The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War Trilogy #2)

Rin couldn’t sleep that night. She sat upright in her infirmary bed, staring out the window at the still harbor, counting down the minutes until dawn. She wanted to pace the hallway, but didn’t want the infirmary staff to find her behavior odd. She also wished desperately she could be with Kitay, poring over every possible contingency one last time, but they’d been sleeping in separate rooms every night. She couldn’t risk giving away any sign that she intended to leave until she’d made it out of the city gates.

She’d packed nothing. She owned very little that mattered—she’d bring along her backup longsword, the one that wasn’t lost at the bottom of the channel, and the clothes on her back. She’d leave everything else behind in the barracks. The more she took with her, the faster Vaisra would realize that she had left for good.

Rin had no idea what she was going to do once she got out. Moag still hadn’t returned her missive. She might not have even received it. Perhaps she had and elected to ignore it. Or she might have taken it straight to Vaisra.

Ankhiluun might have been a terrible gamble. But Rin simply had no other options.

All she knew was that she needed to get out of the city. For once, she needed to be a step ahead of Vaisra. No one suspected that she might leave, which meant no one was keeping her from going.

She had no advantages past that, but she’d figure out the rest once the Red Cliffs were well behind her.

“Fancy a drink?” asked a voice.

She jumped, hands scrabbling for her sword.

“Tiger’s tits,” Nezha said. “It’s just me.”

“Sorry,” she breathed. Could he read the fear on her face? She hastily rearranged her features into some semblance of calm. “I’m still twitchy. Every noise I hear sounds like cannon fire.”

“I know that feeling.” Nezha held up a jug. “This might help.”

“What is that?”

“Sorghum wine. We’re off duty for the first time since any of us can remember.” He grinned. “Let’s go get smashed.”

“Who’s us?” she asked cautiously.

“Me and Venka. We’ll go grab Kitay, too.” He extended his hand to her. “Come on. Unless you’ve got something better to do?”

Rin wavered, mind racing furiously.

It was a horrible idea to get drunk on the eve of her escape. But Nezha might suspect something if both she and Kitay refused. He was right—neither she nor Kitay had a plausible excuse to be anywhere else. All of them had been off duty since the Hesperians docked in the harbor.

If she wasn’t planning to turn traitor, why on earth would she say no?

“Come on,” Nezha said again. “A few drinks won’t hurt.”

She managed a smile and took his hand. “You read my mind.”

She tried to calm her racing heartbeat as she followed him out of the barracks.

This was all right. She could afford this one liberty. Once she left Arlong, she might never see Nezha again. She knew, despite their bond, that he could never leave his father’s side. She didn’t want him to remember her as a traitor. She wanted him to remember her as a friend.

She had at least until the hour before dawn. She might as well say a proper goodbye.

Rin didn’t know where Nezha and Venka had found so much liquor in a city that prohibited its sale to soldiers. When she’d made it outside the infirmary, Venka was waiting on the street with an entire wagon of sealed jugs. Nezha retrieved Kitay from the barracks. Then they pushed the wagon together up to the highest tower of the palace, where they sat overlooking the Red Cliffs, surveying the wreckage of the fleets floating below.

For the first few minutes they didn’t speak. They just drank furiously, trying to get as inebriated as possible. It didn’t take very long.

Venka kicked at Nezha’s foot. “You sure we’re not getting jailed for this?”

“We just won the most important battle in the history of the Empire.” Nezha gave her a lazy smile. “I think you’re fine to imbibe.”

“He’s trying to frame us,” Rin said.

She hadn’t meant to start drinking. But Venka and Nezha had kept urging her, and she hadn’t known how to say no without drawing suspicion. Once she started it was harder and harder to stop. Sorghum wine was only horrible for the first few swallows, when it felt like it was burning away at her esophagus, but very quickly a delicious, giddy numbness settled over her body and the wine began tasting like water.

It’ll wear off in a few hours, she thought dimly. She’d be fine by dawn.

“Believe me,” Nezha said. “I wouldn’t need this to frame any of you.”

Venka sniffed at her jug. “This stuff is gross.”

“What do you like better?” Nezha asked.

“Bamboo rice wine.”

“The lady is demanding,” Kitay said.

“I’ll procure it,” Nezha vowed.

“‘I’ll procure it,’” Kitay mimicked.

“Problem?” Nezha asked.

“No, just a question. Have you ever considered being less of a pretentious fuck?”

Nezha put his jug down. “Have you ever considered how close you’re standing to the roof?”

“Boys, boys.” Venka twirled a strand of hair between her fingers, while Kitay flicked droplets of wine at Nezha.

“Stop it,” Nezha snapped.

“Make me.”

Rin drank steadily, watching with lidded eyes as Nezha scooted on his knees across the tower and tackled Kitay to the floor. She supposed she should be afraid that they might fall off the edge, but drunk as she was, it just seemed very funny.

“I learned something,” Kitay announced abruptly, shoving Nezha off of him.

“You’re always learning things,” said Venka. “Kitay the scholar.”

“I’m an intellectually curious man,” Kitay said.

“Always hunkering down in the library. You know, I made a wager once at Sinegard that you spent all that time jerking off.”

Kitay spat out a mouthful of wine. “What?”

Venka propped her chin up on her hands. “Well, were you? Because I’d like to get my money back.”

Kitay ignored her. “My point being—listen, guys, this is actually interesting. You know why the Militia troops were fighting like they’d never held a sword before?”

“They were fighting with a bit more skill than that,” Nezha said.

“I don’t want to talk about troops,” said Venka.

Nezha elbowed her. “Indulge him. Else he’ll never shut up.”

“It’s malaria,” Kitay said. He sounded at first like he was hiccupping, but then he rolled on his side, giggling so hard his entire frame shook. He was drunk, Rin realized; perhaps more drunk than she was, despite the risk.

Kitay must be feeling the way she did—happy, deliriously so, for once in the company of friends who weren’t in danger, and she suspected that he, too, wanted to suspend reality and break the rules, to ignore the fact that they were about to part forever and just share these last jugs of wine.

She didn’t want dawn to come. She would draw this moment out forever if she could.

“They’re not used to southern diseases,” Kitay continued. “The mosquitoes weakened them more than anything we did. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Marvelous,” Venka said drily.

Rin wasn’t paying attention. She scooted closer to the edge of the tower. She wanted to fly again, to feel that precipitous drop in her stomach, the sheer thrill of the dive.

She dangled one foot over the edge and relished the feeling of the wind buffeting her limbs. She leaned forward just the slightest bit. What if she jumped right now? Would she enjoy the fall?

“Get away from there.” Kitay’s voice cut through the fog in her mind. “Nezha, grab her—”

“On it.” Strong arms wrapped around her midriff and dragged her away from the edge. Nezha gripped her tightly, anticipating a struggle, but she just hummed a happy note and slouched back against his chest.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you are?” he grumbled.

“Hand me another jug,” she said.

Nezha hesitated, but Venka readily obliged.

Rin took a long draught, sighed, and lifted her fingertips to her temples. She felt as if a current were running through her limbs, like she had stuck her hand in a bolt of lightning. She rested her head back against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut.

The best part of being drunk was how nothing mattered.

She could dwell on thoughts that used to hurt too much to think about. She could conjure memories—Altan burning on the pier, the corpses in Golyn Niis, Qara’s body in Chaghan’s arms—all without cringing, without the attendant torment. She could reminisce with a quiet detachment, because nothing mattered and nothing hurt.

“Sixteen months.” Kitay had started counting aloud on his fingers. “That’s almost a year and a half we’ve been at war now, if you start from the invasion.”

“That’s not that long,” said Venka. “The First Poppy War took three years. The Second Poppy War took five. The succession battles after the Red Emperor could take as long as seven.”

“How do you fight a war for seven years?” Rin asked. “Wouldn’t you get bored of fighting?”

“Soldiers get bored,” Kitay said. “Aristocrats don’t. To them, it was all a big game. I guess that’s the problem.”

“Here’s a thought experiment.” Venka waved her hands in a small arc like a rainbow. “Imagine some alternate world where this war hadn’t happened. The Federation never invaded. No, scratch that, the Federation doesn’t even exist. Where are you?”

“Any particular point in time?” Kitay asked.

Venka shook her head. “No, I meant, what are you doing with your life? What do you wish you were doing?”

“I know what Kitay’s doing.” Nezha tilted his head back, shook the last drops from his jug into his mouth, then looked disappointed when it refused to yield any more. Venka passed him another jug. Nezha attempted to pop the cork, failed, muttered a curse under his breath, and smashed the neck against the wall.

“Careful,” said Rin. “That’s premium stuff.”

Nezha lifted the broken edges to his lips and smiled.

“Go on,” Kitay said. “Where am I?”

“You’re at Yuelu Academy,” Nezha said. “You’re conducting groundbreaking research on—on some irrelevant shit like the movement of planetary bodies, or the most effective accounting methods across the Twelve Provinces.”

“Don’t mock accounting,” Kitay said. “It’s important.”

“Only to you,” Venka said.

“Regimes have fallen because rulers didn’t balance their accounts.”

“Whatever.” Venka rolled her eyes. “What about the rest of you?”

“I’m good at war,” Rin said. “I’d still be doing wars.”

“Against who?” Venka asked.

“Doesn’t matter. Anyone.”

“There might not be any wars left to fight now,” Nezha said.

“There’s always war,” Kitay said.

“The only thing permanent about this Empire is war,” Rin said. The words were so familiar she said them without thinking, and it took her a long moment to realize she was reciting an aphorism from a history textbook she’d studied for the Keju. That was incredible—even now, the vestiges of that exam were still burned into her mind.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the only permanent thing about her might be war. She couldn’t imagine where she’d be if she weren’t a soldier anymore. The past four years had been the first time in her life that she’d felt like she was worth something. In Tikany, she’d been an invisible shopgirl, far beneath everyone’s notice. Her life and death had been utterly insignificant. If she’d been run over by a rickshaw on the street, no one would have bothered to stop.

But now? Now civilians obeyed her command, Warlords sought her audience, and soldiers feared her. Now she spoke to the greatest military minds in the country as if they were equals—or at least as if she belonged in the room. Now she was drinking sorghum wine on the highest tower of the palace of Arlong with the son of the Dragon Warlord.

No one would have paid so much attention to her if she weren’t so very good at killing people.

A twinge of discomfort wormed through her gut. Once she left Vaisra’s employ, what on earth was she supposed to do?

“We could all just switch to civilian posts now,” Kitay said. “Let’s all be ministers and magistrates.”

“You have to get elected first,” Nezha said. “Government by the people, and all that. People have to like you.”

“Rin’s out of a job, then,” Venka said.

“She can be a custodian,” said Nezha.

“Did you want someone to rearrange your face?” Rin asked. “Because I’ll do it for free.”

“Rin’s never going to be out of a job,” Kitay said hastily. “We’ll always need armies. There’ll always be another enemy to fight.”

“Like who?” Rin asked.

Kitay counted them off on his fingers. “Rogue Federation units. The fractured provinces. The Hinterlanders. Don’t look at me like that, Rin; you heard Bekter, too. The Ketreyids want war.”

“The Ketreyids want to go to war with the other clans,” Venka said.

“And what happens when that spills over? We’ll be fighting another border war within the decade, I promise.”

“That’s just mop-up duty,” Nezha said dismissively. “We’ll get rid of them.”

“Then we’ll create another war,” said Kitay. “That’s what militaries do.”

“Not a military controlled by a Republic,” Nezha said.

Rin sat up. “Have any of you pictured it? A democratic Nikan? Do you really think it’ll work?”

The prospect of a functioning democracy had rarely bothered her during the war itself. There was always the more pressing threat of the Empire at hand. But now they’d actually won, and Vaisra had the opportunity to turn his abstract dream into a political reality.

Rin doubted he would. Vaisra had too much power now. Why on earth would he give it away?

She couldn’t say she blamed him. She still wasn’t convinced democracy was even a good idea. The Nikara had been fighting among themselves for a millennium. Were they going to stop just because they could vote for their rulers? And who was going to vote for those rulers? People like Auntie Fang?

“Of course it’ll work,” Nezha said. “I mean, imagine all the senseless military disputes the Warlords get into every year. We’ll end that. All arguments get settled in council, not on a battlefield. And once we’ve united the entire Empire, we can do anything.”

Venka snorted. “You actually believe that shit?”

Nezha looked miffed. “Of course I believe it. Why do you think I fought this war?”

“Because you want to make Daddy happy?”

Nezha aimed a languid kick at her ribs.

Venka dodged and swiped another jug of wine from the wagon, cackling.

Nezha leaned back against the tower wall. “The future is going to be glorious,” he said, and there wasn’t a trace of sarcasm in his voice. “We live in the most beautiful country in the world. We have more manpower than the Hesperians. We have more natural resources. The whole world wants what we have, and for the first time in our history we’re going to be able to use it.”

Rin rolled onto her stomach and propped her chin up on her hands.

She liked listening to Nezha talk. He was so hopeful, so optimistic, and so stupid.

He could spout all the ideology he wanted, but she knew better. The Nikara were never going to rule themselves, not peacefully, because there was no such thing as a Nikara at all. There were Sinegardians, then the people who tried to act like Sinegardians, and then there were the southerners.

They weren’t on the same side. They’d never been.

“We’re hurtling into a bright new era,” Nezha finished. “And it’ll be magnificent.”

Rin spread her arms. “Come here,” she said.

He leaned into her embrace. She held his head against her chest and rested her chin on the top of his head, silently counting his breaths.

She was going to miss him so much.

“You poor thing,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

She just hugged him tighter. She didn’t want this moment to end. She didn’t want to have to go. “I just don’t want the world to break you.”

Eventually Venka started retching off the side of the tower.

“It’s okay,” Kitay said when Rin moved to stand up. “I’ve got her.”

“You’re sure?”

“We’ll be fine. I’m not close to as drunk as the rest of you.” He draped Venka’s arm over his shoulder and guided her carefully toward the stairs.

Venka hiccupped and mumbled something incomprehensible.

“Don’t you dare puke on me,” Kitay told her. He looked over his shoulder at Rin. “You shouldn’t be staying out with wounds like that. Go get some sleep soon.”

“I will,” Rin promised.

“You’re sure?” Kitay pressed.

She read the concern on his face. We’re running out of time.

“I’ll be out here for an hour,” she said. “Tops.”

“Good.” Kitay turned to leave with Venka. Their footsteps faded down the staircase, and then it was just Rin and Nezha left on the rooftop. The night air had suddenly become very cold, which at that point seemed to Rin like a good excuse to sit closer to Nezha.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

“Splendid,” she said, and repeated the word twice when the consonants didn’t seem to come out right. “Splendid. Splendid.” Her tongue sat heavy in her mouth. She’d stopped drinking hours ago, had nearly sobered up by now, but the evening chill had numbed her extremities.

“Good.” Nezha stood up and offered her his hand. “Come with me.”

“But I like it here,” she whined.

“We’re freezing here,” he said. “Just come on.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll be fun,” he said, which at that point sounded like a good reason to do anything.

Somehow they ended up on the harbor. Rin lurched into Nezha’s side as she walked. She hadn’t sobered up as quickly as she’d hoped. The ground tilted treacherously beneath her feet every time she moved. “If you’re trying to drown me, then you’re being a little obvious about it.”

“Why do you always think someone’s trying to kill you?” Nezha asked.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

They stopped at the end of the pier, farther out than any of the fishing crafts were docked. Nezha jumped into a little sampan and gestured for her to follow.

“What do you see?” he asked as he rowed.

She blinked at him. “Water.”

“And illuminating the water?”

“That’s moonlight.”

“Look closely,” he said. “That’s not just the moon.”

Rin’s breath caught in her throat. Slowly her mind made sense of what she was seeing. The light wasn’t coming from the sky. It was coming from the river itself.

She leaned over the side of the sampan to get a closer look. She saw darting little sparks among a milky background. The river was not just reflecting the stars, it was adding its own phosphorescent glow—lightning flashes breaking over minuscule movements of the waves, luminous streams washing over every ripple. The sea was on fire.

Nezha pulled her back by the wrist. “Careful.”

She couldn’t take her eyes off the water. “What is it?”

“Fish and mollusks and crabs,” he said. “When you put them in the shadow they produce light of their own, like underwater flames.”

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

She wondered if he was going to kiss her now. She didn’t know much about being kissed, but if the old stories were anything to judge by, now seemed like a good time. The hero always took his maiden somewhere beautiful and declared his love under the stars.

She would have liked Nezha to kiss her, too. She would have liked to share this final memory with him before she fled. But he only stared thoughtfully at her, his mind fixed on something she couldn’t guess at.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked after a pause.

“Anything,” she said.

“Why did you hate me so much at school?”

She laughed, surprised. “Wasn’t it obvious?”

She had so many answers, it seemed a ridiculous question. Because he was obnoxious. Because he was rich and special and popular, and she wasn’t. Because he was the heir to the Dragon Province, and she was a war orphan and a mud-skinned southerner.

“No,” said Nezha. “I mean—I understood I wasn’t the nicest to you.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that. But, Rin, we managed to hate each other so much for three years. That’s not normal. That goes back to first-year jitters. Was it all because I made fun of you?”

“No, it’s because you scared me.”

“I scared you?”

“I thought you were going to be the reason why I’d have to leave,” she said. “And I didn’t have anywhere else to go. If I’d been expelled from Sinegard, then I might well have died. So I feared you, I hated you, and that never really went away.”

“I didn’t realize,” he said quietly.

“Bullshit,” she said. “Don’t act like you didn’t know.”

“I swear that never crossed my mind.”

“Really? Because it had to. We weren’t on the same level, and you knew it, and that’s how you got away with everything you did, because you knew I could never retaliate. You were rich and I was poor and you exploited it.” She was surprised by how quickly the words came, how easily she could still feel her lingering resentment toward him. She’d thought she’d put it behind her a long time ago. Perhaps not. “And the fact that it’s never fucking crossed your mind that the stakes were vastly different between us is frustrating, to be frank.”

“That’s fair,” Nezha said. “Can I ask you another question?”

“No. I get to ask my question first.”

Whatever game they were playing suddenly had rules, was suddenly open to debate. And the rules, Rin decided, meant reciprocity. She stared at him expectantly.

“Fine.” Nezha shrugged. “What is it?”

She was glad she had the liquid courage of lingering alcohol to say what came next. “Are you ever going to go back to that grotto?”

He stiffened. “What?”

“The gods can’t be physical things,” she said. “Chaghan taught me that. They need mortal conduits to affect the world. Whatever the dragon is . . .”

“That thing is a monster,” he said flatly.

“Maybe. But it’s beatable,” she said. Perhaps she was still flush with the victory of defeating Feylen, but it seemed so obvious to her, what Nezha had to do if he wanted to be freed. “Maybe it was a person once. I don’t know how it became what it is, and maybe it’s as powerful as a god should be now, but I’ve buried gods before. I’ll do it again.”

“You can’t beat that thing,” Nezha said. “You have no idea what you’re up against.”

“I think have some idea.”

“Not about this.” His voice hardened. “You will never ask me about this again.”

“Fine.”

She leaned backward and let her fingers trail through the luminous water. She made flames trickle up her arms, delighting in how their intricate patterns were reflected in the blue-green light. Fire and water looked so lovely together. It was a pity they destroyed each other by nature.

“Can I ask another question now?” he asked.

“Go ahead.”

“Did you mean it when you said we should raise an army of shamans?”

She recoiled. “When did I say that?”

“New Year’s. Back on the campaign, when we were sitting in the snow.”

She laughed, amused that he had even remembered. The northern campaign felt like it had been lifetimes ago. “Why not? It’d be marvelous. We’d never lose.”

“You understand that’s precisely what the Hesperians are terrified of.”

“For good reason,” she said. “It’d fuck them up, wouldn’t it?”

Nezha leaned forward. “Did you know that Tarcquet is seeking a moratorium on all shamanic activity?”

She frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means you promise never to call on your powers again, and you’ll be punished if you do. We report every living shaman in the Empire. And we destroy all written knowledge of shamanism so it can’t be passed down.”

“Very funny,” she said.

“I’m not joking. You’d have to cooperate. If you never call the fire again, you’ll be safe.”

“Fat chance,” she said. “I’ve just gotten the fire back. I don’t intend to give it up.”

“And if they tried to force you?”

She let the flames dance across her shoulders. “Then good fucking luck.”

Nezha stood up and moved across the sampan to sit down beside her. His hand grazed the small of her back.

She shivered at his touch. “What are you doing?”

“Where’s your injury?” he asked. He pressed his fingers into the scar in her side. “Here?”

“That hurts.”

“Good,” he said. His hand moved behind her. She thought he was going to pull her into him, but then she felt a pressure at the small of her back. She blinked, confused. She didn’t realize that she had been stabbed until Nezha drew his hand away, and she saw the blood on his fingers.

She slumped to the side. He pulled her into his arms.

His face ebbed in and out of her vision. She tried to speak, but her lips were heavy, clumsy; all she could do was push air out in incoherent whispers. “You . . . but you . . .”

“Don’t try to speak,” Nezha murmured, and he brushed his lips against her forehead as he drove the knife deeper into her back.