He was only half-conscious. He might not even remember.
She swallowed down a sudden wave of revulsion. No—no, she wouldn’t do that to him. She couldn’t. She’d have to get her answers another way. Now was not the time. She stood up.
His eyes opened again. “Where are you going?”
“I should let you rest,” she said.
He shifted in his bed. “No . . . don’t go . . .”
She paused at the door.
“Please,” he said. “Stay.”
“All right,” she said, and returned to his side. She took his hand in hers. “I’m right here.”
“What’s happening to me?” he murmured.
She squeezed his fingers. “Just close your eyes, Nezha. Go back to sleep.”
The remains of the fleet sat stuck in a cove for the next three days. Half the troops had to be treated for burn wounds, and the repulsive smell of rotting flesh became so pervasive that the men took to wrapping cloth around their faces, covering everything except their eyes. Eventually Jinzha had made the decision to administer morphine and medicine only to the men who had a decent chance of survival. The rest were rolled into the mud, facedown, until they stopped moving.
They didn’t have time to bury their dead so they dragged them into piles interlaced with parts of irreparable ships to form funeral pyres and set them on fire.
“How strategic,” Kitay said. “Don’t need the Empire getting hold of good ship wood.”
“Do you have to be like this?” Rin asked.
“Just complimenting Jinzha.”
Sister Petra stood before the burning corpses and gave an entire funeral benediction in her fluent, toneless Nikara while soldiers stood around her in a curious circle.
“In life you suffered in a world wreaked by Chaos, but you have offered your souls to a beautiful cause,” she said. “You died creating order in a land bereft of it. Now you rest. I pray your Maker will take mercy on your souls. I pray that you will come to know the depths of his love, all-encompassing and unconditional.”
She then began chanting in a language that Rin didn’t recognize. It seemed similar to Hesperian—she could almost recognize the roots of words before they took on an entirely different shape—but this seemed something more ancient, something weighted down with centuries of history and religious purpose.
“Where do your people think souls go when they die?” Rin murmured quietly to Augus.
He looked surprised she had even asked. “To the realm of the Maker, of course. Where do your people think they go?”
“Nowhere,” she said. “We disappear back to nothing.”
The Nikara spoke of the underworld sometimes, but that was more a folk story than a true belief. No one really imagined they might end up anywhere but in darkness.
“That’s impossible,” Augus said. “The Maker creates our souls to be permanent. Even barbarians’ souls have value. When we die, he refines them and brings them to his realm.”
Rin couldn’t help her curiosity. “What is that realm like?”
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “A land utterly without Chaos; without pain, disease, or suffering. It is the kingdom of perfect order that we spend our lives trying to re-create on this earth.”
Rin saw the joyful hope beaming out of Augus’s face as he spoke, and she knew that he believed every word he was saying.
She was starting to see why the Hesperians clung so fervently to their religion. No wonder they had won converts over so easily during occupation. What a relief it would be to know that at the end of this life there was a better one, that perhaps upon death you might enjoy the comforts you had always been denied instead of fading away from an indifferent universe. What a relief to know that the world was supposed to make sense, and that if it didn’t, you would one day be justly compensated.
A line of captains and generals stood before the burning pyre. Nezha was at the end, leaning heavily on a walking stick. It was the first time Rin had seen him in two days.
But when she approached him, he turned to walk away. She called out his name. He ignored her. She dashed forward—he couldn’t outrun her, not with his walking stick—and grabbed his wrist.
“Stop running away,” she said.
“I’m not running,” he said stiffly.
“Then talk to me. Tell me what I saw on the river.”
Nezha’s eyes darted around at the soldiers standing within earshot. He lowered his voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me. I saw what you did. You’re a shaman!”