Chapter Text
When Nezha left a grueling conference with Hesperian generals and province representatives, he found Chaghan Suren, chieftain of the isolationist Ketreyid clan, waiting for him in his office. Nezha had wanted to rest before his session with Sister Monet because her experimentations continued to deplete him, despite being reduced to “non-invasive observational viewing periods” as agreed upon. (Unfortunately, there were no regulations on what type of environment he would be non-invasively observed in every week.)
“Chaghan Suren,” said Nezha. “After months of tracking you down, sending correspondence, and visiting your territory, you didn’t budge. And now you’re here in my office, uninvited-“
The shaman cast him a withering glare. “You sent your men to tail me, blackmailed me with my past as, I quote, ‘an accomplice to war criminal Fang Runin and former lieutenant of the terrorist Cike organization,’ and quite literally invaded my territory with your Hesperian brutes. Pardon me if I didn’t seem keen to meet you.”
Nezha’s eyes narrowed, then he resigned himself to sitting across Chaghan. It would do him no good to chastise the shaman, especially when he needed a big favor. Before Nezha could offer him tea, Chaghan slammed down a pouch on the table between them.
“Take these by sundown.”
Nezha cautiously opened the pouch. “These are psychedelics.” He paused. “Illegal psychedelics.”
“Illegal because you banned them.”
“These were already banned before-“
Chaghan interrupted him. “Your Republic fucked things up for everyone when you Yins cozied up to the Hesperians.” He laughed drily. “There is no such thing as destiny, Nezha. I can attest to that better than anyone else. But the fact that you survived, only you, is so deliciously cruel that it must have been written into your fate. Oh, or perhaps that Creator made you like this!” Chaghan’s voice dripped with contempt. “How benevolent.”
Nezha opened his mouth to retort that Chaghan, too, was the only surviving member of the Cike, but he was cut off.
“They can’t kill you, you can’t die, but you want to so badly! You beg for death, standing at the pyre wishing you were the one burning at the stake, but what can I tell you? You,” Chaghan gestured with his index finger, “were the one that extinguished the flame.” He leaned backwards and examined his fingernails. “You know,” he added, “I always thought our little Runin would die choking from the fumes of her own fire, stupid and stubborn just like the rest of her kind. But then you came along.”
“You have no right to talk about her like that,” Nezha said stiffly.
A flicker of somber amusement passed Chaghan’s eyes. “Pathetic.”
On another day with another person, Nezha would have acted on his rage, but this was Chaghan Suren. The Seer he had chased for months with no avail. The shaman with all the answers he needed. And Chaghan was right — he was pathetic. Nezha didn’t know how much longer a broken boy like him could attempt to rebuild the nation’s strength. It was impossible. The world was waiting for him to crack.
—————
When Nezha was a child, he thought rules were meant to enforced. Venka would disagree, insisting that rules were meant to be broken. Kitay, on the other hand, believed that rules were meant to be followed.
But they were all wrong.
There were no rules in this world. There was no heavenly order, no mandates, no destinies. The gods were not purposeful agents of creation or catastrophe. There was no imperative in any possibility, nor was there permanence in any impossibility.
It was supposed to be impossible to kill a creature like Rin. All of Nezha’s plans had factored in that impossibility. He had planned to weaponize the last Speerly, although not the way his father had. The only hitch in his plan was Kitay, her obvious weakness.
Without Kitay, Rin was a monster. She would be no different from Yu, the savior who fell on his own sword, the shaman-turned-monster. There may be no future where Rin and total victory co-existed but with Kitay, they could come pretty damn close. And that’s all the Republic needed — a fighting chance.
—————
Nezha abducted Kitay at Tikany because if Rin would not come for her foster brother, she would for her right hand.
Kitay had tried to tackle Nezha the first time he visited his cell. Nezha easily overpowered Kitay, but he nearly fell to his knees in pure shock when Kitay swung at him.
The Dragon recoiled at Kitay’s blows just like it did with Rin on that day in the ring.
In some way that Nezha did not understand, Kitay was bound to Rin. Kitay belonged to the Phoenix, too. Rin could never die and now, neither could Kitay. This meant Nezha could gain Hesperian rapport by promising Rin and Kitay’s deaths, something he had consistently evaded during council meetings. Their deaths were impossible, he knew that now, but the Hesperians didn’t know that. He just needed to play the role as desperate Young Marshal until he could initiate his plan.
When Rin came for Kitay, Nezha let her take him. He couldn’t sway Kitay, but Nezha knew him like an open book.
Kitay was right as always, but only partially. The South was indeed expendable to Nezha, but Kitay could not yet understand that its expendability was what made it incredibly valuable.
Nezha showed him the full arsenal of Hesperian aid and technologies, how it could catapult their nation into a unprecedented era of peace if they simply played their cards right. Nezha showed Kitay how much sharper the enemies’ arrows were. Nezha showed Kitay how he couldn’t do it without him.
The more carnage he witnessed in the South, Kitay would falter. Kitay would come back to collect the arrows.
And where one went, the other followed. Kitay would bring Rin to Nezha. Together, they would become the three who united the nation, properly this time.
—————
Nezha was tired, and he had no idea what he was doing.
His plan was to lure Rin with a peace negotiation. His reports from the palace stated that Rin was extremely volatile and irrational, unable to handle the weight of leadership and governance.
She would likely attack him first, and he would play along. He would allow himself to be dominated by her god and then attempt to kill her.
Obviously he would fail, and Rin would try to kill him.
She would fail, and he would talk sense into Rin, handing her the South and forcing the Hesperians to tolerate her existence like they did with his. Together, they could secure the future of the Republic and oust the Hesperians when the time was right.
He just needed her to listen.
Rin would never trust him again — he knew that when his blade met her back — but Kitay would see the merits in his plan. Kitay always saw every detail, and would recognize that this plan was the only way forward. Nezha had a fighting chance in making this work.
Only when it was too late did Nezha learn that it wasn’t Kitay who was anchored to a god. The god had anchored itself to a human. Rin was divine in her own right, and Nezha hadn’t considered Rin to be breakable. After all, he tried so hard to break Fang Runin during their years in Sinegard. Even then, without her Phoenix, she was formidable.
There was one rule that Yin Nezha believed in, and he paid dearly for it. He believed in Fang Runin. He believed that she was indestructible.
Yin Nezha forgot that, when fully contained, fire extinguishes itself when there is no more air left to consume. And there is no air under the waves, none at all.
—————
“So why are you here,” asked Nezha, “and what are these?” He held up the pouch of mystery drugs. “If these are for suppressing my powers, there’s no need,” Nezha said rather indignantly. “I’m very in control. I’ve contained the Dragon thus far, and I can continue to do it.”
Chaghan stared at him. “Shamanism is much more than opium enhancers and laudanum suppressors.” He frowned. “It’s rather ridiculous that you are causing so much havoc when you know nothing at all.”
“I didn’t choose the Dragon.”
“I know. And since you have zero knowledge about the Pantheon, you assume that your experience is universal across the divine plane of existence. It’s not.”
Nezha narrowed his eyes. “I have no intention to learn, and I doubt that you’d teach me if I wanted to.”
Chaghan nodded. “As expected. But clearly you had a reason to pursue me other than for sentimental reasons over our fallen acquaintance, I’d assume.”
“First, tell me why you’ve come to me.”
—————
No loss rang louder or deeper than the death of the Phoenix’s daughter and her anchor, the broken scholar. It rang with a similar timbre as Altan Trengsin’s, but in its intensity lay an echo of finality and resolve Chaghan had never felt before.
Trengsin’s loss blazed through the spiritual plane. But strangely enough, it felt like Rin and Kitay had merely drifted away. Intuitively, the shaman knew with certainty that the Dragon remained intact, but incredibly weakened. Hesperian meddling would soon pose a threat to the entire Pantheon and spiritual planes. Or well, what he knew of them.
Chaghan didn’t know what to do. Soon, he would fall past a point of no return, but he could not trust what the Dragon could do in the meantime. Yin Nezha knew nothing about shamanism and Chaghan Suren knew nothing about the Hesperian trinkets. He wished Qara were here. She would have known something.
Altan, too.
—————
“Whatever the Hesperians are doing to you and the Dragon, it’s interfering with the Pantheon.”
“And it has nothing to do with the churches?” asked Nezha.
Chaghan shook his head. “No, the strength of the Pantheon is not determined by believers. Nikara had long forgotten shamanism, but their gods remain. They are forces of nature.”
“Why don’t you just… See what’s happening, then?”
“It would really help if the Dragon wasn’t constantly blocking all the pathways on the spiritual planes,” Chaghan said. “You need to take those drugs before sundown. I feel the Pantheon crumbling and there is no telling what happens to the physical world if this continues. Those drugs will subdue the Dragon long enough for me to slip past and see what’s happening.”
Chaghan rose to leave. Nezha quickly blurted, “How do I trust this isn’t an elaborate murder scheme? You’ve never trusted me. I have no reason to trust you.”
Chaghan paused, but kept his back turned against Nezha. “It will put you in a deep slumber and, to put it in simple words, you’ll have a very long dream. Usually multiple. They won’t be ‘real’ as you presume ‘reality’ to be, but they aren’t unreal either.”
Nezha thought the shaman would leave, but Chaghan turned around and faced him. “And how do you trust me?” he repeated. “You don’t. I am the Seer without the anchor he’s had since he was ten days old. Do you know what that means? I could destroy this world. I could destroy you. I could break every dam in the world and erase everything in your perceived ‘reality,’ and I might not even notice a difference. No one is holding me, and no one is holding me back.”
Nezha came to the realization that Chaghan Suren was most likely not sane, despite his collected composure.
The Seer held Nezha’s gaze with a blank expression, but the air in the room was markedly different. “I don’t trust you at all. But she did, and in the end he trusted her.” Chaghan didn’t further explain his cryptic statement. “Since you don’t trust me, do this for her. For some godsforsaken reason, she entrusted you with not destroying this world even though that’s exactly what you’re doing. Same goes for the strategist. I felt them."
Nezha’s voice shook. “Will I see her?”
Chaghan turned and proceeded to leave without answering. His hand hesitated over the door for a moment, then he left without another word, leaving Nezha alone with his thoughts.
“Do this for her,” Chaghan had said. “She entrusted you with not destroying this world.”
—————
“You poor thing,” she had once said, not knowing that the knife pressing against his heart would soon be sinking into her flesh. “I just don’t want the world to break you.”
You burned down the entire nation, Rin, he thought. You should have burned me, too.