The Dragon Republic

by R. F. Kuang

  “Hello,” he said. “Are you ready to come home?”

  “Kill him,” Chaghan said urgently.

  But hadn’t she already? At Khurdalain she’d fought a beast with Altan’s face, and she’d killed him then. Then at the research facility she’d let him walk out on the pier, let him sacrifice himself to save her.

  She’d already killed Altan, over and over, and he kept coming back.

  How could she harm him now? He looked so happy. So free from pain. She knew so much more about him now, she knew what he had suffered, and she couldn’t touch him. Not like this.

  Altan drew closer. “What are you doing out here? Come with me.”

  She wanted to go with him more than anything. She didn’t even know where he would take her, only that he would be there. Oblivion. Some dark paradise.

  Altan extended his hand toward her. “Come.”

  She steeled herself. “Stop this,” she managed. “Chaghan, I can’t—stop it—take me back—”

  “Surely you’re joking,” Chaghan said. “You can’t even do this?”

  Altan took her fingers in his. “Let’s go.”

  “Stop it!”

  She wasn’t sure what she did but she felt a burst of energy, saw the Seal contort and writhe around Chaghan, like a predator sniffing out some new and interesting prey, and saw his mouth open in some soundless scream of agony.

  Then they weren’t on Speer anymore.

  This was nowhere she had ever seen.

  They were somewhere high up on a mountain, cold and dark. A series of caves were carved into stone, all glowing with candle fire on the inside. And sitting on the ledge, shoulders touching, were two boys: one dark haired and one fair haired.

  She was an outsider in this memory, but the moment she stepped closer her perspective shifted and she wasn’t the voyeur anymore but the subject. She saw Altan’s face up close, and she realized she was looking at him the way Chaghan once had.

  Altan’s face was entirely too close to hers. She could make out every last terrible and wonderful detail: the scar running up from his right cheek, the clumsy way his hair had been tied up, the dark lids over his crimson eyes.

  Altan was awful. Altan was beautiful. And as she looked into his eyes she realized the feeling that overcame her was not love; this was a total, paralyzing fear. This was the terror of a moth drawn to the flame.

  She hadn’t thought that anyone else felt that way. It was such a familiar feeling that she almost cried.

  “I could kill you,” said Altan, muttering the death threat like a love song, and when she-as-Chaghan struggled against him he pressed his body closer.

  “So you could,” Chaghan said, and that was such a familiar voice, the coy, level voice. She’d always marveled at how Chaghan could speak so casually to Altan. But Chaghan hadn’t been joking, she realized, he’d been afraid; he had been constantly terrified every time he was around Altan. “So what?”

  Altan’s fingers closed over Chaghan’s; too hot, too crushing, an attempt at human contact with absolute disregard for the object of his affection.

  His lips brushed against Chaghan’s ear. She shuddered involuntarily; she thought he might bite her, move his mouth lower against her neck and rip out her arteries.

  She realized that Chaghan felt this fear often.

  She realized that Chaghan probably enjoyed it.

  “Don’t,” Chaghan said.

  She didn’t listen; she wanted to stay in this vision, had the sickening desire to watch it play out to its conclusion.

  “That’s enough.”

  A wave of darkness slammed down onto them, and when she opened her eyes she was back in the infirmary, sprawled on top of her bed. Chaghan sat bolt upright on the floor, eyes wide open, expression blank.

  She grabbed him by the collar. “What was that?”

  Chaghan stirred awake. His features settled into something like contempt. “Why don’t you ask yourself?”

  “You hypocrite,” she said. “You’re just as obsessed with him—”

  “Are you sure that wasn’t you?”

  “Don’t lie to me!” she shrieked. “I know what I saw, I know what you were doing, I bet you only wanted to get in my mind because you wanted to see him from another angle—”

  He flinched back.

  She hadn’t expected him to flinch. He looked so small. So vulnerable.

  Somehow, that made her angrier.

  She clenched his collar tighter. “He’s dead. All right? Can’t you get that in your fucking head?”

  “Rin—”

  “He’s dead, he’s gone, and we can’t bring him back. And maybe he loved you, maybe he loved me, but that doesn’t fucking matter anymore, does it? He’s gone.”

  She thought he might hit her then.

  But he just leaned forward, shoulders hunched over his knees, and pressed his face into his hands. When he spoke he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. “I thought I could catch him.”

  “What?”

  “Sometimes before the dead pass on, they linger,” he whispered. “Especially your kind. Anger depends on resentment, and your dead exist in resentment. And I think he’s still out there, drifting between this world and the next, but each time I try all I get is fragments of memories, and as more time passes I can’t even remember the beautiful things, and I thought maybe—with the venom—”

  “You don’t know how to fix me, do you?” she asked. “You never did.”

  Chaghan didn’t answer.

  She released his collar. “Get out.”

  He packed up his satchel and left without a word. She almost called him back, but she couldn’t think of a single thing to say before he slammed the door.

  Once Chaghan was gone, Rin shouted down the hallway until she got the attention of a physician, whom she berated until she obtained a sleeping draught in twice the recommended dosage. She swallowed that in two large gulps, crawled back onto her bed, and fell into the deepest sleep she’d had in a long time.

  When she woke, the physician refused her another sleeping draught for another six hours. So she waited in fearful apprehension, anticipating a visit from Jinzha or Nezha or even Vaisra himself. She didn’t know what to expect, only that it couldn’t be anything good. Who had any use for a Speerly who couldn’t summon fire?

  But her only visitor was Captain Eriden, who instructed her that she was to continue acting as if she were in full command of her abilities. She was still Vaisra’s trump card, Vaisra’s hidden weapon, and she was still to appear at his side, even if only as a psychological weapon.

  He didn’t convey Vaisra’s disappointment. He didn’t have to. Vaisra’s absence stung more than anything else.

  She chugged down the next sleeping draught they gave her. The sun had set by the time she woke again. She was terribly hungry. She stood up, unlocked the door, and walked down the hallway, barefoot and groggy, with the vague intention of demanding food from the first person she saw.

  “Well, fuck you, too!”

  Rin stopped walking.

  The voice came from a door near the end of the hallway. “What was I supposed to do? Hang myself like the women of Lü? I bet you’d like that.”

  Rin recognized that voice—shrill, petulant, and furious. She tiptoed down the hall and stood just beyond the door.

  “The women of Lü preserved their dignity.” A male voice this time, much older and deeper.

  “And who put my dignity in my cunt?”

  Rin caught her breath. Venka. It had to be.

  “Would you prefer I were a lifeless corpse?” Venka screamed. “Would you prefer my spine were broken, my body crushed, just so long as nothing had gone between my legs?”

  The male voice again. “I wish you had never been taken. You know that.”

  “You’re not answering the question.” A choked noise. Was Venka crying? “Look at me, Father. Look at me.”

  Venka’s father said something in response, too softly for Rin to hear. A moment later t
he door slammed open. Rin ducked around the corner and froze until she heard the footsteps recede down the hall in the opposite direction.

  She exhaled in relief. She considered for a moment, then walked toward the door. It was open, hanging slightly ajar. She placed her fingertips on the wooden panel and pushed.

  It was Venka. She had shorn her hair off completely—and clearly some time ago, because it was starting to grow back in little dark patches. But her face was the same—ridiculously pretty, all sharp angles and piercing eyes.

  “What the hell do you want?” Venka demanded. “Can I help you?”

  “You were being loud,” Rin said.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. Next time my father disowns me, I’ll keep it down.”

  “You were disowned?”

  “Well. Probably not. It’s not like he’s got other heirs to spare.” Venka’s eyes were red around the rims. “I wish he would, it’s better than him trying to tell me what to do with my own body. When I was pregnant—”

  “You’re pregnant?”

  “Was.” Venka scowled. “No thanks to that fucking doctor. He kept saying that fucking cunt Saikhara didn’t permit abortions.”

  “Saikhara?”

  “Nezha’s mother. She’s got some funny ideas about religion. Grew up in Hesperia, did you know that? She worships their stupid fucking Maker. She doesn’t just pretend for diplomatic reasons, she actually believes in that shit. And she runs around obeying everything he wrote in some little book, which apparently includes forcing women to bear the children of their rapists.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Venka’s throat pulsed. “Got creative.”

  “Ah.”

  They both stared at the floor for a minute. Venka broke the silence. “I mean, it only hurt a little bit. Not as bad as—you know.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s what I thought about when I did it. Kept thinking about their piggy little faces, and then it wasn’t difficult. And the Lady Saikhara can go fuck herself.”

  Rin sat down on the edge of her bed. It felt oddly good to be around Venka—angry, impatient, abrasive Venka. Venka gave voice to the raw anger that everyone else seemed to have patched over, and for that Rin was grateful.

  “How are your arms?” she asked. Last time she’d seen Venka her arms were swathed in so many bandages that Rin wasn’t sure if she’d lost use of them altogether. But her bandages were gone now, and her arms weren’t dangling uselessly by her sides.

  Venka flexed her fingers. “Right one’s healed. Left one won’t, ever. It was bent all funny, and I can’t move three fingers on my left hand.”

  “Can you still shoot?”

  “Works just as well as long as I can hold a bow. They had a glove designed for me. Keeps the three fingers bent back so I don’t have to. I’d be just fine on the field with a little practice. Not like anyone believes me.” Venka shifted in her bed. “But what are you doing here? Did Nezha win you over with his pretty words?”

  Rin shifted. “Something like that.”

  Venka was looking at her with something that might have been jealousy. “So you’re still a soldier. Lucky you.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” Rin said.

  “Why not?”

  For a moment Rin considered telling Venka everything—about the Vipress, about the Seal, about what she had seen with Chaghan. But Venka didn’t have the patience for details. Venka didn’t care that much.

  “I just—I can’t do what I did anymore. Not like that.” She hugged her chest with her arms. “I don’t think I’ll ever do that again.”

  Venka pointed to her eyes. “Is that what you’ve been crying about?”

  “No—I just . . .” Rin took a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I’m useful anymore.”

  Venka rolled her eyes. “Well, you can still hold a sword, can’t you?”

  Chapter 12

  In the following week, three more provinces announced their independence from the Empire.

  As Nezha predicted, the southern Warlords capitulated first. After all, the south had no reason to stay loyal to the Empire or Daji. The Third Poppy War had hit them the hardest. Their refugees were starving, their bandit epidemic had exploded, and the attack at the Autumn Palace had destroyed any chance that they might win concessions or promises of aid at the Lusan summit.

  The southern Warlords notified Arlong of their intentions to secede through breathless delegates traveling over land if they were close enough, and by messenger pigeon if they weren’t. Days later the Warlords themselves arrived at Arlong’s gates.

  “Rooster, Monkey, and Boar.” Nezha counted the provinces off as they watched Eriden’s guards escort the portly Boar Warlord into the palace. “Not bad.”

  “That puts us at four provinces to eight,” Rin said. “Not incredible odds.”

  “Five to seven. And they’re good generals.” That was true. None of the southern Warlords had been born into their ranks; they’d all assumed them in the bloodbaths of the Second and Third Poppy Wars. “And Tsolin will come through.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  “Tsolin knows how to pick sides. He’ll show up eventually. Cheer up, this is about as good as we expected.”

  Rin had imagined that once the four-province alliance solidified, they would march on the north immediately. But politics quickly crushed her hopes for rapid action. The southern Warlords had not brought their armies with them to Arlong. Their military forces remained in their respective capitals, hedging their bets, watching before joining the fray. The south was playing a waiting game. By seceding they had insulated themselves from Vaisra’s ire, but so long as they didn’t commit troops against the Empire, there was still the chance that Daji would welcome them back with open arms, all sins forgiven.

  Days passed. The order to ship out didn’t come. The four-province alliance spent hours and hours debating strategy in an endless series of war councils. Rin, Nezha, and Kitay were all present at these; Nezha because he was a general, Kitay because he, in a bizarre turn of events, was now considered a competent strategist if not an especially well-liked one, and Rin purely because Vaisra wanted her there.

  She suspected her purpose was to intimidate, to give some reassurance that if the island-destroying Speerly was alive and well in Arlong, then this war could not be so difficult to win.

  She tried her best to act as if that weren’t a lie.

  “We need cross-division squadrons, or this alliance is just a suicide pact.” General Hu, Vaisra’s senior strategist, had long ago given up on masking his frustration. “The Republican Army has to act as a cohesive whole. The men can’t think they’re still squadrons of their old province.”

  “I’m not putting my men under the command of soldiers I’ve never met,” said the Boar Warlord. Rin detested Cao Charouk; he seemed to do nothing but complain so fiercely about everything Vaisra’s staff suggested that often she wondered why he’d come to Arlong at all. “And those squads won’t function. You’re asking men who have never met to fight together. They don’t know the same command signals, they don’t use the same codes, and they don’t have time to learn.”

  “Well, you lot don’t seem keen on attacking the north anytime soon, so I imagine they’ll have months at the least,” Kitay muttered.

  Nezha made a choking noise that sounded like a laugh.

  Charouk looked as if he would very much like to skewer Kitay on a flagpole if given the chance.

  “We can’t beat Daji fighting as four separate armies,” General Hu said quickly. “Our scouts report she’s assembling a coalition in the north as we speak.”

  “Doesn’t matter if they don’t have a fleet,” said the Monkey Warlord, Liu Gurubai. He was the most cooperative among the southern Warlords; sharp-tongued and clever-eyed, he spent most meetings stroking his thick, dark whiskers while he played both sides at the table.

  If they were dealing only with Gurubai, Rin thought, they might have moved north by now. The Monkey W
arlord was cautious, but he at least responded to reason. The Boar and Rooster Warlords, however, seemed determined to hunker down in Arlong behind Vaisra’s army. Gong Takha had passed the last few days sitting silent and sullen at the table while Charouk continually blustered his suspicion of everyone else in the room.

  “But they will. Daji is now commissioning ships from civilian centers for a restored Imperial Navy. They’re converting grain transport ships into war galleys, and they’ve constructed naval yards at multiple sites in Tiger Province.” General Hu tapped on the map. “The longer we wait, the more time they have to prepare.”

  “Who’s leading that fleet?” asked Gurubai.

  “Chang En.”

  “That’s surprising,” Charouk said. “Not Jun?”

  “Jun didn’t want the job,” said General Hu.

  Charouk raised an eyebrow. “That’d be a first.”

  “It’s wise on his part,” said Vaisra. “No one wants to have to give Chang En orders. When his officers question him, they lose their heads.”

  “That’s certainly a sign the Empire’s on the decline,” tutted Takha. “That man is wicked and wasteful.”

  The Wolf Meat General was notorious for his brutality. When Chang En had staged his coup against the previous Horse Warlord, his troops had split skulls in half and hung strings of the severed heads across the capital walls.

  “Or it just means, you know, that all the good generals are dead,” Jinzha drawled. He had been remarkably restrained in council so far, though Rin had been watching the contempt build on his face for hours.

  “You would know,” said Charouk. “Did your apprenticeship with him, didn’t you?”

  Jinzha bristled. “That was five years ago.”

  “Not so long for such a short career.”

  Jinzha opened his mouth to retort, but Vaisra cut him off with a raised hand. “If you’re going to accuse my eldest son of treachery—”

  “No one is accusing Jinzha of anything,” said Charouk. “Again, Vaisra, we just don’t think Jinzha is the right choice to lead your fleet.”