The Dragon Republic. R.F. Kuang

his chin indignantly. “I did what Altan ordered.”

      That made her screech with laughter. “Me too! I was just acting on orders! He said I had to get vengeance for the Speerlies, and so I did, so it’s not my fault, because Altan said—”

      “Shut up,” Chaghan snapped. “Listen—Vaisra thinks that Daji ordered the opening of those dikes.”

      She was still giggling. “So does Nezha.”

      He looked alarmed. “What did you tell him?”

      “Nothing, obviously. I’m not stupid.”

      “You can’t tell anyone the truth,” Qara cut in. “Nobody in the Dragon Republic can know.”

      Of course Rin understood that. She knew how dangerous it would be to give the Dragon Army a reason to turn on the Cike. But in that moment all she could think of was how terribly funny it was that she wasn’t the only one with mass murder on her hands.

      “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t tell. I’ll be the only monster. Just me.”

      The twins looked stricken, but she couldn’t stop laughing. She wondered how it had felt, the moment before the wave hit. The civilians might have been making dinner, playing outside, putting their children to bed, telling stories, making love, before a crushing force of water swept over their homes, destroyed their villages, and snuffed out their lives.

      This was what the balance of power looked like now. People like her waved a hand and millions were crushed within the confines of some elemental disaster, flung off the chessboard of the world like irrelevant pieces. People like her—shamans, all of them—were like children stomping around over entire cities as if they were mud castles, glass houses, fungible entities that could be targeted and demolished.

      On the seventh morning after they’d left Ankhiluun, the pain receded.

      She woke up without a fever. No headache. She took a hesitant step toward the door and was pleasantly surprised at how steady her feet felt on the floor, how the world didn’t whirl and shift around her. She opened the door, wandered out onto the upper deck, and was stunned by how good the river spray felt on her face.

      Her senses felt sharper. Colors seemed brighter. She could smell things she hadn’t before. The world seemed to exist with a vibrancy that she hadn’t been aware of.

      And then she realized that she had her mind to herself.

      The Phoenix wasn’t gone. She felt the god lingering still at the forefront of her mind, whispering tales of destruction, trying to control her desires.

      But this time she knew what she wanted.

      And she wanted control.

      She’d been victim to the god’s urges because she’d been keeping her own mind weak, dousing away the flame with a temporary and unsustainable solution. But now her head was clear, her mind was present—and when the Phoenix screamed, she could shut it down.

      She requested to see Vaisra. He sent for her within minutes.

      He was alone in his office when she arrived.

      “You’re not afraid of me?” she asked.

      “I trust you,” he said.

      “You shouldn’t.”

      “Then I trust you more than you trust yourself.” He was acting like an entirely different person. The harsh persona was gone. His voice sounded so gentle, so encouraging that she was suddenly reminded of Tutor Feyrik.

      She hadn’t thought about Tutor Feyrik in a long time. She hadn’t felt safe in a long time.

      Vaisra leaned back in his chair. “Go on, then. Try calling the fire for me. Just a little bit.”

      She opened her hand and focused her eyes on her palm. She recalled the rage, felt the heat of it coil in the pit of her stomach. But this time it didn’t come all at once in an uncontrollable torrent, but manifested as a slow, angry burn.

      A small burst of flame erupted in her palm. And it was just the burst; no more, no less, though she could increase its size, or if she wanted to, force it even smaller.

      She closed her eyes, breathing slowly; cautiously she raised the flame higher and higher, a single ribbon of fire swaying over her hand like a reed, until Vaisra commanded her, “Stop.”

      She closed her fist. The fire went out.

      Only afterward did she realize how fast her heart was beating.

      “Are you all right?” Vaisra asked.

      She managed a nod.

      A smile spread over his face. He looked more than pleased. He looked proud. “Do it again. Make it bigger. Brighter. Shape it for me.”

      She reeled. “I can’t. I don’t have that much control.”

      “You can. Don’t think about the Phoenix. Look at me.”

      She met his eyes. His gaze was an anchor.

      A fire sparked out of her fist. She shaped it with trembling hands until it took on the image of a dragon, coils undulating in the space between her and Vaisra, making the air shimmer with the heat of the blaze.

      More, said the Phoenix. Bigger. Higher.

      Its screams pushed at the edge of her mind. She tried to shut it down.

      The fire didn’t recede.

      She started to shake. “No, I can’t—I can’t, you have to get out—”

      “Don’t think about it,” Vaisra whispered. “Look at me.”

      Slowly, so faintly she was afraid she was imagining it, the red behind her eyelids subsided.

      The fire disappeared. She collapsed to her knees.

      “Good girl,” Vaisra said softly.

      She wrapped her arms around herself, rocked back and forth on the floor, and tried to remember how to breathe.

      “May I show you something?” Vaisra asked.

      She looked up. He crossed the room to a cabinet, opened a drawer, and pulled out a cloth-covered parcel. She flinched when he jerked the cloth off, but all she saw underneath was the dull sheen of metal.

      “What is it?” she asked.

      But she already knew. She would recognize this weapon anywhere. She had spent hours gazing upon that steel, the metal etched with evidence of countless battles. It was metal all the way through, even at the hilt, which would normally be made of wood, because Speerlies needed weapons that wouldn’t burn through when they held them.

      Rin felt a sudden light-headedness that had nothing to do with opium withdrawal and everything to do with the sudden and terribly vivid memory of Altan Trengsin walking down the pier to his death.

      A harsh sob rose in her throat. “Where did you get that?”

      “My men recovered it from the Chuluu Korikh.” Vaisra bent down and held the trident out before her. “I thought you might want to have it.”

      She blinked at him, uncomprehending. “You—why were you there?”

      “You’ve got to stop thinking I know less than I do. We were looking for Altan. He would have been, ah, useful.”

      She snorted through her tears. “You think Altan would have joined you?”

      “I think Altan wanted any opportunity to rebuild this Empire.”

      “Then you don’t know anything about him.”

      “I knew his people,” Vaisra said. “I led the soldiers that liberated him from the research facility, and I helped train him when he was old enough to fight. Altan would have fought for this Republic.”

      She