The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War Trilogy #2)
The Dragon Republic: Part 2 – Chapter 19

Snow started falling the day that they finally returned to the river. At first it drifted down in fat, lazy flakes. But within hours it had transformed into a blinding blizzard, with winds so fierce that the troops could hardly see five feet in front of them. Jinzha was forced to keep his fleet grounded by the edge of the river while his soldiers holed up in their ships to wait out the storm.

“I’ve always been amazed by snow.” Rin traced shapes into the porthole condensation as she stared out at the endless, hypnotizing flurry outside. “Every winter, it’s a surprise. I can never believe it’s real.”

“They don’t have snow down south?” Kitay asked.

“No. Tikany gets so dry that your lips bleed when you try to smile, but never cold enough for the snow to fall. Before I came north, I’d only heard about it in stories. I thought it was a beautiful idea. Little flecks of the cold.”

“And how did you find the snow at Sinegard?”

A howl of wind drowned out Rin’s response. She pulled down the porthole cover. “Fucking miserable.”

The blizzard let up by the next morning. Outside, the forest had been transformed, like some giant had drenched the trees in white paint.

Jinzha announced that the fleet would remain grounded for one more day to pass the New Year’s holiday. Everywhere else in the Empire, New Year’s would be a weeklong affair involving twelve-course banquets, firecrackers, and endless parades. On campaign, a single day would have to be enough.

The troops disembarked to camp out in the winter landscape, glad for the chance to escape the close quarters of the cabins.

“See if you can get that fire going,” Nezha told Kitay.

The three of them sat huddled together on the riverbank, rubbing their hands together while Kitay fumbled with a piece of flint to start a fire.

Somewhere Nezha had scrounged up a small packet of glutinous rice flour. He poured the flour out into a tin bowl, added some water from his canteen, and stirred it together with his fingers until it formed a small ball of dough.

Rin prodded at the measly fire. It fizzled and sputtered; the next gust of wind put it out entirely. She groaned and reached for the flint. They wouldn’t have boiling water for at least half an hour. “You know, you could just take that to the kitchen and have them cook it.”

“The kitchen isn’t supposed to know I have it,” said Nezha.

“I see,” Kitay said. “The general is stealing rations.”

“The general is rewarding his best soldiers with a New Year’s treat,” Nezha said.

Kitay rubbed his hands up and down his arms. “Oh, so it’s nepotism.”

“Shut up,” Nezha mumbled. He rubbed harder at the ball of dough, but it crumbled to bits in his fingers.

“You haven’t added enough water.” Rin grabbed the bowl from him and kneaded the dough with one hand, adding droplets of water with the other until she had a wet, round ball the size of her fist.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Nezha said curiously.

“I used to all the time. No one else was going to feed Kesegi.”

“Kesegi?”

“My little brother.” The memory of his face rose up in Rin’s mind. She forced it back down. She hadn’t seen him in four years. She didn’t know if he was still alive, and she didn’t want to wonder.

“I didn’t know you had a little brother,” Nezha said.

“Not a real brother. I was adopted.”

No one asked her to elaborate, so she didn’t. She rolled the dough into a snakelike strip between both palms, then broke it up piece by piece into thumb-sized lumps.

Nezha watched her hands with the wide-eyed fascination of a boy who’d clearly never been in the kitchen. “Those balls are smaller than the tangyuan I remember.”

“That’s because we don’t have red bean paste or sesame to fill them with,” she said. “Any chance you scrounged up some sugar?”

“You have to add sugar?” Nezha asked.

Kitay laughed.

“We’ll eat them bland, then,” she said. “It’ll taste better in little pieces. More to chew.”

When the water finally came to a boil, Rin dropped the rice flour balls into the tin cauldron and stirred them with a stick, creating a clockwise current so that they wouldn’t stick to each other.

“Did you know that cauldrons are a military invention?” Kitay asked. “One of the Red Emperor’s generals came up with the idea of tin cookware. Can you imagine? Before that, they were stuck trying to build fires large enough for giant bamboo steamers.”

“A lot of innovations came from the military,” Nezha mused. “Messenger pigeons, for one. And there’s a good argument that most of the advances in blacksmithing and medicine were a product of the Era of Warring States.”

“That’s cute.” Rin peered into the cauldron. “Proves that war’s good for something, then.”

“It’s a good theory,” Nezha insisted. “The country was in chaos during the Era of Warring States, sure. But look at what it brought us—Sunzi’s Principles of War; Mengzi’s theories on governance. Everything we know now about philosophy, about warfare and statecraft, was developed during that era.”

“So what’s the tradeoff?” Rin asked. “Thousands of people have to die so that we can get better at killing each other in the future?”

“You know that’s not my argument.”

“It’s what it sounds like. It sounds like you’re saying that people have to die for progress.”

“It’s not progress they’re dying for,” Nezha said. “Progress is the side effect. And military innovation doesn’t just mean we get better at killing each other, it means we get better equipped to kill whoever decides to invade us next.”

“And who do you think is going to invade us next?” Rin asked. “The Hinterlanders?”

“Don’t rule them out.”

“They’d have to stop killing each other off, first.”

The tribes of the northern Hinterlands had been at constant war since any of them could remember. In the days of the Red Emperor, the students of Sinegard had been trained primarily to fend off northern invaders. Now they were just an afterthought.

“Better question,” Kitay said. “What do you think is the next great military innovation?”

“Arquebuses,” Nezha said, at the same moment that Rin said, “Shamanic armies.”

Both of them turned to stare at her.

“Shamans over arquebuses?” Nezha asked.

“Of course,” she said. The thought had just occurred to her, but the more she considered it, the more attractive it sounded. “Tarcquet’s weapon is just a glorified rocket. But imagine a whole army of people who could summon gods.”

“That sounds like a disaster,” Nezha said.

“Or an unstoppable military,” Rin said.

“I feel like if that could be done, it would have been,” said Nezha. “But there’s no written history on shamanic warfare. The only shamans the Red Emperor employed were the Speerlies, and we know how that went.”

“But the predynastic texts—”

“—are irrelevant.” Nezha cut her off. “Fortification technology and bronze weapons didn’t become military standard until well into the Red Emperor’s rule, which is about the same time that shamans started disappearing from the record. We have no idea how shamans would change the nature of warfare, whether they could be worked into a military bureaucracy.”

“The Cike’s done pretty well,” Rin challenged.

“When there are fewer than ten of you, sure. Don’t you think hundreds of shamans would be a disaster?”

“You should become one,” she said. “See what it’s like.”

Nezha flinched. “You’re not serious.”

“It’s not the worst idea. Any of us could teach you.”

“I have never met a shaman in complete control of their own mind.” Nezha looked strangely bothered by her suggestion. “And I’m sorry, but knowing the Cike does not make me terribly optimistic.”

Rin pulled the cauldron off of the fire. She knew she was supposed to let the tangyuan cool for a few minutes before serving, but she was too cold, and the vapors misting up from the surface were too enticing. They didn’t have bowls, so they wrapped the cauldron in leaves to keep their hands from burning and passed it around in a circle.

“Happy New Year,” Kitay said. “May the gods send you blessings and good fortune.”

“Health, wealth, and happiness. May your enemies rot and surrender quickly before we have to kill more of them.” Rin stood up.

“Where are you going?” Nezha asked.

“Gotta go take a piss.”

She wandered toward the woods, looking for a large enough tree to hide behind. By now she’d spent so much time with Kitay that she wouldn’t have minded squatting down right in front of him. But for some reason, she felt far less comfortable stripping in front of Nezha.

Her ankle twisted beneath her. She spun around, failed to catch her balance, and fell flat on her rear. She spread her hands to catch her fall. Her fingers landed on something soft and rubbery. Confused, she glanced down and brushed the snow away from the surface.

She saw a child’s face buried in snow.

His—she thought it was a boy, though she couldn’t quite tell—eyes were wide open, large and blank, with long lashes fringed with snow, embedded in dark shadows on a thin, pale face.

Rin rose unsteadily to her feet. She picked up a branch and brushed the rest of the snow off the child’s body. She uncovered another face. And then another.

It finally sank in that this was not natural, that she ought to be afraid, and then she opened her mouth and screamed.

Nezha ordered a squadron to walk through the surrounding square mile with torches held low to the ground until the ice and snow had melted enough that they could see what had happened.

The snow peeled away to reveal an entire village of people, frozen perfectly where they lay. Most still had their eyes open. Rin saw no blood. The villagers didn’t appear to have died from anything except for the cold, and perhaps starvation. Everywhere she found evidence of fires, hastily constructed, long fizzled out.

No one had given her a torch. She was still shaken from the experience, and every sudden movement made her jump, so it was best that she didn’t hold on to anything potentially dangerous. But she refused to go back to camp alone, either, so she stood by the edge of the forest, watching blankly as the soldiers brushed snow off yet another family of corpses. Their bodies were curled in a heap together, the mother’s and father’s bodies wrapped protectively around their two children.

“Are you all right?” Nezha asked her. His hand wandered hesitantly toward her shoulder, as if he wasn’t sure whether to touch her or not.

She brushed it away. “I’m fine. I’ve seen bodies before.”

Yet she couldn’t take her eyes off of them. They looked like a set of dolls lying in the snow, perfectly fine except for the fact that they weren’t moving.

Most of the adults still had large bundles fastened to their backs. Rin saw porcelain dishes, silk dresses, and kitchen utensils spilling out of those bags. The villagers seemed to have packed their entire homes up with them.

“Where were they going?” she wondered.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Kitay said. “They were running.”

“From what?”

Kitay said it, because no one else seemed able to. “Us.”

“But they didn’t have anything to fear.” Nezha looked deeply uncomfortable. “We would have treated them the way we’ve treated every other village. They would have gotten a vote.”

“That’s not what their leaders would have told them,” said Kitay. “They would have imagined we were coming to kill them.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Nezha said.

“Is it?” Kitay asked. “Imagine it. You hear the rebel army is coming. Your magistrates are your most reliable sources of information, and they tell you that the rebels will kill your men, rape your women, and enslave your children, because that’s what you’re always supposed to say about the enemy. You don’t know any better, so you pack up everything you can and flee.”

Rin could imagine the rest. These villagers would have run from the Republic just as they had once run from the Federation. But winter had come earlier that year than they’d predicted, and they didn’t get to the lowland valleys in time. They couldn’t find anything to eat. At some point it was too much work to stay alive. So they decided with the rest of the families that this was as good a place as any to end it, and together they lay down and embraced each other, and perhaps it didn’t feel so terrible near the end.

Perhaps it felt just like going to sleep.

Through the entire campaign, she had never once paused to consider just how many people they had killed or displaced. The numbers added up so quickly. Several thousand from famine—maybe several hundred thousand—and then all the soldiers they’d cut down every time, multiplied across villages.

They were fighting a very different war now, she realized. They were not the liberators but the aggressors. They were the ones to fear.

“War’s different when you’re not struggling for survival.” Kitay must have been thinking the same thing she was. He stood still, hands clutching his torch, eyes fixed on the bodies at his feet. “Victories don’t feel the same.”

“Do you think it’s worth it?” Rin asked him quietly so that Nezha couldn’t hear.

“Frankly, I don’t care.”

“I’m being serious.”

He considered for a moment. “I’m glad that someone’s fighting Daji.”

“But the stakes—”

“I wouldn’t think too long about the stakes.” Kitay glanced at Nezha, who was still staring at the bodies, eyes wide and disturbed. “You won’t like the answers you come up with.”

That evening the snowstorms started up again and did not relent for another week. It confirmed what everyone had been afraid of. Winter had arrived early that year, and with a vengeance. Soon enough the tributaries would freeze and the Republican Fleet would be stuck in the north unless they turned back. Their options were dwindling.

Rin paced the Kingfisher for days, growing more agitated with every passing minute. She needed to move, fight, attack. She didn’t like sitting still. Too easy to fall prey to her own thoughts. Too easy to see the faces in the snow.

Once during a late-night stroll she stumbled across the leadership leaving Jinzha’s office. None of them looked happy. Jinzha stormed past her without saying a word; he might not have even noticed her. Nezha lingered behind with Kitay, who wore the peeved, tight-lipped expression that Rin had learned meant that he hadn’t gotten his way.

“Don’t tell me,” Rin said. “We’re moving forward.”

“We’re not just moving forward. He wants us to bypass Baraya entirely and take Boyang.” Kitay slammed a fist against the wall. “Boyang! Is he mad?”

“Military outpost on the border of Rat Province and Tiger Province,” Nezha explained to Rin. “It’s not a terrible idea. The Militia used Boyang as a fortress during the first and second invasions. It’ll have built-in defenses, make it easier to last out the winter. We can break the siege at Baraya from there.”

“But won’t someone already be there?” Rin asked. If the Militia was garrisoned anywhere, it had to be in Tiger or Rat Province. Any farther north and they’d be fighting in Sinegard for the heart of Imperial territory.

“If someone’s already there, then we’ll fight them off,” said Nezha.

“In icy waters?” Kitay challenged. “With a cold and miserable army? If we keep going north, we’re going to lose every advantage we’ve gained by coming so far.”

“Or we could cement our victory,” Nezha argued. “If we win at Boyang, then we control the delta at the Elehemsa tributary, which means—”

“Yes, yes, you cut around the coast to Tiger Province, you can send reinforcements to either through riverways,” Kitay said irritably. “Except you’re not going to win Boyang. The Imperial Fleet is almost certainly there, but for some reason Jinzha would prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist. I don’t know what’s wrong with your brother, but he’s getting reckless and he’s making decisions like a madman.”

“My brother is not a madman.”

“Oh, no, he might be the best wartime general I’ve ever seen. No one’s denying he’s done well so far. But he’s only good because he’s the first Nikara general who’s been trained to think from a naval perspective first. Once the rivers freeze, it’s going to turn into a ground war, and then he won’t have a clue what to do.”

Nezha sighed. “Look, I understand your point. I’m just trying to see the best in our situation. If it were up to me I wouldn’t go to Boyang, either.”

Kitay threw his hands up. “Well, then—”

“This isn’t about strategy. It’s about pride. It’s about showing the Hesperians that we won’t back down from a challenge. And for Jinzha, it’s about proving himself to Father.”

“These things always come back to your father,” Kitay muttered. “Both of you need help.”

“So say that to Jinzha,” Rin said. “Tell him that he’s being stupid.”

“There’s no possible version of that argument that goes well,” Nezha said. “Jinzha decides what he wants. You think I can contradict him and get away with it?”

“Well, if you can’t,” Kitay said, “then we’re fucked.”

An hour later the paddle wheels creaked into motion, carrying the Republican Fleet through a minor mountain range.

“Look up.” Kitay nudged Rin’s arm. “Does that look normal to you?”

At first it seemed to her like the sun was gradually coming up over the mountains, the lights were so bright. Then the glowing objects rose higher, and she saw that they were lanterns, lighting up the night sky one by one like a field of blooming flowers. Long ribbons dangled from the balloons, displaying a message easily read from the ground.

Surrender means immunity.

“Did they really think that would work?” Rin asked, amused. “That’s like screaming, ‘Go away, please.’”

But Kitay wasn’t smiling. “I don’t think it’s about propaganda. We should turn back.”

“What, just because of some lanterns?”

“It’s what the lanterns mean. Whoever set them up is waiting for us in there. And I doubt they have the firepower to match the fleet, but they’re still fighting on their own territory, and they know that river. They’ve staked it out for who knows how long.” Kitay motioned to the closest soldier. “Can you shoot?”

“As well as anyone else,” said the soldier.

“Good. You see that?” Kitay pointed to a lantern drifting a little farther out from the others. “Can you hit it? I just want to see what happens.”

The soldier looked confused, but obeyed. His first shot missed. His second arrow flew true. The lantern exploded into flames, sending a shower of sparks and coal tumbling toward the river.

Rin hit the ground. The explosion seemed impossibly loud for such a small, harmless-looking lantern. It just kept going, too—the lantern must have been loaded with multiple smaller bombs that went off in succession at various points in the air like intricate fireworks. She watched, holding her breath, hoping that none of the sparks would set off the other lanterns. That might spark a chain reaction that turned the entire cliffside into a column of fire.

But the other lanterns didn’t go off—the first had exploded too far from the rest of the pack—and at last, the explosions started to fizzle out.

“Told you,” Kitay said once they’d ceased completely. He picked himself off the ground. “We’d better go tell Jinzha we need a change in route.”

The fleet crept down a secondary channel of the tributary, a narrow pass between jagged cliffs. This would add a week to their travel time, but it was better than certain incineration.

Rin scanned the gray rocks with her spyglass and found crevices, cliff ledges that could easily conceal enemies, but saw no movement. No lanterns. The pass looked abandoned.

“We’re not in the clear yet,” Kitay said.

“You think they booby-trapped both rivers?”

“They could have,” Kitay said. “I would.”

“But there’s nothing here.”

A boom shook the air. They exchanged a look and ran out to the prow.

The skimmer at the head of the fleet was in full blaze.

Another boom echoed through the pass. A second ship exploded, sending blast fragments up so high that they crashed across the Kingfisher’s deck. Jinzha threw himself to the ground just before a piece of the Lapwing could skewer his head to the mast.

“Get down!” he roared. “Everybody down!”

But he didn’t have to tell them—even from a hundred yards away the burst impacts shook the Kingfisher like an earthquake, knocking everyone on deck off their feet.

Rin crawled as close as she could to the edge of the deck, spyglass in hand. She popped up from the railing and glanced frantically about the mountains, but all she saw were rocks. “There’s no one up there.”

“Those aren’t missiles,” Kitay said. “You’d see the heat glow in the air.”

He was right—the source of the explosions wasn’t from the air; they weren’t detonating on the decks. The very water itself was erupting around the fleet.

Chaos took over the Kingfisher. Archers scrambled to the top deck to open fire on enemies who weren’t there. Jinzha screamed himself hoarse ordering the ships to reverse direction. The Kingfisher’s paddle wheels spun frantically backward, pushing the turtle boat out of the tributary, only to bump into the Crake. Only after a frantic exchange of signal flags did the fleet begin backtracking sluggishly downriver.

They weren’t moving fast enough. Whatever was in the water must have been laced together by some chain reaction mechanism, because a minute later another skimmer went up in flames, and then another. Rin could see the explosions starting below the water, each one detonating the next like a vicious streak, getting closer and closer to the Kingfisher.

A massive gust of water shot out of the river. At first Rin thought it was just the force of the explosions, but the water spiraled, higher and higher, like a whirlpool in reverse, expanding to surround the warships, forming a protective ring that centered around the Griffon.

“What the fuck,” Kitay said.

Rin dashed to the prow.

Nezha stood beneath the Griffon’s mast, arms stretched out to the tower of water as if reaching for something.

He met Rin’s gaze, and her heart skipped a beat.

His eyes were shot through with streaks of ocean blue—not the eerie cerulean gleam of Feylen’s glare, but a darker cobalt, the color of old gems.

“You too?” she whispered.

Through the protective wave of water she saw explosions, splashes of orange and red and yellow. Warped by the water, they almost seemed pretty, a painting of angry bursts. Shrapnel seemed frozen in place, arrested by the wall. The water hung in the air for an impossibly long time, steady while the explosives went off one by one in a series of deafening booms that echoed around the fleet. Nezha collapsed on the deck.

The wave dropped, slammed inward, and drenched the wretched remains of the Republican Fleet.

Rin needed to get to the Griffon.

The great wave had knocked Nezha’s ship and the Kingfisher together into a dismal wreck. Their decks were separated by only a narrow gap. Rin took a running start, jumped, skidded onto the Griffon’s deck, and ran toward Nezha’s limp form.

All the color had drained from his face. He was already porcelain pale, but now his skin looked transparent, his scars cracks in shattered glass over bright blue veins.

She pulled him up into a sitting position. He was breathing, his chest heaving, but his eyes were squeezed shut, and he only shook his head when she tried to ask him questions.

“It hurts.” Finally, intelligible words—he twisted in her arms, scrabbling at something on his back. “It hurts . . .”

“Here?” She put her hand on the small of his back.

He managed a nod. Then a sudden, wordless scream.

She tried to help him pull his shirt off, but he kept thrashing in her arms, so she had to slice it apart with a knife and yank the pieces away. Her fingers splayed over his exposed back. Her breath caught in her throat.

A massive dragon tattoo, silver and cerulean in the colors of the House of Yin, covered his skin from shoulder to shoulder. Rin couldn’t remember seeing it before—but then, she couldn’t remember seeing Nezha shirtless before. This tattoo had to be old. She could see a rippled scar arcing down the left side where Nezha had once been pierced by a Mugenese general’s halberd. But now the scar glistened an angry red, as if freshly branded into his skin. She couldn’t tell if she was imagining things in her panic, but the dragon seemed to undulate under her fingers, coiling and thrashing against his skin.

“It’s in my mind.” Nezha let out another strangled cry of pain. “It’s telling me—fuck, Rin . . .”

Pity washed over her, a dark wave that sent bile rising up in her throat.

Nezha gave a low moan. “It’s in my head . . .”

She had an idea of what that was like.

He grabbed her wrists with a strength that startled her. “Kill me.”

“I can’t do that,” she whispered.

She wanted to kill him. All she wanted was to put him out of his pain. She couldn’t bear to look at him like this, screaming like it was never going to end.

But she’d never forgive herself for that.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jinzha had arrived. He was looking down at Nezha with a genuine concern that Rin had never seen on his face.

“It’s a god,” she told him. She was certain. She knew exactly what was going through Nezha’s head, because she’d suffered it before. “He called a god and it won’t go away.”

She had a good idea of what had happened. Nezha, watching the fleet exploding around him, had tried to protect the Griffon. He might not have been aware of what he was doing. He might only remember wishing that the waters would rise, would protect them from the fires. But some god had answered and done exactly what he’d wished, and now he couldn’t get it to give him his mind back.

“What are you talking about?” Jinzha knelt down and tried to pull Nezha out of her grasp, but she wouldn’t let go.

“Get back.”

“Don’t you touch him,” he snarled.

She smacked his hand away. “I know what this is, I’m the only one who can help him, so if you want him to live, then get back.”

She was astounded when Jinzha complied.

Nezha thrashed in her arms, moaning.

“So help him,” Jinzha begged.

I’m fucking trying, Rin thought. She forced herself to calm. She could think of only one thing that might work. If this was a god—and she was almost certain that this was a god—then the only way to silence its voice was to shut off Nezha’s mind, close off his connection to the world of spirit.

“Send a man to my bunk,” she told Jinzha. “Cabin three. Have him pull up the second floorboard in the right corner and bring me what’s hidden under there. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“Then hurry.”

He stood up and started to bark out orders.

“Get out.” Nezha was curling in on himself, muttering. He scrabbled at his shoulder blades, digging his nails deep into his skin, drawing blood. “Get out—get out!”

Rin grabbed his wrists and forced them away from his back. He wrenched them, flailing, out of her grip. A stray hand hit her across the chin. Her head whipped to the side. For a moment she saw black.

Nezha looked horrified. “I’m sorry.” He clutched at his shoulders like he was trying to shrink. “I’m so sorry.”

Rin heard a groaning noise. It came from the deck—the ship was moving, ever so slowly. Something was pushing at it from below. She looked up, and her stomach twisted with dread. The waves were swelling, rising around the Griffon like a hand preparing to clench its fingers in a fist. They had grown higher than the mast.

Nezha might lose control entirely. He might drown them all.

“Nezha.” She grasped his face between her palms. “Look at me. Please, look at me. Nezha.”

But he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, listen to her—his seconds of lucidity had passed, and it was all she could do to hold him tight so that he wouldn’t shred his own skin while he moaned and screamed.

An eternity later she heard footsteps.

“Here,” Jinzha said, pressing the packet into her hand. Rin crawled onto Nezha’s chest, pinning down his arms with her knees, and tore the packet open with her teeth. Nuggets of opium tumbled out onto the deck.

“What are you doing?” Jinzha demanded.

“Shut up.” Rin scraped up two nuggets and held them tightly in her fist.

What now? She didn’t have a pipe on hand. She couldn’t call the fire to just light up the opium nuggets and make him inhale, and making a fire would take an eternity—everything on deck was drenched.

She had to get the opium into him somehow.

She couldn’t think of any other way. She balled the nuggets up in her hand and forced them into his mouth. Nezha thrashed harder, choking. She pinched his jaw shut, then wrenched it open and pushed the nuggets farther into his mouth until he swallowed.

She held his arms down and leaned over him, waiting. A minute passed. Then two. Nezha stopped moving. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head. Then he stopped breathing.

“You could have killed him,” said the ship’s physician.

Rin recognized Dr. Sien from the Cormorant. He was the physician who had tended to Vaisra after Lusan, and appeared to be the only man permitted to treat the members of the House of Yin.

“I just assumed you’d have something for that,” she said.

She stood slouched against the wall, exhausted. She was amazed she’d been allowed into Nezha’s cabin, but Jinzha had only given her a tight nod on his way out.

Nezha lay still on the bed between them. He looked awful, paler than death, but he was breathing steadily. Every rise and fall of his chest gave Rin a small jolt of relief.

“Lucky we had the drug on hand,” said Dr. Sien. “How did you know?”

“Know what?” Rin asked cautiously. Did Dr. Sien know that Nezha was a shaman? Did anyone? Jinzha had seemed utterly confused. Was Nezha’s secret his alone?

“To give him opium,” Dr. Sien said.

That told her nothing. She hazarded a half truth in response. “I’ve seen this illness before.”

“Where?” he asked curiously.

“Um.” Rin shrugged. “You know. Down in the south. Opium’s a common remedy for it there.”

Doctor Sien looked somewhat disappointed. “I have treated the sons of the Dragon Warlord since they were babies. They have never told me anything about Nezha’s particular ailment, only that he often feels pain, and that opium is the only way to calm him. I don’t know if Vaisra and Saikhara know the cause themselves.”

Rin looked down at Nezha’s sleeping face. He looked so peaceful. She had the oddest urge to brush the hair back from his forehead. “How long has he been sick?”

“He began having seizures when he was twelve. They’ve become less frequent as he’s gotten older, but this one was the worst I’ve seen in years.”

Has Nezha been a shaman since he was a child? Rin wondered. How had he never told her? Did he not trust her?

“He’s in the clear now,” said Dr. Sien. “The only thing he’ll need is sleep. You don’t have to stay.”

“It’s all right. I’ll wait.”

He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t think General Jinzha—”

“Jinzha knows I just saved his brother’s life. He’ll permit it, and he’s an ass if he doesn’t.”

Dr. Sien didn’t argue. After he closed the door behind him, Rin curled up on the floor next to Nezha’s bed and closed her eyes.

Hours later she heard him stirring. She sat up, rubbed the grime from her eyes, and knelt next to him. “Nezha?”

“Hmm.” He blinked at the ceiling, trying to make sense of his surroundings.

She touched the back of her finger to his left cheek. His skin was much softer than she had thought it would be. His scars were not raised bumps like she’d expected, but rather smooth lines running across his skin like tattoos.

His eyes had returned to their normal, lovely brown. Rin couldn’t help noticing how long his lashes were; they were so dark and heavy, thicker even than Venka’s. It’s not fair, she thought. He’d always been much prettier than anyone had the right to be.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

Nezha blinked several times and slurred something that didn’t sound like words.

She tried again. “Do you know what’s going on?”

His eyes darted around the room for a while, and then focused on her face with some difficulty. “Yes.”

She couldn’t hold back her questions any longer. “Do you understand what just happened? Why didn’t you tell me?”

All Nezha did was blink.

She leaned forward, heart pounding. “I could have helped you. Or—or you could have helped me. You should have told me.”

His breathing started to quicken.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked again.

He mumbled something unintelligible. His eyelids fluttered shut.

She nearly shook him by the collar, she was so desperate for answers.

She took a deep breath. Stop it. Nezha was in no state to be interrogated now.

She could force him to talk. If she pressed harder, if she yelled at him to give her the truth, then he might tell her everything.

That would be a secret revealed under opium, however, and she would have coerced him when he was in no state to refuse.

Would he hate her for it?

He was only half-conscious. He might not even remember.

She swallowed down a sudden wave of revulsion. No—no, she wouldn’t do that to him. She couldn’t. She’d have to get her answers another way. Now was not the time. She stood up.

His eyes opened again. “Where are you going?”

“I should let you rest,” she said.

He shifted in his bed. “No . . . don’t go . . .”

She paused at the door.

“Please,” he said. “Stay.”

“All right,” she said, and returned to his side. She took his hand in hers. “I’m right here.”

“What’s happening to me?” he murmured.

She squeezed his fingers. “Just close your eyes, Nezha. Go back to sleep.”

The remains of the fleet sat stuck in a cove for the next three days. Half the troops had to be treated for burn wounds, and the repulsive smell of rotting flesh became so pervasive that the men took to wrapping cloth around their faces, covering everything except their eyes. Eventually Jinzha had made the decision to administer morphine and medicine only to the men who had a decent chance of survival. The rest were rolled into the mud, facedown, until they stopped moving.

They didn’t have time to bury their dead so they dragged them into piles interlaced with parts of irreparable ships to form funeral pyres and set them on fire.

“How strategic,” Kitay said. “Don’t need the Empire getting hold of good ship wood.”

“Do you have to be like this?” Rin asked.

“Just complimenting Jinzha.”

Sister Petra stood before the burning corpses and gave an entire funeral benediction in her fluent, toneless Nikara while soldiers stood around her in a curious circle.

“In life you suffered in a world wreaked by Chaos, but you have offered your souls to a beautiful cause,” she said. “You died creating order in a land bereft of it. Now you rest. I pray your Maker will take mercy on your souls. I pray that you will come to know the depths of his love, all-encompassing and unconditional.”

She then began chanting in a language that Rin didn’t recognize. It seemed similar to Hesperian—she could almost recognize the roots of words before they took on an entirely different shape—but this seemed something more ancient, something weighted down with centuries of history and religious purpose.

“Where do your people think souls go when they die?” Rin murmured quietly to Augus.

He looked surprised she had even asked. “To the realm of the Maker, of course. Where do your people think they go?”

“Nowhere,” she said. “We disappear back to nothing.”

The Nikara spoke of the underworld sometimes, but that was more a folk story than a true belief. No one really imagined they might end up anywhere but in darkness.

“That’s impossible,” Augus said. “The Maker creates our souls to be permanent. Even barbarians’ souls have value. When we die, he refines them and brings them to his realm.”

Rin couldn’t help her curiosity. “What is that realm like?”

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “A land utterly without Chaos; without pain, disease, or suffering. It is the kingdom of perfect order that we spend our lives trying to re-create on this earth.”

Rin saw the joyful hope beaming out of Augus’s face as he spoke, and she knew that he believed every word he was saying.

She was starting to see why the Hesperians clung so fervently to their religion. No wonder they had won converts over so easily during occupation. What a relief it would be to know that at the end of this life there was a better one, that perhaps upon death you might enjoy the comforts you had always been denied instead of fading away from an indifferent universe. What a relief to know that the world was supposed to make sense, and that if it didn’t, you would one day be justly compensated.

A line of captains and generals stood before the burning pyre. Nezha was at the end, leaning heavily on a walking stick. It was the first time Rin had seen him in two days.

But when she approached him, he turned to walk away. She called out his name. He ignored her. She dashed forward—he couldn’t outrun her, not with his walking stick—and grabbed his wrist.

“Stop running away,” she said.

“I’m not running,” he said stiffly.

“Then talk to me. Tell me what I saw on the river.”

Nezha’s eyes darted around at the soldiers standing within earshot. He lowered his voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie to me. I saw what you did. You’re a shaman!”

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She didn’t let go of his wrist. “You moved the water at will. I know it was you.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t see anything, and you won’t tell anyone anything—”

“Your secret is safe from Petra, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. “But I don’t understand why you’re lying to me.”

Without responding, Nezha turned and limped briskly away from the pyres. She followed him to a spot behind the charred hull of a transport skimmer. The questions poured out of her in an unstoppable torrent. “Did they teach you at Sinegard? Does Jun know? Is anyone else in your family a shaman?”

“Rin, stop—”

“Jinzha doesn’t know, I figured that out. What about your mother? Vaisra? Did he teach you?”

“I am not a shaman!” he shouted.

She didn’t flinch. “I’m not stupid. I know what I saw.”

“Then draw your own conclusions and stop asking questions.”

“Why are you hiding this?”

He looked pained. “Because I don’t want it.”

“You can control the water! You could single-handedly win us this war!”

“It’s not that easy, I can’t just—” He shook his head. “You saw what happened. It wants to take over.”

“Of course it does. What do you think we all go through? So you control it. You get practice at reining it in, you shape it to your own will—”

“Like you can?” he sneered. “You’re the equivalent of a spiritual eunuch.”

He was trying to throw her off, but she didn’t let that distract her. “And I would kill to have the fire back. It’s difficult, I know, the gods aren’t kind—but you can control them! I can help you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, shut up—”

“Unless you’re just scared, which is no excuse, because men are dying while you’re sitting here indulging in your own self-pity—”

“I said shut up!”

His hand went into the skimmer’s hull, an inch from her head. She didn’t flinch. She turned her head slowly, trying to pretend her heart wasn’t slamming against her chest.

“You missed,” she said calmly.

Nezha pulled his hand away from the hull. Blood trickled down his knuckles from four crimson dots.

She should have been afraid, but when she searched his face, she couldn’t find a shred of anger. Just fear.

She had no respect for fear.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“Oh, trust me.” Her lip curled. “You couldn’t.”

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