“Then what’s the point?” she snapped. “Why learn Lore at all?”
His expression then was terrible. He looked as he had that day Sunzi the pig was slaughtered, when she told him she wanted to pledge Strategy. He looked wounded. Betrayed.
“The point of every lesson does not have to be to destroy,” he said. “I taught you Lore to help you find balance. I taught you so that you would understand how the universe is more than what we perceive. I didn’t teach you so that you could weaponize it.”
“The gods—”
“The gods will not be used at our beck and call. The gods are so far out of our realm of understanding that any attempt to weaponize them can only end in disaster.”
“What about the Phoenix?”
Jiang stopped walking. “Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.”
“The god of the Speerlies,” said Rin. “Each time it has been called, it has answered. If we could just . . .”
Jiang looked pained. “You know what happened to the Speerlies.”
“But they were channeling fire long before the Second Poppy War! They practiced shamanism for centuries! The power—”
“The power would consume you,” Jiang said harshly. “That’s what fire does. Why do you think the Speerlies never won back their freedom? You’d think a race like that wouldn’t have remained subordinate for long. They would have conquered all of Nikan, if their power were sustainable. How come they never revolted against the Empire? The fire killed them, Rin, just as it empowered them. It drove them mad, it robbed them of their ability to think for themselves, until all they knew to do was fight and destroy as they had been ordered. The Speerlies were obsessed with their own power, and as long as the Emperor gave them free license to run rampant with their bloodlust, there was very little they cared about. The Speerlies were collectively deluded. They called the fire, yes, but they are hardly worth emulating. The Red Emperor was cruel and ruthless, but even he had the good sense never to train shamans in his Militia, outside of the Speerlies. Treating the gods as weapons only ever spells death.”
“We’re at war! We might die anyway. So maybe calling the gods gives us a fighting chance. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“You’re so young,” he said softly. “You have no idea.”
After that, Rin saw neither hide nor hair of Jiang on campus at all. Rin knew he was deliberately avoiding her, as he had before her Trials, as he did whenever he didn’t want to have a conversation. She found this incredibly frustrating.
You’re so young.
That was even more frustrating.
She wasn’t so young that she didn’t know her country was at war. Not so young that she hadn’t been tasked to defend it.
Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.
Sinegard’s time was running out. Scouts reported daily that the Federation force was almost on their doorstep.
Rin couldn’t sleep, though she desperately needed to. Each time she closed her eyes, anxiety crushed her like an avalanche. During the day her head swam with exhaustion and her eyes burned, yet she could not calm herself enough to rest. She tried meditating, but terror plagued her mind; her heart raced and her breath contracted with fear.
At night, when she lay alone in the darkness, she heard over and over the call of the Phoenix. It plagued her dreams, whispered seductively to her from the other realm. The temptation was so great that it nearly drove her mad.
I will keep you sane, Jiang had promised.
But he had not kept her sane. He had shown her a great power, a tantalizingly wonderful power strong enough to protect her city and country, and then he had forbidden her from accessing it.
Rin obeyed, because he was her master, and the allegiance between master and apprentice still meant something, even in times of war.
But that didn’t stop her from going into his garden when she knew he was not on campus, and shoving several handfuls of poppy seeds in her front pocket.
Chapter 11
When the main column of the Federation Armed Forces marched on Sinegard, they did not attempt to conceal their arrival. They did not need to. Sinegard knew already that they were coming, and the terror the Federation inflicted gave them a far greater strategic advantage than the element of surprise. They advanced in three columns, marching from every direction but the west, where Sinegard was backed by the Wudang Mountains. They forged forward with massive crimson banners flying overhead, illuminated by raised torches.
For Ryohai, the banners read. For the Emperor.
In his Principles of War, the great military theorist Sunzi had warned against attacking an enemy that occupied the higher ground. The target above held the advantage of surveillance and would not need to tire out their troops by climbing uphill.
The Federation invasion strategy was a giant fuck you to Sunzi.
To storm Sinegard from higher ground would have required a detour up the Wudang Mountains, which would have delayed the Federation assault by almost an entire week. The Federation would not give Sinegard a week. The Federation had the weapons and the numbers to take Sinegard from below.
From her vantage point high on the southern city wall, Rin watched the Federation force approach like a great fiery snake winding its way through the valley, encircling Sinegard to crush and swallow it. She saw it coming, and she trembled.
I want to hide. I want someone to tell me I’m going to be safe, that this is just a joke, a bad dream.
In that moment she realized that all this time she had been playing at being a soldier, playing at bravery.
But now, on the eve of the battle, she could not pretend anymore.
Fear bubbled in the back of her throat, so thick and tangible that she almost choked on it. Fear made her fingers tremble violently so that she almost dropped her sword. Fear made her forget how to breathe. She had to force air into her lungs, close her eyes, and count to herself as she inhaled and exhaled. Fear made her dizzy and nauseated, made her want to vomit over the side of the wall.
It’s just a physiological reaction, she told herself. It’s just in your mind. You can control it. You can make it go away.
They had gone over this in training. They had been warned about this feeling. They were taught to control their fear, turn it to their advantage; use their adrenaline to remain alert, to ward off fatigue.
But a few days of training could not negate what her body instinctively felt, which was the imminent truth that she was going to bleed, she was going to hurt, and she was most likely going to die.
When had she last been this scared? Had she felt this paralysis, this numbing dread before she stepped into the ring with Nezha two years ago? No, she had been angry then, and proud. She had thought she was invincible. She had been looking forward to the fight, anticipating the bloodlust.
That felt stupid now. So, so stupid. War was not a game, where one fought for honor and admiration, where masters would keep her from sustaining any real harm.
War was a nightmare.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream and hide behind someone, behind one of the soldiers, wanted to whimper, I am scared, I want to wake up from this dream, please save me.
But no one was coming for her. No one was going to save her. There was no waking up.
“Are you all right?” Kitay asked.
“No,” she said, trembling. Her voice was a frightened squeak. “I’m scared. Kitay, we’re going to die.”
“No, we’re not,” Kitay said fiercely. “We’re going to win, and we are going to live.”
“You’ve done the math, too.” They were outnumbered three to one. “Victory is not possible.”