Immortal Longings

Calla¹ locates Anton² at Snowfall brothel on Big Well Street by following leads from a young Crescent Society initiate named Eno.¹¹ She slides into his lap with a steak knife pressed to his throat, demanding her wristband back. Anton,² impressed, proposes a collaboration: they team up to eliminate other players faster.

Calla¹ refuses until she spots a photograph in his apartment of Anton² with Otta Avia,⁵ August³'s half sister, confirming Anton²'s motive for winning the games. She agrees to an alliance on her own terms, recognizing a shared hatred of King Kasa.⁴ As she leaves, she realizes Anton² is motivated by the same desperate love that would keep someone paying hospital bills for seven years for a woman who may never wake.

August³ orders his bodyguard Galipei⁶ to terminate Otta⁵'s life support at the hospital. When Galipei⁶ protests that Otta⁵ has been comatose for seven years, August³ reveals his deeper fear: Anton² might find a way to wake her, and Otta⁵ possesses evidence of August³'s long-standing treason against King Kasa.⁴

Years ago, Otta⁵ discovered that August³ and Leida⁷ were planning to flee the palace, find a forgotten royal stronghold at the edge of Talin, and wage war on San-Er. She threatened to tell Kasa.⁴ Even now, if she woke, she could destroy everything. Galipei⁶ reluctantly agrees but warns that he is a bodyguard, not a servant. Something fractures between them.

Pampi Magnes,⁸ a Crescent Society member embedded as a palace surveillance worker, reveals to temple leader Woya that she can jump without the characteristic flash of light, and she can strike people without touching them using her qi. She demonstrates by throwing Woya across the temple with an invisible force.

Her chest bears two parallel lines of dried blood from ritual sacrifice. Pampi⁸ has learned these techniques through methods unknown to the rest of Talin, methods that involve carving hearts from bodies. She is the true source of the 'Sican' killings of game players, using her abilities to burn victims with the yaisu sickness and pose them in the Sican salute to sow confusion.

Dispatched to Eigi Province to investigate a councilmember's disappearance, August³ discovers a desperate hostage situation: villagers have seized the councilmember to protest crushing taxes and starvation. He resolves it quickly by jumping into the hostage-taker's body, but then King Kasa⁴ orders the entire village capital burned to ash as an example.

August³ must stand by while ten palace guards torch the village, listening to screams as homes and shops collapse. Leida,⁷ present against her usual duties, watches silently. On the ride back to San-Er, August³ promises himself that when he is king, he will never order such atrocities. He will be different. He must be different.

Calla¹ meets August³ at the Magnolia Diner to propose an alternate plan: she will pull out of the games before the Juedou and assassinate King Kasa⁴ during the final match, while Anton² wins fairly. August³ rejects the idea outright, calling her soft for Anton.²

He admits he sent hired attackers after her earlier to 'remind' her of their purpose, inadvertently revealing that Eno¹¹'s death was collateral damage from his manipulation. Calla¹ seizes August³ by the collar, furious. He warns that what she feels for Anton² is obsession, not love. Calla¹ retorts that August³ knows nothing of love. They part with their alliance strained to breaking, neither willing to yield on Anton²'s fate.

After Calla¹ is badly wounded at the Hollow Temple rescuing her attendant Yilas,¹⁰ Anton² tends her injuries. When she wakes, he confronts her with his deduction: this body belongs to Calla Tuoleimi,¹ but the woman inside is not the original princess. Calla¹ confesses. She was a starving village girl whose home was burned by Talin's conquering armies when she was eight.

When the princess visited her village, the girl jumped into her on desperate instinct, kicking the original Calla¹'s limp body into a muddy puddle where it sank and vanished. She has lived as Calla¹ for fifteen years, never jumping out for fear that the real princess might still be dormant inside. She doesn't even remember her birth name.

After Calla¹ is attacked by hitmen she mistakenly believes Anton² sent, she storms to his apartment to kill him. They fight savagely: she stabs his chest, he puts a blade to her throat. Mid-combat, she kisses him. The fight transforms into desperate, bloody lovemaking on the cold floor while thunder shakes the building.

Afterward, Calla¹ wakes in his bed to find her lost sword leaning against the wall: Anton² retrieved it from the Hollow Temple, proving he never betrayed her. They return to the rooftop at dawn, and Calla¹ confesses her plan to kill King Kasa.⁴ Anton² warns her that August³ cannot be trusted. Calla¹ believes she can handle August.³ They promise to find a way for both of them to survive.

August³ stages a fake attack near the city wall to expose the traitor inside the palace. Calla¹ is recruited to fight off a hired assailant, then a second figure leaps from the shadows. When Leida Miliu⁷ shouts the attacker's real name, thinking him part of her Crescent conspiracy, she incriminates herself. Galipei⁶ arrests her.

In the palace cells, Leida⁷ tells August³ she wanted to dismantle the monarchy quietly, not replace one tyrant with another. She warns that he will become the same as Kasa⁴ within years of taking power. August³ walks away, ordering that Leida⁷ never leave her cell. He has lost another friend to the throne's cold logic.

When only a handful of players remain, August³ has his agents drug and capture Anton,² then forces Calla¹ into the coliseum for the Juedou by triggering her wristband. He appears on the palace balcony and tells her he chose for her: the kingdom over her lover. Calla¹ and Anton² face each other in the arena before thousands of screaming spectators.

Anton² begs her to flee with him, to cut through the crowd and escape. Calla¹ cannot. She has sacrificed too much for this moment. They fight, evenly matched, bloody and exhausted. Finally, Calla¹ drops her sword and sinks to her knees, weeping, unable to deliver the killing blow. Anton² holds her. She whispers an apology and plunges a hidden dagger into his back.

Declared victor of the games, Calla¹ is ushered into the Palace of Union for the victory banquet. She keeps her bloodstained mask on to hide her face from the king.⁴ King Kasa,⁴ sickly and aged, presents her prize and extends his hand. She grips it, refusing to release, and calls him uncle. Before recognition dawns in his yellow eyes, she draws her sword and decapitates him with one clean arc.

His head rolls toward the banquet table, sending elites screaming. Galipei,⁶ waiting for this moment, orders the guards to seize her. Calla¹ does not resist. As she is dragged to the cells, she feels only emptiness. The revenge that sustained her for five years is complete, and it has left her hollow.

Attendants prepare Calla¹ for the coronation, dressing her in silk and braiding her hair with jewels. They call her King-Killer¹ and urge her to live up to the name. She steps onto the palace balcony before the gathered crowds, takes the divine crown, and places it on the head of the man she believes is August.³ The crown remains: it has accepted him.

As the crowd roars its approval, the new king² grips her hand and speaks their private code phrase, the one only Anton² knows. Calla¹ freezes. She looks into his eyes and sees Anton Makusa,² not August Shenzhi.³ Anton² jumped into August³'s body, or perhaps had been wearing it all along. He is alive. He is king. And he is furious.