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Saikhara skirted backward, screeching for help while the lash fell repeatedly against Rin’s shoulder, slicing across open wounds. Rin raised her arms to shield her head, but the whip lacerated her wrists instead.
The doors opened. Eriden burst inside, followed by two soldiers. Rin redirected the flames at them, but they held damp, fireproof tarps in front of them. The fire sizzled and failed to catch. One kicked her to the ground and pinned her down by the arms. The other forced a wet cloth over her mouth.
Rin tried not to inhale, but her vision dimmed and she convulsed, gasping. The thick taste of laudanum invaded her mouth, cloying and potent. The effect was immediate. Her flames died away. She couldn’t sense the Phoenix—could barely even hear or see at all.
The soldiers let go of her. She lay limp on the floor, dazed, drool leaking out the side of her mouth as she blinked blankly at the door.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Eriden said to Nezha’s mother.
Saikhara spat in Rin’s direction. “She should be sedated.”
“She was sedated. You were reckless.”
“And you were incompetent,” Saikhara hissed. “This is on your head.”
Eriden said something in response, but Rin could no longer understand him. Eriden and Saikhara were only vague, blurry streaks of colors, and their voices were distorted, meaningless babbles of nonsense.
Vaisra came for her hours later. She watched the door open through bloated eyelids, watched him cross the room to kneel down beside her.
“You,” she croaked.
She felt his cool fingertips brush against her forehead and push her tangle of hair past her ears.
He sighed. “Oh, Runin.”
“I did everything for you,” she said.
His expression was uncharacteristically kind. “I know.”
“Then why?”
He pulled his hand back. “Look out at the channel.”
She glanced, exhausted, toward the window. She didn’t have to look—she knew what he wanted her to see. The battered ships lying in pieces along the channel, a fourth of the fleet crushed beneath an avalanche of rocks, the bodies drowned and bloated drifting as far as the river ran.
“That’s what happens when you bury a god,” she said.
“No. That’s what happens when men are fool enough to toy with heaven.”
“But I’m not like Feylen.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said gently. “You could be.”
She pulled herself to a sitting position. “Vaisra, please—”
“Don’t beg. There’s nothing I can do. They know about the man you killed. You burned him and dumped his body in the harbor.” Vaisra sounded so disappointed. “Really, Rin? After everything? I told you to be careful. I wished you’d listened.”
“He was raping a girl,” she said. “He was on her, I couldn’t just—”
“I thought,” Vaisra said slowly, as if talking to a child, “I taught you how the balance of power fell.”
She struggled to stand up. The floor tilted under her feet—she had to push herself up against the wall. She saw double every time she moved her head, but at last she managed to look Vaisra in the eye. “Do it yourself, then. No firing squads. Use a sword. Grant me that respect.”
Vaisra raised an eyebrow. “Did you think we were going to kill you?”
“You’re coming with us, sweetheart.” General Tarcquet’s voice, a slow, indifferent drawl.
Rin flinched. She hadn’t heard the door open.
Sister Petra stepped inside and stood just a little behind Tarcquet. Her eyes were like flint beneath her shawl.
“What do you want?” Rin growled at her. “Here to get more urine samples?”
“I admit I thought you could still be converted,” Petra said. “This saddens me, truly. I hate to see you like this.”
Rin spat at her feet. “Go fuck yourself.”
Petra stepped forward until they were standing face-to-face. “You did have me fooled. But Chaos is clever. It can disguise itself as rational and benevolent. It can make us merciful.” She lifted her hand to stroke the side of Rin’s face. “But in the end, it must always be hunted down and destroyed.”
Rin snapped at her fingers. Petra jerked her hand back. Too late. Rin had drawn blood.
Petra skirted back and Rin laughed, let blood drip from her teeth. She saw sheer terror reflected in Petra’s eyes, and that alone was so oddly gratifying—Petra had never shown fear before, had never shown anything—that she didn’t care about the disgust on Tarcquet’s face or the disapproval on Vaisra’s.
They all already thought her a mad animal. She’d only fulfilled their expectations.
And why shouldn’t she? She was done playing the Hesperians’ game of hiding, pretending she wasn’t lethal when she was. They wanted to see a beast. She’d give them one.
“This isn’t about Chaos.” She grinned at them. “You’re all so terrified, aren’t you? I have power that you don’t, and you can’t stand it.”
She opened her palms out. Nothing happened—the laudanum still weighed thick on her mind—but Petra and Tarcquet jumped back nonetheless.
Rin cackled.
Petra wiped her bloody hand on her dress, leaving behind thick, red streaks on gray cloth. “I will pray for you.”
“Pray for yourself.” Rin lunged forward again, just to see what Petra would do.
The Sister turned on her heels and fled. The door slammed behind her. Rin slunk back, snorting with mirth.
“Hope you got your kicks in,” Tarcquet said drily. “Won’t be a lot of laughs where you’re going. Our scholars like to keep busy.”
“I’ll bite my tongue out before they touch me,” Rin said.
“Oh, it won’t be so bad,” Tarcquet said. “We’ll toss you some opium every once in a while if you behave. They told me you like that.”
Her pride fled her.
“Don’t give me to them,” she begged Vaisra. She couldn’t posture anymore, couldn’t conceal her fear; her entire body trembled with it, and although she wanted to be defiant, all she could think of was Shiro’s laboratory, of lying helpless on a hard table while hands she couldn’t see probed at her body. “Vaisra. Please. You still need me.”
Vaisra sighed. “I’m afraid that’s no longer true.”
“You wouldn’t have won this war without me. I’m your best weapon, I’m the steel behind your rule, you said—”
“Oh, Runin.” Vaisra shook his head. “Look outside the window. That fleet is the steel behind my rule. See those warships? Imagine the size of those cargo holds. Imagine how many arquebuses those ships are carrying. You think I really need you?”
“But I’m the only one who can call a god—”
“And Augus, an idiotic boy without the least bit of military training, went up against one of the Hinterlands’ most powerful shamans and killed her. Oh yes, Runin, I told them. Now imagine what scores of trained Hesperian soldiers could do. My dear, I assure you I don’t need your services any longer.” Vaisra turned to Tarcquet. “We’re done here. Cart her off whenever you wish.”
