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“Devouring feels good.” He pointed at an overhanging branch. “Try that shooty thing again.”
Over the next few days she learned a number of different tricks. She could create balls of fire and hurl them at targets up to ten yards away. She could make shapes out of flame so intricate that she could have put on an entire puppet show with them. She could, by shoving her hands into the river, boil the water around them until steam misted the air and fish bubbled belly-up to the surface.
Most importantly, she could carve out protective spaces in the fire, up to ten feet from her own body, so that Kitay never burned even when everything around them did.
“What about mass destruction?” he asked after a few days of exploring minor tricks.
Rin stiffened. “What do you mean?”
His tone was carefully neutral. Purely academic. “What you did to the Federation, for instance—can we replicate that? How much flame can you summon?”
“That was different. I was on the island. In the temple. I’d . . . I’d just seen Altan die.” She swallowed. “And I was angry. I was so angry.”
In that moment, she’d been capable of an inhuman, vicious, and terrible rage. But she wasn’t sure she could replicate that rage, because it had been sparked by Altan’s death, and what she felt now when she thought about Altan wasn’t fury, but grief.
Rage and grief were so different. Rage gave her the power to burn down countries. Grief only exhausted her.
“And if you went back to the temple?” Kitay pressed. “If you went back and summoned the Phoenix?”
“I’m not going back to that temple,” Rin said immediately. She didn’t know what it was, but Kitay’s enthusiasm was making her uncomfortable—he was looking at her with the sort of intense curiosity that she had only ever seen in Shiro and Petra.
“But if you had to? If we only had one option, if everything would be lost if you didn’t do it?”
“We’re not putting that on the table.”
“I’m not saying you have to. I’m saying we have to know if it’s even an option. I’m saying you have to at least try.”
“You want me to practice a genocidal event,” she said slowly. “Just to be clear.”
“Start small,” he suggested. “Then get bigger. See how far you can go without the temple.”
“That’ll destroy everything in sight.”
“We haven’t seen signs of human life all day. If anyone lived here, they’re long gone. This is empty land.”
“What about wildlife?”
Kitay rolled his eyes. “You and I both know that wildlife is the least of your concerns. Stop hedging, Rin. Do it.”
She nodded, put her palms out, and closed her eyes.
Flame wrapped her like a warm blanket. It felt good. It felt too good. She was burning without guilt or consequence. She was unrestrained power. She could feel herself tipping back into that state of ecstasy, could have lost herself in the dreamy oblivion of the wildfire that surged higher, faster, brighter, if she hadn’t heard a high-pitched keening that wasn’t coming from her.
She looked down. Kitay lay curled in a fetal position on the raft, hands clutching his mouth, trying to suppress his screams.
She reined the fire back in with difficulty.
Kitay made a choking noise and buried his head in his hands.
She dropped to her knees beside him. “Kitay—”
“I’m fine,” he gasped. “Fine.”
She tried to put her hands on him, but he pushed her away with a violence that shocked her.
“Just let me breathe.” He shook his head. “It’s all right, Rin. I’m not hurt. It’s just—it’s all in my head.”
She could have slapped him. “You’re supposed to tell me when it’s too much.”
“It wasn’t too much.” He sat up straight. “Try that again.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t get a good look at your blast radius just then,” he said. “Try it again.”
“Absolutely not,” she snapped. “I don’t care that you’ve got a death wish. I can’t keep doing this to you.”
“Then go right up to the edge,” he insisted. “The point right before it hurts too much. Let’s figure out what the limit is.”
“That’s insane.”
“It’s better than finding out on a battlefield. Please, Rin, we won’t get a better chance to do this.”
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded. “Why does this matter so much?”
“Because I need to know the full extent of what you can do,” Kitay said. “Because if I’m strategizing for Arlong’s defense then I need to know where to put you, and why. Because if I went through all of this for you, then the very least you can do is show me what maximum power looks like. If we’ve turned you back into a weapon, then you’re going to be a damn good one. And stop panicking over me, Rin. I’m fine until I say I’m not.”
So she called the flame again and again, pushing the limits every time, until the shores burned pitch-black around them. She kept going even while Kitay screamed because he’d ordered her not to stop unless he said so explicitly. She kept going until his eyes rolled back into his head and he went limp on the raft. And even then, when he revived seconds later, the first thing he said to her was: “Fifty yards.”
When at last they reached the Red Cliffs, Rin saw with immense relief that the flag of the Republic still flew over Arlong.
So Vaisra was safe, and Daji was still a distant threat.
Their next challenge was to get back into the city without getting shot. Arlong, expecting a Militia assault, had hunkered down behind its defenses. The massive gates to the harbor past the Red Cliffs were locked. Crossbows were lined up against every flat surface overlooking the channel. Rin and Kitay could hardly march up to the city doors—any sudden, unexpected movement would get them stuck full of arrows. They discovered this when they saw a wild monkey wander too close to the walls and startle a line of trigger-happy archers.
They were so exhausted that they found this ridiculously funny. A month’s worth of travel and their biggest concern was friendly fire.
Finally they decided to get some sentries’ attention in the least threatening way possible. They hurled rocks at the sides of the cliff and waited while pinging noises echoed around the channel until at last a line of soldiers emerged on the cliffside, crossbows pointed down.
Rin and Kitay immediately put their hands up.
“Don’t shoot, please,” Kitay called.
The sentry captain leaned over the cliff wall. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“We’re Republican soldiers back from Boyang,” Kitay called, gesturing to their uniforms.
“Uniforms are cheap on corpses,” said the captain.
Kitay pointed to Rin. “Not uniforms that fit her.”
The captain looked unconvinced. “Back away or I’ll shoot.”
“I wouldn’t,” Rin called. “Or Vaisra will be asking why you’ve killed his Speerly.”
The sentries hooted with laughter.
“Good one,” said the captain.
