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“You know my feelings on this,” she told Gurubai.
“Yes, Runin, I do.” He regarded her like an exhausted parent might a troublesome child. “And again, I’m telling you—”
“We’re dying up here. If we don’t take the offensive now, then Nezha will. We need to catch him by surprise, and right now is—”
“I’m not the only one you have to convince. None of the Southern Coalition want to overextend themselves. These mountains are their home. And when the wolves come, you protect what’s behind your walls.”
“It’s only home for some of you.”
He shrugged. “You’re free to leave whenever you like.”
He could make that bluff. He knew she had nowhere else to turn.
Her nostrils flared. “We need to at least discuss this, Gurubai—”
“Then we’ll discuss it at council.” His tone made it very clear that their audience was finished. “You can make your case again to the others, if you’re so inclined. Although to be quite honest, it’s become a bit repetitive.”
“I’m going to keep saying it until someone listens,” Rin snapped.
“Whatever you like,” Gurubai said. “You do so love to be difficult.”
Kitay kicked her beneath the table again just as they stood up to leave.
“I know,” Rin muttered. “I know.”
Some little part of her heart sank as she walked out the door. She wished Gurubai had said yes. She was trying to cooperate. She hated to be the lone contrarian; she did want to work with the coalition. This all would have been so much easier if he’d said yes.
But if he wasn’t going to budge, then she’d have to force his hand.
Dinner was a rapid affair. Rin and Kitay emptied their bowls in seconds. Not because they were hungry—it was just easier to ignore the mold sprouting on the greens and the tiny maggots squirming around the rice if they wolfed it down without thinking. The fare in the mess halls became worse and worse every time she returned to Ruijin, and the cooks had gone from keeping insects out of the vats to encouraging them on the grounds that the carcasses contained badly needed nutrients. Ant porridge was now a dish Rin ate regularly, though she always had to suppress her gag reflex before she could take the first bite.
The only staple that hadn’t started to rot was shanyu root—the starchy white yam that stuck like glue in her throat every time she swallowed. Shanyu tubers, having proved remarkably resistant to frost, grew everywhere on the mountainside. For a time Rin had been quite fond of them; they were filling, easy to steam, and had the slightly sweet taste of fresh-baked bread.
That was months ago. She’d since grown so sick of the taste of raw shanyu, dried shanyu, steamed shanyu, and mashed shanyu that the smell was enough to induce nausea. Still, it was the only fresh food with nutrients she could get her hands on. She forced it down as well.
When she was finished, she stood up and prepared to go pay a visit to the bandit chief Ma Lien.
Kitay moved to follow, but she shook her head. “I can do this alone. You don’t need to see this.”
He didn’t argue the point. She knew he didn’t want to come. “Fine. You’ve got the medicine?”
“In my front pocket.”
“And you’re sure that—”
“Please don’t.” She cut him off. “We’ve had this debate a thousand times. Can you think of a better option?”
He sighed. “Just do it quickly. Don’t linger.”
“Why on earth would I linger?”
“Rin.”
“All right.” She clapped him on the shoulder and strode toward the forest.
Ma Lien’s quarters were built into the cave wall near Ruijin’s northern perimeter. It should have been near impossible for Rin to get this close to his private residence without at least three blades at her neck, but in recent days Ma Lien’s guards had reevaluated their loyalties. When they saw Rin approach, they nodded silently and let her pass through. None of them would meet her eyes.
Ma Lien’s wife and daughter sat outside the cave entrance. They stood up when they saw her, their eyes wide with fear and desperation.
They already know, Rin thought. They’d heard the whispers. Or someone in the ranks—perhaps even Zhuden—had already told them what was about to happen in an effort to save their lives.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.
Ma Lien’s wife seized Rin’s wrist just as she entered the cave.
“Please,” she begged. “Don’t.”
“Necessity calls.” Rin shrugged her hand away. “Don’t try to stop me.”
“You can spare him, he’ll do what you say, you don’t have to—”
“He won’t,” Rin said. “And I do. I hope you’ve said goodbye.”
They knew what would happen next. Ma Lien’s men knew. And Rin suspected that, on some level, the Monkey Warlord had to know, too. He might even sanction it. She would, if she were in his position. What did you do when one of your generals kept agitating to fight a war you knew you couldn’t win?
You cut your losses.
The cave smelled like sick, a stomach-turning mix of fumes from bitter herbal medicines and the odor of stale vomit. Ma Lien had been suffering from the bloody lung fever since before she’d left for Khudla. The timing was perfect. She’d struck a deal with Zhuden the morning she marched out—if Ma Lien was still ill by the time she returned, and the odds of his recovery seemed slim, then they would seize their chance.
Still, she hadn’t expected Ma Lien to disintegrate so quickly. He lay shriveled and desiccated against his sheets. He seemed to have shrunk to half his body weight. Crusted blood lined the edges of his lips. Every time he breathed, an awful rattle echoed through the cave.
Ma Lien was already half-gone. From the looks of it, what Rin was about to do couldn’t even properly be called murder. She was only hastening the inevitable.
“Hello, General.” She perched herself by the edge of his bed.
His eyes cracked open at the sound of her voice.
She’d been told the illness had taken his vocal cords. He bleeds when he tries to speak, Zhuden had said. And if he gets agitated, he starts choking on it. She felt a little thrill at the thought. He couldn’t mock her, couldn’t curse at her, couldn’t scream for help. She could taunt him as much as she liked. And all he could do was lie there and listen.
She should have just done the job and left. The smarter, pragmatic part of her was screaming at her to go—it was a risk to stay for so long, to speak where Gurubai’s spies might hear her.
But this encounter had been a long time coming. She wanted him to know every reason why he had to die. She wanted to relish this moment. She’d earned this.
She recalled vividly the way he’d shouted her down when she first suggested deploying troops to Rooster Province. He’d called her a savage, sentimental, dirt-skinned, warmongering bitch. He’d railed at Gurubai for letting a little girl into the war council in the first place. He’d suggested she’d be better off dead with the rest of her kind.
He probably didn’t remember saying that. Ma Lien was one of those loud, garrulous types. Always tossing insults out like the wind. Always assuming that his bodily strength and the loyalty of his men would insulate him from resentment.
