“Am I all right to remove the gag?” the physician asked.

Rin nodded.

The physician pulled it out of her mouth.

“Will I be able to use this hand?” she asked the moment she could speak.

“There’s no telling how this might heal. Most of your fingers are actually fine, but the center of your hand is cracked straight through the middle. If—”

“Am I losing this hand?” Rin interrupted.

“That’s likely. I mean, you can never quite predict how—”

“I understand.” Rin sat back, trying not to panic. “All right. That’s—that’s okay. That . . .”

“You’ll want to consider getting it amputated if it heals and you still don’t have mobility.” The physician attempted to sound soothing, but her quiet words only made Rin want to scream. “That might be better than walking around with . . . ah, dead flesh. It’s more prone to infections, and the recurring pain might be so bad that you want it gone entirely.”

Rin didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how she was supposed to absorb the information that she was now effectively one-handed, that she’d have to relearn everything if she wanted to fight with a sword again.

This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening to her.

“Breathe slowly,” said the physician.

Rin realized she’d been hyperventilating.

The physician put a hand on her wrist. “You’ll be all right. It’s not as bad as you think it is.”

Rin raised her voice. “Not as bad?”

“Most amputees learn to adjust. In time, you’ll—”

“I’m supposed to be a soldier!” Rin shouted. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”

“You can summon fire,” said the physician. “What do you need a sword for?”

“I thought the Hesperians were only here for military support and trade negotiations. This treaty basically turns us into a colony.” Venka was talking when Rin, despite the physician’s protests, walked into the captain’s quarters. She glanced up. “Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”

“Didn’t want to,” Rin said. “What are we talking about?”

“The physician said the laudanum would have you out for hours,” Kitay said.

“I didn’t take it.” She sat down beside him. “I’ve had enough of opiates for a while.”

“Fair enough.” He glanced over at her splint, then flexed his own fingers. Rin noticed the sweat drenching his uniform, the half-moon marks where he’d dug his nails into his palm. He’d felt every second of her pain.

She cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Why are we talking about treaties?”

“Tarcquet has staked his claim to the continent,” said the Monkey Warlord. Gurubai looked awful. Flecks of dried blood covered both his hands and the left side of his face, and his expression was hollow and haggard. He’d escaped the crackdown, but just barely. “The treaty terms were atrocious. The Hesperians got their trade rights—we’ve waived our rights to any tariffs, but they get to keep theirs. They also won the right to build military bases anywhere they want on Nikara soil.”

“Bet they got permission for missionaries, too,” Kitay said.

“They did. And they wanted the right to market opium in the Empire again.”

“Surely Vaisra said no,” Rin said.

“Vaisra signed every clause,” Gurubai said. “He didn’t even put up a fight. You think he had a choice? He doesn’t even have full control over domestic affairs anymore. Everything he does has to be approved by a delegate from the Consortium.”

“So Nikan’s fucked.” Kitay threw his hands up in the air. “Everything’s fucked.”

“Why would Vaisra want this?” Rin asked. None of this made sense to her. “Vaisra hates giving up control.”

“Because he knows it’s better to be a puppet Emperor than to have nothing at all. Because this arrangement plies him with so much silver he’ll choke on it. And because now he has the military resources necessary to take the rest of the Empire.” Gurubai leaned back in his chair. “You’re all too young to remember the days of joint occupation. But things are going right back to how they were seventy years ago.”

“We’ll be slaves in our own country,” Kitay said.

“‘Slave’ is a strong way of putting it,” Gurubai said. “The Hesperians aren’t much into forced labor, at least on this continent. They prefer relying on forces of economic coercion. The Divine Architect appreciates rational and voluntary choice, and all that nonsense.”

“That’s fucked,” Rin said.

“It was inevitable the moment Vaisra invited them to his hall. The southern Warlords saw this coming. We tried to warn you. You wouldn’t listen.”

Rin shifted uncomfortably in her seat. But Gurubai’s tone wasn’t accusatory, simply resigned.

“We can’t do anything about it now,” he said. “We need to go back down to the south first. Clean out the Federation. Make it safe for our people to come home.”

“What’s the point?” Kitay asked. “You’re the agricultural center of the Empire. Fight off the Federation and you’ll just be doing Vaisra a favor. He’s going to come for you sooner or later.”

“Then we’ll fight back,” Rin said. “They want the south, they’ll have to bleed for it.”

Gurubai gave her a grim smile. “That sounds about right.”

“We’re going to take on Vaisra and the entire Consortium.” Kitay let that sink in for a moment, and then let out a mad, high-pitched giggle. “You can’t be serious.”

“We don’t have any other options,” said Rin.

“You could all run,” Venka said. “Go to Ankhiluun, get the Black Lilies to hide you. Lie low.”

Gurubai shook his head. “There’s not a single person in the Republic who doesn’t know who Rin is. Moag’s on our side, but she can’t keep every lowlife in Ankhiluun from talking. You’d all last at most a month.”

“I’m not running,” Rin said.

She wasn’t going to let Vaisra hunt her down like a dog.

“You’re not fighting another war, either,” Kitay said. “Rin. You have one functional hand.”

“You don’t need both hands to command troops,” she said.

“What troops?”

She gestured around the ship. “I’m assuming we’ll have the Red Junk Fleet.”

Kitay scoffed. “A fleet so powerful that Moag’s never dared to move on Daji.”

“Because Ankhiluun’s never been at stake,” Rin said. “Now it is.”

“Fine,” Kitay snapped. “You’ve got a fleet maybe a tenth of the size of what the Hesperians could bring. What else you got? Farm boys? Peasants?”

“Farm boys and peasants become soldiers all the time.”

“Yes, given time to train and weapons, neither of which you have.”

“What would you have us do, then?” Rin asked softly. “Die quietly and let Vaisra have his way?”