The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,234

turned to Rin. Her voice took on a hard edge. “I heard what you did to that Hesperian soldier.”

“Yeah,” Rin said. “So?”

“So well done. I hope it hurt.”

“It looked like it did.”

Venka nodded in silence. Neither of them had anything else to say about it.

“Any luck with the others?” Venka asked Kitay after a pause.

He shook his head. “Wasn’t time. The only one I could reach was Gurubai. He should be with the ship now if he got past the guards—”

“Gurubai?” Rin repeated. “What are you talking about?”

“Vaisra’s going after the southern Warlords,” Kitay explained. “He’s won his Empire. Now he’s consolidating his power. He started with you, and now he’s just cleaning up the others. I tried to give them some warning, but couldn’t reach them in time.”

“They’re dead?”

“Not all of them. They’ve got Charouk in the cells. Don’t know if they’ll execute him or let him languish, but they’ll certainly never set him free. The Rooster Warlord put up a fight, so they shot him when the riots started—”

“Riots? What the hell is going on?”

“The camps have turned into a war zone,” Venka said. “They’d doubled the guard all around the refugee district—said it was for safety, but the moment the troops came in for the Warlords they all knew what was happening. The southern troops started the revolt. We’ve been hearing fire powder going off all night—I think Vaisra set the Hesperians loose on them.”

Rin struggled to take all of this in. The world, it seemed, had turned upside down in the span of several hours. “They’re just killing them? Civilians too?”

“That’s likely.”

“Then what about Kesegi?” Rin asked. “Did he get out?”

Venka frowned. “Who?”

“I—no one.” Rin swallowed. “Never mind.”

“Think about it this way,” Venka said brightly. “At least it’s bought you a distraction.”

Rin retreated back under the tarp and lay still, counting her breaths to distract herself from the mess that was her hand. She wanted to look at it, survey the damage in her mangled fingers, but she couldn’t bring herself to unwrap the bloody cloth. She knew there would be no salvaging that hand. She’d seen the cracked bones.

“Venka?” Kitay’s voice, urgent.

“What?”

“I thought you covered your bases.”

“I did.”

Rin sat up. They’d moved faster than she thought—the palace was a distant sight, and they were already sailing past the shipyard. She twisted around to see what Venka and Kitay were staring at.

Nezha stood alone at the end of the pier.

Rin scrambled upright, her good hand flung outward. She was still reeling from the laudanum, but she could just elicit the smallest whispers of flame in her palm, could probably jerk out a larger torrent if she focused—

Kitay tackled her back down under the tarp. “Get down!”

“I’ll kill him.” Fire burst out from her palm and her lips. “I’ll kill him—”

“No, you won’t.” He moved to pin her wrists down.

Without thinking she pummeled at Kitay with both fists, trying to break free. Then her injured hand whacked against the side of the boat, and the pain was so horrendous that for a moment everything went white. Kitay clamped a hand over her mouth before she could scream. She collapsed into his arms. He held her against him and rocked her back and forth while she muffled her shrieks into his shoulder.

Venka fired two arrows in rapid succession across the harbor. They both missed by a yard. Nezha jerked his head to the side when they whistled past him, but otherwise stood his ground. He didn’t move the entire time the sampan crossed the shipyard toward the dark cover of cliff shadows on the other side of the channel.

“He’s letting us go,” said Kitay. “Hasn’t even sounded the alarm.”

“You think he’s on our side?” Venka asked.

“He’s not,” Rin said flatly. “I know he’s not.”

She knew with certainty that she’d lost Nezha forever. With Jinzha killed and Mingzha long dead, Nezha was the last male heir to the House of Yin. He stood to inherit the most powerful nation this side of the Great Ocean and become the ruler he’d prepared his entire life to be.

Why would he throw that away for a friend? She wouldn’t.

“This is my fault,” she said.

“It’s not your fault,” Kitay said. “We all thought we could trust that bastard.”

“But I think he tried to warn me.”

“What are you talking about? He stabbed you.”

“The night before the fleet came.” She took a deep breath. “He came to find me. He said I had more enemies than I thought I did. I think he was trying