The Dragon Republic. R.F. Kuang
ship. Remnants of her breakfast, a phlegmy, eggy mess, floated in the green waves below.
She took the shards of candy from Ramsa’s palm and chewed while fighting the urge to dry-heave. For all their weeks at sea, she’d still never gotten used to the constant sensation that the ground was swirling beneath her feet.
“Expect some choppier waves today,” Baji said. “Monsoon season is kicking up in the Omonod. We’ll want to avoid going upwind if this keeps up, but as long as we have the shore as a breakwater we should be all right.”
He was the only one of them who had any real nautical experience—he’d worked on a transport ship as part of his labor sentence shortly before he’d been sent to Baghra—and he flaunted it obnoxiously.
“Oh, shut up,” Ramsa said. “It’s not like you do any real steering.”
“I’m the navigator!”
“Aratsha’s the navigator. You just like the way you look standing at the helm.”
Rin was grateful that they didn’t have to do much maneuvering themselves. It meant they didn’t have to bother with a crew of Moag’s hired help. They needed only the six of them to sail up and down South Nikan Sea, doing minimal ship maintenance while blessed Aratsha trailed alongside the hull, guiding the ship wherever they needed to go.
Moag had lent them an opium skimmer named Caracel, a sleek and skinny vessel that somehow packed six cannons on each side. They didn’t have the numbers to man each cannon, but Ramsa had devised a clever workaround. He’d connected all twelve fuses with the same strip of twine, which meant he could set them all off at once.
But that was only the last resort. Rin didn’t intend to win this skirmish with cannons. If Moag didn’t want survivors, then Rin only had to get close enough to board.
She folded her arms on the railing and rested her chin on them, staring down at the empty water. Sailing was far less interesting than staking out enemy camps. Battlefields were endlessly entertaining. The ocean was just lonely. She’d spent the morning watching the monotonous gray horizon, trying to keep her eyes open. Moag hadn’t been certain when her tax-evading captain would sail back to port. It could be any time from now to past midnight.
Rin didn’t understand how the sailors could stand the terrible lack of orientation at sea. To her, every stretch of the ocean looked the same. Without the coast to anchor her, one horizon was indistinguishable from the next. She could read star charts if she tried, but to her naked eye, each patch of greenish blue meant the same thing.
They could be anywhere in Omonod Bay. Somewhere out there lay the Isle of Speer. Somewhere out there was the Federation.
Moag had once offered to take her back to Mugen to survey the damage, but Rin had refused. She knew what she would find there. Millions of bodies encased within hardened rock, charred skeletons frozen in their last living acts.
How would they be positioned? Mothers reaching for their children? Husbands wrapping their arms around their wives? Maybe their hands would be stretched out toward the sea, as if they could escape the deadly thick sulfurous clouds rumbling down the mountainside if they could just get to the water.
She had imagined this too many times, had painted a far more vivid image of it in her mind than reality was likely to be. When she closed her eyes she saw Mugen and she saw Speer; the two islands blurred together in her mind, because in all cases the narrative was the same: children going up in flames, the skin sloughing off their bodies in large black patches, revealing glistening bone underneath.
They burned for someone else’s war, someone else’s wrongs; someone they had never met had made the decision they should die, so in their last moments they would have had no idea why their skin was scorching off.
Rin blinked and shook her head to clear it. She kept slipping into daydreams. She’d taken a small dose of laudanum last night after her singed palm hurt so much she couldn’t sleep, which in retrospect was an awful idea because laudanum exhausted her more than opium did and wasn’t half as fun.
She examined her hand. Her skin was puffy and furiously red, even though she’d soaked it in aloe for hours. She couldn’t make a fist without wincing. She was grateful she’d only burned her left hand, not her sword hand. She cringed at the thought of grasping a hilt against the tender skin.
She moved her thumbnail over the center of her palm and dug it hard into the open wound. Pain lanced through her arm, bringing tears to her eyes. But it woke her up.
“Shouldn’t have taken that laudanum,” said Chaghan.
She jerked upright. “I’m awake.”
He joined her by the railing. “Sure you are.”
Rin shot him an irritated glare, wondering how much effort it would take to toss him overboard. Not very much, she guessed. Chaghan was so terribly frail. She could do it. They wouldn’t miss him. Probably.
“You see those rock formations?” Baji, who must have sensed an impending screaming match, edged his way in between them. He pointed toward a series of cliffs on the distant Ankhiluuni shore. “What do they look like to you?”
Rin squinted. “A man?”
Baji nodded. “A drowned man. If you sail to shore during sunset, it looks like he’s swallowing the sun. That’s how you know you’ve found Ankhiluun.”
“How many times have you been here?” Rin asked.
“Plenty. Came down here with Altan once, two years ago.”
“For what?”
“Tyr wanted us to kill Moag.”
Rin snorted. “Well, you failed.”
“To be fair, it was the only time Altan ever failed.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” she said. “Wonderful Altan. Perfect Altan. Best commander you’ve ever had. Did everything right.”
“Excepting the Chuluu Korikh,” Ramsa piped up. “You could call that a disaster of monumental proportions.”
“To be fair, Altan used to make some really good tactical decisions.” Baji rubbed his chin. “Before, you know, that string of really bad ones.”
Ramsa whistled. “Lost his mind near the end, he did.”
“Went a little crazy, yeah.”
“Shut up about Altan,” said Chaghan.
“It’s a pity how the best ones snap,” Baji continued, ignoring him. “Like Feylen. Huleinin, too. And you remember how Altan started sleepwalking at Khurdalain? I swear, one night I was walking back from taking a piss and he—”
“I said shut up!” Chaghan slammed both hands against the railing.
Rin felt a noticeable chill sweep over the deck; goose bumps were forming on her arms. There was a stillness in the air, like the space between lightning and thunder. Chaghan’s bone-white hair had begun to curl up at the edges.
His face didn’t match his aura. He looked like he might cry.
Baji lifted his palms up. “All right. Tiger’s tits. I’m sorry.”
“You do not have the right,” Chaghan hissed. He pointed a finger at Rin. “Especially you.”
She bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re the reason why—”
“Why what?” she asked loudly. “Go on, say it.”
“Guys. Guys.” Ramsa wedged his way between them. “Great Tortoise, lighten up. Altan’s dead. All right? Dead. And fighting about it won’t bring him back.”
“Look at this.” Baji handed Rin his spyglass, directing her attention to a black point just visible on the horizon. “Does that