talking about her shortcomings to this newcomer was deeply humiliating.
“Have you managed to call the Phoenix once since Sinegard?” Chaghan inquired.
I bet I could call it on you right now, you twit. Her fingers tightened around her spoon. “I’ve been working on it.”
“Altan seems to think you’re stuck in a rut.”
Unegen looked like he dearly wished he were sitting anywhere else.
Rin gritted her teeth. “Well, he thought wrong.”
Chaghan shot her a patronizing smile. “I can help, you know. I’m his Seer. This is what I’m good at. I traverse the world of spirit. I speak to the gods. I don’t summon deities, but I know my way around the Pantheon better than anyone else. And if you’re having issues, I can help you find your way back to your god.”
“I’m not having issues,” she snapped. “I was scared at the marsh. I am not now.”
And that was the truth. She suspected she could call the Phoenix now, right in this mess hall, if Altan asked her to. If Altan would deign to talk to her beyond giving her orders. If Altan trusted her enough to give her an assignment above patrolling stretches of the city where nothing ever happened.
Chaghan raised an eyebrow. “Altan isn’t so sure.”
“Well, maybe Altan should get his head out of his ass,” she snapped, then immediately regretted speaking. Disappointing Altan was one thing; complaining about it to his lieutenant was another.
No one at the table was bothering to pretend to eat anymore; Baji and Unegen both fidgeted like they couldn’t wait to leave, looking around at everything except Rin and Chaghan.
But Chaghan only looked amused. “Oh, you think he’s an asshole?”
Anger flared inside her. Her last remaining shreds of caution fled. “He’s impatient, overdemanding, paranoid, and—”
“Look, everyone’s on edge,” Baji interrupted hastily. “We shouldn’t complain. Chaghan, there’s no need to tell—I mean, look . . .”
Chaghan tapped his fingers against the table. “Baji. Unegen. I want a word with Rin.”
He spoke so imperiously, so arrogantly, that Rin thought that surely Baji would tell Chaghan where he could shove it, but he and Unegen simply picked up their bowls and left the table. Amazed, she watched them walk to the other end of the room without so much as a word. Not even Altan commanded that kind of unquestioning subordination.
When the others were out of earshot, Chaghan leaned forward. “If you ever speak about Altan like that again,” he said pleasantly, “I will have you killed.”
Chaghan might have cowed Baji and Unegen, but Rin was too angry to be afraid of him. “Go ahead and try,” she snapped. “It’s not like we have soldiers to spare.”
Chaghan’s mouth quirked into a grin. “Altan did say you were difficult.”
She gave him a wary look. “Altan’s not wrong.”
“So you don’t respect him.”
“I respect him,” she said. “I just—he’s been . . .” Different. Paranoid. Not the commander I thought I knew.
What she didn’t want to admit was that Altan was scaring her.
But Chaghan looked surprisingly sympathetic. “You must understand. Altan is new to command. He’s trying to figure out what he’s doing just as much as you are. He’s scared.”
He was scared? Rin almost laughed. Altan’s attempted operations had grown so much in scale over the past two weeks that it felt as if he were trying to take on the entire Federation by himself. “Altan doesn’t know what scared means.”
“Altan is perhaps the most powerful martial artist in Nikan right now. Maybe the world,” said Chaghan. “But for all that, most of his life he was just good at following orders. Tyr’s death was a shock to us. Altan wasn’t ready to take over. Command is difficult for him. He doesn’t know how to make peace with the Warlords. He’s overextended. He’s trying to fight an entire war with a squad of ten. And he’s going to lose.”
“You don’t think we can hold Khurdalain?”
“I think we were never meant to hold Khurdalain,” said Chaghan. “I think Khurdalain was a sacrifice for time paid in blood. Altan is going to lose because Khurdalain is not winnable, and when he does, it’s going to break him.”
“Altan won’t break,” she said. Altan was the strongest fighter she’d ever seen. Altan couldn’t break.
“Altan is more fragile than you think,” said Chaghan. “He’s cracking under the weight of command, can’t you see? This is new territory for him, and he’s flailing, because he’s utterly dependent on victory.”
Rin rolled her eyes. “The entire country’s dependent on our victory.”
Chaghan shook his head. “That’s not what I