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She understood. She understood his pain and his misery, and she understood why all he wanted to do now was die.
But she had no patience for it.
Rin had given up the luxury of fear a long, long time ago. She had wanted to give up so many times. It would have been easier. It would have been painless.
But throughout everything, the one thing she had held on to was her anger, and she knew one truth: She would not die like this. She would not die without vengeance.
“They killed our people,” she said. “They sold us. Since Tearza, Speer has been a pawn in the Empire’s geopolitical chess game. We were disposable. We were tools. Tell me that doesn’t make you furious.”
He looked exhausted. “I am sick with fury,” he said. “And I am sick knowing that there is nothing I can do.”
“You’ve blinded yourself. You’re a Speerly. You have power,” she said. “You have the anger of all of Speer. Show me how to use it. Give it to me.”
“You’ll die.”
“Then I will die on my feet,” she said. “I will die with flames in my hand and fury in my heart. I will die fighting for the legacy of my people, rather than on Shiro’s operating table, drugged and wasted. I will not die a coward. And neither will you. Altan, look at me. We are not like Jiang. We are not like Tearza.”
Altan lifted his head then.
“Mai’rinnen Tearza,” he whispered. “The queen who abandoned her people.”
“Would you abandon them?” she pressed. “You heard what Shiro said. The Empress didn’t just sell us out. She sold the entire Cike. Shiro won’t stop until he has every Nikara shaman locked up in this hellhole. When you are gone, who will protect them? Who will protect Ramsa? Suni? Chaghan?”
She felt it from him then—a stab of defiance. A flicker of resolve.
That was all she needed.
“The Phoenix isn’t only the god of fire,” he said. “It is the god of revenge. And there is a power, born of centuries of festering hatred, that only a Speerly can access. I have tapped into it many times, but never in full. It would consume you. It would burn at you until there was nothing left.”
“Give it to me,” she said immediately, hungrily.
“I can’t,” he said. “It’s not mine to give. That power belongs to the Speerlies.”
“Then take me to them,” Rin demanded.
And so he took her back.
In the realm of dreams, time ceased to hold meaning. Altan took her back centuries. He took her back into the only spaces where their ancestors still existed, in ancient memory.
Being led by Altan was not the same as being led by Chaghan. Chaghan was a sure guide, more native to the spirit world than the world of the living. With Chaghan, she had felt as if she were being dragged along, and that if she didn’t obey, Chaghan would have shattered her mind. But with Altan . . . Altan did not feel even like a separate presence. Rather, he and she made two parts of a much greater whole. They were two small instances of the grand, ancient entity of all that was Speer, hurtling through the world of spirit to rejoin their kind.
When space and time again became tangible concepts to her, Rin perceived that they were at a campfire. She saw drums, she heard people chanting and singing, and she knew that song, she had been taught that song when she was a little girl, she could not believe she had ever forgotten that song . . . all Speerlies could sing that song before their fifth birthday.
No—not her. Rin had never learned that song. This was not her recollection; she was living inside the remembrance of a Speerly who had lived many, many years ago. This was a shared memory. This was an illusion.
So was this dance. And so, too, was the man who held her by the fire. He danced with her, spinning her about in great arcs, then pulling her back against his warm chest. He could not be Altan, and yet he had Altan’s face, and she was certain that she had always known him.
She had never been taught to dance, but somehow she knew the steps.
The night sky was lit up with stars like little torches. A million tiny campfires scattered across the darkness. A thousand Isles of Speer, a thousand fireside dances.
Years ago Jiang had told her that the spirits of the dead dissolved back into the void. But not the spirits of Speer. The Speerlies refused to let go of their illusions, refused to forget about the material world, because Speer’s shamans couldn’t be at peace until they got their vengeance.
She saw faces in the shadow. She saw a sad-looking woman who looked like her, sitting beside an old man wearing a crescent pendant around his neck. Rin tried to look closer but their faces were blurred, those of people she only half remembered.
“Is this what it was like?” she asked out loud.
The voices of the ghosts answered as one. This was the golden age of Speer. This was Speer before Tearza. Before the massacre.
She could have wept at the beauty of it.
There was no madness here. Only fires and dances.
“We could stay here,” Altan said. “We could stay here forever. We wouldn’t have to go back.”
In that moment it was all she wanted.
Their bodies would waste away and become nothing. Shiro would deposit their corpses into a waste chamber and incinerate them. Then, when the last part of them had been given to the Phoenix, once their ashes were scattered in the winds, they would be free.
“We could,” she agreed. “We could be lost to history. But you’d never do that, would you?”
“They wouldn’t take us now,” he said. “Do you feel them? Can you feel their anger?”
She could. The ghosts of Speer were so sad, but they were also furious.
“This is why we are strong. We draw our strength from centuries and centuries of unforgotten injustices. Our task—our very reason for being—is to make those deaths mean something. After us, there will be no Speer. Only a memory.”
She had thought she understood Altan’s power, but only now did she realize the depth of it. The weight of it. He was burdened with the legacy of a million souls forgotten by history, vengeful souls screaming for justice.
The ghosts of Speer were chanting now, a deep and sorrowful song in the language she was born too late to understand, but connected to her very bones. The ghosts spoke to them for an eternity. Years passed. No time passed at all. Their ancestors imparted all that they knew of Speer, all that had ever been remembered of their people. They instilled in her centuries of history and culture and religion.
They told her what she had to do.
“Our god is an angry god,” said the woman who looked like Rin. “It will not let this injustice rest. It demands vengeance.”
“You must go to the isle,” said the old man with the crescent pendant. “You must go to the temple. Find the Pantheon. Call the Phoenix, and wake the ancient fault lines on which Speer lies. The Phoenix will only answer to you. It has to.”
The man and woman faded back into the blur of brown faces. The ghosts of Speer began to sing as one, mouths moving in unison.
Rin could not determine the meaning of the song from the words, but she felt it. It was a song of vengeance. It was a horrible song. It was a wonderful song.
The ghosts gave Rin their blessing, and it made the rush from the heroin feel like a feathery touch in comparison.
