“You probably could. I’d fight back, of course, but you’d probably win. I would kill me.”
“Shut up,” Rin said.
She wanted to tighten her fists and choke the life out of Daji. But the rage had drained away. She didn’t have the will to fight anymore. She wanted to be angry—things were so much easier when she was just blindly angry—but the anger wouldn’t come.
Daji twisted out from her grip, and Rin didn’t try to stop her.
Daji was as good as dead regardless. Her face was a grotesque ruin—black liquid gushed out from her gouged eye. She stumbled to the side, fingers feeling for the ship.
Her good eye locked on to Rin’s. “What do you think happens to you after I’m gone? Don’t imagine for a moment you can trust Vaisra. Without me, Vaisra has no use for you. Vaisra discards his allies without blinking when they are no longer convenient, and if you don’t believe me when I say you’re next, then you’re a fool.”
Rin knew Daji was right.
She just didn’t know where that left her.
Daji shook her head and held her hands out, open and unthreatening. “Come with me.”
Rin took a small step forward.
Wood groaned above her head. Daji skirted backward. Too late, Rin looked up just in time to see the ship’s mast crashing down on her.
Rin couldn’t even scream. It took everything she had just to breathe. Air came in hoarse, painful bursts; it felt like her throat had been reduced to the diameter of a pin. Her entire back burned with agony.
Daji knelt down in front of her. Stroked her cheek. “You’ll need me. You don’t realize it now, but you’ll figure it out soon. You need me far more than you need them. I just hope you survive.”
She leaned down so close that Rin could feel her hot breath on her skin. Daji grabbed Rin by the chin and forced her to look up, into her good eye. Rin stared into a black pupil inside a ring of yellow, pulsing hypnotically, an abyss daring her to fall inside.
“I’ll leave you with this.”
Rin saw a beautiful young girl—Daji, it had to be—in a huddled heap on the ground, naked, clothes clutched to her chest. Dark blood dripped down pale thighs. She saw the young Riga sprawled on the ground, unconscious. She saw Jiang lying on his side, screaming, as a man kicked him in the ribs, over and over and over.
She dared to look up. Their tormenter was not Mugenese.
Blue eyes. Yellow hair. The soldier brought his boot down, over and over and over, and each time Rin heard another set of cracks.
She leaped forward in time, just a few minutes. The soldier was gone, and the children were clinging to each other, crying, covered in each other’s blood, crouching in the shadow of a different soldier.
“Get out of here,” said the soldier, in a tongue she was far too familiar with. A tongue she would have never believed would utter a kind word. “Now.”
Then Rin understood.
It had been a Hesperian soldier who raped Daji, and a Mugenese soldier who saved her. That was the frame the Empress had been locked into since childhood; that was the crux that had formed every decision afterward.
“The Mugenese weren’t the real enemy,” Daji murmured. “They never were. They were just poor puppets serving a mad emperor who started a war that he shouldn’t have. But who gave them those ideas? Who told them they could conquer the continent?”
Blue eyes. White sails.
“I warned you about everything. I told you this from the beginning. Those devils are going to destroy our world. The Hesperians have a singular vision for the future, and we’re not in it. You already know this. You must have realized it, now that you’ve seen what they’re like. I can see it in your eyes. You know they’re dangerous. You know you’ll need an ally.”
Questions formed on Rin’s tongue, too many to count, but she couldn’t summon the breath to speak them. Her vision was tunneling, turning black at the edges. All she could see was Daji’s pale face, dancing above her like the moon.
“Think about it,” Daji whispered, tracing her cool fingers over Rin’s cheek. “Figure out who you’re fighting for. And when you know, come find me.”
“Rin? Rin!” Venka’s face loomed over her. “Fucking hell. Can you hear me?”
Rin felt a great weight lifting off her back and shoulders. She lay flat, eyes open wide, sucking in great gulps of air.