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“No,” said Nezha. “I mean—I understood I wasn’t the nicest to you.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I know. I’m sorry about that. But, Rin, we managed to hate each other so much for three years. That’s not normal. That goes back to first-year jitters. Was it all because I made fun of you?”
“No, it’s because you scared me.”
“I scared you?”
“I thought you were going to be the reason why I’d have to leave,” she said. “And I didn’t have anywhere else to go. If I’d been expelled from Sinegard, then I might well have died. So I feared you, I hated you, and that never really went away.”
“I didn’t realize,” he said quietly.
“Bullshit,” she said. “Don’t act like you didn’t know.”
“I swear that never crossed my mind.”
“Really? Because it had to. We weren’t on the same level, and you knew it, and that’s how you got away with everything you did, because you knew I could never retaliate. You were rich and I was poor and you exploited it.” She was surprised by how quickly the words came, how easily she could still feel her lingering resentment toward him. She’d thought she’d put it behind her a long time ago. Perhaps not. “And the fact that it’s never fucking crossed your mind that the stakes were vastly different between us is frustrating, to be frank.”
“That’s fair,” Nezha said. “Can I ask you another question?”
“No. I get to ask my question first.”
Whatever game they were playing suddenly had rules, was suddenly open to debate. And the rules, Rin decided, meant reciprocity. She stared at him expectantly.
“Fine.” Nezha shrugged. “What is it?”
She was glad she had the liquid courage of lingering alcohol to say what came next. “Are you ever going to go back to that grotto?”
He stiffened. “What?”
“The gods can’t be physical things,” she said. “Chaghan taught me that. They need mortal conduits to affect the world. Whatever the dragon is . . .”
“That thing is a monster,” he said flatly.
“Maybe. But it’s beatable,” she said. Perhaps she was still flush with the victory of defeating Feylen, but it seemed so obvious to her, what Nezha had to do if he wanted to be freed. “Maybe it was a person once. I don’t know how it became what it is, and maybe it’s as powerful as a god should be now, but I’ve buried gods before. I’ll do it again.”
“You can’t beat that thing,” Nezha said. “You have no idea what you’re up against.”
“I think have some idea.”
“Not about this.” His voice hardened. “You will never ask me about this again.”
“Fine.”
She leaned backward and let her fingers trail through the luminous water. She made flames trickle up her arms, delighting in how their intricate patterns were reflected in the blue-green light. Fire and water looked so lovely together. It was a pity they destroyed each other by nature.
“Can I ask another question now?” he asked.
“Go ahead.”
“Did you mean it when you said we should raise an army of shamans?”
She recoiled. “When did I say that?”
“New Year’s. Back on the campaign, when we were sitting in the snow.”
She laughed, amused that he had even remembered. The northern campaign felt like it had been lifetimes ago. “Why not? It’d be marvelous. We’d never lose.”
“You understand that’s precisely what the Hesperians are terrified of.”
“For good reason,” she said. “It’d fuck them up, wouldn’t it?”
Nezha leaned forward. “Did you know that Tarcquet is seeking a moratorium on all shamanic activity?”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means you promise never to call on your powers again, and you’ll be punished if you do. We report every living shaman in the Empire. And we destroy all written knowledge of shamanism so it can’t be passed down.”
“Very funny,” she said.
“I’m not joking. You’d have to cooperate. If you never call the fire again, you’ll be safe.”
“Fat chance,” she said. “I’ve just gotten the fire back. I don’t intend to give it up.”
“And if they tried to force you?”
She let the flames dance across her shoulders. “Then good fucking luck.”
Nezha stood up and moved across the sampan to sit down beside her. His hand grazed the small of her back.
She shivered at his touch. “What are you doing?”
“Where’s your injury?” he asked. He pressed his fingers into the scar in her side. “Here?”
“That hurts.”
“Good,” he said. His hand moved behind her. She thought he was going to pull her into him, but then she felt a pressure at the small of her back. She blinked, confused. She didn’t realize that she had been stabbed until Nezha drew his hand away, and she saw the blood on his fingers.
She slumped to the side. He pulled her into his arms.
His face ebbed in and out of her vision. She tried to speak, but her lips were heavy, clumsy; all she could do was push air out in incoherent whispers. “You . . . but you . . .”
“Don’t try to speak,” Nezha murmured, and he brushed his lips against her forehead as he drove the knife deeper into her back.
Chapter 36
The morning sun was a dagger to Rin’s eyes. She moaned and curled onto her side. For a single, blissful moment, she couldn’t remember how she had ended up there. Then awareness came slowly and painfully—her mind lapsed into flashes of images, fragments of conversations. Nezha’s face. The sour aftertaste of sorghum wine. A knife. A kiss.
She rolled over into something wet, sticky, and putrid. She had vomited in her sleep. A wave of nausea racked her body, but when her stomach heaved nothing came out. Everything hurt. She reached to feel at her back, terrified. Someone had stitched her up—blood was crusted around the wound, but it wasn’t bleeding.
She might be fucked, but she wasn’t dying just yet.
Two bolts chained her to the wall—one around her right wrist, and one between her ankles. The chains had some slack, but not very much; she couldn’t crawl farther than halfway across the room.
She tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness forced her back onto the floor. Her thoughts moved in slow, confused strains. She tried without hope to call the fire. Nothing happened.
Of course they’d drugged her.
Slowly, her tired mind worked through what had happened. She’d been so stupid, she wanted to kick herself. She’d been this close to getting out, until she’d caved to sentiment.
She’d known Vaisra was a manipulator. She’d known the Hesperians would come after her. But never had she dreamed that Nezha might hurt her. She should have incapacitated him in the barracks and snuck out of Arlong before anyone saw. Instead, she’d hoped they could have one last night together before they parted forever.
Fool, she thought. You loved him and you trusted him, and you walked straight into his trap.
