The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,200

until it was over. She was used to this now, and she could use it as a fuel. Turn it into bloodlust.

“We should be in position,” she said. She tried to walk past him into the barracks to get her equipment, but he grabbed at her arm.

“Rin, please—you have more enemies than you think you do—”

She shrugged him off. “Let me go!”

He blocked her path. “I don’t want this to be the last conversation we ever have.”

“Then don’t die out there,” she said. “Problem solved.”

“But Feylen—”

“We’re not going to lose to Feylen this time,” she said. “We’re going to win, and we’re going to live.”

He sounded like a terrified child woken up from a bad dream. “But how do you know?”

She didn’t know what made her do it, but she put her hand on Nezha’s shoulder. It wasn’t an apology or forgiveness, but it was a concession. An acknowledgment.

And for just a moment, she felt a hint of that old camaraderie, a flicker she’d felt once, a year ago at Sinegard, when he’d thrown her a sword and they’d fought back to back, enemies turned to comrades, firmly on the same side for the first time in their lives.

She saw the way he was looking at her. She knew he felt it, too.

“Between us, we have the fire and the water,” she said quietly. “I’m quite sure that together, we can take on the wind.”

Chapter 31

“I can feel my heartbeat in my temples.” Venka leaned over her mounted crossbow and checked the gears for what seemed like the hundredth time. It was cranked to maximum, fitted in with twelve reloading bolts. “Don’t you love this part?”

“I hate this part,” Kitay said. “Feels like we’re waiting for our executioner.”

His hairline sported visible bald patches. He was going mad waiting for the Imperial Navy to show up, and Rin knew why. They both liked it so much better when they were on the offensive, when they could decide when to attack and where.

They’d been taught at Sinegard that fighting a defensive battle by sitting behind fixed fortifications was courting disaster because it just gave the enemy the advantage of initiative. Unless a siege was at play, sitting behind defenses was almost always a doomed strategy, because there were no locks that couldn’t be broken, and no fortresses that were impregnable.

And this would not be a siege. Daji had no interest in starving them out. She didn’t need to. She intended to smash right through the gates.

“Arlong hasn’t been taken for centuries,” Venka pointed out.

Kitay’s hands twitched. “Well, its luck had to run out sometime.”

The Republic was as prepared as it ever would be. The generals had set their defensive traps. They’d divided and positioned their troops—seven artillery stations all along the upper cliffs, the majority stationed on the Republican Fleet in formation inside the channel, and the rest either guarding the shore or barricading the heavily fortified palace.

Rin wished that the Cike could be up on the cliff fighting by her side, but neither Baji nor Suni could offer much air support against Feylen. They were both stationed on warships at the center of the Republican Fleet where, right in the brunt of enemy fire, their abilities might stay hidden from Hesperian observers, and also where they’d be able to cause the most damage.

“Is Nezha in position?” Kitay peered over the channel.

Nezha was assigned to the front of the fleet, leading one of the three remaining warships that could hold its own in a naval skirmish. He was to drive his ship directly into the center of the Imperial Fleet and split it apart.

“Nezha’s always in position,” said Venka. “He’s sprung like a—”

“Don’t be vulgar,” Kitay said.

Venka grinned.

They could hear a faint series of booms echoing from beyond the mouth of the channel. In truth, the battle had already begun—a flimsy handful of riverside forts that constituted Arlong’s first line of defense had already engaged the Militia, but they were manned with only enough soldiers to keep the cannons firing.

Kitay had estimated those would buy them all of ten minutes.

“There,” Venka said sharply. “I see them.”

They stood up.

The Imperial Navy sailed directly into their line of sight. Rin caught her breath, trying not to panic at the sheer size of Daji’s fleet combined with Tsolin’s.

“What’s Chang En doing?” Kitay demanded.

The Wolf Meat General had lashed his boats together, tied them stern to stern into a single, immobile structure. The fleet had become a single, massive battering ram, with the floating fortress at