Nezha walked backward so that he could face them as he talked. He looked terribly smug as he gestured to the ships around them. “A few years ago we added crossbeams to increase structural integrity in the hulls. And we redesigned the rudders—they have more mobility now, so they can operate in a broader range of water depths . . .”

“And your rudder?” Kitay inquired. “Still plunging those depths?”

Nezha ignored him. “We’ve improved our anchors, too.”

“How so?” Rin asked, mostly because she could tell he wanted to brag.

“The teeth. They’re arranged circularly instead of in one direction. Means they hardly ever break.”

Rin found this very funny. “Does that happen often?”

“You’d be surprised,” Nezha said. “During the Second Poppy War we lost a crucial naval skirmish because the ship started drifting out to sea without its crew during a maelstrom. We’ve learned from that mistake.”

He continued to elucidate newer innovations as they walked, gesturing with the pride of a newborn parent. “We started building the hulls with the broadest beam aft—makes it easier to steer at slow speeds. The junks have sails divided into horizontal panels by bamboo slats that make them more aerodynamic.”

“You know a lot about ships,” Rin said.

“I spent my childhood next door to a shipyard. It’d be embarrassing if I didn’t.”

Rin stopped walking, letting the others pass her until she and Nezha stood alone. She lowered her voice. “Be honest with me. How long have you been preparing for this war?”

He didn’t miss a beat. Didn’t even blink. “As long as I’ve been alive.”

So Nezha had spent his entire childhood readying himself to betray the Empire. So he had known, when he came to Sinegard, that one day he would lead a fleet against his classmates.

“You’ve been a traitor since birth,” she said.

“Depends on your perspective.”

“But I was fighting for the Militia until now. We could have been enemies.”

“I know.” Nezha beamed. “Aren’t you so glad we’re not?”

The Dragon Army absorbed the Cike into its ranks with impressive efficiency. A young woman named Officer Sola received them at the barracks. She couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Rin, and she wore the green armband that indicated she had graduated from Sinegard with a Strategy degree.

“You trained with Irjah?” Kitay asked.

Sola glanced at Kitay’s own faded armband. “What division?”

“Second. I was with him at Golyn Niis.”

“Ah.” Sola’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “How did he die?”

Skinned alive and hung over a city wall, Rin thought.

“With honor,” Kitay said.

“He’d be proud of you,” Sola said.

“Well, I’m quite sure he would have called us traitors.”

“Irjah cared about justice,” Sola said in a hard voice. “He would have been with us.”

Within the hour Sola had assigned them to bunks in the barracks, given them a walking tour of the sprawling base that occupied three mini islands and the canals in between, and outfitted them with new uniforms. These were made of warmer, sturdier material than any Militia suits Rin had ever seen. The cloth base came with a set of lamellar armor made up of overlapping leather and metal plates so confusing that Sola had to demonstrate in detail what went where.

Sola didn’t point them to any changing rooms, so Rin stripped down along with her men, pulled her new uniform on, and stretched her limbs out. She was amazed at the flexibility. The lamellar armor was far more sophisticated than the flimsy uniforms the Militia issued, and likely cost three times as much.

“We have better blacksmiths than they do up north.” Sola passed Rin a chest plate. “Our armor’s lighter. Deflects more.”

“What should we do with these?” Ramsa held up a bundle of his old clothing.

Sola wrinkled her nose. “Burn them.”

The barracks and armory were cleaner, larger, and better stocked than any Militia facility Rin had ever visited. Kitay rifled through the gleaming rows of swords and knives until he found a set that suited him; the rest of them turned in their weapons to the blacksmith for refurbishment.

“I was told you had a detonations expert in your squadron.” Sola pulled the curtain aside to reveal the full store of the First Platoon’s explosives. Stacks upon stacks of missiles, rockets, and fire lances were arranged neatly in pyramidal piles waiting in the cool darkness to be loaded onto warships.

Ramsa made a highly suggestive whimpering noise. He lifted a missile shaped like a dragon head out from the pile and turned it over in his hands. “Is this what I think it is?”

Sola nodded. “It’s a two-stage rocket. The main vessel contains the booster. The rest detonates in midair. Gives it a little extra thrust.”

“How’d you manage these?” Ramsa demanded. “I’ve been working on this for at least two years.”

“And we’ve been working on it for five.”

Ramsa pointed at another pile of explosives. “What do those do?”

“They’re fin-mounted winged rockets.” Sola sounded amused. “The fins are for guided flight. We see better accuracy with these than the two-stage rockets.”

Someone with a bad sense of humor had carved the head to look like a fish with a droopy expression. Ramsa ran his fingers along the fins. “What kind of range do you get on these?”

“That depends,” said Sola. “On a clear day, sixty miles. Rainy days, as far as you can get them.”

Ramsa weighed the missile in his hands, looking so delighted that Rin suspected he might have gotten an erection. “Oh, we are going to have fun with these.”

“Are you hungry?” Nezha knocked on the door frame.

Rin glanced up. She was alone in the barracks. Kitay had left to find the Dragon Province’s archives, and the other Cike members’ first priority had been finding the mess hall.

“Not very,” she said.

“Good. Do you want to see something cool?”

“Is it another ship?” she asked.

“Yes. But you’ll really like this one. Nice uniform, by the way.”

She smacked his arm. “Eyes up, General.”

“I’m just saying the colors look good on you. You make a good Dragon.”

Rin heard the shipyard long before they reached it. Over the cacophonous din of screeches and hammering, they had to yell to hear each other. She had assumed what she saw in the harbor was a completed fleet, but apparently several more vessels were still under construction.

Her eyes landed immediately on the ship at the far end. It was still in its initial stages—only a skeleton thus far. But if she imagined the structure to be built around it, it was titanic. It seemed impossible that a thing like that could ever stay afloat, let alone get past the channel through the Red Cliffs.

“We’re going to board that to the capital?” she asked.

“That one isn’t ready. It keeps getting updated with plans from the west. It’s Jinzha’s pet project; he’s a perfectionist about stuff like this.”