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A final soldier emerged from the basket door. Rin assumed he was their general by his uniform, which bore multicolored ribbons on the left chest where the others’ were bare. He struck Rin immediately as dangerous. He stood at least half a head taller than Vaisra, he sported a chest as wide as Baji’s, and his weathered face was lined and intelligent.
Behind the general walked a row of hooded Hesperians clothed in gray cassocks.
“Who are they?” Rin asked Nezha. They couldn’t be soldiers; they wore no armor and held no weapons.
“The Gray Company,” he said. “Representatives of the Church of the Divine Architect.”
“They’re missionaries?”
“Missionaries who can speak for the central church. They’re highly trained and educated. Think of them like graduates from the Sinegard Academy of religion.”
“What, they went to priest school?”
“Sort of. They’re scientists, too. In their religion, the scientists and priests are one and the same.”
Rin was about to ask what that meant when a last figure emerged from the center basket. She was a woman, slender and petite, wearing a buttoned black coat with a high collar that covered her neck. She looked severe, alien, and elegant all at once. Her attire was certainly not Nikara, but her face was not Hesperian. She seemed oddly familiar.
“Hello.” Baji whistled behind Rin. “Who is that?”
“It’s Lady Yin Saikhara,” said Nezha.
“Is she married?” Baji asked.
Nezha shot him a disgusted look. “That’s my mother.”
That was why Rin recognized the woman’s face. She had met the Lady of Dragon Province once, years ago, on her first day at Sinegard. Lady Saikhara had taken Rin’s guardian Tutor Feyrik for a porter, and she had dismissed Rin entirely as southerner trash.
Perhaps the past four years had done wonders for Lady Saikhara’s attitude, but Rin was strongly inclined to dislike her.
Lady Saikhara paused before the crowd, eyes roving the harbor as if surveying her kingdom. Her gaze landed on Rin. Her eyes narrowed—in recognition, Rin thought; perhaps Saikhara remembered Rin as well—but then she grasped the Hesperian general’s arm and pointed, her face contorted into what looked like fear.
The general nodded and spoke an order. At once, all twenty Hesperian soldiers pointed their barrel tube weapons at Rin.
A hush fell over the crowd as the civilians hastily backed away.
Several cracks split the air. Rin dove to the ground by instinct. Eight holes dotted the dirt in front of her. She looked up.
The air smelled like smoke. Gray flumes unfurled from the tips of the barrel tubes.
“Oh, fuck,” Nezha muttered under his breath.
The general shouted something that Rin couldn’t understand, but she didn’t have to translate what he’d said. There was no way to interpret this as anything but a threat.
She had two default responses to threats. And she couldn’t run away, not in this crowd, so her only choice was to fight.
Two of the Hesperian soldiers came running toward her. She slammed her trident against the closest one’s shins. He doubled over, just briefly. She jammed an elbow into the side of his head, grabbed him by the shoulders, and barreled forward, using him as a human shield to deter further fire.
It worked until something landed over Rin’s shoulders. A fishing net. She flailed, trying to wriggle out, but it only tightened around her arms. Whoever held it yanked hard, knocking her off balance.
The Hesperian general loomed above her, his weapon pointed straight down at her face. Rin looked up the barrel. The smell of fire powder was so thick she nearly choked on it.
“Vaisra!” she shouted. “Help—”
Soldiers swarmed around her. Strong arms pinned her arms over her head; others grabbed her ankles, rendering her immobile. She heard the clank of steel next to her head. She twisted around and saw a wooden tray on the ground beside her, upon which lay a vast assortment of thin devices that looked like torture instruments.
She’d seen devices like that before.
Someone pulled her head back and jerked her mouth open. One of the Gray Company, a woman with skin like alabaster, knelt over her. She pressed something hard and metallic against Rin’s tongue.
Rin bit at her fingers.
The woman snatched her hand away.
Rin struggled harder. Miraculously, the grips on her shoulders loosened. She flailed out and upturned the tray, scattering the instruments across the ground. For a single, desperate moment, she thought she might break free.
Then the general slammed the butt of his weapon into her head and Rin’s vision exploded into stars that winked out into nothing.
“Oh, good,” said Nezha. “You’re awake.”
Rin found herself lying on a stone floor. She scrambled to her feet. She was unbound. Good. Her hand jumped for a weapon that wasn’t there, and when she couldn’t find her trident she curled her hands into fists. “What—”
“That was a misunderstanding.” Nezha grabbed her by the shoulders. “You’re safe, we’re alone. What happened out there was a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“They thought you were a threat. My mother told them to attack as soon as they reached land.”
Rin’s forehead throbbed. She touched her fingers to where she knew a massive bruise was forming. “Your mother is a real bitch, then.”
“She often is, yes. But you’re in no danger. Father is talking them down.”
“And if he can’t?”
“He will. They’re not idiots.” Nezha grabbed her hand. “Will you stop that?”
Rin had begun pacing back and forth in the small chamber like a caged animal, teeth chattering, rubbing her hands agitatedly up and down her arms. But she couldn’t stand still; her mind was racing in panic, if she stopped moving she would start to shake uncontrollably.
“Why would they think I was a threat?” she demanded.
“It’s, ah, a little complicated.” Nezha paused. “I guess the simplest way to put it is that they want to study you.”
“Study?”
“They know what you did to the longbow island. They know what you can do, and as the most powerful country on earth of course they’re going to investigate it. Their proposed treaty terms, I think, were that they’d get to examine you in exchange for military aid. Mother put it in their heads that you weren’t going to come quietly.”
“So what, Vaisra’s selling me for their aid?”
“It’s not like that. My mother . . .” Nezha continued talking, but Rin wasn’t listening. She scrutinized him, considering.
She had to get out of here. She had to rally the Cike and get them out of Arlong. Nezha was taller, heavier, and stronger than she was, but she could still take him—she’d go after his eyes and scars, gouge her fingernails into his skin and knee his balls repeatedly until he dropped his guard.
But she might still be trapped. The doors could be locked from the outside. And if she broke the door down, there could be—no, there certainly were guards outside. What about the window? She could tell from a glance they were on the second, maybe third story, but maybe she could scale down somehow, if she could manage to knock Nezha unconscious. She just needed a weapon—the chair legs might do, or a shard of porcelain.
