his shoulders, he’s thrusting up, deeper and deeper. She moves with him until she can’t, until her core entirely unravels, and then Anton breathes a self-satisfied laugh, pushing her onto her back so that he can continue, so that he can kiss her until she’s barely able to string together two thoughts.
“Calla, Calla,” he says, nudging his nose into her hair.
“Look at me,” she commands. “Swear your devotion when you come.”
Anton makes a ragged inhale. A strand of hair falls into his face; he’s entirely uninhibited. Calla could reach through his rib cage, and in this moment, she knows he’d let her take whatever she wants.
“I swear it,” Anton says. “You are my only place of worship. I swear it.”
Lucky for him, she won’t take a thing. If she reaches into his heart, she’s only trying to leave herself there.
Anton stills with a shudder, and Calla gasps in, her every cell humming with life. For a moment, he stays unmoving, his forehead pressed into her neck, and Calla brushes his hair softly.
“Dearest Anton,” she whispers, “I hope you keep your word.”
“I am a man of my word,” he returns, his voice alert even while the rest of him remains relaxed. “And if I break it, you may strike me down.”
Calla leaves Anton sleeping, slipping out from underneath his arm. If she asks him how to go about a plan, he will complicate it. Calla wants to proceed as straightforwardly as possible. She is no revolutionary. She is just the most furious orphan in the world.
Eigi has warmed in the days they’ve been away. The security base beckons in the smolder of an almost sunrise. When Calla exits the lodgings and approaches the main building, she sights two guards watching the door. She doesn’t give them time to see her. She throws her hand out, her teeth gritted, and a beam of light slashesthrough the air. There is no need to knock them out for long. One doesn’t even fall properly, but Calla only needs the opening to get past, shut the door, and pick up a standing lamp with a long pole to shove between the handles.
When August confiscated the crown, she knew he wouldn’t keep it close to his person. Royal protocol says sacred people and sacred objects shouldn’t stay together while there is the threat of danger, or else it splits the guards’ attention.
“Your Highness,” the guard exclaims when Calla slides open the next door inside. Cigarette smoke wafts around the space in plumes. He’s been tearing through a pack.
“Very sorry for this,” Calla says. She moves like a viper, arms grasped around his neck and held tight until the guard drops, unconscious.
The crown has been placed on a pillow in the middle of an office table. Calla wanders over. Picks it up.
She felt it in the borderlands too. An instant hum travels through her palm and along her arm, vibrating through her chest. With this, she needs no sigil. The screaming presence of qi is as blatant as a waving red flag, unfurling in her bones. Much more qi than a mortal body should be capable of. Enough qi to make her a god.
“Calla.”
Calla turns over her shoulder and finds August at the door. The guards must have raised the alarm fast: he looks as though he was pulled from sleep. It’s very unlike August. There’s already the fact that Anton messed with his hair and dyed it black, taking him away from that golden appearance he’s so carefully cultivated over the years.
“Yes?” Calla holds the crown up. Inspects it under the electric lights, letting its sharp edges glint bright.
She will be good. She promises she will serve the kingdom well, even if it means burning it down. This is how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? This is how they all convince themselves they are deserving of total power.
“Put that down.”
Agitation quivers through his voice. For the first time since she has known him, August might be panicking, recognizing what is spiraling into place. He made an assumption that the Calla before him is the same Calla who agreed to help him at the start of the games.
“No,” Calla says, “I don’t think I will.”
She sets the crown on her head.
It is nothing but the heavy weight of metal on first contact, the hum of qi moving from her chest to her head. Then, to her shock, the crown begins tomelt. She feels it turn liquid, feels the metal trailing down her forehead. She blinks rapidly, trying to keep it from entering her eyes, but she shouldn’t have worried. The droplets stop right above her lashes. The crown solidifies back into gold the moment it finishes fusing with her hair, her skin.
August stares, bewildered, as though he might be misunderstanding, as though she might be playing in jest. He has forgotten so easily. From the moment he found her before the king’s games, it has always been him who seeks her help. She does not answer to him.
“What are you doing?” August demands.
“I thought it was obvious.” Calla lifts her arm, and the room pulses with her. “This is a coup. I am your king now.”
CHAPTER 37
The Crescent Societies are privy to mutterings from every corner. There is havoc erupting outside the wall, in a security base where Eigi’s capital used to stand. The qi is changing in San-Er, the twin cities overwhelmed by enormous volumes of it, more than they have seen in decades. The old gods are whispering. They have their hands on the underside of the kingdom, hefting for a great big turn.
