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“We’re leaving as soon as the gelding is ready,” she said. Chaghan and Qara had departed Golyn Niis on the only halfway decent horse that the Federation hadn’t taken with them. It had taken days to find another gelding that wasn’t diseased or dying, and days more to nurture it back to a state fit for travel.
“Can I ask where to?” Kitay asked. He tried not to display his annoyance, but she knew him too well to overlook it; irritation was written across his face. Kitay was not used to missing information; she knew he resented her for it.
She hesitated, and then said, “The Kukhonin range.”
“Kukhonin?” Kitay repeated.
“Two days’ ride south from here.” She rummaged around in her bag to avoid looking at him. She had packed an enormous amount of poppy seed, everything from Enki’s stores that she could hold. Of course, none of it would be useful inside the Chuluu Korikh itself, but once they left the mountain, once they had freed every shaman inside . . .
“I know where the Kukhonin range is,” Kitay said impatiently. “I want to know why you’re riding in the opposite direction from Mugen’s main column.”
You have to tell him. Rin could not see a way of warning Kitay without divulging part of Altan’s plan. Otherwise he would insist on finding out for himself, and his curiosity would spell the death of him. She set the bag down, straightened up, and met Kitay’s eyes.
“Altan wants to raise an army.”
Kitay made a noise of disbelief. “Come again?”
“It’s . . . they’re . . . You wouldn’t understand if I told you.” How was she to explain this to him? Kitay had never studied Lore. Kitay had never truly believed in the gods, not even after the battle at Sinegard. Kitay thought that shamanism was a metaphor for arcane martial arts, that Rin and Altan’s abilities were sleights of hand and parlor tricks. Kitay did not know what lay in the Pantheon. Kitay did not understand the danger they were about to unleash.
“Just—look, I’m trying to warn you—”
“No, you’re trying to deceive me. You don’t get to deceive me,” Kitay said very loudly. “I have seen cities burning. I have seen you do what mortals should not be able to do. I have seen you raise fire. I think I have the right to know. Try me.”
“Fine.”
She told him.
Amazingly, he believed her.
“This sounds like a plan where many things could go wrong,” said Kitay when she finished. “How does Altan even know this army will fight for him?”
“They’re Nikara,” said Rin. “They have to. They’ve fought for the Empire before.”
“The same Empire that had them buried alive in the first place?”
“Not buried alive,” she said. “Immured.”
“Oh, sorry,” Kitay amended, “immured. Enclosed in stone in some magic mountain, because they became so powerful that a fucking mountain was the only thing that could stop them tearing apart entire villages. This is the army you’re just going to set loose on the country. This is what you think is going to save Nikan. Who came up with this, you or your opium-addled commander? Because this sure as hell isn’t the kind of plan you come up with sober, I can tell you that.”
Rin crossed her arms tightly against her chest. Kitay wasn’t saying anything she hadn’t already considered. What could anyone predict about maddened souls who had been entombed for years? The shamans of the Chuluu Korikh might do nothing. They might destroy half the country out of spite.
But Altan was certain they would fight for him.
They have no right to begrudge the Empress, Altan had said. All shamans know the risks when they journey to the gods. Everyone in the Cike knows that at the end of the line, they are destined for the Stone Mountain.
And the alternative was the extermination of every Nikara alive. The massacre of Golyn Niis made it obvious that the Federation did not want to take any prisoners. They wanted the massive piece of land that was the Nikara Empire. They were not interested in cohabitation with its former occupants. She knew the risks, and she had weighed them and concluded that she didn’t care. She had thrown her lot in with Altan, for better or worse.
“You can’t change my mind,” she said. “I’m telling you this as a favor. When we come out of that mountain, I don’t know how much control we’ll have, only that we’ll be powerful. Do not try to stop us. Do not try to join us. When we come, you should flee.”
“The rendezvous point will be at the base of the Kukhonin Mountains,” Altan told the assembled Cike. “If we don’t meet you there in seven days’ time, assume we were killed. Do not go inside the mountain yourselves. Wait for a bird from Qara and do as the message commands. Chaghan is commander in my stead.”
“Where is Chaghan?” Unegen ventured to ask.
“With Qara.” Altan’s face betrayed nothing. “They’ve gone north on my orders. You’ll know when they’re back.”
“When will that be?”
“When they’ve done their job.”
Rin waited by their horse, watched Altan speaking with a self-assured aura that she had not seen since Sinegard. Altan, as he presented himself now, was not that broken boy with the opium pipe. He was not the despairing Speerly reliving the genocide of his people. He was not a victim. Altan was different now than he had been even in Khurdalain. He was no longer frustrated, pacing around his office like a cornered animal, no longer constrained under Jun’s thumb. Altan had orders now, a mission, a singular purpose. He didn’t have to hold back anymore. He had been let off his leash. Altan was going to take his anger to a final, terrible conclusion.
She had no doubts they would succeed. She just didn’t know if the country would survive his plan.
“Good luck,” said Enki. “Say hi to Feylen for us.”
“Great guy,” Unegen said wistfully. “Until, you know, he tried to flatten everything in a twenty-mile radius.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” said Ramsa. “It was only ten.”
They rode as fast as the old gelding would allow. At midday they passed a boulder with two lines etched into its side. She would have missed it if Altan had not pointed it out.
“Chaghan’s work,” said Altan. “Proof that the way is safe.”
“You sent Chaghan here?”
“Yes. Before we left the Night Castle for Khurdalain.”
“Why?”
“Chaghan and I . . . Chaghan had a theory,” said Altan. “About the Trifecta. Before Sinegard, when he realized Tyr had died, he’d seen something on the spirit horizon. He thought he’d seen the Gatekeeper. He saw the same disturbance a week later, and then it disappeared. He thought the Gatekeeper must have intentionally closed himself in the Chuluu Korikh. We thought we might extract him, find out the truth—maybe discover the truth behind the Trifecta, see what’s happened to the Gatekeeper and the Emperor, find out what the Empress did to them. Chaghan didn’t know I wanted to free anyone else.”
“You lied to him.”
Altan shrugged. “Chaghan believes what he wants to believe.”
“Chaghan also . . . He said . . .” She trailed off, unsure of how to phrase her question.
