“It’s just me.” The figure stepped into the light.

“Kesegi?” She swiped the swords off the ground. “How’d you get past the barrier?”

“I need you to come with me.” He reached out to seize her hand. “Quick.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you here.” He bit his lip, eyes darting nervously around the barracks. “But I’m in trouble. Will you come?”

“I . . .” Rin glanced distractedly toward the barracks. This could go terribly badly. She’d been ordered not to interact with the refugees unless she was on duty, and given the current tensions in Arlong, she would be the last to receive the benefit of the doubt. What if someone saw?

“Please,” Kesegi said. “It’s bad.”

She swallowed. What was she thinking? This was Kesegi. Kesegi was family, the very last family that she had. “Of course. Lead the way.”

Kesegi set off at a run. She followed close behind.

She assumed something had happened behind the barrier. Some brawl, some accident or skirmish between guards and refugees. Auntie Fang would be at the bottom of it; she always was. But Kesegi didn’t take her back to the camps. He led her behind the barracks, past the clanging shipyards to an empty warehouse at the far end of the harbor.

Behind the warehouse stood three dark silhouettes.

Rin halted. None of those figures could be Auntie Fang; they were all too tall.

“Kesegi, what’s going on?”

But Kesegi pulled her straight toward the warehouse.

“I brought her,” he called loudly.

Rin’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, and the strangers’ faces became clear. She groaned. Those weren’t refugees.

She turned to Kesegi. “What the hell?”

He looked away. “I had to get you here somehow.”

“You lied to me.”

He set his jaw. “Well, you wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

“Just hear us out,” said Takha. “Please don’t go. We’ll only get this one chance to speak.”

She crossed her arms. “We’re hiding from Vaisra behind warehouses now?”

“Vaisra has done enough to ruin us,” said Gurubai. “That much is obvious. The Republic has abandoned the south. This alliance must be aborted.”

She fought the impulse to roll her eyes. “And what’s your alternative?”

“Our own revolution,” he said immediately. “We revoke our support for Vaisra, defect from the Dragon Army, and return to our home provinces.”

“That’s suicide,” Rin said. “Vaisra is the only one protecting you.”

“You can’t even say that with a straight face,” Charouk said. “Protection? We’ve been duped from the beginning. It is time to stop hoping Vaisra will throw us scraps from the table. We must return home and fight the Mugenese off on our own. We should have done that from the beginning.”

“You and what army?” Rin asked coolly.

This entire conversation was moot. Vaisra had called this bluff months ago. The southern Warlords couldn’t go home. Alone, their provincial armies would be destroyed by the Federation.

“We’ll need to build an army,” Gurubai acknowledged. “It won’t be easy. But we’ll have the numbers. You’ve seen the camps. You know how many of us there are.”

“I also know that they are untrained, unarmed, and starving,” she said. “You think they can fight Federation troops? The Republic is your only chance at survival.”

“Survival?” Charouk scoffed. “We’re all going to die within the week. Vaisra’s gambled our lives on the Hesperians, and they will never come.”

Rin faltered. She didn’t have a good answer to that. She knew, just as they did, that the Hesperians were unlikely to ever find the Nikara worthy of their aid.

But until General Tarcquet declared explicitly that the Consortium had refused, the Republic still had a fighting chance. Defecting to the south was certain suicide—especially because if Rin abandoned Vaisra, then no one was left to protect her from the Gray Company. She might run from Arlong and hide. She might elude the Hesperians for a long time, if she was clever, but they would track her down eventually. They wouldn’t relent. Rin understood now that people like Petra would never let challenges to the Maker slip away so easily. They would hunt down and kill or capture every shaman in the Empire for further study. Rin might still fight them off, might even hold her own for a while—fire against airships, the Phoenix against the Maker—but that confrontation would be terrible. She didn’t know if she’d come out alive.

And if the southern Warlords defected from the Republic, then no one was left to protect them from the Militia or the Federation. That calculation was so obvious. Why couldn’t they see it?

“Give up this fool’s hope,” Gurubai urged her. “Ignore Vaisra’s nonsense. The Hesperians are staying away on purpose, just as they did during the Poppy Wars.”

“What are you talking about?” Rin demanded.

“You really think they didn’t have a single piece of information about what was happening on this continent?”

“What does that matter?”

“Vaisra sent his wife to them,” Gurubai said. “Lady Saikhara spent the second and third Poppy Wars tucked safely away on a Hesperian warship. The Hesperians had full knowledge of what was happening. And they didn’t send a single sack of grain or crate of swords. Not when Sinegard burned, not when Khurdalain fell, and not when the Mugenese raped Golyn Niis. These are the allies you’re waiting for. And Vaisra knows that.”

“Why don’t you just say what you’re suggesting?” Rin asked.

“Has this really never crossed your mind?” Gurubai asked. “This war has been orchestrated by Vaisra and the Hesperians to put him in a prime position to consolidate control of this country. They didn’t come during the third war because they wanted to see the Empire bleed. They won’t come now until Vaisra’s challengers are dead. Vaisra is no true democrat, nor a champion of the people. He’s an opportunist building his throne with Nikara blood.”

“You’re mad,” Rin said. “No one is crazy enough to do that.”

“You’d have to be crazy not to see it! The evidence is right in front of you. The Federation troops never made it as far inland as Arlong. Vaisra lost nothing in the war.”

“He nearly lost his son—”

“And he got him back with no trouble at all. Face it, Yin Vaisra was the only victor of the Third Poppy War. You’re too smart to believe otherwise.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Rin snapped. “And even if that’s all true, that doesn’t change anything. I already know the Hesperians are assholes. I’d still fight for the Republic.”

“You shouldn’t fight for an alliance with people who think we’re barely human,” said Charouk.

“Well, that still gives me no reason to fight for you—”

“You should fight for us because you’re one of us,” said Gurubai.

“I am not one of you.”

“Yes, you are,” Takha said. “You’re a Rooster. Just like me.”