Page 59 of Vilest Things
Heat flares hot and fast. When the smoke clears, Calla’s throat closes tight, matching the vacuum in her chest.
“What the fuck?” Anton breathes. “That was gunpowder. It could have killed you.”
A whisper hums at the base of her skull, splits to snake down the two sides of her arms, jolts at the rough surface of her elbows. It wants to wake up. It wants to wreak its full power.
“Get back.”
Anton stares at her, unmoving. He can sense it. The air warps around her, refracting and shivering as it does above an open flame. Heavens, the pain, thepain—
“Calla,” he says.
Calla gasps for breath, propping her palm against a tree for balance. Their surroundings suction with the impression of the atmosphere disappearing, and though it returns near instantly, the branches shudder to recover. Anton isn’t as fortunate to experience a mere shudder. Without anything to root him in place, he skids back and collides with a thin tree trunk. He stills for a moment. The air clears.
And Anton lunges forward, swinging his sword at her.
“Hey!” Calla bellows. She barely manages to deflect the hit. “What are you—fuck—”
“Do that again.”
“Stop it,” she hisses, blocking his next strike. The reverberation travels to her very bones.
Anton gears up to swing again. When he wipes a splatter of blood off his cheek, it smears, running a dark line from the corner of his eye to his mouth. “Fight me off.”
Fuck.Calla swings messily to counter his sword. She has never wanted any of this. She would have rather buried herself in the rocks of the sea than choose their current predicament. But it’s impossible to start backtracking when she’s already a thousand miles deep into dirty work. Just as it is impossible for her and Anton to stop antagonizing one another when they have each other’s blood and guts spread in buckets between them. She keeps fighting him, but she’s only here to keep him safe. She possesses such hatred for the crown and the way its fingers stretch from the electric wires in San-Er to the plain soil in Rincun, so why is sheherewhen he doesn’t even want her?
“You’re out of your”—she narrowly avoids an overarm slash—“mind.”
“Let me see, Calla. Show me how you’re doing this.”
Her chest racks with new pain. A physical tearing sensation, like scissors slicing through the stem of her lungs. Her fingers spasm. Fine.Fine.
Calla drops her sword. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Anton echoes in threat. They make a picture of stark contrast when he lifts his sword steadily. Raises it high, over his head, creating what should be a perfect arc down. “Pick up. Your weapon.”
She went wrong long before she started on this crusade, from the first moment she decided to blame someone for Rincun, from that decision to enter the palace and take revenge into her own hands one day. If she wanted proper revenge, she should have prayed to the gods and asked for Talin to be incinerated off the map.
Anton lunges for the swing.
There’s nothing more to do. He is angry. He is looking for an excuse to strike. And so Calla braces with her arm over her head. All she can think to use in her last line of defense is a carnal, mortal body.
A heavythudstrikes the ground.
Seconds pass. The fight continues in the distance. The opinionated hiss of the wind and the curious thorny branches are their only spectators.
Slowly, Calla peels her eyes open. Lowers her arm.
“It seems unfair, doesn’t it?”
She doesn’t look like she’s been cut. As far as she can tell, each part of her remains intact, each beat of her rapid heart pulsing when it needs to.
“What does?” she asks. Her voice comes in a rasp.
“You killed me. You killed me, and yet I can’t seem to strike you without feeling the wound as my own.” He takes a step toward her. Without a doubt, Anton Makusa has stopped fighting, because as furious as his expression is, there are tears in his eyes. “Tell me this is some part of your work. Tell me you communed with the old gods and did this to me. What strength have you acquired that I lack?”
Calla shakes her head. The pain eases from her chest. The horrible thrumming fades from her ears.
“Is that what you think?” she returns. “The arena was the worst crime I have ever committed. I would have answered for it with my life. I still can.”
