Souji chuckled. “What’s wrong, Princess?”

“I just . . .” Rin wasn’t sure how to articulate her unease, much less distinguish it from obvious hypocrisy. “Isn’t this a bit much?”

“‘A bit much’?” He scoffed. “Really? This from you?”

“It’s different when . . .” She trailed off. How exactly was it different? What right did she have to judge? Why did she feel shame and disgust now, when the pain she regularly inflicted on the battlefield was a thousand times worse? “It’s different when it’s civilians doing it. It . . . it feels wrong.”

“How did it feel when you called the Phoenix at Speer?”

She flinched. “What does that matter?”

“It was good, wasn’t it?” His lip curled. “Oh, it was horrific, I’m sure, must have left a mental scar the size of a crater. But it was also the best thing you’d ever felt, wasn’t it? It felt like you’d put the universe back in place. Like you were balancing the scales. Didn’t it?”

He pointed to the men on the stage. They weren’t screaming anymore. Only one was still twitching. “You don’t know what these men have done. They might look like innocent Nikara faces, but you weren’t here during occupation, and you don’t know the pain they caused. The south doesn’t burn its own unless there’s a reason. You have no idea what these villagers are healing from. So don’t take this from them.”

His voice grew louder. “You don’t fix hurts by pretending they never happened. You treat them like infected wounds. You dig deep with a burning knife and gouge out the rotten flesh and then, maybe, you have a chance to heal.”

So when the south reclaimed itself in a sea of blood, Rin didn’t stop it. She could only watch as the tide of peasant violence rose to a fever pitch that she wasn’t sure she could control, even if she’d wanted to. Nobody would admit out loud how satisfying this was—the villagers had to pretend that this was a ritual of necessity and not of indulgence—but Rin saw the hungry gleams in their eyes as they drank in the screams.

This was catharsis. They needed to spill blood like they needed to breathe. Of course she understood that impulse; at night, alone with her pipe, she showed those bloody scenes over and over again to Altan so that her mind could find some semblance of peace while he could drink them hungrily in. The south needed retribution to keep going. How could she deprive them?

Only Kitay kept agitating to put an end to the riots. He could allow for the death penalty but he wanted order; he wanted public trials that weren’t a sham and sentences more moderate than execution.

“Some of those people are innocent,” he said. “Some of them were just trying to stay alive.”

“Bullshit,” Souji said. “They made their choice.”

“Do you understand the choices they got?” Kitay pointed across the courtyard to where a man had been hanging upside down by his ankles for the past three days. “He served as one of their translators for seven months. Why? Because the Mugenese captured his wife and daughter and told him he could serve, or he could watch them be buried alive. Then they started torturing his daughter in front of him to drive home the point. What do you think he picked?”

Souji was utterly unmoved. “He helped them kill other Nikara.”

“Everyone helped them kill other Nikara,” Kitay insisted. “Ideological purity is well and fine, but some people were just trying to survive.”

“You know, the Mugenese gave my sister a choice,” Souji said. “Said she could be one of their double agents and rat on her fellow villagers, or they’d rape and kill her. You know what she picked?”

Kitay’s cheeks flushed red. “I’m not saying—”

“Did you know the Mugenese liked to play games to fill their kill quota?” Souji inquired.

“I know,” Kitay said. “At Golyn Niis—”

“I know what they did at Golyn Niis.” Souji’s voice was like steel. “Want to know what they did here? They’d drive mobs of villagers up to the roofs of the tallest buildings they could find. Then they’d tear down the stairs, set the bottom floors on fire, and stand back in a circle to watch while they screamed. That’s what those collaborators had a hand in. Tell me we’re supposed to forgive that.”

“Kitay,” Rin said quietly. “Drop it.”

He didn’t. “But they’re not just targeting the Mugenese and their collaborators.”

“Kitay, please—”

“They’re targeting everyone who’s ever been remotely suspected of collaboration,” Kitay hissed. “This isn’t justice, it’s a killing frenzy, and whispers and pointed fingers are ending lives. You can’t tell who’s truly guilty and who’s fallen on the bad side of their neighbors. It’s not justice, it’s chaos.”

“So what?” Souji shrugged. “Hunt a rat, you’re going to smash some dishes. This is a revolution. It’s not a fucking tea party.”

They marched in silent exhaustion on the road back to Leiyang. The thrill of victory had long since died off. Two weeks of screams and torture, no matter who the victims were, had left them all somewhat haggard and pale.

They were half a day’s march out when a hooded rider appeared on the road. Rin’s officers rushed forward, spears leveled, shouting for the rider to stop. The rider halted, raising their hands to indicate the lack of weapon.

“Get down!” Zhuden insisted. “Who are you?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Venka threw the hood off her face and dismounted from her horse. She strode forth, batting spear points away with one hand as if swatting at a cloud of gnats. “What the fuck, Rin? Call off these fools.”

“Venka!” Rin darted forward and embraced Venka, but quickly let go; the stench was too much to bear. Venka smelled like a tannery on fire. “Great Tortoise, when’s the last time you had a bath?”

“Cut me a fucking break,” Venka said. “I’ve been fleeing for my life.”

“You had time to put on fresh face paint,” Kitay pointed out.

“Everyone was doing it in Sinegard. I had some left in my bag. Easier to access than soap, all right?”

Rin could only laugh. What else did they expect? Sring Venka was a prim, spoiled Sinegardian princess turned lethal soldier turned brittle survivor; of course she’d walk into a war zone with red paint on her lips simply because she felt like it.

“Anyway, it took you long enough to get back,” Venka griped. “I’ve been pacing this patch of road since yesterday. They told me you were based in Leiyang.”

“We were,” Rin said. “Are. Left to do some cleaning up.”

“What happened?” Kitay asked. “Thought you were just fine in the Republic.”

Venka gave a dramatic sigh. “Broke my cover. It was the stupidest thing. There I was, an utterly invisible servant girl in a magistrate’s household, and then the lady of the house started thinking I was trying to seduce her husband and dragged me out into the street.”

“Were you—?” Kitay began.

Venka shot him a scathing look. “Of course not. It’s not my fault that the stupid man couldn’t keep his eyes off my ass.”