The Poppy War

Qara cast her arms over the waters. She began to chant, not in the language of the Speerlies but in the rhythmic language of the Hinterlands. Her birds circled overhead in silent tribute. And the wind itself seemed to cease, the rocking of the waves halted, as if the very universe stood still for the loss of Altan.

The Cike stood in a line, all in their identical black uniforms, watching Qara wordlessly. Ramsa’s arms were folded tightly over his narrow chest, shoulders hunched as if he could withdraw into himself. Baji silently put a hand on his shoulder.

Rin and Chaghan stood at the back of the deck, removed from the rest of their division.

Kitay was nowhere to be seen.

“We should have his ashes,” Chaghan said bitterly.

“His ashes are already in the sea,” Rin said.

Chaghan glared at her. His eyes were red with grief, bloodshot. His pale skin was pulled over his high cheekbones so tightly that he looked even more skeletal than he usually did. He appeared as if he had not eaten in days. He appeared as if he might blow away with the wind.

Rin wondered how long it would take for him to stop blaming her in his mind for Altan’s death.

“I guess he gave as good as he got,” Chaghan said, nodding toward the ashen mess that was the Federation of Mugen. “Trengsin got his revenge in the end.”

“No, he didn’t.”

Chaghan stiffened. “Explain.”

“Mugen didn’t betray him,” she said. “Mugen didn’t draw him to that mountain. Mugen didn’t sell Speer. The Empress did.”

“Su Daji?” Chaghan said incredulously. “Why? What would she have to gain?”

“I don’t know. I intend to find out.”

“Tenega,” Chaghan swore. He looked as if he had just realized something. He crossed his thin arms against his chest, muttering in his own language. “But of course.”

“What?”

“You drew the Hexagram of the Net,” he said. “The Net signifies traps, betrayals. The wires of your capture were laid out ahead of you. She must have sent a missive to the Federation the minute Altan got it in his head to go to that damned mountain. One is ready to move, but his footprints run crisscross. You two were pawns in someone else’s game this entire time.”

“We were not pawns,” Rin snapped. “And don’t act like you saw this coming.” She felt a sudden flash of anger then—at Chaghan’s lecturing tone, his retrospective musing, as if he’d seen it all, like he’d expected this to happen, like he’d known better than Altan all along. “Your Hexagrams only make sense in hindsight and give no guidance when they’re cast. Your Hexagrams are fucking useless.”

Chaghan stiffened. “My Hexagrams are not useless. I see the shape of the world. I understand the changing nature of reality. I have read countless Hexagrams for the Cike’s commanders—”

She snorted. “And in all the Hexagrams you read for Altan, you never foresaw that he might die?”

To her surprise, Chaghan flinched.

She knew it wasn’t fair, to hurl accusations when Altan’s death was hardly Chaghan’s fault, but she needed to lash out, needed to blame it on someone other than herself.

She couldn’t stand Chaghan with his attitude that he knew better, that he’d foreseen this tragedy, because he hadn’t. She and Altan had gone to the mountain blind, and he had let them.

“I told you,” Chaghan said. “The Hexagrams can’t foresee the future. They’re portraits of the world as it is, descriptions of the forces at hand. The gods of the Pantheon represent sixty-four fundamental forces, and the Hexagrams reflect their undulations.

“And none of those undulations screamed, Don’t go to this mountain, you’ll be killed?”

“I did warn him,” Chaghan said quietly.

“You could have tried harder,” Rin said bitterly, even though she knew that, too, was an unfair accusation, and that she was saying it only to hurt Chaghan. “You could have told him he was about to die.”

“All of Altan’s Hexagrams spoke of death,” said Chaghan. “I didn’t expect that this time it would mark his own.”

She laughed out loud. “Aren’t you supposed to be a Seer? Do you ever see anything useful?”

“I saw Golyn Niis, didn’t I?” Chaghan snapped.

But the moment those words left his mouth he made a choking noise, and his features twisted with grief.

Rin didn’t say what they were both thinking—that maybe if they hadn’t gone to Golyn Niis, Altan wouldn’t have died.

She wished they had just fought the war out at Khurdalain. She wished they had abandoned the Empire completely and escaped back to the Night Castle, let the Federation ravage the countryside while they waited out the turmoil in the mountains, safe and insulated and alive.