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When she pulled the fire back in, Nezha had fought Jun to submission.
“You’re a good soldier,” said Nezha. “My father doesn’t want you dead.”
“Don’t bother.” A sneer twisted Jun’s face. He raised his sword to his chest.
Nezha moved faster. His blade flashed through the air. Rin heard a thick chop that reminded her of a butcher shop. Jun’s severed hand dropped to the ground.
Jun stumbled forward on his knees, staring at his bloody stump like he couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
“It won’t be that easy for you,” said Nezha.
“You ingrate,” Jun seethed. “I created you.”
“You taught me the meaning of fear,” Nezha said. “Nothing more.”
Jun made a wild grab for the dagger in Nezha’s belt, but Nezha kicked out—one short, precise blow against Jun’s severed stump. Jun howled in pain and fell over onto his side.
“Do it,” Rin said. “Quickly.”
Nezha shook his head. “He’s a good prisoner—”
“He tried to kill you!” Rin shouted. She summoned a ball of flame to her right hand. “If you won’t, then I will—”
Nezha grabbed her shoulder. “Stop!”
Jun struggled to his feet and made a mad scramble for the edge of the ship.
“No!” Nezha rushed forward, but it was too late. Rin saw Jun’s feet disappear over the railing. She heard a splash several seconds later. She and Nezha hurried to the railing to look over the edge, but Jun didn’t resurface.
Nezha whirled on her. “We could have taken him prisoner!”
“Look, I didn’t hurl him off the side.” She couldn’t see how this was her fault. “And I just saved your life. You’re welcome, by the way.”
Rin saw Nezha open his mouth to retort just before something wet and heavy slammed into her from above and knocked her to the deck. Her wings jammed painfully into her shoulders. She was caught under a water-soaked canvas, she realized. Her fire did nothing but fill the inside of the canvas with scorching steam. She had to call it back in before she choked.
Someone was holding the canvas down, trapping her inside. She kicked frantically, trying to wriggle out to no avail. She twisted harder until her head broke through the side.
“Hello.” The Wolf Meat General leered down at her.
She roared flames at his face. He slugged the back of his gauntleted hand against her head. She slammed back against the deck; her vision exploded into sparks. Dimly she saw Chang En lift his sword over her neck.
Nezha hurled himself into Chang En’s side. They landed sprawled in a heap. Nezha scrambled to his feet and backed away, sword raised. Chang En picked his sword off the deck, cackling, and then attacked.
Rin lay flat on her back, blinking at the sky. All of her extremities tingled, but they wouldn’t obey when she tried to move them. From the corner of her eye she caught glimpses of a fight; she heard a deafening flurry of blows, steel raining down on steel.
She had to help Nezha. But her fists wouldn’t open; the fire wouldn’t come.
Her vision started fading to black, but she couldn’t lose consciousness. Not now. She bit down hard on her tongue, willing the pain to keep her awake.
Finally she managed to lift her head. Chang En had backed Nezha into a corner. Nezha was flagging, clearly struggling simply to stand up straight. Blood soaked the entire left side of his uniform.
“I’ll saw your head off,” Chang En sneered. “Then I’ll feed it to my dogs, just like I did your brother’s.”
Nezha screamed and redoubled his assault.
Rin groaned and rolled over onto her side. Flames sparked and burst in her palms—just tiny lights, nowhere near the intensity she needed. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to concentrate. To pray.
Please, I need you . . .
Nezha’s strikes came nowhere close to landing. Chang En disarmed him with ease and kicked his sword across the deck. Nezha scrambled for the hilt. Chang En swept a leg behind his knees, kicking him to the ground, and placed a boot on his chest.
Hello, little one, said the Phoenix.
Flames burst out of every part of her. The fire was no longer localized to her control points—her hands and mouth—but blazed around her entire body like a suit of armor, glowing and untouchable.
She pointed a finger at Chang En. A thick stream of fire slammed into his face. He dropped his sword and buried his head in his hands, trying to smother the flames, but the blaze only extended across his entire body, burning brighter and brighter as he screamed.
Rin stopped just short of killing him. She didn’t want to make this easy for him.
Chang En had stopped moving. He lay flat on his back, covered in grotesque burns. His face and arms had turned black, shot through with cracks that revealed blistered, bubbling skin.
Rin stood over him and opened her palms downward.
Nezha grabbed her shoulder. “Don’t.”
She shot him an exasperated look. “Don’t tell me you want to take him prisoner, too.”
“No,” he said. “I want to do it.”
She stepped back and gestured to Chang En’s limp form. “All yours.”
“I’ll need a sword,” he said.
Wordlessly, she handed hers over.
Nezha traced the tip of the blade over Chang En’s face, jabbing it into the blistered skin between his crackled cheekbones. “Hey. Wake up.”
Chang En’s eyes opened.
Nezha forced the sword point straight down into Chang En’s left eye.
Chang En grabbed at empty air, trying to wrench the blade from Nezha’s grasp, but Nezha gave him a savage kick to the ribs, then several more to the face.
Nezha wanted to watch Chang En bleed. Rin didn’t try to stop him. She wanted to watch, too.
Nezha pressed the sword point to Chang En’s neck. “Stop moving.”
Whimpering, Chang En lay still. His gouged eye dangled grotesquely on the side of his face, still connected by lumpy strings. The other eye blinked furiously, drenched in blood.
Nezha grasped the hilt with both hands and brought it down hard. Blood splashed across both of their faces.
Nezha let the sword drop and backed away slowly. His chest heaved. Rin put her hand on his back.
He leaned into her, shaking. “It’s over.”
“No, it’s not,” she whispered.
It had barely just begun. Because the air had suddenly gone still—so still that every flag in the channel dropped, and the sound of every shout and clash of steel was amplified in the absence of wind.
She reached out and grabbed Nezha’s fingers in hers, just as the ship ripped out from beneath them.
Chapter 32
The force of the gale tore them apart.
For a moment Rin hung weightless in the air, watching driftwood and bodies floating absurdly beside her, and then she dropped into the water with the rest of what used to be the ship’s upper deck.
She couldn’t see Nezha. She couldn’t see anything. She sank fast, weighted down by the wreckage. She flailed desperately around in the black water, trying to find some path to the surface.
And there it was—a glimmer of light through the mass of bodies. Her lungs burned. She had to get up there. She kicked, but something tugged at her legs. She’d gotten tangled in the flag, and wet cloth underwater was strong as iron steel. Panic fogged her mind. The flag only ensnared her more the harder she kicked, dragging her down to the riverbed.
