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“We’re at war! We might die anyway. So maybe calling the gods gives us a fighting chance. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“You’re so young,” he said softly. “You have no idea.”
After that, Rin saw neither hide nor hair of Jiang on campus at all. Rin knew he was deliberately avoiding her, as he had before her Trials, as he did whenever he didn’t want to have a conversation. She found this incredibly frustrating.
You’re so young.
That was even more frustrating.
She wasn’t so young that she didn’t know her country was at war. Not so young that she hadn’t been tasked to defend it.
Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.
Sinegard’s time was running out. Scouts reported daily that the Federation force was almost on their doorstep.
Rin couldn’t sleep, though she desperately needed to. Each time she closed her eyes, anxiety crushed her like an avalanche. During the day her head swam with exhaustion and her eyes burned, yet she could not calm herself enough to rest. She tried meditating, but terror plagued her mind; her heart raced and her breath contracted with fear.
At night, when she lay alone in the darkness, she heard over and over the call of the Phoenix. It plagued her dreams, whispered seductively to her from the other realm. The temptation was so great that it nearly drove her mad.
I will keep you sane, Jiang had promised.
But he had not kept her sane. He had shown her a great power, a tantalizingly wonderful power strong enough to protect her city and country, and then he had forbidden her from accessing it.
Rin obeyed, because he was her master, and the allegiance between master and apprentice still meant something, even in times of war.
But that didn’t stop her from going into his garden when she knew he was not on campus, and shoving several handfuls of poppy seeds in her front pocket.
Chapter 11
When the main column of the Federation Armed Forces marched on Sinegard, they did not attempt to conceal their arrival. They did not need to. Sinegard knew already that they were coming, and the terror the Federation inflicted gave them a far greater strategic advantage than the element of surprise. They advanced in three columns, marching from every direction but the west, where Sinegard was backed by the Wudang Mountains. They forged forward with massive crimson banners flying overhead, illuminated by raised torches.
For Ryohai, the banners read. For the Emperor.
In his Principles of War, the great military theorist Sunzi had warned against attacking an enemy that occupied the higher ground. The target above held the advantage of surveillance and would not need to tire out their troops by climbing uphill.
The Federation invasion strategy was a giant fuck you to Sunzi.
To storm Sinegard from higher ground would have required a detour up the Wudang Mountains, which would have delayed the Federation assault by almost an entire week. The Federation would not give Sinegard a week. The Federation had the weapons and the numbers to take Sinegard from below.
From her vantage point high on the southern city wall, Rin watched the Federation force approach like a great fiery snake winding its way through the valley, encircling Sinegard to crush and swallow it. She saw it coming, and she trembled.
I want to hide. I want someone to tell me I’m going to be safe, that this is just a joke, a bad dream.
In that moment she realized that all this time she had been playing at being a soldier, playing at bravery.
But now, on the eve of the battle, she could not pretend anymore.
Fear bubbled in the back of her throat, so thick and tangible that she almost choked on it. Fear made her fingers tremble violently so that she almost dropped her sword. Fear made her forget how to breathe. She had to force air into her lungs, close her eyes, and count to herself as she inhaled and exhaled. Fear made her dizzy and nauseated, made her want to vomit over the side of the wall.
It’s just a physiological reaction, she told herself. It’s just in your mind. You can control it. You can make it go away.
They had gone over this in training. They had been warned about this feeling. They were taught to control their fear, turn it to their advantage; use their adrenaline to remain alert, to ward off fatigue.
But a few days of training could not negate what her body instinctively felt, which was the imminent truth that she was going to bleed, she was going to hurt, and she was most likely going to die.
When had she last been this scared? Had she felt this paralysis, this numbing dread before she stepped into the ring with Nezha two years ago? No, she had been angry then, and proud. She had thought she was invincible. She had been looking forward to the fight, anticipating the bloodlust.
That felt stupid now. So, so stupid. War was not a game, where one fought for honor and admiration, where masters would keep her from sustaining any real harm.
War was a nightmare.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream and hide behind someone, behind one of the soldiers, wanted to whimper, I am scared, I want to wake up from this dream, please save me.
But no one was coming for her. No one was going to save her. There was no waking up.
“Are you all right?” Kitay asked.
“No,” she said, trembling. Her voice was a frightened squeak. “I’m scared. Kitay, we’re going to die.”
“No, we’re not,” Kitay said fiercely. “We’re going to win, and we are going to live.”
“You’ve done the math, too.” They were outnumbered three to one. “Victory is not possible.”
“You have to believe it is.” Kitay’s fingers were clenched so tightly around his sword hilt that they had turned white. “The Third will get here in time. You have to tell yourself that’s true.”
Rin swallowed hard and nodded. You were not trained to snivel and cower, she told herself. The girl from Tikany, the escaped bride who had never seen a city, would have been scared. The girl from Tikany was gone. She was a third-year apprentice of the Academy at Sinegard, she was a soldier of the Eighth Division, and she was trained to fight.
And she was not alone. She had poppy seeds in her pocket. She had a god on her side.
“Tell me when,” Kitay said. He was poised with his sword over the rope that constrained a booby trap they had set to defend the outer perimeter. Kitay had designed this trap; he would unleash it just as soon as the enemy was within range.
They were so close she could see the firelight flickering over their faces.
Kitay’s hand trembled.
“Not yet,” she whispered.
The first of the Federation battalion crossed the boundary.
“Now.”
Kitay slashed at the rope.
A rolling avalanche of logs was freed from its breaking point, pulled down by gravity to bowl straight through the main advancing force. The logs rolled chaotically, shattered limbs and crushed bone with a noise like thunder that went on and on. For a moment the rumbling of carnage was so great Rin thought they might have won the battle before it started, might have seriously crippled the advancing force. Kitay whooped hysterically over the clamor, clutching Rin to keep from falling over as the gates themselves shook.
