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“That’s better than getting more idiots killed for a war that you can’t win.”
“I don’t think you realize how big our power base is,” said Gurubai.
“Really?” Kitay asked. “Did I just miss the army you’ve got hidden away somewhere?”
“The refugees you saw at Arlong don’t represent even a thousandth of the southern population,” said Gurubai. “There are a hundred thousand men who picked up axes to fend off the Federation when it became clear we weren’t getting aid. They’ll fight for us.”
He pointed at Rin. “They’ll fight especially for her. She’s already become myth in the south. The vermilion bird. The goddess of fire. She’s the savior they’ve been waiting for. She’s the symbol they’ve been waiting this whole war to follow. What do you think happens when they see her in person?”
“Rin’s been through enough,” Kitay said. “You’re not turning her into some kind of figurehead—”
“Not a figurehead.” Rin cut him off. “I’ll be a general. I’ll lead the entire southern army. Isn’t that right?”
Gurubai nodded. “If you’ll do it.”
Kitay gripped her shoulder. “Is that what you want to be? Another Warlord in the south?”
Rin didn’t understand that question.
Why did it matter what she wanted to be? She knew what she couldn’t be. She couldn’t be Vaisra’s weapon anymore. She couldn’t be the tool of any military; couldn’t close her eyes and lend her destructive abilities to someone else who told her where and when to kill.
She had thought that being a weapon might give her peace. That it might place the blame of blood-soaked decisions on someone else so that she was not responsible for the deaths at her hands. But all that had done was make her blind, stupid, and so easily manipulated.
She was so much more powerful than anyone—Altan, Vaisra—had ever let her be. She was finished taking orders. Whatever she did next would be her sole, autonomous choice.
“The south is going to go to war regardless,” she said. “They’ll need a leader. Why shouldn’t it be me?”
“They’re untrained,” Kitay said. “They’re unarmed, they’re probably starving—”
“Then we’ll steal food and equipment. Or we’ll get it shipped in. Perks of allying with Moag.”
He blinked at her. “You’re going to lead peasants and refugees against Hesperian dirigibles.”
Rin shrugged. She was mad to be so cavalier, she knew that. But they were backed against a wall, and their lack of options was almost a relief, because it meant simply that they fought or they died. “Don’t forget the pirates, too.”
Kitay looked like he was on the verge of ripping out every strand of hair left on his head.
“Do not assume that because the southerners are untrained they will not make good soldiers,” said Gurubai. “Our advantage lies in numbers. The fault lines of this country don’t lie at the level that Vaisra was prepared to engage. The real civil war won’t be fought at the provincial level.”
“But Vaisra’s not the Empire,” Kitay said. “The split was with the Empire.”
“No, the split is with people like us,” Rin said suddenly. “It’s the north and the south. It always was.”
The pieces had been working slowly through her opium-addled mind, but when they finally clicked, the epiphany came like a shock of cold water.
How had it taken her this long to figure this out? There was a reason why she’d always felt uncomfortable championing the Republic. The vision of a democratic government was an artificial construct, teetering on the implausibility of Vaisra’s promises.
But the real base of opposition came from the people who had lost the most under Imperial rule. The people who, by now, hated Vaisra the most.
Somewhere out there, hiding within the wreckage of Rooster Province, was a little girl, terrified and alone. She was choking on her hopelessness, disgusted by her weakness, and burning with rage. And she would do anything to get the chance to fight, to really fight, even if that meant losing control of her own mind.
And there were millions more like her.
The magnitude of this realization was dizzying.
The maps of war rearranged themselves in Rin’s mind. The provincial lines disappeared. Everything was merely black and red—privileged aristocracy against stark poverty. The numbers rebalanced, and the war she’d thought she was fighting suddenly looked very, very different.
She’d seen the resentment on the faces of her people. The glare in their eyes when they dared to look up. They were not a people grasping for power. Their rebellion would not fracture over stupid personal ambitions. They were a people who refused to be killed, and that made them dangerous.
You can’t fight a war on your own, Nezha had once told her.
No, but she could with thousands of bodies. And if a thousand fell, then she would throw another thousand at him, and then another thousand. No matter what the power asymmetry, war on this scale was a numbers game, and she had lives to spare. That was the single advantage that the south had against the Hesperians—that there were so, so many of them.
Kitay seemed to have realized this, too. The incredulity slid off his face, replaced by grim resignation.
“Then we’re going to war against Nezha,” he said.
“The Republic’s already declared war on us,” she said. “Nezha knows what side he chose.”
She didn’t have to debate this any longer. She wanted this war. She wanted to go up against Nezha again and again until at the end, she was the only one standing. She wanted to watch his scarred face twist in despair as she took away from him everything he cared about. She wanted him tortured, diminished, weakened, powerless, and begging on his knees.
Nezha had everything she used to want. He was aristocracy, beauty, and elegance. Nezha was the north. He had been born into a locus of power, and that made him feel entitled to use it, to make decisions for millions of people whom he considered inferior to himself.
She was going to wrench that power away from him. And then she’d pay him back in kind.
Finally, spoke the Phoenix. The god’s voice was dimmed by the Seal, but Rin could hear clearly every ring of its laughter. My darling little Speerly. At last we agree.
All shreds of affection she’d once felt for Nezha had burned away. When she thought of him she felt only a cruel, delicious hatred.
Let it smolder, said the Phoenix. Let it grow.
Anger, pain, and hatred—that was all kindling for a great and terrible power, and it had been festering in the south for a very long time.
“Let Nezha come for us,” she said. “I’m going to burn his heart out of his chest.”
After a pause, Kitay sighed. “Fine. Then we’ll go to war against the strongest military force in the world.”
“They’re not the strongest force in the world,” Rin said. She felt the god’s presence in the back of her mind—eager, delighted, and at last perfectly aligned with her intentions.
Together, spoke the Phoenix, we will burn down this world.
She slammed her fist against the table. “I am.”
