The Burning God

She was a goddess. She was a monster.

Why? He wanted to scream at her. He wanted to shake her, throttle her, until she answered. Rin, what the fuck?

But he knew why.

He knew exactly what choice she’d made and what she’d intended. And that made everything—hating her, loving her, surviving her—so much harder.

You bitch, he thought. You fucking bitch.

He couldn’t move. He could hardly breathe. As he stared down at the tiny body in his arms—so limp and lifeless, so utterly unlike the vicious human hurricane he knew as Fang Runin—all he could do was tremble.

Kitay lay still beside him. He knew Kitay was gone, too—that Kitay had died a bloodless death the moment he plunged the blade into Rin’s heart, because Rin and Kitay were bonded in a way that he could never understand, and there was no world where Rin died and Kitay remained alive.

As Rin bled out over the sand, the only thought running through his mind was that she was so small, so light, so fragile in his arms.

“Come, now.” She linked her fingers around Nezha’s. Closed both his hands around the cold, cold hilt as lightning arced around them, between them. Brought the blade round to the front. “Properly this time.”

“Rin.” Nezha looked so scared. It was a funny thing, how fear made him look so much younger, how it rounded his eyes and erased the cruel grimace of his sneer so that he looked, just for an instant, like the boy she’d first met at Sinegard. “Rin, don’t—”

“Fix this,” she ordered.

Nezha’s fingers went slack in hers. She tightened her grip; she had enough resolve for the both of them. As the dirigibles descended toward Speer, she brought Nezha’s hand up to her chest and plunged the blade into her heart.

She glanced down at Kitay.

He was awake, his face set in resolve. He gave her a grim nod.

That was all she had to see. That was permission.

Dying was easy. Living was so much harder—that was the most important lesson Altan had ever taught her.

She stood up, reached for Nezha’s hand, and curled his fingers around the handle of the knife.

He stiffened. “What are you—”

“Get their respect,” she said. “Tell them you killed me. Tell them everything they want to hear. Say whatever you need to to get them to trust you.”

“Rin—”

“It’s the only way forward.”

He understood what she meant him to do. His eyes widened in alarm, and he tried to wrench his hand away, but she clenched his fingers tight.

“Nezha—”

“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 it.