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No. It looked like ink.
A projectile shrieked overhead. She ducked. The salvo landed in the water in front of her. Another burst of black emanated from the site of impact.
It was ink.
They were firing the pellets into the water. This was intentional. Their attackers knew the Cike had a water shaman, and they had blinded Aratsha on purpose because they knew what he was.
Rin’s chest tightened. This was no random attack. The warship had targeted them, had prepared for what they could do. This was a calculated ambush planned well in advance.
Moag had sold them out.
Another series of missiles whistled through the air, this time headed for the deck. Rin crouched down, braced for the explosion, but the impact didn’t come. She opened her eyes. A delayed explosive?
But no fiery explosion rocked the boat. Instead a cloud of black smoke shot out of the projectiles, unfurling outward with a terrifying rapidity. Rin didn’t bother trying to run. The smoke covered the entire deck within seconds.
It wasn’t just a smokescreen, it was an asphyxiate—she tried to suck in air but nothing went through; it was like her throat had closed up, as if someone had pinned her to the wall by the neck. She staggered back, gagging. She could taste something in the air—something sickly sweet and terribly familiar.
Opium.
They know what we are. They know what makes us weak.
Suni and Baji dropped to their knees, utterly subdued. Wherever Qara was, she’d stopped shooting. Rin could just make out Ramsa’s and Chaghan’s limp forms through the smoke. Only she remained standing, coughing violently, clutching feebly at her throat.
She had smoked opium so many times, the phases of the high were familiar to her by now. It was only a matter of time.
First there was the dizzying sensation of floating, accompanied by an irrational euphoria.
Then the numbness that felt almost as good.
Then nothing.
Rin’s arms stung like she’d plunged them inside a beehive. Her mouth tasted like charcoal. She tried to conjure up enough spit to wet her throat and barely managed a repellent lump of phlegm. She forced her eyes open. The sudden attack of light made them water; she had to blink several times before she could look up.
She was tied to a mast, her arms stretched above her. She wiggled her fingers. She couldn’t feel them. Her legs were also bound, tied so tightly that she couldn’t even bend them.
“She awakens.” Baji’s voice.
She strained her neck but couldn’t see him. When she swiveled her head around she suffered a sudden attack of vertigo. Even tied down, she felt like she was floating. Looking up or down gave her the terrible sensation of falling. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Baji? Where are you?”
“Behind you,” he said. “Other side of the . . . the mast.”
His words came out in a barely intelligible drawl.
“The others?” she asked.
“All here,” Ramsa piped up from her other side. “Aratsha’s in that barrel.”
Rin sat up straight. “Wait, could he—”
“No go. They sealed the lid. Good thing he doesn’t need to breathe.” Ramsa must have been wiggling his arms, straining the rope, because she felt her bindings tighten painfully around her own wrists.
“Stop that,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“Whose ship is this?” she asked.
“They won’t tell us,” Baji said.
“They? Who are they?”
“We don’t know. Nikara, I’m assuming, but they won’t talk to us.” Baji raised his voice to shout at a guard who must have been standing behind her, because Rin couldn’t see anyone. “Hey, you! You Nikara?”
No response.
“Told you,” said Baji.
“Maybe they’re mutes,” Ramsa said. “All of them.”
“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Baji said.
“They could be! You don’t know!”
That wasn’t remotely funny, but Ramsa devolved into a fit of giggles, leaning forward so that the ropes strained painfully against all of their arms.
“Can you all shut up?” Chaghan’s voice. It came from several feet away.
Rin peeked her eyes open for a split second, just long enough to take in the sight of Chaghan, Qara, and Suni bound to the mast opposite her.
Chaghan was slumped against his sister. Suni was still unconscious, head drooped forward. A thick pool of saliva had collected beneath his open mouth.
“Why, hello,” said Ramsa. “Good to see you, too.”
“Shut your damn mouth,” Chaghan grumbled, before he devolved into a string of curses that ended with “Damned Nikara swine.”
“Are you high?” Ramsa let out a shrill cackle. “Tiger’s tits, Chaghan’s high—”
“I’m . . . not . . .”
“Quick, someone ask him if he’s always constipated or his face just looks that way.”
“At least I’ve got both eyes,” Chaghan snapped.
“Oh, ‘I’ve got both eyes.’ Nice one. At least I’m not so skinny a pigeon could knock me over—”
“Shut up,” Rin hissed. She opened her eyes again, trying to take stock of their surroundings. All she could see was the ocean receding behind them. “Ramsa. What do you see?”
“Just the ship’s side. Little bit of ocean.”
“Baji?”
Silence. Had he fallen asleep again?
“Baji!” she shouted.
“Hmm? What?”
“What can you see?”
“Uh. My feet. A bulkhead. The sky.”
“No, you idiot—where are we headed?”
“How the fuck should I know—wait. There’s a dot. Yeah, that’s a dot. An island, I think?”
Rin’s heartbeat quickened. Speer? Mugen? But both were a several-weeks journey away; they couldn’t be anywhere close. And she didn’t remember any islands near Ankhiluun. The old Hesperian naval bases, maybe? But those were long abandoned. If the Hesperians had come back, Nikara foreign relations had changed drastically since she’d last checked.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Not really. Hold on.” Baji was silent for a moment. “Great Tortoise. That’s a nice ship.”
“What do you mean, that’s a nice ship?”
“I mean, if that ship were a person, I would fuck that ship,” said Baji.
Rin suspected Baji wouldn’t be much help until the opium wore off. But then their vessel took a sharp turn to port, putting Rin in full view of what turned out to be, indeed, a very nice ship. They had sailed into the shadow of the largest war vessel she had ever seen: a monstrous, multidecked war junk, with several layers of catapults and portholes, and a massive trebuchet mounted on top of a deck tower.
Rin had studied naval warfare at Sinegard, though never in depth. The Imperial Navy’s own fleet had fallen into disrepair, and the only people sent to naval posts were the bottom-feeders of each class. Still, they’d learned enough about naval crafts that Rin knew this was no Imperial ship.
The Nikara couldn’t build vessels like this. It had to be a foreign battleship.
Her mind pored sluggishly over possibilities. The Hesperians hadn’t taken sides in the Third Poppy War—but if they had, then they would have allied with the Empire, which meant . . .
