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It had all been set in motion before she was born. Cruelty and dehumanization, oppression and trauma that had pulled her right back into the place where the Trifecta had once stood. If she broke Kitay like Riga would have broken Jiang, there would be resistance, there would be blood and the only way she could eliminate the threat was by burning down the world.
Rin could see the possibilities. She saw dozens, all branching from the same root. In some, she ruled Nikara from a scorched capital, order enforced by fear and efficiency, rebellions smothered before they could name themselves. In others, she was gentler and paid for it with years of drawn-out war, more cities starving behind blockades she sanctioned in the name of patience. Kitay was there in every version. Sometimes at her side, making proclamations he did not believe in anymore. Sometimes behind her, quieter each year, his objections pared down into footnotes she no longer read. In none of them did the world truly heal. It only learned how to “live” with her.
It was about the long game. She understood what she had to do next and she knew Kitay didn’t have to be dragged with her. Then again, dying was easy. Living was so much harder-that was the most important lesson Altan had ever taught her.
She looked down. He was half conscious, swaying, one hand braced against the ground to keep himself upright.
Nezha stood a few paces away but it felt as if there were only two people on Speer as she got down on one knee.
“It's a long march to liberation.” She repeated Kitay’s words. “Sometimes, at least, you've got to pretend to bend the knee. Remember?”
“What are you..”
“Let go.”
Confusion flickered across his face, followed immediately by terror. “Rin?”
It would be easy to take what she needed, to let the Phoenix have him. “You have to survive.” She didn’t realize she’d dug her nails in her palm it until she felt blood gathering in her clenched fist. She opened her hand and tried to recall her last conversation with Chaghan.
“What was that Qara did back then? On your cheek?”
Chaghan looked skeptical, as if he couldn’t imagine Kitay and Rin voluntarily breaking their bond the same way he thought he’d never have to end his with his sister. But he asked no questions and picked up a stick, drawing the same pattern on the ground.
“She was only able to release me because I agreed.”
She tried to recall that same pattern now as she traced it on her anchor’s cheek with her thumb.
Panic cut through the fog in Kitay’s mind. His eyes widened in recognition and he forcefully pushed her back.
He knew it now. He could feel what she was doing. “You can’t make me.”
“I know.” She said.
The Phoenix distantly surged at her hesitation, heat licking up her spine, whispering that she was wasting time. You are better than Daji and Riga. You can finish what they could not.
Rin leaned forward again. “You can’t stay tied to me. You have to stay here. Nikara still needs you. Nezha needs you.”
“That’s worse than just letting me come with you.” Kitay shook his head, tears tracking through the grime on his face. “I don’t fucking care about all that.”
“You know that’s not true.”
”I care about you.” He knew no greater pain than when Rin drew out the Phoenix through him. But with it had always been his friend’s presence. A warm, unspoken understanding that he would never be alone again.
Or so he thought.
Meanwhile, she thought of their country being rebuilt and broken and rebuilt again even after she was gone. Of sad children learning new songs to sing over old bones. Of the other gods waiting patiently for another desperate hand to reach for them.
“That’s why I need you to live, Kitay.” She whispered, painting the final line and then covering his cheek with her hand.
The look he gave her was intense and angry and sad and all the emotions that mirrored hers. Every shared memory seemed to press forward - endless days and nights in during the war spent planning by candlelight, schemes that took countless lives, the quiet certainty that neither of them had ever been alone since they met in Sinegard. Kitay’s gaze searched her face like he could memorize her into permanence, like if he held her there long enough he could anchor her by sight alone.
Rin felt herself fray under it. This was the part the gods never accounted for: that love could be as binding as fear, as dangerous as her god’s fire. For one suspended heartbeat, the world narrowed to the space between their eyes.
“Please?”
He held her wrist tight. “I don’t forgive you for this.”
Rin nodded.
“Good.”
She pressed her forehead to his.
The anchor bond didn’t quite snap. It unwound, slowly and exquisitely painful, thread by thread pulling free through some spiritual plane. The sensation hollowed her out, left her gasping as if she’d been struck. Behind her eyes, she could see the Phoenix collapsing inward, consuming itself in a final, furious blaze that left nothing behind but silence. Rin cried out despite herself as the last strands slid away, sealing shut inside Kitay with a searing finality. Once again, she felt an absence like a missing limb—phantom pain, a space that would never close. It was unbearable. She was relieved it would all be over soon.
Kitay screamed. His body folded forward, hands clawing uselessly at the stone as the absence hit him all at once. The sigil on his cheek flared then went dark.
Nezha was beside them in an instant. “What just-”
“Tell them you killed me.” Rin said, suddenly curling his fingers around a knife. “Get their respect. Tell them everything they want to hear. Say whatever you need to to get the Hesperians to trust you."
"You-”
"It's the only way forward."
He understood what she meant him to do. His face twisted and he tried to wrench his hand away. “You can't do this for me," he said. "I won't let you."
"It's not for you. It's not a favor. It's the cruelest thing I could do." She meant every word, clenching tighter.
"Rin.." Nezha looked so scared. It was a funny thing, how fear made him more like the young, unbearable boy she’d first met all those years ago. “Don’t.”
"Come, now." She linked her fingers around his. "Properly this time."
As Rin guided his hand over her heart, Nezha realized refusing her would damn Nikara to chaos. Obeying her would damn him instead.
“Rin, wait.” Kitay choked out. “Fucking hell, wait.”
She turned her head at the sound of his voice.
For a moment, just a moment, hope flared bright and stupid in his chest. Kitay thought -absurdly- that she might stop. That she might look at him and change her mind. That all of this might still be undone. He was smarter than that.
His throat closed. The words tangled and refused to come. ‘I love you’ felt too small though they said it all the time. ‘Don’t go’ felt cruel. ‘Goodbye’ was something he couldn’t accept. Everything he wanted to say arrived too late against the certainty of what she’d already chosen.
Rin’s expression softened.
He saw the little girl he grew up alongside. The strange short-tempered Southerner who was fascinated with pissing statues and food he got to eat on a regular basis. He recalled asking her then of things that didn’t matter anymore. How Niang was cute, Venka beautiful, Nezha even more so.
It was worse than if she’d looked away.
“Fix this.” She ordered the both of them.
That was all.
All three of them were caught in that terrible stillness for a second. Kitay biting down words he could not say, Nezha frozen in horror, Rin steady.
When Nezha moved, it was because Rin guided his hand. The knife slid easily into her chest.
The pain was immediate. Rin leaned into it, breath leaving her in a soft, surprised exhale.
Rin’s eyes found Kitay’s one last time. There was no apology in them. No regret. Only resolve and something like relief.
Then her gaze went distant. Her body went slack.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Rin had seen the future and for the first time, she had stepped out of it.
Dirigibles came into view. Nezha lowered her small body. Kitay collapsed beside her, helplessly sobbing, calling her name again and again even though she could no longer hear it. The stain on his cheek had already dried there like a scar. He wondered if it would haunt him like the Altan’s handprint on her sternum.
Still, th world did not end. That was the worst part.
Now they carried a heavier burden because she no longer could.
They still had a job to do. One that would probably have to do with bringing Fang Runin’s head with them.