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Rin sat over the gate, clutching a spear to keep herself upright as she watched the path leading to the city. She had the twilight watch, which was just as well, because she could not sleep if she tried. Each time she closed her eyes she saw blood. Dried blood in the streets. Blood in the Golyn River. Corpses on hooks. Infants in barrels.
She couldn’t eat, either. The blandest foods still tasted like carcasses. Only once did they have meat; Baji caught two rabbits in the woods, flayed them, and staked them on a narrow piece of wood to roast. When Rin smelled them, she dry-heaved for several long minutes. She could not dissociate the rabbits’ flesh from the charred flesh of bodies in the square. She could not walk Golyn Niis without imagining the deaths in the moment of the execution. She could not see the hundreds of decapitated heads on poles without seeing the soldier who had walked down the row of kneeling prisoners, methodically bringing his sword down again and again as if reaping corn. She could not pass the babies in their barrel graves without hearing their uncomprehending screams.
The entire time, her own mind screamed the unanswerable question: Why?
The cruelty could not register for her. Bloodlust, she understood. Bloodlust, she was guilty of. She had lost herself in battle, too; she had gone further than she should have, she had hurt others when she should have stopped.
But this—viciousness on this scale, wanton slaughter of this magnitude, against innocents who hadn’t even lifted a finger in self-defense, this she could not imagine doing.
They surrendered, she wanted to scream at her disappeared enemy. They dropped their weapons. They posed no threat to you. Why did you have to do this?
A rational explanation eluded her.
Because the answer could not be rational. It was not founded in military strategy. It was not because of a shortage of food rations, or because of the risk of insurgency or backlash. It was, simply, what happened when one race decided that the other was insignificant.
The Federation had massacred Golyn Niis for the simple reason that they did not think of the Nikara as human. And if your opponent was not human, if your opponent was a cockroach, what did it matter how many of them you killed? What was the difference between crushing an ant and setting an anthill on fire? Why shouldn’t you pull wings off insects for your own enjoyment? The bug might feel pain, but what did that matter to you?
If you were the victim, what could you say to make your tormentor recognize you as human? How did you get your enemy to recognize you at all?
And why should an oppressor care?
Warfare was about absolutes. Us or them. Victory or defeat. There was no middle way. There was no mercy. No surrender.
This was the same logic, Rin realized, that had justified the destruction of Speer. To the Federation, to wipe out an entire race overnight was not an atrocity at all. Only a necessity.
“You’re insane.”
Rin’s head jerked up. She had sunk into another exhausted daze. She blinked twice and squinted out into the darkness until the source of the voice shifted from amorphous shadows to two recognizable forms.
Altan and Chaghan stood underneath the gate, Chaghan with his arms tightly crossed, Altan slouched against the wall. Heart hammering, Rin ducked under the low wall so they wouldn’t see her if they looked up.
“What if it wasn’t just us?” Altan asked in a low, eager voice. Rin was stunned; Altan sounded alert, alive, like he hadn’t been in days. “What if there were more of us?”
“Not this again,” said Chaghan.
“What if there were thousands of the Cike, soldiers as powerful as you and me, soldiers who could call the gods?”
“Altan . . .”
“What if I could raise an entire army of shamans?”
Rin’s eyes widened. An army?
Chaghan made a choking noise that might have been a laugh. “How do you propose to do that?”
“You know precisely how,” said Altan. “You know why I sent you to the mountain.”
“You said you only wanted the Gatekeeper.” Chaghan’s voice grew agitated. “You didn’t say you wanted to release every madman in there.”
“They’re not madmen—”
“They are not men at all! By now they are demigods! They are like bolts of lightning, like hurricanes of spiritual power. If I’d known what you were planning, I wouldn’t have—”
“Bullshit, Chaghan. You knew exactly what I was planning.”
“We were supposed to release the Gatekeeper together.” Chaghan sounded wounded.
“And we will. Just as we’ll release everyone else. Feylen. Huleinin. All of them.”
“Feylen? After what he tried to do? You don’t know what you’re saying. You are speaking of atrocities.”
“Atrocities?” Altan asked coolly. “You’ve seen the bodies here, and you accuse me of atrocities?”
Chaghan’s voice rose steadily in pitch. “What Mugen has done is human cruelty. But humans alone are only capable of so much destruction. The beings locked inside the Chuluu Korikh are capable of ruin on a different scale altogether.”
Altan barked out a laugh. “Do you have eyes? Do you see what they’ve done to Golyn Niis? A ruler should do anything necessary to protect their people. I will not be Tearza, Chaghan. I will not let them kill us off like dogs.”
Rin heard a scuffling noise. Feet shuffling against dry leaves. Limbs brushing against limbs. Were they fighting? Hardly daring to breathe, Rin peeked out from over the wall.
Chaghan grasped Altan by the collar with both hands, pulling him down so that they were face-to-face. Altan was half a foot taller than Chaghan, could have snapped him in half with ease, and yet he did not lift a hand in defense.
Rin stared at them in disbelief. Nobody touched Altan like that.
“This isn’t Speer again,” Chaghan hissed. His face was so close to Altan’s that their noses almost touched. “Even Tearza wouldn’t unleash her god to save one island. But you are sentencing thousands of people to death.”
“I’m trying to win this war—”
“What for? Look around, Trengsin! No one is going to pat you on the back and tell you good job. There’s no one left. This country is going to shit, and no one cares—”
“The Empress cares,” said Altan. “I sent a falcon, she approved my plan—”
“Who cares what your Empress says?” Chaghan screamed. His hands shook wildly. “Fuck your Empress! Your Empress fled!”
“She’s one of us,” Altan said. “You know she is. If we have her, and we have the Gatekeeper, then we can lead this army—”
“No one can lead that army.” Chaghan let go of Altan’s collar. “Those people in the mountain are not like you. They’re not like Suni. You can’t control them, and you’re not going to try. I won’t let you.”
Chaghan raised his hands to push Altan again, but Altan grabbed them this time, seized his wrists and lowered them easily. He did not let them go. “Do you really think you can stop me?”
“This isn’t you,” Chaghan said. “This is about Speer. This is about your revenge. That’s all you Speerlies do, you hate and burn and destroy without consequence. Tearza was the only one of you with any foresight. Maybe the Federation was right about you, maybe it was best they burned down your island—”
