“You’re not afraid of me?” she asked.
“I trust you,” he said.
“You shouldn’t.”
“Then I trust you more than you trust yourself.” He was acting like an entirely different person. The harsh persona was gone. His voice sounded so gentle, so encouraging that she was suddenly reminded of Tutor Feyrik.
She hadn’t thought about Tutor Feyrik in a long time.
She hadn’t felt safe in a long time.
Vaisra leaned back in his chair. “Go on, then. Try calling the fire for me. Just a little bit.”
She opened her hand and focused her eyes on her palm. She recalled the rage, felt the heat of it coil in the pit of her stomach. But this time it didn’t come all at once in an uncontrollable torrent, but manifested as a slow, angry burn.
A small burst of flame erupted in her palm. And it was just the burst; no more, no less, though she could increase its size, or if she wanted to, force it even smaller.
She closed her eyes, breathing slowly; cautiously she raised the flame higher and higher, a single ribbon of fire swaying over her hand like a reed, until Vaisra commanded her, “Stop.”
She closed her fist. The fire went out.
Only afterward did she realize how fast her heart was beating.
“Are you all right?” Vaisra asked.
She managed a nod.
A smile spread over his face. He looked more than pleased. He looked proud. “Do it again. Make it bigger. Brighter. Shape it for me.”
She reeled. “I can’t. I don’t have that much control.”
“You can. Don’t think about the Phoenix. Look at me.”
She met his eyes. His gaze was an anchor.
A fire sparked out of her fist. She shaped it with trembling hands until it took on the image of a dragon, coils undulating in the space between her and Vaisra, making the air shimmer with the heat of the blaze.
More, said the Phoenix. Bigger. Higher.
Its screams pushed at the edge of her mind. She tried to shut it down.
The fire didn’t recede.
She started to shake. “No, I can’t—I can’t, you have to get out—”
“Don’t think about it,” Vaisra whispered. “Look at me.”
Slowly, so faintly she was afraid she was imagining it, the red behind her eyelids subsided.
The fire disappeared. She collapsed to her knees.
“Good girl,” Vaisra said softly.
She wrapped her arms around herself, rocked back and forth on the floor, and tried to remember how to breathe.
“May I show you something?” Vaisra asked.
She looked up. He crossed the room to a cabinet, opened a drawer, and pulled out a cloth-covered parcel. She flinched when he jerked the cloth off, but all she saw underneath was the dull sheen of metal.
“What is it?” she asked.
But she already knew. She would recognize this weapon anywhere. She had spent hours gazing upon that steel, the metal etched with evidence of countless battles. It was metal all the way through, even at the hilt, which would normally be made of wood, because Speerlies needed weapons that wouldn’t burn through when they held them.
Rin felt a sudden light-headedness that had nothing to do with opium withdrawal and everything to do with the sudden and terribly vivid memory of Altan Trengsin walking down the pier to his death.
A harsh sob rose in her throat. “Where did you get that?”
“My men recovered it from the Chuluu Korikh.” Vaisra bent down and held the trident out before her. “I thought you might want to have it.”
She blinked at him, uncomprehending. “You—why were you there?”
“You’ve got to stop thinking I know less than I do. We were looking for Altan. He would have been, ah, useful.”
She snorted through her tears. “You think Altan would have joined you?”
“I think Altan wanted any opportunity to rebuild this Empire.”
“Then you don’t know anything about him.”
“I knew his people,” Vaisra said. “I led the soldiers that liberated him from the research facility, and I helped train him when he was old enough to fight. Altan would have fought for this Republic.”
She shook her head. “No, Altan just wanted to make things burn.”
She reached out, grasped the trident, and hefted it in her hands. It felt awkward in her fingers, too heavy at the front and oddly light near the back. Altan had been much taller than she, and the weapon seemed too long for her to wield comfortably.
It couldn’t function like a sword. It was a no good for lateral blows. This trident had to be wielded surgically. Killing strikes only.
She held it away from her. “I shouldn’t have this.”
“Why not?”
She barely got the words out, she was crying so hard. “Because I’m not him.”
Because I should have died, and he should be alive and standing here.
“No, you’re not.” Vaisra continued to stroke her hair with one hand, though he’d already smoothed it behind her ears. The other hand closed over her fingers, pressing them harder around the cool metal. “You’ll be better.”
When Rin was sure she could stomach solid food without vomiting, she joined Nezha abovedeck for her first actual meal in more than a week.
“Don’t choke.” Nezha sounded amused.
She was too busy ripping apart a steamed bun to respond. She didn’t know if the food on deck was ridiculously good, or if she was just so famished that it tasted like the best thing she’d ever eaten.
“It’s a pretty day,” he said while she swallowed.
She made a muffled noise in agreement. The first few days she hadn’t been able to bear standing outside in the direct sunlight. Now that her eyes no longer burned, she could look out over the bright water without wincing.
“Kitay’s still sulking?” she asked.
“He’ll come around,” Nezha said. “He’s always been stubborn.”
“That’s putting it lightly.”
“Have a little sympathy. Kitay never wanted to be a soldier. He spent half his time wishing he’d gone to Yuelu Mountain, not Sinegard. He’s an academic at heart, not a fighter.”
Rin remembered. All Kitay had ever wanted to do was be a scholar, go to the academy at Yuelu Mountain, and study science, or astronomy, or whatever struck his fancy at the moment. But he was the only son of the defense minister to the Empress, so his fate had been carved out before he was even born.
“That’s sad,” she murmured. “You shouldn’t have to be a soldier unless you want to.”
Nezha rested his chin on his hand. “Did you want to?”
She hesitated.
Yes. No. She hadn’t thought there was anything else for her. She hadn’t thought it mattered if she wanted to.
“I used to be scared of war,” she finally said. “Then I realized I was very good at it. And I’m not sure I’d be good at anything else.”
Nezha nodded silently, gazing out at the river, pulling mindlessly at his steamed bun without eating it.
“How’s your . . . uh . . .” Nezha gestured toward his temples.
“Good. I’m good.”
For the first time she felt as if she had a handle on her anger. She could think. She could breathe. The Phoenix was still there, looming in the back of her mind, ready to burst into flame if she called it—but only if she called it.
She looked down to discover the steamed bun was gone. Her fingers were clutching nothing. Her stomach reacted to this by growling.
“Here,” Nezha said. He handed her his somewhat mangled bun. “Have mine.”
“You’re not hungry?”
“I don’t have much of an appetite right now. And you look emaciated.”