Chaghan laughed a dry, cutting laugh. “Oh, I’m not going to stop you.”
He held out his hand.
She grasped it, and the drowned land and the ash-choked sky bore witness to the pact between Seer and Speerly.
They had come to an understanding, she and Chaghan. They were no longer opposed, vying for Altan’s favor. They were allies, now, bound by the mutual atrocities they had committed.
They had a god to kill. A world to reshape. An Empress to overthrow.
They were bound by the blood they had spilled. They were bound by their suffering. They were bound by what had happened to them.
No.
This had not happened to her.
We do not force you to do anything, the Phoenix had whispered, and it had spoken the truth. The Phoenix, for all its power, could not compel Tearza to obey it. And it could not have compelled Rin, because she had agreed wholeheartedly to the bargain.
Jiang was wrong. She was not dabbling in forces she could not control, for the gods were not dangerous. The gods had no power at all, except what she gave them. The gods could affect the universe only through humans like her. Her destiny had not been written in the stars, or in the registers of the Pantheon. She had made her choices fully and autonomously. And though she called upon the gods to aid her in battle, they were her tools from beginning to end.
She was no victim of destiny. She was the last Speerly, commander of the Cike, and a shaman who called the gods to do her bidding.
And she would call the gods to do such terrible things.