The Dragon Republic. R.F. Kuang

       CHAPTER 7

      When Rin returned to her private quarters, she locked the door carefully from the inside, sliding all four bolts into place, and propped a chair against the door for good measure. Then she lay back on her bed. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, to make herself internalize a brief sense of security. She was safe. She was with allies. No one was coming for her.

      Sleep didn’t come. Something was missing.

      It took her a moment to realize what it was. She was searching for that rocking feeling of the bed shifting over water, and it wasn’t there. The Seagrim was such a massive warship that its decks mimicked solid land. For once, she was on stable ground.

      This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She had a place to be and a place to go. She wasn’t drifting anymore, wasn’t desperately scrambling to put together plans she knew would likely fail.

      She stared up at the ceiling, trying to will her racing heartbeat to slow down. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong—a deep-seated discomfort that wasn’t just the absence of rolling waves.

      It began with a prickling feeling in her fingertips. Then a flush of heat started in her palms and crept up her arms to her chest. The headache began a minute after that, searing flashes of pain that made her grind her teeth.

      And then fire started burning at the back of her eyelids.

      She saw Speer and she saw the Federation. She saw ashes and bones blurred and melted into one, one lone figure striding toward her, slender and handsome, trident in hand.

      “You stupid cunt,” Altan whispered. He reached forward. His hands made a necklace around her throat.

      Her eyes flew open. She sat up and breathed in and out, deep and slow and desperate breaths, trying to quell her sudden swell of panic.

      Then she realized what was wrong.

      She had no access to opium on this ship.

       No. Calm. Stay calm.

      Once upon a time at Sinegard, back when Master Jiang had been trying to help her shut her mind to the Phoenix, he’d taught her techniques to clear her thoughts and disappear into a void that imitated nonexistence. He’d taught her how to think like she was dead.

      She had shunned his lessons then. She tried to recall them now. She forced her mind through the mantras he’d made her repeat for hours. Nothingness. I am nothing. I do not exist. I feel nothing, I regret nothing … I am sand, I am dust, I am ash.

      It didn’t work. Surges of panic kept breaking the calm. The prickling in her fingers intensified into twisting knives. She was on fire, every part of her burned excruciatingly, and Altan’s voice echoed from everywhere.

      It should have been you.

      She ran to the door, kicked the chair away, undid the locks, and ran barefoot out into the passageway. Stabs of pain pricked the backs of her eyes, made her vision spark and flash.

      She squinted, struggling to see in the dim light. Nezha had said his cabin was at the end of the passage … so this one, it had to be … She banged frantically against the door until it opened and he appeared in the gap.

      “Rin? What are you—”

      She grabbed his shirt. “Where’s your physician?”

      His eyebrows flew up. “Are you hurt?”

      “Where?”

      “First deck, third door to the right, but—”

      She didn’t wait for him to finish before she started sprinting toward the stairs. She heard him running after her but she didn’t care; all that mattered was that she get some opium, or laudanum, or whatever was on board.

      But the physician wouldn’t let her into his office. He blocked the entrance with his body, one hand against the doorframe, the other clenched on the door handle.

      “Dragon Warlord’s orders.” He sounded like he’d been expecting her. “I’m not to give you anything.”

      “But I need—the pain, I can’t stand it, I need—”

      He started to close the door. “You’ll have to do without.”

      She jammed her foot in the door. “Just a little,” she begged. She didn’t care how pathetic she sounded, she just needed something. Anything. “Please.”

      “I have my orders,” he said. “Nothing I can do.”

      “Damn it!” she screamed. The physician flinched and slammed the door shut, but she was already running in the opposite direction, feet pounding as she neared the stairs.

      She had to get to the top deck, away from everyone. She could feel the pricks of malicious memory pressing like shards of glass into her mind; bits and pieces of suppressed recollections that swam vividly before her eyes—corpses at Golyn Niis, corpses in the research facility, corpses at Speer, and the soldiers, all with Shiro’s face, jeering and pointing and laughing, and that made her so furious, made the rage build and build—

      “Rin!”

      Nezha had caught up with her. His hand grasped her shoulder. “What the hell—”

      She whirled around. “Where’s your father?”

      “I think he’s meeting with his admirals,” he stammered. “But I wouldn’t—”

      She pushed past him. Nezha reached for her arm, but she ducked away and raced through the passageway and down the stairs to Vaisra’s office. She jiggled the handles—locked—then kicked furiously at the doors until they swung open from inside.

      Vaisra didn’t look remotely surprised to see her.

      “Gentlemen,” he said, “we’ll need some privacy, please.”

      The men inside vacated their seats without a word. None of them looked at her. Vaisra pulled the doors shut, locked them, and turned around. “What can I do for you?”

      “You told the physician not to give me opium,” Rin said.

      “That is correct.”

      Her voice trembled. “Look, asshole, I need my—”

      “Oh, no, Runin.” Vaisra lifted a finger and wagged it, as if chiding a small child. “I should have mentioned. A last condition of your enlistment. I do not tolerate opium addicts in my army.”

      “I’m not an addict, I just …” A fresh wave of pain racked her head and she broke off, wincing.

      “You’re no good to me high. I need you alert. I need someone capable of infiltrating the Autumn Palace and killing the Empress, not some opium-riddled sack of shit.”

      “You don’t get it,” she said. “If you don’t drug me, I will incinerate everyone on this ship.”

      He shrugged. “Then we’ll throw you overboard.”

      She could only stare at him. This made no sense to her. How could he remain so infuriatingly calm? Why wasn’t he caving in, cowering in terror? This wasn’t how it was supposed to work—she was supposed to threaten him and he was supposed to do what she wanted, that was always how it worked—

      Why hadn’t she scared him?

      Desperate, she resorted to begging. “You don’t know how much this hurts. It’s in my mind—the god is always in my mind, and it hurts …”

      “It’s not the god.” Vaisra stood up and crossed the room toward her. “It’s the anger. And it’s your fear. You’ve seen battle for the first time, and your nerves can’t shut down. You’re frightened all the time.