The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,66

the barracks. Kitay had left to find the Dragon Province’s archives, and the other Cike members’ first priority had been finding the mess hall.

“Not very,” she said.

“Good. Do you want to see something cool?”

“Is it another ship?” she asked.

“Yes. But you’ll really like this one. Nice uniform, by the way.”

She smacked his arm. “Eyes up, General.”

“I’m just saying the colors look good on you. You make a good Dragon.”

Rin heard the shipyard long before they reached it. Over the cacophonous din of screeches and hammering, they had to yell to hear each other. She had assumed what she saw in the harbor was a completed fleet, but apparently several more vessels were still under construction.

Her eyes landed immediately on the ship at the far end. It was still in its initial stages—only a skeleton thus far. But if she imagined the structure to be built around it, it was titanic. It seemed impossible that a thing like that could ever stay afloat, let alone get past the channel through the Red Cliffs.

“We’re going to board that to the capital?” she asked.

“That one isn’t ready. It keeps getting updated with plans from the west. It’s Jinzha’s pet project; he’s a perfectionist about stuff like this.”

“A pet project,” she repeated. “Your siblings just build massive boats for their pet projects.”

Nezha shook his head. “It was supposed to be finished in time for the northern campaign, whenever that gets off the ground. Now it’ll be much longer. They’ve changed the design to a defensive warship. It’s meant to guard Arlong now, not to lead the fleet.”

“Why is it behind schedule?”

“Fire broke out in the shipyard overnight. Some idiot on watch kicked his lamp over. Set construction back by months. They had to import the timber from the Dog Province. Father had to get pretty creative with that—it’s hard to ship in massive amounts of lumber and hide the fact that you’re building a fleet. Took a few weeks of dealing with Moag’s smugglers.”

Rin could see blackened edges on some of the skeleton’s outer boards. But the rest had been replaced with new timber, smoothed to a shine.

“The whole thing made a big stir in the city,” Nezha said. “Some people kept saying it was a sign from the gods that the rebellion would fail.”

“And Vaisra?”

“Father took it as a sign that he should go out and get himself a Speerly.”

Instead of taking a river sampan back to the military barracks, Nezha led her down the stairs to the base of the pier, where Rin could still hear the noise of the shipyard over the water rushing gently against the posts that kept the pier up. At first she thought they had walked into a dead end, until Nezha stepped from the glassy sand and right onto the river.

“What the hell?”

After a second she realized he was standing not on the water, but rather on a large circular flap that almost matched the river’s greenish-blue hue.

“Lily pads,” Nezha said before she could ask. Arms spread for balance, he shifted his weight just so as the waves lifted the lily pad under his feet.

“Show-off,” Rin said.

“You’ve never seen these before?”

“Yes, but only in wall scrolls.” She grimaced at the pads. Her balance wasn’t half as good as Nezha’s, and she wasn’t keen to fall into the river. “I didn’t know they grew so large.”

“They don’t usually. These will only last a month or two before they sink. They grow naturally in the freshwater ponds up the mountain, but our botanists found a way to militarize them. You’ll find them up and down the harbor. The better sailors don’t need rowboats to get to their ships; they can just run across the lily pads.”

“Calm down,” she said. “They’re just stepping stones.”

“They’re militarized lily pads. Isn’t that great?”

“I think you just like using the word ‘militarized.’”

Nezha opened his mouth to respond, but a voice from atop the pier cut him off.

“Had enough of playing tour guide?”

A man descended the steps toward them. He wore a blue soldier’s uniform, and the black stripes on his left arm marked him as a general.

Nezha hastily hopped off the lily pads onto the wet sand and sank to one knee. “Brother. Good to see you again.”

Rin realized in retrospect she should have knelt as well, but she was too busy staring at Nezha’s brother. Yin Jinzha. She had seen him once, briefly, three years back at her first Summer Festival in Sinegard. Back then she’d thought that Jinzha and Nezha could