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They obeyed. Once all the canteens were full, Pipaji crouched over the pond, frowning in concentration as she dipped her fingertips into the water. Nothing happened. Rin was hoping to see black streaks shooting through the pond, but the water remained a murky greenish-brown. Then fish began floating belly-up to the surface, bloated and discolored.
“Gross,” Dulin said. “I guess we’re catching dinner somewhere else.”
Rin didn’t comment. She was clenching her fist so hard her knuckles had turned white.
This was it. This was how she beat Nezha.
Nezha couldn’t be killed because the Dragon was always protecting him, stitching his wounds back together seconds after they opened. But Chaghan had told her that the source of his power was the river running through the grottoes of Arlong.
What if she attacked the river itself?
“Can I stop?” Pipaji asked. Fish, toads, tadpoles, and insects were still bubbling up dead in the water around her. “This feels, um, excessive.”
“Fine,” Rin murmured. “Stop.”
Pipaji stood up, looking disgusted, and quickly wiped her fingers on her trousers.
Rin couldn’t stop staring at the pond. The water was pitch-black now, an inkwell of corpses.
Nezha had never met Pipaji before. He would have no idea who she was or what she could do. All he would see was a thin, pretty girl with long-lashed doe’s eyes, looking utterly out of place on the battlefield, right before she turned his veins to sludge.
Next Rin focused her attentions on Dulin. He had a penchant for sinkholes—by the first day, he could easily summon one on command of any shape or size within a diameter of ten feet. But the sinkholes had to open up right next to where he stood; his feet had to be at the edge of the crevice.
This posed a problem. Certainly the sinkholes had great potential for tactical disruption, but only if Dulin was standing directly in the line of fire.
“Can you do anything more with the earth?” Rin asked him. “If you can move it down, can you move it up? Sideways? Vibrate in place?”
She wasn’t sure what she had in mind. She had some vague picture of great pillars of dirt thrashing through the air like vipers. Or perhaps earthquakes—those could disorient and scatter defensive lines without excessive civilian casualties.
“I’ll try.” He lowered his chin, brows furrowed in concentration.
Rin felt tremors under her feet, so faint at first that she was unsure whether she was imagining them. They grew stronger. The thought that perhaps she should get back briefly crossed her mind before she went flying.
Her back slammed against the ground. Her head followed with a snap. She stared at the sky, mouth open like a fish, trying to breathe. She couldn’t feel her fingertips. Or her toes.
She heard screaming. Dulin’s and Lianhua’s faces appeared above her. Pipaji was shouting something, but her voice was muffled and muted. Rin felt Lianhua’s hands moving under her shirt, pushing up to rest on her ribs, and then a wonderful, scorching heat spread through her torso and head until Dulin’s shouting sharpened into intelligible words.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she gasped. “I’m fine.”
When Lianhua took her hands away, Rin curled onto her side and laughed. She couldn’t help herself; it spilled out of her like a waterfall, urgent and exhilarating.
Lianhua looked deeply concerned. “General, are you . . . ?”
“We’re going to win,” Rin said hoarsely. She couldn’t understand why she was the only one laughing. Why weren’t they laughing? Why weren’t they beside themselves with delight? “Oh, my gods. Holy fucking shit. This is it. We’re going to win.”
They spent the last two days fine-tuning their response times, limitations, and necessary dosages. They determined how long it took after ingesting seeds for their highs to kick in—twenty minutes for Pipaji and Lianhua, ten for Dulin. They learned how long they were useful on their high—no more than an hour for any of them—and how long it took for them to come down from their useless, drooling state.
Their skills remained an imperfect art—they couldn’t possibly achieve in two weeks the military efficiency of the original Cike. But they’d become sufficiently accustomed to reaching for their gods that they could replicate their results on the battlefield. That was as good as they were going to get.
Rin told them to return to the base camp without her. She wanted to journey out a bit farther before she turned back. They didn’t ask where she was going, and she didn’t tell them.
Alone, she walked until she found a secluded area at the base of a hill, in full view of the distant Mount Tianshan.
She picked up the largest rocks she could find and arranged them in a circular pile facing the setting sun. It was a shabby memorial, but it would stay in place. Barely anyone visited this mountain. In time, the wind, snow, and storms would eradicate every trace of these rocks, but for now, this was good enough.
Jiang didn’t deserve much. But he deserved something.
She’d seen the look on his face before she escaped the temple. He knew full well what he’d done. In that moment he was complete and aware, reconciled with his past, and fully in control. And he’d chosen to save her.
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice sounded reedy and insufficient against the chilly, dense air. Her chest felt very tight.
She’d loved him like a father once.
He’d taught her everything he’d known. He’d led her to the Pantheon. Then he’d abandoned her, returned to her, betrayed her, and saved her.
He’d let so many others die—he’d let her people die—but he had saved her.
What the fuck was she supposed to do with a legacy like that?
Hot tears welled up in her eyes. Irritated, she wiped them away. She wasn’t here to cry. Jiang didn’t deserve her tears. This wasn’t about grief, this was about paying respects.
“Goodbye,” she muttered.
She didn’t know what else to say.
No, that wasn’t true. Something else weighed on her mind, something she couldn’t leave unsaid. She’d never dared to say it to his face when he was alive, though she’d thought it many times. She couldn’t keep silent now. She kicked at the rocks and swallowed again, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t go away. She cleared her throat, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“You were always such a fucking coward.”
“We’re marching out,” she told Kitay when she returned. She bustled around the hut, flinging things into her travel bag—two shirts, a pair of trousers, knives, pouches of poppy seeds. She’d been walking for six hours straight, but somehow felt bursting with energy. “I’ll tell Cholang to have his men ready to march in the morning. Is the dirigible ready to go?”
“Sure, but—hold on, slow down, Rin.” Kitay looked concerned. “So soon? Really?”
“It has to be now,” Rin said. She couldn’t stay in Cholang’s settlement, the capital of bum-fuck nowhere in the Scarigon Plateau, any longer. Her mind spun with possibilities for the campaign ahead. Never before had the cards lain so clearly in her favor. The Republic had one shaman in Nezha against Rin’s four, and their best defense mechanism was opium bombs, which incapacitated troops on both sides without discrimination.
