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“Tell me,” Nezha said. “What did you think you’d do, once you found the grotto?”
“I’d think of something,” Rin said. “I always do.”
Nezha hadn’t even glanced at Pipaji. His eyes were locked on Rin’s. He approached slowly, fingers stroking the hilt of his sword. He’s gloating, Rin realized. He thought he’d blown her plan wide open. He thought he’d won.
He shouldn’t be so careless.
The inky tendrils reached the water under Nezha’s feet.
Rin sucked in a sharp breath.
Nezha flinched and stumbled backward. The poison followed him, racing up his legs and under his clothes. Black lines emerged from beneath his collars and sleeves. Where they touched his golden circlets, they hissed.
Pipaji made an inhuman growling noise. Her eyes shone dark violet, and her mouth was twisted into a cruel sneer that Rin had never seen on her face.
“Shatter,” she whispered.
But Nezha didn’t fall. He was clearly in great pain—he convulsed where he stood, the lines of poison writhing around his body like a horde of black snakes. But his skin didn’t wither; his limbs didn’t rot and corrode. Pipaji’s victims usually succumbed in seconds. But something under his skin repelled the dark streaks, repairing their corrosion.
Pipaji glanced down at her fingertips, puzzled, as if checking that they were still black.
Nezha stopped writhing. He straightened up, rubbing at his neck. The black had already faded from his skin.
“Ah, Rin.” He sighed theatrically. “That would have worked, too. But you showed your hand too early.”
He made a fist and brought it down in a savage slash. A column of water rose behind Pipaji and smashed her into the river. Pipaji, sputtering, tried to rise to her feet. But the water rose and fell, slamming her again and again to her knees.
Pipaji shrieked. The black in her fingers stretched up through her arms. More indigo clouds blossomed underwater, racing toward Nezha like sea creatures. Nezha made a cupping motion. The water beneath Pipaji’s feet shot up, flinging her several feet back. This time she lay still. The dark streaks disappeared.
“That’s the best you could come up with?” Nezha sneered. “You came after me with a little girl?”
Rin couldn’t speak. Panic fogged her mind. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do—even the Phoenix was terrified, reluctant to lend its flames, already anticipating a losing battle.
Nezha stretched his fingers toward Pipaji. Rin thought the girl had died—part of her hoped she’d just died—but Pipaji was alive and conscious, and she screamed as a mass of water lifted her up, encircled her waist, then crept up her shoulders.
“Stop!” she shrilled. “Stop, please, mercy—”
The river closed over her face. Her screams cut to nothing. Nezha raised his arm to the sky. Pipaji hung high over the river, suspended inside a towering column of water. She thrashed wildly, trying to swim her way out, but the water just bulged to accommodate her flailing. Dulin drew his sword and hacked wildly at the pillar like one might a tree, but Nezha twisted his fingers, and the water wrenched Dulin’s blade from his grasp.
Pipaji’s mouth contorted in desperation. Rin could read her lips.
Help me.
Without another thought, Rin pulled fire into her hand and lunged.
Nezha flicked his wrist. A wave rose before her and crashed, knocking her flat on her back. Nezha sighed and shook his head.
“That’s all?”
Horror squeezed her chest as she rose. So easy. This was so easy for him.
“Now you.” Nezha directed a fist at the charging Dulin.
Dulin never stood a chance. Rin didn’t see what Nezha did. She was still clambering to her feet, blinking water from her eyes. All she felt was a hard tug, like a temporary current, then a crash of water. When she finally straightened up, Dulin was gone.
“Here’s the thing about the ocean.” Nezha turned back toward Pipaji. “If you swim down deep enough, the pressure can kill you.”
Ever so casually, he squeezed his fist. Pipaji’s eyes bulged. Nezha made a throwing motion. The water pillar flung Pipaji to the side like a rag doll. She landed facedown, limp, in the shallows. She floated, but did not stir.
Rin rolled onto her side and sent a jet of fire roaring at Nezha’s face. He waved a hand. Water shot up to diffuse the flames. But that bought Rin a few precious seconds, which she used to regain her footing, crouch, and leap.
She had to get him on the ground. Ranged attacks wouldn’t work; his shields were too strong. Once again, her only hope was a blow at close quarters. For the briefest moment, as she barreled into his side, the gods didn’t matter—it was only the two of them, mortal and human, rolling and twisting in the river. He kneed her in the thigh. She groped around his face, trying to gouge out his eyes. His hands found a grip around her neck and squeezed.
Water crashed over them and forced them down, holding them beneath the surface. Rin kicked and choked to no avail. Nezha’s fingers tightened on her neck, thumbs crushing her larynx.
Help me. Rin cast her thoughts wildly toward the Phoenix. Help me.
She heard the god’s reply like a muted, distant echo. The Dragon is too strong. We cannot—
She clung at their connection. Yanked at it. I don’t care.
Heat surged through her veins. She forced her mouth onto Nezha’s. Flames erupted underwater, and the river exploded around them. Nezha’s grip broke loose. She saw bubbles roiling over his skin, searing pink marks across his face.
Rin broke the surface, gasping. The world seemed swathed in black fog. She sucked in several hoarse, deep breaths. Her vision cleared, and from the corner of her eye she saw Nezha standing up.
She crouched, flames sparking around her, ready for a second round.
But Nezha wasn’t looking at her. He struggled upright, his clothes ripped and burned beneath his armor, his face shining red with quickly disappearing blisters. His eyes, wide with horror, were fixed on something behind her.
She turned.
Deep within the grotto, something moved.
Nezha gave a low moan of terror. “Rin, what have you done?”
She had no response. She was rooted to the floor with sheer terror, unable to do anything but watch in fascinated horror as the Dragon of Arlong emerged from its lair.
It moved slowly, ponderously. She struggled to take in its shape; it was so massive she couldn’t grasp its outline, only the scale of it. When it reared its head, it cast them all—Rin, Nezha, and her troops—in its mountainous shadow.
Dragons in Nikara myth were elegant creatures, wise, sophisticated lords of rivers and rain. But the Dragon was nothing like the sleek cerulean serpents that hung in paintings around the palace in Arlong. It looked vaguely like a snake, thick and undulating, its dark, bulbous body ending in a ridged, bumpy head. It was the underbelly of the ocean come alive.
The Dragon collects pretty things. Was it because the sea absorbed anything it touched? Because it was so vast and so unfathomably dark that it sought whatever ornament it could find to give it shape?
The Dragon tilted its massive head and roared—a sound felt rather than heard, a vibration that seemed capable of shattering the world.
“Hold your ground,” Rin told her troops, trying her best to keep her voice level. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t scared—if she acknowledged she was scared, then she’d go to pieces. “Stay calm, aim for its eyes—”
