No. No. If she hurt the Trifecta, then she was alone. She’d come this far. He was her last, best hope; she couldn’t throw this away.
She knew she’d woken a monster. But she’d known this from the start; she’d known she needed monsters on her side.
“I’m not your enemy,” she said. “And I’m not your servant, either. I’m the last Speerly. And I came to seek your help.”
Riga didn’t turn around, but his hand dropped from Daji’s chin. He stood very still, head cocked. Daji stumbled back, rubbing her jaw, staring at Rin with wide-eyed astonishment.
“I know what you did.” Rin’s words came out shaky and girlish; she couldn’t help it. “I know everything. And I don’t care. The past doesn’t matter. Nikan is in danger now, and I need you.”
Riga turned. His eyes were wide, his mouth half-open in an incredulous smile.
“You know?” He strode toward her, his steps low and menacing like a tiger approaching its prey. “What do you think you know?”
“Speer.” Rin took a step back without thinking. Everything about him radiated danger; that grin on his face made her want to spin around and run. “I saw—I know—I know you gave it up. I know you let them.”
“Is that what you think?” He bent toward her. “Then why don’t you want to kill me, child?”
“Because I don’t care,” she breathed. “Because there’s another enemy at our shores that’s ten times worse than you, and I need you to destroy them. You made a necessary choice at Speer. I get it. I’ve traded lives, too.”
Riga regarded her for a long moment in silence. Rin did her best to meet his gaze, heart pounding so furiously she was afraid it might burst.
She couldn’t read his expression. She had no idea what he was thinking. Something was off, something was wrong—she could tell from Daji’s terrified expression—but she couldn’t flee, she had to see this through.
Then Riga threw his head back and laughed. His cackle was a horrible thing, so like Nezha’s, and so gleefully cruel. “You don’t know shit.”
“I don’t care,” Rin repeated desperately. “The Hesperians are here, Riga, they’re right outside, you need to work with me—”
He lifted a hand. “Oh, shut up.”
An invisible force slammed her forward into the ground. Her kneecaps screamed in agony. She hunched over on all fours, trying and failing to get up.
Riga knelt down before her and clasped her face in his hands. “Look at me.”
Rin squeezed her eyes shut.
It didn’t matter. Riga’s fingertips dug so hard into her temples she thought he was about to shatter her skull in his hands. A cruel, cold presence forced its way into her mind, digging through her memories with callous disregard, wrenching out everything that made Rin go dry-mouthed in fright. Auntie Fang, twisting skin to form welts under her clothes where no one could see. Shiro, carelessly jamming needles into her veins with brutish force. Petra, tracing cold metal against her naked body, thin lips curling with amusement every time Rin flinched.
It went on for what seemed like an eternity. Rin wasn’t aware she was screaming until her throat convulsed from the strain.
“Ah,” Riga said. “Here we are.”
The memories paused. She found herself bent over the floor, panting, drool dripping from her mouth.
“Look at me,” Riga said again, and this time she wearily obeyed.
There was no fight left in her. She just wanted this over. If she just did what he said, would it be over?
“Is this what you wanted to see?” Riga inquired.
His face morphed into Altan’s. He grinned.
And then, at last, Rin understood what Daji had meant when she said that Riga’s power lay in fear.
He didn’t just terrorize with brute force. He terrorized with pure, overwhelming power. He’d probed her memory for the one person she’d once thought so intimidatingly strong that she couldn’t help but obey—no, longed to obey, because fear and love were really just opposite sides of the same coin.
She saw now what bound Jiang and Daji to Riga. It was the same reason she’d once been drawn to Altan. With Altan, it had always been so easy. She never had to think. He raged and she followed, blind and unquestioning, because marveling at his purpose was simpler than coming up with one of her own. He’d terrified her. She would have died for him.
“Altan Trengsin,” Riga mused. “I remember the name. Hanelai’s nephew, wasn’t he, Ziya? Pride of the island?”
New images invaded her mind.
She saw waves crashing against a jagged shore. She saw a boy wading through the shallows. He was very young, no more than four or five. He stood alone on the beach, trident in his hand, his dark eyes narrowed in concentration as he watched the waves. His inky-black hair fell in soft curls around sun-bronzed cheeks, and his face was tight with a mature, intense focus that belonged to someone much older. Slowly, without glancing away from the water, he lifted the trident over his shoulder in a practiced stance Rin had seen many times before.
She realized with a jolt that she was looking at Altan.
“Come,” said a voice—Riga’s voice from her mouth, for this was Riga’s memory, and she was experiencing something Riga had already done from within his body.
Twenty years ago, Yin Riga approached Altan Trengsin and said, “Come now. Your aunt is waiting.”
Riga extended his hand. And Altan, without question or hesitation, took it.
She heard Riga’s laughter ringing in her mind. Now do you see?
Rin stumbled back, horrified, but she was still caught in the vision, forced to watch as long as Riga wanted her to, and she couldn’t bring herself back to her senses. She couldn’t bring herself back to her body, couldn’t return to Mount Tianshan—could only keep watching as Riga led Altan to a boat waiting down the shore, a boat flying Federation colors.
Other children were waiting on the decks. Dozens of them. And standing among them, one man—a thin, spindly man whose hands moved across the children’s shoulders, whose narrow eyes danced with curious glee as he observed them the same way he had once observed Rin, whose narrow, sharp-chinned face had hovered above her in the worst moments of her life and haunted her nightmares even now.
Shiro.
Twenty years ago, Dr. Eyimchi Shiro took Altan’s hand and guided him on board.
Then it all fit together; the final, horrible piece of the puzzle fell into place. The Federation had not kidnapped Speer’s children. It was the Trifecta. It had been Riga all along; Riga who delivered the children to the Federation; Riga who forced Hanelai’s hand when she dissented, and then watched her island go up in smoke when she made the wrong choice.
“You’re right.” Riga removed his hands from Rin’s temples, leaving her gasping on her knees. “I make hard choices. I do whatever I must. But I do not work with Speerlies. I tried with Hanelai. That bitch tried to defect. Your kind don’t serve, they only cause trouble. And you’ll be no different.”
Rin’s head throbbed. She heaved for breath, glaring at the floor until her vision stopped spinning, trying to buy a few seconds.
She’d been so terribly wrong. There was no appeasing Riga. She couldn’t beg an alliance from someone who didn’t think her human.