The Dragon Republic

by R. F. Kuang

  “I guess,” she said. “I’m not one for aesthetics.”

  “Of course you’re not. You got your education at Sinegard. They’re all crude utilitarians.” Daji put her hands on Rin’s shoulders and slowly turned her about the garden. “Tell me something. Does the palace look new to you?”

  Rin glanced around the hexagon. Yes, it had to be new. The lustrous buildings of the Autumn Palace, though designed with the architecture of the Red Emperor, did not bear the stains of time. The stones were smooth and unscratched, the wooden posts gleaming with fresh paint.

  “I suppose,” she said. “Is it not?”

  “Follow me.” Daji walked toward a small gate built into the far wall, pushed it open, and motioned for Rin to follow her through.

  The other side of the garden looked like it had been smashed under a giant’s heel. The midsection of the opposite wall was in pieces, as if it had been blown apart by cannon fire. Statues were strewn across the overgrown grass, limbs shattered, lying at grotesque and awkward angles.

  This wasn’t natural decay. Wasn’t the result of failure to keep the grounds. This had to be the deliberate action of an invading force.

  “I thought the Federation never reached Lusan,” Rin said.

  “This wasn’t the Federation,” Daji said. “This wreckage has been here for over seventy years.”

  “Then who . . . ?”

  “The Hesperians. History likes to focus on the Federation, but the masters at Sinegard always gloss over the first colonizers. No one remembers who started the First Poppy War.” Daji nudged a statue’s head with her foot. “One autumn day seventy years ago, a Hesperian admiral sailed up the Murui and blasted his way into Lusan. He pillaged the palace, razed it to the ground, poured oil over the wreckage, and danced in the ashes. By that evening the Autumn Palace had ceased to exist.”

  “Then why haven’t you rebuilt the garden?” Rin’s eyes darted around the grounds while she spoke. A rake lay in the grass about half a yard from her feet. After all these years it was certainly blunt and covered in rust, but Rin might still use it as a staff.

  “So we have the reminder,” Daji said. “To remember how we were humiliated. To remember that nothing good can come of dealing with the Hesperians.”

  Rin couldn’t let her eyes linger on the rake. Daji would notice. She carefully reconstructed its position from memory. The sharp end was facing her. If she got close enough, she could kick it up into her grasp. Unless the grass had grown too long . . . but it was just grass; if she kicked hard it shouldn’t be a problem . . .

  “The Hesperians have always intended to come back,” Daji said. “The Mugenese weakened this country using western silver. We remember the Federation as the face of the oppressor, but the Hesperians and Bolonians—the Consortium of western countries—are the ones with real power. They are who you ought to be afraid of.”

  Rin moved just slightly so her left leg was positioned close enough to kick the rake up. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me,” Daji said sharply. “I know what Vaisra intends to do. I know he intends to go to war. I’m trying to show you that it’s the wrong one.”

  Rin’s pulse began to race. This was it—Daji knew her intentions, she needed to fight, it didn’t matter if she didn’t have the fire yet, she had to get to the rake—

  “Stop that,” Daji ordered.

  Rin’s limbs froze suddenly in place, muscles stiffening painfully as if the slightest movement might shatter them. She should be springing to fight. She should have at least crouched down. But somehow her body was arrested where she stood, as if she needed the Empress’s permission to even breathe.

  “We are not finished talking,” said Daji.

  “I’m finished listening,” Rin hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Relax. I haven’t brought you here to kill you. You are an asset, one of the few I have left. It would be stupid to let you go.” Daji stepped in front of her so that they stood face-to-face. Rin hastily averted her eyes. “You’re fighting the wrong enemy, dear. Can’t you see it?”

  Sweat beaded on Rin’s neck as she strained to break out of Daji’s hold.

  “What did Vaisra promise you? You must know you’re being used. Is it worth it? Is it money? An estate? No . . . I don’t think you could be swayed by material promises.” Daji tapped her lacquered nails against painted lips. “No—don’t tell me you believe him, do you? Did he say he’d bring you a democracy? And you fell for it?”

  “He said he’d depose you,” Rin whispered. “That’s good enough for me.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Daji sighed. “What would you replace me with? The Nikara people aren’t ready for democracy. They’re sheep. They’re crude, uneducated fools. They need to be told what to do, even if that means tyranny. If Vaisra takes this nation then he’ll run it into the ground. The people don’t know what to vote for. They don’t even understand what it means to vote. And they certainly don’t know what’s good for them.”

  “Neither do you,” Rin said. “You let them die in hordes. You invited the Mugenese in yourself and you traded them the Cike.”

  To her surprise, Daji laughed. “Is that what you believe? You can’t trust everything you hear.”

  “Shiro had no reason to lie. I know what you did.”

  “You understand nothing. I have toiled for decades to keep this Empire intact. Do you think I wanted this war?”

  “I think that at least half of this country was disposable to you.”

  “I made a calculated sacrifice. The last time the Federation invaded, the Warlords rallied under the Dragon Emperor. The Dragon Emperor is dead. And the Federation was readying itself for a third invasion. No matter what I did, they were going to attack, and we were nowhere near strong enough to resist them. So I brokered a peace. They could have slices of the east if they would let the heartland remain free.”

  “So we’d only be partially occupied.” Rin scoffed. “That’s what you call statecraft?”

  “Occupied? Not for long. Sometimes the best offensive is false acquiescence. I had a plan. I would become close to Ryohai. I would gain his trust. I would lure him into a false sense of complacency. And then I would kill him. But in the meantime, while their forces were impenetrable, I would play along. I’d do what it took to keep this nation alive.”

  “Kept alive only to die at Mugenese hands.”

  Daji’s voice hardened. “Don’t be so naive. What do you do when you know that war is inevitable? Who do you save?”

  “What did you think we were going to do?” Rin demanded. “Did you think we would just lie down and let them raze our lands?”

  “Better to rule over a fragmented empire than none at all.”

  “You sentenced millions of us to death.”

  “I was trying to save you. Without me the violence would have been ten times as devastating—”

  “Without you, we would at least have had a choice!”

  “That would have been no choice. Do you think the Nikara are so altruistic? What if you asked a village to give up their homes so that thousands of others might live? Do you think they would do it? The Nikara are selfish. This entire country is selfish. People are selfish. The provinces have always been so fucking parochial, unable to see past their own narrow interests to pursue any kind of joint action. You heard those idiots in there. I let you watch for a reason. I can’t work with those Warlords. Those fools don’t listen.”

  At the end Daji’s voice trembled—only just barely, and only for a second, but Rin heard it.

  And for just that moment she saw through that facade of cool, confident beauty, and she saw Su Daji for what she might truly have been: not an invincible Empress, not a treacherous monster, but rather a woman who had been saddled with a country that she didn’t know how to run.

  She’s weak, Rin realized. She wishes she could control the Warlords, but she can’t.

  Because if Daji could have persuaded the Warlords to
follow her wishes, she would have done so. She would have done away with the Warlord system and replaced provincial leadership with branches of the Imperial government. But she had left the Warlords in place because even she was not strong enough to supplant them. She was one woman. She couldn’t take on their combined armies. She was just barely clinging to power through the last vestiges of the legacy of the Second Poppy War.

  But now that the Federation was gone, now that the Warlords no longer had reason to fear, it was very likely the provinces would realize they had no need for Daji.

  Daji didn’t sound like she was spinning lies. If anything, Rin thought it more likely that she was telling the truth.

  But if so—then what? That didn’t change things.

  Daji had sold the Cike to the Federation. Daji was the reason why Altan was dead. Those were the only two things that mattered.

  “This Empire is falling apart,” Daji said urgently. “It’s becoming weak, you’ve seen that. But what if we bent the Warlords to our will? Just imagine what you could do under my command.” She cupped Rin’s cheek in her hand, drew their faces close together. “There’s so much you have to learn, and I can teach you.”

  Rin would have bitten Daji’s fingers off if she could move her head. “There’s nothing you can teach me.”

  “Don’t be foolish. You need me. You’ve been feeling the pull, haven’t you? It’s consuming you. Your mind is not your own.”

  Rin flinched. “I don’t—you’re not—”

  “You’re scared to close your eyes,” Daji murmured. “You crave the opium, because that’s the only thing that makes your mind your own again. You’re fighting your god at every moment. Every instant you’re not incinerating everything around you, you’re dying. But I can help you.” Daji’s voice was so soft, so tender, so gentle and reassuring that Rin wanted terribly to believe her. “I can give you your mind back.”

  “I have control of my mind,” Rin said hoarsely.

  “Liar. Who would have taught you? Altan? He was barely sane himself. You think I don’t know what that’s like? The first time we called the gods, I wanted to die. We all did. We thought we were going mad. We wanted to fling our bodies off Mount Tianshan to end it.”

  Rin couldn’t stop herself from asking, “So what did you do?”

  Daji touched an icy finger to Rin’s lips. “Loyalty first. Then answers.”

  She snapped her fingers.

  Suddenly Rin could move again; could breathe easily again. She hugged trembling arms around her torso.

  “You don’t have anyone else,” Daji said. “You’re the last Speerly. Altan is gone. Vaisra has no clue what you’re suffering. Only I know how to help you.”

  Rin hesitated, considering.

  She knew she could never trust Daji.

  And yet.

  Was it better to serve at the hand of a tyrant, to consolidate the Empire into the true dictatorship that it had always aspired to be? Or should she overthrow the Empire and take her chances on democracy?

  No—that was a political question, and Rin had no interest in its answer.

  She was interested only in her own survival. Altan had trusted the Empress. Altan was dead. She wouldn’t make that same mistake.

  She kicked out with her left foot. The rake slammed hard into her hand—the grass offered less resistance than she’d thought—and she sprang forward, spinning the rake in a forward loop.

  But attacking Daji was like attacking air. The Empress dodged effortlessly, skirting so fast through the courtyard that Rin could barely track her movements.

  “You think this is wise?” Daji didn’t sound the least bit breathless. “You’re a little girl armed with a stick.”

  You’re a little girl armed with fire, said the Phoenix.

  Finally.

  Rin held the rake still so she could concentrate on pulling the flame out from inside her, gathering the searing heat in her palms just as something silver flashed past her face and pinged off the brick wall.

  Needles. Daji hurled them at her fistfuls at a time, pulling them out from her sleeves in seemingly endless quantities. The fire dissipated. Rin swung the rake in a desperate circle in front of her, knocking the needles out of the air as fast as they came.

  “You’re slow. You’re clumsy.” Now Daji was on the attack, forcing Rin backward in a steady retreat. “You fight like you’ve never seen battle.”

  Rin struggled to keep her hands on the heavy rake. She couldn’t concentrate enough to call the fire; she was too focused on warding off the needles. Panic clouded her senses. At this rate she’d exhaust herself on the defensive.

  “Does it ever bother you?” whispered Daji. “That you are only a pale imitation of Altan?”

  Rin’s back slammed into the brick wall. She had nowhere left to run.

  “Look at me.” Daji’s voice reverberated through the air, echoed over and over again in Rin’s mind.

  Rin squeezed her eyes shut. She had to call the fire now, she’d never get this chance again—but her mind was leaving her. The world was not quite going dark, but shifting. Everything suddenly seemed too bright, everything was the wrong color and the wrong shape and she couldn’t tell the grass from the sky, or her hands from her own feet . . .

  Daji’s voice seemed to come from everywhere. “Look into my eyes.”

  Rin didn’t remember opening her eyes. She didn’t remember having the chance to even resist. All she knew was that one instant her eyes were closed and the next she was staring into two yellow orbs. At first they were golden all the way through, and then little black dots appeared that grew larger and larger until they encompassed Rin’s field of vision.

  The world had turned entirely dark. She was so cold. She heard howls and screams from far away, guttural noises that almost sounded like words but none she could comprehend.

  This was the spirit plane. This was where she faced Daji’s goddess.

  But she was not alone.

  Help me, Rin thought. Help me, please.

  And the god answered. A wave of bright, warm heat flooded the plane. Flames surrounded her like protective wings.

  “Nüwa, you old bitch,” said the Phoenix.

  A woman’s voice, much deeper than Daji’s, reverberated through the plane. “And you, snippy as always.”

  What was this creature? Rin strained to see the goddess’s form, but the Phoenix’s flames illuminated only a small corner of the psychospiritual space.

  “You could never challenge me,” said Nüwa. “I was there when the universe tore itself out of darkness. I mended the heavens when they split apart. I gave life to man.”

  Something stirred in the darkness.

  The Phoenix shrieked as a snake’s head sprang out and sank its fangs into its shoulder. The Phoenix reared its head, flames spinning out at nothing. Rin felt the god’s pain just as acutely as if the snake had bitten her, like two red-hot blades had been jammed between her shoulder blades.

  “What do you dream of?” Daji’s voice now, overwhelming Rin’s mind with every word. “Is this it?”

  The world shifted again.

  Bright colors. Rin was running across an island in a dress she’d never worn before, with a crescent moon necklace she’d seen only in her dreams, toward a village that didn’t exist now except as a place of ash and bone. She ran across the sands of Speer as it was fifty years ago—full of life, full of people with dark skin like hers, who stood up and waved and smiled when they saw her.

  “You could have that,” Daji said. “You could have everything you wanted.”

  Rin believed, too, that Daji would be that kind, would let her remain in that illusion until she died.

  “Or is this what you want?”

  Speer disappeared. The world turned dark again. Rin couldn’t see anything but a shadowy figure. But she knew that silhouette, that tall, lean build. She could never forget it. The memory of it was scorched in her mind from the last time she had seen him, walking down that pier. But this time he
walked toward her. She was watching the moment of Altan’s death in reverse. Time was unraveling. She could take it all back, she could have him back.

  This couldn’t possibly be just a dream. He was too solid—she could sense the mortal weight of him filling up the space around her; and when she touched his face it was solid and warm and bloody and alive . . .

  “Just relax,” he whispered. “Stop resisting.”

  “But it hurts . . .”

  “It only hurts if you fight.”

  He kissed her and it felt like a punch. This wasn’t what she wanted—this felt wrong, this was all wrong—his grip was too tight around her arms, he was clutching her against his chest like he wanted to crush her. He tasted like blood.

  “That’s not him.”

  Chaghan’s voice. A split second later Rin felt him in her mind—a cold, harsh presence in blinding white, a shard of ice piercing the spiritual plane. She had never been so relieved to see him.

  “It’s an illusion.” Chaghan’s voice cleared her mind like a shower of cold water. “Get a grip on yourself.”

  The illusions dissipated. Altan faded into nothing. Then there were only the three of them, souls tethered to gods, hanging suspended in primordial darkness.

  “What’s this?” Nüwa’s voice blended together with Daji’s. “A Naimad?” Laughter rang across the plane. “Your people should know not to defy me. Did the Sorqan Sira teach you nothing?”

  “I don’t fear you,” Chaghan said.

  In the physical world he was a skeletal waif, so frail he seemed only a shadow of a person. But here he emanated raw power. His voice carried a ring of authority, a gravity that pulled Rin toward him. Right then, Chaghan could reach into the center of her mind and extract every thought she’d ever had as casually as if he were flipping through a book, and she would let him.

  “You will go back, Nüwa.” Chaghan raised his voice. “Return to the darkness. This world no longer belongs to you.”

  The darkness hissed in response. Rin braced herself for an impending attack. But Chaghan uttered an incantation in words she did not understand, words that pushed Nüwa’s presence back so far that Rin could barely see the outlines of the snake anymore.