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Her vision lurched, sharpened, expanded. When she’d sunk the Federation she’d been underground, alone inside a stone temple, and yet when she’d awakened the dormant volcano it had felt like she was floating right above the archipelago, keenly aware of the million sleeping souls beneath her, flaring like match heads, only to go suddenly, irreversibly dark.
Now, again, she saw the material world—such a flimsy thing, so fragile and temporary—through the eyes of a god. She saw the airships in such close detail she could have been standing under them. She saw the smooth texture of the airship balloons. Time dilated as she watched the fire ignite around them, ripping through whatever gas filled their interiors that was so delicious to the flame—
“Rin, stop!” She saw Nezha’s mouth moving seconds before she realized he was yelling. He wasn’t even really fighting anymore—he certainly couldn’t be trying, because his blows hardly landed, and his parries were sluggish.
She jerked her knee into his side, clamped her left hand against his shoulder, and pushed him hard to the ground.
His head slammed against the corner of the table. He slumped sideways, mouth agape. He didn’t get up.
She turned back to the fleet.
The beach faded from her sight. She saw what the fire saw—not bodies or ships but simply shapes, all equal, all simply kindling for the pyres of her worship. And she knew the Phoenix was pleased because its screeching laughter grew louder and louder, its presence intensifying until their minds felt as if they were one, as, from one end of the horizon to the other, she methodically wrecked the fleet—
Until it went silent.
The shock sent her reeling.
The sky seemed very blue and bright; the airships so far away. She was just a girl again, without fire. The Phoenix was gone, and when she reached to find it she met only a mute, indifferent wall.
She whirled on Kitay. “What have you—”
He was barely managing to stand, clutching the table for support. His face had turned a deathly gray. Sweat dripped from his temples, and his knees buckled so hard she was sure he was about to collapse.
“You can’t,” he whispered.
“Kitay—”
“Not without my help. Not without my permission. That was our deal.”
She gaped at him, astonished. He’d cut her off. The traitor, he’d fucking cut her off.
Kitay was her back door, her bridge, her single channel to the Phoenix. Since the moment they’d been anchored he’d always kept it open, had let her abuse his mind to funnel as much fire as she desired. He’d never closed it off. She’d almost forgotten that he could.
“I didn’t think I could, either,” he said. “I thought I couldn’t deny you anything. But I can, I always could, I’d just never really tried.”
“Kitay . . .”
“Stop this,” he ordered. A spasm rippled through his body and he lurched forward, wincing, but caught himself on the edge of the table before he fell. “Or you’ll never call the fire again.”
No. No, this wasn’t how this ended. She hadn’t come this far to be thwarted by Kitay’s idiotic scruples. He didn’t get to withhold her power like a condescending parent, dangling her toys just out of reach.
She saw the defiance in his eyes, and her heart shattered.
You, too?
She didn’t attack first. If Kitay hadn’t taken the first blow, she might not have had the will to strike him. Despite his betrayal he was still Kitay—her best friend, her anchor, the person she loved most in the world and the one person she’d sworn to always protect.
But he did take the blow.
He lunged forward, fists aimed at her face, and once he did, it was like a glass pane had shattered. Then there was nothing holding her back, no sentiment, no pangs of guilt when she redirected her fury toward him.
She’d never fought Kitay before.
She realized this as they wrestled to the ground—a dim, floating observation that was really quite amazing, for almost everyone in her class at Sinegard had fought everyone else at some point. She’d sparred against Venka and Nezha plenty of times. Her first year, she’d tried so hard to kill Nezha that she’d nearly succeeded.
But she’d never once touched Kitay. Not even in practice. The few times they were paired against each other they found excuses to seek different partners, because neither of them could stand the thought of trying to hurt the other, not even for pretend.
She hadn’t realized how strong he was. Kitay in her mind was a scholar, a strategist. Kitay hadn’t seen combat since Vaisra’s northern expedition. He always waited out battles from a distance, kept safe by an entire squadron.
She’d forgotten that he, too, had been trained as a soldier. And he’d been very, very good at it.
Kitay was not as strong as Nezha, nor as fast as her. But he struck with crisp, deadly precision. His attacks landed with maximal force concentrated to the thinnest point of impact—the knife edge of his hand, the point of his knuckle, the protruding cap of his knee. He chose his targets carefully. He knew her body better than anyone; he knew the spots where she hurt the most—her amputated wrist, the scars along her back, her twice-cracked ribs. And he attacked them with brutal precision.
She was losing. She was getting exhausted, slowed by the accumulated hurts of a dozen direct blows. He’d maintained the offensive from the start. She was flailing to even parry; she wouldn’t last another minute.
“Give up,” he panted. “Give up, Rin, it’s over.”
“Fuck you,” she snarled, and flung her right fist toward his eye.
In her fury she forgot that fist did not exist, that she would not meet the sharp bones of his face with curled knuckles but the stump of her wrist, sore and vulnerable and protected only by a thin, irritated layer of skin.
The pain was white-hot, debilitating. She howled.
Kitay staggered back, out of her range, and picked Nezha’s knife up from the ground.
She flinched back, arms flung up instinctively to protect her chest. But he hadn’t pointed the blade at her.
Fuck.
She lunged and caught his wrist just as he plunged the blade toward his chest. She wasn’t strong enough; the tip burrowed under his skin and slid down, slicing a gash across his ribs. They struggled against each other, her pulling with all her might while he pushed the knife against himself, the sharp blade trembling just an inch from his chest.
She wasn’t going to win.
She couldn’t overpower him. He was stronger. He had both his hands.
But she didn’t have to physically defeat him—she only needed to break his will. And she knew one unspoken fact for a certainty, one truth that had underlined their bond since the day she’d met him.
Her will was so much stronger than his. It always had been.
She acted. He followed. Like two hands on a sword’s blade, she determined the direction and he provided the force; she was the visionary, and he was her willing executioner. He’d always enforced what she wanted. He would not defy her now.
She focused all her thoughts toward the Phoenix, railing against the fragile barrier of Kitay’s mind.
I know you’re there, she prayed to the silence. I know you’re with me.
“Give up,” Kitay said. But sweat was dripping down his forehead; his teeth were clenched with strain. “You can’t.”
