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“Yes, they really saved us some labor, didn’t they?” Niang chuckled. “They produced thousands of barrels of that stuff. The Hare Warlord wanted to use it to invade Arlong, but I was smarter about it. Put it into the water, I said. Starve them out. The really hard part was converting it from a gas into a liquid. That took me weeks.”
Niang pulled a canister off the wall and weighed it in her hand, as if preparing to throw. “Think you could do better?”
Rin and Kitay flinched simultaneously.
Niang lowered her arm, snickering. “Kidding.”
“Put that down,” Kitay said quietly. His voice was taut, carefully controlled. “Let’s talk. Let’s just talk, Niang. I know someone put you up to this. You don’t have to do this.”
“I know that,” Niang said. “I volunteered. Or did you think I’d sit back and let traitors divide the Empire?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rin said.
“I know enough.” Niang lifted the canister higher. “I know you threatened to starve out the north so they’d bow to the Dragon Warlord. I know you’re going to invade our provinces if you don’t get your way.”
“So your solution is to poison the entire south?” Kitay asked.
“You’re one to talk,” Niang snarled. “You made us starve. You sold us that blighted grain. How does it feel getting a taste of your own medicine?”
“The embargo was just a threat,” Kitay said. “No one has to die.”
“People have died!” Niang pointed a finger at Rin. “How many did she kill on that island?”
Rin blinked. “Who gives a fuck about the Federation?”
“There were Militia troops there, too. Thousands of them.” Niang’s voice trembled. “The Federation took prisoners of war, shipped them over to labor camps. They took my brothers. Did you give them a chance to get off the island?”
“I . . .” Rin cast Kitay a desperate look. “That’s not true.”
Was it true?
Surely someone would have told her if it were true.
Kitay wouldn’t meet her eyes.
She swallowed. “Niang, I didn’t know—”
“You didn’t know!” Niang screamed. The canister swung perilously in her hand. “That makes it all better, doesn’t it?”
Kitay held a palm out, crossbow lowered. “Niang, please, put that down.”
Niang shook her head. “This is your fault. We just fought a war. Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?”
“We don’t want to kill you,” Rin said. “Please—”
“How generous!” Niang lifted the canister over her head. “She doesn’t want to kill me! The Republic will take pity on—”
“Fuck this,” Kitay muttered. In one fluid movement he lifted his crossbow, aimed, and shot an arrow straight into Niang’s left breast.
The thud echoed like a final heartbeat.
Niang’s eyes bulged open. She tilted her head down, examined her chest as if idly curious. Her knees gave out beneath her. The canister slipped from her hand and rolled to a halt by the wall.
The canister’s lid burst off with a pop. Yellow smoke streamed out from it, rapidly filling the far end of the room.
Kitay lowered his crossbow. “Let’s go.”
They ran. Rin glanced over her shoulder just as they passed the door. The gas was almost too thick to see clearly, but she couldn’t mistake the sight of Niang, twitching and jerking in a shroud of acid eating ravenously into her skin. Red spots blooming mercilessly across her body, as if she were a paper doll dropped in a pool of ink.
Light rain misted the air over the Swallow as it drifted down the tributary to rejoin the main fleet.
The crew had argued briefly over what to do with the canisters. They couldn’t just leave them in the mission, but none of them wanted to have the gas on board. Finally Ramsa had suggested that they destroy the mission with a controlled burn. This was purportedly to deter anyone from approaching it until Jinzha could send a squadron to retrieve any remaining canisters, but Rin suspected that Ramsa just wanted an excuse to blow something up.
So they’d drenched the place in oil, piled kindling on the roof and in the makeshift slaughterhouse, and then fired flaming crossbow bolts from the ship once they were a safe sailing distance away.
The building had caught fire immediately, a lovely conflagration that remained visible from miles away. The rain hadn’t yet managed to smother all of the flame. Little bursts of red still burned at the base of the building and smoke stretched out to embrace the sky from the towers.
A crack of thunder split the sky. Seconds later the light drizzle turned into fat, hard drops that slammed loudly and relentlessly against the deck. Captain Salkhi ordered the crew to set out barrels to capture fresh water. Most of the crew descended to their cabins, but Rin sat down on the deck, pulled her knees up to her chest, and tilted her head back. Raindrops hit the back of her throat, wonderfully fresh and cool. She gargled the rainwater, let it splash over her face and clothes. She knew the poison hadn’t tainted her or she would have seen its effects, but somehow she couldn’t feel clean.
“I thought you hated water,” Kitay said.
She looked up. He stood over her, a miserable, drenched mess. He still had his crossbow clenched in his hands.
“You all right?” she asked.
His eyes were dead things. “No.”
“Sit with me.”
He obeyed without a word. Only when he was next to her did she see how violently he was trembling.
“I’m sorry about Niang,” she said.
He jerked out a shrug. “I’m not.”
“I thought you liked her.”
“I barely knew her.”
“You did like her. I remember. You thought she was cute. You told me that at school.”
“Yes, and then that bitch went and poisoned half the country.”
He tilted his head upward. His eyes were red, and she couldn’t tell his tears apart from the rain. He took a long, shuddering breath.
Then he broke.
“I can’t keep doing this.” The words spilled out of him between choked, sudden sobs. “I can’t sleep. I can’t go a second without seeing Golyn Niis. I close my eyes and I’m hiding behind that wall again and the screams don’t stop because the killing goes on all night—”
Rin reached for his hand. “Kitay . . .”
“It’s like I’m frozen in one moment. And no one knows it because everyone else has moved on except me, but to me everything that’s happened since Golyn Niis is a dream, and I know it’s not real because I’m still behind the wall. And the worst part—the worst part is that I don’t know who’s causing the screams. It was easier when only the Federation was evil. Now I can’t figure out who’s right or wrong, and I’m the smart one, I’m always supposed to have the right answer, but I don’t.”
She didn’t know what she could possibly say to comfort him, so she curled her fingers around his and held them tight. “Me neither.”
“What happened on that island?” he asked abruptly.
“You know what happened.”
