Page 6 of Immortal Longings
Patient bill overdue. Must pay in full by next week.
The message is from Northeast Hospital. It’s also far from the first warning they have sent.
His arm is suddenly rock heavy as he unclips his pager, clutching it tight in his fist. A week. It should be enough for Anton to put something together for the person he’s saving. In San-Er, whole lifetimes can pass in a week.
Still, he should drop by the hospital, find the attending doctor, and talk his way around pushing the bills off for just a bit longer. Hospitals in San-Er are known to act rashly, pull the plug and toss patients out the back door the moment their accounts stack up.
“Goddamn,” he mutters. “Dammit, dammit, dammit—” He marches out to the balcony again, undoing the wristband on his arm too. As hard as he can, Anton hurls the wristband and pager onto the neighboring rooftop, stirring the attention of the three men from before.
“What gives?” one of them yells. The man stands. Drops his cigarette and strides to the edge of the rooftop to pick up the wristband. A breeze blows through the night, shaking the bulbs that hang from the electric wires and stirring the light that flashes across the stranger’s face. His hair ruffles, thick crops of black falling into his eyes as soon as he straightens up.
Anton jumps. It is a risk: the roof edge is almost ten feet from him already, the distance stretched further by where the man stands. But Anton has always been a natural, has never stumbled where other people panic. To him, jumping feels like running, like sprinting through the air with his qi and halting to a stop wherever he pleases.
He opens his eyes. There’s a grin on his lips—maybe it was already there when he arrived, maybe it’s his own doing. The two others around the table call out, having seen the flash of light, and mutter complaints about invasion. Anton waves pleasantly before securing his wristband tightly around his new wrist and clipping the pager back on. His muscles feel strong, steady. When he breathes in and pushes through the rooftop door to take the stairs down, his lungs expand like he could keep inhaling and inhaling with no end.
“Spare some coins?”
At the end of the stairs, Anton reaches into his pockets without stopping in his stride. Beggars never hide out in the main buildings, not when palace guards patrol the markets and civilians report lurkers in the residential levels. The streets outside, meanwhile, are so narrow that no one would be able to walk by the moment someone sits down in a corner. So for those without anywhere else to go, stairwells and obscure corridors it is.
“Here.” Anton scoops up every coin in his trouser pockets and tosses them down at the beggar’s feet. “Take all of it.”
He pushes through the main doors. The bustle of the shops invades his ears, the whine of dentist drills almost drowning out the “Thank you!” from the stairwell. Anton doesn’t stop walking, his hands shoved into his now-empty pockets.
Finally,finally.
This is the first time he’s been drawn in King Kasa’s annual games. He has been tossing stolen identity numbers into the draw ever since he went into exile, chancing his life to save what—who—he lost. She remains on that hospital bed, still lying in sleep after seven years. The palace has the power to help, but August pretends he doesn’t receive any of Anton’s communications. King Kasa has the power to help, but he will not. He lets them suffer in their filth and misery instead, even those who once lived under his very roof.
Anton swipes an apple from a nearby stall, takes a bite, then throws it hard into a shop, hitting a wall calendar at the perfect angle to knock it off its hanging nail. The shop owner yells after him angrily, demanding to know what his problem is, but Anton is already moving away, searching for the next semblance of order to ruin. Prince August has tried his very best to squash Anton into the darkest depths of the city, make him slip away like another face in San-Er as if he did not once hold a piece of it.
But Anton is a Makusa. A family line of palace nobles that goes as far back as the Shenzhis have been royal.
He won’t be tossed aside so easily. In fact, he’ll destroy anyone who tries.
CHAPTER3
The sun goes down. Night settles the muggy air, bringing the barest bite onto the streets. And in the darkness, a civilian wanders into a side alley, stumbling in his step. His name is Lusi, but no one calls him that. The foremen at the factory where he works bark at everyone all the same. His wife doesn’t speak anymore. His daughter used to shoutBabaacross the apartment, only she is dead now—three weeks of a contagious plague, shooed off her hospital bed because they couldn’t keep paying the fees. Her breathing stopped before they even returned home, her body bundled in those stolen white hospital linens, the last of her qi diminished.
“Come on!”
Lusi’s sudden yell pierces into the empty alley. He’s near-delirious. The pain at his side has reached an unbearable peak, but he won’t go back to those wretched hospitals. His debt is already sky-high, bearing the cost of his daughter’s last miserable days. Everything in this city makes his aches worse: thebabies next door crying, the dampness in the hallways, the rent bills pouring in without end.
Lusi was not drawn for the games. It was his last hope, and still, the palace could not do this one thing for him.
“Take me! When did you care about the rules anyway?” He lurches forward, then stumbles, crashing onto his knees and sinking into the sludge of a puddle.
Lusi’s next scream of frustration echoes even louder. Maybe it would be better if San-Er simply killed its peoplefaster. Instead, it lets them rot. The elderly with nowhere else to go live stacked atop one another like animals inside enclosures. The children breathe asbestos in their schools and store poison in their lungs. Sometimes the sick and injured intentionally wander the streets during the games, hoping to be invaded. The games make jumping legal for the players, after all—they must answer for it by providing some sort of care. Collateral casualties who are gravely injured must be taken to the hospital free of cost; collateral casualties whose bodies are destroyed must be paid handsomely, and if their qi is killed alongside it, then their family members get the money. Plenty throw themselves in front of players on purpose, making a sacrifice so that their loved ones can eat. Each year, the smaller television networks interview the newly orphaned children who have been left with a small compensation and an empty apartment. It is hard to decide whether they should be envied or pitied.
“Do you hear me?” Lusi screams. “Do you—”
He freezes. Someone has appeared in his field of vision. The nearest alley bulb illuminates enough to present the newcomer’s outline, coming closer and closer. Palace uniform. A masked face.
“Don’t fret,” they say evenly.
Lusi tries to get back onto his feet. Though he was calling for aid, his heart is suddenly beating fast, sensing terrible danger.
“Who are you?” he demands. “Stop right there—”
There’s a flash of blinding light.
