by R. F. Kuang
“But?” Kitay pressed.
“But it can also amplify your abilities. Make you stronger than any shaman has the right to be.”
“Like the Trifecta,” Rin realized. “They’re bonded to each other. That’s why they’re so powerful.”
It made so much sense now—why Daji had not killed Jiang if they were enemies. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t, without killing herself.
She sat up with a start. “So that means . . .”
“Yes,” said Chaghan. “As long as Daji is alive, the Dragon Emperor and the Gatekeeper are both still alive. It’s possible their bond was dissolved, but I doubt it. Daji’s power is far too stable. The other two are out there, somewhere. But my guess is that they can’t be doing too well, because the rest of the country thinks they’re dead.”
You will destroy one another. One will die, one will rule, and one will sleep for eternity.
Kitay voiced the question on Rin’s mind. “Then what happened to them? Why did they go missing?”
Chaghan shrugged. “You’d have to ask the other two. Have you finished drinking?”
Kitay drained the cup and winced. “Ugh. Yes.”
“Good. Now eat the mushrooms.”
Kitay blinked. “What?”
“There’s no agaric in that cup,” Chaghan said.
“Oh, you asshole,” Rin said.
“I don’t understand,” Kitay said.
Chaghan gave him a thin smile. “I just wanted to see if you’d drink horse piss.”
The Sorqan Sira waited outside before a roaring fire. The flames seemed alive to Rin; the tendrils jumped too high, reached too far, like little hands trying to pull her into the blaze. If she let her gaze linger, the smoke, turned purple by the Sorqan Sira’s powders, started taking on the faces of the dead. Master Irjah. Aratsha. Captain Salkhi. Altan.
“Are you ready?” asked the Sorqan Sira.
Rin blinked the faces away.
She knelt across from Kitay on the frigid dirt. Despite the cold, they were permitted to wear only trousers and undershirts that exposed their bare arms. The inky characters trailing down their skin shone in the firelight.
She was terrified. He didn’t look afraid at all.
“I’m ready,” he said. His voice was steady.
“Ready,” she echoed.
Between them lay two long, serrated knives and a sacrifice.
Rin didn’t know how the Ketreyids had managed to trap an adult deer, massive and healthy, without any visible wounds, in just a matter of hours. Its legs were bound tightly together. Rin suspected that the animal had been sedated, because it lay quite still on the dirt, eyes half-open as if it were resigned to its fate.
The effect of the agaric had begun to set in. Everything seemed terribly bright. When objects moved in her field of vision, they left behind trails like streaks of paint that sparked and swirled before they faded away.
She focused with difficulty on the deer’s neck.
She and Kitay were to make two cuts, one on either side of the animal, so that neither could bear full responsibility for its death. Alone, each wound would be insufficient to kill. The deer might drag itself away, cover the cut in mud and somehow survive. But wounds on both sides meant certain death.
Rin picked her knife off the ground and gripped it tightly in her hands.
“Repeat after me,” said the Sorqan Sira, and uttered a slow stream of Ketreyid words. The foreign syllables sounded clunky and awkward in Rin’s mouth. She knew their meaning only because the twins had explained them to her.
We will live as one. We will fight as one.
And we will kill as one.
“The sacrifice,” said the Sorqan Sira.
They brought their knives down.
Rin found it harder than she’d expected. Not because she was unused to killing—cutting through flesh was as easy to her now as breathing. It was the fur that offered resistance. She clenched her teeth and pushed harder. The knife sank into the deer’s side.
The deer arched its neck and screamed.
Rin’s knife hadn’t gone in deep enough. She had to widen the cut. Her hands shook madly; the handle was loose between her fingers.
But Kitay dragged his knife across the deer’s side with one clean, steady stroke.
Blood pooled, fast and dark, around their knees. The deer stopped writhing. Its head drooped to the ground.
Through the haze of the agaric, Rin saw the moment the deer’s life left its body—a golden, shimmering aura that lingered over the corpse like an ethereal copy of its physical form before drifting upward like smoke. She tilted her head up, watched it floating higher and higher toward the heavens.
“Follow it,” said the Sorqan Sira.
She did. It seemed such a simple matter. Under the agaric’s influence her soul was lighter than air itself. Her mind ascended, her material body became a distant memory, and she flew up into the vast and dark void that was the cosmos.
She found herself standing on the periphery of a great circle, its circumference etched with glowing Hexagrams—characters that together spelled the nature of the universe, the sixty-four deities that constituted all that was and would ever be.
The circle tilted and became a pool, inside which swam two massive carp, one white, one black, each with a large dot of the opposite color on its flank. They drifted lazily, chasing each other in a slow-moving, eternal circle.
She saw Kitay on the other side of the circle. He was naked. It was not a physical nakedness; he was made more of light than he was of body—but every thought, every memory, and every feeling he’d ever had shone out toward her. Nothing was hidden.
She was similarly naked before him. All of her secrets, her insecurities, her guilt, and her rage had been laid bare. He saw her cruelest, most brutal desires. He saw parts of her that she didn’t even understand herself. The part that was terrified of being alone and terrified of being the last. The part that realized it loved pain, adored it, could find release only in pain.
And she could see him. She saw the way that concepts were stored in his mind, great repositories of knowledge linked together to be called up at a moment’s notice. She saw the anxiety that came with being the only person he knew who was this smart. She saw how scared he was, trapped and isolated in his own mind, watching his world break down around him because of irrationalities that he could not fix.
And she understood his sadness. The grief; the loss of a father, but more than just that—the loss of an empire, the loss of loyalty, of duty, his sole meaning for existence—
She saw his fury.
How had it taken her this long to understand? She wasn’t the only one fueled by anger. But where her rage was explosive, immediate and devastating, Kitay’s burned with a silent determination; it festered and rotted and lingered, and the strength of his hate stunned her.
We’re the same.
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. The Phoenix was still there. She knew it was screaming for her. But it couldn’t get through. A wall had been built in her mind, a psychic structure that repelled and muted the god to just a faint whisper.
Fuck you, said the Phoenix, but even now it sounded amused. Fuck you, little Speerly.
She shouted with delight. She hadn’t just recovered, she had tamed a god. The anchor bond had set her free.
She watched, trembling, as fire accumulated on her palms. She called it higher. Made it leap through the air in arcs like fish jumping from the ocean. She could command it as completely as Altan had been able to. No. She was better than Altan had ever been, because she was sober, she was stable, and she was free.
The fear of madness was gone, but not the impossible power. The power remained, a deep well from which she could draw when she chose.
And now she could choose.
She saw Kitay watching her. His eyes were wide, his expression equal parts fear and awe.
“Are you all right?” she asked him. “Can you feel it?”
He didn’t answer. He touched a hand to his temple, his gaze fixed so hard on the flames that she could see them reflected bright in his eyes, and he laughed.
That night the Ketreyids fed them a bone broth—scorching hot, musky, tangy, and salty all at once. Rin guzzled it as fast as she could. It scalded the back of her throat, but she didn’t care. She’d been subsisting on dried fish and rice gruel for so long that she’d forgotten how good proper food could taste.
Qara passed her a mug. “Drink more water. You’re getting dehydrated.”
“Thanks.” Rin was still sweating despite the cold onset of night. Little droplets beaded all over her skin, soaking straight through her clothing.
Across the fire, Kitay and Chaghan were engaged in an animated discussion which, as far as Rin could tell, involved the metaphysical nature of the cosmos. Chaghan drew diagrams in the dirt with a stick while Kitay watched, nodding enthusiastically.
Rin turned to Qara. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” Qara said.
Rin shot Kitay a glance. He wasn’t paying her any attention. He’d seized the stick from Chaghan and was scrawling a very complicated mathematical equation below the diagrams.
Rin lowered her voice. “How long have you and your brother been anchored?”
“For our entire lives,” Qara said. “We were ten days old when we performed the ritual. I can’t remember life without him.”
“And the bond has always . . . it’s always been equal? One of you doesn’t diminish the other?”
Qara raised an eyebrow. “Do you think I’ve been diminished?”
“I don’t know. You always seem so . . .” Rin trailed off. She didn’t know how to phrase it. Qara had always been a mystery to her. She was the moon to her brother’s sun. Chaghan was such an overbearing personality. He loved the spotlight, loved to lecture everyone around him in the most condescending way possible. But Qara had always preferred the shadows and the silent company of her birds. Rin had never heard her express an opinion that wasn’t her brother’s.
“You think Chaghan dominates me,” Qara said.
Rin blushed. “No, I just—”
“You’re worried you’ll overpower Kitay,” Qara said. “You think your rage will become too much for him and that he’ll become only a shade of you. You think that’s what has happened to us.”
“I’m scared,” Rin said. “I almost killed him. And if that—that imbalance, or whatever, is a risk, I want to know. I don’t want to strip him of his ability to challenge me.”
Qara nodded slowly. She sat silently for a long while, frowning.
“My brother doesn’t dominate me,” she said at last. “At least, not in a way I could ever possibly know. But I’ve never challenged him.”
“Then how—”
“Our wills have been united since we were children. We desire the same things. When he speaks, he voices both our thoughts. We are two halves of the same person. If I seem withdrawn to you, it is because Chaghan’s presence in the mortal world frees me to dwell among the spirit world. I prefer animal souls to mortals, to whom I’ve never had much to say. That doesn’t mean I’m diminished.”
“But Kitay’s not like you,” Rin said. “Our wills aren’t aligned. If anything, we disagree more often than not. And I don’t want to . . . erase him.”
Qara’s expression softened. “Do you love him?”
“Yes,” Rin said immediately. “More than anyone else in the world.”
“Then you don’t need to worry,” Qara said. “If you love him, then you can trust yourself to protect him.”
Ri
n hoped that was true.
“Hey,” Kitay said. “What’s so interesting over there?”
“Nothing,” Rin said. “Just gossip. Have you cracked the nature of the cosmos?”
“Not yet.” Kitay tossed his stick onto the dirt. “But give me a year or two. I’m getting close.”
Qara stood up. “Come. We should get some sleep.”
Sometime during the day the Ketreyids had built several more yurts, clustered together in a circle. The yurt designated for Rin and her companions was at the very center. The message was clear. They were still under Ketreyid watch until the Sorqan Sira chose to release them.
The yurt felt far too cramped for four people. Rin curled up on her side, knees drawn up to her chest, although all she wanted to do was sprawl out, let all of her limbs loose. She felt suffocated. She wanted open air—open sands, wide water. She took a deep breath, trying to stave off the same panic that had crept up on her during the sweat.
“What’s the matter?” Qara asked.
“I think I’d rather sleep outside.”
“You’ll freeze outside. Don’t be stupid.”
Rin propped herself up on her side. “You look comfortable.”
Qara smiled. “Yurts remind me of home.”
“How long has it been since you’ve been back?” Rin asked.
Qara thought for a moment. “They sent us down south when we turned eleven. So it has been a decade, now.”
“Do you ever wish you could go home?”
“Sometimes,” Qara said. “But there’s not much at home. Not for us, anyway. It’s better to be a foreigner in the Empire than a Naimad on the steppe.”
Rin supposed that was to be expected when one’s tribe was responsible for training a handful of traitorous murderers.
“So—what, no one talks to you back home?” she asked.
“Back home we are slaves,” Chaghan said flatly. “The Ketreyids still blame our mother for the Trifecta. They will never accept us back into the fold. We’ll pay penance for that forever.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the space between them. Rin had more questions, she just didn’t know how to ask them.