Page 41 of Immortal Longings
“We need to rinse off,” Calla decides. “There’s a public standpipe directly outside. Come on.”
Her voice is gravelly. They both pretend not to make note of it. She inclines her head at the last floor of the stairwell, and down she walks, Anton close on her heels like some long, lingering shadow.
They push out into a thin alley and the ground-level murkiness of Er. As soon as the door slams shut after them, it is like the building has been cordoned off. Calla imagines a line being drawn in her memories, roping it off for a day when San-Er is no longer at war with itself.
Anton reaches out suddenly to snag her elbow, and Calla jumps, her hand darting for her sword. If he has chosen now to attack her—
“Wait,” he hisses. His eyes are trained ahead.
A rustle sounds in the alley, from the little nook where the standpipe is. Calla searches the nook, its one small bulb working overtime to illuminate the whole area.
“I don’t see anything,” Calla whispers.
Nothing stirs. There are dozens of hose pipes hanging down the wall, tangled on the floor like a nest of rubbery snakes. Most likely, the noise was justone of them detaching from the bunch and falling to the ground. The pipes are connected to the food factories nearby, the singular stop for workers to come by when they need their tanks replenished.
When a few seconds pass and the scene remains still, Anton shakes his head. “Looks like we’re clear. Maybe I’m being paranoid.”
“Not at all.” Calla strides forward and pulls at the faucet, letting the water pour out onto her feet. She cups the water into her hands and washes at her arms, getting the blood off her elbows. The red that is stained into her white shirt will remain. “There have been deaths across San-Er targeting players. The newsreels aren’t broadcasting it. But if you pay attention to the numbers, you’ve probably noticed too.”
As Calla splashes water onto her neck, Anton draws near, sticking his hand under the running stream.
“Four.” There is no hesitation. He has already been counting. “There are four eliminations that aren’t attributed to another player. I thought perhaps they had deactivated their wristbands.”
Calla steps away from the faucet, shaking her hands dry. “The work of Sican agents, if you believe Prince August.”
Anton rolls his eyes. That strikes Calla’s interest—the contempt flashing quick as a whip across his expression.
“I was attacked earlier in the games,” Calla continues, leaning up against the standpipe. Her gaze is fixed on Anton while he tries to work a clot of blood out of his hair, waiting for another moment of that repulsion to cross his face. Something about it thrills her, to see his usual insolence falter. “Someone came at me from behind, but as soon as I shoved my sword through their body, it dropped as if it were just an empty vessel. No blood, no qi.”
Anton smooths the water out of his hair, slicking dark strands back from his forehead.
“So they jumped?” he asks.
“No.” Calla folds her arms. “There was no light.”
A beat passes. Anton remains quiet, trying to gauge if Calla is being serious.
“And you think it’s a Sican skill?” he asks eventually. He turns the faucet off. “Lightless jumping?”
“I’m not sure what I think.” When she straightens up again, the sheath of her sword bounces against her knee. Calla unhooks it, letting her body rest without the sword’s weight bearing on her hip. “All I know is, I’ve never seen it before. If August wants to blame it on foreign intruders, I suppose that’s a possibility.”
Anton, however, seems unconvinced. “I’ve heard rumors that we might be able to do it too, if you’re quick enough.”
Perhaps he can train for that one day, but Calla has not jumped in fifteen years. The palace already thought jumping was the behavior of commoners who didn’t have valuable bodies to protect; royalty were warned even more significantly against the act. The stakes were too high for their vessels. She has never been as tricky as August is, flitting from body to body so that he isn’t recognized leaving the palace. She can hardly remember how it goes, how easy it is for those born strong with the ability. Jumping speed depends on how near the target body is, but no matter how slow or fast itfeels, the flash of light is always the same from the outside.
“It could be a matter of technique,” Anton is still saying. “We have learned to do it in a way that gives off light. A visible sign of our qi moving. Perhaps the Sicans have learned something else.”
“Perhaps they don’t have qi.”
Anton clicks his tongue. “Everyone has qi.”
Like the wind of the world and the salt of the sea. Qi is what gives life in the womb, the difference between a vessel and a body. It is what takes life away when it dissipates in old age.
“I think it would explain a lot,” Calla says anyway, sticking with heroutrageous claim. “Maybe in the years we’ve been cut off from them, the Sicans have started evolving into something else.”
“Do you”—Anton crouches, submerging one of his knives into a puddle and shaking the blood from the blade—“have any basis to be saying this, or are you merely stringing together nonsense?”
Calla steps her foot forward quickly, pinning the blade down before Anton can pick it back up. Instead of fighting her for his weapon, he closes his hand around her ankle, squeezing hard.
