“Technically it’s the Army of the Republic. Nonprovincial, and all that.”
“You’d need allies for that.”
“We’re working on it.”
She turned toward the porthole. Even in the darkness she could see how fast the Seagrim was moving, slicing through black waves at speeds faster than Aratsha had ever been capable of. By morning Moag and her fleet would be dozens of miles behind them.
But Rin couldn’t leave Ankhiluun like this. Not yet. She had one more thing to retrieve.
“You said Moag thinks we’re dead?” she asked.
“I’d be surprised if she didn’t. We even tossed some charred corpses in the water.”
“Whose bodies?”
Nezha stretched his arms over his head. “Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.” The sun had just set over the water. Soon the Ankhiluuni pirate patrol would begin to make its rounds around the coast. “Do you have a smaller boat? One that can sneak past Moag’s ships?”
“Of course,” he scoffed. “Why, do you need to go back?”
“I don’t,” she said. “But you’ve forgotten someone.”
By all accounts Kitay’s audience with Vaisra was an unmitigated disaster. Captain Eriden wouldn’t let Rin onto the second deck, so she was unable to eavesdrop, but about an hour after they brought Kitay on board, she saw Nezha and two soldiers dragging him to the lower level. She ran down the passageway to catch up.
“—and I don’t care if you’re pissed, you can’t throw food at the Dragon Warlord,” said Nezha.
Kitay’s face was purple with anger. If he was at all relieved to see Nezha alive, he didn’t show it. “Your men tried to blow up my house!”
“They tend to do that,” Rin said.
“We had to make it look like you’d died,” Nezha said.
“I was still in it!” Kitay cried. “And so were my ledgers!”
Nezha looked amazed. “Who gives a shit about your ledgers?”
“I was doing the city’s taxes.”
“What?”
Kitay stuck his lower lip out. “And I was almost done.”
“What the fuck?” Nezha blinked. “I don’t—Rin, you talk some sense into this idiot.”
“I’m the idiot?” Kitay demanded. “Me? You’re the ones who think it’d be a good idea to start a bloody civil war—”
“Because the Empire needs one,” Nezha insisted. “Daji’s the reason why the Federation invaded; she’s the reason why Golyn Niis—”
“You were not at Golyn Niis,” Kitay snarled. “Don’t talk to me about Golyn Niis.”
“Fine—I’m sorry—but shouldn’t that justify a regime change? She’s hamstrung the Militia, she’s fucked our foreign relations, she’s not fit to rule—”
“You have no proof of that.”
“We do have proof.” Nezha stopped walking. “Look at your scars. Look at me. The proof’s written on our skin.”
“I don’t care,” Kitay said. “I don’t give a shit what your politics are, I want to go home.”
“And do what?” Nezha asked. “And fight for whom? There’s a war coming, Kitay, and when it’s here, there will be no such thing as neutrality.”
“That’s not true. I shall seclude myself and live the virtuous life of a scholarly hermit,” Kitay said stiffly.
“Stop,” Rin said. “Nezha’s right. Now you’re just being stubborn.”
He rolled his eyes at her. “Of course you’re in on this madness. What did I expect?”
“Maybe it’s madness,” she said. “But it’s better than fighting for the Militia. Come on, Kitay. You know you can’t go back to the status quo.”
She could see it in Kitay’s eyes, how badly he wanted to resolve the contradiction between loyalty and justice—because Kitay, poor, upright, moral Kitay, always so concerned with doing what was right, couldn’t reconcile himself to the fact that a military coup might be justified.
He flung his hands in the air. “Even so, you think I’m in a position to join your republic? My father is the Imperial defense minister.”
“Then he’s serving the wrong ruler,” said Nezha.
“You don’t understand! My entire family is at the heart of the capital. They could use them against me—my mother, my sister—”
“We could extract them,” Nezha said.
“Oh, like you extracted me? Very nice, I’m sure they’ll love getting abducted in the middle of the night while their house burns down.”
“Calm down,” Rin said. “They’d still be alive. You wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Like you’d know how it feels,” Kitay snapped. “The closest thing you had to a family was a suicidal maniac who got himself killed on a mission almost as stupid as this one.”
She could tell he knew he’d crossed the line, even as he said it. Nezha looked stunned. Kitay blinked rapidly, refusing to meet her eyes. Rin hoped for a moment that he might cave, that he’d apologize, but he simply looked away.
She felt a pang in her chest. The Kitay she knew would have apologized.
A long silence followed. Nezha stared at the wall, Kitay at the floor, and neither of them dared to meet Rin’s eyes.
Finally Kitay held out his hands, as if waiting for someone to bind them. “Best get me down to the brig,” he said. “Don’t want your prisoners running around on deck.”
Chapter 7
When Rin returned to her private quarters, she locked the door carefully from the inside, sliding all four bolts into place, and propped a chair against the door for good measure. Then she lay back on her bed. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, to make herself internalize a brief sense of security. She was safe. She was with allies. No one was coming for her.
Sleep didn’t come. Something was missing.
It took her a moment to realize what it was. She was searching for that rocking feeling of the bed shifting over water, and it wasn’t there. The Seagrim was such a massive warship that its decks mimicked solid land. For once, she was on stable ground.
This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She had a place to be and a place to go. She wasn’t drifting anymore, wasn’t desperately scrambling to put together plans she knew would likely fail.
She stared up at the ceiling, trying to will her racing heartbeat to slow down. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong—a deep-seated discomfort that wasn’t just the absence of rolling waves.
It began with a prickling feeling in her fingertips. Then a flush of heat started in her palms and crept up her arms to her chest. The headache began a minute after that, searing flashes of pain that made her grind her teeth.
And then fire started burning at the back of her eyelids.
She saw Speer and she saw the Federation. She saw ashes and bones blurred and melted into one, one lone figure striding toward her, slender and handsome, trident in hand.
“You stupid cunt,” Altan whispered. He reached forward. His hands made a necklace around her throat.
Her eyes flew open. She sat up and breathed in and out, deep and slow and desperate breaths, trying to quell her sudden swell of panic.
Then she realized what was wrong.
She had no access to opium on this ship.
No. Calm. Stay calm.
Once upon a time at Sinegard, back when Master Jiang had been trying to help her shut her mind to the Phoenix, he’d taught her techniques to clear her thoughts and disappear into a void that imitated nonexistence. He’d taught her how to think like she was dead.
She had shunned his lessons then. She tried to recall them now. She forced her mind through the mantras he’d made her repeat for hours. Nothingness. I am nothing. I do not exist. I feel nothing, I regret nothing . . . I am sand, I am dust, I am ash.