mast, Nezha. I was too busy trying not to die to think.”
“Then why did you tell Father that she’s dead?”
“Because I think she is!” Rin quickly pulled an explanation out of thin air. “I saw Feylen crash that ship. I saw her fall into the water. And if you can’t find a body that just means she’s buried down there with the other ten thousand corpses clogging up your channel. What I don’t understand is why you’re acting like I’m a traitor when I just killed a god for you.”
“I’m sorry.” Nezha sighed. “No, you’re right. I just—I want us to be able to trust each other.”
His eyes looked so sincere. He’d really bought it.
Rin exhaled, marveling at how narrowly she’d gotten away.
“I’ve never lied to you.” She placed a hand on his arm. It was so easy to act. She didn’t have to fake her affection for him. It felt good to tell Nezha what he wanted to hear. “And I never will. I swear.”
Nezha gave her a smile. A real smile. “I like when we’re on the same side.”
“Me too,” she said, and that, finally, wasn’t a lie. How desperately she wished they could stay that way.
The parade turnout was pathetic. That didn’t surprise Rin. In Tikany, people came out for festivals only because they bore the promise of free food and drink, but battle-wrecked Arlong didn’t have the resources to spare either. Vaisra had ordered an extra ration of rice and fish distributed across the city, but to civilians who had just lost their homes and relatives, that was little cause to celebrate.
Rin still could only barely walk. She’d stopped using her cane, but she couldn’t move more than fifty yards without getting exhausted, and both her arms and legs were riddled by a tight, sore ache that seemed to only be getting worse.
“We can have you ride on a sedan chair if you need,” Kitay said when she faltered on the dais.
Rin clutched his proffered arm. “I’ll walk.”
“But you’re hurting.”
“Entire city’s hurting,” she said. “That’s the point.”
She hadn’t seen the city outside the infirmary until now, and the devastation was painful to look at. The fires in the outer city had burned for nearly a day after the battle, extinguished only by rainfall. The palace remained intact, though blackened at the bottom. The lush greenery of the canal islands had been replaced by withered dead trees and ash. The infirmaries were overcrowded with the wounded. The dead lay in neat lines by the beach, awaiting a proper burial.
Vaisra’s parade wasn’t a testament to victory, but an acknowledgment of sacrifice. Rin appreciated that. There were no gaudy musicians, no flagrant displays of wealth and power. The army walked the streets to show that they had survived. That the Republic was alive.
Saikhara headed the procession, breathtaking in robes of cerulean and silver. Vaisra strode just behind her. His hair was streaked with far more white than it had been months ago, and he walked with just the barest hint of a limp, but even those signs of weakness seemed only to add to his dignity. He was dressed like an Emperor, and Saikhara looked like his Empress. She was their divine mother and he was their savior, father, and ruler all at once.
Behind that celestial couple stood the entire military might of the west. Hesperian soldiers lined the streets. Hesperian dirigibles drifted slowly through the air above them. Vaisra may have promised to usher in a democratic government, but if he intended to stake his claim to the entire Empire, Rin doubted that anyone could stop him.
“Where are the southern Warlords?” Kitay asked. He kept twisting around to get a look at the line of generals. “Haven’t seen them all day.”
Rin searched the crowd. He was right; the Warlords were absent. She couldn’t see a single southern refugee, either.
“Do you think they’ve left?” she asked.
“I know they haven’t. The valleys are still full of refugee camps. I think they chose not to come.”
“What for, a show of protest?”
“I suppose it makes sense,” he said. “This wasn’t their victory.”
Rin could understand that. The victory at the Red Cliffs had solved very few of the south’s problems. Southern troops had bled for a regime that only continued to treat them as a necessary sacrifice. But the Warlords were sacrificing prudence for symbolic protest. They needed Hesperian troops to clear out the Federation enclaves in their home provinces. They should have been doing their best to win back Vaisra’s favor.