The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,72

a bow. They had a glove designed for me. Keeps the three fingers bent back so I don’t have to. I’d be just fine on the field with a little practice. Not like anyone believes me.” Venka shifted in her bed. “But what are you doing here? Did Nezha win you over with his pretty words?”

Rin shifted. “Something like that.”

Venka was looking at her with something that might have been jealousy. “So you’re still a soldier. Lucky you.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Rin said.

“Why not?”

For a moment Rin considered telling Venka everything—about the Vipress, about the Seal, about what she had seen with Chaghan. But Venka didn’t have the patience for details. Venka didn’t care that much.

“I just—I can’t do what I did anymore. Not like that.” She hugged her chest with her arms. “I don’t think I’ll ever do that again.”

Venka pointed to her eyes. “Is that what you’ve been crying about?”

“No—I just . . .” Rin took a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I’m useful anymore.”

Venka rolled her eyes. “Well, you can still hold a sword, can’t you?”

Chapter 12

In the following week, three more provinces announced their independence from the Empire.

As Nezha predicted, the southern Warlords capitulated first. After all, the south had no reason to stay loyal to the Empire or Daji. The Third Poppy War had hit them the hardest. Their refugees were starving, their bandit epidemic had exploded, and the attack at the Autumn Palace had destroyed any chance that they might win concessions or promises of aid at the Lusan summit.

The southern Warlords notified Arlong of their intentions to secede through breathless delegates traveling over land if they were close enough, and by messenger pigeon if they weren’t. Days later the Warlords themselves arrived at Arlong’s gates.

“Rooster, Monkey, and Boar.” Nezha counted the provinces off as they watched Eriden’s guards escort the portly Boar Warlord into the palace. “Not bad.”

“That puts us at four provinces to eight,” Rin said. “Not incredible odds.”

“Five to seven. And they’re good generals.” That was true. None of the southern Warlords had been born into their ranks; they’d all assumed them in the bloodbaths of the Second and Third Poppy Wars. “And Tsolin will come through.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Tsolin knows how to pick sides. He’ll show up eventually. Cheer up, this is about as good as we expected.”

Rin had imagined that once the four-province alliance solidified, they would march on the north immediately. But politics quickly crushed her hopes for rapid action. The southern Warlords had not brought their armies with them to Arlong. Their military forces remained in their respective capitals, hedging their bets, watching before joining the fray. The south was playing a waiting game. By seceding they had insulated themselves from Vaisra’s ire, but so long as they didn’t commit troops against the Empire, there was still the chance that Daji would welcome them back with open arms, all sins forgiven.

Days passed. The order to ship out didn’t come. The four-province alliance spent hours and hours debating strategy in an endless series of war councils. Rin, Nezha, and Kitay were all present at these; Nezha because he was a general, Kitay because he, in a bizarre turn of events, was now considered a competent strategist if not an especially well-liked one, and Rin purely because Vaisra wanted her there.

She suspected her purpose was to intimidate, to give some reassurance that if the island-destroying Speerly was alive and well in Arlong, then this war could not be so difficult to win.

She tried her best to act as if that weren’t a lie.

“We need cross-division squadrons, or this alliance is just a suicide pact.” General Hu, Vaisra’s senior strategist, had long ago given up on masking his frustration. “The Republican Army has to act as a cohesive whole. The men can’t think they’re still squadrons of their old province.”

“I’m not putting my men under the command of soldiers I’ve never met,” said the Boar Warlord. Rin detested Cao Charouk; he seemed to do nothing but complain so fiercely about everything Vaisra’s staff suggested that often she wondered why he’d come to Arlong at all. “And those squads won’t function. You’re asking men who have never met to fight together. They don’t know the same command signals, they don’t use the same codes, and they don’t have time to learn.”

“Well, you lot don’t seem keen on attacking the north anytime soon, so I imagine they’ll have months at the least,” Kitay muttered.

Nezha made a choking noise that