Vaisra’s stride grew faster and faster as they walked. Rin had to run to catch up.

“You’re angry,” she realized.

No, he was furious. She could see it in the icy glare in his eyes, in the stiffness of his gait. She’d spent too much of her childhood learning to tell when someone was in a dangerous mood.

Vaisra didn’t respond.

She stopped walking. “The other Warlords. They said no, didn’t they?”

Vaisra paused before he answered. “They’re undecided. It’s too early to tell.”

“Will they betray you?”

“They don’t know enough about my plans to do anything. All they can tell Daji is that I’m displeased with her, which she already knows. But I doubt they’ll have the backbone to say even that.” Vaisra’s voice dripped with condescension. “They are like sheep. They will watch silently, waiting to see how the balance of power falls, and they will align with whoever can protect them. But we won’t need them until then.”

“But you needed Tsolin,” she said.

“This will be significantly harder without Tsolin,” he admitted. “He could have tipped the balance. It’ll truly be a war now.”

She couldn’t help but ask, “Then are we going to lose?”

Vaisra regarded her in silence for a moment. Then he knelt down in front of her, put his hands on her shoulders, and looked up at her with an intensity that made Rin want to squirm.

“No,” he said softly. “We have you.”

“Vaisra—”

“You will be the spear that brings this empire down,” he said sternly. “You will defeat Daji. You will set in motion this war, and then the southern Warlords will have no choice.”

The intensity in his eyes made her desperately uncomfortable. “But what if I can’t?”

“You will.”

“But—”

“You will, because I ordered you to.” His grip tightened on her shoulders. “You are my greatest weapon. Do not disappoint.”

Chapter 9

Rin had imagined the Autumn Palace as composed of blocky, abstract shapes, the way it was represented on the maps. But the real Autumn Palace was a perfectly preserved sanctuary of beauty, a sight lifted straight out of an ink brush painting. Flowers bloomed everywhere. White plum blossoms and peach flowers laced the gardens; lily pads and lotus flowers dotted the ponds and waterways. The complex itself was an elegantly designed structure of ornamented ceremonial gates, massive marble pillars, and sprawling pavilions.

But for all that beauty, a stillness hung over the palace that made Rin deeply uncomfortable. The heat was oppressive. The roads looked as if they were swept clean hourly by unseen servants, but still Rin could hear the ubiquitous sound of buzzing flies, as if they detected something rotten in the air that no one could see.

It felt as if the palace hid something foul under its lovely exterior; beneath the smell of blooming lilacs, something was in the last stages of decay.

Perhaps she was imagining it. Perhaps the palace was truly beautiful, and she just hated it because it was a coward’s resort. This was a refuge, and the fact that anyone had hidden alive in the Autumn Palace while corpses rotted in Golyn Niis infuriated her.

Eriden nudged the small of her back with his spear. “Eyes down.”

She hastily obeyed. She had come posing as Vaisra’s prisoner—hands cuffed behind her back, mouth sealed behind an iron muzzle that clamped her lower jaw tightly upward. She could barely speak except in whispers.

She didn’t have to remember to look scared. She was terrified. The thirty grams of opium circulating through her bloodstream did nothing to calm her down. It magnified her paranoia even as it kept her heart rate low and made her feel as if she were floating among clouds. Her mind was anxious and hyperactive but her body was slow and sluggish—the worst possible combination.

At sunrise Rin, Vaisra, and Captain Eriden had passed under the arched gateways of the nine concentric circles of the Autumn Palace. Servants patted them down for weapons at each gate. By the seventh gate, they had been groped so thoroughly that Rin was surprised they hadn’t been asked to strip naked.

At the eighth gate an Imperial guard stopped her to check her pupils.

“She took a dose before the guards this morning,” Vaisra said.

“Even so,” said the guard. He reached for Rin’s chin and tilted it up. “Eyes open, please.”

Rin obliged and tried not to squirm as he pulled her eyelids apart.

Satisfied, the guard stepped back to let them through.

Rin followed Vaisra into the throne room, shoes echoing against a marble floor so smooth it looked like still water at the surface of a lake.

The inner chamber was a rich and ornate assault of decorations that blurred and swam in Rin’s opium-blurred eyesight. She blinked and tried to focus. Intricately painted symbols covered every wall, stretching all the way up to the ceiling, where they coalesced in a circle.

It’s the Pantheon, she realized. If she squinted, she could make out the gods she had come to recognize: the Monkey God, mischievous and cruel; the Phoenix, imposing and ravenous. . . .

That was odd. The Red Emperor had hated shamans. After he’d claimed his throne at Sinegard, he’d had the monks killed and their monasteries burned.

But maybe he hadn’t hated the gods. Maybe he’d just hated that he couldn’t access their power for himself.

The ninth gate led to the council room. The Empress’s personal guard, a row of soldiers in gold-lined armor, blocked their path.

“No attendants,” said the guard captain. “The Empress has decided that she does not want to crowd the council room with bodyguards.”

A flicker of irritation crossed Vaisra’s face. “The Empress might have told me this beforehand.”

“The Empress sent a notice to everyone residing in the palace,” the guard captain said smugly. “You declined her invitation.”

Rin thought Vaisra might protest, but he only turned to Eriden and told him to wait outside. Eriden bowed and departed, leaving them without guards or weapons in the heart of the Autumn Palace.

But they were not entirely alone. At that moment the Cike were swimming through the underground waterways toward the city’s heart. Aratsha had constructed air bubbles around their heads so they could swim for miles without needing to come up for air.

The Cike had used this as an infiltration method many times before. This time, they would deliver reinforcements if the coup went sour. Baji and Suni would take up posts directly outside the council room, poised to spring in and break Vaisra out if necessary. Qara would station herself at the highest pavilion outside the council room for ranged support. And Ramsa would squirrel himself away wherever he and his waterproof bag of combustible treasures could cause the most havoc.

Rin found a small degree of comfort in that. If they couldn’t capture the Autumn Palace, at least they had a good chance of blowing it up.

Silence fell over the council room when Rin and Vaisra walked in.

The Warlords twisted in their seats to stare at her, their expressions ranging from surprise to curiosity to mild distaste. Their eyes roved over her body, lingered on her arms and legs, took stock of her height and build. They looked everywhere except at her eyes.