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She watched the lights dance amid the river’s inky current. Beautiful—beautiful , in the way that few things in life truly were. Beautiful like the first few sparks of a bonfire. Like the kaleidoscope of colors she’d seen on her first trip to the Pantheon, but free from the hazy tinge of unreality.
Beautiful like the stars reflected in Nezha’s eyes.
Don’t be disgusting, she thought immediately, and then stopped. Maybe it was the wine, but just for a moment, she let herself wonder—would it really be so bad? To let her guard down, just for one night?
She didn’t know. Every time her heart edged into dangerous territory, a different defense mechanism kicked in, spitting venom and searing rage until they were once again safely at arm’s length.
A breeze lifted from the water and Rin shivered at the unexpected chill. Instinctively, Nezha stepped closer, slipping an arm around her waist as if to protect her from the cold. She wanted to laugh. Idiot—she channeled a fire god, and Nezha thought she needed him to stay warm? But that was Nezha all over. Stupidly gallant, an absurd blend of aristocratic assholery and genuine kindness.
Nezha shifted and she was suddenly hyper aware of his palm against her hip. The whisper of his fingers, his thumb tracing small circles above the bone.
It occurred to her that he may have had other motives besides the cold.
Too close, her mind screamed. She should push him away—lash out with barbed words or blistering fists—anything to bring back the anger and the fight. Because they were always so good at fighting, the two of them, ever since their Academy days—forever a perfectly orchestrated dance of antagonism. North against South; rich versus poor; prince against freak. It was so much easier to fall back into those familiar roles, the archetypes and stories already written, just as it was so much easier to cocoon herself in a protective hull of rage than to feel—
Than to feel whatever it was she was feeling now.
She stepped away. Raising her arms, she let fire dance along her shoulders, curling into shapes that traced her silhouette. A bird; a dragon; the two locked in a ceaseless chase.
Nezha’s eyes tracked their movement. “Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.” She dropped her arms, the images dissolving into smoke. She immediately wished she’d kept them—she felt naked under the full brunt of his gaze, as if he could see her heart laid bare and quivering before them.
“Did you mean it when you said we should raise an army of shamans?”
“What?” The question was so unexpected she almost lost her balance. “When did I say that?”
“New years,” he said, watching her intently. “Back on the campaign, when we were sitting in the snow.”
“Oh.” She struggled to think. Something about the question felt... off, somehow. The abrupt departure, the way he almost seemed to be cataloging her movements—
She pushed it aside. Why do you always think someone’s trying to kill you, he’d joked earlier, and she’d responded why wouldn’t I? But she hadn’t meant it, not really.
Not with him.
Rin relaxed, the flames winking back to life, and spun is a giddy circle, arms outstretched as if in memory of wings. “Sure. Why not?” She laughed, suddenly delighted by all of it—the crisp night air, the lingering tang of wine, the heady rush of her power. “It’d be marvelous. We’d never lose.”
Something in Nezha’s face shifted, like that was the answer he hadn’t wanted to hear. One hand slid into his pocket as he drifted closer. ”You understand that’s precisely what the Hesperians are terrified of.”
She gave him a tiger’s smile. “For good reason. We’d fuck them up, wouldn’t we?”
Nezha stopped. His jaw worked, like he was building up to something, but when he opened his mouth all that came out was “We?”
“Of course ‘we,’ idiot,” she said, and maybe she wasn’t as sober as she’d thought, because next thing she knew she was closing the few paces between them until they were almost nose to nose. Nezha’s breathing shallowed; Rin’s blood sparked in answer.
I don’t know how you’ve made it this far without any feminine wiles, Venka had said. Rin still had none—she had no misconceptions on that front—but emboldened by the wine and the stars and her last night in Arlong, she found she didn’t give a fuck. “Of course we,” she said again. “You think I’d want to save the country without you?”
This close, she could read every emotion as it passed Nezha’s face. Fear, conflict, pain—desire. He took a half step back. “Rin—" he began carefully, and she could tell he was about to open his big fat fucking mouth and ruin everything.
Rin would be damned if she let him.
She grabbed him roughly by the shirt and pulled him forward, kissing him hard against the lips.
For a moment, Nezha was frozen. Rin didn’t care—this was on her terms, and right now all she wanted was skin against skin. She tightened her grip on his clothes. A shudder passed between them, and suddenly Nezha was awake.
He was everywhere at once. Hands, roving Rin’s body, unable to decide whether they wanted to cradle her neck or trail up her waist. Mouth, open against hers, answering her ferocity with equal hunger. They were sloppy—teeth meeting tongue, noses bumping or missing entirely when one of them came up for air—but if either of them minded, they didn’t show it.
“Rin,” Nezha gasped into her ear. He traced a furious line of kisses across her jaw. She nipped at his lip in response, and his grip on her waist tightened. Half-snarling, half-smiling, she let her own hands roam—finding every place that had driven her half-mad over these past four years, never sure whether she’d wanted to touch him or punch him. The hollow of his collarbone. The hard planes of his chest. He sucked in a breath as her fingers ghosted the smooth lines of his scars, but he didn’t pull away.
She thought she might love him for it.
That alone was almost enough to make her pull up short—danger, her mind screamed again, because the last time she’d given her heart it’d walked off a pier and charred itself to ash—but she told herself this was different. No matter what, she was leaving tomorrow. One night wouldn’t change anything.
One night, she reminded herself as her hands drifted lower. But gods, why hadn’t they done this earlier? The feel of his skin was like a drug of its own; she tried not to think of the eventual withdrawal.
One night. Her hands fell to his waist. Nezha tensed, grabbing for her wrist, but he was too late. Her fingers stumbled as they brushed something sharp—cold, unyielding metal—and the night turned on its head.
She disarmed him before she was even fully aware of what was happening. Knife, her mind supplied, and years of training scorched away all desire as they grappled. “Rin, it’s not—” Nezha tried to say, but she knocked him to the ground and jammed her knee into his chest. Hard. His dagger, she held against his throat.
“Don’t,” she warned. Her heart thundered. Stupid—how could she have been so stupid ? She should’ve known Vaisra would never let her leave Arlong alive.
She just hadn’t thought Nezha would be the one to do it.
Her eyes stung with unexpected tears. Fool, she thought, and blinked them away furiously. She couldn’t look at Nezha—still gasping for air as her knee jammed into his windpipe—so she focused on the dagger in her shaking hands instead.
She almost dropped it. The shape and patterns etched on the hilt marked it as Hesperian made. Another round of betrayal raged through her, and she felt her hands erupt, the knife glowing white hot beneath them. “You’re working with them?” she spit, letting the blade sizzle dangerously close to his skin. “After everything?”
“I know what it looks like—”
“Really?” Rin barked out a laugh, cruel and short. She clung to that cruelty like an anchor, its sharp talons the only thing keeping her head above water. “Because I’m going to tell you what it looks like, and then you’re gonna tell me if I’m wrong.”
When Nezha opened his mouth, she pressed the burning dagger closer. Let it hover over his neck, those lovely collarbones, the lips she’d been devouring not five minutes ago. “And I would listen carefully,” she murmured, “because your dragon might not let you die, but it’ll have a hell of a time putting you back together when I rip out your vocal cords and scatter them down the river.”
Nezha swallowed. He knew she wasn’t bluffing. Good. Rin felt a savage pleasure that barely masked her fear. Did he have backup? Had there been a whole contingent of Hesperians watching them the entire night? Were they taking notes as she—as they—gods, she wanted to be sick.
“Here’s what I think.” She fought to keep her voice steady. “I think I’ve been living on borrowed time since the day I joined the Republic. Your father needed a weapon—a war dog—and I was a good one. The best. But all dogs get put down eventually. And maybe he actually did care about me—maybe he didn’t want to kill me—but the minute those ships showed up it was a done deal. The Hesperians say jump, and he says how high. The Hesperians say get rid of the shamans, and he hands his most gullible son a knife and a few bottles of sorghum wine and says have fun.”
Nezha flinched. The details took shape as she spoke, the night’s events suddenly realigning. The way he had been so quick to refill her cup, yet barely finished his own. Separating her from Kitay and Venka. The careful questions about shamanism, like he needed to confirm she was a threat. Idiot, idiot, idiot, she chanted.
“And I think,” Rin finished, deadly quiet, “that you have no idea what you’re doing. Because if you think for a second that your Hesperian friends won’t try to carve the Chaos from your insides once they find out you’ve been lying to them, then you’re an even bigger fool than I am.”
He blanched. She sat back slightly, easing enough pressure that he could speak. “Well?” she demanded. “Did I leave anything out? Were you actually planning to fuck me before you killed me, or was that all another distraction?”
“No,” he wheezed. “Rin, I swear…” He broke off to cough, and she watched him impassively. “No, it wasn’t—well, he did tell me—but I wasn’t—”
“Don’t you dare lie to me.”
“I’m not! Please, just listen—” his eyes were wide, wet, and still impossibly pretty, fringed with thick lashes that dusted his cheeks.
Rin hated him. She hated herself. She hated that he could betray her, and yet her stupid, traitorous body still craved his closeness. Focus.
“—you were right. But not about all of it,” he added hastily when she inched the knife closer. “They found the man you killed. The Hesperians.”
Her stomach dropped. Kitay was right—how many times was her own recklessness going to bite her in the ass before she realized? But no. She thought of the girl’s keening cries. Her attacker’s guttural moans.
That man had deserved everything she gave him.
“You can guess how they reacted,” Nezha continued, seemingly heartened by the fact that she hadn’t stabbed him yet. “And if we wanted to avoid being slaughtered, my father had to make some choices. That meant agreeing to their terms—without exception—or they’d execute the entire Republic leadership and replace it with their own governors.”
“Maybe he should’ve thought of that before inviting them in the first place,” Rin snarled. She had no sympathy left for Vaisra.
Nezha sighed. “Believe me, I know.” Rin was startled to find he seemed to mean it. “But we were in too deep. And my mother...well, a lot of Nikara started agreeing with her. With them. Our people have always been suspicious of shamans, and once word got out about everything you could do— had done—they were terrified.”
No. She shook her head. “Everything I’ve ever done was to protect our people. They know that. What, do they think I sunk Mugen for fun? That Altan—” her voice cracked.
“Rin. I know. But the people...all they saw was a girl with enough power to destroy an entire country. A man who could sink a navy’s worth of ships in a blink of the eye. As long as shamans existed, the world would never be safe. I know,” he said when she tried to interject, “I’m just warning you what you might find out there.”
Out there? Rin narrowed her eyes. “You talk like I’m going to live.”
“Aren’t you? You’re on top, after all,” Nezha pointed out. “Which suits you, by the way,” he added with a suggestive grin.
Rin slapped him. “I know you have backup.” She cast her eyes wildly about. “Where are they, then? Tell them to come out. Tell them to come out before I get bored of your lies and slit your throat.”
The grin fell away as he scrambled to backtrack. “No, that’s not—we’re here alone, I swear. Rin. I would never hurt you.”
She looked pointedly at the dagger, and he grimaced.
“Okay. My father did send me to bring you in—not kill you, just incapacitate you. He said that the only way to keep you safe was in custody. Where you couldn’t hurt anyone and they couldn’t hurt you. And I’ll admit that for a while I almost believed him.”
“But?”
“But tonight happened. And I realized that caging you would be worse than killing you. You weren’t built to do Hesperian penance in a four-walled cell.”
“Yeah? Then what was I built to do?” she challenged.
“To burn,” he said simply.
The words hung in the air. Rin sat back, appraising. She thought of the boy she fought side by side with at Sinegard. I’d die before I let anyone hurt you, Rin. The soldier with the shining eyes, warning her of his dream. Pulling her from the water when it killed him to do so.
“So, what?” She folded her arms, not meeting his eye. “You agree with me now? You think we should raise an army of shamans?”
“Gods, no. I think it’s one of your worst ideas yet, and that’s saying something.”
“Thanks.”
“But I don’t care. I’d follow you anywhere, Fang Runin, even if it destroys me.”
She looked up sharply. His eyes were wide and guileless. When she searched them for any hint of malice or deceit, she found nothing.
Fighting with Nezha had always been easy, yes.
But she was starting to worry that loving him might be even easier.
Slowly she rolled off of him. “I’m still not giving you your knife back.”
***
They sat on the river’s edge, feet dangling over the water. “So what happens now?” Nezha asked.
Rin snorted. “Isn’t it obvious? We run.”
A thousand objections passed over Nezha’s face. She waited, but all he did was nod. “Okay. When?”
“Dawn. When Suni and Baji get off patrol. We’ll have to pick up Kitay—and Venka, too. I don’t feel right leaving her.”
A smile tugged at Nezha’s lips. “Smart move. Hesperian armies are nothing compared to a pissed off Venka.”
“Right? But you’re one to talk. I remember this one time at the academy—” She launched into the story, and they continued like that—bantering and bickering and shoving each other, like nothing in the past night had changed anything—until the first strains of brightness bled into the horizon.
“Well.” Rin stood. “We should probably get going.”
Nezha was still staring at the water, his eyes far away. Rin held her breath. He could still back out. Turn her in. Maybe she’d been a fool to trust him again so quickly.
Maybe she’d keep learning this lesson until it killed her.
“I lied,” he said softly. Rin immediately tensed, but he made no move to attack. “Before. On the ship. When I told you about—you know.”
The Dragon. His shamanism. He still wouldn’t admit it out loud.
“I told you that it hurts every minute I’m not with him. But that’s not strictly true.” Rin waited. Nezha took a breath and met her eyes. “It doesn’t hurt when I’m with you.”
The fuck? She couldn’t stand the way he was looking at her. Her skin felt exposed, raw. “Um,” she said. “If that’s some line to get me back in your pants, then—”
“No, I mean—the Phoenix . Remember our fight in first-year? When you called it for the first time, without even knowing?”
She did. She remembered the unquenchable rage, the confusion. The terror when she thought she might never stop burning.
“You put me in the infirmary, but it didn’t make sense, because I kept telling everyone I’d never felt better. I didn’t understand it until you burned that Federation general all those years later, and I felt it again. Like I could breathe. Rin,” he said slowly, “I think the Phoenix is the only thing that can keep the Dragon at bay.”
“And?”
Nezha’s face tightened with grim determination. “And I think together, we might be able to kill it.”