by R. F. Kuang
“What?”
He reached out and touched a spot on her temple, beside her left eye. “Altan’s irises are red. I thought Speerly eyes were red.”
“I don’t know,” she said, suddenly confused. She had never once considered it—Altan had never brought it up. “My eyes have always been brown.”
“Maybe you’re not a Speerly.”
“Maybe.”
“But they were red before.” Nezha looked puzzled. “At Sinegard. When you killed the general.”
“You weren’t even conscious,” she said. “You had a spear in your stomach.”
Nezha arched an eyebrow. “I know what I saw.”
Footsteps sounded behind them. Rin jumped, although she had no reason to feel guilty. She was only keeping watch; she wasn’t barred from idle small talk.
“There you are,” said Enki.
Nezha swiftly stood. “I’ll go.”
She glanced up at him, confused. “No, you don’t have to—”
“He should go,” said Enki.
Nezha gave Enki a stiff nod and disappeared briskly around the corner of the wall.
Enki waited a few moments until the sound of Nezha’s footsteps pattering down the stairs died away. Then he glanced down at Rin, mouth pressed in a solemn line. “You didn’t tell me the Dragon Warlord’s brat was a shaman.”
Rin frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The insignia.” Enki gestured around to his upper back, where Nezha wore his family crest across his uniform. “That’s a dragon mark.”
“That’s just his crest,” said Rin.
“Wasn’t he injured at Sinegard?” Enki inquired.
“Yes.” Rin wondered how Enki had known. Then again, Nezha was the son of the Dragon Warlord; his personal life was public knowledge among the Militia.
“How badly was he hurt?”
“I don’t know,” Rin said. “I was half-unconscious myself when it happened. The general stabbed him—twice, stomach wounds, probably—why does that matter?” She was confused by Nezha’s rapid recovery herself, but she didn’t see why Enki was interrogating her about it. “They missed his vitals,” she added, though that sounded implausible as soon as the words left her mouth.
“Two stomach wounds,” Enki repeated. “Two wounds from a highly experienced Federation general who was not likely to miss. And he’s up and walking in months?”
“You know, considering that one of us literally lives in a barrel, Nezha getting lucky is not that absurd.”
Enki looked unconvinced. “Your friend is hiding something.”
“Ask him yourself, then,” Rin said irritably. “Did you need something?”
Enki was frowning, contemplative, but he nodded. “Altan wants to see you. His office. Now.”
Altan’s office was a mess.
Books and brushes littered the floor. Maps were strewn haphazardly across his desk, city plans tacked up over every inch of wall. They were covered in Altan’s jagged, messy scrawl, outlining diagrams of strategies that made no sense to anyone but Altan. He had circled some critical regions so hard that they looked like he had etched them into the wall with a knifepoint.
Altan was sitting alone at his desk when Rin entered. His eyes were ringed with such a prominent indigo that they looked like bruises.
“You summoned me?” she asked.
Altan set his pen down. “You’re spending too much time with the Dragon Warlord’s brat.”
Rin bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I won’t allow it,” said Altan. “Nezha’s one of Jun’s people. You know better than to trust him.”
Rin opened her mouth and then closed it, trying to figure out whether Altan was being serious. Finally she said, “Nezha’s not in the Fifth. Jun can’t give him orders.”
“Jun was his master,” Altan said. “I’ve seen his armband. He pledged Combat. He’s loyal to Jun; he’ll tell him anything . . .”
Rin stared at him in disbelief. “Nezha’s just my friend.”
“No one is ever your friend. Not when you’re Cike. He’s spying on us.”
“Spying on us?” Rin repeated. “Altan, we’re in the same army.”
Altan stood up and slammed his hands down on the table.
Rin flinched back.
“We are not in the same army. We are the Cike. We’re the Bizarre Children. We’re the force that shouldn’t exist, and Jun wants us to fail. He wants me to fail,” he said. “They all do.”
“The other divisions aren’t our enemy,” Rin said quietly.
Altan paced around the room, arms twitching involuntarily, glaring at his maps as if he could will into formation armies that didn’t exist. He looked quite deranged.
“Everyone is our enemy,” he said. He seemed to be talking to himself more than he was talking to her. “Everyone wants us dead, gone . . . but I won’t go out like this . . .”
Rin swallowed. “Altan—”
He jerked his head toward her. “Can you call the fire yet?”
Rin felt a twinge of guilt. Try as she might, she still couldn’t access the god, could not call it back like she had in Sinegard.
Before she could respond, though, Altan made a noise of disgust. “Never mind. Of course you can’t. You still think you’re playing a game. You think you’re still at school.”
“I do not.”
He crossed the room toward her, grasped her shoulders, and shook her so hard that she gasped out loud. But he only pulled her closer until they were face-to-face, eye to eye. His irises were a furious crimson.
“How hard could it be?” he demanded. His grip tightened, fingers digging painfully into her collarbone. “Tell me, why is this so hard for you? It’s not like this is new to you; you’ve done it before, why can’t you do it now?”
“Altan, you’re hurting me.”
His grip only tightened. “You could at least fucking try—”
“I’ve tried!” she exploded. “It’s not easy, all right? I can’t just . . . I’m not you.”
“Are you a toddler?” Altan said, as if curious. He didn’t shout, but his voice took on a strangled monotone, carefully controlled and deadly quiet. That was how she knew he was furious. “Or are you, perhaps, an idiot masquerading as a soldier? You said you needed time. I have allotted you months. On Speer, you would have been disowned by now. Your family would have hurled you into the ocean for the sheer embarrassment.”
“I’m sorry,” Rin whispered, then immediately regretted it. Altan didn’t want her apology. He wanted her humiliation. He wanted her to burn in shame, to feel so miserable with herself that she couldn’t bear it.
And she did. How was it that he could make her feel so small? She felt more useless than she had at Sinegard when Jun had humiliated her before everyone. This was worse. This was a thousand times worse, because unlike Jun, Altan mattered to her. Altan was a Speerly, Altan was her commander. She needed his approval like she needed air.
He pushed her violently away from him.
Rin fought the urge to touch her collarbone, where she knew she would soon have two bruises left by Altan’s thumbs, perfectly formed dents like teardrops. She swallowed hard, averted her eyes, and said nothing.
“You call yourself a Sinegard-trained soldier?” Altan’s voice had sunk to barely more than a whisper, and it was worse than if he were shouting. She wished he were shouting. Anything would be better than this cold evisceration. “You’re no soldier. You’re deadweight. Until you can call the fire, you’re fucking useless to me. You’re here because you’re purportedly a Speerly. So far I have seen no proof that you are. Fix this. Prove your worth. Do your fucking job or get out.”
She saved her tears for after she was out of the office. Her eyes were still red when she entered the mess hall.
“Have you been crying?” Nezha demanded as he sat down across from her.
“Go away,” she mumbled.
He didn’t go away. “Tell me what happened.”
/>
Rin bit her lower lip. She wasn’t supposed to speak to Nezha. It would have been a double betrayal to complain to him about Altan.
“Was it Altan? Did he say something?”
She looked away pointedly.
“Wait. What’s that?” Nezha reached for her collarbone.
She slapped his hand away and yanked at her uniform.
“You’re just going to sit there and take it?” Nezha asked in disbelief. “I remember a girl who punched me in the face for uttering an ill word about her teacher.”
“Altan’s different,” Rin said.
“Not so different that he gets to talk to you like that,” Nezha said. His eyes slid over her collarbone. “It was Altan. Tiger’s tits. They’re saying he’s gone mad in the Fifth, but I never thought he’d actually resort to this.”
“You don’t get to talk,” Rin snapped. Why did Nezha think he could now take on the role of confidant? “You made fun of me for years at Sinegard. You didn’t say a kind word to me until Mugen was at our doorstep.”
To his credit, Nezha actually looked guilty. “Rin, I’m—”
She cut him off before he could get a word in. “I was the war orphan from the south, and you were the rich kid from Sinegard, and you tormented me. You made Sinegard a living hell, Nezha.”
It felt good to say it out loud. It felt good to see Nezha’s stricken expression. They had skirted around this since Nezha had arrived, had acted as if they had always been friends at the Academy, because theirs had been such a childish feud compared to the very real battles they were fighting now. But if he wanted to malign her commander, then she would remind him exactly whom he was talking to.
Nezha slammed a hand on the table, just as Altan had, but this time she didn’t flinch.
“You weren’t the only victim!” he said. “The first day we met you punched me. Then you kicked me in the balls. Then you tackled me in class. In front of Jun. In front of everyone. How do you think that felt? How fucking embarrassing do you think that was? Look, I’m sorry, all right? I’m really sorry.” The remorse in Nezha’s voice sounded genuine. “But I saved your life. Doesn’t that make us at least a little square?”
Square? Square? She had to laugh. “You almost got me expelled!”
“And you almost killed me,” he said.
That shut her up.
“I was scared of you,” Nezha continued. “And I lashed out. I was stupid. I was a spoiled brat. I was a real pain in the ass. I thought I was better than you, and I’m not. I’m sorry.”
Rin was too stunned to come up with a response, so she turned away. “I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” she said stiffly to the wall.
“Fine,” Nezha snapped. “Sorry I tried. I’ll leave you alone, then.”
He grabbed his plate, stood up, and walked briskly away. She let him.
Night watch was lonely and boring without Nezha. All of the Cike had watch duty on rotation, but at that moment Rin was convinced Altan had placed her there as punishment. What was the point of staring down at a coastline where nothing ever happened? If another fleet did show up, Qara’s birds would see it days in advance.
Rin twisted her fingers irritably together as she huddled against the wall, trying to warm herself. Stupid, she thought, glaring at her hands. Probably she wouldn’t feel so cold if she could just summon a bit of flame.
Everything felt awful. The mere thought of both Altan and Nezha made her cringe. She knew vaguely that she’d fucked up, that she’d probably done something that she shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t reason a way out of this dilemma. She wasn’t even sure precisely what the matter was, only that both were furious with her.
She heard then a droning noise; so faint at first she thought she was imagining it. But then it increased quickly in volume, like a fast-approaching swarm of bees. The noise reached a peak and clarified into human shouts. She squinted; the commotion wasn’t coming from the coastline but from the downtown districts behind her. She jumped down from her perch and ran to look down the other side. A flood of civilians streamed into the alleyways, a frantic stampede of bodies. She searched the crowd and saw Qara and Unegen emerging from their barracks. She scaled down the wall and wove through the flood of bodies, pushing against the crowd to reach them.
“What’s going on?” She grabbed Unegen’s arm. “Why are they running?”
“No clue,” Unegen said. “Find the others.”
A civilian—an old woman—tried to push past Rin but stumbled. Rin knelt to help her, but the woman had already picked herself up, scurrying along faster than Rin had ever seen an old person move. Men, women, and children streamed around her, some barefoot, some only half-dressed, wearing identical expressions of terror in their frenzy to flee out the city gates.
“What the hell is going on?” Baji, bleary-eyed and shirtless, pushed through the crowd toward them. “Great Tortoise. Are we evacuating now?”
Something bumped into Rin’s knee. She looked down and saw a small child—tiny, half Kesegi’s age. He wasn’t wearing any pants. He groped blindly at her shin, bawling loudly. He must have lost his parents in the confusion. She reached down and picked him up, the same way she used to hold Kesegi when he cried.
As she searched through the mob for anyone who looked like they were missing a child, she saw three great spouts of flame appear in the air, in the shape of three small dragons flying upward at the sky. It had to be Altan’s signal.
Through the noise Rin heard his hoarse yell, “Cike, to me!”
She placed the child in the arms the first civilian she saw and fought her way through the masses to where Altan stood. Jun was there, too, surrounded by about ten of his men. Nezha stood among them. He didn’t meet her eyes.
Altan looked more openly furious than she had ever seen him. “I warned you not to evacuate without giving notice.”
“This isn’t me,” said Jun. “They’re running from something.”
“From what?”
“Damned if I know,” Jun snapped.
Altan heaved a great sigh of impatience, reached into the horde of bodies, and pulled someone out at random. It was a young woman, a little older than Rin, wearing nothing but a nightgown. She screeched loudly in protest, then clamped her jaw shut when she saw their Militia uniforms.
“What’s going on?” Altan demanded. “What are you all running from?”
“A chimei,” she said, out of breath and terrified. “There’s a chimei downtown, near the town square . . .”
A chimei? The name was vaguely familiar. Rin thought back to where she had last seen it—somewhere in the library, perhaps, in one of the absurd tomes Jiang had made her read when conducting a thorough investigation on every piece of arcane knowledge known to mankind. She thought it might be a beast, some mythological creature with bizarre abilities.
“Really,” Jun said skeptically. “How do you know it’s a chimei?”
The girl looked him straight in the eyes. “Because it’s tearing the faces off corpses,” she said in a wavering voice. “I saw the bodies, I saw . . .” She broke off.
“What does it look like?” Altan asked.
The woman shivered. “I didn’t get a close look, but I think . . . it looked like a great four-legged beast. Large as a horse, arms like a monkey’s.”
“A beast,” Altan repeated. “Anything else?”
“Its fur was black, and its eyes . . .” She swallowed.
“Its eyes were what?” Jun pressed.
The woman flinched. “Like his,” she said, and pointed to Altan. “Red like blood. Bright as flame.”
Altan released the young woman back into the crowd, and she immediately disappeared into the fleeing mass.
The two commanders faced each other.
“We need to send someone in,” Altan said. “Someone has to kill that beast.”
“Yes,” Jun agreed immediately. “My people are tied up with crowd control, but I can gather a squadron.”
“We don’t need a s
quadron. One of my people should be fine. We can’t dispatch everyone. Mugen could use this chance to attack our base. This could be a diversion.”
“I’ll go,” Rin volunteered immediately.
Altan frowned at her. “You know how to handle a chimei?”
She didn’t know. She’d only just remembered what a chimei was—and that was only from Academy readings that she barely remembered. But she was sure that was more than anyone else in the divisions or the Cike knew, because no one else had been forced to read arcane bestiaries at Sinegard. And she wasn’t about to admit incompetence to Altan in front of Jun. She could handle this task. She had to.
“As well as anyone else does, sir. I’ve read the bestiaries.”
Altan considered for a short moment, then nodded curtly. “Go against the grain of the crowd. Keep to the alleys.”
“I’ll go, too,” Nezha volunteered.
“That’s not necessary,” Altan said immediately.
But Jun said, “She should take a Militia man. Just in case.”
Altan glared at Jun, and she realized what this was about. Jun wanted someone to accompany her, just in case she saw something that Altan didn’t report to Jun.
Rin couldn’t believe that division politics were at play even now.
Altan looked like he wanted to argue. But there was no time. He shoved past Nezha toward the crowd and seized a torch from a passing civilian.
“Hey! I need that!”
“Shut up,” Altan said, and pushed the civilian away. He handed the torch to Rin and pulled her into a side alley where she could avoid the traffic. “Go.”
Rin and Nezha couldn’t reach downtown by fighting the stampede of bodies. But the buildings in their district had low, flat roofs that were easy to climb onto. Rin and Nezha ran across them, their torches bobbing in the light. When they reached the end of the block, they dropped down into an alley and crossed another block in silence.
Finally Nezha asked, “What’s a chimei?”
“You heard the woman,” Rin said curtly. “Great beast. Red eyes.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Probably shouldn’t have come along, then.” She turned a corner.