Rin is on her first solo command mission for the Southern Coalition, to liberate the city of Khudla from Mugen occupation. Rin recently had her right hand amputated. She can use her powers but can’t swordfight.

Rin’s forces begin to attack. She is moved by the Mugenese fighters’ youth but reminds herself to think of them as non-human. Rin contemplates who decides who gets to be human, but banishes these thoughts to kill them. The last Mugenese troops take six hostages into a temple. Officer Shen says they are not “important” hostages, so Rin burns everyone inside the temple.

Rin and her close friend and fellow shaman Kitay look through the wreckage for rebel leader Yang Souji. Souji shows her around the town. Souji wants to know why Rin doesn’t destroy the Federation on the mainland the way she did on the Longbow Island. She claims it’s because of the collateral damage, but really, it’s because her link to Kitay only allows her to use small bursts of power without hurting him.

Rin smokes opium to sleep. She sees Altan in her dream. She replays her atrocities, allowing herself to feel guilt in the dreamspace. Souji has 500 men in his Iron Wolves, but they don’t want to fight for Rin. She takes him into the forest to threaten him until he complies. Souji tells her that the Federation’s forces are located in Southern Rooster Province, including her home of Tikany.

At Ruijin in Monkey Province, Rine meets with Gurubai, the only Southern Warlord to escape Arlong. She’s frustrated that he won’t give her more command power, but she knows that while she is a figurehead of the Southern Coalition, their real allegiance is to him. She gets a letter from Sring Venka, who is spying in Sinegard: Hesperia and Vaisra continue to ignore the Southern Coalition and decimate the remains of the Empire’s militia in the north.

Rin visits the dying bandit chief Ma Lien and poisons him. At a meeting of the Southern Coalition leadership, Rin uses her intel from Souji to try to convince them to march south to defeat the Mugenese. In the middle of the meeting, they get news that Ma Lien has died. Zhuden, the council member who gave Rin the poison, supports Rin taking his place, overpowering Gurubai. Zhuden and Souji pledge their men to Rin’s southward expansion.

Souji tells Rin and Kitay that they’re approaching the battle like a war between armies, while liberation demands “small-scale tactics and deception” (73). He shows her his guerilla tactics and explains why they are more effective than her Sinegard ones. She’s chastened when Souji’s men neatly defeat a Federation patrol with these tactics, and when they are eating better than her soldiers due to the local food they foraged, none of which Rin and Kitay knew was edible.

In the two weeks it takes to approach Leiyang in Rooster Province, Souji teaches Rin and Kitay what he knows about deception and guerrilla tactics, which all prove effective.

At Souji’s insistence, Souji and Rin disguise themselves as beggars and meet with Chief Lien. Rin is shocked to see that while the town is occupied and controlled by the Mugenese, the Nikara walk around free.

Chief Lien tells them to leave, but when he sees that Rin’s power is real, he decides to cooperate. When Rin returns to her tent, she sees a missive penned by her foster brother Kesegi and sealed with the House of Yin’s emblem. Kesegi writes that Nezha wants to see Rin alone in New City. If she arrives alone, he’ll free Kesegi, but if she arrives with an army, he’ll behead him. Rin is shaken to learn that Nezha knows exactly where she is. The rest of the letter is in Nezha’s handwriting, telling Rin that he knows that Hesperia wants to control the country, and he won’t let it happen. He wants them to band together again.

Kitay thinks that Nezha knows that, as a shaman, he is incompatible with the Hesperian worldview. Rin decides that Kesegi’s life isn’t worth her rebellion. After careful planning, they are about to ambush the Mugenese when Souji realizes that the Mugenese have been tipped off and have taken the town hostage. As Rin considers what to do, civilians start fighting from inside, using their numbers to overwhelm the Mugenese, causing many casualties. Realizing that the civilians are willing to die to liberate the village, Rin burns indiscriminately. She realizes the South can win the war not with tactics but with overwhelming numbers.