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Rin dealt with the Monkey Warlord first.
Gurubai had known she was coming. He was standing in the tunnels with his officers, the only people in the cavern who didn’t appear to be asleep. They were quietly discussing something. They fell silent when they saw her approach, but they didn’t move for their weapons.
“Leave us,” Gurubai said.
His officers departed without another word. They kept their heads down as they filed past; none gave Rin so much as a parting glance.
“They’re good soldiers,” Gurubai told Rin. “You’ve no cause to hurt them.”
“I know,” she said. “I won’t.”
She meant it. Without Gurubai to lead them, none of his officers had any reason to betray her. She knew those men. They weren’t ambitious power grabbers; they were capable, rational-minded soldiers. They cared about the south, and they knew now she was their best chance at survival.
Gurubai regarded her for a moment. “Will you burn me?”
“No.” She drew the knife Daji had given her. “You deserve better.”
Gurubai raised his arms in the air. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He’d resigned himself to his fate, Rin realized. There was no fight left in him.
He had lost so thoroughly. He’d been cornered in the mountains and starved out by a boy general, and then his only salvation had been the Speerly he thought he’d sold to his enemy. If his gamble had worked, if Vaisra and the Republic had kept their word, then Gurubai would have become a national hero. The savior of the south.
But it hadn’t, so he would die a disgraced traitor. So cruel were the whims of history.
“You are the worst thing to happen to this country,” Gurubai said. His voice carried no anger or invective, just resignation. He wasn’t trying to hurt her. He was delivering his final testimony. “These people deserve better than you.”
“I’m exactly what they deserve,” she said. “They don’t want peace, they want revenge. I’m it.”
“Revenge doesn’t make a stable nation.”
“Neither does cowardice,” she said. “That’s where you failed. You were only ever fighting to survive, Gurubai. I was fighting to win. And history doesn’t favor stability, it favors initiative.”
She pointed the blade at his heart and jerked her hand forward in one quick, smooth motion. His eyes bulged. She yanked the blade out and stepped back just before he crumpled, clutching at his chest.
She’d aimed badly. She’d known that as soon as she felt the blade make contact. Her left hand was clumsy and weak; she’d pierced not his heart but an inch below it. She had put him in excruciating pain, but his heart wouldn’t stop beating until he bled out.
Gurubai writhed at her feet, but he didn’t make a single sound. No screams, no whimpers. She respected that.
“You would have been a wonderful peacetime leader,” she said. He had been honest with her; she might as well afford him the same in return. “But we don’t need peace right now. We need blood.”
Footsteps sounded behind her. She swiveled around, then relaxed—it was just Kitay. He stepped forward and stood over Gurubai’s silent, twitching form, mouth curling in distaste.
“I see you started without me,” he said.
“I didn’t think you wanted to come.” Her voice felt detached from her body. Her hand shook as she watched Gurubai’s blood pooling over the stone floor. Her entire body shook; she could hear her teeth clattering in her skull. She registered this physiological reaction with a bemused, distant curiosity.
What was wrong with her?
She’d felt this same nervous ecstasy when she killed Ma Lien. When she killed the priest in Arabak. All three times she’d killed not with fire, but with her own hand. She was capable of such cruelties, even without the Phoenix’s power, and that both delighted and scared her.
Gurubai grabbed at Kitay’s ankle, choking. Blood bubbled out of his mouth.
“Don’t be cruel, Rin.” Kitay took the knife from her hand, knelt over Gurubai, and traced the sharp tip along the artery in his neck. Blood sprayed the cavern wall. Gurubai gave a final, violent thrash, and then he stopped moving.
Rin caught Souji as he was trying to flee.
Someone in Gurubai’s camp had warned him to run. They’d been too late. By the time Souji and his Iron Wolves made it to the cavern’s western exit, Rin was already waiting in the tunnel.
She waved. “Going somewhere?”
Souji stumbled to a halt. His usual confident smirk was gone, replaced with the desperate, dangerous look of a cornered wolf.
“Get out of my way,” he snarled.
Rin drew her index finger through the air. Casual streams of flame arced out the tip and danced along the tunnel walls.
“As you can see,” she said, “I have my fire back.”
Souji pulled out his sword. To Rin’s surprise, the Iron Wolves didn’t follow suit. They weren’t crowded close behind Souji like loyal followers would be. No—if they were loyal, they would have already joined him in the charge.
Instead they hung back, waiting.
Rin read the looks in their eyes—identical expressions of calculating uncertainty—and took a wild gamble.
“Disarm him,” she ordered.
They obeyed immediately.
Souji lunged at Rin. The Iron Wolves yanked him back. Two forced him to his knees. One wrenched the blade out of his hands and tossed it across the tunnel. The third jerked his head back so that he was forced to gaze up at Rin.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Souji screamed. “Let me go!”
None of the Iron Wolves spoke a word.
“Oh, Souji.” Rin strode toward him and bent down to ruffle his hair. He snapped like a dog, but he couldn’t reach her fingers. “What did you think was going to happen?”
Her heart pounded with giddy disbelief. This had gone wonderfully, ridiculously smoothly; she couldn’t have imagined a better outcome.
She patted his head. “You can beg now, if you like.”
He spat a gob of saliva onto her front. She slammed the toe of her boot into his stomach. He sagged to the side.
“Drop him,” Rin ordered.
The Iron Wolves let Souji crumple to the ground. She kept kicking.
She didn’t brutalize him like he had her. She kept her kicks confined to his gut, his thighs, and his groin. She didn’t aim to crack his ribs or his kneecaps—no, she needed him able to stand in front of a crowd.
But it felt good to hear the little girlish gasps escape from his throat. It kept that nervous ecstasy pounding through her veins.
She couldn’t believe she’d once, however briefly, considered sleeping with him. She thought about the weight of his arm around her waist, the heat of his breath against her ear. She kicked harder.
“You cunt,” Souji gasped.
“I love the way you talk to me,” she cooed.
He tried to hiss out another insult, but she slammed her foot into his mouth. Felt her toes split his lip against his teeth. She had never before mutilated an opponent with pure brute force. She’d done it plenty with fire, of course. But this was a different kind of satisfaction, like the pleasure she derived from hearing fabric rip.
Human bodies were so breakable, she marveled. So soft. Just meat on bones.
