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Kitay was obsessed with the problem of whether the fleet ought to curtail its campaign for the winter or to sail directly to Tiger Province, rendezvous with Tsolin’s fleet, and take on Jun and his army. On the one hand, if they could solidify their hold on the coastline through Tiger Province, then they would have a back channel to run supplies and reinforce land columns to eventually encircle the Autumn Palace.
On the other, taking the coastline would involve a massive military commitment from troops that the Republic didn’t yet have. Until the Hesperians decided to lend aid, they would have to settle for conquering the inland regions first. But that could take another couple of months—which required time that they also didn’t have.
They were racing against time. Nobody wanted to be stuck in an invasion when winter hit the north. Their task was to solidify a revolutionary base and corner the Empire inside its three northernmost provinces before the Murui’s tributaries froze over and the fleet was stuck in place.
“We’re cutting it close, but we should be up to the Edu pass within a month,” Kitay told her. “Jinzha has to make his decision by then.”
Rin did the calculations in her head. “Upriver sailing should take us a month and a half.”
“You’re forgetting about the Four Gorges Dam,” Kitay said. “Up through Rat Province the Murui’s blocked up, so the current won’t be as strong as it should be.”
“A month, then. What do you think happens when we get there?”
“We pray to the heavens that the rivers and lakes haven’t frozen yet,” Kitay said. “Then we see what our options are. At this point, though, Jinzha’s wagered this war on the weather.”
Rin’s weekly meetings with Sister Petra remained the thorn in her side that progressively stung worse. Petra’s examinations had become increasingly invasive, but she had also started withholding the laudanum. She was finished with taking baseline measurements. Now she wanted to see evidence of Chaos.
When week after week Rin failed to call the fire, Petra grew impatient.
“You are hiding it from me,” she accused. “You refuse to cooperate.”
“Or maybe I’m cured,” Rin said. “Maybe Chaos went away. Maybe your holy presence scared it off.”
“You lie.” Petra wrenched Rin’s mouth open with more force than she needed and began tapping around her teeth with what felt like a two-pronged instrument. The cold metal tips dug painfully into Rin’s enamel. “I know how Chaos works. It never disappears. It disguises itself in the face of the Maker but always it returns.”
Rin wished that were the case. If she had the fire back she’d incinerate Petra where she stood, and fuck the consequences. If she had the fire, then she wouldn’t be so terribly helpless, bowing down to Jinzha’s commands and cooperating with the Hesperians because she was only a lowly foot soldier.
But if she gave in to her anger now, the worst she could do was make a mess in Petra’s lab, wind up dead at the bottom of the Murui, and destroy any hope of a Hesperian-Nikara military alliance. Resistance meant doom for her and everyone she cared about.
So even though it tasted like the bitterest bile, she swallowed her rage.
“It’s really gone,” she said when Petra released her jaw. “I told you it’s been Sealed off. I can’t call it anymore.”
“So you say.” Petra looked deeply skeptical, but she dropped the subject. She placed the instrument back on her table. “Raise your right hand and hold your breath.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked.”
The Sister never lost her temper with Rin, no matter what Rin said. Petra had a freakishly calm composure. She never betrayed any emotion other than an icy professional curiosity. Rin almost wished that Petra would strike her, just so she knew she was human, but frustration seemed to slide off of her like rainwater from a tin roof.
However, as time passed with no results, she did start subjecting Rin to baser and baser experiments. She made Rin solve puzzles meant for children while she kept time with her little watch. She made Rin perform simple tasks of memorization that seemed designed to make her fail, watching without blinking as Rin became so frustrated that she started throwing things at the wall.
Eventually Petra asked her to stand for examinations naked.
“If you wanted to ogle me you could have asked earlier,” Rin said.
Petra didn’t react. “Quickly, please.”
Rin yanked her uniform off and tossed it in a bundle on the floor.
“Good.” Petra passed her an empty cup. “Now urinate in this for me.”
Rin stared at her in disbelief. “Right now?”
“I’m doing fluids analysis tonight,” Petra said. “Go on.”
Rin set her jaw. “I’m not doing that.”
“Would you like a sheet for privacy?”
“I don’t care,” Rin said. “This isn’t about science. You don’t have a clue what you’re doing, you’re just being spiteful.”
Petra sat down and crossed one leg over the other. “Urinate, please.”
“Fuck that.” Rin tossed the cup onto the floor. “Admit it. You’ve no idea what you’re doing. All your treatises and all your instruments, and you don’t have a single clue about how shamanism works or how to measure Chaos, if that really even exists. You’re shooting in the dark.”
Petra stood up from her chair. Her nostrils flared white.
Rin had finally struck a nerve. She hoped that Petra might hit her then, if only to break that inhuman mask of control. But Petra only cocked her head to the side.
“Remember your situation.” Her voice retained its icy calm. “I am asking you to cooperate only out of etiquette. Refuse, and I will have you strapped to that bed. Now. Will you behave?”
Rin wanted to kill her.
If she hadn’t been so exhausted, if she had been an ounce more impulsive, then she would have. It would have been so easy to knock Petra to the floor and jam every sharp instrument on the table into her neck, her chest, her eyes. It would have felt so good.
But Rin couldn’t act on impulse anymore.
She felt the sheer, overwhelming weight of Hesperia’s military might restricting her options like an invisible cage. They held her life hostage. They held her friends and her entire nation hostage.
Against all of that, Sealed off from the fire and the Phoenix, she was helpless.
So she held her tongue and forced down her fury as Petra’s requests became more and more humiliating. She complied when Petra made her lean naked against the wall while she drew intricate diagrams of her genitals. She sat still when Petra inserted a long, thick needle into her right arm and drew so much blood that she fainted when she stood up to return to her quarters and couldn’t stand back up for half a day. And she bit her tongue and didn’t react when Petra waved a packet of opium under her nose, trying to entice her to draw the fire out by offering her favorite vice.
“Go on,” Petra said. “I’ve read about your kind. You can’t resist the smoke. You crave it in your bones. Isn’t that how the Red Emperor subdued your ancestors? Call the fire for me, and I’ll let you have a little.”
That last meeting left Rin so furious that the moment she left Petra’s quarters, she shrieked in fury and punched the wall so hard that her knuckle split open. For a moment she stood still, stunned, while blood ran down the back of her hand and dripped off her wrist. Then she sank to her knees and started to cry.
