“The Speerlies used to burn the dead,” she said. “They believed that their bodies were only temporary. From ash we come, and to ash we return. To the Speerlies, death was not an end but only a great reunion. Altan has left us to go home. Altan has returned to Speer.”
Qara cast her arms over the waters. She began to chant, not in the language of the Speerlies but in the rhythmic language of the Hinterlands. Her birds circled overhead in silent tribute. And the wind itself seemed to cease, the rocking of the waves halted, as if the very universe stood still for the loss of Altan.
The Cike stood in a line, all in their identical black uniforms, watching Qara wordlessly. Ramsa’s arms were folded tightly over his narrow chest, shoulders hunched as if he could withdraw into himself. Baji silently put a hand on his shoulder.
Rin and Chaghan stood at the back of the deck, removed from the rest of their division.
Kitay was nowhere to be seen.
“We should have his ashes,” Chaghan said bitterly.
“His ashes are already in the sea,” Rin said.
Chaghan glared at her. His eyes were red with grief, bloodshot. His pale skin was pulled over his high cheekbones so tightly that he looked even more skeletal than he usually did. He appeared as if he had not eaten in days. He appeared as if he might blow away with the wind.
Rin wondered how long it would take for him to stop blaming her in his mind for Altan’s death.
“I guess he gave as good as he got,” Chaghan said, nodding toward the ashen mess that was the Federation of Mugen. “Trengsin got his revenge in the end.”
“No, he didn’t.”
Chaghan stiffened. “Explain.”
“Mugen didn’t betray him,” she said. “Mugen didn’t draw him to that mountain. Mugen didn’t sell Speer. The Empress did.”
“Su Daji?” Chaghan said incredulously. “Why? What would she have to gain?”
“I don’t know. I intend to find out.”
“Tenega,” Chaghan swore. He looked as if he had just realized something. He crossed his thin arms against his chest, muttering in his own language. “But of course.”
“What?”
“You drew the Hexagram of the Net,” he said. “The Net signifies traps, betrayals. The wires of your capture were laid out ahead of you. She must have sent a missive to the Federation the minute Altan got it in his head to go to that damned mountain. One is ready to move, but his footprints run crisscross. You two were pawns in someone else’s game this entire time.”
“We were not pawns,” Rin snapped. “And don’t act like you saw this coming.” She felt a sudden flash of anger then—at Chaghan’s lecturing tone, his retrospective musing, as if he’d seen it all, like he’d expected this to happen, like he’d known better than Altan all along. “Your Hexagrams only make sense in hindsight and give no guidance when they’re cast. Your Hexagrams are fucking useless.”
Chaghan stiffened. “My Hexagrams are not useless. I see the shape of the world. I understand the changing nature of reality. I have read countless Hexagrams for the Cike’s commanders—”
She snorted. “And in all the Hexagrams you read for Altan, you never foresaw that he might die?”
To her surprise, Chaghan flinched.
She knew it wasn’t fair, to hurl accusations when Altan’s death was hardly Chaghan’s fault, but she needed to lash out, needed to blame it on someone other than herself.
She couldn’t stand Chaghan with his attitude that he knew better, that he’d foreseen this tragedy, because he hadn’t. She and Altan had gone to the mountain blind, and he had let them.
“I told you,” Chaghan said. “The Hexagrams can’t foresee the future. They’re portraits of the world as it is, descriptions of the forces at hand. The gods of the Pantheon represent sixty-four fundamental forces, and the Hexagrams reflect their undulations.
“And none of those undulations screamed, Don’t go to this mountain, you’ll be killed?”
“I did warn him,” Chaghan said quietly.
“You could have tried harder,” Rin said bitterly, even though she knew that, too, was an unfair accusation, and that she was saying it only to hurt Chaghan. “You could have told him he was about to die.”
“All of Altan’s Hexagrams spoke of death,” said Chaghan. “I didn’t expect that this time it would mark his own.”
She laughed out loud. “Aren’t you supposed to be a Seer? Do you ever see anything useful?”
“I saw Golyn Niis, didn’t I?” Chaghan snapped.
But the moment those words left his mouth he made a choking noise, and his features twisted with grief.
Rin didn’t say what they were both thinking—that maybe if they hadn’t gone to Golyn Niis, Altan wouldn’t have died.
She wished they had just fought the war out at Khurdalain. She wished they had abandoned the Empire completely and escaped back to the Night Castle, let the Federation ravage the countryside while they waited out the turmoil in the mountains, safe and insulated and alive.
Chaghan looked so miserable that Rin’s anger dissipated. Chaghan had, after all, tried to stop Altan. He’d failed. Neither of them could have talked Altan out of his frenzied death drive.
There was no way Chaghan could have predicted Altan’s future because the future was not written. Altan made his choices; at Khurdalain, at Golyn Niis, and finally on that pier, and neither of them could have stopped him.
“I should have known,” Chaghan said finally. “We have an enemy whom we love.”
“What?”
“I read it in Altan’s Hexagram. Months ago.”
“It meant the Empress,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he said, and turned his gaze out to the sea.
They watched Qara’s falcons in silence. The birds flew in great circles overhead, as if they were guides, as if they could lead a spirit toward the heavens.
Rin thought of the parade from so long ago, of the puppets of the animals of the Emperor’s Menagerie. Of the majestic kirin, that noble lion-headed beast, which appeared in the skies upon the death of a great leader.
Would a kirin appear for Altan?
Did he deserve one?
She found that she could not answer.
“The Empress should be the least of your concerns,” said Chaghan after a while. “Feylen’s getting stronger. And he always was powerful. Almost more so than Altan.”
Rin thought of that storm cloud she’d seen over the mountains. Those malicious blue eyes. “What does he want?”
“Who knows? The God of the Four Winds is one of the most mercurial entities of the Pantheon. His moods are entirely unpredictable. He will become a gentle breeze one day, and rip apart entire villages the next. He will sink ships and topple cities. He might be the end of this country.”
Chaghan spoke lightly, casually, as if he couldn’t care less if Nikan was destroyed the very next day. Rin had expected blame and accusation, but she heard none; only detachment, as if the Hinterlander held no stake in Nikan’s affairs now that Altan was gone. Maybe he didn’t.
“We’ll stop him,” Rin said.
Chaghan gave an indifferent shrug. “Good luck. It’ll take all of you.”
“Then will you command us?”
Chaghan shook his head “It couldn’t be me. Even back when I was Tyr’s lieutenant, I knew it could never be me. I was Altan’s Seer, but I was never slated to be a commander.”
“Why not?”
“A foreigner in charge of the Empire’s most lethal division? Not likely.” Chaghan folded his arms across his chest. “No, Altan named his successor before we left for Golyn Niis.”
Rin jerked her head up. That was news. “Who?”
Chaghan looked like he couldn’t believe she had asked.
“It’s you,” he said, as if it were obvious.
Rin felt like he had punched her in the solar plexus.
Altan had named her as his successor. Entrusted his legacy to her. He had written and signed the order in blood before they had even left Khurdalain.
“I am the commander of the Cike,” she said, and then had to repeat the words to herself before their meaning sank in. She held a status equivalent to the generals of the Warlords. She had the power to order the Cike to do as she wished. “I command the Cike.”
Chaghan looked sideways at her. His expression was grim. “You are going to paint the world in Altan’s blood, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to find and kill everyone responsible,” said Rin. “You cannot stop me.”