Simply over a yr in the past, io9 broke the information that best-selling YA writer Chloe Gong (These Violent Delights, Our Violent Ends) could be making the leap to grownup fantasy fiction with 2023’s Immortal Longings, the primary in a brand new trilogy. Now, we’ve got the primary excerpt from the novel so that you can peruse.

Right here’s a full description of the story, a riff on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, with a setting that Gong advised io9 was impressed by Hong Kong’s historic Kowloon Walled Metropolis (learn the remainder of our interview together with her from November 2021 right here).

Yearly, 1000’s within the kingdom of Talin will flock to its capital twin cities, San-Er, the place the palace hosts a set of video games. For these assured sufficient of their capability to leap between our bodies, rivals throughout San-Er combat to the demise to win unimaginable riches.

Princess Calla Tuoleimi lurks in hiding. 5 years in the past, a bloodbath killed her dad and mom and left the palace of Er empty…and he or she was the one who did it. Earlier than King Kasa’s forces in San can catch her, she plans to complete the job and produce down the monarchy. Her reclusive uncle at all times greets the victor of the video games, so if she wins, she will get her alternative eventually to kill him.

Enter Anton Makusa, an exiled aristocrat. His childhood love has lain in a coma since they have been each ousted from the palace, and he’s deep in debt attempting to maintain her alive. Fortunately, he’s among the best jumpers within the kingdom, flitting from physique to physique at will. His final probability at saving her is coming into the video games and successful.

Calla finds each an surprising alliance with Anton and assist from King Kasa’s adopted son, August, who desires to fix Talin’s ills. However the three of them have very completely different targets, whilst Calla and Anton’s partnership spirals into one thing all-consuming. Earlier than the video games shut, Calla should resolve what she’s enjoying for—her lover or her kingdom.

You’ll be able to learn your entire first chapter under, however first, here’s a take a look at the novel’s elegant cowl, designed by Will Staehle:

And at last, chapter one in every of Immortal Longings!

A dwelling factor, when confronted with a break or harm, is compelled to heal itself. A minimize will clot with blood, trapping in an individual’s qi. A bone will easy over, knitting new threads at each cut up. And San-Er’s buildings, when an inconvenience is recognized, will rush to fix the sore, pin-pointing each fracture and hurling cures with vigor. From the highest of the palace, all that may be seen are the stacked constructions composing the dual cities, interlocked and dependent upon each other, some connected to a neighbor from the bottom degree and others linked solely on the highest flooring. Everybody within the kingdom of Talin desires to be in its capital—in these two cities masquerading as one—and so San-Er should develop denser and better to accommodate, masking up its offenses and stenches with utter incoherence.

August Shenzhi tightens his grip on the balcony railing, tearing his gaze away from the horizon of rooftops. His consideration must be with {the marketplace} under, which bustles at excessive quantity contained in the coliseum partitions. Three generations in the past, the Palace of Union was constructed beside San’s huge coliseum—or maybe it’s extra apt to say it was constructed into the coliseum, the north facet of the elevated palace enmeshed with the coliseum’s south wall, its turrets and balconies pulling aside stone and slotting itself proper in to shut the hole. Each window on the north facet has an ideal view of the market, however none higher than this balcony. Again when he nonetheless made public appearances, King Kasa stood right here to make his speeches. The market could be cleared out, and his topics would come to assemble in the one plot of open house inside San-Er, cheering for his or her monarch. There’s nowhere fairly just like the coliseum. San-Er itself is just a small protrusion of land on the fringe of the dominion, its border with rural Talin marked by a towering wall, the remainder of its perimeter hemmed in by sea. But regardless of its measurement, San-Er features as a world of its personal—half 1,000,000 inhabitants crammed into every sq. mile, time and again. The needle-thin alleys between each constructing sag, the earthen floor at all times muddy as a result of it’s sweating with overexertion. Prostitutes and temple clergymen share the identical doorway; drug addicts and schoolteachers nap underneath the identical awning. It is smart that the one house protected against builders and squatters is the coliseum, underneath the vigilant eye of royalty and untouched by the determined growth urgent in on its partitions. They might raze the coliseum and construct ten—maybe twenty—new streets on the land cleared, squeeze in a whole lot extra house complexes, however the palace received’t permit it, and what the palace says goes.

“Give me depart to strangle your uncle, August. I’m drained to demise of him.” Galipei Weisanna strolls into the room, his voice echoing out onto the balcony. He speaks as he at all times does: clipped, terse, sincere. Galipei isn’t prepared to inform a lie, but finds it of utmost precedence to be operating his mouth too, even when silence is a greater possibility. August suggestions his head again to take a look at his bodyguard, and the crown in his hair shakes free, hanging lopsidedly to the left. By the sunshine of the palace, the purple gems resemble fragments of blood encircling his bleached blond curls, its place so precarious that one wayward breeze would sweep the band of metallic proper off.

“Do watch out,” August replies evenly. “Excessive treason within the throne room tends to be frowned upon.”

“So I suppose somebody should be frowning at you as effectively.”

Galipei comes to hitch him upon the balcony, then nudges August’s crown again into place with a practiced familiarity. His presence is domineering, shoulders extensive and posture tall, in distinction to August’s lithe sharpness. Wearing his regular darkish work garb, Galipei appears part of the night time—if the night time have been adorned with buckles and straps holding varied weapons that wouldn’t in any other case hold in opposition to heavy leather-based. There’s a melodic clanking when his physique comes into contact with the gold-plated railing, his arms resting atop it to imitate August, however the sound is definitely misplaced to the clamor of the market under.

“Who would dare?” August asks matter-of-factly. It’s not a boast. It’s the profoundly assured method of somebody who is aware of precisely how excessive his pedestal is as a result of he hauled himself there.

Galipei makes a obscure noise. He turns away from the partitions of the coliseum, having looked for threats and discovering nothing out of the atypical. His consideration shifts towards August’s line of sight as a substitute: a toddler, kicking a ball beside the closest row of market stalls.

“I heard that you just took over preliminary group for the video games.” The kid attracts nearer and nearer to the balcony. “What are you as much as, August? Your uncle—”

August clears his throat. Although Galipei rolls his eyes, he takes the correction in stride.

“—your father, my apologies, is vexed sufficient with the entire palace today. In case you go pissing him off, he’ll disown you instantly.”

A heat, southerly breeze blows up on the balcony, swallowing August’s skeptical huff of breath. He pulls at his collar, fingers sliding in opposition to silk, the material skinny sufficient to deliver a chill to his pores and skin. Let King Kasa push his adoption papers via a shredder. It received’t matter quickly. Maneuvering the previous couple of years to get the paperwork to exist was solely the primary a part of the plan. It’s nowhere close to crucial.

“Why are you right here?” August asks in return, diverting the subject. “I assumed Leida summoned your assist for the night time.”

“She despatched me again. San’s border is okay.”

August doesn’t voice his rapid doubt, however he does frown. Apart from the coliseum, the far fringe of San proper beside the wall is the one place inside San-Er the place civilians may need the house to assemble and make a fuss, crowding across the mounds of trash and discarded tech. It by no means lasts lengthy. The guards unfold out and break them up, after which civilians can both spend an indeterminate period of time within the palace cells or scatter again into the dense labyrinthine streets.

“Fascinating,” August says. “I don’t bear in mind the final time there weren’t riots the day earlier than the video games.”

A number of extra steps, and the kid might be instantly beneath them. She pays no consideration to her environment, weaving her ball out and in among the many buyers and sellers, her skinny sneakers clomping down on the uneven floor.

“This yr’s video games must be fast work. There have been hardly any candidates who volunteered for the draw.”

By hardly, Galipei means that there have been a whole lot versus 1000’s. The video games was once a far bigger occasion, again when there have been two kings funneling their coffers into the grand prize. Kasa’s father had began them in his earlier reign, and what started as a yearly one-on-one battle to the demise ultimately grew to a multicontestant affair, increasing previous the coliseum and utilizing all of San-Er because the enjoying discipline. As soon as, watching expert fighters tear one another aside within the enviornment was mere leisure, one thing that was distant to the atypical civilian. Now, the video games are a thrill that anybody can take part in, an answer to a kingdom simmering with complaints. Don’t fear in case your infants drop lifeless as a result of they’ve hollowed into starved husks, King Kasa declares. Don’t fear that your aged should sleep in cages as a result of there is no such thing as a extra house house, nor that the neon mild from the strip membership throughout the alleyway retains you awake night time after night time. Put your identify within the lottery, slaughter solely eighty-seven of your fellow residents, and be awarded with riches past your wildest desires. 

“He drew his record, then?” August says. “All eighty-eight of our fortunate par- ticipants?”

Eighty-eight, the variety of luck and prosperity! the commercial posters for the video games declare. You could register earlier than the deadline on your probability to be amongst our esteemed rivals! 

“His Majesty may be very happy with himself. He obtained via the names in report time.”

August scoffs. It isn’t effectivity that had Kasa going so quick. Since August urged an entrance price two years in the past, the random draw has shrunk considerably. One would suppose that the worsening circumstances today imply extra are throwing of their tons for an opportunity to win, however the folks of San-Er are solely more and more terrified that the video games are a sham, that the victor might be cheated out of the grand prize simply as the dual cities persistently cheat them out of rewards. They’re not unsuitable. In any case, August did fiddle with the draw this yr to get one identify in.

With a wince, he takes a step again from the balcony rail, releasing the strain in his neck. For under two distinct days of the yr, the coliseum earlier than him is cleared out and used as the sector it was initially constructed for. At present, it stays but a market. A compact, concentrated world of meals hawkers splashed with oil and metalworkers clanging on blades and technicians fixing up unwieldy computer systems to resell. San-Er spends every second functioning off the fumes of its final. There isn’t any different technique to survive.

“August.” A contact on his elbow. August spares a look to his facet, assembly Galipei’s steel-silver eyes. There’s a warning in the way in which he flings his prince’s identify round, title and rank discarded. August doesn’t take warning; he solely smiles. That small quirk at his mouth, barely a change in his expression in any respect, and Galipei falters, greatly surprised by the uncommon expression.

August is aware of precisely what he’s doing. Supply that temporary distraction, and when Galipei’s consideration is turned elsewhere, he decides on his subsequent transfer.

“Take my physique inside.”

Galipei’s lips half in protest. He recovers shortly from his temporary enthrallment. “Would you stop leaping like—”

However August has already left, fixing his sight onto the kid and slamming proper in, opening his new eyes with a fast snap. He has to regulate to the peak change, off-balance for a second because the folks close by jolt in shock. They know what has occurred: the flash of sunshine between jumps is unmistakable, marking the arc from previous physique to new. Although the palace has lengthy made leaping unlawful, it’s nonetheless as frequent as a beggar swiping a rice cake from an unwatched stall. Civilians have discovered to look away, particularly when the sunshine is flashing so carefully to the palace.

They simply don’t anticipate their crown prince to be the one leaping.

August appears up on the palace. His physique has dropped like a stone, collapsed in Galipei’s arms to enter stasis. And not using a particular person’s qi, the physique is just a vessel. However a vessel that belongs to the inheritor of the throne is an extremely useful possession, and when Galipei’s gaze meets August’s pitch-black eyes within the lady’s physique, he mouths what seems to be a risk to strangle him too.

August, nonetheless, is already strolling within the different route, giving Galipei no selection however to protect his beginning physique ferociously, lest somebody come inside ten ft and try to invade it. In any case, it wouldn’t be onerous for him in addition an intruder out. August’s qi is robust—if his physique have been doubled, he might wrestle again management from the opposite particular person simply, both forcing them to seek out one other host or topic them to being misplaced. On the subject of doubling different our bodies, there is no such thing as a vessel within the twin cities that he can not invade as lengthy they’ve come of age: twelve, possibly 13, when the gene for leaping manifests.

The issue isn’t a lot the matter of somebody utilizing his physique for pleasure or energy. It’s troublemakers who would possibly invade with the aim of destroying his physique out of protest, making one fast throw off the sting of a constructing earlier than their prince can leap again.

August practically collides with somebody and flinches, ducking to discover a much less crowded path via the market. The sudden assault on his senses at all times takes some getting used to: the louder noises, the brighter colours. Maybe he has dulled the senses of his beginning physique an excessive amount of, and that is true normalcy. When a shoe-shiner barks at him from behind a stall and holds out a couple of cash, August merely reaches his small fingers out and receives them, unsure why. The kid have to be some form of errand runner. All the higher. Only a few civilians are highly effective sufficient to leap into youngsters, which makes them probably the most trusted, darting between buildings and into each nook of San-Er with out discover.

August makes fast time exiting the coliseum, rising onto the one primary avenue that acts as a thoroughfare from north to south of San. He’s well- acquainted with the lefts and the rights of his byzantine metropolis too, so he steps off the principle avenue for the much less populated routes, hurrying underneath drooping electrical wires and barely wincing when the damp pipes overhead drip water down his neck. However the chilly moisture irritates his pores and skin after some time, and with a sigh, Au- gust enters a constructing, deciding to journey by staircase and wayward constructing pas- sages as a substitute. There isn’t sufficient on this physique to attract any conclusions about its id, although that’s a solution in and of itself. No markings or tattoos, so no allegiance to the Crescent Societies.

“Hey! Hey, cease there.”

August—ever accommodating—stops. An aged girl has known as out to him, the image of concern as she hovers in entrance of her house door, a water bucket clutched to her hip.

“The place are your dad and mom?” she asks. “This space is not any good. The Crescent Societies have their eye on it. You’ll get your self invaded.”

“I’ve it dealt with.” From the lady’s physique, his voice comes out excessive and mushy and candy. Solely August’s tone is just too assured. Too regal. The lady can inform, and her expression shifts into suspicion, however August is already strolling once more. He follows the spray-painted instructions on the partitions, transferring via one other hall to enter a neighboring constructing. Low moans filter via the skinny plaster. Privately run hospitals are aplenty on this space, services full of unhygienic practices and soiled instruments, although they nonetheless obtain a continuing stream of sufferers as a result of they cost far lower than the correct locations in Er. Half of those personal services are absolutely body-trafficking schemes. Nonetheless . . . if a physique goes lacking right here and there, nobody cares sufficient to seek out out why. Actually not the palace, it doesn’t matter what August does.

He turns the nook. The ambiance shifts instantly, cigarette smoke permeating the low ceilings in such thickness that the dim bulbs can hardly minimize via. San is a metropolis of darkness. It’s nighttime now, however even when the solar rises, the buildings are so densely packed that the streets stay shrouded in shadow. He counts the doorways as he passes: One, two, three . . . 

He knocks on the third, his small fist simply becoming between the metallic bars of the outside door. When the second picket door opens inward, there’s a man who towers above him twice over, trying down his nostril with a huff of air.

“We don’t have scraps—”

August jumps once more. It’s instantaneous from the skin, he is aware of, as quick as that clap of sunshine, nevertheless it at all times feels gradual, like wading via a brick wall. The nearer the leap, the thinner the wall; from the farthest away, on the absolute ten-foot restrict, it at all times looks like forging via a mile of strong stone. Those that have gotten themselves misplaced between our bodies are snagged right here, condemned to wander about this incorporeal house eternally.

When he opens his eyes, he’s staring on the little lady once more, her bright-orange eyes extensive and confused. Not everybody in Talin can leap, and even amongst these with the gene for it, many have such weak talents that they don’t danger it, in case they try to invade a physique and lose the combat for management. However at any level, gene or no gene, a physique holding a single particular person’s qi will be invaded, particularly by somebody like August. The lady figures out shortly what should have occurred.

“Transfer alongside,” August instructs, closing the internal door to the playing den. The folks inside noticed the flash of sunshine, conscious that their bouncer is now occupied. Fortunately, August is anticipated.

“Your Highness!”

Although the den-keeper who runs as much as him has a special face from the final time August was right here, he is aware of it’s the identical particular person. Our bodies will be switched, however the man’s pale purple eyes stay the identical.

“Have you ever discovered her?” August asks.

“Proper in time, you’re proper in time,” the person gushes, ignoring his query. “Include me, please, Prince August.”

August follows, cautious along with his steps. This physique is giant, muscular. He doesn’t need to go too quick, or he would possibly tip himself off-kilter and stumble. He closes his fists collectively and frowns, circling across the card dealings and mahjong tables with barely sufficient room to maneuver between them. His shoe crunches down on what could possibly be a needle full of heroin. A lady at one of many tables reaches out to the touch his jacket, with no purpose besides to stroke its high quality leather-based exterior.

“Proper via right here. The photographs ought to have completed growing by now.”

The person holds open the door, and August walks via, trying round within the purple mild. Skinny drying traces crisscross at his eye degree, full of dangling images in varied shades. The person reaches as much as unclip one. His fingers tremble as he lets the road spring again, cupping the {photograph} in his palms. Earlier than he can prolong the providing to August, nonetheless, he hesitates, eyes pinned on the image.

“One thing unsuitable?”

“No. No, nothing in any respect.” The person shakes his head, erasing any look of doubt. “We scoured the information to their very roots. Not one database was left unturned. That is her, Your Highness. I promise. Your belief and sponsorship are appreciated.”

August lifts an eyebrow. It’s onerous to do on this physique. He gestures for the {photograph} as a substitute, and the person hurries to go it over. All the darkroom appears to carry its breath. The vents stutter to a halt.

“Effectively,” August says, “good job.”

Although the sunshine overhead runs solely in a single shade, coloring the photo- graph the unsuitable hue and washing out the topic’s eyes, there is no such thing as a doubt. The lady within the {photograph} is stepping off the stoop of a constructing—her nostril and mouth lined with a masks, her fingers gloved in leather-based, her physique angled away in motion—however August would acknowledge her anyplace. She shouldn’t be the kind to desert her physique, even underneath such circumstances. She would as a substitute flaunt what she managed to maintain, dwelling on this metropolis for 5 lengthy years proper underneath his nostril.

“Oh, cousin,” August says to the {photograph}. “You’ll be able to conceal not.” Princess Calla Tuoleimi, discovered eventually.

Copyright © 2023 by Chloe Gong. From the upcoming e-book IMMORTAL LONGINGS, revealed by Saga Press/Gallery Books, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong might be launched on July 25, 2023; you’ll be able to pre-order a duplicate right here.

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