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“You’re saying I’ll stop Rin from going crazy,” Kitay said.
“She’s already crazy,” Chaghan said.
“Fair enough,” Kitay said.
The twins worked in silence for a long while. Rin sat up straight, eyes closed, breathing steadily as she felt the wet brush tip move against her bare skin.
What if the anchor did make her stronger? She couldn’t help feeling a thrill of hope at the thought. What would it be like to call the Phoenix without fear of losing her mind to the rage? She might summon fire whenever she wanted, for as long as she wanted. She might control it the way Altan had.
But was it worth it? The sacrifice seemed so immense—not just for Kitay, but for her. To link her life to his would be such an unpredictable, terrifying liability. She would never be safe unless Kitay was, too.
Unless she could protect him. Unless she could guarantee that Kitay was never in danger.
At last Chaghan put his brush down. “You’re finished.”
Rin stretched and examined her arms. Swirling black script covered her skin, made of words that almost resembled a language that she could understand. “That’s it?”
“Not yet.” Chaghan passed them a fistful of red-capped toadstools. “Eat these.”
Kitay prodded a toadstool with his finger. “What are these?”
“Fly agaric. You can find it near birch and fir trees.”
“What’s it for?”
“To open up the crack between the worlds,” Qara said.
Kitay looked confused.
“Tell him what it’s really for,” Rin said.
Qara smiled. “To get you incredibly high. Much more elegant than poppy seeds. Faster, too.”
Kitay turned the mushroom over in his hand. “Looks poisonous.”
“They’re psychedelics,” Chaghan said. “They’re all poisonous. The whole point is to deliver you right to the doorstep of the afterworld.”
Rin popped the mushrooms in her mouth and chewed. They were tough and tasteless, and she had to work her teeth for several minutes before they were tender enough to go down. She had the unpleasant sensation that she was chewing through a lump of flesh every time her teeth cut into the fibrous chunks.
Chaghan passed Kitay a wooden cup. “If you don’t want to eat the mushroom you can drink the agaric instead.”
Kitay sniffed it, took a sip, and gagged. “What’s in this?”
“Horse urine,” Chaghan said cheerfully. “We feed the mushrooms to the horses, and you get the drug after it passes. Goes down easier.”
“Your people are disgusting,” Kitay muttered. He pinched his nose, tossed the contents of the cup back into his throat, and gagged.
Rin swallowed. Dry lumps of mushroom pushed painfully down her throat.
“What happens to you when your anchor dies?” she asked.
“You die,” Chaghan said. “Your souls are bound, which means they depart this earth together. One pulls the other along.”
“That’s not strictly true,” Qara said. “It’s a choice. You can choose to depart this earth together. Or you may break the bond.”
“You can?” Rin asked. “How?”
Qara exchanged a look with Chaghan. “With your last word. If both partners are willing.”
Kitay frowned. “I don’t understand. Why is this a liability, then?”
“Because once you have an anchor, they become a part of your soul. Your very existence. They know your thoughts. They feel what you feel. They are the only ones who completely and fully understand you. Most would die rather than give that up.”
“And you’d both have to be in the same place when one of you died,” said Chaghan. “Most people aren’t.”
“But you can break it,” Rin said.
“You could,” Chaghan said. “Though I doubt the Sorqan Sira will teach you how.”
Of course not. Rin knew the Sorqan Sira would want Kitay as insurance—not only to ensure that her weapon against Daji kept working, but as a failsafe in case she ever decided to put Rin down.
“Did Altan have an anchor?” she asked. Altan had possessed an eerie amount of control for a Speerly.
“No. The Speerlies didn’t know how to do it. Altan was . . . whatever Altan was doing, that was inhuman. Near the end, he was staying sane off of sheer willpower alone.” Chaghan swallowed. “I offered many times. He always said no.”
“But you already have an anchor,” said Rin. “You can have more than one?”
“Not at the same time. A pairwise bond is optimal. A triangular bond is deeply unstable, because unpredictability in reciprocation means that any defection on one end affects the other two in ways that you cannot protect against.”
“But?” Kitay pressed.
“But it can also amplify your abilities. Make you stronger than any shaman has the right to be.”
“Like the Trifecta,” Rin realized. “They’re bonded to each other. That’s why they’re so powerful.”
It made so much sense now—why Daji had not killed Jiang if they were enemies. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t, without killing herself.
She sat up with a start. “So that means . . .”
“Yes,” said Chaghan. “As long as Daji is alive, the Dragon Emperor and the Gatekeeper are both still alive. It’s possible their bond was dissolved, but I doubt it. Daji’s power is far too stable. The other two are out there, somewhere. But my guess is that they can’t be doing too well, because the rest of the country thinks they’re dead.”
You will destroy one another. One will die, one will rule, and one will sleep for eternity.
Kitay voiced the question on Rin’s mind. “Then what happened to them? Why did they go missing?”
Chaghan shrugged. “You’d have to ask the other two. Have you finished drinking?”
Kitay drained the cup and winced. “Ugh. Yes.”
“Good. Now eat the mushrooms.”
Kitay blinked. “What?”
“There’s no agaric in that cup,” Chaghan said.
“Oh, you asshole,” Rin said.
“I don’t understand,” Kitay said.
Chaghan gave him a thin smile. “I just wanted to see if you’d drink horse piss.”
The Sorqan Sira waited outside before a roaring fire. The flames seemed alive to Rin; the tendrils jumped too high, reached too far, like little hands trying to pull her into the blaze. If she let her gaze linger, the smoke, turned purple by the Sorqan Sira’s powders, started taking on the faces of the dead. Master Irjah. Aratsha. Captain Salkhi. Altan.
“Are you ready?” asked the Sorqan Sira.
Rin blinked the faces away.
She knelt across from Kitay on the frigid dirt. Despite the cold, they were permitted to wear only trousers and undershirts that exposed their bare arms. The inky characters trailing down their skin shone in the firelight.
She was terrified. He didn’t look afraid at all.
“I’m ready,” he said. His voice was steady.
“Ready,” she echoed.
Between them lay two long, serrated knives and a sacrifice.
Rin didn’t know how the Ketreyids had managed to trap an adult deer, massive and healthy, without any visible wounds, in just a matter of hours. Its legs were bound tightly together. Rin suspected that the animal had been sedated, because it lay quite still on the dirt, eyes half-open as if it were resigned to its fate.
