“Not so different that he gets to talk to you like that,” Nezha said. His eyes slid over her collarbone. “It was Altan. Tiger’s tits. They’re saying he’s gone mad in the Fifth, but I never thought he’d actually resort to this.”
“You don’t get to talk,” Rin snapped. Why did Nezha think he could now take on the role of confidant? “You made fun of me for years at Sinegard. You didn’t say a kind word to me until Mugen was at our doorstep.”
To his credit, Nezha actually looked guilty. “Rin, I’m—”
She cut him off before he could get a word in. “I was the war orphan from the south, and you were the rich kid from Sinegard, and you tormented me. You made Sinegard a living hell, Nezha.”
It felt good to say it out loud. It felt good to see Nezha’s stricken expression. They had skirted around this since Nezha had arrived, had acted as if they had always been friends at the Academy, because theirs had been such a childish feud compared to the very real battles they were fighting now. But if he wanted to malign her commander, then she would remind him exactly whom he was talking to.
Nezha slammed a hand on the table, just as Altan had, but this time she didn’t flinch.
“You weren’t the only victim!” he said. “The first day we met you punched me. Then you kicked me in the balls. Then you tackled me in class. In front of Jun. In front of everyone. How do you think that felt? How fucking embarrassing do you think that was? Look, I’m sorry, all right? I’m really sorry.” The remorse in Nezha’s voice sounded genuine. “But I saved your life. Doesn’t that make us at least a little square?”
Square? Square? She had to laugh. “You almost got me expelled!”
“And you almost killed me,” he said.
That shut her up.
“I was scared of you,” Nezha continued. “And I lashed out. I was stupid. I was a spoiled brat. I was a real pain in the ass. I thought I was better than you, and I’m not. I’m sorry.”
Rin was too stunned to come up with a response, so she turned away. “I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” she said stiffly to the wall.
“Fine,” Nezha snapped. “Sorry I tried. I’ll leave you alone, then.”
He grabbed his plate, stood up, and walked briskly away. She let him.
Night watch was lonely and boring without Nezha. All of the Cike had watch duty on rotation, but at that moment Rin was convinced Altan had placed her there as punishment. What was the point of staring down at a coastline where nothing ever happened? If another fleet did show up, Qara’s birds would see it days in advance.
Rin twisted her fingers irritably together as she huddled against the wall, trying to warm herself. Stupid, she thought, glaring at her hands. Probably she wouldn’t feel so cold if she could just summon a bit of flame.
Everything felt awful. The mere thought of both Altan and Nezha made her cringe. She knew vaguely that she’d fucked up, that she’d probably done something that she shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t reason a way out of this dilemma. She wasn’t even sure precisely what the matter was, only that both were furious with her.
She heard then a droning noise; so faint at first she thought she was imagining it. But then it increased quickly in volume, like a fast-approaching swarm of bees. The noise reached a peak and clarified into human shouts. She squinted; the commotion wasn’t coming from the coastline but from the downtown districts behind her. She jumped down from her perch and ran to look down the other side. A flood of civilians streamed into the alleyways, a frantic stampede of bodies. She searched the crowd and saw Qara and Unegen emerging from their barracks. She scaled down the wall and wove through the flood of bodies, pushing against the crowd to reach them.
“What’s going on?” She grabbed Unegen’s arm. “Why are they running?”
“No clue,” Unegen said. “Find the others.”
A civilian—an old woman—tried to push past Rin but stumbled. Rin knelt to help her, but the woman had already picked herself up, scurrying along faster than Rin had ever seen an old person move. Men, women, and children streamed around her, some barefoot, some only half-dressed, wearing identical expressions of terror in their frenzy to flee out the city gates.
“What the hell is going on?” Baji, bleary-eyed and shirtless, pushed through the crowd toward them. “Great Tortoise. Are we evacuating now?”
Something bumped into Rin’s knee. She looked down and saw a small child—tiny, half Kesegi’s age. He wasn’t wearing any pants. He groped blindly at her shin, bawling loudly. He must have lost his parents in the confusion. She reached down and picked him up, the same way she used to hold Kesegi when he cried.
As she searched through the mob for anyone who looked like they were missing a child, she saw three great spouts of flame appear in the air, in the shape of three small dragons flying upward at the sky. It had to be Altan’s signal.
Through the noise Rin heard his hoarse yell, “Cike, to me!”
She placed the child in the arms the first civilian she saw and fought her way through the masses to where Altan stood. Jun was there, too, surrounded by about ten of his men. Nezha stood among them. He didn’t meet her eyes.
Altan looked more openly furious than she had ever seen him. “I warned you not to evacuate without giving notice.”
“This isn’t me,” said Jun. “They’re running from something.”
“From what?”
“Damned if I know,” Jun snapped.
Altan heaved a great sigh of impatience, reached into the horde of bodies, and pulled someone out at random. It was a young woman, a little older than Rin, wearing nothing but a nightgown. She screeched loudly in protest, then clamped her jaw shut when she saw their Militia uniforms.
“What’s going on?” Altan demanded. “What are you all running from?”
“A chimei,” she said, out of breath and terrified. “There’s a chimei downtown, near the town square . . .”
A chimei? The name was vaguely familiar. Rin thought back to where she had last seen it—somewhere in the library, perhaps, in one of the absurd tomes Jiang had made her read when conducting a thorough investigation on every piece of arcane knowledge known to mankind. She thought it might be a beast, some mythological creature with bizarre abilities.
“Really,” Jun said skeptically. “How do you know it’s a chimei?”
The girl looked him straight in the eyes. “Because it’s tearing the faces off corpses,” she said in a wavering voice. “I saw the bodies, I saw . . .” She broke off.
“What does it look like?” Altan asked.
The woman shivered. “I didn’t get a close look, but I think . . . it looked like a great four-legged beast. Large as a horse, arms like a monkey’s.”
“A beast,” Altan repeated. “Anything else?”
“Its fur was black, and its eyes . . .” She swallowed.
“Its eyes were what?” Jun pressed.
The woman flinched. “Like his,” she said, and pointed to Altan. “Red like blood. Bright as flame.”
Altan released the young woman back into the crowd, and she immediately disappeared into the fleeing mass.
The two commanders faced each other.
“We need to send someone in,” Altan said. “Someone has to kill that beast.”
“Yes,” Jun agreed immediately. “My people are tied up with crowd control, but I can gather a squadron.”
“We don’t need a squadron. One of my people should be fine. We can’t dispatch everyone. Mugen could use this chance to attack our base. This could be a diversion.”
“I’ll go,” Rin volunteered immediately.
Altan frowned at her. “You know how to handle a chimei?”
She didn’t know. She’d only just remembered what a chimei was—and that was only from Academy readings that she barely remembered. But she was sure that was more than anyone else in the divisions or the Cike knew, because no one else had been forced to read arcane bestiaries at Sinegard. And she wasn’t about to admit incompetence to Altan in front of Jun. She could handle this task. She had to.
“As well as anyone else does, sir. I’ve read the bestiaries.”
Altan considered for a short moment, then nodded curtly. “Go against the grain of the crowd. Keep to the alleys.”
“I’ll go, too,” Nezha volunteered.