The Dragon Republic. R.F. Kuang

sheer loudness, the pirates and merchants screaming at each other in Ankhiluuni pidgin, an unintelligible mix of Nikara and western languages. She hated that the Floating City teetered over open water, roiling back and forth with each incoming wave, so that even standing still, she felt like she was about to fall.

      She wouldn’t have come here except out of utter necessity. Ankhiluun was the single place in the Empire where she was close to safe. And it was home to the only people who would sell her weapons.

      And opium.

      At the end of the First Poppy War, the Republic of Hesperia sat down with delegates from the Federation of Mugen to sign a treaty that established two neutral zones on the Nikara coastline. The first was at the international port of Khurdalain. The second was at the floating city of Ankhiluun.

      Back then Ankhiluun had been a humble port—just a smattering of nondescript one-story buildings without basements because the flimsy coastal sands couldn’t support any larger architecture.

      Then the Trifecta won the Second Poppy War, and the Dragon Emperor bombed half the Hesperian fleet to smithereens in the South Nikan Sea.

      In the absence of foreigners, Ankhiluun flourished. The locals occupied the half-destroyed ships like ocean parasites, linking them together to form the Floating City. Now Ankhiluun extended precariously from the coastline like an overreaching spider, a series of wooden planks that formed a web of walkways between the myriad ships anchored to shore.

      Ankhiluun was the juncture through which poppy in all its forms entered the Empire. Moag’s opium clippers sailed in from the western hemisphere and deposited their cargo in giant, empty husks of ships that served as repositories, from which long, thin smuggling boats picked it up and poured through branches of tributaries spreading out from the Murui River, steadily infusing the Empire’s bloodstream like seeping poison.

      Ankhiluun meant cheap, abundant opium, and that meant glorious, peaceful oblivion—hours upon hours when she didn’t have to think about or remember anything at all.

      And that, above all, was why Rin hated Ankhiluun. It made her so terribly afraid. The more time she spent here, locked alone in her cabin while she drifted on Moag’s drugs, the less she felt able to leave.

      “Odd,” said Baji. “You’d think we’d get more of a welcome.”

      To get to the city center, they’d passed floating markets, garbage piles strewn along the canals, and rows of distinctive Ankhiluuni bars that had no benches or chairs—only ropes strung across walls where patrons could hang drunk by their armpits.

      But they had been walking for more than half an hour now. They were well within the heart of the city, in full view of its residents, and no one had intercepted them.

      Moag had to know they were back. Moag knew everything that happened in the Floating City.

      “That’s just how Moag likes to play power politics.” Rin stopped walking to catch her breath. The shifting planks made her want to vomit. “She doesn’t seek us out. We have to go to her.”

      Getting an audience with Chiang Moag was no easy affair. The Pirate Queen surrounded herself with so many layers of security that no one knew where she was at any given time. Only the Black Lilies, her cohort of spies and assistants, could be counted upon to get word directly to her, and the Lilies could only be found at a gaudy pleasure barge floating in the center of the city’s main canal.

      Rin looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun. “There.”

      The Black Orchid wasn’t so much a ship as it was a floating three-story mansion. Garishly colorful lanterns hung from its sloped pagoda roofs, and bawdy, energetic music drifted constantly from its papered windows. Each day starting at noon, the Black Orchid crawled up and down the still canal, picking up patrons who rowed out to its decks in bright red sampans.

      Rin dug around in her pockets. “Anyone got a copper?”

      “I do.” Baji tossed a coin toward the sampan boatman, who guided his vessel toward the shore to ferry the Cike onto the pleasure barge.

      A handful of Lilies, perched lightly on the second-story railing, waved insouciantly at them as they approached. Baji whistled back.

      “Stop that,” Rin muttered.

      “Why?” Baji asked. “It makes them happy. Look, they’re smiling.”

      “No, it makes them think you’re an easy target.”

      The Lilies were Moag’s private army of terribly attractive women, all with breasts the size of pears and waists so narrow they looked in danger of snapping in half. They were trained martial artists, linguists, and uniformly the most obnoxious group of women Rin had ever met.

      A Lily stopped them at the top of the gangplank, her tiny hand stretched out as if she could physically stop them from boarding. “You don’t have an appointment.”

      She was clearly a new girl. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen. Her face bore only small dabs of lipstick, her breasts were just little buds poking through her shirt, and she didn’t seem to realize she was standing in front of a handful of the most dangerous people in the Empire.

      “I’m Fang Runin,” said Rin.

      The girl blinked. “Who?”

      Rin heard Ramsa turn his snicker into a cough.

      “Fang Runin,” she repeated. “I don’t need an appointment.”

      “Oh, love, that’s not how it works here.” The girl tapped slim fingers against her impossibly narrow waist. “You’ve got to make an appointment, and we’re booked up days in advance.” She peered over Rin’s shoulder at Baji, Suni, and Ramsa. “Also, it’s extra for groups larger than four. The girls don’t like it when you share.”

      Rin reached for her blade. “Look here, you little shit—”

      “Back up.” Suddenly the girl was holding a fistful of needles she must have concealed in her sleeve. Their tips were purple with poison. “No one touches a Lily.”

      Rin fought the sudden urge to slap the girl across her face. “If you don’t move aside this second, I’ll shove this blade so far up your—”

      “Well, this is a surprise.” The silk sheets over the main doors rustled, and a voluptuous figure emerged on deck. Rin stifled a groan.

      It was Sarana, a Black Lily of the highest distinction and Moag’s personal favorite. She’d been Moag’s go-between with the Cike since they landed at Ankhiluun three months ago. She possessed an unbearably sharp tongue, an obsession with sexual innuendo, and—according to Baji—the most perfect breasts south of the Murui.

      Rin hated her.

      “Fancy seeing you here.” Sarana approached, cocking her head to the side. “We thought you weren’t interested in women.”

      She had a way of shimmying when she spoke, accentuating each word with a shake of her hips. Baji made a choking noise. Ramsa was staring unabashedly at Sarana’s chest.

      “I need to see Moag,” Rin said.

      “Moag’s busy,” Sarana replied.

      “I think Moag knows better than to keep me waiting.”

      Sarana raised her finely drawn eyebrows. “She also doesn’t like to be disrespected.”

      “Must I be blunt?” Rin snapped. “Unless you want this boat going up in flames, you go get your mistress and tell her I want an audience.”

      Sarana feigned a yawn. “Be nice to me, Speerly. Else I’ll tattle.”

      “I could sink your barge in minutes.”

      “And Moag would have you shot full of arrows before you could even get off the boat.” Sarana gave her a dismissive wave. “Get going, Speerly. We’ll send for you when Moag is ready.”