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Her placard was so small. There were no further details, no reports of her exploits, just her name and the weapon’s make. She snorted. That was just like Vaisra. If he’d had his way, then she would only ever have remained a footnote in history.
When they build museums to my regime, Vaisra, I won’t even give you a plaque.
Nearly half the artifacts were missing from their cases. They looked recently pilfered, likely by Republican leadership; dust hadn’t had time to settle in the outlines they left behind. Rin couldn’t tell by reading the plaques why some had been stolen and some were left behind; the missing items were valuables of all types from all eras, and appeared to have been packed away at random.
One empty case stood on a prominent display—a shelf protruding from the wall, rimmed with golden edges to draw the viewer’s attention.
Rin picked up the plaque.
Imperial Seal of the Red Emperor.
She nearly dropped it. Incredible. She’d learned about this seal at school. When the Red Emperor died, he’d declared that his seal could only pass, along with the mandate of heaven, to the next rightful ruler of the Empire. It was promptly stolen the morning after his funeral. In the centuries after, the seal changed hands between princes, generals, clever concubines, and assassins, followed wherever it went by a trail of blood. Three hundred years later it finally dropped off the historical record, though provincial Warlords still claimed occasionally to have it locked in their private vaults.
So the House of Yin had kept it all along.
Of course Nezha had taken it with him. Rin found that hilarious. He’d lost the country, but he’d taken the ruler’s mandate.
Keep it, asshole, she thought. Nezha could have the seal, and every other shiny piece of junk his staff had loaded into their wagons. It didn’t matter that those treasures were hallmarks of Nikara history. That history didn’t matter to Rin. It was a record of slavery, oppression, misrule, and corruption. She wanted no heirlooms of her predecessors. She did not carry their legacy. She intended to build something new.
Vaisra’s throne remained at the end of the hall, too heavy to be carted away.
Rin felt very small as she approached it. It was much grander than the throne she’d sat on at Jinzhou. This was a proper emperor’s throne—a high-backed, ornamented chair on a multi-stair dais. An intricate map of the Empire was inked in black ridges across the entire marble floor. Sitting atop that throne, one surveyed the world.
Kitay nodded at the seat. “Gonna give it a try?”
“No,” Rin said. “That’s not for me.”
She knew as she stood in this dark, cold palace that she could never make this place hers. She’d never feel comfortable here; this place was haunted by the ghosts of the House of Yin. And that was just as well. The seat at Arlong had never ruled the entire Empire. It was the home of traitors and imposters, pretenders to the throne doomed to fail. She would not be the latest imposter to rule from the Dragon Province.
This was only a temporary base from which she would solidify her hold on the rest of the country.
The palace interior suddenly felt icy cold. We have so much work to do, Rin thought. The task before her seemed so monumental it did not quite seem real. She’d ripped the world apart, had inflicted one great tear that stretched from Mount Tianshan to the Nine Curves Grotto. And now she had to stitch it back together.
Had to restore order in the provinces. Had to clear the corpses off the streets. Had to put food on people’s tables. Had to return this country, which had fallen apart in every way conceivable, to normal.
Oh, gods. She swayed on her feet, suddenly dizzy. Where do we even start?
A knock sounded against the great hall’s heavy doors, echoing through the vast, dark space.
Rin blinked, struck from her reverie. “Come in.”
A young officer stepped through the doors. He was one of Cholang’s staff. Rin could remember his face—she’d seen it before in the command tent—but not his name. “Commander Miragha sent me to tell you we’ve found it.”
“Where?” Rin asked sharply.
“The far end of the Hesperian quarters. We have it surrounded, but haven’t moved in yet. No one’s going in or out. They’re waiting on your orders.”
“Good.” Rin had to pause for a moment before she could move. She couldn’t tell if the woozy rush in her limbs was a product of excitement or fatigue. When she took a step, it felt as if she were floating through air. “I’ll go now.”
She shrugged off Kitay’s concerned glance as she followed the officer out of the palace. They’d already concluded this debate. He knew what she intended. They agreed on what was necessary.
There was no room to hesitate. It was time for a reckoning.
The last time Rin had been near Arlong’s Hesperian quarter, she’d killed a man by burning off his testicles. Her clearest memories of this place were seeped in fear and panic—were of frantically dragging a body to a sampan, paddling out toward the harbor, and weighing the corpse down with rocks before anyone saw her and shot her full of bullets.
But then, all her memories involving the Hesperians were laced with fear. Even though they’d first come to Arlong as Vaisra’s allies, and even though for half a year they’d nominally fought on the same side, Rin could only associate the Hesperians with alien superiority: forceful, groping hands; steel instruments; and cold indifference.
Sister Petra’s laboratory occupied a square one-story building opposite the barracks. Rin’s troops surrounded the perimeter, armed and waiting. Commander Miragha saluted Rin as she approached.
“It’s locked from the inside,” she reported. “Someone’s definitely in there.”
“Have you communicated with them?” Rin asked.
“We shouted for them to come out, but they didn’t respond. Heard a bit of banging about—whoever is in there, they’re bracing for a fight.”
Rin knew most of the missionaries had already fled the city. She’d seen their slate-gray cloaks on the first boats out of the harbor, easily identified even from across the channel. The Gray Company were revered like royalty in the west; the remaining Hesperian troops would have personally escorted them out of the city.
That meant whoever was barricaded in the laboratory had remained there on purpose.
Outside the door, four of Miragha’s men stood ready around an iron-plated, wheeled battering ram the size of a small tent.
“That looks like overkill,” Rin said.
“We only bring our best,” Miragha said. “Ready whenever you are.”
“Hold on.” Rin scanned the soldiers until she found one holding a halberd. “Give me that.”
She wrapped a discarded Hesperian flag around the blade, knotted it tightly, and set the tip ablaze. She handed it back to the soldier. “You go in first. Let her think you’re me.”
He looked alarmed. “But—General, then—”
“You’ll be fine,” Rin said sternly. The arc of lightning, whatever it was, had not done lasting physical damage to her or Nezha. Against someone who wasn’t a shaman, it ought to have no effect at all. “Just prepare for a shock.”
She was impressed when he did not argue. He held the flaming halberd firm and gave her a curt, obedient nod.
