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Now, for the first time, he acted as if he truly respected her.
“Do you think they’re dead?” she asked him. “I mean, there’s no chance they—”
“Absolutely,” he said. “They were powerful, but their anchor bond kept them in command of their own bodies, which means they were always mortal. They’ve passed on. I’ve felt it. And good riddance.”
She nodded, relieved. “It’s what you’re owed. For Tseveri.”
His lip curled. “Let’s not pretend you did that for a blood debt.”
“It was a blood debt,” she said. “Just not yours. And now you must know what I have to do next.”
He exhaled slowly. “I can guess.”
“You’re not going to try to stop me?”
“You confuse me with my aunt, Rin.”
“The Sorqan Sira would have killed me on the spot.”
“Oh, she would have assassinated you long ago.” Chaghan ran his hand gently across the length of his horse’s neck. Rin realized that she knew the creature—it was the same black warhorse that Chaghan had ridden out of the forests by Lake Boyang the last time she’d seen him. He adjusted his saddle as he spoke, tightening every knot with practiced care. “The Sorqan Sira was petrified of the resurgence of Nikara shamanism. She thought it would spell the end of the world.”
“And you don’t?”
“The world is already ending. You see, the Hundred Clans know that time moves in a circle. There are never any new stories, just old ones told again and again as this universe moves through its cycles of civilization and crumbles into despair. We are on the brink of an age of chaos again, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. I just prefer to back certain horses in the race.”
“But you’re going to watch the rest from a safe distance,” Rin said.
She was being facetious. She knew better than to ask Chaghan to stay and help. She wasn’t that selfish—the Nikara had exploited Chaghan’s people enough.
If she had to be honest, she would have liked Chaghan to come south with her. She’d never been able to stand him before, but the sight of him brought back memories of the Cike. Of Suni, Baji, Ramsa, and Qara. Of Altan. Of all the Bizarre Children, they were the only ones left, both tasked independently with bringing order to their fracturing nations. Chaghan, somehow, had already succeeded. Rin desperately wished he might lend her his power.
But she’d taken so much from him already. She couldn’t demand more.
“With you, I’ve learned it’s best to keep a safe distance from the fallout.” Chaghan yanked tight the last knot and patted the horse behind its ears. “Good luck, Speerly. You’re mad as they come, but you’re not quite as mad as Trengsin.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It’s the only reason I think you might win.”
“Thank you,” Rin said, surprised. “For everything.”
He acknowledged that with a thin-lipped smile. “There’s one last thing before you go. I didn’t just want to say goodbye. We need to talk about Nezha.”
She tensed. “Yes?”
The horse, as if sensing her unease, whinnied in agitation and stamped its front hooves against the dirt. Chaghan hastily handed its reins off to the nearest rider.
“Sit down,” he told her.
She obeyed. Her heart was pounding very hard. “What do you know?”
He sat cross-legged across from her. “I started looking into the Yins after I heard what happened at the Red Cliffs. It was difficult to parse truth from legend—the House of Yin is shrouded in rumors, and they’re good at protecting their secrets. But I think I’ve gotten a better idea of what happened to Nezha. Why he is the way he is.” He tilted his head at her. “What do you know about where Nezha derived his abilities?”
“He told me a story once,” she said. “It’s . . . it’s odd. It’s not how I thought shamanism worked.”
“How so?” Chaghan pressed.
Why did it suddenly feel like her head was swimming? Rin pressed her nails into her palm, trying to slow down her breathing. It shouldn’t be this hard to talk about Nezha. She’d been discussing how to kill him with Kitay for months now.
But Chaghan’s question brought back memories of Arlong, of rare moments of vulnerability and harsh words she regretted. They made her feel. And she didn’t want to feel.
She forced her voice to keep level. “When we need our gods, we call them. But Nezha never sought the dragon. He told me he encountered one when he was young, but when he spoke about it, he made it sound . . . real.”
“All gods are real.”
“Real on this plane,” she clarified. “In the material world. He said that when he was a child, he wandered into an underwater grotto and met a dragon, which killed his brother and claimed him—whatever that means. He made it sound like his god walks this earth.”
“I see.” Chaghan rubbed his chin. “Yes. That’s what I thought.”
“But—that’s—can they do that?”
“It’s not inconceivable. There are pockets of this world where the boundary between our world and the world of spirit is thinner.” Chaghan pressed his palms together to demonstrate. “Mount Tianshan is one. The Speerly Temple is another. The Nine Curves Grotto is a third. That cave is the source of all Nezha’s power.
“The Yins have been linked to the Dragon for a long time. The waters of Arlong are old, and those cliffs are powerful with their history of the dead. Magic flows smoothly through those waters. Have you ever wondered how Arlong is so rich, so lush, even when its surrounding provinces are barren? A divine power has protected the region for centuries.”
“But how—”
“You’ve been to the Dead Island. You see how nothing grows there. Have you ever wondered why?”
“I thought—I mean, wasn’t that just Mugenese chemical warfare? Didn’t they just poison it?”
Chaghan shook his head. “That’s not all. The Phoenix’s aura pulses through the island, just like water pulses through Arlong.”
“So then the Dragon . . .”
“The Dragon. If you can call it that.” Chaghan made a disgusted face. “More like a poor enchanted creature that might have once been a lobster, starfish, or dolphin. It must have swum in the web of the true Dragon’s magic and unwittingly become a physical manifestation of the ocean, whose desire is to—”
“To destroy?”
“No. The Phoenix’s impulse is to destroy. The ocean wishes to drown, to possess. The treasures of all great civilizations have inevitably fallen into its dark depths, and the Dragon yearns to possess them all. It likes to collect beautiful things.”
The way he said it made Rin cringe. “And it’s collecting Nezha.”
“That’s a nice euphemism for it. But the word is too tame. The Dragon doesn’t just want to collect Nezha like he’s some priceless vase or painting. It wants to own him, body and soul.”
Bile rose up in Rin’s throat as she recalled the way Nezha had shuddered when he spoke of the Dragon.
What did I do to him?
For the first time, she felt a twinge of guilt for pushing Nezha to the edge, for calling him a coward for refusing to invoke the power that might have saved them.
