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“What’s going on there?” Rin asked suddenly.
She pointed. Two of Souji’s yellow-banded troops were marching toward their camp, both lugging sacks of rice behind them.
“Ah, fuck.” Kitay looked exasperated. “Not this again.”
“Hey!” Rin stood up and cupped her hand around her mouth. “You! Stop there.”
They kept walking as if they hadn’t heard her. She had to run at them, shouting, before they finally stopped.
“Where are you taking that?” she demanded.
They exchanged looks of obvious irritation. The taller one spoke. “Souji told us to bring some rice out to the tents.”
“We’ve set up a communal kitchen.” Rin pointed. “You can eat there. That’s where all the salvaged food goes. All the scavenging teams were ordered to—”
The shorter one cut her off. “Well, see, we don’t take orders from you.”
She blinked at him. “I liberated this place.”
“And that’s very kind of you, miss. But we’ve got this village under control now.”
Rin was amazed when, without so much as a final look of disdain, they slung the rice sacks up onto their shoulders and stalked insolently off.
I’ll teach you to listen. Her palm sang with heat. She raised her fist, pointed it toward their retreating backs—
“Don’t.” Kitay caught her by the wrist. “Now isn’t the time to start a fight.”
“They should be terrified of me,” she snarled. “The sheer nerve—”
“You can’t be mad about stupidity. Just let them go. If we want them on our side, you can’t go around burning their balls off.”
“What the hell is Souji telling his men?” she hissed. “He knows I’m in command!”
“I doubt he’s passed that on.”
“They’re in for a rude awakening, then.”
“And while that’s true, you don’t have to convince the soldiers,” Kitay said. “You’ve got to convince Souji. He’s the problem.”
“Should have just left him in the cellar,” Rin grumbled. “Or we could kill him now.”
“Too hard to pull off,” Kitay said, unfazed. Rin suggested casual murder on such a regular basis that he’d learned to brush it off. “The timing would be too suspicious. We’d certainly lose his men. You could try to make it look like an accident, but even then it’d be difficult to spin. Souji’s not the type to go around tripping off cliffs.”
“Then we have to undercut him,” Rin said. “Knock him off his pedestal.”
But how? She pondered this for a moment. Discrediting him would be too hard. Those men loved Souji. She couldn’t sever those bonds overnight.
“That’s not necessary,” Kitay said. “Don’t cut the head off the snake if you can tame it. You’ve just got to convince him where his interests lie.”
“But how?”
He shot her a droll look. “Oh, I think you’re good enough at that.”
She rubbed her wrist stump into the palm of her good fist. “I’ll go have a nice long chat with him then, shall I?”
He sighed. “Be nice.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Souji asked. He was crouched over a campfire, digging into a bowl of steaming white rice that smelled much better than the vats of barley porridge in the communal kitchen.
“Get up,” Rin said. “We’re going for a walk.”
“Why?”
“For privacy.”
Souji’s eyes narrowed. He must have known what was coming, because he gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head to the closest Iron Wolves. Leave us, it said. I’m fine.
The men turned and left. Souji stood up. “All right, Princess. I’ll walk with you.”
Rin wrinkled her nose. “Princess?”
“Sinegard educated? Former Militia elite? That’s royalty in my book.”
He didn’t make it sound like a compliment. Rin chose not to retort; she held her tongue until they’d walked deep into the forest, out of earshot from camp. She might as well let Souji keep his dignity with his men. He’d be less grumpy about taking orders if she did.
She tried a diplomatic opening. “I’m sure you’ve realized by now we have men and resources that you don’t.”
“Stop.” He held up a hand. “I know what you want. We’re not joining any coalitions. Your war isn’t my problem.”
She scoffed. “You were happy enough about taking our aid yesterday.”
“The Mugenese are my problem. But don’t pretend that this is all about the Federation. Your Southern Coalition is baiting the Republic and you’re an idiot if you think I’m getting involved with that.”
“Soon enough you won’t have a choice. Yin Vaisra—”
Souji rolled his eyes. “Vaisra doesn’t care about us.”
“He will,” she insisted. “You think Vaisra’s going to stop after he’s conquered the north? I’ve met the Hesperians, I know their intentions. They won’t stop until they’ve put a church in each of our villages—”
Souji picked at his teeth with the nail of his little finger. “Churches never killed anyone.”
“They prop up regime ideologies that do.”
“Come on, you’re grasping at straws—”
“Am I? You’ve dealt with them before, have you? No, you’ll regret saying that when you’re all under Hesperian rule. I’ve spoken to them. I know how they look at us. None of this—our villages, our people, our freedom—will survive under their intended world order.”
“Don’t talk to me about survival,” Souji snapped. “I’ve been keeping our people alive for months while you’ve been playing the hunting dog over at Vaisra’s court. What did that get you?”
“I was a fool,” Rin said bluntly. “I know that. I was stupid then and I should have seen the signs. But I’m back in the south now, and we can build this army, if you bring your Iron Wolves—”
He cut her off with a laugh. “That’s a no, Princess.”
“I don’t think you understand,” she said. “That was an order. Not a request.”
He reached out and flicked her on the nose. “And you don’t understand: we are not, and never will be, under your command.”
Rin blinked, stunned that he would even dare.
So this was how things were going to go.
“Oh, Souji.” She pulled a flame into her palm. “You don’t understand how this works.”
She darted toward him just as he reached for his sword. She’d anticipated that. As he swung, she dodged his blade and jammed a foot hard into his left kneecap. He buckled. She swept the other leg out from under him and jumped down onto his chest as he fell, fingers grasping for his neck. She squeezed.
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with.” She leaned down close until her lips brushed his skin, until her breath scorched the side of his face. “I’m not Sinegardian elite. I’m that savage, mud-skinned Speerly bitch that wiped a country off the map. And sometimes when I get a little too angry, I snap.”
