barracks.” Nezha motioned toward the gangplank. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to the ranks.”
Arlong was an amphibious city composed of a series of interconnected islands scattered inside a wide swath of the Western Murui. Nezha led Rin, Kitay, and the Cike into one of the slim, ubiquitous sampans that navigated Arlong’s interior. As Nezha guided their boat into the inner city, Rin swallowed down a wave of nausea. The city reminded her of Ankhiluun; it was far less shabby but just as disorienting in its reliance on waterways. She hated it. What was so wrong with dry land?
“No bridges?” she asked. “No roads?”
“No need. Whole islands linked by canals.” Nezha stood at the stern, steering the sampan forward with gentle sweeps of the rudder. “It’s arranged in a circular grid, like a conch shell.”
“Your city looks like it’s halfway to sinking,” Rin said.
“That’s on purpose. It’s nearly impossible to launch a land invasion on Arlong.” He guided the sampan around a corner. “This was the first capital of the Red Emperor. Back during his wars with the Speerlies, he surrounded himself with water. He never felt safe without it—he chose to build a city at Arlong for precisely that reason. Or so the myth goes.”
“Why was he obsessed with water?”
“How else do you protect yourself from beings who control fire? He was terrified of Tearza and her army.”
“I thought he was in love with Tearza,” Rin said.
“He loved her and feared her,” Nezha said. “They’re not mutually exclusive.”
Rin was glad when they finally pulled up to a solid sidewalk. She felt far more comfortable on land, where the floorboards wouldn’t shift under her feet, where she was at no risk of tipping into the water.
But Nezha looked happier over water than she’d ever seen him. He controlled the rudder like it was a natural extension of his body, and he hopped lightly from the edge of the sampan to the walkway as if it were no more difficult than walking through a grassy field.
He led them into the heart of Arlong’s military district. As they walked, Rin saw a series of tower ships, vessels that could carry entire villages, mounted with massive catapults and studded with rows and rows of iron cannons shaped like dragons’ heads, mouths curled in vicious sneers, waiting to spit fire and iron.
“These ships are stupidly tall,” she said.
“That’s because they’re designed to capture walled cities,” Nezha said. “Naval warfare is a matter of collecting cities like gambling chips. Those structures are meant to overtop walls along major waterways. Strategically speaking, most provinces are just empty space. The major cities control economic and political levers, the transportation and communications routes. So control the city and you’ve controlled the province.”
“I know that,” she said, slightly irked that he thought she needed a primer on basic invasion strategy. “I’m just concerned about their maneuverability. How much agility do you get in shallow waters?”
“Not much, but that doesn’t matter. Most naval warfare is still decided by hand-to-hand combat,” Nezha explained. “The tower ships take down the walls. We go in and pick up the pieces.”
Ramsa piped up from behind them, “I don’t understand why we couldn’t have taken this beautiful, giant fleet and blasted the shit out of the Autumn Palace.”
“Because we were attempting a bloodless coup,” Nezha said. “Father wanted to avoid a war if he could. Sending a massive fleet up to Lusan might have given the wrong message.”
“So what I’m hearing is that it’s all Rin’s fault,” said Ramsa. “Classic.”
Nezha walked backward so that he could face them as he talked. He looked terribly smug as he gestured to the ships around them. “A few years ago we added crossbeams to increase structural integrity in the hulls. And we redesigned the rudders—they have more mobility now, so they can operate in a broader range of water depths . . .”
“And your rudder?” Kitay inquired. “Still plunging those depths?”
“How so?” Rin asked, mostly because she could tell he wanted to brag.
“The teeth. They’re arranged circularly instead of in one direction. Means they hardly ever break.”
Rin found this very funny. “Does that happen often?”
“You’d be surprised,” Nezha said. “During the Second Poppy War we lost a crucial naval skirmish because the ship started drifting out to sea without its crew during a maelstrom. We’ve learned from that mistake.”
He continued to elucidate newer innovations as they walked, gesturing with the pride of a newborn parent. “We started building the hulls with the