Page 72 of Immortal Longings
Yet somehow, out of all the people in the kingdom, from San-Er to the borderlands, it was Calla who had invaded her way into becoming a princess. Wouldn’t she have ended up exactly like Eno if she hadn’t?
“I hope you are among the last,” she says, smoothing Eno’s eyelids down until they are closed. “I hope…” She trails off, daring a glance up at the wall. She hopes they count this death as hers in the games. Add it to her tally. The guilt can smear her hands. This death is on her conscience to avenge.
Everyone who is responsible for this misery will fall, one by one.
There’s movement atop the wall. Border guards. Calmly, Calla rises to her feet, waving at them for a brief moment before slipping back between the buildings. By the time they clamber down the wall, she will be gone. Eno’s body will be the palace’s responsibility.
Calla clutches her fists tight and makes a sharp turn. She steps over a crate, then enters a building at random and treks up the stairs, heading for the rooftop to navigate San-Er from above instead. She is soaked to the wrists in blood. Her sleeves are stained, as is the hem of her shirt.
Black eyes, the man said.
She knows only two people in this city with black eyes. August and Anton. And Prince August needs her alive to do his dirty work.
Calla shoves the door open, almost blowing it off its hinges as she barges onto the rooftop. Her boots strike heavy against cement, her coat billowing to either side of her. She is not merely a contestant of the games moving on to her next kill. She is initiating a battle march.
They gave us instructions to hunt you down.
So the time has come.
Anton Makusa has turned on their alliance.
CHAPTER23
Thunder rolls across the twin cities. When Calla arrives on Big Well Street, the rain has just started, and she barely misses the downpour, ducking into Snowfall before the pavement is splattered. She stomps up the stairs and around the stairwell corner. Outside Anton’s apartment, she doesn’t bother knocking to be let in. Just like the other times, the handle turns easily under her hand, and she shoulders through the door.
She pauses at the threshold. Waits. Her blood is simmering beneath her skin.
“You’re here.”
Calla swivels, turning to face the kitchen. There in the doorway, Anton stands with a bowl in his hand, which he sets down upon sighting her. He wears a new body, this one tall and lean: a fighter’s build. He’s dressed in black, like she caught him just as he was about to head out and increase his kills for the day. Red-hot intensity rushes from her throat to her stomach as she takes him in.She’s unsteady. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought she downed ten shots in a row right before she barged through.
“Why?” Calla asks. “Why did you do it? You couldn’t come and make the strike yourself?”
Anton frowns. “What are you talking about?”
Calla yanks her sleeves up and shows him the blood on her hands. She doesn’t intend to yell, but when she speaks, it comes tearing out at earsplitting volume. “The hitmen, Anton! The fucking killers you sent to attack me. Eno’sdead. Dead!”
“What are—” A clap of lightning flashes across the kitchen window. A rare burst of illumination in an otherwise dark city. Every corner of the apartment seems to come aglow, cast in blue and lined with white. When the light fades, Anton is squinting, like he is still bracing against the brightness. “Eno’s dead?”
Calla cannot stand this performance. Is he intent on feigning ignorance? Was Eno not his friend too?
“Stop it,” she hisses. “Stop lying to me.” Another clap of lightning; an accompanying roll of thunder. Now the rain is coming down hard enough that it can be heard colliding with the side of the building, water pelting the rattling windows.
“I don’t know what I’m lying about!” Anton exclaims. The confusion in his brow holds fast, but when he lifts his arms, Calla catches a glimpse of ink under his wristband. A single crescent moon.
Calla hisses in through her teeth. This body was taken from the Crescent Societies, which means Anton was just there. Doing what? Arranging her murder? Even if the hitman claimed not to be a Crescent, she knows there are dots to connect here, and she makes the quickest link.
“Youtraitor,” she spits. Then she pulls the cleaned dagger from her pocket and lunges at him.
Anton reacts fast, sidestepping as his eyes grow wide. With the next swipethat Calla makes at him, he seems to figure quickly that this is not a fight she is holding back from. She throws her elbow hard, landing a hit to his face; he kicks out, striking her middle and putting distance between them when Calla slams into the wall, her head colliding with a picture frame. The frame pitches to the floor, glass shattering in tandem with another strike of thunder outside. Though Calla recovers fast, her grip tightening on the dagger, every inch of her hands prickles with discomfort. Her fingers feel stiff and her joints ache. They tell her to stop, but she cannot. There is already a charge that runs like static through her system, responding to the betrayal that she knew was coming. An overwhelming grief buzzes in her bones, strikes liquid rage into the lines between her ribs.
“I don’t know what idea you’re stuck on,” Anton heaves. He wipes at the corner of his mouth. There’s a spot of blood, the skin swelling slightly from her hit. “But you’ve got it wrong.”
Calla draws a breath. She flips the dagger, adjusts her grip on the handle.
“Regardless,” she says, “I think we’ve reached the end of our alliance.”
She closes the distance and swings. Just before the blade can make contact with the side of his neck, Anton catches her wrist, his eyes snapping a quick motion from the blade to Calla. He still looks taken aback, surprise marring the wide shape of his eyes.
