The Poppy War
by R F Kuang
Nikan has already weathered two Poppy Wars, but a third looms large on the horizon as The Federation of Mugen grows restless and eager to once again invade. Nikan is split up into twelve different provinces under the rule of Empress Daji, but unfortunately for the Nikara, the provinces do not play well together. Each province is ruled by its own warlord that technically reports back to the Empress, but the provinces largely govern themselves and each controls it's own division of the Militia. When the Federation once again invades and the provinces cannot put their differences aside even for the country's own interests, who is going to save the Nikara. Enter Fang Runin, a student at the prestigious Sinegard academy who may have just realized she can call on The Vermillion Phoenix of the South.
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Prepare for all the spoilers. Fang Runin, known as Rin, prepares to take the Keju, a twelve-hour test that will decide her entire future. Rin is a war orphan taken in by the Fangs not out of the goodness of their hearts, but from an imperial order that any family with fewer than three children must take a war orphan since there were so many of them. They have used Rin as free labor since then: working in the shop, collecting opium debts, and raising their son, Kesegi, about six years her junior. Two years ago, on the day she celebrated her fourteenth birthday (though she doesn’t actually know the day she was born), the Fangs announced they had found her a husband. A man three times her age who has already had two wives, rich, willing to look past Rin’s dark skin tone, and who just happens to be the village import collector. Auntie Fang tells Rin that she should do her duty and give him a son, then slowly dose him with opium until he is dependent on the drug and on her - and they all live happily ever after. Especially the Fangs, who won’t have to pay bribes to bring in their opium anymore. Rin makes a desperate plan. She grabs a few blocks of opium during inventory, marking it as lost in a recent shipment raid, and runs to the village tutor. Tutor Feyrik runs a free evening class to teach the local children to read. He taught Rin her letters and her numbers. He can tutor her in the Keju too. But most kids train for the Keju from the moment they learn to read. Rin would only have two years to learn what she needs to. It’s impossible. But she proves to him that she can memorize large texts, even full books. Then she brings out the opium. If he can get her to pass the Keju, it will bring him far more students than he has now. More students, more money - which he needs since he is a habitual and unsuccessful gambler with debts to pay. She can’t pay him, but that much opium is worth half his yearly salary. He agrees to tutor her. When she talks to Auntie Fang, the woman is not keen to let Rin take the test. But after agreeing to marry the inspector without complaint if she doesn’t pass the Keju, and some light emotional blackmail, Auntie Fang agrees. Go ahead and take the test, Rin can’t afford the tuition at any of the schools anyway. Meaning that Rin will have to score high enough to get into Sinegard, which doesn’t charge tuition but also happens to be the most prestigious academy in Nikan. Rin starts a rigorous study schedule in addition to working at the Fang’s shop. She has a good grasp on math already, though she needs to work on trigonometry; the logic section is difficult but she enjoys it once she gets the hang of it; and history is easy - Nikan has a history rife with war and very little stability ranging from when the Red Emperor wrested control from the monasteries, through his united Nikan was divvied up into twelve warring pieces ruled by his heirs, bouts of being conquered, throwing off the conquerors and uniting again, experiencing two Poppy Wars, until now when Empress Su Daji rules a unified (but not stable) country. It’s the Classics that give Rin the worst trouble. Works written by legendary Nikara statesmen about statecraft, Rin does not understand most of it and does not have time to learn. She settles on memorizing each of the twenty-seven texts and hoping it’s good enough. She starts burning her arm with hot wax to keep herself focused about a year in, when she begins to feel exhausted. After two years of studying, Rin takes the Keju. She must wait a week for the results. She nearly goes out of her mind waiting. But when the results are posted, Rin not only scored highest in her village of Tikany, but in the entire Rooster Province. She’s going to Sinegard. Rin is excited and impatient to get to the capital of Sinegard - and out of her small village in a southern province. Generally, southern provinces are thought of as lesser. She packs up all of her possessions, which fit in a single rucksack, says goodbye to Kesegi, and is escorted to Sinegard by Tutor Feyrik. The magistrate (though they still refuse to admit that Rin scored so highly without cheating) pays for their travel expenses. Traveling across the country is dangerous and a good way to get robbed, killed, eaten, or all of the above. Feyrik used to live in Sinegard and gives Rin all the tips. Don’t eat street food. Don’t help people that have fallen down but don’t appear injured. Don’t make eye contact with vendors. Everyone will want your money. And cut off her braids off so no one grabs them and kidnaps her. Do not mess with Federation soldiers. They still have diplomatic immunity and do basically whatever they want. She does cut her braids off but if anything, all the things he tells her makes her more excited to get to Sinegard. But once they get to the city, she is overwhelmed. Though they speak the same language, she almost can’t understand the dialect. It’s true that everyone wants her money, and the city people make her feel very unwelcome. She watches a carriage hit a child and instead of potentially being responsible for the child’s medical bills if they’re crippled, the driver kills the child instead. She gets a tour of Sinegard with another newcomer, a fair skinned boy accompanied by his mother. When the papers are signed and Rin is officially enrolled, it’s time for Feyrik to go. She cries. He tells her that what she’s feeling is not in her head. They don’t want her here, a lowly southerner in their prestigious school. They will try to keep her down - the first day will be terrible, the second probably even worse. Classes will be harder than anything she’s ever done before. And she deserves to be here. Do not let them keep her down. If anyone can beat them, it’s Rin. Once Feyrik leaves, Rin passes the fair skinned boy from the tour and overhears him talking bad about her. She doesn’t care, she’s heard worse from the Fangs, but she won’t stand for him to make fun of Tutor Feyrik. Rin punches him in the eye. They are broken up by an apprentice. Fighting is not allowed, but insulting a teacher is taboo. He asks for their names, and the boy’s name is Nezha from the illustrious Yin family. He tells Rin that he will kill her, and the apprentice says there will be plenty of time for that when classes start. The students all assemble in the main hall, including all of the first-year students - of whom there are fewer than fifty in total. Their instructors walk in, led by the Grand Master Jima Lain. She is Commander of the Sinegardian Reserve Forces and former Commander of the Nikara Imperial Militia. The masters behind her will instruct the first years and over the course of the year, decide if they will take them in as an apprentice. The masters are all dressed the same but with different colored belts, except the man at the end who is dressed only in a brown robe with no belt. He doesn’t even wear the insignia of the Red Emperor. Jima tells them all that they are the best of the best. In this school, they train generals. Decision makers. And if they are deemed unworthy of that honor, they will be asked to leave. A fifth of the first-years won’t be there next year. Over the course of the year, if the student shows aptitude in a field of study: combat, strategy, history, weaponry, linguistics, medicine, or lore, they will be approved to continue their studies and become an apprentice of that field. Rin sees that the apprentices wear armbands matching the color of a master’s belt. Lastly, there is a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to drugs. Raban, the apprentice that broke up Rin and Nezha’s fight, leads them to their dormitories. He tells them their schedule - classes start half an hour after sunrise, eat breakfast before that or don’t eat at all. There are only two other girls in the first-year students, a record high: Niang from Hare Province and Venka, who is originally from Dragon Province but grew up in Sinegard, the capital. Venka is rude about Rin’s skin tone. Master Jun teaches martial arts. He sees Nezha’s black eye and tells them that if he finds out they are fighting irresponsibly, he will kick them out of his class and try to get them expelled. He’s not messing around. Nearly all of the students have had years of martial arts training already (Venka has had twelve). Jun tells them that martial arts is just trigonometry, angles, and physics. With the right training and discipline, they can do the impossible. History is taught by Master Yim. He explains that the old Nikan was a powerful empire, but it was torn apart when the Red Emperor died and his heirs literally tore it apart - separating it into twelve pieces that constantly warred with one another. That is, until the First Poppy War, when the Federation of Mugen attacked. From the small island of Mugen to the east, the Federation had trained for decades to take over Nikan to deal with their dwindling resources and growing population. Plus, they believed it was their divine right. The war was an embarrassment for Nikan. He asks how Nikan won the Second Poppy War. What they’ve learned about tactics in the Second Poppy War up to this point was purely propaganda. The Trifecta: three heroic soldiers known as the Vipress, the Gatekeeper, and the Dragon Emperor were important for rallying the provinces (the Vipress still lives and rules as Empress), but they did not win the war for Nikan. In fact, Nikan did not win the war at all. It was when Mugen attacked the island of Speer, the last tributary of Nikan brought under their banner in the time of the Red Emperor, and killed every single person in the island that changed the tide of the war. This act of genocide made Hesperia to the west intervene with their superior naval forces, they beat Mugen back and won the war for the Nikara. Mugen signed a non-aggression pact, but Hesperia has lost interest and the Mugenese grow restless again. It is only a matter of time before Nikan is attacked again and this time, they plan to be ready. At lunch, Rin is approached by Kitay. He comes from Sinegard, the most competitive of testing regions, but still scores the highest even though he is a year younger than the others. He grew up with both Nezha (whose father is the Dragon Warlord) and Venka, though no love is lost between them. Nezha hates Kitay because Kitay scored higher than him on the entrance exam. They still have Lore and Linguistics that afternoon, but when the apprentices lead the first-year students to a walled garden for their Lore class, the master never shows. Soon, the students realize that they are surrounded by poppy plants. Most of them freak out, Jima had said they’d be expelled if they were within ten paces of a poppy plant. Nezha walks out first, followed by everyone but Rin and Kitay. They stay in the garden and relax for a bit. In the morning, Rin has Combat, Strategy, Medicine, and History. Every Friday they have to swim the length of a lake; she didn’t know how to swim when they started. Medicine Master Enro had them learn all the bones of the body and how they break. Weapons Master Sonnen shows them how to make incendiary powder - which they use to make missiles. Strategy with Master Irjah is the hardest of the classes. They’re often compared to the most impressive student to come through Sinegard: Altan Trengsin. They still haven’t had Lore class since the master continues not to show up. As the weather gets colder, they begin learning the staff in martial arts. Their class is delayed one day by the appearance of the Lore Master Jiang, who really irritates Jun. By the time Jiang leaves, the class is rattled and no one catches the moves they’re supposed to follow. The drill they perform is a mess, so Jun tells them a story of the strategist Sunzi - who was tested on his principles of war by training the Red Emperor’s concubines. Sunzi gave the concubines direction, but they laughed instead of following orders. Sunzi told the Emperor that if orders are not clear, it is the general’s fault. He tried again, making his directions very clear this time, and the concubines still only laughed when he gives them the order to turn right. He then told the Emperor that if orders were clear and still not followed, it is the troop leaders who are to blame. Sunzi singled out the two most senior concubines and had them beheaded. This time when Jun shows the class the moves, they get them right. In addition to Combat class, they have nightly practice sessions that are overseen by two of Jun’s apprentices: Kureel and Jeeha. One night while practicing their forms, Nezha and Rin start to antagonize each other and Nezha issues Rin a challenge. Rin accepts, disregarding the warning from Master Jun. As Nezha dances around showing off, Rin kicks him in the groin. Nezha is humiliated and makes Rin pay by making her a social pariah. The only person who dares to stay her friend is Kitay. Niang does at least talk to her in the privacy of their dorm room. Luckily, Rin is too exhausted from her classes to care much about her lack of friends. After several days, Raban wakes her and the other girls in her dorm in the middle of the night. He takes the first-years to see challenges, where one apprentices challenges another to fight - refereed by Master Sonnen. Tonight Altan, the legendary fifth-year student, has been challenged and no one will want to miss it. When Rin sees Altan, his skin is even darker than hers and his eyes are red. He is one of the legendary warrior people from Speer. A Speerly. The last Speerly, after the Mugen killed everyone on the island. He fights three other students. The first is done in less than three minutes. The second fight, with Kureel, lasts longer but only because Altan humors her. And he wins the last one against Tobi, even after Tobi uses the Tiger Claws technique. The first years (and the other years too) are amazed. Nezha is jealous of Altan’s attention and makes fun of him, saying that he is stupid and an opium addict. Raban says that actually, Altan is brilliant. He’s the best in their class and Rin can tell that Altan isn’t using opium. At History, they want to hear more about Speer. It was annexed by the Nikara after the last warrior Queen of Speer, Mai’rinnen Tearza died. They don’t know exactly how Tearza died though some rumors say she stabbed herself to prove her devotion to the Red Emperor, whom she loved. They only know that she did die and Speer was annexed. The Speerly people, who were trained as warriors from the time they could walk, were conscripted into Nikara military service until the Second Poppy War when they were killed. Rin asks if they really had fire shaman and Kitay says that their prowess with fire is well documented, but Yim brushes it off as myth. They liked to use fire weapons at night, and the rumors got out of control. In truth, they were a barbaric people who hadn’t even discovered agriculture by the time the Red Emperor conquered them. In Combat, Jun pairs them up to spar - telling them only to block and parry. Rin is paired with Nezha and he ignores Jun’s instructions. Nezha quickly has her on the ground and is kicking her until she tackles him. Jun pulls them apart. He suspends Nezha for a week and sends him away from the class for being irresponsible. Then he turns to Rin. Every year they have some peasant trash like her come prance into the Sinegard as if they’ve made the big time. She will never be more than she is, Nezha has the makings of a commander. Jun cannot expel her, but he bars her from his classes and from using the practice facilities. He forbids her from asking the older students to teach her. He doesn’t need her causing any more problems in his class. She stumbles out of class and cries. If she can’t fight, she won’t pass the Trials. No one will take her as apprentice, and she will be sent back to Tikany. She starts to get angry. When the class releases, Kitay tries to speak to her but she’s furious now. The Keju isn’t real, it’s a pipe dream that they feed the peasants to keep them working. If a member of the lower classes actually passes the Keju, they just find a different way to get rid of them instead. Rin starts sweating and her vision gets blurry for a moment. Her stomach gets a sharp pain and Kitay gets worried, but she just shoves him away. It turns out, the pain was just menstrual cramps - which she’s never had before. No one ever even taught her about menstruation. Rin asks for advice from Kureel, dismayed that this will happen every month. She’s told that there is a way to stop it completely, but no one uses it since it destroys your womb and you will never be able to have children. As soon as the bleeding stops, Rin goes to the infirmary and asks for that treatment - she doesn’t want kids anyway. No one tries to talk her out of it but warns her that it will hurt way worse than menstrual cramps. Her womb will be destroying itself after all - she will be out of classes for a week. But Rin drinks the treatment anyway. She returns to class after missing another four days and is very behind. She works harder than she has since entering Sinegard, even burning herself again to stay focused. She will not let them get rid of her so easily. She works her way from the bottom of each of her classes to the very top, coming in second only to Kitay. She begins to enjoy Strategy. After a particular debate in which she suggests breaking a dam to rid themselves of enemy warriors, chalking up the schoolhouse of drowned children as a lost cause, she is asked to see Irjah the Strategy Master. He wants to discuss a paper she wrote. In the paper, the Empire was involved in a war, and public opinion was indicating that the people did not believe in the war or think that Nikan should be involved any more. She had to find a way to change the public’s opinion. Taking inspiration from the decimation of Speer, she suggested that the Empire dress up as Federation soldiers and massacre a small island belonging to the Empire. It would enrage the people and give the Empire all the support they needed to continue their war efforts. In fact, she’s not convinced that is not what really happened to Speer - they may have been sacrificed to spur Hesperia into action. Irjah is intrigued. Her dam solution to the problem in class would not have worked, but she already knows that after their discussion. It would have won the battle but lost them the war, destroying too much agricultural land and causing a famine which the Empire would have been blamed for. Irjah calls her very bright and says she may do well as a Strategy apprentice if she passes the Trial. She tells him what happened with Jun and Irjah is shocked but knows that Jun is a purist and believes that anyone not descended from a Warlord is not worth his time to teach. When Rin explains to Irjah that she’s not suspended from Combat for a specific amount of time, she’s not allowed back at all, he is completely astounded. He asks if Jima knows, but Rin has already checked and Jima cannot interfere. She still hopes she will pass and would be honored to become his apprentice if that happens. Irjah believes she will find a way. And he isn’t wrong; Rin hasn’t given up on learning combat. But after asking and being refused by apprentices, she will have to teach herself using the texts from the library. After a month of searching for what she needs, she finds a book by the quartermaster of the Red Emperor which is just what she needs. When she is told that the book is restricted and she can’t borrow it as a first-year, she steals it. She learns how to punch and how to ground herself. She regularly goes to watch the challenges, hoping to learn by watching. She watches Altan, who she now realizes is a genius when it comes to fighting. He never lets his opponent know what he’s planning. He has mastered the math of fighting. She watches him fight twenty-three challengers and win every one. Winter sets in and they still haven’t had a single class with Jiang. The first years have stopped bothering to go to the garden at all. Except for Rin, who finds it to be a nice quiet place to practice her combat. The book she has found is by Seejin and she has moved on from the basics but is having a lot of trouble with what comes. She is practicing in the garden when Jiang enters and startles her. He recognizes her as the student Irjah can’t stop raving about. Jiang asks what she’s doing and she explains. He tells her that she’s butchering Seejin and if she continues, she’s going to get hurt in a way that she won’t come back from. He recommends Seejin’s predecessor Yinmen instead, but Rin says Yinmen’s scrolls are incomplete. Jiang tells her they will discuss that in class tomorrow. She has beautiful footwork but no upper body strength. He finds it tedious to teach first years that do not interest him, but she has caught his interest. And he hates Jun, so teaching her is a win-win. Jiang tells her to meet him at the campus gates for the next day’s class. Raban says Jiang must like her if he talked to her nicely - he mostly just yells at Raban’s class not to touch the daffodils. No one is sure where Jiang came from, though there’s a rumor he came from the Night Castle two decades ago to teach Lore at Sinegard. The Night Castle soldiers are known for their secrets and their skulking. They do the dirty work no one else wants to do, like assassinations. They’re considered dishonorable for it. They’re known as Cikes. Rin has a hard time picturing Jiang in the role of assassin. Several of the other masters have tried to get him fired since no one ever pledges Lore - he’s considered a joke. Only Altan had even wanted to pledge Lore. He was dead set on it, and all seven masters had planned to bid for him, but Jiang pulled out at the last minute and Altan chose Strategy instead. Jiang meets Rin at the gates as requested and they run into Jun on their way into town. Jun is as unpleasant as always and when they finally go around his class, Rin asks why Jun hates Jiang. People say that Jiang killed half Jun’s men during the Second Poppy War, but Jiang has no idea if that’s true. Jiang takes Rin to meet Widow Maung, who brings out a piglet named Sunzi. Rin needs to run Sunzi up the mountain to drink the clean mountain water each day. Sunzi is small today, he won’t stay that way, and it already takes two hours to make the round trip. Rin gets up early every day and is still usually late for Medicine. She sits in the back of class so the others don’t smell the stench of pig on her - they probably can anyway. She does this for months. Jiang explains that Jun’s combat teachings skip the Frolics of the First Animals, which teaches about health and longevity. Jun can teach someone to be a good soldier, but Jiang will teach Rin so much more. They used to believe that five elements made up everything in the world. Although they know that’s false now, it’s still helpful to think that way when it comes to martial arts. The fire is the adrenaline in your blood, water is the flow of your muscles, air the breath in your lungs, earth your balance on the ground, and metal is the weapons you use. They all need to be in balance. Too much of one element makes you fallible. One day, Jiang takes Rin to the top tier of the school where she’s never been before and shows her paintings of the history of martial arts. It was brought to the Empire by Bodhidharma. After asking and being refused entry into a temple, Bodhidharma impressed the monks with his focus and commitment and they allowed him in. But the monks were sedentary and unhealthy, so Bodhidharma taught them how to move to stay healthy. When the northern horsemen of the Hinterlands invaded before the time of the Red Emperor, it was illegal for the Nikara to have weapons. The people started to take refuge in the temples and were taught the same exercises but adapted for combat. This was the birth of martial arts as a weapon. Their bodies were their weapons since they were allowed nothing else. Jiang can teach her what Jun’s students learn, and he can teach her how to beat it. They start with fundamentals and muscle memory, then they move to sparring. Jiang is relentless. The day comes when she is able to flip him and send him sprawling across the floor. He smiles broadly afterward. Sunzi the pig grows huge. When Rin tells Jiang that Sunzi is scheduled to be killed, he asks how her body feels. He hits her, harder than he ever has before with almost no warning. He puts all of his energy, his ki, behind the punch. Rin is able to block the punch and absorbs his ki but is not fast enough to properly give the ki an exit path. Instead, it travels down her body to the floor and cracks the stones there. Jiang is giddy with excitement. He wants her to pledge Lore, but she was thinking Strategy. He tells her anyone can learn Strategy; it’s all there in books. No one has ever picked up his training this quickly, not even Altan. He can teach her more than just ki manipulation. He can make her a shaman. But she can’t turn down the chance of a real position, a steady job that Strategy would give her. Lore can make no such promises. Jiang is disappointed in her. Jiang stops training her. She tries to talk to him, but he avoids her and she gets distracted by the upcoming tests. Every moment of every day is packed with preparing for the tests. If she gets sent home, she won’t get another chance. Rin learns what to expect. Lore does not give a test, Medicine only tests students who are serious about choosing it to apprentice under, and Combat does a physical test, but every other class does an oral exam. The students will answer questions from the masters until they get a question wrong, then the test is over. The master of the class will ask up to seven questions. After the oral exams are completed, the Combat test will begin and last two days. The first day will consist of random pairing and the students will fight each other. By the end of that day, the total points the student has accrued will decide if they are one of the eight that move to the quarterfinals. The finalists will then fight in bouts. The loser will be disqualified until the quarterfinal, semifinal, and final fights are completed and there is a champion. The champion always receives a bid from at least one master and the further you go in the tournament, the better your chances. Venka and Nezha are both favorites; Nezha now has a reputation for striking and not caring if his opponent is hurt. Even if their injury is serious. As the test date looms closer, the students become more secretive. They don’t study together, they don’t train in front of anyone else, and the older students start selling them fake study aids. Rin continues to train in the garden even though Jiang no longer comes. One day she finds Altan doing the same. He’s even more beautiful up close. He’s going through a flow she’s never seen before and he tells her that if she trains with Jiang, she will see a bunch of unusual forms. She must be very good if Jiang has taken an interest in her. She gets flustered and leaves the garden. When the tests begin, Rin does well. She is at the top of all her classes, only behind Kitay. She nails Strategy, receiving all seven of Irjah’s questions. When she gets to History, the first question is for beginners: why did Nikan win the Second Poppy War? They must be looking for some interesting answer if this question is on the test. She tells them that Nikan won because they gave up Speer. They didn’t lose Speer; they made a strategic decision to give it up so that the Hesperians would aid them. This does not get the response she expects; they all look uncomfortable except Jiang (who looks bored) and Jun (who looks angry). Jun tells her she’s wrong. He knows, he was at Speer. But she calls him out. He wasn’t at Speer; he couldn’t have been. None of the Militia were there. They didn’t arrive until sunrise when the Federation had already come and gone, and the Speerlies were already dead. Jun thinks she’s accusing him of lying but Jiang diffuses the situation, saying she was trying to give an unexpected answer to a rote question. They all move on. Jiang asks her a question. He has not posed a question to anyone else. Who is imprisoned in Chuluu Korikh? She’s never even heard of the place, but she thinks (based on what she knows of ancient dialects) it means Stone Mountain. She gives an answer, but she has no idea if it’s right. ‘Unnatural criminals who have committed unnatural crimes’. Jiang turns away, no more questions. After the oral tests, the tournament starts. Rin has not been able to watch any of her peers fight, but they don’t know what to expect from her either. She decides to use that to her advantage, and she wins her first three fights. Undefeated, she moves to the quarterfinals. Venka, Nezha, and four other students also advance undefeated. Kitay also advances, though he lost one of his matches. Rin is paired with Venka next and Kitay helps her come up with a strategy. He doesn’t think Venka has ever actually been hit before. Rin notices that all the students fights similarly, all having been trained by Jun. It doesn’t take long before she gets a hit on Venka, who proceeds to lose her cool, and then Rin gets a kick that sends Venka to the floor. Rin wins the fight. Nezha also wins; his opponents often leave on a stretcher though he is rarely censured for it. Only Kitay was not injured when he fought Nezha. Kitay is not an exceptional fighter but he’s very good at dodging, and then he surrendered. The final match is Nezha versus Rin. Raban approaches her and tells her to surrender. She’s made it far enough to secure a bid and she hasn’t yet seen Nezha fight. He’s ruthless. One of his previous opponents may not walk again after their fight. But Rin won’t surrender, this is the fight she wants to win. This is the fight that will prove she deserves to be here. When the fight starts, she comes in hard and fast. If Nezha gets to go on the offense, he won’t stop, so she can’t let him get to that point. The fight goes on longer than any of Nezha’s other matches and she’s finally able to find an opening. She baits him and then knocks him to the ground hard. Nezha gets back up. Now he’s angry, and he’s getting desperate. He’s at his most dangerous and his most ruthless. He begins to fight a little dirty. But when he hits Rin with the back of his hand, it feels different. Not like part of a bout, but like a personal insult. She goes feral and pins him to the ground. She feels like she’s burning up and she has to be restrained by Sonnen, who acts as referee. She leaves the fighting arena and storms off, the masters try to stop her, but she is able to evade them. Finally, Jiang finds her. She attacks him, the fire in her blood is too much for her to control. He’s able to stop her and cool her down. She passes out for just a moment and when she wakes, Jiang is still there. He tells her that she is this year’s champion, and she asks what she did. He doesn’t answer her directly. She stumbled into something that she’s not ready for and it’s due to his poor decisions. He should not have taught her the Five Frolics; it has made her a danger to herself and to everyone around her. She asks him to teach her how not to be a danger and apologizes for being ungrateful before. He tells her that she and Altan are a lot alike. They both hold grudges and build up petty hurts. They’re reckless. Unlike what Rin had heard, Jiang had begged Jima to let him teach Altan because he knew that he was the only one that could help Altan, but the Empress herself saw Altan’s match and had other ideas. Altan pledged Strategy instead. Altan does not control his rage, now he’s honed it like a weapon instead. But Jiang agrees to train Rin. The Empress did not see Rin, so she shouldn’t interfere. When they get their bids, Niang gets Medicine, which is what she was hoping for (only three apprentices are chosen each year); Nezha and Venka both get Combat; and Kitay pledges Strategy. Most students only get one bid, but Rin gets one from Strategy and from Lore. She chooses Jiang. The students get four days for vacation and Jiang tells Rin to rest - they’ll discuss what happened to her after the break. Kitay invites Rin to stay with his family in the city of Sinegard. His father will be in meetings basically the whole time. His dad is defense minister to the Empress and he’s rich as hell. Even though you can’t tell, the whole city is on guard in case of a threat to the Empress during the upcoming parade. The Red Junk Opera is a cult of religious zealots intent on killing the Empress, ever since the Second Poppy War. They’re nearly wiped out now, but you can’t ever really get rid of a religious movement. Kitay and Rin spend the next few days relaxing and exploring the city. She gets to see the city from the vantage point of someone who has money. They watch a puppet show that tells the story of the Trifecta. After the First Poppy War, when the Nikara were under Mugen control and the people suffered, they got no help from their Warlords (who were always fighting and high on opium), the gods send the people the Trifecta. Three war orphans who swore revenge and sought to liberate their country when their own village was burned. They trained with the monks at the Wudang temple and by the time they reached adulthood, they could learn no more. They walked up the seven thousand steps to the temple at the top of Mount Tianshan which served as a doorway to the Pantheon of the gods. The tallest and strongest, and the leader of the three, was called forth by the Dragon Lord who gifted him a huge sword and made him the Warrior. The next, the girl, said she needed different talents than those of a man. She found the Snail Goddess Nuwa who made her as bewitching as a snake that can hypnotize its watcher and just as deadly, she was the Vipress (now the Empress). Lastly came the humblest hero. He was weaker and more sickly than the other two and was not able to train the way they did but he was loyal. He did not look for favor from any of the gods but from the tortoise who had opened the door of the pantheon to them. He asked for strength and courage to protect his friends and country. The tortoise gave him a set of keys to the menagerie of the gods; with it he would be able to command all the beasts ever to exist. He was the Gatekeeper. They descended the mountain and their reputations grew until their names were known across the land. Once that was done, they invited all twelve warlords to dinner. Each of the warlords came, believing they were the only warlord invited just to be insulted to see the other eleven also gathered. But once all the warlords were present, the Trifecta poisoned them. Not to kill them, just to immobilize them. The Warrior stood and announced that he was the new emperor of Nikan. The warlords could either accept it or die. Any who accepted it would fight together under his banner and be equal to the others. He pronounced that he would be the best leader since the Red Emperor. They all wisely chose to join him. They were able to fight back against the Mugen and liberate themselves. It’s a children’s puppet show so they really gloss over the genocide of Speer and the less romantic parts of war, which Kitay points out as they leave the show. Rin hasn’t given up hope that the Trifecta were more than just warriors, that maybe they really were shamans. Kitay says it was all just good propaganda. The warlords now don’t get along any better than they used to, they’re always jockeying for whatever power than can get and each province gathers their own soldiers, who answer only to their warlord. They’re technically still united under the Empress, but Yim was right - Mugen isn’t just sitting quietly. They’re waiting to strike again. Even Kitay’s father doesn’t think the warlords take the threat of Mugen seriously enough. If the Trifecta were actually shamans, why isn’t the Empress using her ability to maintain control of her warlords, and of her people. Rin asks Kitay why he came to Sinegard. He would have been better suited to be a scholar at Yuelu Mountain. Kitay admits that he didn’t have a choice. He is dad’s only son and all that. Soon it’s the day of the parade and Rin has to watch while Kitay is forced to ride with his family in the parade, since he’s from one of the great families. They see (but avoid) Nezha, who is also with his family. Kitay notices that Nezha’s father, the Dragon Warlord, is not there. The parade is not something that you miss. If the Dragon Warlord is not there, something is afoot. Rin leaves to find a spot in the crowd and watches the parade. She is entertained by the part that pays homage to the gods and the Vermilion Phoenix that Speer worshiped. She sees an animal she doesn’t recognize at first, then realizes it is a kirin. A legendary beast that is said to only roam the earth when a great leader passes away or when there is great peril. When the great families start their procession, Rin prepares to leave. But then she sees the Empress for the first time. The Empress is beautiful and Rin looks into her dark eyes that remind her of Jiang. She realizes that she would do anything for the Empress. She would fight to the death. She would come back from the gates of hell themselves. It’s been so long since anyone has pledged to Lore that they don’t know what color armband to give Rin. They decide on white. She’s still not allowed to study with Jun, but she is allowed to study weapons-based combat with Sonnen. She still gets Medicine with Enro to learn about emergency triage, History with Yim becomes Foreign Relations - still with Yim, and she studies Linguistics and Strategy with Irjah’s apprentices. The second half of the day is reserved for Jiang. He explains that during the tournament, Rin called a god and the god answered her. It could have caused her to go mad, he’s here to make sure that doesn’t happen. He is there to show her that the world she believes in does not exist. She knows already because of what happened in the tournament, but also Jiang shows her things he can do that should not be possible. He can summon the wind, cause shadows to move, and he is going to help her to suspend her disbelief and expand her thinking. He has her study people in different cultures that could astroproject, were clairvoyant, could ride in the bodies of animals. Shamans. She studies the religions of the world and how they were celebrated and observed. He tries to teach her to meditate. She’s terrible at it. At first, Rin can’t go a few seconds without needing to move. He gives her a goal of not moving for an hour. He takes her to a mountain top and explains how certain drugs taken properly with the right precautions and in the right state of mind can let you see the gods. Part of the reason that Nikan has outlawed every drug is because it wants all its people in tidy lines. If there were no enlightened people, then there was no one to challenge the Red Emperor’s total control. Once the people began to forget the gods and the monasteries were closed, they forgot about the shamans and anyone who was different. The Speerlies and those from the Hinterlands were seen as barbaric and uncivilized. She asks Jiang why she can’t just take hallucinogens to help her meditate, but he is very against it. She’s not ready. She’s rash and impatient, she holds grudges and angers easily, it would be too dangerous - especially with her aptitude for Lore. She is not the first student he has taught. He once had four students in the same year, each more patient than Rin but just as talented, and without Altan’s rage. They all went mad. Two were able to be locked away in an asylum because they were calm enough, two were deemed dangers to themselves and others and sent to Baghra prison. Rin could become a spirit unable to reconnect with her body. She’s not ready yet. Now that they’re second years, her year can fight in the ring but only with their Master’s permission which Jiang does not give. Nezha becomes his own legend in the pit. Altan has graduated (no one knows where he went) and Nezha has taken his place. The apprentices no longer fight amongst themselves for the most part (Nezha and Rin mostly don’t look at each other) because they are no longer in competition for spots and they are too busy with their own classes. But then, several crises hit in a row that divide the apprentices. 1. There is a skirmish in Horse Province between Nikara laborers and Mugenese traders that causes loss of life on both sides. Han, son of the Horse Warlord, says that his Province is often overcome because they don’t have enough troops to secure their border. Their own population is too small and other more populous provinces hoard their soldiers - like Dragon. What plans does Dragon Province have for their soldiers that they can’t send them elsewhere for national interests? Nezha doesn’t take this insinuation well and breaks Han’s nose. 2. Two months later, Horse Province began to boycott Mugenese goods, so the Mugenese traders looted and burned down Nikara businesses. Han left the academy to join his father’s troops when he learned of this news, though he was expelled for it. 3. The Federation Emperor died and his heir was Ryohai, a leading member of Mugen’s war party who has been calling for a ground invasion of Nikan for years. This news upsets all of the Masters and puts them on edge, but the invasion doesn’t come. Jiang is the only one who doesn’t seem to care. When Rin asks how he doesn’t care when he fought in the Second Poppy War, Jiang says he can’t remember any of the Second Poppy War - and the tremor in his voice tells Rin not to push it. It takes a year for Rin to be able to meditate for an hour and her next goal is set for five hours. It takes her another year to hit that mark. Then Jiang gives Rin a flask with instructions to take it to the top of the mountain. Sit in the cave she will find there, drink everything in the flask, and meditate for as long as it takes. She will know when she’s completed her task. She has been there for more than fifteen days when she begins to have visions. But not really visions, they are too substantial. A woman with red eyes who feels familiar reaches for Rin. The gods told the woman that Rin would be coming. She tells Rin that the price of power is pain, and the Phoenix demands the most of all the gods. Rin is not afraid, but the woman insists she should be. She tells Rin to turn back but Rin does not; she floats up to the gods. She sees a circular room with the gods standing in plinths. Sixty-four gods, she is seeing the Pantheon. She knows now that the gods are real in the same way that fire is real. They are of the universe itself, fundamentally true. Some mix well together, some do not. Rin’s mind is open and she knows what it is to truly exist, to be a part of the world. Jiang says she is now cured. If she fights, she can recognize when she is imbalanced and fix the problem. But Rin didn’t want to be cured. When she called the god during the tournament, she was scared but she also felt powerful. She wants that power. If she brings it up to a Jiang, he might stop teaching her and she wants to know what he still has to teach. She will have to find that power again on her own. The Federation has a ship on the eastern coast of Nikara that’s not doing much but sailing back and forth. Tyr, Commander of the Cike, has been positioned on the ship to spy. A shaman who is able to slip completely into the shadows and one of the Empress’ spies, Tyr was surprised by the orders to infiltrate the ship and find out why the Federation was there. Usually, they only get rid of the Empress’ dissenters from their own land. It’s getting harder and harder for him to come out of the shadows intact. He knows one day he won’t be able to leave the shadows at all. He will go mad and will have to be locked away like his own commander and many others before him. He should have chosen an apprentice of his own by now. He had thought the seer Chaghan from the Hinterlands would be a good option, but he would have been too cruel. The boy the Empress just had sent from the Sinegard is now set to take over when Tyr can no longer command, but he already serves his own god, and the gods do not share. Altan would not be embraced by the shadow goddess. After days of waiting, Tyr sees a Nikara schooner come to the Federation ship. One person boards. It is the Empress herself. Tyr is shocked but stays hidden. He assumes the Empress will make her needs known to him since she sent him here in the first place. The Empress looks at where Tyr is hidden and brings him forward. He believes he’s supposed to attack the Federation, but she stops him with one look. She can hypnotize, just like the legend says. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. Tyr can do nothing against the Empress. He realizes that they were fools. Someone slips a still paralyzed Tyr over the edge of the boat; he can do nothing but drown. Shamans across the land feel his death like a shockwave. It is felt by Rin, though she doesn’t understand what she feels. It is felt by the Gatekeeper, who has been lingering, not alive but also not dead inside a mortal body. He is broken and has forgotten much, but not the strength of the Vipress. He knows an enemy has awoken. And it is felt by the seer Chaghan, who tells Altan. Chaghan says they now know three things. 1) They are on the verge of war 2) They have an enemy they love 3) Tyr is lost. Chaghan says the gods walk among them like they haven’t for a long time. Altan is the Cike commander now. Tyr can no longer stop him from doing what needs to be done. After several days of hostile relations at the Horse Province border, Emperor Ryohai declares war against the Nikara. The Federation invades, taking first a village on the coast. They kill all the men, children and babies included, before going inland. They take what they need and burn what’s left. Jima receives word that Horse Province has fallen, and that the Federation is coming for Sinegard. They evacuate the city. All people deemed important to the war effort are taken to Golyn Niis. The first-years and civilians are evacuated into the mountains, where the older apprentices will join them if the city is deemed lost and they are ordered to retreat. For now, the older apprentices are absorbed by the Eighth Division from Ram Province, which has come to defend Sinegard - Raban with them. The Masters are put back into active service. Irjah takes over strategic command of the Sinegardian Reserves. Enro takes her apprentices to the city hospital to set up a triage center. Jima shares martial command of the city with the Ram Warlord. Jiang becomes very unavailable, often going over plans with Irjah in Jima’s office. When Rin finally tracks him down, he looks very harried, she wants to know if they should call on the gods. He responds absolutely not. The gods are not there at their beck and call. Calling them would only result in disaster, the cost is always too high. She brings up the Speerlies who called the Phoenix and Jiang is astounded. They did call the Phoenix and the power consumed them. If it had been sustainable or controllable, they would have fought for their freedom and won. Instead, it made them incapable of doing anything but following orders - killing and destroying as told to do by Nikan. Rin follows Jiang’s orders. But she also sneaks into the garden and takes handfuls of poppy seeds, just in case she needs them. She can’t sleep from anxiety. When the Federation soldiers get to Sinegard, Rin is terrified. All this time, the apprentices have been playing at war, but they had no idea what it really looked like. Kitay has thought up and placed booby traps all over the city. They almost all work exactly as designed, but they don’t even make a dent in the number of soldiers marching on Sinegard. They’re outnumbered three to one. The city’s outside fortifications are laughable, and the Federation gets through them quickly. Rin stands at the southern gate. As the soldiers pour in, Rin thinks they’re all going to die. There are too many enemy soldiers. But when Kitay pushes her out of the way of a weapon aimed at her head, Rin’s body snaps into gear. She’s terrified, but she also doesn’t want to die. She kills the soldier that attacked her, the first person she’s ever killed, and turns to the next one. She loses track of Kitay in the melee of bodies. All this time that the apprentices have been trained, they’ve been pitted one against the other. They have no training against a group like the Federation that works as one body, brutally stepping over their fallen comrades. They are better trained, better equipped, and there are more of them. Rin doesn’t want to die, and she stumbles to an alley where she grabs her poppy seeds. Hopefully they begin to work before someone kills her. Before she can take them, she hears a distress call from the eastern gate. Her commander finds her and tells her to move; they’re supposed to answer the distress calls. Rin shoves the seeds back away. She can’t be stumbling around high off the poppy seeds before the seeds begin to work. The eastern gate is where the Federation focused their attack. If the southern gate was bad, this is even worse. Niang crouches over the body of Raban crying. There’s too many enemy soldiers and Rin starts to wear down. One soldier manages to disarm her and the moment just before she’s killed, Nezha comes from behind the enemy and kills him. He tosses Rin another weapon and they begin to fight as if they were made to be a team, back-to-back. They know each other’s weaknesses so well from watching the other that they are able to cover each other. They hold the gate, just the two of them. Nezha tells Rin that the enemy is starting to fall back but he’s wrong, they’re just making way for their commander. The Federation Commander is astounded to see two apprentices holding the gate basically alone and decides to run them down himself. Rin grabs Nezha’s wrist and he nods. They fought together; they’ll die together. But not now, Jiang stops the Federation Commander. Jiang is floating somehow. The Commander recognizes Jiang, but the feeling is not mutual. Jiang tells the commander to go, or he will unleash animals that have no business being on earth. A shadow appears behind him and in it, Rin can see a nine tailed fox and a three headed lion, among others. Jiang does not stand there nervously or fidgety, but as a warrior. As a shaman. Doing exactly what he told Rin not to. The Commander says this isn’t possible. He’s supposed to be sealed. Jiang tells Rin and Nezha to run as he loses control of the animals. They try, but they don’t have time. The wall comes down and they’re caught underneath it. Rin wakes up and nothing in her body is working properly, but she finds Nezha next to her. He’s still alive, she’s relieved to see it. Then a dark gauntleted hand comes crawling out of the rubble. Rin doesn’t have the focus or state of mind to kill the Commander before he’s on his feet. He grabs Rin and lifts her into the air, he stabs Nezha in the stomach. Rin reaches for her pocket and swallows the poppy seeds, but the commander plans to kill her before she can do anything. Her mind is spirited upward but only one god is in the pantheon this time: the Phoenix. She will give anything for its power. It wants everything. When she opens her eyes again, she’s already burning. The Commander drops her as his wrist begins to blister. A sheet of flame erupts from her, enveloping the Commander and burning him until there is nothing left. He screams that he killed her already, he watched them all burn. He’s talking about Speerlies. When she’s done, Rin begs the Phoenix to make it stop. The Phoenix is irritated, but the pathway closes. She wakes up again to hear Niang talking, Rin is burning up but they can’t figure out why. The next time, the Empress is next to Rin. The Empress leans in. She knows what Rin is. Rin looks into the Empress’ eyes. She presses her lips to Rin’s forehead, cool like Jiang’s hands were, and the burning inside Rin dies. Rin goes from a hospital bed to a basement room where she is unwittingly sedated. She can hear them talking about her sometimes. Irjah fights on her behalf. She’s just a girl and she will be confused; someone should tell her what’s happening. But Jun argues that she nearly burned the whole city down. The Empress thinks she’s another Speerly like Altan. Jun says that Tyr can deal with her, she will be sedated until Tyr gets there. They have bigger problems than Rin anyway since the Gatekeeper destroyed the east wall. His seal is breaking and he’s a bigger concern than even the Federation. The Empress says the Gatekeeper has been dealt with already. When Rin is finally able to stay awake, she’s not allowed to leave her cell. Jun comes to see her, but she gets no information from him. Niang visits, but she’s so sad that nothing can cheer her, and she tells Rin nothing useful. Kitay though, Rin is able to get information from. They’re saying Rin is a Speerly who went into bloodlust, that she was stabbed fifteen times but couldn’t be killed. That’s not true, but she doesn’t tell Kitay what really happened. Kitay tells her that Nezha is still alive but barely, he’s already had two operations and is scheduled to undergo a third. He may never walk again; his spine was severed. The academy apprentices suffered heavy casualties. Of the thirty-five of their class that had become apprentices, fifteen were killed and five more are in critical condition. The city was saved by Rin and the timely arrival of the Empress with the Third Division, who combined to chase the Federation off - for now. All the apprentices have now been pushed into militia service. Niang to the Eleventh Division, Venka to the Sixth Division, and Kitay ships out the next day with the Second Division as a junior officer under Irjah’s command. It’s the position Kitay has always wanted. Jiang has not been seen since the wall was broken. After being in her cell for six days, Irjah comes to see Rin. He raised Altan after the Second Poppy War, so he understands what happened to her. She is receiving transfer orders to the Cike. He actually argued for her to go to the Cike to protect her. As someone with that kind of power, she would not be safe in any of the other divisions. The Cike are a section of the Militia, just not one under a warlord’s command. Rin asks about Altan. The Speerlies did not do well in the Militia before, they were full of anger and rage. They would fight each other… and anyone else. They were a danger to everyone. Rin insists that Altan must’ve gotten orders. Irjah thinks this is a good time to call in her commander. It’s Altan. Altan crouches in front of Rin, curious about how she survived the attack on Speer so young. He thought he was the only one. But she’s a war orphan, she doesn’t know where she came from or how she survived. Rin didn’t know what she was until she caught on fire. Altan says it will be okay, he will help her, and he leads her out of the basement. She is told that the Bizarre Children, the members of the Twelfth Division, come from all over. Hidden cults all over send members to the Cike to keep the Empress off their backs. They are mostly shamans but two of them, the munitions expert and the physician, don’t mess with the gods. They act as the Thirteenth Division during wartime, but they don’t really have a “peacetime”. There’s always someone the Empress wants dead and the Cike are the ones that handle that. Altan tells her to pack so they can head out, but most of her things have been destroyed. She does grab a new set of weapons from the armory. They travel to Khurdalain in Tiger Province to meet up with the rest of the Cike. Khurdalain is riddled with rivers and creeks, making it a good spot to fight the Federation. The Federation does better in wide open spaces. They could try to do a pincer maneuver, but the Militia doesn’t have the competency or the numbers to pull it off, the Empress is not able to command control like the Dragon Emperor once did and the Warlords do not fight well together. But if they cannot defend Khurdalain, it is an open path to Golyn Niis, and the country will be lost. Rin begins to train with Altan. He wants her to be able to call the Phoenix and learn how to use the power, but she can’t call it again. She asks if he’s always been able to call the fire. He responds that he was trained at Sinegard for a long time. Longer than Rin was, and he was trained as a Speerly. He will beat her heritage into her, too. But she can’t help but feel that something feels not quite right. Altan uses a trident that was made on Speer. It’s completely metal so nothing burns when he calls forth the fire. He tells Rin that she needs to be able to call the Phoenix on her own. The drugs can help to connect her, but it is her connection to the Phoenix that will allow her to maintain control. He has great control. Where Rin was nearly consumed by the fire, he can make a flame dance around his fingers and do no more. Altan says Jiang was right to be cautious. No one understands the gods; they are dangerous and unpredictable. After two weeks, they make it to Khurdalain and are met by Qara, a Hinterlander who is acting as Altan’s lieutenant while her twin brother, Chaghan, is off doing something mysterious. Qara has a bird on her shoulder. She and Chaghan are something called anchor twins. She gives them the lay of the land. They’ve been under siege for nearly a month. Mugen is camped out in three sides, but they’ve only taken a narrow strip of the beach and half of the foreign quarter. The problem is, the Cike are having problems with the Militia, especially the Fifth Division of Tiger. Jun has been put in charge of the Fifth, and he has nothing but disdain for the Cike. Plus, the Ram and Ox Warlords won’t stop arguing about supplies. Soon, Jun approaches them himself with one of the members of the Cike in tow. He was caught taking from the Fifth Division’s munitions cart… for the third time. Jun does not care if they ran out of supplies because they were helping to save the Embassy, but he is shocked, and not pleased, to find out that Tyr is dead and Altan is now in charge. Altan defends Ramsa, the soldier that was caught, and tells Jun that it is his job to punish his soldiers. After Jun leaves, Altan finds out that Ramsa blew up a building in the foreign quarter with two men from the Fifth Division still inside and the Cike are no longer allowed near the defense line. He needs to clear this up with the other Division leaders. In the meantime, Rin gets an all-black outfit that matches the rest of the Cike and meets Enki, who is the Cike’s physician and in charge of their psychedelics. He gives Rin a measure of poppy seeds, the only drug she’s tried, and tells her it is based on her body weight. He will keep track of how much she uses. Addiction is a real job hazard. At the mess hall, Rin meets Baji, a huge warrior who worships a boar god and fights with a nine pronged rake; Aratsha, who worships a minor river god and takes his vows very seriously - he is usually in some sort of water shape and is good at poisoning things (Rin meets him while he’s contained in a barrel); Unegen, who can shift into the form of a fox; and Suni, who channels a monkey god. Rin can tell by the way Suni’s eyes roll that something is wrong. He keeps saying they won’t be quiet and he attacks Unegen. Suni has lost control. Altan, who joined them just before Suni, fights Suni until he’s able to speak to Suni, talking Suni back into his own head and back into control. Rin begins to help Ramsa create defense lines within Khurdalain. Ramsa is not a shaman. His parents were alchemists in Sinegard, and his father became enmeshed with an extremist group against the Empress. He tried to detonate a rocket over the palace and screwed up; it blew up their factory instead. Ramsa lost an eye. Everyone involved was executed but Ramsa was a kid who didn’t know anything, so they threw him into Baghra Prison instead - the prison reserved for the most dangerous. He was there for two years when the Empress told him he could leave… if he agreed to do pyrotechnics for the Cike. He jumped at the chance. Rin meets Altan a couple of days later and he asks how she’s getting on, he’s been wrapped up in bureaucratic talks, so she hasn’t seen him. They talk about their division. Rin’s biggest issue is that there is no structure, since none of the others were trained by Sinegard. Baji is the most competent but is easily distracted, Qara is a phenomenal archer but not good at hand to hand, Unegen is scared of everything, Aratsha refuses to be solid, so he is useless unless he’s next to a body of water, and Chaghan is often gone. The Militia hates them because they get ample access to psychedelics and the other divisions don’t understand why. But they’re going to find out soon enough. Altan has found a way to make a move on the Federation that will showcase the Thirteenth Divisions talents. All the other divisions have set up at the Sharhap River, which is the likeliest place for the Federation to land. That is why the Federation will go to Murui instead. But it is not the best place to dock and the terrain further inland is crisscrossed with rivers, making the land a bog. The Federation likely thinks, and mostly correctly, that it will be unguarded, and far enough away from the wharf that civilians still use to fish. Qara’s birds have been watching the Federation and expect them to come to port in three days. Ramsa sets up rockets along the river to direct the Federation to where the Cike need them to be, to provide smoke cover, and to make it seem like they are against more soldiers than just the eight soldiers of the Cike. When the Federation begins to sail inland through the rivers, Qara’s birds signal the others and Altan makes the rockets detonate. The Federation steers away from the rockets and into the salt marsh. Once the twelve ships carrying Federation soldiers each are all in the marsh, they realize their mistake (the marsh is full of unharvested rice paddies that push the ships together and there is no way for them to continue forward) and they try to backtrack. By then, Aratsha has reversed the direction of the currents, and the Federation ships are unable to move at all. Qara begins to pick warriors off with her bow as fire rockets continue to detonate. The soldiers begin to abandon their ships and realize the land is not stable, they slip into the bog and are weighed down by their armor. When soldiers do find solid ground, they find Suni and Baji too. Both Suni and Baji have taken their drugs. Baji fights like a berserker while Suni, already huge, has gotten even bigger. He rips the head off a man with his bare hands. The soldiers go the other direction, where they find Altan and Rin. But Rin is useless. She has taken her drugs but is too afraid to call the Phoenix. She’s too scared that she won’t be able to stop the fire. Instead, she stands there like dead weight and watches Altan fight. He has not used a drug at all. He’s incredible and he even sprouts wings of fire. Rin can see Baji and Suni and she realizes that she can’t tell who is in charge - the god or the man. She doesn’t want that. She wants the power, but also to remain in control. Everything Jiang told her comes into focus. Finally, Aratsha’s strength gives out, and the ships are able to sail back to the sea, but their supplies are now useless and their ships are burned, not to mention the men are terrified. They limp back out to sea. Plus, Unegen and Qara were able to cut two of the Federation ships loose and hide them in the bog so the Thirteenth Division will now have supplies of their own. They celebrate as Altan goes to alert the warlords and Jun of their feat. The others ask Rin if she and Altan are going to make more little Speerlies, but Rin says she can’t have kids, even if she wanted to. Talk turns to the last Queen of Speer, Tearza. Qara tells them that the love story touted as the reason Speer was annexed by Nikan is just propaganda and she tells them the real story. Tearza could have called the fire and stopped the Red Emperor, could have made it so the Nikara was too afraid to come near them for millennia. But Tearza said that the price the Phoenix required was too high and she refused to pay it. To Qara, Tearza deserved her death. She did not put the good of Speer first, the way a leader should. Jun is furious when he finds out what Altan has done. He has just made this personal for the Mugen soldiers. But the other warlords are impressed. And when the Federation finally comes, they’re waving a white flag. Jun recommends they shoot the Federation soldiers without talking, but this is Altan’s victory and he wants to talk. The Mugenese soldier gives them bags of salt and sugar, even tasting the bags to prove that they are not poisoned. Jun tastes the sugar as well, declaring it safe. A gesture of goodwill to the Nikara. Altan has the bags distributed among the civilian households and brings the Mugen commander indoors to talk. But the Federation is not there to surrender. They’ve been preparing for decades for this war. They know if they die, they will be reincarnated to fight for Mugen again, so it is not truly death at all. Meanwhile, Nikara has proudly isolated themselves away from the rest of the world. They are behind technologically and Sinegard doesn’t hold a candle to the Federation academies. The Federation has come to accept Khurdalain’s surrender. Khurdalain has proven themselves braver than the rest and will be accepted into the Mugenese fold. As Altan reminds the Commander that their ships were just destroyed and their men sent packing, Ramsa rushes in. It wasn’t salt in the bags, it was saltpeter. Then the explosions start. They’re so strong that they throw Rin and Altan into the wall. Rin can’t hear, but she’s okay otherwise. The Ox Warlord decapitates the Commander, and they all hurry out to help the civilians in any way they can. Rin realizes that for all their help from the gods, the Cike can do nothing here. She assists Enki in the infirmary as others secure the defense line. But the Federation does not attack again. Altan loses all credibility with the warlords and even his intel from Qara and Unegen is disregarded. He starts sending the Cike on strike missions instead, small detonations that Rin thinks are more an irritation to the Federation than an actual problem. Meanwhile, the Mugen burn an entire village to the ground, forcing the civilians who survive to take refuge in Khurdalain. They have a cholera outbreak; the civilians start to fight amongst themselves. They’re all exhausted, including Altan, who grows more erratic. And there’s something going on with him, something that the other Cike aren’t telling her. Rin still can’t call the Phoenix and she won’t tell Altan, but it’s because she is scared of what will happen if she does. Now when she meditates, the woman who warned her against using the Phoenix’s power speaks to her, growing more and more clear. She says the Phoenix is greedy and only wants to destroy. Altan already gave in but if Rin does too, they’re giving the god what it wants. Luckily, reinforcements from the Seventh Division arrive. Altan worries it’s a trap. Rin can see Nezha walking in the ranks as if he were never hurt at all. Nezha tells her that the injury wasn’t as bad as she was told. It didn’t even hit any organs and as soon as he could walk again, they sent him marching. Nezha and Rin are getting along rather well. War has made Nezha less pretentious, and they did save each other’s lives. But Enki thinks Nezha is hiding something, he may even be a shaman himself. Altan thinks he’s a spy and commands Rin not to talk to him anymore. When she questions him, Altan is cruel to her. She’s an embarrassment to Sinegard and to Speer since she can’t call the Phoenix. She’s worthless to him. He hurts her, shaking her by the shoulders and leaving bruises on her collarbones. When Nezha sees the bruises later, he’s shocked. Rin never would have allowed that to happen before. Not even by Altan. Nezha tells her that some say Altan is going mad. Insulting her commander is too much and Rin turns on him. Nezha made her time at Sinegard hell. He tormented her. He retorts that she wasn’t all that innocent. She publicly embarrassed him not just once, but multiple times. And he is sorry about what he did at Sinegard, but he thought saving her life made them even. He was scared of her then, he thought he was better than her. He was spoiled and he’s sorry. She doesn’t respond, only saying she’s under orders not to talk to him. She feels like she’s screwed up with Nezha and Altan somehow. While on night watch, she sees civilians evacuating. More like running for their lives, actually. She meets with Altan, who is with Jun and some of his men - Nezha included. They question one of the running civilians and is told a chimei is killing people. Altan volunteers one (only one) of his people to go kill a legendary and supposedly fantastical beast and Rin volunteers to go. She knows a little about chimei from her research for Jiang, probably more than any of the others. Nezha volunteers to go with her. On the way, Rin tells Nezha what she knows: chimei rip the faces off their victims. Just the faces. It can impersonate people… and she doesn’t know how to kill it. In the village, nobody is around. They see Federation soldiers among the dead, none of which had used their weapon against the chimei. Rin doesn’t think the Federation brought the creature - this is one of the beasts that Jiang released. They find a little girl crying under an overturned wagon. She tells them she was with her family but got separated. They use the girl to get information on which way the chimei went. She leads them but it’s all an act, she is the chimei in disguise! When Nezha realizes, the chimei attacks. It impersonates someone they care about, making the vision specific to each person. They’re both stunned into inactivity. They don’t even raise a weapon to it; this must’ve been what happened to the other soldiers. But Nezha realizes what’s happening and attacks the chimei from the back, avoiding the chimei’s eyes. Rin goes so far as to block Nezha’s attack, believing the chimei is Kesegi. But when the chimei throws Nezha into a wall and he’s knocked unconscious, Rin realizes her mistake. She attacks the chimei with a torch, burning its face. The chimei turns into Altan. It doesn’t think she will hurt Altan. It thinks she loves Altan. She beats its face in until the beast dies. Nezha is roused and they walk back to their bases. On the way, Nezha apologizes again. He’s been a real dick, and he shouldn’t have insulted her commander either. She forgives him. She reports to Altan - the chimei is dead. When he steps toward her, she flinches. He doesn’t even notice. Rin is in the middle of telling Altan that the Fifth Division wants to speak to him no later than the next day when Qara starts screaming loud enough they can hear her in Altan’s office. They rush to find her; she keeps murmuring that it hurts. She and Chaghan are mirror twins - bound so that their abilities are stronger. Hurt one, the other is also hurt. Kill one, the other dies as well. Chaghan is injured. He’s at the east gate, held by Federation soldiers. Altan grabs a horse and fights his way through the Federation soldiers to retrieve Chaghan, then fighting his way back into Khurdalain. Baji has to knock out two Fifth Division soldiers to open the gate and let Altan in. Once they’re inside, Altan asks if Chaghan got the schematics and then locks himself, Chaghan, and Qara in his office. In the mess hall afterward, Chaghan finds Rin. He was injured in several places, but Enki has him up and walking again. Chaghan has been told that Rin can’t call the fire. He offers to help her, but she bristles. Altan has barely spoken to her other than to give her orders that continue to grow more dangerous. She says that Altan is being an ass and Chaghan stops her. If she ever disrespects Altan like that again, Chaghan will kill her. Altan is scared. He was not prepared to become commander, and he is cracking under the pressure. More than that, he has always been the best. He feels like he needs to live up to that still. If he loses Khurdalain, it will break him. So, Rin needs to get her shit together and figure out how to call the fire again. The Cike take on a joint operation with the Seventh Division in an attempt to hold a strategically placed part of Khurdalain. Rin and Nezha walk near each other as they march to the wharf. Nezha asks who Chaghan is and where he was. Even the warlords have heard about Chaghan and talk of how powerful he is. It’s weird that Altan would choose to send him away from Khurdalain. Soon, they begin to see a fog spreading from near the wharf. Soldiers are running from the fog, and they’re given orders to retreat. Rin and Nezha don’t waste any time following orders, but Nezha falls. Rin tries to go back for him, but Altan catches her and carries her away. She thinks she sees Federation soldiers wearing gas masks carry Nezha away. At a meeting later, it’s decided that Jun’s soldiers will do crowd control since the civilians have finally decided that they aren’t safe and need to leave. They’re leaving in droves. The rest of them will pack up their supplies and store them further in the city. They will put their prisoner in the basement. This is when Rin finds out that Altan had gone back and taken one of the gas masks after carrying her away from the fog. He chose to pull out an enemy soldier instead of saving one of their own - instead of saving Nezha. She makes a scene and when everyone is dismissed, she is asked to stay. Altan smacks her across the face hard. She does not get to contradict him. They aren’t friends, he is her commander. He didn’t abandon one of their soldiers. They are not Militia; they are not Seventh Division. Rin says that’s a dangerous perspective to have when they’re fighting a war. She manages to call the flames then, facing off against Altan’s flames. But his are so much hotter, so much more powerful. They come from a hate and rage that Rin has never felt, she wonders what has caused it. She backs down but instead of being upset, Altan is pleased that she’s finally called the Phoenix. Rin goes immediately to find Chaghan, who sees the mark Altan left on her face and doesn’t need to ask what happened. Chaghan defends Altan, but Rin doesn’t want to talk about him. She wants Chaghan to take her to Pantheon, she could do it herself, but it doesn’t come as easily for her as it does for Altan. There’s something blocking her. This intrigues Chaghan - she’s being haunted. He gives Rin a small dose of a very powerful hallucinogenic and then presses his forehead to hers. The woman is waiting. She insists that she is trying to save Rin, it’s already too late to save Altan. He is already broken. But Rin is still pure. Chaghan says the woman should be with the dead, but she is not afraid of him. She’s fought more powerful shamans than him. Chaghan shatters her, banishing her. There aren’t more powerful shamans. Chaghan takes Rin’s wrist and tugs, but they don’t go to the Pantheon or back to their bodies. He takes her to where the Talwu can read the Hexagrams, a Divinatory. They are approached by a goddess, the Guardian of the Hexagrams, and she tells them that Chaghan cannot ask another question this month, but Rin may. The Talwu cannot read the future since it is ever changing, but they can read the forces at play. Rin asks what it is the Phoenix wants her to know. She is told to cast three coins six times. Each casting will indicate a line of the Hexagram and whether it is divided or undivided. After all six castings are thrown and the Hexagram is identified, Chaghan can interpret. It’s what he’s trained to do. The first casting, unbroken – the Guardian says that one is ready to move but his footprints move crisscross. Second, divided - the subject ascends to his place in the sun. There will be supreme good fortune. Chaghad tells Rin that there’s no guarantee that she is the subject. Third, divided - the end of the day has come. The net has been cast on the setting sun. This spells misfortune. That doesn’t sound like they’re going to win this war, but Chaghan is more concerned about the net that is referenced. A trap has been laid that they have not noticed. Fourth, unbroken - the subject comes, abrupt with fire, with death, to be rejected by all. As if an exit; as if an entry. As though burning; as though dying; as though discarded. Fifth, divided - the subject is with tears flowing in torrents, groaning in sorrow. Chaghan hand begins to shake. Sixth - a leader abandons their people. A ruler begins a campaign. One sees great joy in decapitating enemies. This signifies evil. This creates the twenty-sixth Hexagram, the Net. There is a clinging, and a conflict. Things will come to pass that exist only side by side. Misfortune and victory. Liberation and death. Rin doesn’t know what this has to do with the Phoenix, but she is not allowed another question for a lunar month. They thank the Guardian and Chaghan returns them to their bodies. They need to get to Altan. When they find him, Chaghan says they need to leave Khurdalain. The city was never the Federation’s objective, but just a distraction. The Federation is aiming for Golyn Niis. Altan points out that the only way to Golyn Niis is through Khurdalain… or through the hidden mountain pass. They must have found the pass. Altan questions (i.e. tortures) the prisoner who confirms that Chaghan is right. They knew by attacking Khurdalain that Nikan would send their strongest warriors to defend it. The Federation has found the mountain pass. Altan kills the prisoner before they leave. They leave right away for Golyn Niis, taking small boats on the river with Aratsha pushing the current along. They run into trouble a few miles from Golyn Niis when the corpses clog the river. They run the rest of the way and find the city empty - except for corpses. Piled in neat pyramids, stacked against walls, lined up in rows, beheaded, burned, tortured, worse. They see no survivors. The find what they think was Nikan’s last stand and Rin recognizes the insignia of the Second Division. Kitay’s Division. They look for survivors and Rin continually calls Kitay’s name. Eventually, she hears someone call back to her. Kitay and a few of his fellow Division warriors hid underneath the corpses of other soldiers until the Federation soldiers left and they were able to find somewhere else to hide. There are not many survivors. Kitay explains that the city was easily overtaken since their defenses were poor and the warlords were constantly fighting. They didn’t even stop when Irjah begged them to put aside their differences. Then the Federation took Irjah prisoner and flayed him where everyone could see. Many surrendered then but were beheaded anyway. The Empress abandoned the city in the night, and many soldiers fled soon after, leaving the city and its people to the Federation’s mercy - of which they have none. A few stayed to fight, Kitay among them. It seemed like a betrayal of Irjah to run. The Cike continues searching and they find a few more pockets of survivors. They find Venka inside what was called a “relaxation house” where the Federation soldiers raped, mutilated, tortured, and murdered the women inside. Venka is still alive only because she gave the Federation so much trouble that they wanted to break her. They made her watch as they destroyed the other women. They made everything as difficult and as painful as possible. But Venka doesn’t want Rin’s pity. She knows what Rin can do, she’s heard the stories. Venka wants Rin to promise to burn them all to the ground. Rin promises. Rin can think of nothing but to get to Altan, who has lived through this before. He can show her how to deal with what she’s seen. But when she finds him, he’s on the floor - high out of his mind holding an opium pipe. This is the secret the others have been hiding; they have been covering for him. He was only getting high once a month or so, but now he’s often missing or in no condition to give orders. Chaghan takes over. They stay in the city even knowing that there is no one left in Golyn Niis to find and that the Federation marches inland. On watch one day, Rin overhears Chaghan and Altan arguing. They were already planning on releasing the Gatekeeper from the Chuluu Korikh, but Altan doesn’t want to stop there. He wants to release all the shamans inside and command them. He has already received permission from the Empress to do so. Chaghan thinks he’s crazy. Altan tells him to follow orders or take his sister and get out. Chaghan chooses to leave. Rin catches him on their way out. Chaghan says he may have wrong about Altan this whole time, maybe he really is mad. Maybe this was always his plan. When Rin asks if Chaghan is just going to let Altan do it, Chaghan snaps. Does she want to know why Altan is so powerful? He was captured by the Federation, one of several Speerlies, and he was tortured. They used him and the others as test subjects to find out why Speer had so many shamans when Mugen had none. Altan is so full of rage and hate that he does not call the Phoenix, the Phoenix never leaves him. You cannot reason with him. Chaghan is afraid of what Altan might do to get vengeance, and he’s not sure that Altan would be wrong. He and Qara ride north on a different mission. Rin finds Altan next. He’s getting high again and she even takes a hit from his pipe. He tells her that he is going to do something and she will have to decide whether to stay in the city or join him. She knows now what is in the Chuluu Korikh: shaman. Rin puts her hand in Altan’s - she’s with him. She goes against her orders and tells Kitay what they’re doing, if only to warn him should things go poorly. They tell the other Cike to meet them at the foot of the mountain range. If Altan and Rin don’t arrive at the meeting place in seven days, assume they’re dead. Only Rin and Altan go to the mountain. On the way, Altan tells her that Chaghan had glimpsed the Gatekeeper in a vision around the time Tyr died, and in a second vision later. They believed that he had immured himself in the mountain where he would no longer be able to use his power. Chaghan entered the mountain to verify their theory, that’s where he was when he was gone so long. Altan believes that he will be able to reach the human inside the shamans, like he is able to do with Suni. He wants to start with Feylen. The most recent Cike to enter the mountain, the Feylen that Altan knew would not kill his own people. Both Suni and Baji were put in Baghra because Jiang could not control them. He gave up on them, but Tyr brought them out and now look at them. He’s sure this can be done. They find the entrance to the mountain prison. Inside, their powers cannot be used. They find a list of names carved into rock with a name that Rin recognizes right at the top. Jiang - the Gatekeeper. They find his plinth, his stone casket, and they break it open. Jiang is asleep inside, but he wakes up. He thinks Altan’s plan is crazy. The people inside the mountain are not human anymore, just vessels for the gods. And unlike in the Pantheon, there are no other gods on earth to check their power. They will run rampant and they do worse than destroy Nikan. They will tear the world apart. Allowing Nikan to fall would be better and Altan would see that if he weren’t so angry. Altan doesn’t want to save Nikan, he just wants to destroy Mugen. They both look at Rin. As she sees it, Jiang could be doing a lot more to help their cause, but he is hiding instead. She chooses to follow Altan and Jiang lays back down, disappointed in her, and reseals his tomb. They turn next to Feylen. The people inside the mountain contain too much of the gods to be able to die, they lie in stasis while their bodies petrify around them. Feylen is decaying since he’s been entombed for so long. Rin is disgusted. When Feylen wakes, he refers to himself as ‘we’. Such as: ‘we fought for the Empire before, but all they did was lock us in this cage’. Altan insists that he wants to help Feylen and he will never need to be locked up again if he can control himself. Slowly, Feylen starts to come back to himself. He starts to say ‘me’ instead of ‘us’. He tells Altan to kill himself before the god takes over - not being able to die is awful. Altan throws away his trident and holds his hand out to Feylen. Feylen takes it, but instead of joining them, Feylen throws Altan down a hole and runs for the door that they foolishly left open. Rin catches Altan and he’s able to pull himself up. They run after Feylen but before they can leave the mountain and their power returns to them, they find a barricade of Federation troops blocking their escape. Both Altan and Rin are quickly subdued. Rin is knocked out. She wakes up bound in a wagon with a cover over her. She can push it up just enough to see outside. They are on level ground, far from the mountain. She doesn’t realize that Altan is there with her until he starts moving. When he wakes up, he tries to burn through his bindings. Smoke fills the wagon and the Mugen soldiers notice. They open the cover, throw some water on Altan, and knock them both out again. They wake up next in a laboratory strapped to tables. Altan knows where he is. He’s back in the lab where they experimented on him when he was a child. The place of his nightmares. Dr. Shigo comes in. He is a madman. He speaks to Altan like an old friend though he is the same person that once tortured Altan and plans to do it again. He injects Altan with heroin. Then he asks Rin to call the Phoenix. She won’t, she will not show Shigo how to do it. But every time she refuses, he injects more heroin into Altan’s body. He tells her that Nikan actually came up with this protocol. They sent boxes of heroin to Speer and as soon as the Speerlies used it, they were addicted. It’s how Nikan was able to annex them. Rin doesn’t want to admit it, but it makes sense. This continues until Shigo gets bored and has them thrown into a cell. When Altan comes down, he explains that the heroin isn’t painful. It’s when the heroin wears off that is excruciating. She realizes that Altan is constantly hearing the braying of the Phoenix in the back of his head, howling for blood, and it is only the poppy that can make that voice quiet down. No wonder he uses it. It must’ve been the same for all the Speerlies. The Phoenix is an angry, vengeful god and the heroin gave them peace - for a while at least. When Dr. Shigo comes back, Rin still refuses to tell him what he wants to know. She fights for Nikan, for the Empress. The doctor just laughs. The Empress is who told the Federation where to find Rin and Altan. She betrayed all of the Cike. Altan tries to attack him but three soldiers storm into the cell and douses him with water before injecting him again. Then they turn and inject Rin. But instead of subduing her, they’ve freed her. She’s able to go to the spirit world - where she finds Altan. He shows her the history of Speer through his memories, and their ancestors speak to her. She is strong. She must go to the island. Then she and Altan hold hands and return to the physical world together. When they open their eyes, a soldier leans over their faces. They burn him immediately, moving on to the other soldiers, and then to the doctor. They fight their way out of the laboratory facility and toward the coast. But once there, they see way too many Federation soldiers to fight themselves. Altan tells Rin that she must go to Speer. Tearza wasn’t strong enough, he wasn’t strong enough, but Rin is. She’s the bravest person Altan knows. Then he turns back to the lab and makes sure he causes a big enough distraction to allow Rin to get to the island. Rin swims like she was taught at Sinegard, long strokes under the water for stealth. When she runs out of the strength to do that, she floats. She begins to see visions. Rin sees the woman who warns Rin against the Phoenix as the woman refuses the Phoenix. She refuses to doom the whole world just to save Speer. The Phoenix kills her and curses her soul to never find peace. She is Tearza. She sees Qara and Chaghan. Chaghan feels Rin and assumes it’s Altan. Chaghan looks for Altan, but he can’t find him. She sees Jiang, who wakes from his trance. She is angry, he could’ve helped them. She sees him as mortal and as something else, all at once. He reaches for her, but her fingers pass right through him. She starts to float away but he stops her with a word. Their fingers meet this time, and he holds her face in his hands. Jiang orders her to wake up before she drowns and she finds herself washed up on the beach of Speer. The beach is littered with bones that have been covered with sand. She was told by the ancestors in her drug-induced fugue state that all paths lead to the temple, so she starts walking. She thinks at first that the temple was destroyed but she realizes that it’s actually underground. Finding the steps, she descends. She meditates. When she’s here, she doesn’t need the poppy seeds to reach the Pantheon. The Phoenix finds her. The Phoenix accuses Tearza, Jiang, and even Altan of being cowards. If not doing what was needed. But not Rin. It asks Rin what she wants and she answers that she wants the end of the Federation. He forces her to be very specific in her wishes: total victory against the Mugen. She will have her revenge for Speer, for her friends, and for Nikan. She believes it is her destiny. The Phoenix scoffs. It’s not destiny that brought her here. It was choice. Every choice she has made brought her closer to this moment. And the price for what she wants is steep. What is she willing to give? She’s willing to become the Phoenix’s avatar. It doesn’t need to be told twice. It immediately takes over her body. It is overwhelming and painful. When she comes back to her own body, the island of Mugen has been destroyed. Every person on the island, men, women, and children - civilians all - now dead. She is still on fire on the inside. Everything burns. She drags herself out of the temple and collapses. She wakes up in a strange room in a strange bed. She thinks for a moment that she’s been captured again, but she’s not bound by anything. She’s on a boat if the swaying is anything to judge by. She leaves her room (she’s so weak she stumbles when she first tries to stand) and she finds Ramsa outside. He explains that when she and Altan didn’t show up to the rendezvous spot, the Cike knew something had gone wrong. Unegen tracked them all the way to the Federation lab, where Altan was already full conflagration. Kitay, who had forced the Cike to bring him along, had suggested they look on Speer where they found Rin passed out on the beach. She asks what she did and Kitay offers to speak with her alone. The volcano below Mugen, which had been inactive, roared back to life unexpectedly and erupted before anyone had a chance to flee. It was so strong that even now, the air around the island is poisonous. If anyone survived the lava flow, they won’t survive the gas. He wants to know if she caused the eruption and when she admits she did; he is appalled. They were civilians! She retorts that the Mugenese are not humans - they are monsters. He wonders if they thought the same of the Nikara. She won’t let him make her feel bad. She doesn’t regret what she did and she would do it again. He looks at her with fear, as if she is a stranger. Qara and Chaghan meet up with them a few days later. Rin has begun smoking opium just to stop feeling anything. The Phoenix has not left her, and she doesn’t think it plans to. She breaks the news about Altan to Chaghan who stumbles away. Qara explains that the two of them rode north and broke the dam on Altan’s orders. The dam routed water to four provinces and when it broke, all that water rushed back to its original route. It flooded the plains, cutting off the Federation’s supply route and killing thousands of Federation soldiers, but thousands of Nikara citizens as well. Qara and Chaghan have to believe that what they did is worth it. It’s the only way to live with themselves. Rin tells Qara that the Empress betrayed them. Later, they have a Speerly funeral service for Altan. Rin speaks to Chaghan. They’re going to need to deal with Feylen at some point. Chaghan says that Feylen’s god, the God of the Four Winds, is particularly unpredictable. Going from a soft breeze to a hurricane in the same day. It will be difficult to control him. Rin also wants the Empress. She wants the woman who turned them in to the Federation, that caused Altan to die, that betrayed her own people. Rin wants to know why she did it… and then Rin wants to make her pay. She and Chaghan come to a tacit agreement. He isn’t going to stop her. He’s going to help her.
Get ready... It’s eight years ago and for the first time ever, Nezha has been tasked to care for his younger brother Mingzha. Until now, he’s been deemed too young but today, their father is out of town, the servants are all busy caring for their mother who has suddenly taken ill, and none of their other brothers are there. Mingzha wants to go see the grottoes, where they are not allowed to go. Nezha wants to go, but he takes his job of protecting his brother seriously, so he says no. Mingzha whines until Nezha agrees to take Mingzha to see the entrances of the grottoes, but no further. The water is deep enough to reach his waist and Mingzha’s shoulders when Mingzha spots their father’s cloak. Nezha gets a bad feeling and tries to turn them back, but a wave knocks him under the water. Suddenly, the water is far deeper than it should be. Nezha has to swim to the surface, he can hear his brother screaming. When he surfaces, Mingzha is nowhere in sight. All Nezha sees is blood in the water. Nezha starts to vomit as a shape comes out of the grotto and greets him. The Cike sails into Adlaga. There’s hardly anyone there to notice them, the port was destroyed by the Federation and hasn’t yet recovered. They wait for word from Unegen, who was sent ahead to scout for them. He sends a message with a raven for Qara once he has their target spotted and the others disguise themselves in militia uniforms. All except for Ramsa, who won’t be coming with them, and Aratsha, who prefers living as a bucket of water (and who also won’t be coming with them). Chaghan gives them weapons to use and reminds them of their goal. They have one target to assassinate. They are not there to hurt civilians. He looks at Rin, she specifically. She assures Baji that she’s not taking opium tonight; she needs a clear head for this. They’ve had twenty-nine different missions, twenty-nine targets over the last three months and this is the last one. After this, they go for the Empress. After leaving Speer, the Cike didn’t think they could go back to Nikan since the Empress had sold them out to the Federation. The next time they went to port for supplies, they saw their own faces on reward posters calling them war criminals. So, they went south until they found an ally: The Pirate Queen Moag of Ankhiluun. She is no fan of Nikan or the Empress and agreed to help the Cike kill Daji, as long as they got rid of thirty people she wanted dead first. Most of those people had been rival pirates or people who refused to play by Moag’s rules. This last job is different. Moag wants access to Adlaga so she can sell opium, she’s been denied for years by the constant vigilance of Yang Yuanfu and his administration. Get rid of Yang, upending Adlaga’s local government, and Moag gets what she wants. Unegen meets them and explains that Yang is making a speech in the square today. They’ll be able to pick him off then skedaddle if things go sideways. The problem is, as one of the last uncorrupt officials in the empire, Yang and his team are very used to assassination attempts. Thank goodness Rin’s team are not ordinary assassins. They wait in a warehouse, and Rin tries not to calculate how long it’s been since she’s had any opium. Without it, she’s assaulted by a barrage of visions of Altan, of Speer, of the day the Federation massacred the Speerlies. The Cike are realizing that what was supposed to be a small celebration is turning into a full-fledged party complete with a parade. Withdrawal pains hit Rin. She refuses to return to the ship - she and Chaghan butt heads about it. Usually, she doesn’t mind that he tries to wrest command from her because she agrees that she should not have been made commander, but today she insists on staying. He tells her to stay with Unegen, who he gives laudanum. If she gets out of control, knock her out. She’s killed enough civilians already. Once in the crowd, Rin sees how happy the people are. The Empire has given them food to make them pliant - the fact that the Empire could conjure this amount of food this quickly indicates that they were hoarding it before and letting their citizens starve, but that doesn’t seem to occur to anyone. It makes Rin so angry. The anger is good; it makes sure that she doesn’t crack open from the grief. But today, it makes her control waver. Unegen pulls her to the side. She needs to get her shit together - because the Empress just arrived. Rin steps forward, they won’t get another chance like this to kill the Empress, but Unegen holds her back. Then the Empress looks directly at Rin and smiles a cold, cruel smile. Rin starts to lose control. The Phoenix eggs her on. Smoke comes from her hands and people start to back away, except for the Empire’s warriors who come directly for her. Rin loses it, she starts to burn. She can’t control the Phoenix. She can barely control the fire when she doesn’t give in to the Phoenix. Now she can see Unegen burn. He begs her to stop but she can’t, not until Chaghan covers her mouth with a laudanum covered cloth. They hide her and take her back to the ship. She’s just brought the entire empire down on them, they need to get away. As she does every time she gets this high, she sees Mugen from a bird’s eye view as she destroyed it. This is the only time she allows herself to think about what she’s done. She starts laughing and laughs until she cries, and then the tears won’t stop. She wakes up a few days later. They got the dosage wrong – whoops! Chaghan tells her that Unegen was burned on over half his body and couldn’t be moved from Adlaga. Enki stayed to help him, and they won’t be returning to the Cike. The rest of them are still there, but Rin really needs to get control. The others stay because they know that when they eventually lose the battle with their God, the other Cike will control them and make sure they don’t hurt anyone. Rin cannot ensure to help them if she can’t even control herself. Altan could do it, Rin can too but Chaghan points out that she doesn’t even try. And if she can’t, he tells her it would be better to kill herself. At least then she won’t do untold amounts of damage first. When Rin joins the rest of the Cike for a meal of moldy porridge, she is told that Daji escaped from Adlaga. But thanks to Rin’s “diversion”, they were able to kill their target. Now they’re fleeing from the entire Imperial Guard, but with Aratsha’s help, they’re quickly outpacing the other boats. Baji tells her not to worry; she will get control. It’s like this for all of them at first. Rin will get the hang of it. That night in her cabin, she swears to herself to try. She’s coming down off the laudanum and begins cutting her thigh; the pain helps her keep her head. It doesn’t last for long and Rin quickly gives in; the opium never fails her. They sail back to Ankhiluun. Rin hates the floating city, not least because Moag runs the largest opium operation and you can get opium for dirt cheap. Rin is afraid she’ll get to the point that she never wants to leave. But also, it’s loud. They need to find the Black Lilies, Moag’s troop of beautiful, educated, lethal guards who can let them in to see Moag. The Lilies ride around on a barge called the Black Orchid. When they find the Black Orchid, the Cike buy passage from a water taxi and ask the Lilies for a meeting with Moag. Rin has to speak to the top Black Lily (who Rin hates), Sarana. Sarana isn’t playing ball, so Rin pins her to the wall and threatens to burn her while she’s sleeping - Sarana agrees to take her to Moag. Once face to face, Rin tells Moag that she’s finished the thirty assassinations and she’s ready to set her sights on Daji. She wants the weapons Moag promised her. Weapons that Moag reveals she has no intention of giving to Rin. No one wants to make an enemy of Daji, and Moag doesn’t understand this obsession of Rin’s. Rin is shocked at the betrayal, but Moag throws her a bone. One more assignation. An opium dealer who has been taking more than his share of the profits. Rin agrees, she doesn’t really have any other choice, but asks for one more thing in the bargain: Kitay’s address. Moag says that Kitay specifically asked her not to tell Rin where he was, but she does it anyway. Rin walks to a section of the city that is far less populated, where Kitay is kept under house arrest with an armed guard. He reluctantly lets Rin in. Kitay has been tasked with fixing Moag’s accounting system. He does not believe that Daji would turn against her people and will not help Rin kill her. Rin insists on what she knows, but Kitay maintains that she can’t rely on what Federation doctors told her. They were Rin’s enemies, trying to get Rin to work with them. He doesn’t know this new person, she isn’t the Runin that he knew. That Rin would not have decimated the island of Mugen. He holds her hand to the top of his lamp, burning her the way she burned so many others, so she can know what it feels like. She can see that he’s done it to himself plenty of times. Rin waits on a borrowed skimmer ship with the other Cike. The ship with their target is supposed to return to Ankhiluun tonight, but they aren’t sure what time. Instead, they see a large ship coming towards them. Straight for them, actually. When they look through the spyglass - there is no one on deck. Rin commands Aratsha to turn them around, the ship follows them immediately and catches up in no time. It shoots at the skimmer. The other ship blind Aratsha by putting ink in the water. They burn opium so that the shamans are useless. They knew who would be on this boat. Rin realizes that Moag sold them out just before she descends into the opium haze. She wakes up tied to the mast between Baji and Ramsa. Suni, Qara, and Chaghan are tied to a different mast, and Aratsha is sealed in a barrel. The sailors won’t answer their questions. They don’t speak to the Cike at all. They are approached by a huge battleship. Nikan could never build something like this, but the sailors begin speaking Nikara. Someone comes aboard and Rin recognizes him before he even speaks - even with a mask over half his face. He asks why the Cike are tied so tightly. His father will be furious if one of them loses a hand from blood loss. When he removes his mask, Rin sees that half of his face is riddled with scars when once, Nezha was the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen. But she thought he was dead. Rin is furious, which surprises Nezha. He thought she’d be happy to see him. He has the ship’s captain loosen the Cike’s ropes so they’re more comfortable, but he wants to take Rin to meet his father. He explains to her that they used the opium because they didn’t want to kill Rin or the others, and the ropes because they didn’t want Rin or the others to kill them. She demands food and rooms be supplied to the Cike but ultimately agrees to go with Nezha. On the way, she apologizes for leaving him behind at Khurdalain. She tried to go back for him, but Altan wouldn’t let her. Nezha doesn’t blame her. He was taken to a Mugenese facility and the Mugen tried to ransom him to his father. But when the Federation soldiers heard that their emperor had been killed in Rin’s attack, the Mugenese at the facility tried to offer a trade to Nezha’s father: Nezha for their safe exit from Nikan. Nezha’s father went in and took his son instead. Nezha explains to her how his ships work. They aren’t ghost ships or powered by a shaman like Aratsha; they have wheels at the bottom of the ships that push them through the water. This way, the men who power the wheels are safer belowdecks than if they were rowing on the top deck. On the warship, she meets Nezha’s father, Vaisra. He gives Rin a brief overview. The Empress needs to go. The country is currently in tatters, and is barely functional even when it isn’t recovering from war. Daji is not fit to be ruler and having each province govern itself does not work. Not to mention that Daji is the reason the Mugenese were in Nikan at all. Vaisra wants to overthrow the whole government and set it up as a republic instead. Nikan is already angry. All it needs is a little push. And Vaisra wants Rin and the Cike’s help. At first, Rin says no. She doesn’t care about the rest of Nikan; she only wants revenge for Altan. Vaisra tells her to stop being such a brat and think. He has not just one of these massive ships, but ten. Nikan doesn’t have a navy at all. Vaisra can secure the waterways and take control of the country in six months, tops. Rin can see the advantages. The Cike would have food, supplies, a decent place to sleep. But she wants to discuss it with the rest of the Cike first. And she refuses to take any orders; she was good soldier and look where that got her. Vaisra tells her to stop throwing tantrums, they all have to take orders from someone. When Rin returns to the Cike, they discuss their options. Chaghan tells them to shut up. They don’t have any options. Vaisra just admitted to planning treason against the Empire. If they don’t help him, he won’t let them off this ship. Rin goes with Nezha to give their decision but tells Nezha they forgot someone in Ankhiluun. When they retrieve Kitay, he’s less than happy about it. Firstly, he was nearly done fixing the taxes. Secondly, he is not going to help overthrow the government. He doesn’t believe that Daji would plot with Mugen, no matter what they’re so-called proof. And even if he did believe them, his father is Daji’s defense minister. His entire family is in Sinegard, and he won’t put them in danger. He tells them to throw him in the brig. Rin is in her own room, with her own bed, but something feels wrong. She realizes she doesn’t have any opium. She runs to Nezha’s room and demands to know where the physician is. But the physician won’t give her anything. Nothing at all - on Vaisra’s orders. So, she marches to Vaisra directly to demand what she needs. Vaisra isn’t interested in hearing it. This isn’t the Phoenix; Rin isn’t not going crazy. This is something every soldier has to deal with: grief and anger and trauma - all rolled into one overwhelming package. She must face it. When she tells him no, he smacks her across the face. She’s shocked. No one has touched her like that since Altan. Vaisra is not afraid of Rin. He’s helped Speerlies before. It’s not their penchant for war that gave the Speerlies such a short lifespan, but their addictions. Rin has maybe six months left before her addiction kills her. She won’t get any opium, or anything else, until they’re finished with their plan. She can either learn to face the fire and learn to control it, or they can throw her overboard. She sequesters herself in her room and suffers in silence. She sleeps sporadically and wakes up screaming from her nightmares. During the day, the sun makes her head feel like it’s going to explode but she still forces herself onto the deck, just to get out of her room. Nezha distracts her with stories. They pass through the plains that were flooded when the twins broke the dam, everyone thinks the Empire did it. Rin doesn’t correct them. Once, when the pain got really bad, Rin tries to throw herself overboard but was too weak to pull herself over the guardrail on the deck. Suni found her. He talked to her quietly and told her a story of the Monkey King who fell in love with the Moon Goddess. The Monkey King commanded his monkeys to find the Moon Goddess and bring the moon to him, so when the monkeys saw the moon’s reflection in the ocean, they dived for her. But it was an illusion. They died chasing something that wasn’t real. Suni tells her she doesn’t have to fight this alone. She’s not the first or the last to go through this. It helps to have support. After seven days, she wakes up without a headache. Her mind is her own and the Phoenix is quiet. She goes to see Vaisra and the stern commander is now replaced by a version who speaks to her gently. He asks Rin to call her fire, just a little, and she does. He asks her to shape it and make it bigger. She can hear the Phoenix again, but Vaisra makes Rin look at him and focus. With that focus, she’s able to shape the fire and to grow it, and to make the fire go out again. It’s a good start. Then Vaisra gives Rin something. His men had gone looking for Altan but didn’t find him. They did find his trident, though. He thinks Rin should have it. She doesn’t think so, she isn’t Altan, but Vaisra insists she take the trident. She’s not Altan. She’ll be better. Rin finally gets her appetite back and eats her first real meal with Nezha. She asks about Kitay. He won’t come out of his room even though they haven’t locked the door, but they’re willing to wait for him. He has the mind of a genius and understands strategy better than anyone else. They want Kitay on their side. Rin begins to train again. She trains with the ship’s captain, Eriden, who teaches her how to keep her eyes down while she fights. Only look at the lower body so that Daji cannot entrance her. He and the other Dragon Province Militia members fought with the Trifecta during the Second Poppy War, so Eriden is very familiar with the way the Vipress fights. She’s competent at martial arts but that’s never been her preferred way to fight. She makes people believe that only she can give them what they most deserve. She’s the strongest of the Trifecta because of what she can do - otherwise Daji wouldn’t be the last one of them standing. And she likes poison darts. Nezha and Vaisra come to see her progress. She’s not ready for Daji yet, but she will be. Eriden and Vaisra give Rin the plan. She will be presented to Daji as a prisoner of war. She will be muzzled and bound with iron, but the center link in her chains will be twine and easy to burn through. Rin will be sedated when they first arrive. They will give her a small dose of opium and thanks to Rin’s now high tolerance, she will sober quickly. Daji will not see Rin if she is not sedated, Daji will assume that the Dragon Warlord is planning some sort of treachery. But Daji likes to play with her food before killing it. Believing Rin to be sedated, she will offer Rin positions of power and whatever else she wants. Do not believe her. Daji has stayed in power by removing any threats before they really become threats at all. She won’t allow Rin to live for long, even if Rin agrees to Daji’s offer. And if things go south, they have several escape routes planned for Rin, which she memorizes. If Rin is captured, they will extract her. She asks why no one has tried to kill Daji before and the answer is simple: fear. Rin is too young to know this, but there was once a time when anyone who breathed a word against the Dragon Emperor would receive a visit from the Gatekeeper and the Vipress. Entire families were executed or exiled and wiped from history. Rin realize that Vaisra looks scared for the first time since she’s met him, and she wonders what he’s seen. Now that both Sinegard and Golyn Niis have been destroyed, the Empress is situated in Lusan. There’s so much opulence here that Rin is disgusted, the rest of the country lives in rags and the eats only what they can scrounge up. Kitay finally comes out of his room when they arrive in Lusan. No one is allowed off the boat (and Rin has been told to keep her face covered when she’s on deck), but Kitay demands to disembark. His father must be here with the Empress. He is in charge of Daji’s personal guard, she would not leave him behind. Nezha isn’t so sure, she’s left people behind before. Kitay sees the Minister of Finance on land and forces his way off the ship. Nezha lets him go. Rin watches as Kitay asks about his father and is told by the Minister of Finance that his father was killed. Kitay collapses and is escorted back into the ship. When he sees Vaisra next, he marches right up to him. He wants a job, and not some foot soldier. He wants to be in charge of strategy. He will make sure they never lose a battle. Kitay doesn’t want their pity. He wants troops. They have a few days before the warlord summit, and Vaisra meets with the Snake Warlord privately. Ang Tsolin was Vaisra’s Strategy Master at Sinegard, and they’ll be visiting only as “old friends” - not enemies or allies. Rin is coming too. Of the Warlords, only Jun Loran and Chang En have acquiesced to stay in the palace. The others have found their own lodging. Vaisra wants Tsolin’s support for the Republic. But Tsolin is tired, and so are his people. Why would they want to start another war when they might actually have a chance at some prolonged peace after what Rin did to Mugen. Vaisra insists that the war is coming no matter what. Now, it’s just on his timeline. And they have Rin and the advantage of timing by striking when Nikan is reeling from the Third Poppy War. With Tsolin’s support, the war could be over in a matter of days. But Tsolin won’t give Vaisra help. Neither will he tell Daji of Vaisra’s plans. He is a neutral observer. When the meeting is done, Vaisra is furious. He really wanted Tsolin’s support. And he’s sure he will get it eventually, when Tsolin’s province is threatened. None of the other warlords allied with Vaira either, but none of them know enough to hurt him. Only that Vaisra is displeased with Daji, which Daji is already aware of herself. The others are just waiting to see where the chips fall before joining. But without Tsolin, this will be significantly harder. At least Vaisra has Rin; she will be the tipping point. He commands her not to fail him. The next morning, Rin is given her dose of opium before marching into the palace with Vaisra and Eriden. The opium makes her feel light and her heart rate stays low, but it does nothing for her anxiety. Eriden reminds her to keep her eyes down. At the door, Eriden is forced to stay outside. Only the warlords, Su Daji, and Rin will be inside the meeting chambers. Rin watches the warlords bicker over the smallest details for hours. Daji just smiles and offers very little else. No wonder nothing gets done around here. After hours, in which absolutely nothing is resolved, Daji ends the meeting for a break. She takes Rin out with her. This is Rin’s moment. Daji speaks to Rin as she leads Rin through a secret passageway and into an indoor garden. A space that Rin does not recognize (so much for memorizing those maps). Daji knows what Vaisra is up to, and she wants Rin to know that she’s fighting on the wrong side. The Mugen were coming regardless of what they did, Daji spoke to them, but she had a plan all along. Speak to Ryohai, lure him into complacency by giving the Federation pieces of the coast if they agreed to leave the inland area alone, then destroy them. Does Rin really think that a democracy will work? Look at the warlords - they can’t even get along when they are commanded by Daji. Rin feels like Daji isn’t wrong, but she’s far from trusting Daji. Eventually, Rin feels like she has no choice but to make a move against Daji, even though her fire has only just started to return. When Rin grabs a rake from the ground and uses it as a weapon, Daji attacks her with her poison needles. None of them hit Rin, but Rin is too busy deflecting them to call her flames. Daji forces Rin against the wall and Rin slams her eyes closed. Daji tells her to open them, and Rin doesn’t even realize she’s done so until she’s locked in a staring contest with Daji. They are transported to the Pantheon where Rin asks the Phoenix for help. Rin fights Daji as the Phoenix fights Nuwa. Help comes to Rin from an unexpected place as Chaghan also appears in the Pantheon. He banishes Nuwa and Rin descends back to the physical world. Chaghan is in the secret garden. Chaghan tells Rin to run when she gets the signal, then bombs start to go off. That’s the signal. Chaghan wants Rin to jump into a well so Aratsha can float them to safety, but she leaves Chaghan to return to the council room. Vaisra has made her feel like she has something to live for, and she can’t just give that up. The council room is a flurry of blades as Vaisra fights both Jun (acting as regent for the young Tiger Warlord) and the new Horse Warlord, Chang En. Baji and Suni also fight inside. Aratsha had led the Cike into the palace through the water ways, so they would be available if Rin needed backup. Jun puts his sword through Vaisra’s shoulder. Baji tackles Jun as Suni carries Vaisra out of the room. Baji and Rin follow. Vaisra is alive, but he won’t be if he doesn’t get help soon. They jump into a well and Aratsha forms air bubbles over their heads and ferries them through the water. They make it on board the boat. Eriden, who had already returned to the ship, tells them to get out of Lusan as quickly as possible. Rin keeps watch, but sees no one following them. Chaghan collapses into sobs as soon as he reaches Qara. Rin checks on him - Chaghan is astounded at how stable Daji is. He thought she’d be at her weakest with the other two Trifecta members gone, but she’s incredibly strong. They don’t stand a chance against her. When Nezha comes to the deck, he says that Vaisra is stable but sleeping. Rin asks about why they haven’t been followed and Nezha explains that there’s no one to follow them. Lusan doesn’t have a navy. He explains that now that there is definitely going to be a civil war, Tsolin will eventually choose their side. He won’t be able to stay neutral. For now, he will let them through Snake’s navy to the sea. Nezha has no doubt they’ll win with their ships, their strategist, and Rin. Vaisra asks to speak to Rin when he wakes up. He asks why she’s still there and she can’t really explain. If Vaisra is in charge instead of her, it’s not really her fault if people die or if one of the Cike are injured. Plus, she feels grounded with Vaisra. She wants his approval. It gives her something to live for. He tells her that people will always want to use her or destroy her. She has a power that can start and end wars. She must pick a side. They sail into Arlong, the capital of Dragon Province, and Nezha shows Rin and Kitay their canals and their large navy. He’s incredibly proud of them. It becomes clear to Rin that this civil war has been planned for a long time. They get fresh uniforms, rooms, and Ramsa nearly dies of ecstasy when he sees Arlong’s explosives. Nezha wants to show Rin one of their new ships and on the way, they run into his eldest brother Jinzha. Jinzha is rude and arrogant, even worse that Nuzha at Sinegard - clearly the Dragon Warlord’s eldest child. He insults Nezha several times, insinuating that Nezha is not at all important. When he notices Rin, Jinzha demands to see what she can do. He angers her so much she tries to call the fire, only, it doesn’t come. Instead, she sees visions of Mugen being destroyed and a word she’s never seen before. Nezha has to help her back to her feet. Half an hour later, she has tried to call the flames several times but always received the same result. She goes to Chaghan and he gives her a mountain drug. They’ll be going to the other plane together to figure out what is wrong. When Chaghan sees the character written, he is astounded. Daji has sealed Rin from her powers. Daji shouldn’t be able to do that, she must’ve left some venom in Rin that has done it. If the seal is not broken, Rin will start to lose her memories of the Phoenix until she doesn’t remember being able to call it at all. Rin realizes that this is what happened to Jiang. It’s why he can’t remember the Second Poppy War. Chaghan points out a door in the seal and telling Rin that door is should be where the venom is. That is where Rin can fight it and possibly break seal, but Daji will show Rin what she wants most to try to convince Rin to leave the physical world and stay on this plane. Rin sees what she saw the last time Daji lured her in. Speer still populated and Altan alive. Chaghan encourages Rin to kill this fake Altan and break the seal, but she can’t. Altan calls to her, then Chaghan calls to her, and the vision’s attention is switched to Chaghan. Suddenly, the vision switches to one on a mountain. Altan and Chaghan sit very closely together. Altan threatens Chaghan lightly, even putting his hand around Chaghan’s throat and getting very close to Chaghan’s face. Rin realizes that Chaghan was terrified every time he was near Altan, and that Chaghan liked it. He felt the same way about Altan as Rin did. Chaghan ends the vision and Rin demands to know what happened. Sometimes, spirits linger before moving on - especially those who are angry. Chaghan thought he could grab Altan’s spirit before it moved on, but Chaghan hasn’t been able to find Altan. He thought this could help him find Altan. Rin doesn’t think that Chaghan actually knows how to break the seal. He was using her just to find what he wanted. Eriden tells Rin to pretend that nothing is wrong with her fire, but Vaisra no longer bothers to speak with her. She gets the message - she’s useless now. She sleeps for as long as she can but is woken by yelling. She recognizes Venka’s voice. Venka storms out of the room and angrily tells Rin that her father is trying to tell her what to do with her own body. Her rape at the hands of the Federation soldiers left her pregnant and Lady Saikhara, Nezha’s mom, does not allow abortions in Dragon Province. So, Venka got creative and is no longer pregnant, but it seems no one is happy about her decision except for her. Rin asks about her other injuries, and Venka says one of her arms is mostly healed but the other will never heal. Three of her fingers won’t work properly, but she can still shoot a bow with the help of a modified glove. But no one believes she can be a soldier anymore. When Rin says she can no longer do what she could either, Venka doesn’t have time for her pity party. At least Rin can still fight. Within a week, all three southern provinces (Rooster, Boar, and Monkey) secede to the Republic. Each of those warlords won their titles by being good generals in the Second Poppy War, so at least they have some experience instead of just lucky parentage. They show up to the gates of Arlong but leave their militias in their own cities. They’re hedging their bets. They’ve technically seceded, so Vaisra won’t go against them, but they also haven’t instigated Daji’s wrath by acting against her. Vaisra and the warlords take part in strategy meetings for days. Nezha, Kitay, and Rin are all included (Rin to be intimidating). The warlords still don’t do much to work as a team, something that frustrates everyone else. When one of the warlords refuses to allow his men to take orders from someone he doesn’t know and says that Jinzha is not old enough to command, Rin bites back. Dragon has put more men in this fight than any of the other provinces. They need to move now, while the north is scattered, or they will lose their advantage. The warlord asks why Rin is even in the meeting since she has less than a year of command experience, but she retorts that they would have lost the last war if it weren’t for her. Vaisra reins her in as the Snake Warlord arrives. Tsolin is not pleased that Vaisra sailed through his ships. It made it look as if he were complicit in Vaisra’s plans and Daji went for his family. Luckily, Tsolin had the forethought to move them before that. He updates their war maps. The Empire has put the new Horse Warlord, Chang En (also known as the Wolf Meat General) in charge of Daji’s forces. He’s known for being brutal. The warlords continue to bicker, and Rin later releases her frustration by sparring with Nezha. She needs to increase her stamina and muscle again, since she can no longer call her fire. She continues to use her trident, though even Vaisra wants her to switch to a sword at this point. The trident is too big and too heavy for her, but Rin refuses to let it go. The trident has longer reach and when you can call fire, no one wants to get too close. Nezha isn’t fooled. He thinks Rin holds on to it for sentimental reasons because it was Altan’s. But he knew Altan too. Altan was not some great hero. He used people and spoke to them as if they meant nothing past how Altan could use them. Rin refuses to speak to Nezha about Altan any further. Finally, Tsolin and Vaisra force the warlords into a plan. The southern warlords will not ship food to the north. Moag will handle the outside trade routes for them (not because Vaisra trusts Moag, but because it’s in Moag’s best interest) so that no food enters the Empire that way either. The northern warlords will either allow their people to starve or turn within six months. Kitay is pissed. Six months!? Innocent people will die in that time - people they’re supposed to be uniting. They have the advantage now; they should move before the winter sets in. The war could be over within six months. Eventually, when Kitay won’t stop antagonizing the others, he is kicked out of the meeting. Rin and Nezha follow him, but Kitay locks himself in his room. The army does nothing. As Vaisra and Tsolin decided, they stay in place. Rin does her best to get her Cike to integrate into the Dragon Warlord’s forces. She works off her frustration to continuing to train. She places her trust in Vaisra. He must have some sort of plan that she isn’t aware of. Then ships sail in from the west and Rin realizes that Vaisra was waiting for backup before moving on the north. Vaisra’s backup comes in the form of a massive Hesperian warship, but most people aren’t looking at that. They’re looking at the three smaller ships that are flying above it. Though Hesperia had helped Nikan in the Second Poppy War after Speer was massacred, they had given Mugen aid in the First Poppy War and after Mugen occupied Nikan, Hesperian mercenaries invaded. Hesperians believe in one supreme being who the call the Maker or the Architect - and they insist that everyone see the error in their own beliefs. In the Second Poppy War, the Federation’s atrocities grew so bad that the Federation could not turn a blind eye. They helped Nikan throw off their oppressors and after the massacre on Speer, they drove Mugen from Nikara shores. Since then, Hesperia has been pretty silent. Nezha explains that they’ve been involved in their own war for the last twenty years. It has left the country ravaged but the Consortium States of Hesperia came out on top, so let’s call it a win. When people begin to disembark, Rin sees soldiers carrying strange weapons that Nezha calls arquebuses. Then comes a contingent of missionary scholars called the Gray Company: Representatives of the Church of the Divine Architect. Lastly comes Nezha’s mother. When she sees Rin, Lady Saikhara yells out and points to Rin. Hesperian soldiers tackle Rin and hold her down. One of the Gray Company tries to put something in Rin’s mouth but pulls away when Rin tries to bite her. Rin is knocked out and wakes up in her room with Nezha next to her. There was a misunderstanding. Saikhara was sent to Hesperia to solidify their support since Saikhara had been educated in Hesperia. She thought Rin was a threat and told them to attack her. The Hesperians know what Rin did to the Island of Mugen and they want to know how. Rin decides to escape with the rest of the Cike. She won’t be tested on again. She prepares to attack Nezha and make a run for it, but he knows her too well and stops her. He insists that she is not in danger. Vaisra will not allow anything to happen to her, and Nezha would die before he allowed anyone to hurt her. But this war has been planned for decades, and Hesperia’s technology cannot be beat. They need the Hesperian’s weapons. Soon Eriden comes to tell Rin she’s expected in a meeting. The Hesperians are hesitant to give aid to Vaisra. They gave their technology to Mugen and that really came back to bite them. And Mugen didn’t even have any of the internal struggles of the Nikara. If anything, Nikan is even more underdeveloped and unsophisticated than Mugen was. Vaisra points out that occupation really stifles the creative scientific juices. The missionary that Rin nearly bit is curious. She wants to ‘observe’ Rin. It wouldn’t even be that invasive, at least at the beginning. Vaisra pushes back, which infuriates Saikhara. Vaisra promised Saikhara that they would be able to fix him! Rin isn’t sure who ‘they’ or ‘he’ is but Vaisra forces Saikhara to leave the meeting when she won’t settle down. Some of the warlords want to just give Rin to Hesperia, but Vaisra leaves it up to Rin. The Hesperians will take what they want by force if they have to, but Rin could really garner them some goodwill if she agrees to be tested. Rin reluctantly agrees but specifies that it’s for only one hour a week and she cannot be touched without her express consent. The missionary woman is called Sister Petra and her first hour with Rin starts immediately. She offers Rin some laudanum at first, which is not really a suggestion, and takes a series of measurements. The laudanum makes everything feel not quite real. Petra tells Rin that the Architect loves beauty and has made this world for that express purpose, but bad things happen because did what is called Chaos. Chaos is beyond the Maker’s control. Much of that Chaos occurs in backwards, undeveloped, barbaric places like Nikan. But don’t worry, Petra knows that she can cure Rin of what plagues her. She’s going to discover what it stems from and then she’s going to purge it from the whole country. The laudanum wears off just as Rin gets back to her room and the memories of Petra overlap with the memories of Shiga in the Federation’s laboratory. Run vomits. This is her atonement for what she did to Mugen, for her failure in Lusan, for Altan’s death. Daji’s response to Vaisra’s blockade comes soon. She poisons the river. Since the Dragon Province is covered in tributaries, everything is poisoned, and those rivers will lead to the southern provinces. The fish are killed, as well as the seaweed and any other organisms that come in contact with the water - including the rice paddies. They are now looking at famine, even with what goods they have held in reserve. The poison also kills Aratsha. He comes on shore for just a moment as he dies, repeating Altan’s name. Rin says she’s not Altan and Aratsha murmurs that he should have mentioned before. Rin catches the word misery but nothing more before Aratsha dies. If nothing else, this forces the Republic into action. The Hesperians will not commit to helping them until the Republic can show that they are what their name claims - a united group. They prepare to attack the north. Rin and Nezha are placed in the Fourteenth Brigade, part of the first fleet. A skeleton platoon from Hesperia will join them to see them in action and decide if they’re worth the trouble of helping, and Petra will join them to continue her tests on Rin. She’s most interested in Rin while in battle. The first fleet is commanded by Jinzha and will sail up the Murui River into Hare Province, while Tsolin and General Hu will take the second fleet around the coastline in Snake Province to destroy Tiger Province ships before the Tiger Province ships get a chance to land and march inland. The fleets will squeeze Daji’s Militia between them. A smaller group, including Nezha on his ship and Rin on the Sparrow with Captain Salkhi, will sail two weeks before the remainder of the first fleet. Their objective is to find the source of the poison and eradicate it by any means possible. The rest of the Cike sail on the Sparrow, as does Kitay. Venka tries to join Nezha with her father’s newest version of a crossbow, but Nezha commands her to get off the boat. She’s no longer a soldier. Both Venka and Rin argue that Venka can fight with her crossbow from the ship itself, she’d be safer than any of the others. Venka becomes furious at the idea that Nezha also believes she can no longer fight because she was raped. He insists he’s trying to protect her, but she doesn’t need his protection. When she was in that house being used and raped in the most brutal ways imaginable, she kept thinking that someone was coming to rescue her. But no one ever came. Nezha doesn’t change his mind. They sail north up the Murui until they reach the point where several rivers run into the Murui. Rin can see things swimming in the water, so she thinks they’re in the wrong spot, but then Kitay fishes something out of the river. A pig’s bladder filled with the acid that poisons the river. The bladder is somewhat resistant, allowing the bladders to flow down the river for a while before releasing the poison. Their ship lands and they’re placed on the shore in a few different areas to search for the spot where the bladders are being released from. The Cike (including Kitay) find it first. They clear out the area before entering the building. It’s a makeshift slaughterhouse; pigs being killed only for their bladder and the rest of their bodies being left to rot. There are barrels of the poison and above them, rows of canisters that Rin recognizes. They’re what the Federation used to release the poison gas. Niang comes out of the back. She is the mastermind behind the poison - it took her weeks to figure out how to turn the gas into a liquid. She is not about to allow traitors to divide this country. Kitay and Rin try to talk to Niang, but Niang is not interested in what they have to say. Kitay asks how she can be okay with killing so many southerners. Niang retorts that northerners are dying too. Vaisra gave them blighted grain seeds months ago that did not grow. Between the bad crops and the blockade, they’re going to starve. Besides, Rin didn’t care about killing when she destroyed Mugen. There were NIkara on that island too. Niang’s own brothers were captured and taken to the island to live in work camps. This is the first time that Rin has heard of this, it can’t be true. She looks at Kitay, but he won’t meet her eyes. He’s also done talking - he shoots Niang in the chest and kills her. Outside, they decide to use a controlled burn to get rid of the poison canisters and barrels in the building. They take two men prisoner. When they meet up with Jinzha, they tell him to have someone check the building since there could be canisters that survived. Jinzha takes the prisoner and has them publicly tortured. Surprisingly, Kitay has less of a problem with this than Rin or Nezha. Later when they rejoin the rest of the fleet, Kitay sits with Rin. He doesn’t know what to do anymore. It feels like he’s still hiding in Golyn Niis, he can still hear the screams. Everything since then seems like a dream, like he’s still there but he no longer knows if it’s the Federation or Nikan causing the screaming. Rin understands; she tries not to think of what she did to Mugen. She just remembers wanting everything to stop. She just wanted the war to end. Rin and the rest of the Cike (which now just includes Kitay) get moved to Jinzha’s ship, partly because they have trouble following orders and partly because that’s where the Hesperians are. They want to keep an eye on Rin. Nezha follows with his own ship just behind them. They sail north through Hare Province, taking cities and towns as they pass. The first town they conquer they use as an example. It’s laughably easy to take. Once the town’s soldiers are killed, Jinzha lines the rest of the men up on the beach while the women and children line up in the village. They’re told that they have the opportunity to join the Republic. They men will vote on whether to join in the morning. None of the civilians are to be killed, nor are they to be fed until the vote is over. I’m the morning, the men vote to join the Republic. A ship is left behind to make sure there are no issues and to collect their monthly grain tax, to be collected for the length of the war. One seventh of their grain will be collected, which should still leave them just enough to live on. The other villages are mostly the same. Some meet them already flying the dragon flag, not interested in even putting up a fight. They collect those warriors and add them to their fleet, but they send them in front of their ships to keep an eye on them. Rin continues to take the laudanum when Petra performs her tests. Petra claims that science tells them that the Nikara are lesser than the Hesperians. Their eyes are not developed so they don’t see as much, their brains are smaller. Hesperians are better, the Maker made it so. That’s just science. Rin does not always have arguments against Petra. A storm forces the fleet to anchor for a few days. Rin looks out her window and for a second thinks she sees a set of malicious, blue-green eyes, but they’re gone in a flash. She joins some of the Cike belowdecks as they play cards. Saikhara has forbidden any vices: cards, gambling, drinking, prostitution, because of her Hesperian education, but Vaisra does not enforce these rules so nearly everyone ignores them. Chaghan and Xara come in. Rin has not spoken to Chaghan since they tried to break her seal. He makes a few quips before leaving, but Qara seems concerned about what Petra is doing to Rin. Baji asks if Rin and Chaghan fought about Altan. Altan was Chaghan’s only friend and he’s still not over losing him. The storm passes. Just one boat capsizes and only three men drown - not too bad. They prepare to go to Ram Province where the warlord, Tsung Ho, will have absolutely no reason to treat with them. He hates Vaisra. They strategize on what the best approach is. They have more men, but the walls of the Ram capital city are thick. They won’t be able to break them, and a siege is a waste of time, so they decide to wait for reinforcements. Rin comes up with an idea. Send a delegation to speak with Tsung Ho and make them look worse off than they are. Let Tsung underestimate them. In the meantime, they can sneak a small group inside to open the doors to the fleet. Rin knows exactly which men to send in. As Baji and Suni, with a small group of soldiers, sails into the city on a boat that appears to be a smuggler’s ship, Jinzha hides the majority of their ships in a canyon crevice while conspicuously sailing a small number of ships towards Tiger Province. They send Kitay in to negotiate with Tsung Ho, specifically because he’s a terrible negotiator. He does exactly what they need him to do, and Ho does not seem at all concerned about the Republic. But the gate does not open. The fleet is forced to show its strength and sail forward. Rin helps one of their siege tower ships get men inside the gate and then she sees Baji and Suni. They’re fine, just late, and they open the gate for the fleet. It seems like it will be pretty cut and dried from here, but the Ram Militia calls for reinforcements - and Rin’s blood boils when those reinforcements are Federation soldiers. They were already inside the gates. Ram must’ve aligned with the Federation. She can only see one way to end this quickly and she runs for Ho’s palace. Baji protects the door for her. She can’t find Ho inside, but she does find his wives and his infant son. She uses the son as leverage to lure Ho out. She doesn’t hurt the baby, but she certainly makes Ho pay for aligning with Mugen. When the battle is won, the republic has to decide what to do with a thousand Federation soldiers and the rest of the Eighth Militia. Rin wants them killed, but everyone else thinks they should be put to work on the ships. The others will be given the chance to join the Republic like normal. Rin can’t believe it and she attacks Jinzha. She doesn’t get far. She is taken to the woods and left there to think about what she’s done. She gets drunk instead. When Nezha comes to retrieve her, she no longer believes that a Republic will work. These people are too cowardly to rule themselves. Vaisra should put himself up as emperor instead. Nezha disagrees. The people in the south are not lesser that northerners, but they are less educated. They deserve to be taught. Rin says that will never work. The rest of the north will never see the south any differently than they do now, as dirt. Nezha breaks the news to her that she’s been demoted. She is now just a foot soldier without any rank and the rest of the Cike will be assimilated into the Republic’s army, they are no longer under Rin’s command. Ramsa doesn’t take the news well. He and the rest of the Cike followed Rin out of loyalty and to stay together - and she didn’t even fight for them. Honestly, she doesn’t want the responsibility of leading. All she’s done is hurt Unegen, drive off Enki, and get Aratsha killed. Being a foot soldier has the added benefit of exhausting her until she can’t think about Altan or the decimation of Mugen. She is constantly sent in with the front lines, and she gets a reputation for being a good fighter. She relishes it. She doesn’t speak to the Cike anymore. And she stops missing the fire quite so much. She wonders if this is the seal taking away her memories. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad after all, to forget about Altan and Mugen forever. But she is still forced to see Petra, who has become more invasive and is now withholding the laudanum. She even tempts Rin with opium, but Rin continues to tell her she has been sealed off from her fire. Petra doesn’t believe her. When Rin leaves, she takes the opium with her, but she doesn’t use it. She hides it in case she ever needs it. She now learns about what’s happening in the meetings secondhand from Kitay and he uses her to bounce his ideas off of. He thinks the war has been too easy and Daji is up to something. No one wants to believe him; he’s worried about being stuck in the north during their hostile winters. They take Hare and Ram Provinces easily, sending the warlords to Vaisra for judgement. Only once is there a real problem with the missionaries on the ship, when they speak to the Ram traitors that were put to work. The traitors take the missionaries hostage and the Hesperian general, Tarquet, orders the traitors killed by arquebuses. Jinzha is not pleased, but Tarquet has free rein on this ship. He humiliates Jinzha and makes sure that Jinzha remembers that. It’s not until they get to Rat Province that they run into any other trouble. Rat has the best espionage soldiers in the entire Militia and serve as the intelligence branch. The Rat Warlord evacuated the rural areas and burned everything, so the Republic has no supplies to use as they travel. He called his people to his capital of Baraya, which has even thicker walls than Hare did, and is miles inland on top of that. They will not be able to use their siege towers. Kitay wants them to return for the winter, otherwise they will starve, and Nezha agrees with him. But Jinzha no longer listens to anyone who doesn’t agree with him. He wants to press north as fast as possible. They pull the siege tower ships using the trunks of trees as rollers - it is slow and cumbersome, back-breaking work. Militia scouts spot them and slowly mount an attack. They do not come on strong but pick the Republic soldiers off from mountainside hideaways and have small but frequent skirmishes. The Republic navy is used to fighting on the water, it’s where they feel comfortable. They start to lose morale, and they have no routes in which to escape. They return the ships to the water, and the next day snow begins to fall. It turns into a full-blown blizzard that grounds them for several days. Once the blizzard is done, they stay for another day to celebrate the New Year. Nezha, Rin, and Kitay celebrate together and Rin makes them dumplings. They debate what the next great military innovation would be. Kitay votes arquebuses but Rin says an army of shaman. She’s stunned when no one agrees with her. Nezha says he’s never met a shaman fully in control of their mind (no offense) and Kitay says a shaman army would be chaos. Rin goes off to pee and trips. She feels something soft when she lands and uncovers a body, then another, and another. A whole village of people who’d been fleeing from the Republic who were caught outside in the storm and decided that fighting just to live was getting too hard. For the first time, Rin and the others realize that in this war, they are the oppressors. Jinzha decides to bypass Baraya and go straight to Boyang. Kitay thinks he’s gone mad. Boyang is a military outpost between Rat and Tiger Provinces. Yes, it would be a very strategic place to take and hunker down for the winter, but it’s also very likely that the Imperial Fleet is already there. Jinzha doesn’t care. This is about pride: proving to the Hesperians that they deserve help and proving to his father that he deserves his position. The fleet begins to travel through a mountain range but is warned away with a banner tied to lanterns. Kitay has someone shoot one of the lanterns. It explodes; it was filled with a bunch of smaller bombs. The explosion is incredibly loud and long. Kitay convinces them to backtrack. They try a second route, but this one does not turn out better. There are incendiary devices placed underneath the water. When the first skimmer hits a device, it sets off a chain of other devices. They try to retreat but the ships aren’t quick enough. They lose several ships and Nezha’s ship is next in line to be hit. A wall of water like a cyclone surrounds his ship and protects them. At the center of that cyclone is Nezha. The wall of water stops the fire and shrapnel and deadens the explosions. When Nezha collapses, the wall does too. Rin jumps onto Nezha’s deck and runs to him. He’s screaming in pain; she knows what that feels like. When Jinzha arrives worried about his brother, she sends someone to her room for her opium and forces it down Nezha’s throat just before he loses control. She sits with Nezha in the infirmary. The family doctor knew that he had seizures and headaches since he was twelve, and that opium was the only way to calm him, but he’d never seen it himself. Could Nezha have become a shaman as a child? Why didn’t he tell her? Does he not trust her? When he wakes up, she asks him but he’s barely lucid. She doesn’t push him for an answer but does stay when he asks her not to go. The fleet is stuck there for three days as they burn their dead. Another missionary named Augus, one who does not believe in Petra’s methods, explains that the Maker’s children go to a paradise when they die. That includes barbarians like the Nikara. Rin begins to see the appeal of the Maker. Rin sees Nezha for the first time in two days. He tries to avoid her, but she follows him and demands answers. He insists he is not a shaman and that she didn’t see anything. He doesn’t want this! She tells him any of the shamans can teach him to control it and Nezha gets so angry he punches a hole in the hull of the ship. He’s angry, but he doesn’t want to hurt Rin. Kitay figures out how the Empire put explosives in the water without triggering them. Again, animal organs. They send men swimming in the freezing river to detonate the bombs before the fleet gets there. Jinzha decides they will continue to Boyang. Kitay concedes that they really don’t have much choice. To turn back now would be giving up much of what they’ve gained, but going forward is likely to be a bloodbath. The Imperial Fleet is probably already in Boyang, and the lake has probably been booby trapped. Their only hope is that Daji hasn’t had time to build up a good-sized fleet. Nezha continues to avoid Rin. When they reach Boyang, they find that the fleet is there. Jinzha does the honorable thing and gives Chang En the chance to surrender which En, who Jinzha apprenticed under, declines. Chang En is so brutal that Rin cannot stop watching him as he fights. The fight is not going well for the Republic, and then Feylen enters for the Empire. He’s been told to bring Rin to Daji - he can’t kill Rin, but he can hurt her a lot. He tosses her around like a rag doll, destroying the Republic’s ships easily. Rin looks at Nezha. He looks horrified, but he does not call his god. Feylen tosses Rin away and Kitay comes to her. Chaghan tries to stop Feylen and for a moment, it looks like he might be successful. But then Qara begins to scream. Chaghan goes limp and Feylen throws both him and Qara overboard, just before Rin and Kitay fall through the floorboards into the water below. Rin gets ahold of Kitay, but the current pulls them away from the ship and toward the waterfall. They go over the short but deadly edge. Rin wakes up on the riverbank as Qara gives her mouth to mouth. Qara and Chaghan both survived the falls and pulled Rin and Kitay out of the water. A bunch of missionaries survived too, they sit in shock by themselves on the bank. Kitay builds a fire for the missionaries, then for the four of them. Chaghan and Rin fight over Altan again, and how Rin couldn’t wait to be stripped of command because all she wants to do is take orders like a dog. Rin punches Chaghan but Kitay pulls her away, now is not the time. Not when they’re trapped in enemy territory. And then they’re faced with an enemy Rin does not recognize but Chaghan and Qara do. It’s their cousin Bekter and his mother, the Sorqan Sira, members of the Ketreyid. Their Sorqan Sara is sister to the twins’ mother Kalagan. She tells the twins that Kalagan’s experiment has proven to be a failure, they are going to take the Nikara’s ability to call the gods away because the Nikara cannot be trusted. Rin is outraged. They have every right to call the gods. The Ketreyid don’t own that knowledge, and they can’t take it away. The Sorqan Sara tells her that she’s wrong about that and shows Rin a vision of the Trifecta, but much younger than now. The Trifecta speaks to the Sorqan Sira and Kalagan. Rin realizes that the Dragon Emperor, Riga, must’ve been a Yin because he looks so much like Nezha and his family, but Riga’s face shows nothing but kindness. It’s no wonder soldiers lined up to follow him. But the Jiang in this vision does not line up with the Jiang that Rin knew. He is cruel and sharp tongued. He does not care that the Ketreyids took them in and showed them the way to become shaman. None of the Trifecta care when they’re told that there’s so much more for them to learn still. The Sorqan Sira’s daughter Tseveri can tell that the Trifecta have anchored to each other, believing it will make them stronger, but she predicts it will do the opposite. The Ketreyids are asking the Trifecta to rein in the Horse Warlord (pun intended) who has begun encroaching on their territory. It’s clear that Tseveri considers Jiang a friend, she calls him by his given name Ziya, but he decides the Horse Warlord is more important than whatever relationship they have. He begins to call the menagerie, and Rin can see the animals roiling under his skin as well as in the shadows behind him. Jiang punches through Tseveri’s chest and rips out her heart. When the vision clears, Rin tries to make a deal with the Sorqan Sira. She can help get rid of Daji; she wants Daji dead too. The Sorqan Sara is not interested. The shaman of Nikan are not stable. But Chaghan insists that Rin is different. At her worst, she fought and won. She hasn’t touched opium for months. The Sorqan Sira looks into Rin’s mind to see for herself and spots the seal, three times bigger than it was before. She laughs. Daji is afraid of Rin. She reconsiders - they aren’t going to kill Rin. They’re doing to fix her. They build a yurt: a dome of sticks and cloth. Chaghan explains that the seal will slowly make Rin go mad, but a sweat is her best chance of breaking the seal. Rin’s pissed off he didn’t mention this earlier, but he didn’t want to worry her with something they couldn’t do anything about. Inside the yurt, it’s just Rin and the Sorqan Sira. Hot stones are placed inside and water poured over them until the steam becomes unbearable. Thankfully, Rin has learned to meditate. She finds Daji’s illusion waiting for her. It’s Rin’s wedding day. Kitay is there, as is Irjah and Tutor Feyrik. She sees Kesegi, still twelve, Ramsa, and Altan. In this world, Speer was not destroyed and their biggest worries are simple border skirmishes. This is what makes Rin panic as she realizes that something is wrong. Altan tries to get her to come sit with him, believing she just has cold feet. Can’t have a runaway bride, whoever the groom is will be disappointed. But Rin knows she can’t go with Altan or Daji will win. The vision changes and it’s just her and Altan. He kisses her, he knows this is what she always wanted. When that doesn’t work, he begins to choke her. The Sorqan Sira calls her out of the vision to remind her to stay strong before Rin descends again. She fights back this time. Altan tells her all the worst things she thinks about herself: that she is the reason he’s dead; she can never live up to him; she can’t even call the fire; she’s a poor excuse for a Speerly. But she’s heard it all before, she hears it all the time in her own head. She admits that she loved him, but not the real Altan. She loved the Altan that she had placed on a pedestal, but she never knew the real him. And she’ll never get the chance to. She stabs him with the trident and the vision ends. The Sorqan Sira kneels above Rin and pulls something out of her. A gross blob of black - the venom Daji left inside of her. The Sorqan Sira destroys it and they leave the yurt. Kitay has been waiting for hours outside and helps Rin, who is weak. On her chest is a black handprint. Not from the Sorqan Sira, but a parting gift from Altan. Rin assures Kitay that Altan can’t hurt her anymore. She’s asked to call the fire and it’s easier than ever to access the anger, but the fire doesn’t come. The seal pulses in her mind again. Rin holds a flame for just an instant before it leaves her. The Sorqan Sira tells Rin there is another way to get the fire back. The seal is neutralized, but Daji’s venom ran deep and still blocks Rin from the spirit realm. And it will block her until Daji releases her, which Daji will not willingly do. If Rin had an anchor, she could use them to call the fire. The Sorqan Sira looks at Kitay. An anchor like Qara is to Chaghan. Kitay would not be a shaman himself, but he would lend his mind to one. Rin says no. Kitay is the best person she’s ever known, and she does not want the Phoenix to corrupt him. But Kitay says it’s not up to her. This could win the war for them, and it’s his call. Qara and Chaghan are enlisted to help prepare them both physically and mentally. They tell Rin and Kitay what will be involved while drawing matching letters down both of their arms from shoulder to the tips of their middle fingers. Each line of each letter must be drawn on both Rin and Kitay at the same time. Qara explains that having an anchor will make Rin more stable, it will be harder for the Phoenix to take over her body because her spirit won’t leave it for long enough. Most of the time, there are only anchor pairs but there have on occasion been three people to anchor one another. It makes them unstable because the relationship can become unbalanced, but it also makes them incredibly powerful. Like the Trifecta. And when one dies, those they’re anchored to also die. Which means that the Dragon Emperor is still alive somehow, otherwise Daji would be dead. It is possible to break the anchor if both people chose to do so and they’re in the same place, but Daji would not be so powerful if that had happened. After the letters are written, Kitay and Rin take some mushrooms and are led to perform the ritual. They make a sacrifice together, a deer, and follow the deer’s soul. They stand before one another completely naked in body, mind, and soul. Kitay can see all of Rin’s most secret thoughts, like how she likes to feel pain, and vice versa. She can see Kitay’s anxiety at being the smartest person in the room and his grief about his father and the loss of his country. And his rage. His anger, not explosive like Rin’s, but hot and determined. Run feels the Phoenix and delights in the fire, but she nearly overwhelms Kitay in the process. She must learn to listen to what Kitay needs too. And when the ritual is done, she can call the fire, but the Phoenix is quieter. Later, she asks Qara if it’s possible to overwhelm Kitay and kill him. Qara tells her that she won’t, not if she loves him. The Sorqan Sira prepares Rin and Kitay to leave the next day, giving them a single horse for them both. She discusses with Rin and Kitay what to do with the Hesperians - it’s dangerous to let them go and have them spread their gospel. Rin says not to kill them but don’t give their arquebuses back either. Let them build a raft and try to make it back to Arlong on their own. They have a decent shot of making it. Chaghan tells Rin that the Sorqan Sira is taking him and Qara back north. She no longer trusts them since they didn’t expose the Cike when the Cike (and Altan) became unstable. She asks why he hates her, but he doesn’t. He just watched her make all the same mistakes that Altan had made and was unable to do anything about it. He’s not happy about going north. They haven’t been there since they were eleven, a decade ago, and the Ketreyids won’t accept them. They still blame the Naimads and Chaghan’s mother for what happened with the Trifecta since she argued to give them the information that allowed them to become shaman. The Sorqan Sira is giving them no instruction on how to proceed, just letting Rin and Kitay loose. If Rin loses it, they will kill Kitay and take her with him. An insurance policy. Rin thinks she’s better than the Trifecta, she won’t go bad like they did, but the Trifecta thought the same thing. They hear arquebuses shooting and run back to camp. Somehow, the Hesperians have gotten loose and grabbed their weapons. Some of them are taken down by the Ketreyid archers, some run, but Augus stays. The Sorqan Sira orders her archers to take aim and fire at him, but they don’t. This is a coup by her very own son, Bekter, who has decided to get vengeance for his sister, and he has decided his mother is too weak and lenient. But he cannot kill his mother himself, so he’s given the arquebuses back to the Hesperians. Augus is the one who shoots and kills the Sorqan Sira. Chaghan runs to her side, Augus shoots again. Qara pushes her brother out of the way and is shot instead. Rin kills Augus. Bekter and the others ride north and Qara forces Chaghan to break their anchor as she dies. He wants to go with her, but she needs him to stay. Chaghan explains that Bekter is now Chieftain and he will kill all of the Naimads. Rin and Kitay give Chaghan their horse to ride north and warn his people. To fight for them. It will take them longer to reach where they need to go, but they’ll still get there. Kitay builds them a raft. It takes weeks to get back to Arlong. During that time, Kitay tests Rin’s abilities. If he’s going to be able to use her as a weapon to the best of her abilities, he needs to know what she can do. Calling the fire is painful for him, he can hear it wanting more. It makes him want to eat, to devour. But he tells her not to stop unless he specifically tells her to. When they reach Arlong, Nezha is so relieved to see her that he wraps her in a hug that lasts way longer than it should. Baji, Suni, and Ramsa are all happy to see her as well. Venka just tells her she smells. Rin meets with Vaisra and tells him what happened. He’s happy she can call the fire again but worried the Hesperians will find out what happened with Augus and the others in the Gray Company that were killed. It could ruin their chances of getting Hesperian help, but honestly, it’s looking less and less like the Hesperians are going to commit to any sort of help anyway. Petra has decided that her tests on Rin can be paused for now - and they still don’t know that Baji and Suni are shaman. Vaisra asks Rin if she’s seen Jinzha, but she hasn’t. Not since she went into the river. She demands to return to her role as Commander of the Cike, and it is granted. After the meeting, Nezha asks to speak to her privately and explain how he is not a shaman. He tells her about the day he and Mingzha went to the cove, his brothers Jinzha and Muzha were out of town, Vaisra was in Sinegard, and their mother was sick. A dragon came out of the water and he was absolutely beautiful, right up until he ate Mingzha. But he didn’t eat Nezha, he claimed him instead. He is constantly calling to Nezha, but Nezha knows that if he goes back to the cove, he will become the Dragon’s next victim. He will join the faces that float just under the water. He can’t die, the Dragon won’t let him, and he’s tried several different ways. The Dragon wants Nezha for himself. And it hurts - it’s so painful. He didn’t choose any of this, it was thrust on him. Rin tells him that is how it feels for all shamans. The only difference between them is that Nezha refuses to face it. They’re both antagonistic and unapologetic, but then Nezha says that maybe all shamans should be killed. Altan is better off that way. He’s crossed a line and when they part, Rin is not sure they will be friends any longer. This is a different kind of argument; one you don’t come back from. She finds the Cike and tells them what happened. They’re all pretty upset about how Chaghan and Qara were spying on them, but it would’ve been helpful to have them help deal with Feylen. When someone mentions refugee patrols, Rin demands to see what they’re talking about. Baji shows her the hastily erected barrier between the people who live in Arlong and the refugees who are flooding in. The vast majority of the refugees are from the southern provinces - running from pockets of Federation soldiers. Rin wiped out the island, but that didn’t do anything to the warriors who were already in Nikan. Daji has convinced the Federation to fight for her somehow and soon, Arlong will be sandwiched between the Mugenese from the South and Daji from the North. When Rin hears that there are people from Rooster Province, she runs through the refugee camp looking for Tutor Feyrik and Kesegi. She finds Kesegi with Auntie Fang. Uncle Fang has died. They are starving like the other refugees. They don’t have food or blankets for warmth. They haven’t seen Tutor Feyrik since they started toward Arlong. They ask Rin to help them get food and Auntie Fang lashes out at her when Rin claims she can’t get them provisions. Rin isn’t sure what she expected when she found her foster family, but it wasn’t this. Her relationship with the Fangs makes her a de facto liaison for the refugees, a job that leaves everybody frustrated and disappointed: the refugees, the Republic, and Rin. She doesn’t really try to help the refugees. She has worked so hard to distance herself from her roots but here they are, dragging her back in. She can see how the citizens of Rooster are seen: as dirty and stupid. Less than dirt. Soon, Daji sends a messenger to Vaisra. He’s brought before Vaisra, his generals, and his Warlords. The messenger brings tidings of Yin Jinzha. The messenger gives them dumplings, rotted from the length of the journey. The meat inside is Jinzha. Vaisra gives a signal and Rin kills the messenger. Inside the basket of dumplings was a note. She’s coming for them. Vaisra sends out scouts and they find it’s true, Daji has more ships than before and they’re sailing to force a confrontation at Arlong. They only have about two weeks before Daji gets there. Vaisra tells them to call any soldiers back from the south to prepare to face her. The southern warlords balk at that. He swore to help them fight the Federation! He insists that he will. Plus, Mugen will retreat once Daji is defeated. As for now, they cannot fight a war on two fronts and the southern warlords don’t have any other choice but to follow Vaisra, they cannot fight the Federation on their own. Nezha stands up to his father. Nezha gets upset. Vaisra is sentencing people, whole provinces to death! Vaisra tries to silence him, Jinzha would never have defied him like this. Nezha admits that was true - Jinzha was headstrong and didn’t listen to any strategists either. He turns to Rin, but he doesn’t find any support. Rin agrees with Vaisra. Vaisra sends two ships north to delay the Empire’s fleet for as long as possible. Nezha commands the first fleet, which is stationed at a fort along the river and are to hold it for as long as possible. Rin volunteers the Cike to go with the second fleet. Kitay gives her pages of notes with delay tactics, they implement every one along the river. When they’ve gone as far north as they can, they sink Jinzha’s pet project - his warship that was never finished. They make sure the entire ship is sunk below the surface of the water. They camp that night and can hear explosions from the fort where Nezha’s fleet is holding. Rin can’t sleep for fear for Nezha. Baji recognizes that feeling - she’s in love. He’s why she’s fighting for the Republic. She scoffs at him. When Nezha’s fort falls and his fleet retreats inland, Rin can only hope he’s with them. Then, they spot the Empire’s fleet sailing down the river and realize they are doomed. Daji has a ship that can transport thousands of soldiers at once. Maybe upwards of ten thousand. And behind Daji’s ships, they spot Tsolin’s ships. He’s defected from the Republic. Rin’s fleet hurries back to Arlong to warn them, but they already know. Tsolin sent them a message, detailing how difficult the decision was but he must take care of his people as best as he can. Before she left to delay the Empire’s fleet, Rin took her trident to the blacksmith. She’s done trying to become Altan and instead, had it melted down and made into a sword. She’s always been better with a sword. The blacksmith is able to make her two out of the material. As she returns to the barracks, she is stopped by Kesegi, who has snuck past the refugee barrier. He says he needs her help right away and she goes with him, but he leads her to the three southern warlords. They want to abandon Vaisra and defend their own provinces, and they believe that Rin will come with them since she is from Rooster. But Rin remembers how it didn’t matter to them that she was from Rooster before, how they were willing to trade her to the Hesperians in an instant. Besides, they cannot fight on their own, the southern provinces do not have the numbers. Gurubai, the Monkey Warlord, insists that Vaisra and the Hesperians have a deal already made. They knew the Mugenese were coming to invade Nikan before the Third Poppy War. The Hesperians never came to help, not even when Golyn Niis was being razed to the ground. And Vaisra and his province were barely touched during the third war. He even sent his wife to Hesperia just in time for her to stay safe. And now, once Vaisra removes Daji, the Hesperians will throw their support behind him not as a republic, but as Nikan’s next emperor. Rin refuses to believe that and even if it is true, the southern provinces still don’t have any choice than to stay the course. They’re welcome to try their luck on their own against the Federation, but Rin won’t join them. She won’t betray her friends like that. Kesegi is angry that Rin didn’t join the warlords, but he’s angrier that she abandoned him in Rooster with his abusive parents and never even wrote to him. She just left for Sinegard and pretended he didn’t exist. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she knows that he’s not wrong. Before their fight can go any further, Rin hears the sounds of a struggle and tells Kesegi to run. She finds a Hesperian raping a refugee and Rin kills the man. She and the girl watch the man die and Rin knows there will be hell to pay when Tarquet discovers the man is missing. She needs to get rid of the body. Rin puts the body in a small boat, rows out to sea, weighs him down, and throws him in the water. She just hopes the Hesperians won’t notice right away that he’s missing. She tells Kitay what happened. He wants to know why Rin was sneaking around and she tells him how she was ambushed by the warlords and their suspicions about Vaisra and the Hesperians. Kitay thinks it makes sense, and Rin realizes what a fool she has been. How she has been doing exactly what everyone says she does - blindly follow orders and not looking at the big picture. They can’t defect to Daji now, that’s not an option; they’ll die if they defect to the south; Rin will be hunted by the Hesperians if she leaves Arlong; and that’s all if Feylen doesn’t kill them in a couple days. There are no good options for them. So instead, Kitay pivots. He’s made Rin something. He shows her the leather contraption that will make her fly, essentially giving her wings. He and Ramsa have been working on it together. They take the contraption to the cliffs so Rin can practice with the wings, and she slowly gets the hang of it. She’s not graceful, but she can make it work. This will help her fight Feylen. Kitay mentions that she will be quite conspicuous, it would be best if she had some archers to help protect her. She knows of one that will leap at the chance. She takes Venka one of the Ketreyid’s bows that she and Kitay brought with them to Arlong. The craftsmanship is beautiful and exceptionally rare. Rin is in charge of the Cike and she chooses who to recruit - and she wants Venka. Venka is fast and her accuracy is very good, even though her arms will not ever be capable of what they used to do. Venka accepts. Rin hasn’t seen her look this happy in years. Vaisra explains to his commanders, many of which are barely older than Rin, that Daji will come in on the water but will want to bring the battle on to land as soon as she can. On land, she has superior numbers and she will win. But if they can keep her on the river, they just might just survive. Target any ships that have a trebuchet and do their best to bring down the giant warship. Kitay mentions the mountain range, if he were in charge of Daji’s troops and had her numbers, he would bring troops across the mountain range as well. They refuse to listen to him. When one commander suggests a plan they haven’t yet discussed, surrender, he is immediately demoted, dismissed, and his aide is promoted in his place. And now we can see why all the commanders are so young. Vaisra sends Eriden after Hu, to make sure the man doesn’t defect. Rin tells the meeting about her wings and how she can use them to defeat Feylen. At least that’s one threat they won’t have to worry about as much. After the meeting is over, Vaisra gives Rin further orders. Once the battle is done, she is to kill Moag. Moag hasn’t sent any help to them and once the Republic is in place, Vaisra will not be anywhere near as lenient on her opium trade as Daji is. It’s another war just waiting to happen, which he plans to nip in the bud. The Cike rig the cliffs up with explosives when Rin gets an idea. She sends a letter to Moag. The next morning, Rin paces as she waits for the Empire to arrive. Nezha comes to see her. He looks like a mess. He had a dream that Rin was shot down, he saw her fall into the water and drown because he was unable to save her. She retorts that she didn’t think he’d want to see her again anyway. Wouldn’t it be better if all shamans were dead? But he didn’t mean that. He begins to cry. He doesn’t want to leave it like this between them. He was mad when she called him a coward. She doesn’t understand what the Dragon did to him. She insists that she does. It’s the same thing the Phoenix does to her. But he refuses to idolize his abuser like she does. That passes her off. He is a coward. He could save these men, but he doesn’t. He’s a commander. Act like it! When she tries to leave, he blocks her. He doesn’t want this to be their last conversation, and she has more enemies than she thinks she does. He will do whatever she needs him to do if she will just talk to him. They could both die out there, especially if they go against Feylen. Rin assures him that Feylen won’t be a problem. She puts her hand on his shoulder. With her fire and his water, they can deal with the wind. Rin, Kitay, and Venka wait on a cliff as the Empire’s ships approach Arlong. The rest of the Cike are with the Republic’s forces where they can do the most damage and hopefully remain undetected by the Hesperians. Chang En has tied his ships together, to stave off seasickness and prevent Feylen from blowing them away, but that’s easier for Rin’s fire to travel between ships. Does Daji not know that Rin can call the fire again? Rin is astounded at the size of the Empire’s fleet, especially swollen with Tsolin’s ships too. Nezha is at the forefront, his fleet has been given the task of breaking the Empire’s lines by sailing directly against them. A perilous job. Rin watches nervously. Once the Empire’s ships break through the gates, Rin strikes from the air. She takes a vat of oil and dumps it on the ships, lighting it up. When she returns to Kitay and Venka to regroup, they see that Nezha took Rin’s distraction and wedged his ships into the Empire’s fleet, succeeding in breaking it but now his ships stuck with nowhere to retreat. Militia soldiers are preparing to swarm Nezha’s ships. Just then, they see what Kitay predicted - ground troops coming over the mountain and heading straight for the refugee camp. Rin takes to the air, spelling out a message for the southern warlords to protect their people before then going to find Nezha. She burns her way to Nezha as he fight Jun. Jun would rather die than be taken prisoner, but when he turns his sword on himself, Nezha cuts Jun’s hand off. Jun screams that he made Nezha, but all he taught Nezha was fear. Rin is about to kill Jun when he throws himself overboard and does not surface again. Rin has a wet blanket thrown over her and she’s not able to call the fire. Chang En came prepared for her. When she pops her head out, Chang raises his sword, but Nezha tackles him. They fight but Nezha is not able to land any hits, Chang is too ruthless and too conniving. He taunts Nezha with what he did to Jinzha. Rin watches, unable to call the fire and feeling woozy. She begs the Phoenix and he finally comes to her. She burns Chang but does not kill him. Nezha gets that honor. Then the air goes very still. Rin grabs Nezha’s hand just as Feylen arrives and the ship’s floor is swept out from under them. They plunge into the river. Rin loses Nezha and is pulled down by the rubble. She’s able to free herself and swim to the surface where she sees Feylen throwing ships against the mountainside. She flies to meet him, hopefully her wings still work when they’re wet, and she tries to reach the man still inside Feylen. She thinks it works for a moment, but the god comes back unrelentingly. However, even the god cowers whenever she brings up Daji’s name. He’s afraid of Daji, but Rin doesn’t understand why. She doesn’t have time to figure it out, she explodes all of the bombs the Cike planted in the side of the mountain and buries Feylen under an actual mountain. Not even his wind is powerful enough to stave off the rocks that cover him. Rin surveys the battle, trying to figure out where to go next, but she’s hit with a javelin through the shoulder. She falls into the river and thinks for a moment that she’s dying, but Nezha saves her. He’s called the Dragon. He takes Rin to (relative) safety and she can tell that in addition to the shoulder wound, she’s been pierced in the back as well - potentially by her wing contraption, which is now twisted around her. Nezha rocks back and forth until he pulls out some opium and she’s able to burn it for him. When he calms, she prepares to fight again but she doesn’t need to. She sees Hesperian reinforcements are sailing toward them. Daji finds Rin and Nezha before anyone else. She looks terrible but she’s able to compel Rin to stand and listen to her. Vaisra hasn’t fixed anything. He’s just made the cracks wider so that there will be civil war for decades. She wants to know how Rin beat the seal and Rin reveals that she knows about the Ketreyids and Tseveri. She knows what the Trifecta did. Daji insists that the Trifecta did what needed to be done, just like Rin. Would Rin change what she did to Mugen? Rin knows that she wouldn’t. She would destroy Mugen all over again. But when Daji tries to force Rin to kneel, the Phoenix fights against her. Rin becomes the fire. She’s never felt so powerful. She could kill Daji, but Daji shows her what really happened with the Trifecta. How the Trifecta were left starving and beaten as children. How they were taken by the gods, painfully, ruthlessly. How they made their choice. The life of one woman, Tseveri. Of one small group of people, but for the greater good. They did not want to kill the Tseveri, she had convinced the Ketreyids to train them in the first place, and Jiang loved her, but they needed the land to unite the warlords. Rin points out that it’s the same stretch of land that Daji gave up to the Mugen. She didn’t have a problem letting it go then. Daji cut it off for the better do the rest of the country. She culled it, cut out the disease. She’s sorry about what happened to Rin and Altan, but she had to do what was best for her people. Rin doesn’t kill Daji. Daji is going to run but she invites Rin to come with her. Rin doesn’t get to choose. A ship mast comes crashing down right on Rin. She isn’t able to move. Daji tells her that at some point, Rin will need her. Come find her then. For now, she shows Rin the rest. A young Daji naked on the ground, bloodied from being raped. Riga already beaten into unconscious. Jiang being kicked repeatedly in the ribs. Not by a Mugen, but by a Hesperian. In fact, a Mugenese soldier saved them from the Hesperian that day. The Mugenese were puppets controlled by a mad emperor, but it was the Hesperians who gave the emperor his ideas. It is the Hesperians who want to wipe out the Nikara. It is the Hesperians that are the true enemy. She tells Rin to figure out who she’s fighting for and then come to find her. But do not trust Vaisra. He will trade Rin in an instant. Rin passes out and is found by Venka and Kitay. Venka goes to find a stretcher, but Kitay asks if Rin let Daji go. She doesn’t really know. Was she convinced by Daji or did she decide for herself, she isn’t sure. Kitay tells her to keep that to herself. Rin wakes up disoriented. Venka is there. She says that Rin will have scars but will get most of her mobility back. Tsolin has been captured and Chang is dead, but Jun escaped. The northern provinces are loyal to Jun, but with the Hesperians, Jun stands no chance. Whatever war is left will be short. Kitay comes and apologizes for not adding padding to the wings, he just didn’t have the time. He has a scar matching the one Rin got from the contraption, and he felt Rin’s pain. The rest of the Cike survived the battle as did Nezha. But Kitay asks what Rin did to Nezha. She tells him the whole of Nezha’s story but insists that she didn’t make him channel the Dragon. Kitay asks why Rin is so hard on Nezha. She says it’s because Nezha is being selfish but the real reason, which Kitay knows since he is Rin’s anchor (but she will never say out loud), is because Nezha has a choice. He still matters even if he doesn’t call his god. People still believe he has worth. The only reason Rin matters is because of the Phoenix. Kitay tells her that he has known Nezha a long time and he is more fragile than he looks. His haughtiness is a mask that he has perfected. He can still be a dick, but there is nothing that Nezha wouldn’t do for Rin. So, stop testing him. Nezha comes to see her next. He had been by her side almost constantly but was convinced to sleep for a while – which is when she finally woke up. Something between them has broken and Rin doesn’t know how to fix it. He’s glad she’s okay but asks if she actually saw Daji’s body. Her report says that Daji drowned, and Rin insists that she believes that’s what happened. She assures him she has never lied to him before, and she isn’t going to start now. Nezha is relieved. He likes it when they’re on the same side. So does she, and that’s no lie. There’s a parade honoring Arlong’s sacrifice and victory, but the southern warlords are conspicuously absent. The Hesperians are not. If anything, they’re more visible than ever, and there are a ton of them. Tsolin is executed. Vaisra makes Rin kill him. Tsolin says he thought Rin was the smart one, but she let Vaisra use her just like everyone else. Rin kills him. She has no choice. She can’t give Vaisra any reason to think her allegiance may have changed. At the funeral procession for the soldiers who died at Arlong, Rin manages to sneak away to see the rest of the Cike - who only have minor injuries. She tells them they aren’t safe; they aren’t surprised to hear it. They make a plan to escape right away. They’ll leave at sunrise when Suni and Baji get off patrol. They’ll meet outside the gates and make a plan then. That night, Rin is too jittery to sleep. She also can’t think of a reason to say no when Nezha invites her to come drinking with him and Venka. Kitay comes too - and they get very drunk. Venka asks what they would do if none of this had ever happened. As in, if Nikan wasn’t a country that went from war to war. Kitay would be studying something very niche, but Rin is good at war. Like Nikan, it may be all she’s good at. She’d probably be doing the same thing. But Nezha believes that’s all over now. The Republic won’t need war anymore, the warlords will be kept in line, and they’ll finally be able to use the resources of the country properly. When Venka starts puking, Kitay takes her to her room - silently reminding Rin that they’re leaving in a few hours, so she better be ready. Nezha asks her to go somewhere with him, he wants to show her something. He takes her to the water where the mollusks and fish shine their own light in the dark. He asks Rin why she hated him so much at Sinegard. She explains that he was rich and powerful and could have used that to kick her out. If she’d been kicked out, she would have had nowhere to go. She was afraid that he would be the reason she was forced out. The fact that their power imbalance never crossed his mind is a bit insulting, which he thinks is fair. She wonders if he will kiss her then, but he wants to ask her another question instead. Not yet, it’s her turn to ask a question first. Would he ever go back to the grotto? She thinks that she can defeat whatever the dragon is. It can’t be the actual god, Jiang taught her that’s impossible. Nezha says no and he never wants to discuss the grotto again. When it’s his turn for a question, he asks if she would ever give the fire up. The Hesperians want to put a memorandum on shamanism. All shamans would be required to stop calling their gods with harsh punishments instituted for disobedience, and they would also destroy any documents discussing shamanism. Rin scoffs. She just got her fire back. She’s not giving it up, good luck to anyone who tries to make her. Nezha pinpoints a spot on her back and asks if that’s where she’s injured. She confirms it is and believes he’s going to pull her backward to rest against his chest, but instead, he stabs her with a dagger in her wound. He kisses her forehead softly. She wakes up in a prison cell chained to a wall alone. She was so stupid! All she wanted was one night with Nezha before leaving him forever, but this is what she gets for loving someone. She screams until someone comes; she’s surprised to see it’s Saikhara. Saikhara has a whip and she’s angry enough to use it. They were supposed to use Rin to find out how to cure him! Why couldn’t Rin give them what they needed?! Rin realizes that Saikhara is talking about Nezha. That is why Saikhara was so desperate to bring the Hesperians, so that Petra could cure Nezha of his dragon mark. Rin laughs, they can’t cure Nezha. Saikhara becomes angrier and points toward the window, telling Rin to get a good look. She woke up just in time for the show. Outside, Baji and Suni are being marched onto a dais in front on soldiers - Hesperian and Republic alike. Vaisra announces that these men will be executed for being shaman. Rin watches as Baji and Suni are shot and killed. She is so angry that she calls Phoenix. She’s been drugged, but her tolerance is higher than the Vaisra thinks, the Phoenix answers her softly. She can’t call a lot of fire, but it’s enough to light Saikhara’s robes on fire. Soon, Eriden comes in with fireproof blankets and laudanum. When Rin wakes up again, Vaisra is there. She should have known this was coming. He can’t save her even if he wanted to, they know she killed a Hesperian soldier. Plus, Vaisra no longer needs her, not with the Hesperian arquebuses and technology. But they aren’t going to kill her. Tarquet and Petra come in. They’re going to use her for more experiments. Rin scares Petra off, but Tarquet is told to keep Rin drugged under armed guard at all times and it will be fine. Vaisra will deliver her to the Hesperian ship. In a moment of desperation, she asks if the Hesperians are taking Nezha too since he’s also a shaman. Vaisra is able to convince Tarquet that it’s just drugged babbling. When Rin wakes up next, she feels sharp pains in her arm but cannot identify what’s causing it. Then she realizes it’s happening to Kitay. The pains become white lines on her arm spelling out a word. ‘Where?’ Looking out the window, she says ‘palace 1-3’ meaning the third floor, first room in the center hallway. She hopes Kitay figures it out. The next thing she hears is the clatter of Kitay scaling the outer wall and coming through her window. He tries to pick the locks on her chains but can’t free her arm before they hear guards at the door. He is forced to stomp on her hand, twice, to break the bones and slip the cuff off. Then, high on laudanum and with only one hand, they both scale back down the rope to the execution platform where Rin sees that the bodies of Baji and Suni have not been removed. Kitay leads her across the platform, but soldiers have noticed them. Ramsa stands up on a ledge. She watches as he lights two bombs. The soldiers shoot Ramsa just as the first bomb goes off. He bought her time to escape, knowing that he wouldn’t survive himself. Kitay runs with her to a small boat where Venka waits for them, wearing a Hesperian uniform. Venka starts rowing as Kitay reminds her that she doesn’t have to come with them. She can stay with her family, but she wants to come. Venka heard from her father what was happening with the shaman and ran immediately to find Kitay. They were able to hide, but it took a while for them to find Rin. In addition, Vaisra is turning on the southern provinces. The Hesperians ringed the refugee camps “for their protection”. Soldiers from the southern provinces began to revolt. Vaisra and the others went for the southern warlords. The Rooster Warlord fought back when they came for him and was killed, Boar has been taken into custody, but Kitay isn’t sure if he will be executed or not. But Gurubai of Monkey Province was able to get away and be meeting them - if they can get away. Nezha stands on a cliff watching them sail away. Venka shoots at him. Nezha barely flinches, he just watches as they row away. He doesn’t call the guard. Rin and the others are able to escape to where two opium skimmers are flying Republic flags, but really, they’re Moag’s ships. Sarana and the Lilies help them on board and Rin is taken below to see the physician. They set her hand and splint it, but they’re not sure that she’ll ever be able to use it again. In fact, she may need to have it amputated at some point. When Rin goes back up top, she finds Venka and Kitay talking to Gurubai. The Hesperians have brought a trade agreement to Nikan which is distinctly one sided: the Hesperians get open trade with tariffs for their side, but none for the Nikara; they get to put military bases wherever they want; their missionaries have open access to the country; every decision Vaisra makes must be approved by a Consortium delegate; and the Hesperians will begin to trade in opium. Vaisra rolled over and signed every line. He knows that it’s better to be a puppet for the Hesperians and use their military might to consolidate the rest of the Empire than the alternative. Gurubai says it’s the occupation all over again. Rin doesn’t have many choices left to her now. She is wanted by the Republic and the Consortium, plus what’s left of the Federation. She can’t hide for long; everyone knows who she is and what she can do. So, she will go south and clean the Federation out so the southern refugees can come home. Then, she will use the southerners to fight against her enemies. Gurubai says the south is ready to fight, and they are especially ready to fight for her. The fire goddess from the south - they’ve been waiting for her to lead them. Kitay is astounded. They can’t go up against the biggest military in the world, but Rin says they have no choice. They can and they will. Suddenly, it’s clear. It was never Nikan versus Mugen. It was never Empire versus Republic. It has always been north versus south. The wealthy, better educated, more refined, all-around better northerners versus the dirty, poor, stupid, backward people of the southern provinces. It is Nezha versus Rin. And she will burn his heart out when they meet again. All of her affection for him has burned away into hatred, and the Phoenix stokes that fire.
Wrapping up the series... Years ago, Riga, Daji, and Ziya had to lie, torture, and murder to find out how to anchor each other. All those lives weigh heavily on Daji’s mind, but they really had no choice. Ziya was hurtling toward insanity with every passing day. And as Riga reminds her, they have too many enemies to turn back now, the war has gotten too big. Even so, Daji doesn’t really want to go through with it. She hopes that either she or Ziya have the courage to kill Riga and be done with him. But they have to kill him. Otherwise, they will be killed instead. Riga has never had any empathy, least of all now. As they kill the deer and are faced with each other’s naked souls, Daji wishes they had never gone down this road. From Ziya she feels fear and relief. He’s terrified of what he could become and is grateful to be bound. He never wanted any of this. But from Riga, she feels delight and ambition. He wants them to sit on thrones. She wants that too, if she’s honest. But Tseveri’s face haunts her. and the words that Tseveri said just before Ziya killed her: if they do this, one of them will die, one will rule, and one will sleep forever. It took two weeks for Rin to get to Ankhiluun and by that time, her hand had festered and it had to be removed. She struggles with phantom pains now and is jealous of anyone who has two hands. She also struggles with her inability to fight with her left hand and her refusal to practice at it. When Rin decimated the island of Mugen, it left platoons of Mugenese soldiers in Nikan without any real leadership. They found each other and solidified into bands that terrorize the south. Vaisra, then Dragon Warlord but now the President of the Nikara Republic, allowed the Mugenese free rein of the south to make the southern warlords weak and dependent. Rin and the newly established Southern Coalition has been eradicating those bands. Tonight is her first chance at leadership - until now she has been working as an independent party of one. This is her test. If she passes, she gets to lead the southern army. She cannot fail. She and Kitay get close to the camp in order to locate the guards. They overhear them talking. They’re young, and they just want to go home. They don’t even want to be here. But in order to kill them, Rin changes her view of them. They’re beasts, monkeys. It doesn’t matter if they die. Just the way Altan and Sinegard taught her. Kitay leaves, he stays out of the battles to help keep Rin safe. No one knows that he’s her anchor, but because he’s a brilliant strategist, it makes sense for him to stay behind. Having him out of the battle keeps Rin’s head on the task at hand while having him anchored to her makes her less reckless. It’s not just her life anymore. When the guards change, Rin sends out a signal, and eight squadrons pour into the unprepared camp. The fight is easy for the most part, but some of the Mugenese take hostages into a temple. Rin burns the whole temple. Mugenese, Nikara, potentially women and children -she burns them all. She wonders if Kitay can tell what she’s doing. After the fighting is done, liberation starts. Rin tells the survivors that the Southern Coalition has come to rescue them with the Phoenix at their head. They’re free now. Then they comb the village for Nikara survivors and Mugenese supplies. Rin manages to find a man she’s been looking for: Yang Souji. He leads a rebellion group called the Iron Wolves against the Mugenese. He shows her the defenses they built in this village to keep Mugen out and Rin can tell he’s trained. He was at Sinegard for two years before famine hit and he left to help his family. Now, that family is all dead from the flood. He takes her to where the Mugenese had made their headquarters and she collects all the papers for further review. That night, she can’t relax. She keeps hearing the screams from the temple, so she lights up her opium pipe. Daji’s seal flairs and shows her Altan. She shows Altan what she did that day, knowing that he will understand why she did it. The Iron Wolves do not come quietly into the fold. Souji wants nothing to do with fighting the Republic, he just wants to get rid of the Federation. Rin grabs him by the throat and burns him until he agrees to join, bringing the Iron Wolves with him. He can retain command of them (they love him, it’s not really a choice), but she’s in charge. Understood? She tells him to pack up; they’re going to head to the Coalition’s base camp. She thinks that most of the occupied territory is near the base camp on the border of Monkey Province, but Souji tells her she’s wrong. Most of the occupied territory is in south Rooster. The Coalition has been going the wrong way this whole time. The Federation is in Tikany. Rin leads them to basecamp where Gurubai waits, but on the way, Souji realizes something. They aren’t really liberators. They’re scavengers. They come in, remove the Federation, take what they need, and leave again just for the Federation to return later. Rin knows he’s not wrong, and it chafes at her. She’s been trying to convince the leaders of the Coalition to act quicker, but they won’t listen. So now, she has a plan. She speaks to Gurubai again, he’s pleased with how she performed on her mission and agrees to give her command of a single contingent, but not the whole army like she wanted. It turns out, he’s just as bad as Daji and Vaisra - making promises just to break them. She makes her case again to go north while Vaisra fights Daji but gets nowhere. Venka, who has gone north to spy, has written to say that it won’t be long before Vaisra and the Hesperians defeat the Empire completely. When that happens, they will turn their attention to the south, and the Coalition will not beat them. Gurubai tells her she can make her case to leadership again, but they’ve heard it all before. She decides to implement her plan. One of the leaders of the Coalition is Ma Lien, a bandit king who has been sick for some time. Before she marched out, she met with Lien’s right hand man Du Zhuden. They agreed that if Lien hadn’t died by the time she returned, they would help him along. Now, Zhuden meets with Rin to give her a vial of scorpion venom. She goes to Lien’s home and kills him, just so she can take his spot on the leadership council. When she speaks to the council, she tells them that she does not want to go north yet after all. She wants to go south and rid Rooster Province of the Federation. Gurubai and the others already knew that the Federation were in Tikany and didn’t tell Rin, writing Rooster off as a lost cause. She nearly loses control then, but someone comes in to announce that Ma Lien has died. Rin petitions for his seat, but Gurubai says Lien’s men will not follow her. Zhuden, who was at the meeting in Lien’s stead, announces that they will. And they want to go south with her. Souji announces that the Iron Wolves will be going too. Gurubai has no choice but to give Rin the go ahead. Rin has very little plan, basically consisting of getting as close to Leiyang as possible, as quickly as possible, without being seen. Leiyang seems to be the Federation’s primary hub in the south. Souji asks her to reconsider how they travel. He would rather go through the woods than on the roads. On the road, they will be seen even if they can avoid the outposts. And instead of taking the Federation head on, he wants to pick them off slowly. He gets the chance to show her what he means when a group Mugenese scouts come into view. He commands the iron Wolves to pack up and hide. Once the scouts get close enough, the Iron Wolves shoot them all with their arrows. Twenty or more Mugenese killed with no casualties of their own. They don’t be able to stay hidden forever, but if they do it this way, the Federation won’t know where they are or when they’re coming or how many fighters they have. It’s as much a psychological tactic as it is physical. Sinegard may have taught them to strategize, but they are no longer leading a conventional army in a conventional war. They need to think outside the box. Rin eventually sees the wisdom in this. They work their way south in a zigzag pattern, luring Federation soldiers out in small groups and picking them off. Souji and the Iron Wolves teach them how to forage for food as they march so they don’t go hungry. Souji’s tactics work but Rin knows they’ll only be able to do it for so long before they have to go face to face with the Federation army. By the time they get close enough to Leiyang, Rin’s soldiers are itching for some real action. Rin wants to charge in, but Souji recommends they sneak in and speak to the Township Chief instead. Souji has contacts, he can arrange the meeting. Rin begrudgingly agrees. They speak to Chief Lien, who at first wants them to stay away from Leiyang. The Federation has been punishing the townspeople for the Coalition’s activities, and the Mugenese know Rin is nearby. They’ve been burning every dark-skinned girl they can find. But after talking to Souji and Rin, Lien agrees to evacuate the people to the north. There are fields there where Rin’s people can hide and ambush the Mugenese. On their way back out, they see Lien’s son Qinen. Qinen doesn’t agree with his father. Qinen has a faction of rebels that have been arming the citizens, tracking the scouts’ movements, and setting up signals. Say the word and they will fight with Rin. With a warning glance from Souji, Rin tells Qinen to help by protecting the people inside Leiyang. That’s the most important thing. When Rin gets back to camp, there’s a letter waiting for her. She opens it cautiously, thinking it’s a trap, and finds a plea from Kesegi. He’d been bragging about knowing Rin and has been taken prisoner in Arlong. Vaisra and Nezha will only let him go if Rin turns herself in - alone. At the end of the letter, Nezha explains that the rest of the Coalition would be allowed to integrate into the Republic’s forces. Nezha knows Rin hates the Hesperians and he is not blind to what they do, but he cannot allow the country to become even more fractured. After a brief discussion with Kitay, Rin decides to ignore the letter. What is one foster brother to the whole of the south, if the letter is even real. She’s up all night, thinking about how Nezha knows where to find her and wondering if she’s making the wrong decision. She looks forward to the upcoming battle if only to for the distraction. But the next morning, Souji tells her something is wrong. The Mugenese have been tipped off about the ambush somehow. They plan to take all of Leiyang hostage. As Rin watches, Qinen’s rebels storm the Federation soldiers from inside Leiyang. The rebels are barely armed and even less trained, the soldiers cut them down quickly. But the civilians just keep coming. Then Rin steps up. The civilians made their choice. She burns everything. They wade through the wreckage. More civilians survive than Rin thought would, including Qinen - though he’s badly burned. But the town is completely decimated so the civilians are forced to march south with Rin’s army to try to find a new home. After Leiyang is taken out, the Mugenese in surrounding villages have no central organization. Things start to go crazy. Civilians everywhere rise up and overthrow the Federation soldiers. They torture and kill the soldiers, as well as anyone who ever thought about working with them. The only one who has a problem with this is Kitay. They clear the area of Mugenese in a couple of weeks. Venka comes to find them. She had to flee since her cover was blown. Rin asks quietly if Nezha has been sending anyone south, but Venka doesn’t think so. In fact, no one has seen Nezha in awhile. He was called back from Tiger Province by his father and hasn’t been seen much outside of the palace. When he was seen, he looked sickly. Some say he’s dying. Rin gets worried and asks if he was hurt in battle. Venka doesn’t know any details. She doesn’t even know if the rumors are true. Rin puts out the word that they’re taking on new recruits, women too. One woman tries to sell two teenaged girls to Rin, thinking she wanted them as prostitutes not as soldiers. Rin makes the woman leave but keeps the girls, Pipaji and Jiuto, who agree to become soldiers. They finally reach Tikany. The village where Rin grew up is destroyed and most of the people have been killed. The survivors they find are very much the worse for wear. They are terrified, crawling out of their hiding places once they’re assured the Federation soldiers are gone. Rin finds Tutor Feyrik’s home, but it’s completely empty. Of course, the whorehouses are left standing with girls still inside. Rin’s soldiers find a mass grave of Tikany citizens laid out in lines. Rin takes it upon herself to unbury most of them, though she doesn’t really expect to find Tutor Feyrik. They do find one survivor, a boy whose shoulder wound was not deep enough to kill him, but who had been buried with the others. They’re able to pull him up and get him to a physician quickly enough to give him a chance to survive. The Mugenese must’ve killed these people and evacuated just before Rin’s arrival if they boy hadn’t yet suffocated. Rin has to go into the distance and burn, just to let out some of her anger. She notices a little girl running nearby and approaches. The little girl is with a second girl and a young woman. The woman explains that when the Mugenese came, she convinced these two little girls who lived on the lane as her to come with her when she ran. They’ve been hiding with the woman in the hut, one of the younger girls says. The woman said she’d keep them safe, but she wouldn’t leave Tikany. She’s waiting for the daughter she lost in the Dragon King’s palace to come back. Rin knows it’s Daji and asks to be taken to her. Daji speaks to Rin alone. She looks awful - and not just from stress and dirt. She looks like she’s aged twenty years. Rin puts a knife to her throat and demands that Daji break the Seal, but Daji doesn’t know how. She’s been trying to figure out how to break a Seal for decades. Not Rin’s, her own. The one that she put on the whole Trifecta. She thought the others were going to kill each other after they were anchored and she didn’t want to die, so she put a Seal on them and has not been able to remove it. Rin brings Daji back to the village where Kitay is dismayed to see her. Daji tells them they don’t have much time. They aren’t even done with their war again Mugen, they’ll need to march south and make sure the Federation can’t regroup, but their bigger problem will be Vaisra. Soon, he will turn his attention to them, and they are outnumbered and outpowered, and that’s not counting the Hesperians arquebuses or flying ships. They need to raise an army of shaman. Not from the Chuluu Korikh, once a shaman’s mind is gone it cannot be brought back. They need to raise an army of new shaman. Kitay is very against the idea, but Rin unsurprisingly thinks it has some merit. Kitay says he will not be a part of that. After visiting the lone survivor from the mass grave, Dulin, and watching the villagers dance with relief at being liberated around bonfires, Rin walks a very drunk Souji to his rooms. He offers to sleep with her and they get into an argument just before bombs fall. She had underestimated the Republic, they came for her earlier than expected. Rin realizes that after an initial volley of bombs, the ships land. They must’ve brought Nezha with them. Souji runs for the woods, but Rin waits for Nezha to find her. It starts to rain an unnatural rain; he must be stronger than before to be able to create rain. She sends out a flare to draw him to her. She’s unmatched. She has one hand, less reach, and her flames are being smothered by his rain. She does manage to burn him pretty badly once, but it’s only when the Hesperians release opium smoke and it starts to affect Nezha that she’s able to get the upper hand. She grabs a rock and hits him in the temple. When he rolls onto his back, she watches his head wound heal astonishingly quickly. She runs into the woods and the Hesperians don’t follow her. She watches them rise back into the sky a few moments later and leave. Nezha has beaten her badly. She lays on her side and berates herself for not killing him when she had the chance. When she wakes up, she heads back to the village. No one came looking for her. They should have. She’s their general, their goddess. She finds Venka unhurt and the two of them look for Kitay, but they don’t find him. After three circuits around the village, they conclude he must’ve been taken by the Hesperians. He’s not dead, Rin would know, but he’s not here. And without him, Rin cannot call the fire. After walking around aimlessly for a while, she decides to figure out what to do next. She asks one of the Iron Wolves to bring Souji to her, but Souji doesn’t come. The Iron Wolf requests that she come to Souji’s tent instead. Inside his tent, she finds Gurubai waiting. Souji has turned on her, as have Zhuden’s men. Gurubai knows of the note Nezha sent her and intends to trade her for a peace agreement. Souji beats her until she passes out. She wakes up, not fully but enough to hear Souji speaking to an aide of Nezha’s. They’re trying to figure out if they can safely transport Rin to Arlong, or should they just kill her now and save Nezha the trouble, when Daji steps forward. Daji hypnotizes the men and convinces them to take Rin via air ship to the Chuluu Korikh. They’ll need to keep her sedated on the way. Daji pats Rin on the head. It’s better this way. It was the day the Speer was destroyed. Riga had slowly been changing, becoming more violent until it was all he was. He was just as likely to hit Daji as he was to kiss her, and she never knew what to expect from him anymore. There was a time that he only fought their enemies. Now he delights in violence against her, and Ziya as well. Today, he makes Daji watch as Speer is destroyed. She should have expected this. Ziya rushes in. He’s in love with a Speerly, Hanelai, but Riga doesn’t care. He never would have allowed Ziya and his Speerly to be together, and now she’s dead just like the rest of them. This is the last straw for Ziya, he lashes out against Riga, but Riga is too strong. He’s able to cut down Ziya’s animals with just a swipe of his arm. He screams that he is the one that took Ziya and Daji out of the filth and to the Pantheon. He is the reason they are where they are. As he raises his arm toward Ziya again, Daji steps in between them and pushes her arms toward both of them. Tarquet writes a report to Hesperia. He has secured a deal to a profitable Nikara mine with little effort, and their porcelain and silk will be good for trade. The Gray Company has met with little success though. But now that Vaisra has put down the rest of Daji’s resistance, they only need to worry about the guerrilla fighters in the south. Tarquet does not believe that the guerrilla forces will be a major problem and after they are put down, he does not believe that the Nikara will ever look to conquer anything outside their own land. Rin wakes up to find Daji sponging her head with a cloth. Daji tells Rin to shut up and listen. They’re going to the mountain to retrieve Jiang. They need his help. Rin says that he won’t come out, she’s already tried, but Daji thinks he will. He’s her anchor after all. Once they get to the mountain, Rin is carried up on a stretcher and taken inside. She waits for Daji to lash out against the soldiers, but she doesn’t. Too late, Rin realizes that Daji doesn’t need Rin’s help to release Jiang. The soldiers put Rin into the stone, and the pillar seals her up. She doesn’t sleep - she just exists. She can do nothing but think. Of Tikany, of Sinegard, of Nezha. After all that thinking is done, she turns to the Seal. She’s in the middle of being berated by her imaginary Altan when she realizes someone is breaking her pillar open. When the stone clears, Jiang and Daji greet her. As soon as Rin was sealed up, Daji dealt with the soldiers and released Jiang. She just thought Rin should know how it felt in the pillar. Daji is back to her young self, and Jiang somehow looks more substantial and less willowy than ever. They leave the mountain and discuss their options. Jiang wants to go back to the south and take the Coalition. Both Daji and Jiang insist that if Rin really wants to lead, she needs to get rid of the opposition and take control. That’s what they used to do. Make herself into a legend and the people will love her. The wealthy never will, they want her power for themselves, but the regular people will. She needs to get over her little moral fight with herself and admit that she’s above “right” and “wrong”. It’s decided. First, they will find and free Rin’s anchor. Then, they will wake up Jiang and Daji’s. They travel south toward the Republic’s frontline and it’s disturbing to see how little the Nikara people fought back against Vaisra. It’s not until they’re halfway through Boar Province that they see any signs of battle. As they travel, Jiang sometimes seems like the Jiang Rin knew in Sinegard and sometimes he doesn’t. His Seal is breaking and he’s remembering more from the Second Poppy War. She gets the courage to ask one day, and he explains that he is neither her teacher anymore, nor is he the Gatekeeper. Sometimes he’s one, sometimes the other, sometimes both, sometimes neither. It is not easy. As they get closer to the front lines, they are forced to travel at night and change their appearances as much as they can. One morning, Rin wakes up and can feel Kitay again. They walk into the city, Arabak, and Daji convinces the guards to let them through the gate and forget they ever saw them. The city has been completely taken over by Hesperians. Rin carves the question ‘where?’ into her skin. It takes some time, but Kitay finally answers her. He gives her coordinates to a church. They watch and try to figure out a way into the church. Then a priest comes and opens the doors to the public. They waltz right in and Daji convinces one of the priests to give her his keys. She and Jiang stay upstairs to watch the doors, Rin goes downstairs to find Kitay. It’s not hard, she’s in his cell and undoing his ankle chain in minutes. When they hear someone coming down the hallway, she hides underneath Kitay’s bed and Kitay conceals the gap between the floor and the bed with the sheet. The visitor is Nezha. He wants to know where Rin is, but Kitay insists she was killed by Hesperian air ships. Otherwise, she would have been spotted by now. Nezha doesn’t believe it, her body was never found. Their conversation sounds, not friendly exactly, but not hostile either. Nezha is having a hard time as his father’s general. Tarquet is a nightmare, the Hesperians continue to make demands, and Kitay is pretty sure that Nezha’s leaders are siphoning off money for their own gains. Nezha insists he didn’t want it this way. If only Rin had agreed to work with them, they would have given her the south if she wanted it. He just wanted the three of them united - on the same side. Kitay gets irritated now. They were on the same side until Nezha put a dagger in Rin’s back. Soon enough, Nezha leaves and Rin frees Kitay. They have a brief altercation with a member of the Gray Company, who Rin kills, before being able to join the crowd leaving the church. Daji convinces a man driving a wagon of linens to give her the wagon. The others hide under the linens and Daji drives it right out of the city. Once they’re far enough away, they decide on the next stage of their plan. Kitay tells them that Jun was caught and killed. Currently, Ox Province has the most troublesome resistance to the Republic, though they’ll be overpowered in weeks. Dog Province will also resist, but Vaisra hasn’t even looked at them yet. They probably won’t last long once Ox is brought to heel. Daji and Jiang decide they’ll go south, get rid of the Coalition leadership and claim the army for their own, then travel north to Dog Province to get some allies. Rin notices that Kitay doesn’t talk like he used to, his tone is flat and rote. Once they’re alone, he reveals that maybe the Hesperians are better. Look at all their technology, how did they create flying ships decades ago and the Nikara don’t even have arquebuses. Maybe the Hesperians are right. Rin won’t accept that. When she was at Sinegard, she believed when people thought she was not as smart or as promising just because of her accent and skin color. They were wrong and so is Kitay. It’s the same thing on a bigger scale. Kitay continues, after seeing their progress, how does Rin think they’ll ever win against the Hesperians? They only have three shamans. But Rin smiles. The Seal is breaking and soon Riga will wake up. The Trifecta will be whole and then they will show Hesperia what’s up. Vaisra had turned on the Coalition as soon as they turned Rin over, obviously. Traveling south, they don’t see any sign of battle until they are at the front lines where the Republic has the Coalition trapped against a mountain. The Coalition hides inside the mountain’s tunnel system. Neither group can make any headway, so the Republic just waits for the Coalition to run out of food. Kitay believes they can get into the tunnel system by swimming up the river. Jiang tells them to go in and gather who they can, then he will break the front line to get them out. He seems very sure of himself. Rin and Kitay are able to find Venka and tell her the plan. She says that Gurubai and Souji lead together, but it isn’t going well. They want to head south to Ox Province and ask the new Warlord Bai Lin for help. Kitay knows Lin, there’s no way he will go against Vaisra. Speaking of Vaisra, he’s been leaving Arlong every three weeks to go to Arabak and then he swings by the Federation’s frontline after he’s done - to boost morale. They have parades and shoot guns when he arrives, so the Coalition has been able to time his arrivals. He should arrive tomorrow - what good timing. Venka helps Rin and Kitay to convince Coalition soldiers to evacuate with them. When the time comes, Rin inspires the Coalition soldiers to move by calling a huge column of fire. Then Jiang steps out and opens the gate. Wraiths of all shapes punch holes through the Hesperian ships and soldiers. They’re able to easily differentiate between Republic and Coalition soldiers. Rin is blown away; Jiang is insanely powerful. Rin is able to pinpoint which air ship has Vaisra when it tries to fly away, and Jiang brings the ship down. Rin goes inside and finds Vaisra. She kills him. When she leaves, she sees a ship flying straight toward Jiang. He’s hit and drops to the ground, Rin and Daji run to him. They carry him off the battlefield, but Rin can’t tell if he’s hurt or not. Jiang begins to laugh. Riga is going to kill him. They move through a different set of tunnels toward Dog Province. Jiang doesn’t wake up often, but Daji says he’s done this before. He will be fine. Rin blames Daji for this, but Daji says she did what she had to in order to save Jiang. He was losing himself to his god before Daji stepped in. Kitay comes in to tell Rin that Souji and Gurubai are telling their people they need to break away at their first chance. They need to quash that before it becomes a rebellion. Rin knows exactly what to do. She goes to Gurubai, who knows why she’s there. She stabs him but does not have good control with her left hand. The wound is too low to kill him immediately. She is happy to let him bleed out, but Kitay steps in and slits his throat instead. There’s no need to be cruel. Then Rin finds Souji trying to sneak out with his Iron Wolves. When faced against her, the Iron Wolves turn on Souji and hold him while Rin beats him. The next day, she stands him up before the crowd of soldiers. She forces him to tell the people his sins: how he sold Rin to Vaisra and was stupid enough to trap the Coalition army in the mountain. Souji insists that he was trying to save the south. Vaisra said he only wanted Rin. Rin asks if anyone thinks Souji was stupid enough to fall for that, insinuating that he collaborated with the Republic. The crowd kills him; Rin doesn’t have to lift a finger. She announces that the Coalition has failed, almost killing them all from their infighting in the process. From now on, she is in charge. Only she will make decisions for this army. The march through the mountains is wrought with anxiety. Rin worries that the Hesperian air ships will appear, and her army is moving slowly. Eventually, Rin orders anything not essential to be discarded to hasten their march. The mountain is dangerous enough on its own. The rain can last days; there are mud slides and flash floods; snakes, spiders, and scorpions; and it’s cold enough to freeze to death at night. Jiang slowly wastes away. They keep him sedated much of the time on Daji’s orders. One night, Jiang wakes up screaming and Rin goes to him. He’s confused, calling her Hanelai. He tells her that he is evil incarnate. Daji is lying to Rin, do not wake him. Kill Jiang instead. Kill Daji. End it before it begins. She asks if he’s talking about Riga, but something changes in Jiang. He calls her Altan this time, then recognizes her. He tries to explain that he had to let her go. They threatened him, hurt him and said they would hurt her even worse. Rin yells at him to shut up and Jiang goes still. When he looks at her again, his eyes are all white. It’s the scariest thing she’s ever seen. He asks Rin a question. Doesn’t she know that he will kill her? He wants them all dead because of Hanelai and what she did. They’re all scum. Daji comes in and gives Jiang an injection, forcing him to sleep. He tells Daji this is all her fault before slipping under. Rin blames Daji for this too. Daji has blamed herself for years. She can’t stop Jiang from finding himself again. For years she could feel his confusion as he felt something missing but couldn’t figure out what it was. Even if he hates this version of himself, he deserves to have it back. Rin asks why Daji Sealed Jiang and Riga, but Daji hypnotizes her and tells her never to ask this question. Rin could fight back, she’s done it before, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t really want to know. Jiang doesn’t get worse, but he doesn’t get better. He spends most of his days whittling in a wagon with a dull knife muttering to himself. Daji evades any questions about the Seal but agrees to answer other questions for Kitay and Rin. She reveals that Riga was, in fact, a Yin. Vaisra’s father, Vara, was also Dragon Warlord. Riga’s father, Zexu, was Vara’s younger brother. Riga is Vaisra’s cousin and Nezha’s uncle - which is why they look so much alike. Vara was weak willed. The Hesperians wanted to import shipments of opium through Dragon Province and Vara allowed it, sending Zexu to escort the Hesperians. Zexu blew them all up instead. He was the strong one, he should have been Warlord. He was dead before Daji met Riga, but Riga always spoke of him with admiration. Zexu and his family had been exiled to Horse Province for blowing up the Hesperian ships, the others pretended his branch of the tree never existed. Zexu went to a work camp and was worked to death, Daji doesn’t know what happened to Riga’s mother. Riga was skin and bones, and already an orphan when they met. Riga, Daji, and Jiang decided to leave the occupied north. They wandered on the steppe and nearly died before the Ketreyids found them. The Ketreyids trained them and then the Trifecta killed them. Daji is sorry for what happened to Tseveri, but she doesn’t regret it. She doesn’t speak about the Seal, or about Riga’s abilities or their relationship. She insists she’s not scared of him, but Rin doesn’t believe her. Daji insists that they loved Riga. When Rin asks about Hanelai, Daji says she was a Speerly general who fought with them in the Second Poppy War. That she died for defying Riga. No one ever did that. Rin knows Daji is hiding something from her and decides to try Jiang again. She sneaks some laudanum to Daji so they won’t be interrupted, then wakes Jiang up. They talk outside but when she asks about Hanelai, Jiang asks her to stop. He doesn’t want to remember. He doesn’t get that choice anymore. Hanelai was his mistake. He didn’t want her to die. Riga made the decision and Daji didn’t tell Jiang until it was too late, but he still tried to warn her. She wanted help, Jiang should have stopped her. She should have left. She might have, if it weren’t for the children. He doesn’t expound and Rin gets frustrated. She takes him back to his bed and gives him a dose of laudanum so he doesn’t have nightmares. She’s discussing what she learned with Kitay when Venka tells them they have a problem. Two girls were caught eating a person. The girls insist they didn’t kill the man, he was already dead and they were starving. Rin disperses the crowd, saying she will deal with the girls on her own. It’s the sisters that the woman tried to sell her before, Pipaji and Jiuto. Rin can tell this isn’t the first person they’ve had to eat. Times are harder than ever. She tells them to be more discreet next time. If they’re caught again, she won’t be able to save them. They’re not the only ones who resort to eating people. Rin turns a blind eye to it. The army begins to complain that Rin doesn’t know where she’s going. People start to desert by the dozens. Rin lets them go. All that matters now is waking Riga. They either wake him, or they die. At least the Hesperian ships never come, for whatever reason. Finally, they notice plants growing again. They’ve crossed into Dog Province. Morale improves even though there are no reinforcements waiting for them in Dog Province like Rin promised. They continue marching until they find a village where they’re lucky enough to find the new Dog Warlord, Quan Cholang. He explains that his father, the last Dog Warlord, had been summoned to Vaisra and killed when he would not capitulate to Vaisra’s demands. Dog Province continues to hold out largely because they are not considered important enough to deal with. The Republic will come for them eventually. They offer Rin’s army food and a place to sleep for the night, but they cannot ally with them. They don’t have the numbers to help (there are more yaks in Dog than people), and the Republic has made sure they don’t get any resources. They’re barely scraping by as it is. Rin tells him that what she really wants is an escort up Mount Tianshan. She needs to retrieve something there that could win the war. Cholang explains that those mountains are weird - no one who tries to climb them ever comes back. Rin retorts that a couple people have, and it’s about to be one more. They rest that night in the village and Rin takes first watch while Kitay sleeps. She is approached by a voice she recognizes: Chaghan. He killed his cousin and united The Hundred Clans of the Hinterlands, of which he now leads. The clans have always had good relations with Dog Province. He came because he’s guessed what Rin is trying to do. He takes her to the other realm again, but this time they’re looking for the spirit of Hanelai. She is pure rage when they find her. Rin learns that the Federation kidnapped Speerly children and planned to hold them hostage until Speer told them the secrets of the shamans. Hanelai was going to make that trade. Riga knew that Mugen was going to kill the Speerlies and he allowed it to happen. And Jiang did not warn them. Hanelai thought Jiang loved them, loved her. There’s more, but Rin refuses to listen and forces herself back into her body. She does not care what Hanelai or anyone else has to say. Riga is the only way she can win this war and get rid of the Hesperians, and that is all that matters. Chaghan asks who will lead Nikan afterward, but Rin will worry about that when the time comes. He will have to kill her if he wants to stop her from waking Riga. But Chaghan can’t do that. Because he knows that the Hesperians will come for the Hinterlands when they’re done with Nikan. Rin heads up the mountain with Jiang and Daji. Kitay stays in the village with Cholang’s troops. They need to get to the Heavenly Temple, which is two thirds of the way up the mountain. When they’re nearly there, Hesperian air ships rise into the air to meet them. Rin must’ve been followed to Dog Province, these ships were waiting for them and biding their time. The mists are so thick that the ships can’t see well, so they’re able to evade them. They make it to the temple and find Riga lying on a table in the center. Jiang, who has carried a fawn all this way, lays the fawn down and kills it as Daji starts chanting. There’s an explosion and Rin is knocked into the wall. When she looks up, Riga is standing. Both Daji and Jiang cower in fear. Riga is immediately an asshole to both of them, then he notices Rin. He forces Rin to kneel, then pulls her up by her throat when Rin gets mouthy. Daji pleads with him not to kill Rin. Riga finally put her down just to turn on Daji. He beats Daji and Daji does nothing to try to stop him. Neither does Jiang. Rin realizes that they’re both so used to this, to Riga’s cruelty. This is what they know of him. Rin speaks up. She is the last Speerly and she has come to ask for Riga’s help against the Hesperians. She knows what he did to Speer and she doesn’t care. She wants his help. He laughs. She doesn’t know anything. He roots around in her brain, making her relive her most terrifying moments, until he finds the face he’s looking for. The face she wanted to please most but was terrified of. Altan. Riga remembers Altan. He was Hanelai’s nephew. Riga shows Rin what really happened in Speer. The Federation didn’t steal Speer’s children. Riga gave the children up. He lead them by the hand, literally, to Shiro. Riga hates Speerlies and he won’t be working with them. She attacks him, knowing now that waking him was not worth it, but her fire goes out quickly. The Phoenix is fighting the Dragon on the other plane, so her fire doesn’t work. She fights Riga hand to hand instead. Riga has been in a stone table for two decades, so he’s a bit rusty, but Rin is missing her dominant hand and hasn’t been practicing so she’s still losing. Suddenly, Jiang steps in front of Riga’s blade and takes a hit meant for Rin. He tells Rin to run. She goes, hearing yelling and fighting behind her. She lets out a column of fire when the Phoenix returns to her (the Dragon is busy with the Gatekeeper now). The Hesperians are led to the temple, and Rin runs while the Hesperians open fire. She makes a mad dash for an air ship, gripping the ship’s feet as the ship careens down the mountainside. She nearly dies but doesn’t. Above her, it appears that the Hesperians and the Trifecta have killed each other. What luck for her, two birds one stone. Finally, her tides have turned. When she gets back to the base of the mountain, she sees that the Hesperians destroyed the village first. Nine years ago, Vaisra called for Nezha. He’d heard Nezha wanted to go to the grottoes, and he told Nezha a story. Near the end of the Red Emperor’s reign, Arlong was considered a cursed place. The river waters were too volatile, and no one could pass through and come out unscathed. Until a man named Yu called down the Dragon Lord of the Western River and used the god to control the river. After, Arlong and the Dragon Province thrived, but Yu always struggled. Eventually, he nearly completely succumbed to the Dragon Lord, but Yu knew that if he took himself to the Chuluu Korikh that someone else would have to take his place to control the river. Yu became the Dragon Lord instead. The people he knew and protected changed. They feared him instead of acknowledging his sacrifice. They drove him out of the village and into the grotto. Vaisra told Nezha not to go to the grottoes. Rin finds Kitay, Venka, and Cholang still alive. A little over half their forces were destroyed, but Kitay estimates that the Hesperians have lost about two thirds of their air fleet by now. They convince Cholang to join their side, mostly because he doesn’t have a choice now that he’s been seen helping Rin, and they decide to pincer the Republic between two arms of their troops. Venka and Cholang to the north, Rin and Kitay to the south. Rin also convinces them that they need more shamans. Only a handful, she can train the shamans and have them ready when they’re needed. Chaghan prepares to take his people back north now that the Trifecta is dead. He felt them move on. But he wants to discuss Nezha before he leaves. Rin tells Chaghan what she knows about the Dragon and Nezha, how Nezha seems to believe that the dragon is a physical manifestation on this plane. Chaghan says it’s not impossible. The grottoes will be Nezha’s source of power. Rin has to destroy them or the waters there will continue to heal Nezha. Once Chaghan leaves, Rin goes to find herself shamans. She calls volunteers; weeds out anyone older than twenty-five but younger than fifteen; removes anyone who isn’t willing to be patient, anyone who can’t handle pain, and anyone who has a family they love and would like to see again. She’s left with four recruits: a girl from Dog Province covered in scars named Lianhua; a soldier who fought at Sinegard and saw the destruction at Golyn Niis named Merchi; the boy who was buried alive, Dulin; and one of the girls who ate people, Pipaji. As Rin begins to train them, Kitay takes an air ship apart. It wasn’t damaged anywhere near as badly as the others and though he doesn’t really know how they work, Kitay thinks he can repair this one. In the meantime, Rin forces her recruits to relive their worst memories and tell her about them since the easiest way to get to the Pantheon is through rage. Pipaji is the first to get to the Pantheon. When she descends, Menchi gets concerned about her and holds her. They don’t know what Pipaji’s power is at first, but her fingertips have turned purple. When Pipaji touches Menchi, he starts to turn mottled like he’s decaying. Rin tries to get him to a physician, though she’s not sure if they’ll be able to help him, but Menchi dies before they get there. It was as if Pipaji poisoned him wherever she touched. Lianhua ascends next. She gains the ability to heal. She fixes Rin’s cracked ribs but cannot regrow Rin’s hand. Dulin takes the longest. When he comes down from the Pantheon, he opens a sinkhole at his feet. Rin takes the three shamans miles away from camp to practice and figure out their capabilities. Lianhua cannot heal somehow who is going to die from their injuries, but Dulin manages to conjure an earthquake. But the really exciting thing is that Pipaji poisoned water when she touched it. She turns a whole pond black, killing everything inside. This is how Rin will destroy Arlong. Rin tells Kitay to get ready to march. They march a couple of weeks to Jinzhou, known for its wealth. It has not been sacked in recent history and Rin plans to end that streak. She wants their resources, and to send a message. When they arrive, they ask the city to surrender, which Kitay forces Rin to offer twice. They’re turned down both times. Lianhua stays behind, she will work in the infirmary, as does Pipaji, who is better in close quarters and who Rin would like to keep secret for as long as possible. Dulin goes with Rin. All of the shamans are armed with opium tablets and instructions to take one if their god begins to wrest control from them. Rin and Dulin march toward the walls in a group of soldiers, shielding themselves from the arrows being shot at them. Ten yards outside the walls, Dulin begins to work. At first, Rin thinks he’s too scared to call his god, but then she feels shaking and the Jinzhou’s walls crumble. Between that and Rin’s fire, the battle is over in an hour. Jinzhou is theirs. Rin burns everything, turning herself over to the flames and letting the people of Jinzhou pay for their disrespect. How dare they not capitulate and surrender when she offered it? She burns long after the rest of the army has stopped fighting and the citizens have hung white flags. Even after Rin stops, she can feel the ground still shaking. Dulin is losing control. Rin runs to where Dulin crouches on the ground screaming and she forces an opium tablet into his mouth. He starts to relax. Rin calls for Lianhua as Dulin begins to foam at the mouth. Luckily, Lianhua was able to help him before it was too late. They take food, grain, cloth - anything they can get from the city. They take Nikara relics and heirlooms for Moag to sell. Now they can eat, they can fix their shoes, and they can make uniforms. Then they will continue marching toward Nezha. Rin and Kitay push to Arlong from the east. Along the way they get better weapons, armor, food, clothes. They trade with Moag for even more weapons. Moag reminds Rin that if she wins, she will have to take care of the people. An entire nation. That sounds like a problem for later. They also collect Hesperian technology when they find the broken pieces, which Kitay reverse engineers and is often able to recreate. Nezha pulls his troops back toward Arlong, Rin believes it is because the Hesperians are slowly withdrawing their support from the Republic. Nezha is dealing with the aftermath of his father’s death and how many people actually disliked Vaisra, and the Hesperians do not think Nezha has enough experience. Rumor has it he’s already had to quash two coups. Kitay wonders if he has a secret weapon in Arlong, one that can counter act the shamans. Rin says that’s not possible. They would know if he had something like that. Plus, Rin has started to believe since she survived the Heavenly Temple that she is destined to rule. She’s been chosen by the gods. Her success on the march to Arlong has only made her more sure. She gets a message from Venka. Their troops are only about a week apart by now. Venka believe that Nezha has taken his troops north to meet Venka and Cholang near Xuzhou. He wants to cut them off in the mountains before they get to Arlong. Xuzhou is the last major city before Arlong. Nezha will be weaker at Xuzhou than he will be at Arlong. Rin and Kitay decide to join Venka and face Nezha together. Nezha might have a larger force, better technology, and troops that aren’t exhausted from marching, but Rin has secret shamans, the advantage of arriving in Xuzhou first, and Kitay. She can end this war now, she knows it. Her biggest problem is that Nezha can make it rain, putting her flames and any of their fire weapons out of commission, so they decide to take a different approach. When Nezha’s forces arrive, Rin employs small, armored vehicles that Kitay has created to get troops close to Nezha’s line. They aren’t really there for anything other than distraction and sneaking Dulin in close. He’s in one of the armored vehicles and he gets up close to the ledge where Nezha’s upper-level artillery units sit. When Dulin makes the ground shake, the ledge crumbles into the ravine below it, eliminating those units. Dulin’s vehicle is nearly hit by a missile, but he is pulled to safety by the other vehicles. Rin gets a signal from Venka and enters her own armored vehicle. She can’t fight in the rain, but Kitay has rigged up a tarp that Venka’s group opens as Rin moves towards it quickly. Once there, she exits the vehicle to stand under the tarp and begins to burn everything she can. She has to be quick, the tarp will catch on fire just from the heat, but she has time enough to burn through the front lines. She can see Nezha, who is his troops back but waiting to retreat himself until his people are safe. She screams his name and he looks at her not with anger, but intense sadness. She can’t hit him with her fire, he’s not stupid enough to stand close enough to the tarp, but she orders her archers to fire on him. He raises a shield of water, none of her arrows get through. One volley, two volleys, three. She’s just wasting ammunition at this point - his shield is too strong. She tries to burn him, but the Phoenix cannot do it. It tells her that the Dragon is too strong. She knew Nezha had gotten stronger, but she had no idea he could do something like this. She realizes that he wasn’t trying to beat her at Xuzhou. He just wanted to humiliate her in front of her troops. She orders her army to fall back. Rin explains to her closest advisors that if they go near the river, Nezha will drown them. The dream of avoiding Arlong and beating Nezha at Xuzhou is now busted, they will return to the original plan: destroy the grottoes and the Dragon. They break their army into seven parts. Venka leads one part along the most obvious route toward Arlong. Four others will go to other bridges and crossings, one group is sent to a section of the Murui that has no crossing, but they will be able to build their own bridge when they arrive. Rin and Kitay take the shamans and a handful of soldiers to a bend called Nuwa’s waist. There’s a bridge, but Nezha has already had the bridge destroyed by the time they get there. They go two miles south instead, where Nezha won’t expect them to cross. There, Kitay reassembles his Hesperian airship. It’s really more like a hot air balloon with cannons. They get in and fly over the river, but Nezha is too smart. He sent scouts all along the rivers as soon as he realized Rin had split her army up. The ship is spotted and Nezha’s soldiers fire a hole in the ship’s tarp. They crash, but luckily, they make it across the river first. Rin burns every one of the enemies as soon as she jumps out of the basket, then turns to take stock of the situation. Only one member of their group is badly injured. She slits his throat. When they get close to Arlong, they see that at least four other contingents made it, including Venka’s. Those troops will attack Arlong. They have no chance of winning in a land assault, they’re just attacking as a distraction. Rin’s group goes toward the grottoes. When they’re close, the path to the Dragon is laid out by all the jewels the Dragon has collected. The jewel path slowly becomes a path of bones. Rin and her group gets as close as they can, but they don’t want to step into the water if they can help it. One of the soldiers with them points out a boat speeding toward them so fast it could only be powered by Nezha. Dulin needs to hurry. He makes the ground tremble, but it doesn’t do much. He can’t make the cave collapse. Rin gives an order and soldiers shoot missiles into the entrance, but nothing happens. Then Nezha is on them. He steps out of his boat, but he is able to walk on the surface of the water. Pipaji inconspicuously poisons the water. Rin distracts Nezha as the poison leaks toward him. Then it’s beneath his feet and in his body. His skin turns mottled and purple and he looks like he’s in pain for a moment, but he shakes it off and the color disappears. He attacks Pipaji and then Dulin. They don’t stand a chance against him. Neither does Rin, at least not with her fire, so she tackles him. They grapple under the water, and she presses her mouth to his - flooding him with fire. Within a minute, his blistered skin is already healing. Then he looks up and sees something behind Rin that terrifies him. Rin has woken the Dragon. It eats Rin’s soldiers. Nezha throws a shield up over Rin, but the Dragon sweeps it aside easily. The Phoenix begs to be released and fight the Dragon on the immortal plane, but the Dragon is barely phased by the Phoenix. He’s too strong. The only thing keeping the Dragon from killing Rin and Nezha is that it wants Arlong instead. But then Nezha speaks to the Dragon. It was so hungry the first time they met that it ate Mingzha, but it had wanted Nezha. It has always wanted Nezha. He coaxes the Dragon back toward its cave, telling the Dragon if it returns to its cave then Nezha will come with it. The Dragon can finally have him. The Dragon begins to walk back but too late, Rin hears an air ship. It shoots Rin with lightning. She no longer feels the fire inside her. It’s just gone, like when she enters the Chuluu Korikh. The ship shoots Nezha next. The Dragon screams and retreats into its cave. The Phoenix returns for just a minute and Rin is able to shoot the air ship with fire, stopping their attack on Nezha. The Hesperians really did find a way to stop the shamans. Rin needs to get to shore. She finds Pipaji, coughing and spitting up water. Alive, but barely. She lifts the girl to take her to Lianhua. As she tugs Pipaji, Rin hears more coughing. Nezha is there, closer to her than he’s been since he stabbed her. He wears silver circles around his wrists and ankles that Rin realizes were meant to attract the Hesperian’s lightning. She hadn’t thought about it until now, but when she left Nezha was the only shaman left in the Republic. There was no one to experiment on except him. His bracelets almost hide scars around his wrists that even the Dragon couldn’t heal. She can’t imagine what the Hesperians must have done to him. He asks if Pipaji will live. He didn’t want to do it. She asks why. Why did he do it? Why doesn’t he kill her now? He says he never wanted her dead. Then why did he do it at all? He responds that she wouldn’t understand. It was his duty. Rin could kill him now, but she doesn’t. By the time Rin gets Pipaji help, her god is taking control. Rin gives her opium, but it doesn’t help. When Lianhua reaches them, Rin warns Lianhua not to touch Pipaji’s skin. They hear someone screaming Pipaji’s name and they see her sister Jiuto running toward them. Jiuto’s voice brings Pipaji back for a moment, but she starts to lose control again quickly. When Lianhua guides Jiuto away, Pipaji asks Rin to kill her and Rin snaps her neck. She barely sees that her army has won Arlong, thanks to the Dragon’s help. When the Dragon stirred up the waters, it destroyed most of Nezha’s ships and a good portion of the city. The Hesperians fled and Nezha’s command team snuck out of the city. Now Rin’s team has to figure out how to rule. That’s a problem for tomorrow. Rin burns Pipaji’s body and buries her ashes. She would do the same for Dulin, but she couldn’t find his body. As much as she regrets what happened, she would train them as shamans all over again. When she leaves the graveyard, Kitay is waiting for her with incense and wine. They have to sit and keep vigil. For Pipaji and Dulin, and all the other lost soldiers Rin didn’t know the name of. She doesn’t want to, but she sits because Kitay will insist. As they sit, Nezha approaches their fire alone. Kitay passes him the wine and lights his incense. After some time and a lot of wine, Nezha says he wishes it hadn’t ended like this. Kitay responds that his choices brought them here and Rin tells him that the Republic is dead. They can sit together today. But if they see him the next day, they will kill him. When they get up, Nezha walks in the opposite direction. Rin allows her troops to loot, starting with the Hesperian’s quarters. She and Kitay enter the palace. They find a portrait of the Yin family. Muzha, Vaisra’s only sister and Jinzha’s twin, was killed by the Dragon’s waters that destroyed Arlong’s ships. Saikhara threw herself out of a tower after the Hesperians left her behind. Nezha is the only one of his family left. Soon, soldiers find Petra’s laboratory, which is locked from the inside. Soldiers bust the door down and find Petra still inside. Rin tells everyone else to leave. Petra refuses to tell Rin how the lightning works to nullify the gods, saying that Rin is too stupid to understand, so Rin chains Petra to the table that she used to torture Rin and probably Nezha too. She believes her Maker is real? Rin forces Petra to take opium and then has the Phoenix find her spirit and take them both to the Pantheon. These gods are real. Rin’s god is real. Rin doesn’t torture Petra. She just leaves her in the Pantheon and lets the gods have her. Rin, Kitay, and Venka turn their attentions to ruling a country. Things are not going well. People are unhoused, there’s not enough food, there’s looting, and disease begins to spread with people crammed into small spaces. And that’s just in Arlong. Multiply that by a whole country that has gone through three successive wars. They put out fires as quickly as they can while implementing rebuilding, but they feel like they’re drowning. And all of this feels like a waste of time to Rin. What they need to do is take the fight to the Consortium instead of waiting for Hesperia to come back - which Rin is convinced will happen soon. They find Nezha’s notes and petitions from leaders across the country and realize that he was much better at this than any of them are. Kitay wonders why he didn’t take the papers with him – it’s almost as if he was trying to help them. Then the kitchens try to poison their lunch. Kitay catches it but it was a close call. Rin nearly ate the food. Directly afterwards, Rin gets a message from Nezha. He knows about the assassination attempt even though it happened only moments before and he’s supposed to be on Speer (a little message for Rin, she has his home - but he has hers). Kitay tries to calm her down. It was a lucky guess. But Rin doesn’t think Nezha’s really gone. He’s much closer than they thought. Slowly, the emergencies start to come further apart, and their days become more structured. Things start to even out. But Nezha’s letters don’t stop and they can’t figure out where they’re coming from. Nezha vacillates between taunts and helpful tips. Rin can’t stop reading his letters and reading into what Nezha says. She doesn’t sleep anymore unless Kitay is guarding her. She becomes more paranoid. When Venka recommends she stop reading the messages too, Rin becomes suspicious. Why did Venka leave Arlong when she had no reason to? No one was after her, she didn’t have to come with Rin and Kitay. Why didn’t she warn them that Tikany would be bombed? She had specifically said that Nezha was sickly and had no immediate plans to attack the south. How did Nezha know Rin planned to wake the Dragon Emperor when only she, Kitay, Venka, and the rest of the Trifecta knew about it? It’s because Venka is spying. She has been this whole time; maybe she’s even been writing the letters for Nezha. Both Venka and Kitay try to get Rin to calm down but she won’t. Everything is adding up to her suddenly. Which is why she doesn’t believe it at first when Venka tackles her to the ground. Rin reacts as if she’s being attacked, burning Venka’s shoulders before she notices the crossbow bolt in Venka’s neck. An assassin shot her from a high window and Venka pushed Rin out of the way. Venka saved her life. The assassin shoots again, narrowly missing Kitay, before Rin knocks him out of the window with her fire. She burns him to dust. Rin decides she can’t rule from Arlong. She doesn’t know the city, and she doesn’t have the support, so she returns to Tikany. On the march, she sees the evidence of prolonged starvation of the people, but she has no grain to give them – she has only enough to feed her army for another three months. She keeps her head straight and refuses to hear the pleas of her starving citizens. There’s no food anywhere. People are growing algae in buckets of urine just to eat it. Rin’s army keeps marching and outside of Tikany, they find an amazing surprise. The people of Tikany never gave up on her. They believed she’d be back. They didn’t starve as much as others since they had the stores from when the Mugenese occupied the village. They lived on those supplies and they grew poppies. Most crops don’t grow in Tikany, but poppies do. This is something that Rin can sell to Moag for what she needs. Rin is delighted and tells the people so. Because of what they’ve done, they can finally finish this war for good. Whoa, back up. The people thought the war was over already. Rin explains that the Republic is broken and Nezha is on the run, but Hesperia will be back. They are not defeated, at least not yet. But they will be when Rin sells these poppies. Tikany loses it. Rin wants to plunge into yet another war when they’re all starving! Use the poppies to feed them instead! Rin is escorted out when things turn violent. She screams that the people there are sheep, too stupid to see what needs to be done. They all deserve to die if they can’t see reality. Kitay insists that they’re just tired and trying to survive. A guard comes to deliver bad news. Someone set fire to the poppy fields. Their influx of cash just went up in flames. The next day, Kitay tells Rin that she needs to talk to what’s left of the Republic. Nezha is done fighting. He just wants what everyone else wants - an end to this and to rebuild. Rin turns on Kitay. So, he’s a traitor too. First Venka and now him? How long has he been working against her. Kitay yells back at her that she needs to get her shit together and put this country back together. Sometimes that means eating your pride and doing what needs to be done. Nezha has ways to get food for their people to survive on until they can start planting and their crops come in again. Don’t fight so hard to win a war if there will be nothing left when the war is done. But Rin wasn’t supposed to share. She was supposed to be in charge. Just her. She can’t let Kitay know that she’s onto him. She has to placate him, let him think he won, make him believe she still trusts him. But she knows she can break him. She’s known it since the moment he became her anchor. She still loves him but that doesn’t matter. He’s abandoned her and he will burn with the rest of them. Rin agrees to a meeting with Nezha. When she gets to Speer with Kitay, she speaks to Nezha. She doesn’t want to beat around the bush. What is the Consortium’s final offer when it comes to their aid? What do the Hesperians want? Nezha lays it out. The Hesperians will withdraw their soldiers, agree to an armistice, provide enough food (including meat) to feed the country until their next harvest in exchange for amnesty for everyone involved in the Republic (which is actually good for Rin because some of them have experience leading a government and Nezha will ensure their cooperation), designated treaty ports in each ocean touching province, missionary privileges allowing the Gray Company to proselytize with immunity (anyone who touches them is sent to Hesperia for punishment), and for Rin to give up shamanism. Rin will put on bands that match Nezha’s, not teach shamanism, not call the Phoenix, and help execute anyone who may know about the Pantheon. She can be stay free and rule the south, as long as she makes herself available to the Hesperian’s the way that Nezha did. Submit to them. Nezha did it, not because he wanted to, but because it was what was best for Nikan. With their knowledge and technology, they could really make changes for the better. Rin doesn’t think so. In fact, she didn’t really come here for this. She’s not there to make peace at all. She wants Nezha to call out the forces he’s been hiding. When Nezha looks confused, she loses it. On Speer, she’s stronger than anywhere else. The border between the mortal realm and the Pantheon is thin there and this land belongs to the Phoenix. Rin walks outside and lets off a plume of fire; the air ships start to come out of hiding. Nezha insists they weren’t there to attack, only there to act as support if needed, but Rin is beyond listening. She starts to bring the ships down. Nezha attacks her and he should have the upper hand, but his movements feel sluggish. She knocks Nezha to the ground. He hits his head and doesn’t get back up. Kitay is completely fed up with Rin. When she turns back to begin burning again, he cuts her off from the Phoenix. She cannot access her fire without his permission and he doesn’t give it. He tries to talk her down, but she isn’t hearing him. So, he does what he thinks he has to. He takes a dagger and prepares to use it - against himself. She grabs his wrist, stopping Kitay just in time, and they are transported back to the spirit realm where they can see each other’s souls. Her cruelty and his complicity, on full display. She makes Kitay submit. She’s always been able to do that. She towers over him with her hand on his neck. He looks at her with the same look that Daji had when looking at Riga. That Rin had looking at Altan. She sees herself, what she’s turned into. She would be a terrible leader. Like Kitay and Nezha thought, she has no interest in the mundanity of actually running a country. Look at how awful Riga was. Rin would be even worse… if she allowed herself to be. Or she could follow Tearza. Make the same choice as Jiang. Take herself out of the game. She returns to the mortal realm. Nezha wakes up and comes toward Rin. She puts the dagger in his hand and tells him to take credit for her death. She looks at Kitay, who nods with understanding. She tells Nezha to fix everything as she uses his hand to plunge the dagger into her own chest. Nezha can’t think about Rin dying in his arms or he will break apart. Once she’s gone, he knows that Kitay is gone too - leaving him alone. He should be happy. Rin became a monster and nearly destroyed Nikan. But she also purged it, cleaning it of its corruption so Nezha had a clean canvas to work with. And then they all left him the torture of working with Hesperia to rebuild. He doesn’t know what comes next but he’s going to do his best.