Chapter Text
The silence in the room was deafening as Minister Chen failed to answer her. Kitay stared at her as if in a new light and she flattened her lips into a thin line. “Are you really going to let her lead this country?” Rin asked, half in desperation. She needed to understand why they weren’t going to do anything. “Twenty-five years she had, and this country still wasn’t prepared for war.”
“You’re speaking of civil war, rebellion.” Minister Chen murmured, his face pale and she narrowed her eyes.
“Of course I am,” Rin said brusquely. “You think she should be left in charge after all this?”
The look on his face told her yes, that he was willing to support her, even after everything. Her face twisted in disgust and disappointment, she couldn’t help it.
“She sold Altan out?” Kitay said in horror, his eyes darting between Rin and his father. “To Mugen?”
“She’s the Empress,” Minister Chen said to his son. “Regardless of what I think-”
“Father.”
“It’s civil war, Kitay,” Minister Chen held firm. “Nikan can’t survive a civil war.”
“We weren’t going to survive a war with Mugen,” Nezha said idly, his lithe fingers tracing patterns on the wooden table. “We barely survived the Battle of Sinegard. You weren’t at Sinegard, we were. Had Rin not been there, there’s a chance Mugen soldiers would have overrun the Northern Provinces. And where would we be then? The Southern Provinces are hardly capable of resisting. Nikan would be Mugen’s and there’s not a chance they’d let any of us live.”
His almond-shaped eyes remained steady, and he squeezed Rin’s hand. “Your eyes are red,” he murmured. His own flashed blue once, and she swallowed, her throat dry, the familiar calming sensation flooded over her senses. She inhaled quick, meditative breaths to calm herself. How was he so good at that?
“A civil war,” Kitay murmured, running a hand through his short shaggy curly hair. “Rin-” His eyes landed on their clasped hands and his gaze hardened. “Who would be in charge of Nikan if the Empress was removed?”
“Kitay-”
“She betrayed Altan to Mugen, father, and you knew,” Kitay said, his voice tight as they engaged in their own private argument. Could they sway Kitay? Was it working? “Perhaps it’s not wise to have her in a position of power.”
Her gaze bore into Kitay. They almost had him. She could feel it, she just needed to tip the scale in their favor.
“There was an entire brigade headed for Golyn Niis,” she added, and they both turned to stare at her agog. “We collapsed a mountain on them with the help of the Cike’s munitions expert. They’re no longer a problem, but they were coming.”
“An entire brigade?”
“Would Golyn Niis be prepared for an entire Mugen brigade?” She asked, her smile brittle. She knew the city wouldn't be. They knew it too.
She heard the reports from Nezha’s lieutenants in the city as they debriefed the two of them. The warlords stationed there could hardly get their heads out of their asses and their divisions were disjointed, a far cry from the forces that defended Sinegard, but only a microcosm of the issues that plagued Nikan.
Minister Chen swallowed, his eyes wide.
“Daji has done nothing to unite Nikan,” Rin implored. “You know that, and you know why. She removes any threat that might oppose her, even those who don’t deserve it.”
“Who do you intend to be in control of Nikan then?” Minister Chen said and Rin let her gaze flicker toward Nezha and he pursed his lips into a thin line.
“Ah. The Empress alerted me to the fact you two were in a relationship,” he said softly and Kitay shifted his attention from his father to them.
“Wait, what?” Rin tightened her grip on Nezha’s hand. “A relationship?” A throbbing sensation erupted in the back of her head. “Him?”
She met Kitay’s eyes with a frigid glare, her jaw set in stone. She heard the disbelief in his voice.
“I know you’ve always liked him, but really, Rin?”
A stone sank into her gut as she stared at Kitay, disbelief setting in for her. Her best friend and he thought she was doing this because of a mere attraction to Nezha?
She lost him. All hope she had of him willingly siding with them was gone. She lost him.
“Before I murdered Yin Vaisra by Daji’s order, he tried to convince me to defect and to serve him instead,” Rin said out loud and Nezha stiffened at his father’s name. There were still some secrets she kept from him.
The thought of renouncing the Empress didn’t appeal to Rin because she’d have to explain to Altan why. She didn’t want to leave Altan or the Cike. Three years into the Cike, they were her family, her home. She thought the price of killing the Empress’s enemies was more than a worthy price to pay.
“Do you know how I know Daji sold Speer out?” She asked, glaring at Minister Chen with bright red eyes who flinched. “Vaisra said that Riga was the one who ordered him to remove Dragon Province’s ships from Speer, leaving them vulnerable. I asked if this was simply Daji finishing the job because the Trifecta betrayed Speer by leaving us unprotected.”
She continued. “Vaisra recognized me as Speerly the moment I entered his office,” she said with anger. It stunned her, and he only sighed, watching her with a mournful look. Or what she thought was mournful. The reports on his informed her he was a master manipulator, cunning and incisive.
He could have ruled Nikan. Rin was blind. She hadn’t realized how much she cost Nikan. Perhaps if not Vaisra, then someone else she or the Cike murdered in Daji’s name. They spoke of how far behind Nikan was compared to other countries. Was it because they killed the very people who could have improved it?
“He called me Hanelai, my mother’s name,” Rin said, tilting her head thoughtfully, recalling the night barely lit by candles in his private office. The name sounded Speerly to Rin’s ears, but she dismissed it, not probing it further. She should have seen it coming. She should have brought it up to Altan, but as a habit after her missions, she isolated herself as she grappled with what she had done. It never got easier. “He thought I was a ghost, I suppose, coming to haunt him.”
“So rest assured, if it was merely the Yin good looks capable of swaying me, you would have seen me in Dragon Province colors years ago,” she said with a bitter sneer.
Someone burst into the room, almost with perfect timing, she noted wryly. It was Secretary Hong. “Milord!” He cried out in a panic. “I-” He stopped dead when he saw Rin with her blood-red eyes and Nezha sitting idly beside her.
“What is it, Hong?” Minister Chen stood up, perhaps relieved at the shift in conversation.
“He’s here to announce that the Seventh Division has seized Golyn Niis, and everyone working with Daji is now under house arrest,” Nezha said with a pleasant smile, standing up as well. Rin whipped her head to stare at him, wide-eyed. That they had not talked about at all. “This was an enlightening conversation, gentlemen,” he offered his hand to Rin, inviting her to stand up with him. “I do hope you haven’t made your final decision,” he noted. “I would hate for Ming to grow up without a grandfather,” he said softly, meeting their eyes.
Rin took his hand, swallowing, and was shocked by the contrast of theirs. Hers clammy and his warming and comforting, and the look in his eyes provided all the information she needed to know. He knew. He knew that when Rin received the order from Daji to kill Vaisra, Minister Chen signed off on his death warrant as well.
She squeezed his hand, shifting her countenance into something colder as she laid her eyes on the shell-shocked Chens.
“I can’t believe you’d think so little of me,” Rin said to Kitay, her voice bitter and pained. “I thought you knew me better than that.”
She left with Nezha, her head held high but with her heart hurting. Her only friend, her first friend, thought Nezha’s pretty face could easily sway her.
Different guards were stationed at the door, now wearing uniforms of blue and silver rather than the Chen burgundy and gold.
They walked in silence, the halls empty with splashes of blood dotting the walls. There was some fighting, and she hadn’t heard any of it. She stared at Nezha, almost in awe. He had engineered the capture of an entire city without her knowing. She was almost impressed.
“My father tried to convince you?” Nezha asked quietly, and she nodded.
“I was in too deep,” Rin whispered. “Altan convinced me that what we were doing was right, that the people we were murdering were a threat to Nikan’s stability.”
It wasn’t hard to disagree with his arguments. Nikan had a long, turbulent history of war and rebellion. This period of peace under Daji was the longest Nikan had ever borne witness to. She wanted to believe that what they were doing was right.
“What changed that?”
“There was a man in Rooster, Yang Souji,” Rin said, thinking of the dry fields and the dust that coated her throat. “He was a former Academy student, but he had to pull out because there was a famine in the southern provinces. His family needed him.”
“You killed him?”
She nodded again. “Slit his throat in the middle of the night. His crime? Trying to protest a magistrate’s tax hike that would have taken all the food they harvested, leaving them with crumbs. He could have helped Nikan,” Rin said, tilting her chin upward. “He was smart and charismatic and people followed him.” And not bad looking in a sort of roguish way. But he didn’t hold a candle to Nezha, regardless.
Nezha reached for her, pulling her into a hug.
“Are you sure you want me?” Rin joked half-heartedly. “I have a lot of blood on my hands.” He kissed the top of her head.
“That blood belongs to Daji,” he murmured, and the same calming sensation brushed against her scalp. “All of it.”
“I have to take some ownership,” Rin said, pulling back as she met his gaze. “I did it. I have to own it.”
“Would you have killed them had Daji had not ordered it?” Nezha pointed out.
“No.” Rin said, “I hardly would have known who they were, or cared really.” She thought of the murderous raping general in Horse, who could have lived, despite his serial raping, had he not threatened the Horse Warlord in public. Maybe that one she would have killed, and gladly.
“Then it’s not your fault. Daji ordered it because of her paranoia. Perhaps my father warranted it, but Yang Souji and the others did not.”
“You didn’t tell me that the Seventh Division was moving,” Rin murmured, not accusingly but just shocked. She wasn’t even aware of the possibility- where had Nezha found the time to coordinate with his lieutenants to encircle the city? How had he laid the pieces in place?
“You were distracted.” Nezha kissed her forehead again. “You were worried about Altan and Kitay.” He paused, glancing at her. “You liked me and Kitay knew?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Rin said, as they walked back to the Seagrim through the empty hallways. “I- I watched you a lot in the Fighting Rings. Kitay called me obsessed, but I told him it was part of Sunzi’s teachings, ‘know thine enemy’.”
She tilted her head back, admiring the high vaulted ceilings with the crisscrossing wooden patterns and the red-painted pillars. “I don’t know what I felt for you when we were at school,” she confessed. “But I can’t believe that he thinks I sided with you because of your face,” she said bitterly.
“It’s not?” There was almost a hint of hurt in his voice, and she turned on him and scowled, spotting his smirk. “We almost convinced him,” Nezha said as they came to the entrance, the guard wearing the Yin blue uniform nodding in greeting to his general, armed with a spear and his armor stained with blood. “He knows Daji shouldn’t be in charge. It’s just me he disagrees with.”
“And he warned me about school-age rivalries.” A cool breeze whipped around them as they exited the palace, her braided ponytail flying over her shoulder. Winter was settling in soon. Lovely. The Imperial Palace was now littered with blue flags flying with the Yin family crest dotting the walls. They had worked frighteningly fast.
“What are you going to do when the other divisions come?” Rin asked quietly. They would come. All the warlords were in Golyn Niis, save his older brother, and Rin wondered, was that planned? How quickly had Nezha decided to strike against Daji?
“I’ll talk to the warlords first,” Nezha said, his handsome visage looking more and more like his father in the bright sunlight. “See who sides with us, who doesn’t, and then I’ll give them a choice.”
“What about Daji?”
“She gets a choice too,” Nezha said grimly. “Chaghan warned me about her abilities, so my guards are prepared. She can either step down or die.”