“She’s here,” Rin murmured. The words felt thick and coppery on her tongue. “Take me to her.”

She had to go. She had no choice. She was a fly caught in a web; she was a hypnotized mouse crawling straight into a viper’s jaws. She could not walk away now, not until she knew what Su Daji wanted.

Chapter 8

Rin followed the girls along a winding path deep into the heart of the forest. Moonlight did not penetrate the upper canopy; the trees seemed packed with threats that hissed, buzzed, and lurked hidden within the shadows. Rin kept a small flame burning in her hand to serve as a lamp, but the trees loomed so thick she was afraid to grow her fire any larger lest they catch ablaze.

She willed her racing heart to slow. She wasn’t some scared little girl. She wasn’t afraid of the dark.

But she couldn’t quell her dread of what lay within.

“This way,” said the woman.

Rin ducked beneath a cluster of leaves and pushed through the underbrush, wincing as thorny branches scraped at her knees.

What am I doing?

If Kitay were here, he’d call her an idiot. He’d suggest she set the whole forest on fire and be done with it, Trifecta be damned. Instead, Rin was walking straight into Daji’s lair like dazed, entranced prey. Was stumbling right up to the woman who, for the better part of the last year, had spared no effort trying to torture, capture, or manipulate her.

But Daji didn’t want to kill her. She hadn’t ever before, and she didn’t now. Rin was sure of that. If Daji had wanted Rin dead, she would have killed her at the base of the Red Cliffs. She would have pressed a shard of shrapnel deep into Rin’s arteries and watched, smiling, as Rin bled out on the sand at her feet.

Rin had survived the Red Cliffs only because of Daji’s design. The Vipress still needed something from her, and Rin had to at least find out what it was.

“We’re here,” said the woman.

Cautiously, Rin expanded her flame to illuminate their surroundings. They had stopped before a tiny hut constructed with tree branches, vines, and deer hides. The interior couldn’t possibly fit more than two people.

The woman called toward the hut, “My lady, we’ve returned.”

“I hear four pairs of footsteps.” A feeble, trembling voice drifted from within. “What have you brought me?”

“A visitor,” Rin said.

A short pause. “Come alone.”

Rin dropped to her knees and crawled into the hut.

The former Empress of Nikan sat shrouded in darkness. Gone were her robes and jewelry. She was rank and filthy, wrapped in tattered clothes caked so thoroughly with dirt that Rin couldn’t tell their original color. Her hair had lost its luster; the tantalizing gleam had disappeared from her eyes. She looked like she had aged twenty years in the span of months. This wasn’t just the toll of war, wasn’t the stress of scraping for survival while a nation fell apart. Something supernatural had gnawed at Daji’s visage, had torn viciously at her beauty in a way time and hardship could not.

For a moment Rin stared in shock, wondering if she’d been wrong after all; if this was not the Vipress before her but just some old hag in the woods.

But then Daji locked her good eye onto Rin, and her cracked lips curved into an all-too-familiar smile. “Took you long enough.”

Blood rushed to Rin’s head, pounded in her ears. She glanced back to the entrance of the hut, outside of which the girls stood waiting.

“Leave us,” she ordered.

The girls didn’t budge. They looked to Daji, awaiting her command.

“Go,” Daji told them. “Go back to the village. Run.”

They scattered.

The moment they were gone, Rin yanked a knife from her belt and jammed the edge at the soft flesh beneath Daji’s chin. “Break the Seal.”

Daji only laughed, white throat pulsing against the blade’s tip. “You’re not going to kill me.”

“I swear to the gods—”

“You would have done it already.” Daji batted at the knife the way a kitten might swat a fly. “Enough with the histrionics. You need me alive.”

Rin held the knife firm. “Break the Seal.”

Her vision pulsed red. She had to focus to keep her hand from slipping, from accidentally slicing skin. She had spent so many hours fantasizing about what she’d do if she ever found Daji at her mercy. If she could force Daji to remove the block on her mind, she’d never have to rely on Kitay again. She’d never again wake up in the middle of the night, mouth dry from nightmares, head swimming with visions of his death. She’d never have to see the evidence of how much she hurt him—the ghost-white pallor of his face, the crescent marks dug into his palm—every single time she called the fire.

“It’s killing you, isn’t it?” Daji tilted her head back, studying her with a lazy, amused smile. “Does he suffer?”

“Break the Seal. I won’t ask again.”

“What, the Sorqan Sira couldn’t do it?”

“You know she couldn’t,” Rin snarled. “You’re the one who put it on, it’s your mark, and you’re the only one who can take it off.”

Daji shrugged. “Pity.”

Rin pressed the blade harder into Daji’s skin. How hard would she have to push to draw blood? Perhaps she shouldn’t aim at the neck—it would be too easy to hit an artery, and then Daji would bleed out before she did anything useful. She moved the sharp, gleaming tip down to Daji’s collarbone. “Perhaps some decorations will persuade. Which side do you favor?”

Daji feigned a yawn. “Torture won’t help you.”

“Don’t think I won’t do it.”

“I know you won’t. You’re not Altan.”

“Don’t fucking test me.” Rin sent a rivulet of fire arcing down the edge of the blade, just hot enough to singe. “I’m not living my whole life like a beast on a leash.”

Daji watched her for a long moment. The glowing metal sizzled against her collarbone, burning dark marks into her flesh, yet Daji didn’t even flinch. At last she lifted her hands in supplication. “I don’t know how.”

“You’re lying.”

“Dear child, I swear to you I can’t.”

“But you—” Rin couldn’t stop her voice from catching. “Why not?”

“Oh, Runin.” Daji gave her a pitying look. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? You think I haven’t been trying since you were born?”

She wasn’t mocking Rin then. There wasn’t a trace of condescension in her voice. This was an honest admission—that sorrow in her voice belied genuine vulnerability.

Rin wished so badly that Daji were mocking her.

“I’d do anything to break that Seal,” Daji whispered. “I’ve been trying to break it for decades.”

She didn’t mean the Seal she’d put on Rin. She was speaking about her own.

Rin lowered the knife. Her flames receded. “Then why did you do it?”

“You were trying to kill me, darling.”

“Not to me. To them.”

“I didn’t want to. But I thought that they were going to kill each other. And I didn’t want to die.” Daji met her eyes. “Surely you understand.”