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He squirmed under Vaisra’s hand, suddenly uncomfortable. He didn’t want a story anymore. He wanted to get back to his lesson.
“I’ll tell you a grotto story,” Vaisra said. “You know Arlong rose as a southern power in the decades of warfare after the Red Emperor’s death. But in the last years of the Red Emperor’s reign, after he abandoned Dragon Province to build a new capital at Sinegard, Arlong was regarded as a cursed place. These islands lay inside a valley of death, of crashing waves and flooding riverbanks. No ships that sailed past the Red Cliffs survived. Everything smashed to death against those rocks.”
Nezha kept utterly still as he listened. He had never heard this story before. He wasn’t sure that he liked it.
“Finally,” Vaisra continued, “a man named Yu, learned in shamanic arts, called down the Dragon Lord of the Western River and begged his help to control the rivers. Overnight, Arlong transformed. The waters turned calm. The flooding ceased. Arlong’s people built canals and rice paddies between the islands. In a few short years, Dragon Province became the jewel of the Nikara Empire, a land of beauty and plenty.” Vaisra paused. “Only Yu continued to suffer.”
Vaisra seemed caught in a reverie, speaking not to Nezha but at the tapestries, as if he were reciting dynastic lineage into the silent hall.
“Um.” Nezha swallowed. “Why—”
“Nature can’t be altered,” Vaisra said. “Only held at bay. Always, the waters of Arlong threatened to break their leash and drown the new city in their fury. Yu was forced to spend his life in a state of shamanic hallucination, always calling upon the Dragon, always hearing its whispers in his ears. After several dozen years of this, Yu wanted desperately to end his life. And when the god’s takeover was complete, when he could no longer die, he wanted to ensconce himself in the Chuluu Korikh. But he knew that if he sought peace, someone had to take up his mantle. Yu could not be that cruel, nor that selfish. So what happened?”
Nezha didn’t know. But he could put this together like the pieces of a logic puzzle, like the kind that his tutors were always training him to solve for the Keju exam.
Father said this was a grotto story. And grotto stories were about monsters.
“Yu transformed,” Nezha said. “He became the monster.”
“Not a monster, Nezha.” Vaisra stroked a lock of hair behind Nezha’s ear. “A savior. He made the ultimate sacrifice for Arlong. But Arlong forgot him almost immediately. They saw his horrifying new form, his winding coils and sharp scales, and they received him with not gratitude but fear. Even his own wife did not recognize him. She took one look at him and screamed. Her brothers threw rocks at him and drove him out of the village, back into the grotto where he had spent decades praying to protect them. He . . .”
Vaisra’s voice trailed away.
Nezha glanced up. “Father?”
Vaisra was gazing silently at the tapestries. Confused, Nezha followed his eyes. None of these tapestries contained the story he’d just heard. They were all dynastic portraits, an endless row of finely embroidered likenesses of Nezha’s long-dead predecessors.
What was Father trying to tell him?
What sacrifices had the House of Yin made for Arlong?
“Your tutors told me you wanted to visit the grottoes,” Vaisra said suddenly.
Nezha stiffened. Was that what this was about? Was he in trouble? Yes, he’d asked, many more times than he should have. He’d begged and whined, pledging to keep to the shallows or even the opposite riverbank if only they’d let him get near enough to catch a glimpse inside the cave mouths.
“I apologize, Father,” he said. “I won’t ask again—I was just curious—”
“About what?”
“I thought—I mean, I’d heard about treasures, and I thought . . .” Nezha trailed off. His cheeks flamed. His words sounded stupid and childish as he uttered them. Silently he swore never to disobey his father’s word again.
But Vaisra didn’t chide him. He just gazed at Nezha for a very long time, his expression inscrutable. At last, he patted Nezha again on the shoulder.
“Don’t go to those grottoes, Nezha.” He sounded very tired then. “Don’t take on the burden of an entire nation. It’s too heavy. And you aren’t strong enough.”
Chapter 23
“If I counted right, the explosions on Mount Tianshan destroyed almost two-thirds of the Hesperian fleet in Nikan,” Kitay said. “That’s . . . that’s a lot.”
“Just two-thirds?” Cholang asked. “Not all?”
“Nezha didn’t send the entire fleet west,” Kitay said. “The last I heard, the Consortium had lent him forty-eight aircraft. We brought down six at the Anvil. I saw about thirty at the mountain. And we know that two escaped back west.”
“With any luck, Nezha wasn’t on them,” Venka muttered.
Rin rubbed at her aching eyes, too exhausted to laugh. The four of them—herself, Cholang, Kitay, and Venka—stood around the table in Cholang’s hut. They were all wan and twitchy with fatigue, yet their conference felt suffused with an urgent, burning energy. A quiet, astonished confidence; a taste of hope that none of them had felt for months.
This was the difference between fleeing for their lives and planning an assault. They all understood the magnitude of what might be in reach. It was madness. It was thrilling.
“How quickly do you think the Hesperians will send replacements?” Rin asked.
“I’m not sure,” Kitay said. “They’re probably vacillating. When I was in Arabak, I kept hearing rumors that the Consortium was reconsidering their investments. The longer Nezha took to solidify the south, the touchier they got about military aid. The Consortium’s a tricky entity—they need a unanimous vote from all member countries to commit troops in any foreign location. And their constituents are getting less comfortable losing lives—and the costs of airships, which are considerable—to a power they can’t understand.”
“So they’re cowards,” Cholang said. “Paper tigers. They came in ready to win our wars for us, but the moment they get scared, they’re all going to back off?”
“It won’t end this easily,” Rin said. “They’ve had designs on this continent for too long. We won’t scare them away with mere threats. We have to make it real.” She swallowed and lifted her chin. “If we want to finish this for good, we’ll have to occupy Arlong.”
No one laughed.
It was amazing how that simple sentence, which a week ago would have just sounded like a cruel joke, now seemed completely feasible. Defeating the Republic wasn’t a daydream anymore. It was a question of time frame.
Rin had survived the long march with only the barest fragments of an army. The numbers Kitay had collected were depressing. Half the soldiers who had left the Anvil were now dead or missing. The casualty rate for civilians reached two-thirds.
But Rin still commanded the survivors. And right now, she held the biggest military advantage she’d possessed since this war began.
The Hesperians were rattled. Nezha had just suffered a defeat of epic proportions. Instead of bombing her to pieces under open skies, he’d followed Rin to Mount Tianshan and lost most of his fleet. This disaster fell on his shoulders, and the Consortium surely knew it. For once, the southerners had a fighting chance at defeating the Republic. But to capitalize on their momentum, they had to move out as quickly as they could.
