Kitay wanted vengeance and blood. Under that frail veneer of control was an ongoing scream of rage that originated in confusion and culminated in an overwhelming urge for destruction, if only so he could tear the world down and rebuild it in a way that made sense.
The circle glowed between them. The black carp and white carp began to circle faster and faster until the darkness and brightness were indistinct; not gray, not melded into each other but yet the same entity—two sides of the same coin, necessary complements balancing each other like the Pantheon was balanced.
The circle spun and they spun with it—faster and faster, until the Hexagrams blurred and melded into a glowing hoop. For a moment Rin was lost in the convergence—up became down, right became left, all distinctions were broken . . .
Then she felt the power, and it was magnificent.
She felt like she had when Shiro injected her veins with heroin. It was the same rush, the same dizzying flood of energy. But this time her spirit did not drift farther and farther from the material world. This time she knew where her body was, could return to it in seconds if she wanted. She was halfway between the spirit world and the material world. She could perceive both, affect both.
She had not gone up to meet her god; her god had been drawn down into her. She felt the Phoenix all about her, the rage and fire, so deliciously warm that it tickled as it coursed over her.
She was so delighted that she wanted to laugh.
But Kitay was moaning. He had been for some time now, but she was so entranced with the power that she’d hardly noticed.
“It’s not taking.” The Sorqan Sira intruded sharply on Rin’s reverie. “Stop it, you’re overpowering him.”
Rin opened her eyes and saw Kitay curled into a ball, whimpering on the ground. He jerked his head back and uttered a long, keening scream.
Her sight blurred and shifted. One moment she was looking at Kitay and the next she couldn’t see him at all. All she could see was fire, vast expanses of fire over which only she had control . . .
“You’re erasing him,” hissed the Sorqan Sira. “Pull yourself back.”
But why? She’d never felt so good before. She never wanted this sensation to stop.
“You are going to kill him.” The Sorqan Sira’s fingers dug into her shoulder. “And then nothing will save you.”
Dimly, Rin understood. She was hurting Kitay, she had to stop, but how? The fire was so alluring, it reduced her rational mind to just a whisper. She heard the Phoenix’s laughter echoing around her mind, growing louder and stronger with every passing moment.
“Rin,” Kitay gasped. “Please.”
That brought her back.
Her grasp of the material world was fading. Before it disappeared entirely she snatched up her knife and stabbed down into her leg.
Spots of white exploded in her vision. The pain chased the fire away, induced a stark clarity back to her mind. The Phoenix fell silent. The void was still.
She saw Kitay across the spirit plane—kneeling, but alive, present, and whole.
She opened her eyes to dirt. Slowly she pulled herself into a sitting position, wiped the soil off the side of her face. She saw Kitay looking around in a daze, blinking as if he were seeing the world for the first time.
She reached for his hand. “Are you all right?”
He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I—I’m fine, I think, I just . . . Give me a moment.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Welcome to my world.”
“I feel like I’m living in a dream.” He examined the back of his hand, turned it over in the fading sunlight as if he didn’t trust the evidence of his own body. “I suppose—I saw the physical proof of your gods. I knew this power existed. But everything I know about the world—”
“The world you knew doesn’t exist,” she said softly.
“No shit.” Kitay’s hands clenched the dirt and grass like he was afraid the ground might disappear under his fingertips.
“Try it,” said the Sorqan Sira.
Rin didn’t have to ask what she meant.
She stood upon shaky legs and turned to face away from Kitay. She opened her palms. She felt the fire inside her chest, a warm presence waiting to pour out the moment she called it.
She summoned it forward. A warm flame appeared in her hands—a tame, quiet little thing.
She tensed, waiting for the pull, the urge to draw out more, more. But she felt nothing.