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“You!” she bellowed to the statue of the goddess. “You are the one who did this. You are the one who did all of this! I gave you everything. Everything! And you have forsaken me! You made me into this monster! This beast!”
Calix’s face was a bloody mess. “Can you stand?” said Aurelius. “We have to get out of here while we can!”
“No,” he spluttered, red droplets spat across the floor. He picked up the hammer. “This must end.”
She didn’t even notice him hobbling over, too consumed with the passion Calix had amplified within her.
He didn’t pose or posture. There was no speech. There was no hesitation. When he came within striking distance, he swung hard, metal cracking against her head.
Securia was knocked into the scroll hive, parchments crashing onto the floor. She still had enough of Calix’s strength in her, and had taken enough of it from the prince, that the blow didn’t kill her, though blood now poured from her own head.
Before she could stand, Calix mounted her chest, just as she had him, with his big legs pinning her arms against the floor.
Her body was tiny between his tree-trunk thighs. And the hammer was raised overhead, poised for the killing blow.
Just before he could, there was another sparkle of stardust. And now, Calix was no longer looking into the eyes of a middle-aged woman.
Now he was looking into the eyes of Aurelius.
“Don’t hurt me,” the figure whimpered. “Not again. Not after what you did last time.”
Calix froze—shame sweeping his bloody mask, the streams dripping down onto the lighter skin of the fake Aurelius. It was just long enough for the figure to wriggle free and stagger away.
“Calix!” yelled Aurelius, grabbing him by his enormous arm. “Snap out of it!”
Securia stumbled toward the door, clutching at her head—a thick line of blood falling behind her. Calix gathered himself and followed. She tried to slam the door closed but the prince smashed it into splinters on its hinge.
Aurelius sprinted after them but was brought to a screaming stop at the broken doorway. Rather than running into a confrontation with Securia, Calix was met by a dozen members of the city mob.
And the high envoy was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did she go?” Calix bellowed, blood spraying on his breath. The crowd pawed him—not in anger as they had to Aurelius, but in mad relief. They were almost as frenzied as Securia had been in front of the statue, all chanting the same thing.
The king is dead!
Long live the king!
He’s hurt! Our king is hurt!
Calix fought against their clutches. Aurelius covered his own face and ducked out just long enough to yank Calix away, dragging him a few streets in the opposite direction.
Calix broke free in a dark alley. “Take me back! I can follow her blood. I can find her!”
“And you think you will get through them unimpeded? They’ll all be like that, all through the city!”
“I have to... I have to...” His eyes were at once blank and filled with heavy meaning. He slumped against a wall, sliding to the ground. His panting was guttural as everything he had been holding back hit him at once. The blood across his face was so thick he looked like a human rose petal.
“Calix,” Aurelius whispered, tearing a strip of his cloth and pressing it against the man’s head. “You are the king.”
Calix’s shoulders tensed. Red dripped through his clenched teeth. “Like fuck I am!”
91
TEIGRA
Teigra dug her knees into Varas’s flank, gripping the reins so hard her knuckles went white. The pegasus’s feathers fluttered on the breeze, at once familiar and alien.
It’s fine. It’s fine, she thought, desperately trying to convince herself.
