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Her body convulsed as the world seared. The puke at her feet turned into a pool of blood every time she closed her eyes and the eruption of destruction tainted her mind in fire. She trembled at the sight of the burning island, the screaming children, the families' destruction, and the panic of the women. Worse than being a monster, to Rin, was being fully aware of the horror of her creation.
That awareness drove her mad.
She needed to bury those bodies, but the Phoenix was much pleased to display them as prizes in the train of her memories. Her goddess was the cruelest truth in her life, and that's why she loved it achingly. The fire was the only thing that would never fade. It was what made her strong, it was all of what Speer has left. It was what made her honor Altan's name.
Except it didn't. As his ghost constantly liked to whisper, fervently in her mind; it was her who was supposed to be dead.
It would never stop. Altan was part of her and it would be forevermore. Even if she burned amidst the flames of the dreadful Phoenix and the generational hatred and suffering of the Speerlies, Altan Trengsin was, by far, the part of the fire that hurt the most.
And Rin missed him like she missed opium.
Nothing could make it stop—except for the flowers. She needed to be carried away by their sweet scent, in a kind of smoke that wouldn't hurt. Revenge was everything to her, but Rin needed it gone, just for a moment so she could breathe. Her body was in a deadly battle for a dominance that no longer belonged to her. The tremors would break every single bone in her body if she didn't regain control.
When the pain of opium and the pain of fire blended within the uncertainty of reality in a sole thing, she collapsed.
After unlocking the four locks on the door, she ran, leaving an illusion of a fiery trail across the Seagrim's hallway as her steps grew more desperate. Sharp spikes of pain stabbing through her skull relentlessly, death threatening it's arrive at any moment.
Where the fuck is he?
She forced herself to think. End of the corridor, last door on the right. The journey already seemed long due to the enormous size of that stupid ship, but it took an eternity when she was being suffocated by the smoke that consumed all those bodies.
Speer.
Mugen.
Altan.
Rin pounded on the door so hard that it might have cracked the wood. She called out to him, with a cry so pathetic it shattered her even more with shame. But they were both past that. And she needed to be saved.
The door opened and, through the slot, she saw the newly painted scars that grounded her back.
Nezha.
"Rin?" Seeing it was her, he opened the door wider, revealing himself completely. Even though he only had said her short and usual nickname, the worry in the boy's voice was much clear.
"Where's the physician?" The trembling sound came out muffled from her throat.
His eyes widened straightaway.
"Are you hurt?"
"Where the fuck is the physician?" she yelled, intending to hurt him until he answered the question.
"Rin, listen—"
Not letting him finish, she dashed down the hallway aimlessly. Searching for an unreachable physician. For Vaisra. Or anywhere to drop dead.
"I have it here with me." His voice reached her, keen, as she was about to descend the stairs. "Opium."
Her body moved so quickly that she didn't even have time to look at Nezha or hear what he said before locking the door.
Rin's eyes struck him like flaming arrows.
"Where? Where is it?" Alone with him in his room, the atmosphere filled with urgency and expectation.
"I need you to listen to what I'm about to tell you." Nezha approached her, speaking in that tamely tone that made her want to burn him alive. "You can't smoke anymore."
For a second, her mind went blank in terrifying agony.
"What?" Her reaction was indecipherable even to her.
"The Army doesn't admit the use of opium among it's soldiers," he said it extremely calm, each word brutally dismembering her. "My father is aware of your situation. His orders were very clear that no one in the ship should give you opium, or any kind of narcotic."
The sudden change in Nezha's posture from a few seconds ago was so abrupt that it unsettled her. He didn't speak to Rin as if he wanted to intimidate her, but he still forced a new reality with a harshness expected of someone who was her superior. She was tired of being below Nezha in the hierarchy; not even the choice of her own destruction belonged to her anymore.
"Your father is an asshole." She slowly began to regain control of her anger, and her chest swelled with fury from the whirlwind of assimilations that came altogether in a flash. "And you lied to me!"
"Everyone was expecting you to spiral. I just thought it was better for me to be the one to talk to you," Nezha retorted louder—without loitering over her, but also with no intention of retreating or shrinking back in fear.
And once again, Rin was trapped. Her teeth chattered in an impatient rhythm, an expectation to find something to cease the pain, but now aching at the realization that she wouldn't get it. She hadn't found what she was looking for.
The tingling in her extremities instantly reminded her of the lab. How Shiro had tied her and Altan up, cutting off their pulse while injecting psychedelic substances as he marveled at their screams. It was like experiencing the side effects all over again. She was laid on a Mugenese stretcher, letting them do whatever they pleased with her body.
And even after the end, Rin loathed them. She wasn't going to let her responsibility for this atrocity silence this powerful hatred growing inside her.
But there was no differing anger from pain anymore, only to erase the sensation completely. Nezha didn't understand that it was the only way for her to keep enduring.
No. No, no, no, no, no.
"You need to get me some opium." Rin grabbed the collar of his robes with all the pain inside her, hoping that he would feel it too. "Please, Nezha. You're the General. People listen to you, it won't be hard for you to outsmart a ru—"
He laughed in order to shut her, disdainfully dismissing her embarrassing plea.
"I'm the last person you’d ask that."
"Nezha…" Rin pulled him closer, they were so close the humiliation could burn him.
All Nezha did was grip her wrists determined, tightly, making her trembling hands fight against his strength as they tried to break free. He looked into Rin's eyes and, impassive, reinforced his answer with an uncharacteristic composure:
"No, Rin. Your opium days are over."
He admitted loud and clear his desire for her suffering.
"You can't do this to me." Tears burned against her eyes, held back by a final, weak attempt to make Nezha give in. A failed attempt to prove herself stronger than him.
"I'm doing this for your own good." He loosened his grip on her wrists as he stated tenderly, bringing her hands a little closer to his chest. His touch was gentle, careful. Poisonous.
"Do you think I'm good like this?" She tried to speak with all the anger she could muster, and yet the words had the same power as a weak spark from a short match. Rin didn't know if she was talking to Nezha or the Phoenix.
"It's exactly what I want to free you from. You're addicted, Rin."
"I'm not addicted, damn it!" Rin aggressively escaped from his touch, falling once again into utter helplessness and loss of control. Terror pulsed through her entire being with just one word, what everyone had called Altan many times. "Your’re not the one who has to live with this pain."
In one moment he had opium to give her. The next, he didn't.
In one moment she hated him in Sinegard. The next, she wanted him close more than anything.
In one moment he fought alongside her in Khurdalain. The next, he was dead.
Rin threw the nearest thing to her on the ground. One of the chairs in Nezha's room hit the floor with the tremor of a thunder.
"Fuck, Nezha." Her head was pulled down, announcing once again that she had lost.
Rin fell on the floor and began to sob. Her trembling, burning hands pulled the strands of hair near her scalp harshly, intending to make it bleed. If her head was hurt enough, the bleeding could flood the fire in eternal silence.
She could have finished off Mugen in less than a day. Their pain would never be relived, and whoever died, died in the privilege of immediacy. But every day, Rin's head exploded in flames.
Every day, she died in a fire, living her punishment in an eternal loop. The screams didn't lessen, the fire didn't cease, and the Phoenix wouldn’t stop laughing.
Lucky were the Mugenese, who only burned once.
She couldn't live with defeat. The shame and humiliation were terribly real, enough to awake an urgent need for death.
How much of her suffering would be enough as an offering to please the Goddess? To please Nikan?
Yet, this ridiculous and unconscious self-pity she felt was nothing compared to the guilt. She had disappointed Kitay. She had disappointed Jiang. She had killed civilians, destroyed the Federation, and still Altan keeps saying amidst the flames that she's a failure.
It was no longer a question of longing for an escape. She wanted to end it all.
Her chest ached from the absence of something she sought. The air was fading from Rin's chest, and when she realized it, she choked from the lack of it.
She was going to die slowly, with the agony so longed for by her enemies.
Nezha hurriedly approached her, in a movement so urgent that it sent a sharp gust of wind to her face. He held her arms fiercely, but without hurting her.
"Rin, breathe."
I can't. I don't want to. She wished that the remaining fragments of the thoughts that still belonged to her would reach Nezha in one last request.
"They're going to throw me into Chuluu Korikh, Nezha" She concluded desperately, confronted with the horror that lived down her subconscious.
They’d all come to get her.
"It's worse than death. They won't let me die, they'll immure me in the void with the Phoenix and the worst of it." Her sobs grew even more distressed. "They didn't put Altan in there, but they'll put me. I-I can't—"
"They won't do anything to you, Rin." He stated with such certainty that her words seemed absurd, but Rin was still crying copiously. "Hey, nobody's allowed to touch you. Nothing's going to happen here. I won't let anyone hurt you."
As Nezha repeated the same thing in different ways, the touch on her arms disappeared, and Rin felt the loving, concerned support of his warmth on her face.
He looked at her heartbroken, but sure of his words. It was an unfamiliar thing between them, a new version of Nezha acquired for her collection of mental portraits of him. Rin wondered if she had said something aloud that had left him with such a broken look.
At that point, she would shatter into a thousand pieces if he let her go.
The Phoenix shouted so much, and she was so tired of being yelled at. Her body would collapse, her spirit would converge into a hollow, dark embrace.
Everything she had ever loved would either abandon her or turn to ashes.
But he held her as if he wouldn't let go. Because Nezha never gave up on anything in his life.
Rin wanted to believe that he wouldn't give up on her too.
Nezha slid his hands back down to her arms until he reached her hands, holding them gently.
"Look at me and breathe."
Rin followed Nezha's breathing, as he inhaled and exhaled deeply. She forced the voices to be silent and focused on him, and only on him.
She forced herself to look at him as if nothing else existed in the world, memorizing every single detail of the most beautiful face she ever knew and discovering the new ones she hadn’t known from the last months.
The sharp lines on Nezha's face didn't make him ugly—never ugly— but rather highlighted the aspects Rin knew better than anyone. They were the scars of someone who mastered their own power in an absolute spectacle. Of someone who didn't cower even when fear gripped them. Nezha's face was the testament to his success as a soldier, so much so that he returned to the world of the living displaying it with his typical head held high. These scars were the visualization of the triumphant facet that Rin recognized and admired.
It took a while, but the violent whirlwind that had been relentlessly tormenting her subsided as the heat transformed into something strange, yet familiar. The temperature dropped, and Rin felt cold sweat trickle down her body like raindrops on a window. She and Nezha were now breathing in sync, gradually moving from deep breaths to something more regular. Rin was still trembling and stiff, but now she had control of her own mind again. Her senses began to return, and physical matter existed once more, beyond the pain. She had a body again, a mind again, she had a beating heart.
What an idiot thing was that heart.
The return of mundane sensations left her more distraught than she had expected. With her vision blurred in utter despair, Nezha seemed to notice and tried to pull her back to the surface.
"You are Fang Runin; the best student of Sinegard." He uttered the epithet so seriously and zealously, it was as if he were in the temple of a goddess, summoning her. "Lore Apprentice. Commander of the Cike. Speerly. Has an extremely strong punch—is extremely strong. Doesn't accept losing to anything or anyone. Stubborn, the most hot-headed person I know. Has a really stinking sweat…"
"I'm getting shy with all your compliments." She said hoarsely, the voice of the person who existed in the real world slowly returning to her.
That elicited a low laugh from Nezha, his hands still holding hers. After a while, he said with a strange hesitation:
"You're the best shaman in the world. You'll get through this. I'm here, I'll help you."
If he knew anything about shamanism, he wouldn't be there saying she's the best.
He spoke with such an odd and affectionate conviction that Rin wondered if she wasn't hallucinating Kitay and his voice of reason she missed so much. But it was obvious it wasn't the case— Nezha was unmistakable. This behavior was new, but it was still him, so him. His hands, much larger than hers, easily covered them completely, and his melodious voice resonated in her ears, ready to enchant her with anything he said.
Although she felt better, the physical pains of withdrawal were still there. Her head ached as if a thousand swords were cutting through her brain as her temples throbbed in response. She was tense, the voices still inside her, but now silenced by the extremely subtle roll of the ship. Her mind was clear enough to perceive that the ship was indeed moving, but slowly, in a way that would go unnoticed by anyone.
It was new, to feel grounded in the middle of the sea.
"Do you think you can eat something?" Nezha asked her after the trembling subsided and practically became just spasms here and there.
"If I try to eat anything, I'll throw it up before it even gets into my mouth." Rin had already looked away from him, now looking at their hands, which were still intertwined together. She didn't mind it now, but if she had the physical and mental strength to do anything other than stare at their skin and size contrast, she would've probably already backed away.
"Okay. I'll make you some tea, then."
"I don't want it."
She had a perfect visualization of him rolling his eyes as she heard the click of his tongue.
"Stop being childish, you know very well you can't keep it up with an empty stomach." Despite the sharp reply, he gently stroked her wrist with his thumb. "I'll make it for you."
Yin Nezha calling her childish? Great Tortoise.
When he threatened to get up, Rin squeezed his hands when she noticed a teasing space forming between them. She didn't care about the damn tea, she just didn't want him to leave.
"There's a kettle here in my room, silly." He said, trying to calm her down when he saw she was looking at him like a frightened baby bird. "I'm not leaving."
But still, she wasn't going to risk it.
"I'll go with you, then." Rin stood up before him, she would have fallen back to the floor because of the speed and the force of her pressure if Nezha hadn't already been holding her.
"Easy." He spoke in that cocky way she was already annoyingly familiar with.
Rin would've responded with some insult, but chose to enjoy the lighthearted atmosphere between them. Despite everything, it was good to patrol Khurdalain and spend most of the time on her feet with him. The connection between them allowed her to breathe amidst the smoke and rotting bodies, and she liked having someone to protect— even knowing he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.
Looking at how dejected she was, she asked herself if he felt the same way about Khurdalain, as if taking care of each other was now a silent agreement between the two of them. In that case, hypothetically, they would be even then. Or at least, she would pretend they were until the shame passed and she had to deal with her own anger and embarrassment the next day.
After retrieving a small glass vial from a patched straw basket, Nezha walked toward a chest of drawers. He stopped, and with one hand resting on the furniture, turned to her with a smug smile, letting out a low and breathy chuckle.
"What?" Rin asked, half tired and half annoyed.
"Nothing. I just find it cute you following me around like this." Nezha tilted his head slightly, his eyes gleaming. Always finding it funny to tease her as if she were his plaything.
She began to wonder if it had been a good idea to go to him. As in the old days, Rin drew strength from the deepest resentments within her and managed to land a weak punch on his ribs.
"Shut up."
"What? I just said you're cute." His voice rose when he saw that she had reacted, but he wasn't angry. It seemed he had enjoyed receiving that weak punch.
"You're mocking me."
"Me? Never."
She noticed her gradual improvement when the urge to laugh and hit him even harder came back. It was impossible to stand Nezha.
He opened the cupboard and pulled out a large object, making Rin's heart almost stop at the impression of it being a bomb. She quickly understood that it was the kettle he talked about, but it was, by all means, an ugly and weird kettle. Ignoring the object's strangeness, Nezha easily poured water and then spoonfuls of dried, dark petals into the container.
"There's just hibiscus. Not the best to drink at night, but I don't think it'll be a problem." Nezha said as he turned the knob, which made a clicking sound; the pointers attached to a kind of thermometer moved automatically.
It must be a Hesperian product. All the objects from Nikan in the Seagrim belonged to the soldiers and subordinates of the Dragon Army, but the rest of the furniture were rented and, certainly, property of Hesperia. The average Nikara would have taken the tea leaves and thrown them into the teapot followed by boiling water, letting the drink steep until the taste of the leaf permeated the whole liquid. The water Nezha poured was at room temperature, so it must have been heating the water and the hibiscus petals together. She thought about asking, but preferred not to display her ignorance to him.
"Strange, isn't it?" As if reading her thoughts, Nezha began to answer each one of her questions. "This is a Hesperian invention. It took me a while to actually like it, and honestly, I think our infused tea is better. At first it seems to have a metallic taste, but after a while I got used to it. It's better to drink steel tea than the dirty water from the division camps."
When the long, swan-neck-shaped spout began to release a jet of thick steam, Rin shivered from head to toe, the hairs on her skin standing on end petrified. Nezha had his back to her as he swiftly picked up the electric kettle, which soon stopped making noise and the smoky vision.
Without much delay, from the same cupboard as before, he took two cups with their matching saucers and turned to her, also with the kettle in his hand.
"Come."
As if they were going somewhere else, he went over to the bed and sat on the floor in front of her. Following him, Rin felt a sense of relief at the simplicity of the moment and sat facing Nezha, her back against the soft quilt. Even with a small dining table in the middle of the room, she knew he wanted to make it as simple as possible so she would have bigger comfort.
A silk rug was placed between them so Nezha could serve them both. Placing the saucer and cup in front of Rin, he began to pour the intense red liquid in front of her. The flow of war blood didn't stop, and a spasm came when she realized that it might contain the juice of life of both Nikara and Mugenese— the same liquid would go down her throat and she wouldn't know who was it from.
"It's hibiscus." He repeated what she already knew, as if the brief return of her trembling would stop upon hearing the name of that stupid flower. "They're tropical flowers, but I believe you must have seen them before. They used to bloom quite a lot in Khurdalain." He started talking nonstop, as if he knew he needed something to redirect her from the screams and images in her mind.
Nezha continued talking while also pouring liquid from the kettle into her cup. Rin tried to think about the hibiscus he was talking about, but she could only think of the poppies she still longed for.
Looking at the small waves of steam swirling above the cup, she saw that the red liquid was just that— compact, transparent, and watery. The smell was too distinctive to be mistaken for blood.
"I don't think you'd like it cold." Nezha said cheerful as he took a sip of his own, attentive to her unsettled expression.
When she thought of tea, she thought of Jiang— and a wave of suffering would wash over her, enveloping her entire body in a great cloak. Her Master was an insufferable tea enthusiast, and had made her drink it countless times during her training. Most of the time, the hallucinogens needed to access the Pantheon were diluted in tea. Other times, he would boil an entire pot for them to drink while they spent lazy hours together at Sinegard’s garden. Chaste memories of a man who was no longer within her reach. Of a school that was destroyed. Of a foolish and naive student. Of an apprentice who had failed her master and a master who had abandoned her.
"It's tea. I didn't taste any steel, it's fine." She kept her hands around the cup, still impossible to stay away from the heat.
"Well, I still think mine tastes weird. I'll get some honey from the cupboard, okay?"
Coming back to her senses, Rin realized that the soft, low way he asked the question was ridiculous. They were alone within four walls, Nezha wasn't going to leave, and yet she didn't want to be away from him for long. Her state was abominable, completely vulnerable and miserable. Incapable of detaching herself, even for mere seconds, from the only person who had given her any attention since Altan.
She had to start to compose herself, even with her head throbbing and her muscles locked, her response twisted against her will:
"Okay."
And indeed, Nezha didn't even leave her field of vision. She looked at his back without even blinking, afraid that if she closed her eyes she would see his face melted by the gas once again. His proportions, athletic and developed while being slender and elegant, were a generous evolution for the spoiled brat from Sinegard. Even covered with a robe, Rin could make out in her mind the well-defined muscles hidden beneath, a fatal contrast between an elite combat soldier and a carefully sculpted statue.
There was a curious wonder to know if his back was really the temple she imagined.
He sat down again in front of her, now with a glass bottle where it stored honey.
"It's not like it improves the taste, but at least disguises it." When he finished pouring and stirring the honey from his cup, he took hers and put some in hers too.
Even without being asked, she didn't complain. Honey was one of the small luxuries of agriculture that she never had easy access to. Once, in Tikany, she crossed paths with a man who had several small sachets of honey, which easily became hers after trading them for a certain amount of opium from the Fang's. She sucked all the sachets with Kasegi until both their mouths itched with the amount of sweetness, and when the Fangs found out what she had done, her mouth was swollen for weeks from how much Aunt Fang beat her.
It was another life, a life that no longer belonged to her. When Rin thought about opium before the war, she was overcome with repulse and disgust, alongside an absolute certainty that she would never become one of those addicts she so despised. She had never imagined that the war would sweep away all her certainties, future would cease to be a calculated survival and become an unwanted uncertainty. And after seeing Altan, on the library floor in Golyn Niis, everything she held onto about the past and thought about the future evaporated before her along with the smoke from the Speerly. Nothing she would do next would be disconnected from what she had lived there, in the war, with Altan.
"Stay with me tonight." Nezha's tender request broke the brief silence that had hung between them.
Rin finally focused on something with her usual agility, her deep eyes wide with confusion as her cheeks flushed slightly.
"I mean, here in the room." The double meaning of the question seemed to have struck him as well, and now his ears were reddening. "You know, until you sleep, at least…"
She shuddered at the possibility.
Despite everyone portraying her as a wild creature, Rin was rational enough to know she couldn't give in to certain desires. She wanted Nezha close, she wanted him for herself. But how could he be hers? How could she have him? How long could he withstand the fierce flame that consumed all her desires?
If she stayed with Nezha tonight, she wouldn't want to be away from him the next night. She couldn't fail to heed the senses he had given her back.
"I won't be able to sleep. I'd better go back to my room and let you rest." She tried to sound convincing, to him and to herself, even with the weakest voice she'd ever had.
She betrayed herself again, another rupture she would force against her own will. Because that wasn't her reality.
When she dared to stand up before overthinking, Rin's wrist was immediately grabbed.
"Let me keep an eye on you, then. I don't want to leave you alone in this state." Even with a hint of urgency in his voice, Nezha still sounded calm and patient, looked at her pleadingly and insisted in the worst way. "Rin, stay. Please."
Rin's head ached, locked with flashes of the same bloody memories and shrill screams, the Phoenix, now buried deep inside, was disapproving her every step and thought. Her heart, a curious organ to her, was pulsing with a gentle will. A desire that wanted to carry her to the flow of a stream crossed by paths unknown to her, but at that moment, all flowed into Nezha.
She was scared, but she was curious and, above all, she wanted it. She would let the world burn around her while she plunged into the unknown with Yin Nezha.
"Fine." She declared in defeat, more to her own heart than to him.
He smiled, more satisfied than anything else.
"Thank you." Nezha thanked her as if Rin had just saved him from death. She didn't know what to reply.
He continued talking while she drank the rest of her tea, which was already cold by then. Nezha's ability to talk for hours about any subject was incredible. He relayed all the trivial gossip from the Army to her, and Rin would leave that room already knowing which general was cheating on his wife, which one was addicted to gambling, which one had fathered a bastard child… The venomous way he recounted each of these stories was, to Rin, somewhat appealing. She tried to focus on this distraction and was grateful that he never ran out of things to talk about.
Nezha also let slip a few things about himself, of course. She'd talked to him enough to have already dismissed the idea of him being an open book, which surprised her quite a bit. But he still dropped a trivial piece of information here and there about his personal life, from times before Sinegard and before the war. This made her daydream a little.
He spoke of Arlong as if it were a loved one. She visualized the city with the clarity one might imagine a person, and Nezha was so good at it that he almost made her think the Dragon’s capital was actually a city larger than the whole Nikan. Rin couldn't feel anything for Tikany other than a bitter, unwanted nostalgia, tinged with melancholy when she remembered Kasegi— and every time her thoughts inevitably returned to her younger brother, she pushed them away. She preferred to focus on Nezha and the city that was a pearl within a shell, holding all the promises of places he said he would take her once they arrived there.
When he yawned for the fourth time, Rin said he'd better go to bed.
"I'll only sleep if you sleep too."
"Seriously, you'll be exhausted tomorrow."
"You won't be any better." With his head tilted, he looked at her as if he were already dreaming. "We'll be exhausted together, isn't that great?"
"It's not. If you don't go to sleep now, I will…"
The empty threat was interrupted by a yawn that escaped Rin's mouth. Nezha's eyes radiated victory.
"Look who's sleepy..." That mischievous smile caught her off guard. Fucking bastard.
Without needing to say anything more, Nezha got up, pulled the covers off the bed, and gestured for her to come lie down.
By then, Rin had grown tired of resisting. Besides the pain and the obvious physical and mental exhaustion, she was tantalized by the comfort Nezha was providing her. She couldn't remember the last time someone had cared for her like this— she wondered if anyone had ever even cared for her before. Had he drugged the tea? No, he wouldn't do that, especially when he was caring for an addict in withdrawal. But it was weird, she was fading into a drowsy fever, and all she could think about was Nezha.
Where did this power, to hold people captive in the profound radiance of his beauty, came from?
How would she escape?
Her attention was completely absorbed by him, until a series of uncanny motions startled her awake with sudden discomfort.
"What are you doing?" Rin managed to stammer the words with difficulty, already half asleep.
Nezha settled himself on the rug on the floor beside her, resting his head on one of the many pillows he had taken from the bed.
"Getting ready to sleep. The bed will be more comfortable for you." He replied as if it were obvious.
"I already said I'm not going to sleep." She was annoyed now.
"I didn't say you would. I just want you to be comfortable."
"There's enough space here." Rin said bluntly, hoping he would understand the undertone behind the obvious statement.
"Rin, I—"
"I don't mind."
The answer cut through the discussion like a blade. He couldn't deny her that. He couldn't leave her alone, even if only within the limits of her red eyes. She needed to cling to him so she wouldn't fall again. Because if she couldn't have Nezha, there was no reason to cling to such a solid, real consciousness.
He seemed to squirm at his own hesitation, still watching her with concern as he cautiously approached. He wasn't afraid, but he displayed an atypical shyness for him, who normally exuded confidence with every step he took.
What seemed like an endless series of suffocating deaths for Rin, his knee finally sank into the bed. Their gazes, without breaking contact for even a moment, pierced each other with a mutual hunger that would never be uttered aloud. A silent hunger, which, with the mere meeting of two complementary parts, was vigorously felt, along with the fear that this moment could end at any instant.
"May I?" He whispered to her.
Even without the need for the question, Rin nodded. When Nezha lay down beside her, the guarded distance between them dissolved as Rin, intuitively, grasped his hands again. They were terribly close. If Rin were more self-aware, she would be terrified. But even with the reveries of sleep, with a minimal real distinction between her emotions and thoughts, this bubbling force that lived within her did not calm down when Nezha took her hand and brought it close to his face.
Rin swore she felt the ghost of a kiss on it.
The gesture held her in a trance, and suddenly everything turned into a sacred expanse where only the two of them existed. Everything was Nezha, and he was magnificent.
His beauty was made of lace, marble, and serenity. He was pearly, a supernatural aspect that made Rin certain he had been touched by the gods. A cracked statue, miraculously saved from the ruins of war, was now back in her hands. Rin had taken him with obsessive zeal, a possession to call her treasure.
He wasn't human. He was divine.
She never thought drowning would be so easy. But seeing it now, she realized she had spent several years being drawn to the depths of this unknown sea. Water would always be the weakness of fire, nevertheless.
Even the hatred that raged between them during their academy days was contained within vivid and violent desires. When all she knew how to feel was hatred, the taste of this strange side of the feeling was extremely sweet, a confidence she kept close to her heart.
Standing there, facing everything she feared but also everything that attracted her most, she thought that drowning in Nezha might be the only divine force that could overcome the Phoenix.
And the Goddess hated all of it. It whispered harsh, fiery insults to him in the cloak of her mind, disapproving of every soothing thought that seduced Rin's head. But he was there, with her, and that was enough for her to ignore the fire at least once.
She had to ignore it, because Nezha was a real treasure. She needed him.
There should be a word for this that would make the Phoenix shriek if it dared to think of it.
"Rin, you're staring."
Awakening from her trance, she gave him a flushed face once more. Oh gods, this was getting ridiculous.
"I'm not." Her answer came out groggy, but still convinced she could speak for herself at that moment.
"Yes, you are." Nezha was stupidly self-assured. Nothing he said had a hint of insecurity, even most of the time when he was wrong.
"You should sleep before I break your face and go back to my room." Rin wanted it to sound like a threat, but his teasing reply made it clear she wasn't being taken seriously.
"It's hard when someone's staring at you like that." Gods, she wanted to punch his stupid face.
"I already said I'm not going to sleep. I have nothing else to do."
"Try closing your eyes." He whispered gently.
"No." She tried to stand firm, but it was difficult when he was being sweet like that.
"Stop being stubborn. Try it."
Rin closed her eyes, somewhat reluctantly. Almost at the same time, Nezha moved one of the hands holding hers to her hair, gently caressing it, making her melt.
She didn't like being touched, but Nezha was too invasive. The worst part was that everything about him was seductive and alluring, so even though Rin usually shared moments like this only with Kitay, she magnetically leaned onto him. Her arms wrapped around his torso, finally bringing both of their skies together. When he also enveloped her in a hug, he buried his face in her hair, sending refreshing breaths to her burning head. Surprising herself, she chose to be trapped in his intimacy instead of her own thoughts.
Rin gripped his robe tightly as she rested her head on Nezha's bare chest, attentively absorbing each fast beat of his heart— which, strangely enough, resonated in the same rhythm as hers. His gentle hands rested on her back, repeating circular motions as they savored their intertwining in a comfortable silence.
"What are you looking for?" He whispered after a while. So softly, that she wondered if he was sleepwalking.
"What do you mean?" She whispered as softly as he did, still captivated by the caress he was giving on her back.
Nezha took a while to answer, and even without seeing him, Rin could feel his thoughts molded into a restrained expression.
"You're constantly searching for something you're missing." Rin arched an eyebrow as far as exhaustion allowed, thinking that Nezha must be so tired by now that he's started talking nonsense. "May I know what it is?"
He spoke so sweetly to her that Rin feared she had found a new addiction.
She thought about what Nezha had said, hesitating over all the alternatives that came to her mind, because none of them would fit his understanding. Was it opium? Not really. As much as she thought she knew what she wanted, she knew that what she longed for had no name or shape, it wasn't something tangible or visible—unlike him, who held her in his arms in such a real way. It was something so immense that the form that consumed her would never be something Nezha could possibly grasp or simply be.
He didn't know Speer. Rin didn't either, but Speer didn't leave the marks on him like it did on her. She still looked in her memories for the dances. The vivid warmth of the bonfires along with the pleasant smell of their smoke. Their songs and stories. The way she and Altan danced in a glimpse of what would end to be their eternity.
For a moment, Rin felt she belonged somewhere. And now that feeling was nothing more than her repeatedly failed attempts to return to the spirit of the Dead Island.
"It's just that…" She betrayed herself by starting to speak. If she admitted aloud that she sought something other than revenge, then she wouldn't get it. Rin couldn't save Speer, but she could avenge the island. Avenge Altan.
So she turned the tides, shifting the subject to something they both understood very well.
"We've changed," she said.
Perhaps she should start from there. It was a constant thought she had when she reflected like this. It wasn't in her and Nezha's nature to run from their essences; they were two great elements that stubbornly refused to yield to another contemplating power before them. Rin and Nezha were made to destroy each other, and all she knew was destruction. So what was that? They weren't supposed to be in this position, each seeing the other's vulnerability so closely.
It was unnatural. It was dangerous. It was tempting.
It was everything she ever wanted.
Nezha didn't answer, waiting for her to continue.
"I never thought you'd become important. I keep wondering when you'll burn in front of me too." It was Altan who incinerated himself in front of her, but without opium, without him, she could burn everything she loved. Tearza warned her. "It's not a matter of searching, I'm just afraid everything will disappear."
Nezha shifted slightly and was at her eye level, holding her face with one hand as he caressed it. She could die from his touch.
"I promise you, if there's one thing that doesn't hurt me, it's fire." He whispered to her, as certain as everything he ever said.
"You can't stop it."
"But I can quell it."
"Nothing can quell the fire." It was useless to think he would understand the danger that the fire posed. The danger that she posed. The moment Rin chooses to burn the world, nothing would stop her.
"Just trust me, I did it. And you will too." How did he do it? She was there with him after all, wasn't she? Was he a god?
"It's impossible." She was both angry and amused.
"No, it's not. What hurts you, Rin, is anger. It's fear. It's not the kind of thing the gods feel, but humans." He was reprimanding sensitively. A lot of phrases that made no sense to her. She and the Goddess were one, but why didn't it say anything? Why had it chosen to remain silent now that Nezha was so close? It became clearer to Rin that perhaps, he was an answer to the pain. "You need to understand what you want and fight for it with your own strength."
But Nezha didn't understand. He would never understand that her life wasn't hers. He had no idea of the dimension of fire the Speerlies had made her carry, a desire for destruction that was greater than her own. Nothing she ever chooses would be of her own free will— Rin couldn't shed the island she carried on her back.
But the way Nezha believed in her was still precious. Rin wondered if he would still look at her that way the moment she loses herself to her goddess. Uncontrolled, dangerous, and divine.
"I know very well what I want," Rin said with a misguided certainty.
"Great, me too," Nezha replied. "The girl I knew spoke for herself above anyone else. You can't let the Phoenix erase you like that."
It was odd to think that there was a version of her before the Phoenix, a life before becoming the last Speerly. That life belonged to a dead girl, who somehow still received flowers at her grave from a beautiful young man who now held her in his arms as if she were his entire world.
Her head still ached. She thought that the shock of reality upon regaining consciousness would kill her, and the fall hurt, but she survived. The screams were still there, but the Phoenix, for some reason, was so tame that she could remember what it was like to be sleepy. She was exposed, defenseless, but much better than she had felt in many months.
Rin didn't know if she had responded to Nezha. The caresses he gave her hair was the best thing she had ever felt, making nothing else matter. It was as if he himself had the power to bend all the thoughts that haunted her, gently soothing all the fire that hurt her.
Nonsense. Nezha couldn't control the fire.
But she trusted him enough to die in his arms. When she thought about being buried in the poppy field, she never considered that lying on the sand where the waves broke, could be just as good as long as she kept breathing.