Page 79 of Vilest Things
“What thefuck—”
“My god, I’m as stiff as a board. I can’t believe they left me lying around like this in storage.”
Calla remembers the photo Anton kept in his apartment, the one of his younger self at the Palace of Earth. Black eyes and tousled hair, a strong brow and perfectly symmetrical features.
“You brought your birth body along on this journey?” she exclaims. “Are you out of your mind? Have we been wasting an entire carriage for this?”
“I brought it along because chances were high that you would force me out of August before the journey was over, and I was right,” he snaps back. “Are we going? August and Galipei are waking up.”
Shit.Shit shit shit—
Calla pushes the carriage door open. Before she’s even gathered her bearings and determined which direction she should turn, she’s drawn her sword, at the ready. Her body knows to react with the slightest prompt, senses the world around them and adjusts accordingly. Her legs prepare to spring. Her fingers flex, securing a grip. She’s so happy to be back. No other body in this world is right for her.
In the bright morning light, Calla swings her blade on the rope connecting the horse to the carriage. She shoves her sword back into its sheath, then climbs into the saddle, teetering one way before gaining her balance.
“Come on!” she hisses.
With a frantic squeeze of her legs, she maneuvers the horse the other way. Anton stumbles out of the carriage; she holds her arm for him to grab and hauls him onto the horse just as there are shouts from the field. She spares a glance over.
Galipei is staggering to his feet.
“We’re going north,” Anton instructs, hands on her shoulders to veer her toward the right.
Calla nods. Before the Dovetail can start shooting their arrows, she tugs the reins and bolts away at high speed.
August Shenzhi returns to consciousness as if he has awakened from a dream.
On his first blink, he knows that something is outrageously awry. On the second, he registers the blindfold, then the bindings on his wrists.
“Enough of this,” he hears beside him. “Who left? Get them back.”
The air smells strange. Like something has burned, cradled in the sun’s touch for too long. A grunt echoes beside him, and he recognizes Galipei’s presence in an instant. Are they tied up? Are they out in the provinces?
Faintly, his memories flutter by when he tries to reach for them, but all that has happened outside of his control fades away like smoke through a sieve. His body is sore, indicating frequent movement in the last few days. He recalls nothing except the persistent tug of resentment. Though his qi was suppressed, he can feel every bit of effort it made to tear itself back to the surface, starting with the burst of rage that mottles the inside of his throat at present.
With a practiced ease, August leans his face onto his knees and scrapes theblindfold off. The people who take shape before him are entirely unfamiliar, but that doesn’t change the matter that he has been tied up, and they are looming over him with swords. August jumps and lands in the nearest man without any struggle. He unsheathes the sword hanging at his side and sticks it into his occupied body, then jumps before he feels the pain, flashing light so furiously that he hears cries when he lands again.
He’s found someone with a knife. Someone else screams, begs, “Wait, no! Stop!” and the knife is in his neck.
He moves. Again. Again.
By the sixth jump it seems most of the people nearby have fled, leaving the range of ten feet, and August wipes his hands, grimacing at how much this one is sweating. It doesn’t give him pause—he kills them, then jumps back to his own body at last.
The ground is hard and uncomfortable under him. He pats around his limbs before he dares to stand, checks his clothes, his bruises, looking for some sign to show what they’re doing out here.
“Galipei?”
His guard is woozy on his feet. In the time it took August to attack their opponents, Galipei has only just gotten his bearings. Blood smears the space from his neck to his torso. Though his hands remain bound, he is not blindfolded. When he looks at August properly, his eyes dilate, then focus, his pupils a pinprick in the silver.
“It’s you,” Galipei rasps. “August, you’re back.”
“What the fuck,” August rumbles, “is going on?”
CHAPTER 28
The crown has slept for well past a century, and it doesn’t take kindly to being awakened.
The last time it was worn, Talin looked different. The ocean hemmed every corner of the land, its tides brushing against the northern mountains. The provinces were tribute states, fractured in varying shapes, answering to the gods rather than the soldiers that prowled their fields. It didn’t make anything easier, but Talin hadn’t seen a real war yet. One might imagine the skies were brighter and the air sweeter.
