Lights. Lights so bright they hurt like knives jabbing into her eyes. Rin tried to squirm away from the source, but nothing happened. For a moment she thrashed in vain, terrified that she’d been paralyzed, until she realized she was tied down with restraints. Strapped to some flat bed. Rin’s peripheral vision was limited to the top half of the room. If she strained, she could just see Altan’s head adjacent to hers.
Rin’s eyes darted around in terror. Shelves filled the sides of the room. They brimmed with jars that contained feet, heads, organs, and fingers, all meticulously labeled. A massive glass chamber stood in the corner. Inside was the body of an adult man. Rin stared at him for a minute before she realized the man was long dead; it was only a corpse that was being preserved in chemicals, like pickled vegetables. His eyes were still frozen in an expression of horror; mouth wide in an underwater scream. The label at the top of the jar read in fine, neat handwriting: Nikara Man, 32.
The jars on the shelves were labeled similarly. Liver, Nikara Child, 12. Lungs, Nikara Woman, 51. She wondered dully if that was how she would end up, neatly parceled in this operating room. Nikara Woman, 19.
“I’m back.” Altan had awoken beside her. His voice was a dry whisper. “I never thought I’d be back.”
Rin’s insides twisted with dread. “Where are we?”
“Please,” Altan said. “Don’t make me explain this to you.”
She knew, then, exactly where they were.
Chaghan’s words echoed in her mind.
After the First Poppy War, the Federation became obsessed with your people . . . They spent the decades in between the Poppy Wars kidnapping Speerlies, experimenting on them, trying to figure out what made them special.
The Federation soldiers had brought them to that same research facility that Altan had been abducted to as a child. The place that had left him with a crippling addiction to opium. The place that had been liberated by the Hesperians. The place that should have been destroyed after the Second Poppy War.
Snake Province must have fallen, she realized with a sinking feeling. The Federation had occupied more ground than she’d feared.
The Hesperians were long gone. The Federation was back. The monsters had returned to their lair.
“You know the worst part?” Altan said. “We’re so close to home. To Speer. We’re on the coastline. We’re right by the sea. When they first brought us here, there weren’t so many cells . . . they put us in a room with a window facing the water. I could see the constellations. Every night. I saw the star of the Phoenix and thought that if I could just slip away, I could swim and keep swimming and find my way back home.”
Rin thought of a four-year-old Altan, locked in this place, staring out at the night sky while around him his friends were strapped down and dissected. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but no matter how hard she strained against those straps, she couldn’t move. “Altan . . .”
“I thought someone would come and get us,” he continued, and Rin didn’t think he was talking to her anymore. He spoke like he was recounting a nightmare to the empty air. “Even when they killed the others, I thought that maybe . . . maybe my parents would still come for me. But when the Hesperian troops liberated me, they told me I could never go back. They told me there was nothing on the island but bones and ash.”
He fell quiet.
Rin was at a loss for words. She felt like she needed to say something, something to rouse him, turn his attention to seeking a way out of this place, but anything that came to mind was laughably inadequate. What kind of consolation could she possibly give?
“Good! You’re awake.”
A high, tremulous voice interrupted her thoughts. Whoever it was spoke from directly behind her, out of her line of sight. Rin’s eyes bulged and she strained against the straps.
“Oh, I’m sorry—but of course you cannot see me.”
The owner of the voice moved to stand directly above her. He was a very thin white-haired man in a doctor’s uniform. His beard was trimmed meticulously to a sharp point ending two inches below his chin. His dark eyes glittered with a bright intelligence.
“Is this better?” He smiled benignly, as if greeting an old friend. “I am Eyimchi Shiro, chief medical officer of this camp. You may call me Dr. Shiro.”
He spoke Nikara, not Mugini. He had a very prim Sinegardian accent, as if he’d learned the language fifty years ago. His tone was stilted, artificially cheerful.
When Rin did not respond, the doctor shrugged and turned to the other table.
“Oh, Altan,” he said. “I had no idea you’d be coming back. This is a wonderful surprise! I couldn’t believe it when they told me. They said, ‘Dr. Shiro, we’ve found a Speerly!’ And I said, ‘You’ve got to be joking! There are no more Speerlies!’” Shiro chuckled mildly.
Rin strained to see Altan’s face. He was awake; his eyes were open, but he glared at the ceiling without looking at Shiro.
“They have been so scared of you, you know,” Shiro continued cheerfully. “What do they call you? The monster of Nikan? The Phoenix incarnate? My countrymen love exaggerations, and they love you Nikara shamans even more. You are a myth, a legend! You are so special! Why do you act so sullen?”
Altan said nothing.
Shiro seemed to deflate slightly, but then he grinned and patted Altan on the cheek. “Of course. You must be tired. Do not worry. We will fix you up in just a moment. I have just the thing . . .”
He hummed happily as he bustled over to the corner of the operating room. He perused his shelves, plucking out various vials and instruments. Rin heard a popping noise, and then the sound of a candle being lit. She could not see what Shiro was doing with his hands until he returned to stand above Altan.
“Did you miss me?” he inquired.
Altan said nothing.
“Hm.” Shiro lifted a syringe over Altan’s face, tapping the glass so that both of them could see the liquid inside. “Did you miss this?”
Altan’s eyes bulged.
Shiro held Altan’s wrist down with a gentle touch, almost as a mother would caress her child. His skilled fingers prodded for a vein. With his other hand he brought the needle to Altan’s arm and pushed.
Only then did Altan scream.
“Stop!” Rin shrieked. Spittle flew out the sides of her mouth. “Stop it!”
“My dear!” Shiro set the empty syringe down and rushed to her side. “Calm! Calm down! He will be fine.”
“You’re killing him!” She thrashed wildly against her bonds, but they held firm.
Tears leaked from her eyes. Shiro wiped them meticulously away, keeping his fingers out of reach of her gnashing teeth.
“Killing? Don’t be dramatic. I just gave him some of his favorite medicine.” Shiro tapped his temple and winked at her. “You know he enjoys it. You traveled with him, didn’t you? This drug is not anything new to him. He will be fine in a few minutes.”
They both looked to Altan. Altan’s breathing had stabilized, but he certainly did not look fine.
“Why are you doing this?” Rin choked. She’d thought she understood Federation cruelty by now. She had seen Golyn Niis. She’d seen the evidence of Mugenese scientists’ handiwork. But to look this evil in the eye, to watch Shiro inflict such pain on Altan and smile about it . . . Rin could not comprehend it. “What do you want from us?”
Shiro sighed. “Is it not obvious?” He patted her cheek. “I want knowledge. Our work here will advance medical technology by decades. When else do you get such a good chance to do research? An endless supply of cadavers! Boundless opportunities for experimentation! I can answer every question I’ve ever had about the human body! I can devise ways to prevent death!”
Rin gaped at him in disbelief. “You are cutting my people open.”
“Your people?” Shiro snorted. “Don’t degrade yourself. You’re nothing like those pathetic Nikara. You Speerlies are so fascinating. Composed of such lovely material.” Shiro fondly brushed the hair from Altan’s sweaty forehead. “Such beautiful skin. Such fascinating eyes. The Empress doesn’t know what she has.”
He pressed two fingers against Rin’s neck to take her pulse. She swallowed down the bile that rose up at his touch.
“I wonder if you might oblige me,” he said gently. “Show me the fire. I know you can.”