You did this, taunted the burial fields. You made us kill them. We would have left this town alone unless you came, but you did, and so all this is your fault.
Rin sent her soldiers back to the township ahead of her. She hung back, waiting for the sun to set. She wanted a few minutes of silence. She wanted to stand alone with the graves.
“There’s nothing left alive here,” Kitay said. “Let’s go.”
“You go,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
He paused in his steps. “Will this make you feel better?”
He didn’t elaborate, but she knew what he meant. “Don’t suggest that.”
“But I’m right,” he pressed. “It makes it easier.”
She couldn’t deny that. He knew what she couldn’t admit out loud; he could read her mind like an open book.
“Please,” she said. “Just let me have this. Please just go.”
He knew better than to argue. He nodded, squeezed her hand, and left with the others.
Kitay was right. He knew what kind of absolution she sought from the killing fields. He knew that she needed to stay because if she seared the sight of what the Mugenese had done into her eyes, if she breathed the scent of half-rotted corpses, if she reminded herself why she had a reason to hate and keep hating, then it became easier to come to terms with what she had done to the longbow island.
It didn’t matter how shrill the screams of dying Mugenese boys sounded in her dreams. They were still monsters, heartless things who deserved everything she had ever done and would ever do to them.
That had to be her truth, or she would shatter.
She didn’t know how long she stood there. But when she finally moved to return to camp, the sun had disappeared entirely, and the uncovered graves had seared such a deep impression in her mind that every detail would remain forever. The arrangement of bones. How they curved and arched around one another. How they shone under the last rays of the dying sun.
You won’t forget, assured Altan. I won’t let you.
She pressed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, then turned back toward the village.
She made it two steps before she froze. Something gave her pause. She squinted at the trees. Yes—there it was, the flash of motion that had caught her eye the first time. Someone was running into the forest.
Rin dug her heels into the ground and gave chase.
“Hold it!”
She crashed through the trees, arms backlit with flame, casting hot light on the darkness all around her.
Then she stumbled to a halt. Her target had stopped—it wasn’t a soldier or spy but a little girl, crouched at the bottom of a shallow ravine, arms wrapped around her legs and head ducked down while her lips moved like she was counting numbers.
Someone had taught her to do this. Someone had drilled her in it. Rin had been taught the very same lesson as a little girl—if they are chasing you, if you cannot outrun them, find somewhere to hide and count until they’ve gone away.
“Hey.” She approached slowly, arms out, the fingers of her left hand splayed out in what she hoped was a nonthreatening gesture. “It’s okay.”
The girl shook her head and continued counting, eyes squeezed shut like if she couldn’t see Rin, then she might disappear.
“I’m not Mugenese.” Rin dragged her vowels out, trying to replicate an accent she’d long ago lost. “I’m a Rooster. One of you.”
The girl’s eyes opened. Slowly she lifted her head.
Rin stepped closer. “Are you alone?”
The girl shook her head.
“How many are you?”
“Three,” whispered the girl.
Rin saw another pair of eyes in the darkness, wide and terrified. They ducked behind a tree as soon as they caught her looking back at them.
She quickly pulled a larger ring of fire into the air around her, just enough to illuminate the clearing. It revealed two emaciated little girls staring up at her with naked fascination. Their eyes looked huge on their hollow faces.
“What are you doing?” Footsteps crashed through the thicket. Rin spun around. A third figure—the girls’ mother, or an older sister, she couldn’t tell—dashed into the clearing and reached for the girls’ wrists, dragging them away from Rin.
“Are you mad?” The woman shook the taller girl by the shoulders. “What were you thinking?”
“She was dressed in fire,” said the girl.
“What?”
The girl hadn’t stopped staring at Rin. “I wanted to look.”
“You’re in no danger,” Rin said quickly. “I’m Nikara, I’m from Tikany. I’m a Rooster. I’m here to protect you.”
But she already knew she didn’t have to explain. The woman’s eyes had widened in recognition, and she seemed to have realized, for the first time, that the flames lighting the clearing came not from a torch but from Rin’s skin.
The woman spoke in a whisper. “You’re the Speerly.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth worked for a few seconds before words came out. “Then are you—have they—”
“Yes,” Rin said. “They’re gone.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. They’re all dead. You’re safe.”
She saw no joy on the woman’s face, only a stark, stunned disbelief. Upon a closer look the woman wasn’t as old as Rin had thought. She was emaciated and terribly filthy, but beneath a thick layer of grime was the face of someone not so much older than herself.
“What are you doing in the forest?” Rin asked her.
“We ran,” said the woman. “As soon as we heard the Mugenese were coming. I’d heard what they do to Nikara women. I wasn’t going to—I mean, they weren’t—”
“They’re your sisters?”
“No,” said the woman. “Just two girls who lived in my alley. I tried to get more to come with me. They wouldn’t leave.”
“You were wise to go,” Rin said. “How have you survived all this time?”
The woman hesitated. Rin could read the lie assembling behind her eyes. The woman had an answer, she just wasn’t sure if she should speak it.
The smallest girl piped up. “The lady in the hut.”
The woman’s face tightened, which meant the girl had told the truth.
“What lady?” Rin asked.
“She protects us,” said the girl. “She knows things. She tells us when to hide and which roots we can eat and where to lay traps for birds. She said that as long as we obeyed her, then we would be safe.”
“Then she should have taken you far away from this place,” said Rin.
“She can’t. She won’t leave here.”
Rin felt a sudden, scorching suspicion of who this lady was.
“And why can’t she leave?” she asked.
“Shush,” the woman told the girl, but the girl kept speaking.
“Because she says she lost her daughter in the Dragon King’s palace, and she’s waiting for her to come back.”
Rin’s mouth filled with the taste of blood. Her knees buckled.
What is she doing here?
The woman put a tentative hand on Rin’s elbow. “Are—are you all right?”