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Rin shifted uncomfortably. They were sizing her up like a cow at market.
The Ox Warlord spoke first. Rin recognized him from Khurdalain; she was surprised that he was still alive. “This little girl held you up for weeks?”
Vaisra chuckled. “The searching ate my time, not the extraction. I found her stranded in Ankhiluun. Moag got to her first.”
The Ox Warlord looked surprised. “The Pirate Queen? How did you wrestle her away?”
“I traded Moag for something she likes better,” Vaisra said.
“Why would you bring her here alive?” demanded a man at the other end of the table.
Rin swiveled her head around and nearly jumped in surprise. She hadn’t recognized Master Jun at first glance. His beard had grown much longer, and his hair was shot through with gray streaks that hadn’t been there before the war. But she could find the same arrogance etched into the lines of her old Combat master’s face, as well as his clear distaste for her.
He glared at Vaisra. “Treason deserves the death penalty. And she’s far too dangerous to keep around.”
“Don’t be hasty,” said the Horse Warlord. “She might be useful.”
“Useful?” Jun echoed.
“She’s the last of her kind. We’d be fools to throw a weapon like that away.”
“Weapons are only useful if you can wield them,” said the Ox Warlord. “I think you’d have a little trouble taming this beast.”
“Where do you think she went wrong?” The Rooster Warlord leaned forward to get a better look at her.
Rin had privately been looking forward to meeting the Rooster Warlord, Gong Takha. They came from the same province. They spoke the same dialect, and his skin was nearly as dark as hers. Word on the Seagrim was that Takha was the closest to joining the Republic. But if provincial ties counted for anything, Takha didn’t show it. He stared at her with the same sort of fearful curiosity one displayed toward a caged tiger.
“She’s got a wild look in her eyes,” he continued. “Do you think the Mugenese experiments did that to her?”
I’m in the room, Rin wanted to snap. Stop talking about me like I’m not here.
But Vaisra wanted her to be docile. Act stupid, he’d said. Don’t come off as too intelligent.
“Nothing so complex,” said Vaisra. “She was a Speerly straining against her leash. You remember how the Speerlies were.”
“When my dogs go mad, I put them down,” Jun said.
The Empress spoke from the doorway. “But little girls aren’t dogs, Loran.”
Rin froze.
Su Daji had traded her ceremonial robes for a green soldier’s uniform. Her shoulder pads were inlaid with jade armor, and a longsword hung at her waist. It seemed like a message. She was not only the Empress, she was also grand marshal of the Nikara Imperial Militia. She’d conquered the Empire once by force. She’d do it again.
Rin fought to keep her breathing steady as Daji reached out and traced her fingertips over her muzzle.
“Careful,” Jun said. “She bites.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” Daji’s voice sounded languid, almost disinterested. “Did she put up a fight?”
“She tried,” Vaisra said.
“I imagine there were casualties.”
“Not as many as you would expect. She’s weak. The drug’s done her in.”
“Of course.” Daji’s lip curled. “Speerlies have always had their predilections.”
Her hand drifted upward to pat Rin gently on the head.
Rin’s fingers curled into fists.
Calm, she reminded herself. The opium hadn’t worn off yet. When she tried to call the fire, she felt only a numb, blocked sensation in the back of her mind.
Daji’s eyes lingered on Rin for a long while. Rin froze, terrified that the Empress might take her aside now like Vaisra had warned. It was too early. If she were alone in a room with Daji, the best she could do was hurl some disoriented fists in her direction.
But Daji only smiled, shook her head, and turned toward the table. “We’ve much to get through. Shall we proceed?”
“What about the girl?” Jun asked. “She ought to be in a cell.”
“I know.” Daji shot Rin a poisonous smile. “But I like to watch her sweat.”
The next two hours were the slowest of Rin’s life.
Once the Warlords had exhausted their curiosity over her, they turned their attention to an enormous roster of problems economic, agricultural, and political. The Third Poppy War had wrecked nearly every province. Federation soldiers had destroyed most of the infrastructure in every major city they’d occupied, set fire to huge swaths of grain fields, and wiped out entire villages. Mass refugee movements had reshaped the human density of the country. This was the kind of disaster that would have taken miraculous effort from a unified central leadership to ameliorate, and the council of the twelve Warlords was anything but.
“Control your damn people,” said the Ox Warlord. “I have thousands streaming into my border as we speak and we don’t have a place for them.”
“What are we supposed to do, create a border guard?” The Hare Warlord had a distinctly plaintive, grating voice that made Rin wince every time he spoke. “Half my province is flooded, we haven’t got food stores to last the winter—”
“Neither do we,” said the Ox Warlord. “Send them elsewhere or we’ll all starve.”
“We’d be willing to repatriate citizens from the Hare Province under a set quota,” said the Dog Warlord. “But they’d have to display provincial registration papers.”
“Registration papers?” the Hare Warlord echoed. “These people had their villages sacked and you’re asking for registration papers? Right, like the first thing they grabbed when their village started going up in flames was—”
“We can’t house everyone. My people are pressed for resources as is—”
“Your province is a steppe wasteland, you’ve got more than enough space.”
“We have space; we don’t have food. And who knows what your sort would bring in over the borders . . .”
Rin had a difficult time believing that this council, if one could call it that, was really how the Empire functioned. She knew how often the Warlords went to arms over resources, trade routes, and—occasionally—over the best recruits graduating from Sinegard. And she knew that the fractures had been deepening, had gotten worse in the aftermath of the Third Poppy War.
She just hadn’t known it was this bad.
For hours the Warlords had bickered and squabbled over details so inane that Rin could not believe anyone could possibly care. And she had stood waiting in the corner, sweating through her chains, waiting for Daji to drop her front.
But the Empress seemed content to wait. Eriden was right—she clearly relished playing with her food before she ate it. She sat at the head of the table with a vaguely amused expression on her face. Every once in a while, she met Rin’s eyes and winked.
What was Daji’s endgame? Certainly she knew that the opium would wear off in Rin eventually. Why was she running out the clock?
Did Daji want this fight?
The sheer anxiety made Rin feel weak-kneed and light-headed. It took everything she had to remain standing.
