“I thought it was hubris, what you did,” she murmured. “But it’s kindness. The Hinterlanders maintain the illusion so you can let everyone else live in the lie.”
“Don’t call us that,” Chaghan said sharply. “Hinterlander is not a name. Only the Empire uses this word, because you assume everyone who lives on the steppe is the same. Naimads are not Ketreyids. Call us by our names.”
“I’m sorry.” She crossed her arms against her chest, shivering against the biting wind. “Can I ask you something else?”
“You’re going to ask me regardless.”
“Why do you hate me so much?”
“I don’t hate you,” he said automatically.
“Sure seemed like it. Seemed like it for a long time, even before Altan died.”
Finally he twisted around to face her. “I can’t look at you and not see him.”
She knew he would say that. She knew, and still it hurt. “You thought I couldn’t live up to him. And that’s—that’s fair, I never could. And—and if you were jealous, for some reason, I understand that, too, but you should just know that—”
“I wasn’t just jealous,” he said. “I was angry. At both of us. I was watching you make all the same mistakes Altan did, and I didn’t know how to stop it. I saw Altan confused and angry all those years, and I saw him walk down the path he chose like a blind child, and I thought precisely the same was happening to you.”
“But I know what I’m doing. I’m not blind like he was—”
“Yes, you are, you don’t even realize it. Your kind has been treated as slaves for so long that you’ve forgotten what it is like to be free. You’re easily angered, and you latch quickly onto things—opium, people, ideas—that soothe your pain, even temporarily. And that makes you terribly easy to manipulate.” Chaghan paused. “I’m sorry. Do I offend?”
“Vaisra isn’t manipulating me,” Rin insisted. “He’s . . . we’re fighting for something good. Something worth fighting for.”
He gave her a long look. “And you really believe in his Republic?”
“I believe the Republic is a better alternative to anything we’ve got,” she said. “Daji has to die. Vaisra’s our best shot at killing her. And whatever happens next can’t possibly be worse than the Empire.”
“You really think that?”
Rin didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Didn’t want her mind to drift in that direction. Not once since the disaster at Lake Boyang had she seriously considered not returning to Arlong, or the idea that there might not be anything to return to.
She had too much power now, too much rage, and she needed a cause for which to burn. Vaisra’s Republic was her anchor. Without that, she’d be lost, drifting. That thought terrified her.
“I have to do this,” she said. “Otherwise I have nothing.”
“If you say so.” Chaghan turned to gaze at the river. He seemed to have given up on arguing the point. She couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or not. “Maybe you’re right. But eventually, you’ll have to ask yourself precisely what you’re fighting for. And you’ll have to find a reason to live past vengeance. Altan never managed that.”
“You’re sure you know how to ride this?” Qara handed the warhorse’s reins to Rin.
“No, but Kitay does.” Rin peered up at the black warhorse with trepidation. She’d never been entirely comfortable around horses—they were so much bigger up close, their hooves so poised to split her head open—but Kitay had spent enough of his childhood riding around on his family’s estate that he could handle most animals with ease.
“Keep off the main roads,” Chaghan said. “My birds tell me the Empire’s taking back much of its territory. You’ll run into Militia patrols if you’re seen traveling in broad daylight. Stick to the tree line when you can.”
Rin was about to ask about the horse’s feed when Chaghan and Qara both looked sharply to the left, like two hunting animals alerted to their prey.
She heard the noises a second later. Shouts from the Ketreyid camp. Arrows thudding into bodies. And a moment later, the unmistakable sound of a firing arquebus.
“Shit,” Kitay breathed.
The twins were already racing back. Rin snatched her trident off the ground and followed.
The camp was in chaos. Ketreyids ran about, grabbing at the reins of spooked horses trying to break free. The air was sharp with the acrid smoke of fire powder. Bullet holes riddled the yurts. Ketreyid bodies were strewn across the ground. And the Gray Company missionaries, half of them wielding arquebuses, fired