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Her breath quickened. Her vision dimmed. She felt so dizzy she had to stop walking for a moment and breathe, her one good hand pressed against her pulsing chest.
The magnitude of this journey was starting to sink in. Now that the adrenaline of the morning had worn off, now that she wasn’t reeling from a heady mixture of insane confidence and drunk exhilaration, she was beginning to understand the stakes of the path she’d charted for the southerners.
And it was very likely that they were all going to die.
Huge losses were inevitable. Their survival was uncertain. If they ventured on, they might write themselves out of history just as completely as if they had never existed.
But if they stayed where they were, they died. If they parleyed for surrender, they died. If they took their chances now against Nezha, three shamans and a weakened army against the combined military might of the Republic and the west, they died. But if they made it to Mount Tianshan, if they could wake the Dragon Emperor, then the playing field would become very, very different.
This could be the end of their story or the beginning of a glorious chapter. And Rin had no choice now but to drag them across the mountain range by her teeth.
It was the weather, not the dirigibles, that quickly proved to be their greatest obstacle. They’d ascended the Baolei range in the middle of the late summer thaw, and that meant raging river torrents, roads slippery with mud, and rain showers that went on for days at a time. At several crossings the mud reached up to their waists, and they could proceed only after cutting down log strips of bamboo and building a makeshift bridge so that the supply wagons, at least, would not sink beneath the surface.
At night they sought shelter in caves if they could find them, for those offered a shield against the rain and ever-present threat of air raids. But, as Rin quickly discovered, they provided no protection against insects and vermin—bulging nests of spiders, little snakes huddled together in horrific, writhing balls, and sharp-toothed rats nearly the size of house cats. The route they’d chosen was so rarely traveled by humans that the pests seemed to have doubled their numbers to compensate. One evening Rin had just put a bedroll down when a scorpion the length of her hand skittered up to her, tail poised, stinger wafting back and forth in the air.
She froze, too scared to scream.
An arrow thudded into the dirt just inches before the scorpion. It skittered backward and vanished into a crack in the cave wall.
Venka lowered her bow. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” Rin exhaled. Her head felt dizzyingly light. “Great fucking Tortoise.”
“Burn some lavender and tung oil.” Venka pulled a pouch out of her pocket and handed it to Rin. “Then rub the residue on your skin. They hate the smell.”
Rin burned the mixture in her palm and rubbed it around her neck. “When did you figure that out?”
“The tunnels by the Anvil were crawling with those things,” Venka said. “Didn’t learn about it until after a couple soldiers woke up swollen and choking, and then we started sleeping in shifts and clearing out the walls with incense every evening. Sorry about that one. Someone should have warned you.”
“Thanks regardless.” Rin offered her hand to Venka. Venka scraped the residual ointment from Rin’s skin and dabbed it around her collarbones. Then she set her mat next to Rin’s, sat down, and pressed her palms against her temples.
“It’s been a fucking week,” she groaned.
Rin joined her on the bedroll. “Yeah.”
For a moment they sat beside each other in silence, breathing slowly, watching the cracks in the wall for the scorpion’s return. The cave was cramped and bone-achingly cold, so they pressed tight against each other, misty breaths intermingling in the icy air.
It felt good to have Venka back by her side. Funny how people changed, Rin thought. She would never have dreamed that Venka—Sring Venka, the pretty, pampered Sinegardian turned lean, ferocious warrior—would become such a source of comfort.
Once not so long ago they’d hated each other with the particular intensity only schoolgirls could summon. Rin used to grit her teeth every time she heard Venka’s high, petulant voice, used to fantasize about gouging Venka’s eyes out with her fingernails. They would have brawled like wildcats in the school courtyard if they hadn’t been so afraid of expulsion.
None of that mattered anymore. They weren’t stupid little girls anymore. They weren’t students anymore. War had transformed them both into wholly unimaginable creatures, and their relationship had transformed with them. They had never commented on how it had happened. They didn’t need to. Theirs was a bond forged from necessity, hurt, and a shared, intimate understanding of hell.
“Tell me the truth,” Venka murmured. “Where the fuck are we going?”
“Dog Province,” Rin yawned. She was already half-asleep; after a full day of climbing, her limbs felt heavier than lead. “Thought I made that clear.”
“But that’s just a fiction, isn’t it?” Venka pressed. “The Dog Warlord’s army isn’t really there, is it?”
Rin paused, considering.
Telling Venka the truth was risky, yes. It was risky now to share secrets with anyone who didn’t strictly need to know. But Venka was, startlingly, one of the most loyal people she knew. Venka had readily turned her back on her family to follow a group of southerners in revolt against her home province. She’d never once looked back. Venka could be rude and brittle, but she didn’t have a capricious bone in her body. She was blunt and honest, often to the point of cruelty, and she demanded honesty in return.
“I’m not a fucking spy,” Venka said, when Rin’s silence dragged on for too long.
“I know,” Rin said quickly. “It’s just—you’re right.” Her eyes darted around the cave, making sure no one was listening. “I have no clue what’s in Dog Province.”
Venka raised her eyebrows. “Sorry?”
“That’s the truth. I don’t know if they have an army. They could be legion. Enough to push the Republic back. Or they could all have defected, or have died. My intelligence is based on Kitay’s, and his is based on offhand comments Nezha made weeks ago.”
“Then what’s up north?” Venka demanded. “Where are you going? I don’t care what you tell everyone else, Rin, but you have to tell me.” She examined Rin’s face for a moment. “You’re going to wake the third, aren’t you?”
Rin blinked, surprised. “How did you guess?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Venka asked. “You’ve dragged back Master Jiang and the Empress. The Gatekeeper and the Vipress. There’s only one missing, and no one ever confirmed that he’s dead. So where is he? Somewhere in the Baolei range, I’m assuming?”
“The Wudang Mountains,” Rin answered automatically, disconcerted by Venka’s matter-of-fact tone. “We have to get through Dog Province first. But how are—I mean, that’s fine with you? You don’t think that’s insane?”
“I’ve seen stranger things in the past week,” Venka said. “You wield fire like it’s a sword. Jiang—I mean, Master fucking Jiang, the grand idiot of Sinegard, just ripped an entire fleet from the sky. I don’t know what’s insane anymore. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
