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“I’m not sure.” She’d been scanning the crowd for Kitay since she arrived, but hadn’t found him. “He might be asleep.”
She didn’t tell Souji that they’d fought. She and Kitay were a pair against the world; no one else should know about their rifts.
“He’s missing out.” Souji leaned back, watching the dancers with an amused, half-lidded expression. Rin could tell he was already quite drunk; his movements were slow and careless, and a cloud of sour fumes wafted toward her every time he spoke. “This is it, Princess. This is as good as it gets. Enjoy this while it lasts.”
She gazed at the bonfire and tried to take Souji’s advice, to lose herself in the music, the laughing, and the drums. But an uneasy darkness lingered in the pit of her stomach, a hard knot of fear that wouldn’t dissipate no matter how hard she smiled.
She couldn’t derive any joy from this.
Was this what liberation felt like? This couldn’t be it. Freedom was supposed to feel like safety. She was supposed to feel like no one could ever harm her again.
No, it was more than that.
She wanted to go back. She couldn’t remember a moment in the last two years that she had ever felt safe closing her eyes. If she chased that memory down, it would have last been when she was at the Academy, when the world seemed contained in books and exams, when war was a game mirroring something that might never come to pass.
And she knew she could never get that back again.
But she could get something close. Safety. Security. And that demanded total victory.
It didn’t matter whether she wanted war. The Republic would bring war to her, would hunt her down until she was dead or it was. And the only way to be safe was to strike first.
Your life is not your own, Vaisra had once told her, and he had elaborated many times in the weeks that followed. You do not have a right to happiness when you hold this much power in your hands.
When you hear screaming, run toward it. His precise words. He’d only been trying to manipulate her; she knew that now. Still, the words rang true.
But where was the screaming now?
“What’s wrong?” Souji asked.
She blinked and straightened up. “Hmm?”
“You look like someone’s shat all over your ancestors’ graves.”
“I don’t know, I just . . .” She struggled to name her discomfort. “This isn’t right.”
Souji snorted. “What, the dancing, or the music? Didn’t know you were so picky.”
“They’re happy. Everyone’s too happy.” Her words spilled out faster and faster, spurred on by the millet wine burning in her gut. “They’re dancing because they don’t know what’s coming, they can’t see the entire world’s about to end because this isn’t the end of one war, it’s the start, and—”
Souji’s hand closed over hers. Rin glanced down, startled. His palm was rough and callused but warm; it felt surprisingly good. She didn’t pull away.
“Learn to relax, Princess.” His thumb stroked the top of her hand. “This life you’ve chosen, you won’t get many moments like this again. But it’s the nights like this that keep you alive. All you think about is who you’re fighting against. But that?” He swung his mug toward the dancers. “That’s what you’re fighting for.”
Several hours later Souji was so drunk that Rin didn’t trust him to find the general’s complex on his own. They walked up the dark, rocky path together, his arm draped heavily over her shoulders. Halfway up the hill his foot snagged on a rock and he pitched forward, looping his arm around her waist for balance.
The ploy was quite transparent. Rin rolled her eyes and extricated herself from his grasp. He fumbled for her breasts. She smacked his hand away. “Don’t try that shit with me. I’ll burn your balls off, I’ve done that before.”
“Come on, Princess,” he said. He wrapped his arm back around her shoulders, pulling her in close. His skin felt terribly hot.
Despite herself, Rin found herself curving into that heat.
“No one’s here.” His lips brushed her ear. “Why don’t we have some fun?”
The embarrassing thing was that she did feel some interest, a faint, unfamiliar stirring in the pit of her stomach. She quashed it. Don’t be a fucking idiot.
Souji didn’t want her. Souji was the last man in the world to find her beautiful. He had his pick of willing conquests among the camp, all likely prettier and easier to deal with in the morning than Rin would be.
This wasn’t about lust, this was about power. This was about possession. He wanted to dominate her just so that later he could crow that he had.
And Rin, admittedly, was tempted. Souji was undeniably handsome, and certainly experienced. He’d know what to do with their bodies even if she hadn’t the faintest clue. He could show her how to do all the things she’d only heard of, had only imagined.
But she’d be stupid to go to bed with him. Once the word spread, no one would look at her the same way again. She’d been around soldiers long enough to know how this worked. The man got bragging rights. The woman, already likely the only female soldier in her squadron, became the camp whore.
“Let’s get you back to your bed,” she said.
“It’d be good for you.” Souji didn’t remove his arm from her shoulder. “You’re too tense. All that pent-up anger. It’d do you good to let loose once in a while, Princess. Have some fun.”
He caressed her collarbone. She shuddered. “Souji, stop.”
“What’s the matter? Are you a virgin?”
He asked this so bluntly that for a moment all Rin could do was stare.
His eyebrows shot up. “No. Really, Princess?
She shoved his arm away. “It’s none of your business.”
But he’d found her weak spot. He knew it—he grinned, teeth glinting in the moonlight. “Is it true you have no womb?”
“What?”
“Heard a rumor around camp. Said you burned your womb out back at Sinegard. Doesn’t surprise me. Smart, really. Pity about the Speerlies, though. Now you’re the last. Do you ever regret it?”
She hissed through clenched teeth. “I’ve never regretted it.”
“Pity.” He put a hand on her stomach. “We could have made some nice brown babies. My brains, your abilities. Kings of the south.”
That was enough. She jerked away from him, fist raised and knees crouched. “Touch me again and I’ll kill you.”
He just scoffed. His eyes roved up and down her body, as if evaluating how much force it would take to pin her to the ground.
Rin’s breath caught in her throat.
What was wrong with her? She’d started and ended wars. She’d buried a god. She’d incinerated a country. There wasn’t an entity on the planet that could face her in a fair fight and win. She was certain of her own strength; she’d sacrificed everything to make sure she never felt powerless again.
So why was she so afraid?
At last, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Just offering. No need to be like that.”
“Get away from me.” Her voice rang through the dark, louder than she’d intended. Someone might overhear. Perhaps that was what she should want—for someone, anyone, to come running. “Now, Souji.”
