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“How dare you,” Altan said, his voice so quiet Rin pressed herself against the wall as if she could somehow get closer and make sure she was hearing right. Altan’s fingers tightened around Chaghan’s wrists. “You’ve crossed the line.”
“I’m your Seer,” Chaghan said. “I give you counsel, whether you want to hear it or not.”
“The Seer does not command,” Altan said. “The Seer does not disobey. I have no place for a disloyal lieutenant. If you won’t help me, then I’ll send you away. Go north. Go to the dam. Take your sister and do as we planned.”
“Altan, listen to reason,” Chaghan pleaded. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Do as I command,” Altan said curtly. “Go, or leave the Cike.”
Rin sank back behind the wall, heart hammering.
She abandoned her post as soon as she heard Altan’s footsteps fading into the distance. Once she could no longer see his form from the gate, she darted down the steps and raced out onto the open road. She caught Chaghan and Qara as they were saddling a recovered gelding.
“Let’s go,” Chaghan told his sister when he saw Rin approaching, but Rin grabbed the reins before Qara could prod the horse forward.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“Away,” Chaghan said tersely. “Please let go.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“We have orders to leave.”
“I overheard you with Altan.”
Qara muttered something in her own language.
Chaghan scowled. “Have you ever been able to mind your own business?”
Rin tightened her grip on the reins. “What army is he talking about? Why won’t you help him?”
Chaghan’s eyes narrowed. “You have no idea what you’re getting into.”
“So tell me. Who is Feylen?” Rin continued loudly. “Who is Huleinin? What did he mean, he’ll release the Gatekeeper?”
“Altan is going to burn down Nikan. I will not be responsible.”
“Burn down Nikan?” Rin repeated. “How—”
“Your commander has gone mad,” Chaghan said bluntly. “That is as much as you need to know. And you know the worst part? I think he’s meant to do this all along. I’ve been blind. This is what he’s wanted since the Federation marched on Sinegard.”
“And you’re just going to let him?”
Chaghan recoiled violently, as if he’d been slapped. Rin had a fear that he might yank on the reins and ride away, but Chaghan merely sat there, mouth slightly open.
She had never seen Chaghan speechless before. It scared her.
She wouldn’t have expected Chaghan to shrink from cruelty. Chaghan, alone among the Cike, had never displayed an ounce of fear about his power, about losing control. Chaghan reveled in his abilities. He relished them.
What could be so unthinkable that it horrified even Chaghan?
Without taking his eyes off Rin, Chaghan reached down, grasped the reins, and swung himself off the horse. She took two steps backward as he walked toward her. He stopped much closer to her than she would have liked. He studied her in silence for a long moment.
“Do you understand the source of Altan’s power?” he asked finally.
Rin frowned. “He’s a Speerly. It’s obvious.”
“Even the average Speerly was not half as powerful as Altan is,” said Chaghan. “Have you ever asked yourself why Altan alone among Speerlies survived? Why he was allowed to live when the rest of his kin were burned and dismembered?”
Rin shook her head.
“After the First Poppy War, the Federation became obsessed with your people,” said Chaghan. “They couldn’t believe their Armed Forces had been bested by this tiny island nation. That’s what spurred their interest in shamanism. There has never been a Federation shaman. The Federation needed to know how the Speerlies got their powers. When they occupied the Snake Province, they built a research base opposite the island and spent the decades in between the Poppy Wars kidnapping Speerlies, experimenting on them, trying to figure out what made them special. Altan was one of those experiments.”
Rin’s chest felt very tight. She dreaded what might come next, but Chaghan continued, his voice as flat and emotionless as if he were reciting history lessons. “By the time the Hesperians liberated the facilities, Altan had spent half his life in a lab. The Federation scientists drugged him daily to keep him sedated. They starved him. They tortured him to make him comply. He wasn’t the only Speerly they took, but he was the only one who survived. Do you know how?”
Rin shook her head. “I . . .”
Chaghan continued, ruthless. “Did you know they strapped him down and made him watch as they took the others apart to find out what made them tick? What are Speerlies made of? The Federation was determined to find out. Did you know they kept them alive as long as they could, even when they had peeled their flesh away from their rib cages, so they could see how their muscles moved while they were splayed out like rabbits?”
“He never told me,” Rin whispered.
“And he never would have.” Chaghan said. “Altan likes to suffer in silence. Altan likes to let his hatred fester, likes to incubate it as long as he can. Now do you understand the source of his power? It is not because he is a Speerly. It is nothing genetic. Altan is so powerful because he hates so deeply and so thoroughly that it constitutes every part of his being. Your Phoenix is the god of fire, but it is also the god of rage. Of vengeance. Altan doesn’t need opium to call the Phoenix because the Phoenix is always alive inside him. You asked me why I wouldn’t stop him. Now you understand. You can’t stop an avenger. You can’t reason with a madman. You think I am running, and I admit to you that I am afraid. I am afraid of what he might do in his quest for vengeance. And I am afraid that he is right.”
When she found Altan, lying in that same corner of the ancient library he had been last time, she said nothing. She crossed the moonlit room and took the pipe from his languid fingers. She sat down cross-legged, leaning against the shelves of ancient scrolls. Then she took a long draught herself. The effect took a long while to set in, but when it did, she wondered why she had ever meditated at all.
She understood, now, why Altan needed opium.
Small wonder he was addicted. Smoking the pipe had to be the only time that he was not consumed with his misery, with scars that would never heal. The haze induced by the smoke was the only time that he could feel nothing, the only time that he could forget.
“How are you doing?” Altan mumbled.
“I hate them,” she said. “I hate them so much. I hate them so much it hurts. I hate them with every drop of my blood. I hate them with every bone in my body.”
Altan blew out a long stream of smoke. He didn’t look like a human so much as he did a simple vessel for the fumes, an inanimate extension of the pipe.
“It doesn’t stop hurting,” he said.
She sucked in another deep breath of the wonderful sweetness.
“I understand now,” she said.
“Do you?”
“I’m sorry about before.”
Her words were vague, but Altan seemed to know what she meant. He took the pipe back from her and inhaled again, and that was acknowledgment enough.
