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Her eyes fluttered open.
Visions swarmed her mind.
She saw a city burning the way Arlong burned now; buildings charred and blackened, corpses lining the streets. She saw troops marching in uniform lines of terrifying numbers, while the city’s surviving inhabitants crouched by their doorsteps, heads bent and arms raised.
This was the Nikara Empire under Mugenese occupation.
“We couldn’t do anything,” Daji said. “We were too weak to do anything when their ships arrived at our shores. And for the next five decades, when they raped us, beat us, spat on us and told us we were worth less than dogs, we couldn’t do anything.”
Rin squeezed her eyes shut, but the images wouldn’t go away. She saw a beautiful little girl standing alone before a heap of bodies, soot across her face, tears streaming down her cheeks. She saw a young boy lying in a starved, broken heap in the corner of the alley, curled around jagged, shattered bottles. She saw a white-haired boy screaming profanities and waving his fists at the retreating backs of soldiers who did not care.
“Then we escaped, and we had power within our hands to change the fate of the Empire,” Daji said. “So what do you think we did?”
“That doesn’t excuse anything.”
“It explains and justifies everything.”
The visions shifted again. Rin saw a naked girl shrieking and crying beside a cave while snakes writhed over her body. She saw a tall boy crouching on the shore while a dragon encircled him, whipping up higher and higher waves that surrounded his body like a tornado. She saw a white-haired boy on his hands and knees, beating his fists against the ground while shadows writhed and stretched out of his back.
“Tell me you wouldn’t have given up everything,” Daji said. “Tell me you wouldn’t sacrifice everything and everyone you knew for the power to take back your country.”
Months flashed before Rin’s eyes. Next she saw the Trifecta, fully grown, kneeling by the body of Tseveri, who was just one girl, and the choice seemed so clear and obvious. Against the suffering of a teeming mass of millions, what was one life? Twenty lives? The Ketreyids were so few; how hard could the comparison be?
What difference could it possibly make?
“We didn’t want to kill Tseveri,” Daji whispered. “She saved us. She convinced the Ketreyids to take us in. And Jiang loved her.”
“Then why—”
“Because we had to. Because our allies wanted that land, and the Sorqan Sira said no, and we needed to win it through force and fear. We had one chance to unite the Warlords and we weren’t going to throw it away.”
“But then you gave it away!” Rin cried. “You didn’t take it back! You sold it to the Mugenese—”
“If your arm were rotting, wouldn’t you cut it off to save your body? The provinces were rebelling. Corrupt. Diseased. I would have sacrificed it all for a united core. I knew we weren’t strong enough to defend the whole country, only a part of it. So I culled. You know that; you command the Cike. You know what rulers must sometimes do.”
“You sold us.”
“I did it for them,” Daji said softly. “I did it for the empire Riga left me. And you don’t understand the stakes, because you don’t know the meaning of true fear. You don’t know how much worse it could have been.”
Daji’s voice broke.
And for the second time, Rin saw the facade break, saw through the carefully crafted mirage that Daji had been presenting to the world for decades. This woman wasn’t the Vipress, wasn’t the scheming ruler Rin had learned to hate and fear.
This woman was afraid. But not of her.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Daji whispered. “I’m sorry I hurt Altan. I wish I’d never had to. But I had a plan to protect my people, and you simply got in the way. You didn’t know your true enemy. You wouldn’t listen.”
Rin was so furious with her then, because she couldn’t hate her anymore. Who was she supposed to fight for now? What side was she supposed to be on? She didn’t believe in Vaisra’s Republic, not anymore, and she certainly didn’t trust the Hesperians, but she didn’t know what Daji wanted her to do.
“You can go ahead and kill me,” said Daji. “You probably could. I’d fight back, of course, but you’d probably win. I would kill me.”
“Shut up,” Rin said.
She wanted to tighten her fists and choke the life out of Daji. But the rage had drained away. She didn’t have the will to fight anymore. She wanted to be angry—things were so much easier when she was just blindly angry—but the anger wouldn’t come.
Daji twisted out from her grip, and Rin didn’t try to stop her.
Daji was as good as dead regardless. Her face was a grotesque ruin—black liquid gushed out from her gouged eye. She stumbled to the side, fingers feeling for the ship.
Her good eye locked on to Rin’s. “What do you think happens to you after I’m gone? Don’t imagine for a moment you can trust Vaisra. Without me, Vaisra has no use for you. Vaisra discards his allies without blinking when they are no longer convenient, and if you don’t believe me when I say you’re next, then you’re a fool.”
Rin knew Daji was right.
She just didn’t know where that left her.
Daji shook her head and held her hands out, open and unthreatening. “Come with me.”
Rin took a small step forward.
Wood groaned above her head. Daji skirted backward. Too late, Rin looked up just in time to see the ship’s mast crashing down on her.
Rin couldn’t even scream. It took everything she had just to breathe. Air came in hoarse, painful bursts; it felt like her throat had been reduced to the diameter of a pin. Her entire back burned with agony.
Daji knelt down in front of her. Stroked her cheek. “You’ll need me. You don’t realize it now, but you’ll figure it out soon. You need me far more than you need them. I just hope you survive.”
She leaned down so close that Rin could feel her hot breath on her skin. Daji grabbed Rin by the chin and forced her to look up, into her good eye. Rin stared into a black pupil inside a ring of yellow, pulsing hypnotically, an abyss daring her to fall inside.
“I’ll leave you with this.”
Rin saw a beautiful young girl—Daji, it had to be—in a huddled heap on the ground, naked, clothes clutched to her chest. Dark blood dripped down pale thighs. She saw the young Riga sprawled on the ground, unconscious. She saw Jiang lying on his side, screaming, as a man kicked him in the ribs, over and over and over.
She dared to look up. Their tormenter was not Mugenese.
Blue eyes. Yellow hair. The soldier brought his boot down, over and over and over, and each time Rin heard another set of cracks.
She leaped forward in time, just a few minutes. The soldier was gone, and the children were clinging to each other, crying, covered in each other’s blood, crouching in the shadow of a different soldier.
“Get out of here,” said the soldier, in a tongue she was far too familiar with. A tongue she would have never believed would utter a kind word. “Now.”
Then Rin understood.
It had been a Hesperian soldier who raped Daji, and a Mugenese soldier who saved her. That was the frame the Empress had been locked into since childhood; that was the crux that had formed every decision afterward.
