“I raised Altan after the Second War,” said Irjah. “I know.”
Rin felt a deep sense of relief. If Irjah knew what Altan was like, what Speerlies were capable of, then surely he could vouch for her, persuade the Militia that she wasn’t dangerous—at least not to them.
“They’ve come to a decision about you,” Irjah said.
“I didn’t know I was up for debate,” she answered, just to be difficult.
Irjah gave her a tired smile that did not reach his eyes. “You’re going to get your transfer orders soon.”
“Really?” She straightened up, suddenly excited. They were letting her out. Finally. “Sir, I was hoping I could join the Second with Kitay—”
Irjah cut her off. “You’re not joining the Second. You’re not joining any of the Twelve Divisions.”
Her elation was replaced immediately by dread. She was suddenly aware of a faint buzzing noise in the air. “What do you mean?”
Irjah fiddled uncomfortably with his thumbs, and then said: “The Warlords have decided it best to send you to join the Cike.”
For a moment she sat there looking dumbly at him.
The Cike? That infamous thirteenth division, the Empress’s squad of assassins? The killers with no honor, no reputation, and no glory? The fighting force so vile, so nefarious, that the Militia preferred to pretend it didn’t exist?
“Rin? Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“The Cike?” Rin repeated.
“Yes.”
“You’re sending me to the freak squad?” Her voice cracked. She had a sudden urge to burst into tears. “The Bizarre Children?”
“The Cike is a division of the Militia just like the others,” Irjah said hastily. His tone was artificially soothing. “They are a perfectly respectable contingent.”
“They are losers and rejects! They—”
“They serve the Empress just as the army does.”
“But I—” Rin swallowed hard. “I thought I was a good soldier.”
Irjah’s expression softened. “Oh, Rin. You are. You are an incredible soldier.”
“So why can’t I be in a real division?” She was acutely aware of how childish she sounded. But under the circumstances, she thought she deserved to act like a child.
“You know why,” Irjah said quietly. “Speerlies have not fought with the Twelve Provinces since the last Poppy War. And before that, when they did, the cooperation was always . . . difficult.”
Rin knew her history. She knew what Irjah alluded to. The last time the Speerlies had fought alongside the Militia, they had been regarded as barbaric oddities, much as the Cike was regarded now. The Speerlies raged and fought in their own camps; they were a walking hazard to everyone in their vicinity, friends and foe alike. They followed orders, but only vaguely; they were given targets and objectives, but good luck to the officer who tried any sophisticated maneuvers. “The Militia hates Speerlies.”
“The Militia is afraid of Speerlies,” Irjah corrected. “The Nikara have never been good at dealing with what they don’t understand, and Speer has always made the Nikara uncomfortable. I expect you now know why.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I recommended you to the Cike. And I did it for you, child.” Irjah fixed her with a level gaze. “The rivalry between the Warlords has never completely disappeared, even since their alliance under the Dragon Emperor. Though their soldiers might hate you, the Twelve Warlords would be very eager to get their hands on a Speerly. Whatever division you joined would gain an unfair advantage. And whatever division you didn’t join might not like the shift in the balance of power. If I sent you to any one of the twelve divisions, you would be in very grave danger from the other eleven.”
“I . . .” She hadn’t considered this. “But there’s already a Speerly in the Militia,” she said. “What about Altan?”
Irjah’s beard twitched. “Would you like to meet your commander?”
“What?” She blinked, not comprehending.
Irjah turned and called to someone behind the door, “Well, come on in.”
The door opened. The man who walked through was tall and lithe; he did not wear a Militia uniform but a black tunic without any insignia. He carried a silver trident strapped across his back.
Rin swallowed, fighting a ridiculous urge to sweep her hair behind her ears. She felt a familiar flush, a heat starting at the tops of her ears.
He had gained several scars since she’d last seen him, including two on his forearm and one that ran ragged across his face, from the lower right corner of his left eye down to his right jaw. His hair was no longer cropped tidily as it had been at school, but had grown unruly and wild, like he hadn’t bothered with it in months.
“Hi,” said Altan Trengsin. “What was that about losers and rejects?”
“How on earth did you survive the firebombs?”
Rin opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Altan. Altan Trengsin. She tried to form a coherent response, but all she could process was that her childhood hero was standing before her.
He knelt down in front of her.
“How do you exist?” he asked quietly. “I thought I was the only one left.”
She finally found her voice. “I don’t know. They never told me what happened to my parents. My foster parents didn’t know.”
“And you never suspected what you were?”
She shook her head. “Not until I . . . I mean, when I . . .”
She choked suddenly. The memories she had been suppressing flooded up in front of her: the shrieking Woman, the cackling Phoenix, the terrible heat ripping through her body, the way the general’s armor bent and liquefied under the heat of the fire . . .
She lifted her hands to her face and found that they were trembling.
She hadn’t been able to control it. She hadn’t been able to turn it off. The flames had just kept pouring out of her without end; she might have burned Nezha, she might have burned Kitay, she might have turned all of Sinegard to ashes if the Phoenix hadn’t heeded her prayer. And even when the flames did stop, the fire coursing inside her hadn’t, not until the Empress kissed her forehead and made them die away.
I’m going crazy, she thought. I have become everything that Jiang warned me against.
“Hey. Hey.”
Cool fingers wrapped around her wrists. Gently, Altan pulled her hands away from her face.
She looked up and met his eyes. They were a shade of crimson brighter than poppy petals.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I know. I know what it’s like. I’m going to help you.”
“The Cike aren’t so bad once you get to know them,” he said as he led her out of the basement. “I mean, we kill people on orders, but on the whole we’re quite nice.”
“Are you all shamans?” she asked. She felt dizzy.
Altan shook his head. “Not all. We’ve got two who don’t mess with the gods—a munitions expert and a physician. But the rest are. Tyr had the most training out of all of us before he came to the Cike—he grew up with a sect of monks that worshipped a goddess of darkness. The others were like you: dripping in power and shamanic potential, but confused. We take them to the Night Castle, train them, and set them loose on the Empress’s enemies. Everybody wins.”
Rin tried to find this reassuring. “Where do they come from?”
“All over. You’d be surprised how many places the old religions are still alive,” said Altan. “Lots of hidden cults from across the provinces. Some contribute an initiate to the Cike every year in exchange for the Empress leaving them alone. It’s not easy to find shamans in this country, not in this age, but the Empress procures them wherever she can. A lot of them come from the prison at Baghra—the Cike is their second chance.”
“But you’re not really Militia.”
“No. We’re assassins. In wartime, though, we function as the Thirteenth Division.”
Rin wondered how many people Altan had killed. Whom he had killed. “What do you do in peacetime?”
“Peacetime?” He gave her a wry look. “There’s no peacetime for the Cike. There’s never a shortage of people the Empress wants dead.”