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“Why are we even speaking to her?” Lady Saikhara burst out.
Her voice was high and brittle, as if she had just been crying. The pure venom in her glare startled Rin. This was more than contempt. This was a vicious, murderous hatred.
“She is an unholy abomination,” Saikhara snarled. “She is a mark against the Maker, and she ought to be dragged off to the Gray Towers as soon as possible.”
“We’re not dragging anyone off.” Vaisra sounded exasperated. “Runin, please, sit—”
“But you promised,” Saikhara hissed at him. “You said they’d find a way to fix him—”
Vaisra grabbed at his wife’s wrist. “Now is not the time.”
Saikhara jerked her hand free and slammed a fist down on the table. Her cup toppled over, spilling hot tea across the embroidered cloth. “You swore to me. You said you’d make this right, that if I brought them back they’d find a way to fix him, you promised—”
“Silence, woman.” Vaisra pointed to the door. “If you cannot calm yourself, then you will leave.”
Saikhara shot Rin a tight-lipped look of fury, muttered something under her breath, and stormed out of the room.
A long silence hung over her absence. Tarcquet looked somewhat amused. Vaisra leaned back in his chair, took a draught of tea, then sighed. “You’ll have to excuse my wife. She tends to be ill-tempered after travel.”
“She’s desperate for answers.” A woman in a gray cassock, the one who had stood over Rin at the dock, laid her hand on Vaisra’s. “We understand. We’d like to find a cure, too.”
Rin shot her a curious look. The woman’s Nikara sounded remarkably good—she could have been a native speaker if her tones weren’t so oddly flat. Her hair was the color of wheat, straight and slick, braided into a serpent-like coil that rested just over her shoulder. Gray eyes like castle walls. Pale skin like paper, so thin that blue veins were visible beneath. Rin had the oddest urge to touch it, just to see if it felt human.
“She’s a fascinating creature,” said the woman. “It is rare you meet someone possessed by Chaos who yet remains so lucid. None of our Hesperian madmen have been so good at fooling their observers.”
“I’m standing right in front of you,” Rin said.
“I’d like to get her in an isolation chamber,” the woman continued, as if Rin hadn’t spoken. “We’re close to developing instruments that can detect raw Chaos in sterile environments. If we could bring her back to the Gray Towers—”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Rin said.
General Tarcquet stroked the arquebus that lay in front of him. “You wouldn’t really have a choice, dear.”
The woman lifted a hand. “Wait, Josephus. The Divine Architect values free thought. Voluntary cooperation is a sign that reason and order yet prevail in the mind. Will the girl come willingly?”
Rin stared at the two of them in disbelief. Did Vaisra possibly believe that she would say yes?
“You could even keep her on campaign for the time being,” the woman said to Vaisra, as if they were discussing something no more pressing than dinner arrangements. “I would only require regular meetings, perhaps once a week. They would be minimally invasive.”
“Define ‘minimally,’” Vaisra said.
“I would only observe her, for the most part. I’d perhaps conduct a few experiments. Nothing that will affect her permanently, and certainly nothing that would affect her fighting ability. I’d just like to see how she reacts to various stimuli—”
A ringing noise grew louder and louder in Rin’s ears. Everyone’s voices became both slurred and magnified. The conversation proceeded, but she could decipher only fragments.
“—fascinating creature—”
“—prized soldier—”
“—tip the balance—”
She found herself swaying on her feet.
She saw in her mind’s eye a face she hadn’t let herself imagine for a long time. Dark, clever eyes. Narrow nose. Thin lips and a cruel, excited smile.
She saw Dr. Shiro.
She felt his hands moving over her, checking her restraints, making sure she couldn’t move an inch from the bed he’d strapped her down on. She felt his fingers feeling around in her mouth, counting her teeth, moving down past her jaw to her neck to locate her artery.
She felt his hands holding her down as he pushed a needle into her vein.
She felt panic, fear, and rage all at once and she wanted to burn but she couldn’t, and the heat and fire just bubbled up in her chest and built up inside her because the fucking Seal had gotten in the way, but the heat just kept building and Rin thought she might implode—
“Runin.” Vaisra’s voice cut through the fog.
She focused with difficulty on his face. “No,” she whispered. “No, I can’t—”
He got up from his seat. “This isn’t the same as the Mugenese lab.”
She backed away from him. “I don’t care, I can’t do this—”
“What are you debating?” demanded the Boar Warlord. “Hand her to them and be done with it.”
“Quiet, Charouk.” Vaisra drew Rin hastily into the corner of the room, far from where the Hesperians could hear. He lowered his voice. “They will force you either way. If you cooperate you will garner us sympathy.”
“You’re trading me for ships,” she said.
“No one is trading you,” he said. “I am asking you for a favor. Please, will you do this for me? You’re in no danger. You’re no monster, and they’ll discover that soon enough.”
And then she understood. The Hesperians wouldn’t find anything. They couldn’t, because Rin couldn’t call the fire anymore. They could run all the experiments they liked, but they wouldn’t find anything. Daji had ensured that there was nothing left to find.
“Runin, please,” Vaisra murmured. “We don’t have a choice.”
He was right about that. The Hesperians had made it clear that they would study her by force if necessary. She could try to fight, but she wouldn’t get very far.
Part of her wanted desperately to say no. To say fuck it, to take her chances and try her best to escape and run. Of course, they’d hunt her down, but she had the smallest chance of making it out alive.
But hers wasn’t the only life at stake.
The fate of the Empire hung in the balance. If she truly wanted the Empress dead, then Hesperian airships and arquebuses were the best way to get it done. The only way she could generate their goodwill was if she went willingly into their arms.
When you hear screaming, Vaisra had told her, run toward it.
She’d failed at Lusan. She couldn’t call the fire anymore. This might be the only way to atone for the colossal wrongs she’d committed. Her only chance to put things right.
Altan had died for liberation. She knew what he would say to her now.
Stop being so fucking selfish.
Rin steeled herself, took a breath, and nodded. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” Relief washed over Vaisra’s face. He turned to the table. “She agrees.”
“One hour,” Rin said in her best Hesperian. “Once a week. No more. I’m free to go if I feel uncomfortable, and you don’t touch me without my express permission.”
