The Dragon Republic

by R. F. Kuang

  She saw that she was being held in a third-story room of the palace, facing the center courtyard. Underneath, a crowd of troops—Republican and Hesperian both—had assembled in a semicircle around a raised dais. Two blindfolded prisoners walked slowly up the stairs, arms tied behind their backs, flanked on both sides by Hesperian soldiers.

  The prisoners stopped at the edge of the dais. The soldiers prodded them with their arquebuses until they stepped forward to stand at the center. The one on the left tilted his head up to the sun.

  Even with the blindfold, Rin recognized that dark, handsome face.

  Baji stood straight, unyielding.

  Beside him, Suni hunched down between his shoulders as if he could make himself a smaller target. He looked terrified.

  Rin twisted around. “What is this?”

  Saikhara’s gaze was fixed on the window, eyes narrowed, mouth pressed in the thinnest of lines. “Watch.”

  Someone struck a gong. The crowd parted. Rin watched, veins icy with dread, as Vaisra ascended the dais and took a position several feet in front of Suni and Baji. He raised his arms. He shouted something that Rin couldn’t make out over the crowd. All she heard was the soldiers roaring in approval.

  “Once upon a time, the Red Emperor had all the monks in his realm put to death.” Saikhara spoke quietly behind her. “Why do you think he did it?”

  Four Hesperian soldiers lined up in front of Baji, arquebuses leveled at his torso.

  “What are you doing?” Rin screamed. “Stop!”

  But of course Vaisra couldn’t hear her down there, not over the shouting. She strained helplessly against her chains, screeching, but all she could do was watch as he lifted his hand.

  Four staggered shots punctuated the air. Baji’s body jerked from side to side in a horrible dance with each bullet, until the last one caught him dead center in the chest. For a long, bizarre minute he remained standing, teetering back and forth, like his body couldn’t decide which way to fall. Then he collapsed to his knees, head bent, before a last round of gunfire knocked him to the floor.

  “So much for your gods,” Saikhara said.

  Below, the soldiers reloaded their arquebuses and fired a second round of bullets into Suni.

  Slowly Rin turned around.

  Rage filled her mind, a visceral urge not just to defeat but to destroy, to incinerate Saikhara so thoroughly that not even her bones would remain, and to do it slowly, to make the agony last as long as possible.

  She reached for her god. At first there was no response, only an opium-dulled nothing. Then she heard the Phoenix’s reply—a distant shriek, ever so faint.

  That was enough. She felt the heat in her palms. She had the fire back.

  She almost laughed. After all the opium she had smoked, her tolerance had become much, much higher than the Yins had imagined.

  “Your false gods have been discovered,” Saikhara said softly. “Chaos will die.”

  “You know nothing of the gods,” Rin whispered.

  “I know enough.” Saikhara raised the whip again. Rin moved faster. She turned her palms toward Saikhara and fire burst out—just a small stream, not even a tenth of her full range, but it was enough to set Saikhara’s robes aflame.

  Saikhara skirted backward, screeching for help while the lash fell repeatedly against Rin’s shoulder, slicing across open wounds. Rin raised her arms to shield her head, but the whip lacerated her wrists instead.

  The doors opened. Eriden burst inside, followed by two soldiers. Rin redirected the flames at them, but they held damp, fireproof tarps in front of them. The fire sizzled and failed to catch. One kicked her to the ground and pinned her down by the arms. The other forced a wet cloth over her mouth.

  Rin tried not to inhale, but her vision dimmed and she convulsed, gasping. The thick taste of laudanum invaded her mouth, cloying and potent. The effect was immediate. Her flames died away. She couldn’t sense the Phoenix—could barely even hear or see at all.

  The soldiers let go of her. She lay limp on the floor, dazed, drool leaking out the side of her mouth as she blinked blankly at the door.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Eriden said to Nezha’s mother.

  Saikhara spat in Rin’s direction. “She should be sedated.”

  “She was sedated. You were reckless.”

  “And you were incompetent,” Saikhara hissed. “This is on your head.”

  Eriden said something in response, but Rin could no longer understand him. Eriden and Saikhara were only vague, blurry streaks of colors, and their voices were distorted, meaningless babbles of nonsense.

  Vaisra came for her hours later. She watched the door open through bloated eyelids, watched him cross the room to kneel down beside her.

  “You,” she croaked.

  She felt his cool fingertips brush against her forehead and push her tangle of hair past her ears.

  He sighed. “Oh, Runin.”

  “I did everything for you,” she said.

  His expression was uncharacteristically kind. “I know.”

  “Then why?”

  He pulled his hand back. “Look out at the channel.”

  She glanced, exhausted, toward the window. She didn’t have to look—she knew what he wanted her to see. The battered ships lying in pieces along the channel, a fourth of the fleet crushed beneath an avalanche of rocks, the bodies drowned and bloated drifting as far as the river ran.

  “That’s what happens when you bury a god,” she said.

  “No. That’s what happens when men are fool enough to toy with heaven.”

  “But I’m not like Feylen.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said gently. “You could be.”

  She pulled herself to a sitting position. “Vaisra, please—”

  “Don’t beg. There’s nothing I can do. They know about the man you killed. You burned him and dumped his body in the harbor.” Vaisra sounded so disappointed. “Really, Rin? After everything? I told you to be careful. I wished you’d listened.”

  “He was raping a girl,” she said. “He was on her, I couldn’t just—”

  “I thought,” Vaisra said slowly, as if talking to a child, “I taught you how the balance of power fell.”

  She struggled to stand up. The floor tilted under her feet—she had to push herself up against the wall. She saw double every time she moved her head, but at last she managed to look Vaisra in the eye. “Do it yourself, then. No firing squads. Use a sword. Grant me that respect.”

  Vaisra raised an eyebrow. “Did you think we were going to kill you?”

  “You’re coming with us, sweetheart.” General Tarcquet’s voice, a slow, indifferent drawl.

  Rin flinched. She hadn’t heard the door open.

  Sister Petra stepped inside and stood just a little behind Tarcquet. Her eyes were like flint beneath her shawl.

  “What do you want?” Rin growled at her. “Here to get more urine samples?”

  “I admit I thought you could still be converted,” Petra said. “This saddens me, truly. I hate to see you like this.”

  Rin spat at her feet. “Go fuck yourself.”

  Petra stepped forward until they were standing face-to-face. “You did have me fooled. But Chaos is clever. It can disguise itself as rational and benevolent. It can make us merciful.” She lifted her hand to stroke the side of Rin’s face. “But in the end, it must always be hunted down and destroyed.”

  Rin snapped at her fingers. Petra jerked her hand back. Too late. Rin had drawn blood.

  Petra skirted back and Rin laughed, let blood drip from her teeth. She saw sheer terror reflected in Petra’s eyes, and that alone was so oddly gratifying—Petra had never shown fear before, had never shown anything—that she didn’t care about the disgust on Tarcquet’s face or the disapproval on Vaisra’s.

  They all already thought her a mad animal. She’d only fulfilled their expectations.

  And why shouldn’t she? She was done playing the Hesperians’ game of hiding, pretending
she wasn’t lethal when she was. They wanted to see a beast. She’d give them one.

  “This isn’t about Chaos.” She grinned at them. “You’re all so terrified, aren’t you? I have power that you don’t, and you can’t stand it.”

  She opened her palms out. Nothing happened—the laudanum still weighed thick on her mind—but Petra and Tarcquet jumped back nonetheless.

  Rin cackled.

  Petra wiped her bloody hand on her dress, leaving behind thick, red streaks on gray cloth. “I will pray for you.”

  “Pray for yourself.” Rin lunged forward again, just to see what Petra would do.

  The Sister turned on her heels and fled. The door slammed behind her. Rin slunk back, snorting with mirth.

  “Hope you got your kicks in,” Tarcquet said drily. “Won’t be a lot of laughs where you’re going. Our scholars like to keep busy.”

  “I’ll bite my tongue out before they touch me,” Rin said.

  “Oh, it won’t be so bad,” Tarcquet said. “We’ll toss you some opium every once in a while if you behave. They told me you like that.”

  Her pride fled her.

  “Don’t give me to them,” she begged Vaisra. She couldn’t posture anymore, couldn’t conceal her fear; her entire body trembled with it, and although she wanted to be defiant, all she could think of was Shiro’s laboratory, of lying helpless on a hard table while hands she couldn’t see probed at her body. “Vaisra. Please. You still need me.”

  Vaisra sighed. “I’m afraid that’s no longer true.”

  “You wouldn’t have won this war without me. I’m your best weapon, I’m the steel behind your rule, you said—”

  “Oh, Runin.” Vaisra shook his head. “Look outside the window. That fleet is the steel behind my rule. See those warships? Imagine the size of those cargo holds. Imagine how many arquebuses those ships are carrying. You think I really need you?”

  “But I’m the only one who can call a god—”

  “And Augus, an idiotic boy without the least bit of military training, went up against one of the Hinterlands’ most powerful shamans and killed her. Oh yes, Runin, I told them. Now imagine what scores of trained Hesperian soldiers could do. My dear, I assure you I don’t need your services any longer.” Vaisra turned to Tarcquet. “We’re done here. Cart her off whenever you wish.”

  “I am not keeping that thing on my ship,” Tarcquet said.

  “We’ll deliver her before you depart, then.”

  “And you can guarantee she won’t sink us into the ocean?”

  “She can’t do anything as long as you give her regular doses of laudanum,” said Vaisra. “Post a guard. Keep her doped up and covered in wet blankets, and she’ll be tame as a kitten.”

  “Too bad,” Tarcquet said. “She’s entertaining.”

  Vaisra chuckled. “She is that.”

  Tarcquet gave Rin a last, lingering glance. “The Consortium’s delegates will be here soon.”

  Vaisra dipped his head. “And I would hate to keep the Consortium waiting.”

  They turned their backs toward her and moved to the door.

  Rin rushed forward, panicked.

  “I did everything for you.” Her voice came out shrill, desperate. “I killed Feylen for you.”

  “And history will remember you for it,” Vaisra said softly over his shoulder. “Just as history will praise me for the decisions I make now.

  “Look at me!” she screamed. “Look at me! Fuck you! Look at me!”

  He didn’t respond.

  She still had one card left to play, and she hurled it wildly at him. “Are you going to let them take Nezha, too?”

  That made him stop.

  “What’s this?” Tarcquet asked.

  “Nothing,” said Vaisra. “She’s drugged, she’s babbling—”

  “I know everything,” Rin said. Fuck Nezha, fuck his secrets—if he was going to backstab her then she would do the same. “Your son is one of us, and if you’re going to kill us all then you’ll have to kill him, too.”

  “Is this true?” Tarcquet asked sharply.

  “Clearly not,” said Vaisra. “You’ve met the boy. Come, we’re wasting time—”

  “Tarcquet saw,” Rin breathed. “Tarcquet was on the campaign. Remember how those waters moved? That wasn’t the Wind God, General. That was Nezha.”

  Vaisra said nothing.

  She knew she had him.

  “You knew, didn’t you?” she demanded. “You’ve always known. Nezha went to that grotto because you let him.”

  Because how else did two little boys escape the palace guard to explore a cave they were forbidden from entering? How, without the Dragon Warlord’s express permission?

  “Were you hoping he’d die? Or—no.” Her voice shook. “You wanted a shaman, didn’t you? You knew what the dragon could do and you wanted a weapon of your own. But you wouldn’t take the chance on Jinzha. Not your firstborn. But your second son? Your third? They were expendable. You could experiment.”

  “What is she talking about?” Tarcquet demanded.

  “That’s why your wife hates me,” Rin said. “That’s why she hates all shamans. And that’s why your son hates you. And you can’t hide it. Petra already knows. Petra said she was going to fix him—”

  Tarcquet raised an eyebrow. “Vaisra . . .”

  “This is nothing,” Vaisra said. “She’s raving. Your men will have to put up with that on the ship.”

  Tarcquet laughed. “They don’t speak the language.”

  “Be glad. Her dialect is an ugly one.”

  “Stop lying!” Rin tried to rush Vaisra. But the chains jerked painfully at her ankles and flung her back onto the floor.

  Tarcquet gave a last chuckle as he left. Vaisra lingered for a moment in the doorway, watching her impassively.

  Finally he sighed.

  “The House of Yin has always done what it has needed to,” he said. “You know that.”

  When she woke again she decided she wanted to die.

  She considered dashing her head against the wall. But every time she knelt facing the window, hands braced against stone, she started shaking too badly to finish the job.

  She wasn’t afraid to die; she was afraid she wouldn’t bash her head in hard enough. That she’d only shatter her skull but not lose consciousness, that she’d be subject to hours of crushing pain that didn’t kill her but left her to a life of unbearable agony and half of her original capacity to think.

  In the end, she was too much a coward. She gave up and curled up miserably on the floor to await whatever came next.

  After a few minutes she felt a sharp jabbing sensation in her left arm. She jerked her head up, eyes darting around the room to find what had bitten her. A spider? A rat? She saw nothing. She was alone.

  The prickling intensified into a sharp lance of pain. She yelped out loud and scrambled to sit up.

  She couldn’t find the cause of the pain. She squeezed her arm tight, rubbed frantically up and down, but the pain wouldn’t disappear. She felt it as acutely as if someone were carving deep gashes into her flesh, but she couldn’t see blood bubbling up on her skin or lines splitting the surface.

  At last she realized that this wasn’t happening to her.

  This was happening to Kitay.

  Did they have him? Were they hurting him? Oh, gods. The only thing worse than being tortured was knowing that Kitay was being tortured—to feel it happening, to know that it was ten times worse on his end, and to be unable to stop it.

  Thin, scratchy white lines that looked like scars from a long-healed wound materialized under her skin.

  Rin squinted at their shape. They weren’t random cuts to inflict pain—the pattern was too deliberate. They looked like words.

  Hope flared up in her chest. Was Kitay doing this to himself? Was he trying to write to her? She closed her fists, teeth clenched against the pain, while she watched the white lines form a single word.

  Where?

  She crawled to the
window and peered outside, counting the windows that led up to hers. Third floor. First room in the center hallway, just above the courtyard dais.

  Now she just had to write back. She cast her eyes around the room for a weapon but knew she’d find nothing. The walls were too smooth, and her cell had been stripped of furniture.

  She examined her fingernails. They were untrimmed, sharp and jagged. That might do the trick. They were terribly dirty—that might cause infection—but she’d worry about that later.

  She took a deep breath.

  She could do this. She’d scarred herself before.

  She managed just three characters before she couldn’t bring herself to scratch any more. Palace 1–3.

  She watched her arm with bated breath. There was no response.

  That wasn’t necessarily bad. Kitay had to have seen. Maybe he just had nothing else to say.

  Quickly she smeared the blood over her arms to hide the cuts, just in case any guards ventured in to check on her. And if they saw, then she would simply pretend she had gone mad.

  Chapter 37

  Something clanged against the window.

  Rin jerked her head up. She heard a second clang. She half ran, half crawled to the windowsill and saw a grappling hook lodged against the iron bars. She peeked over the edge. Kitay was scaling up the wall on a single rope. He grinned up at her, teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “Hi there.”

  She stared back, too relieved to speak, hoping desperately that she wasn’t hallucinating.

  Kitay hoisted himself through the window, dropped soundlessly to the floor, and fished a long needle out of his pocket. “How many locks?”

  She jangled her chains at him. “Just two.”

  “Right.” Kitay knelt by her ankles and set to work. A minute later the bolt sprang free. Rin kicked the shackles off her legs, relieved.

  “Stop that,” he whispered.

  “Sorry.” She was still drowsy from the laudanum. Moving felt like swimming and thinking took twice as long.

  Kitay moved on to the bolt around her right wrist.

  She sat quietly, trying her best not to move. Half a minute later she heard something outside the door. She strained her ears. She heard it again—footsteps. “Kitay—”