“Please don’t leave,” Nezha said, as if reading her mind.

She folded her arms against her chest. “I didn’t think you ever wanted to see me again.”

“Why would you think that?”

“‘It would be best if we died,’” she said. “Who said that?”

“I didn’t mean that—”

“Then what? Where do you draw the line? Suni, Baji, Altan—we’re all monsters in your book, aren’t we?”

“I was angry that you called me a coward—”

“Because you are a coward!” she shouted. “How many men died at Boyang? How many are going to die today? But no, Yin Nezha has the power to stop the river and he won’t do it, because he’s fucking scared of a tattoo on his back—”

“I told you, it hurts—”

“It always hurts. You call the gods anyway. We’re soldiers—we make the sacrifices we must, no matter what it takes. But I suppose you would put your own comfort over a chance to crush the Empire—”

“Comfort?” Nezha repeated. “You think it’s about comfort? Do you know how it felt, when I was in his cave? Do you know what he did to me?”

“Yes,” she said. “Exactly the same thing the Phoenix did to me.”

Rin knew Nezha’s pain. She just didn’t have the sympathy for it.

“You’re acting like a fucking child,” she said. “You’re a general, Nezha. Do your job.”

Anger darkened his face. “Just because you’ve decided to worship your abuser doesn’t mean we all—”

Rin stiffened. “No one abused me.”

“Rin, you know that’s not true.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m sorry.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Look—I really am. I didn’t come here to talk about that. I don’t want to fight.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because you could die out there,” he said. “We both could.” His words poured out in a torrent, as if he were afraid that if he stopped speaking they would run out of time, as if he would only ever get this one chance. “I saw it happen, I saw you bleeding out in the water, and I couldn’t do anything about it. That was the worst part.”

“Are you high?” she demanded.

“I just want to make things right between us. What’s that going to take?” Nezha spread his arms. “Should I let you hit me? Do you want to? Go ahead, take a swing. I won’t move.”

Rin almost took him up on the offer. But the moment she made a fist, her anger dissipated.

Why was it that whenever she looked at Nezha, she wanted to either kill him or kiss him? He made her either furious or deliriously happy. The one thing he did not make her feel was secure.

With him there was no neutrality, no in between. She loved him or she hated him, but she didn’t know how to do both.

She lowered her fist.

“I really am sorry,” Nezha said. “Please, Rin. I don’t want us to end like this.”

He tried to say something else, but the sudden boom of the signal gongs drowned out his voice. They reverberated through the barracks with such loud urgency that Rin could feel the ground trembling beneath her feet.

The familiar taste of blood filled her mouth. Panic, fear, and adrenaline flooded her veins. But this time they didn’t make her collapse; she didn’t want to curl into a ball and rock back and forth until it was over. She was used to this now, and she could use it as a fuel. Turn it into bloodlust.

“We should be in position,” she said. She tried to walk past him into the barracks to get her equipment, but he grabbed at her arm.

“Rin, please—you have more enemies than you think you do—”

She shrugged him off. “Let me go!”

He blocked her path. “I don’t want this to be the last conversation we ever have.”

“Then don’t die out there,” she said. “Problem solved.”

“But Feylen—”

“We’re not going to lose to Feylen this time,” she said. “We’re going to win, and we’re going to live.”

He sounded like a terrified child woken up from a bad dream. “But how do you know?”

She didn’t know what made her do it, but she put her hand on Nezha’s shoulder. It wasn’t an apology or forgiveness, but it was a concession. An acknowledgment.

And for just a moment, she felt a hint of that old camaraderie, a flicker she’d felt once, a year ago at Sinegard, when he’d thrown her a sword and they’d fought back to back, enemies turned to comrades, firmly on the same side for the first time in their lives.

She saw the way he was looking at her. She knew he felt it, too.

“Between us, we have the fire and the water,” she said quietly. “I’m quite sure that together, we can take on the wind.”

Chapter 31

“I can feel my heartbeat in my temples.” Venka leaned over her mounted crossbow and checked the gears for what seemed like the hundredth time. It was cranked to maximum, fitted in with twelve reloading bolts. “Don’t you love this part?”

“I hate this part,” Kitay said. “Feels like we’re waiting for our executioner.”

His hairline sported visible bald patches. He was going mad waiting for the Imperial Navy to show up, and Rin knew why. They both liked it so much better when they were on the offensive, when they could decide when to attack and where.

They’d been taught at Sinegard that fighting a defensive battle by sitting behind fixed fortifications was courting disaster because it just gave the enemy the advantage of initiative. Unless a siege was at play, sitting behind defenses was almost always a doomed strategy, because there were no locks that couldn’t be broken, and no fortresses that were impregnable.

And this would not be a siege. Daji had no interest in starving them out. She didn’t need to. She intended to smash right through the gates.

“Arlong hasn’t been taken for centuries,” Venka pointed out.

Kitay’s hands twitched. “Well, its luck had to run out sometime.”

The Republic was as prepared as it ever would be. The generals had set their defensive traps. They’d divided and positioned their troops—seven artillery stations all along the upper cliffs, the majority stationed on the Republican Fleet in formation inside the channel, and the rest either guarding the shore or barricading the heavily fortified palace.

Rin wished that the Cike could be up on the cliff fighting by her side, but neither Baji nor Suni could offer much air support against Feylen. They were both stationed on warships at the center of the Republican Fleet where, right in the brunt of enemy fire, their abilities might stay hidden from Hesperian observers, and also where they’d be able to cause the most damage.

“Is Nezha in position?” Kitay peered over the channel.

Nezha was assigned to the front of the fleet, leading one of the three remaining warships that could hold its own in a naval skirmish. He was to drive his ship directly into the center of the Imperial Fleet and split it apart.

“Nezha’s always in position,” said Venka. “He’s sprung like a—”