The Dragon Republic. R.F. Kuang

through the sludgy mud.

      She squinted at the banks. She wasn’t sure if she was just hallucinating, but the closer they got, the more clearly she could make out little shapes moving in the distance, like ants crawling up logs.

      “Are those people?” she asked.

      They were. She could see them clearly now—men and women stooped beneath the sacks they carried over their shoulders, young children staggering barefoot along the riverside, and little babies strapped in bamboo baskets to their parents’ backs.

      “Where are they going?”

      Nezha looked faintly surprised that she had even asked. “They’re refugees.”

      “From where?”

      “Everywhere. Golyn Niis wasn’t the only city the Federation sacked. They destroyed the whole countryside. The entire time we were holding that pointless siege at Khurdalain they were marching southward, setting villages ablaze after they’d ripped them apart for supplies.”

      Rin was still hung up on the first thing he’d said. “So Golyn Niis wasn’t …”

      “No. Not even close.”

      She couldn’t even fathom the death count this implied. How many people had lived in Golyn Niis? She multiplied that by the provinces and came up with a number nearing a million.

      And now, all across the country, the Nikara refugees were shuffling back to their homes. The tide of bodies that had flowed from the war-ravaged cities to the barren northwest had started to turn.

      “‘You asked how large my sorrow is,’” Nezha recited. Rin recognized the line—it was from a poem she’d studied a lifetime ago, a lament by an Emperor whose last words became exam material for future generations. “‘And I answered, like a river in spring flowing east.’”

      As they floated up the Murui, crowds of people lined the banks with their arms outstretched, screaming at the Seagrim.

       “Please, just up to the edge of the province …”

       “Take my girls, leave me but take the girls …”

       “You have space! You have space, damn you …”

      Nezha tugged gently at Rin’s wrist. “Let’s go belowdecks.”

      She shook her head. She wanted to see.

      “Why can’t someone send boats?” she asked. “Why can’t we bring them home?”

      “They’re not going home, Rin. They’re running.”

      Dread pooled in her stomach. “How many are still out there?”

      “The Mugenese?” Nezha sighed. “They’re not a single army. They’re individual brigades. They’re cold, hungry, frustrated, and they have nowhere to go. They’re thieves and bandits now.”

      “How many?” she repeated.

      “Enough.”

      She made a fist. “I thought I brought peace.”

      “You brought victory,” he said. “This is what happens after. The Warlords can hardly keep control over their home provinces. Food shortages. Rampant crime—and it’s not just the Federation bandits. The Nikara are at each other’s throats. Scarcity will do that to you.”

      “So of course you think it’s a good time to fight another war.”

      “Another war is inevitable. But maybe we can prevent the next big one. The Republic will have growing pains. But if we can fix the foundation—if we can institute structures that make the next invasion less likely and keep future generations safe—then we’ll have succeeded.”

      Foundation. Growing pains. Future generations. Such abstract concepts, she thought; concepts that wouldn’t compute for the average peasant. Who cared who sat on the throne at Sinegard when vast stretches of the Empire were underwater?

      The children’s cries suddenly seemed unbearable.

      “Couldn’t we give them something?” she asked. “Money? Don’t you have stacks of silver?”

      “So they could spend it where?” Nezha asked. “You could give them more ingots than you could count, but they’ve got nowhere to buy goods. There’s no supply.”

      “Food, then?”

      “We tried doing that. They just tear each other to pieces trying to get at it. It’s not a pretty sight.”

      She rested her chin on her elbows. Behind them the flock of humans receded; ignored, irrelevant, betrayed.

      “You want to hear a joke?” Nezha asked.

      She shrugged.

      “A Hesperian missionary once said the state of the average Nikara peasant is that of a man standing in a pond with water coming up to his chin,” said Nezha. “The slightest ripple is enough to put him underwater.”

      Staring out over the Murui, Rin didn’t find that the least bit funny.

      That night she decided to drown herself.

      It wasn’t a premeditated decision so much as it was an act of sheer desperation. The pain had gotten so bad that she banged on the door to her room, begging for help, and then when the guards opened it she ducked past their arms and ran up the stairs and out the hatch to the main deck.

      Guards ran after her, shouting for reinforcements, but she doubled her pace, bare heels slamming against the wood. Splinters lanced little shreds of pain through her skin—but that was good pain because it distracted her from her screaming mind, if only for half a second.

      The railing of the prow came up to her chest. She gripped the edge and attempted to pull herself up, but her arms were weak—surprisingly weak, she didn’t remember getting that weak—and she sagged against the side. She tried again, hoisted herself far enough that her upper body draped over the edge. She hung there facedown for a moment, staring at the dark waves trailing alongside the Seagrim.

      A pair of arms grasped her around the waist. She kicked and flailed, but they only tightened as they dragged her back down. She twisted her neck around.

       “Suni?”

      He walked backward from the prow, carrying her by the waist like a little child.

      “Let go,” she panted. “Let me go!”

      He put her down. She tried to break away but he grabbed her wrists, twisted her arms behind her back, and forced her down into a sitting position.

      “Breathe,” he ordered. “Just breathe.”

      She obeyed. The pain didn’t subside. The screaming didn’t quiet. She began to shake, but Suni didn’t let go of her arms. “If you just keep breathing, I’ll tell you a story.”

      “I don’t want to hear a fucking story,” she said, gasping.

      “Don’t want. Don’t think. Just breathe.” Suni’s voice was quiet, soothing. “Have you heard the story of the Monkey King and the moon?”

      “No,” she whimpered.

      “Then listen carefully.” He relaxed his grip ever so slightly, just enough that her arms stopped hurting. “Once upon a time, the Monkey King caught his first glimpse of the Moon Goddess.”

      Rin shut her eyes and tried to focus on Suni’s voice. She’d never heard Suni talk this much. He was always so quiet, drawn into himself, as if he were unused to being in full occupation of his own mind that he wanted to relish the experience as much as possible. She’d forgotten how gentle he could sound.

      He continued. “The Moon Goddess had just ascended to the heavens, and she was still drifting so close to Earth that you could see her