“But the granaries,” Lady Saikhara said. “Every province has stockpiled grain for lean years, yes? We could requisition those.”

“And leave the south to eat what?” Kitay countered. “You force the south to give up their grain stores, and you’re going to start bleeding allies. We don’t have food, we don’t even have water—”

“We have water,” Saikhara said. “We’ve tested the aquifers, they’re untouched. The wells are fine.”

“Fine,” said Kitay. “Then you’ll just starve to death.”

“What about them?” Charouk jabbed a finger in Tarcquet’s direction. “They can’t send us food aid?”

Tarcquet raised an eyebrow and looked expectantly at Vaisra.

Vaisra sighed. “The Consortium will not make investments until they feel better assured of our chances at victory.”

There was a pause. The entire council looked toward General Tarcquet. The Warlords wore uniform expressions of desperate, pathetic, pleading hope. Sister Petra continued to scratch at her writing pad.

Nezha broke the silence. He spoke in deliberate, unaccented Hesperian. “Millions of people are going to die, sir.”

Tarcquet shrugged. “Then you’d better get this campaign started, hadn’t you?”

The Empress’s ploy had the effect of setting fire to an anthill. Arlong erupted in a frenzy of activity, finally triggering battle plans that had been in place for months.

A war over ideology had suddenly become a war of resources. Now that waiting out the Empire was clearly no longer an option, the southern Warlords had no choice but to donate their troops to Vaisra’s northern campaign.

Executive orders went out to generals, then filtered down through commanders to squadron leaders to soldiers. Within minutes Rin had orders to report to the Fourteenth Brigade on the Swallow, departing in two hours from Pier Three.

“Nice, you’re in the first fleet,” Nezha said. “With me.”

“Joyous day.” She stuffed a change of uniform into a bag and hoisted it over her shoulder.

He reached over to ruffle her hair. “Look alive, little soldier. You’re finally getting what you wanted.”

En route to the pier they dodged through a maze of wagons carrying hemp, jute, lime for caulking, tung oil, and sailing cloth. The entire city smelled and sounded like a shipyard; it echoed everywhere with the same faint, low groan, the noise of dozens of massive ships detaching their anchors, paddle wheels beginning to turn.

“Move!” A wagon driven by Hesperian soldiers narrowly missed running them over. Nezha pulled Rin to the side.

“Assholes,” he muttered.

Rin’s eyes followed the Hesperians to the warships. “I guess we’ll finally get to see Tarcquet’s golden troops in action.”

“Actually, no. Tarcquet’s only bringing a skeleton platoon. The rest are staying in Arlong.”

“Then why are they even going?”

“Because they’re here to observe. They want to know if we’re capable of coming close to winning this war, and if we are, if we’re capable of running this country effectively. Tarcquet told Father some babble about stages of human evolution last night, but I think they really just want to see if we’re worth the trouble. Everything Jinzha does gets reported to Tarcquet. Everything Tarcquet sees goes back to the Consortium. And the Consortium decides when they want to lend their ships.”

“We can’t take this Empire without them, and they won’t help us until we take the Empire.” Rin made a face. “Those are the terms?”

“Not quite. They’ll intervene before this war is over, once they’re sure it isn’t a lost cause. They’re willing to tip the scales, but we have to prove first that we can pull our own weight.”

“So just another fucking test,” Rin said.

Nezha sighed. “More or less, yes.”

The sheer arrogance, Rin thought. It must be nice, possessing all the power, so that you could approach geopolitics like a chess game, popping in curiously to observe which countries deserved your aid and which didn’t.

“Is Petra coming with us?” she asked.

“No. She’ll stay on Jinzha’s ship.” Nezha hesitated. “But, ah, Father told me to make it clear that your meetings resume as usual when we rejoin my brother’s fleet.”

“Even on campaign?”

“They’re most interested in you on campaign. Petra promised it wouldn’t be much. An hour every week, as agreed.”

“It doesn’t sound like much to you,” Rin muttered. “You’ve never been someone’s lab rat.”

Three fleets were preparing to sail out from the Red Cliffs. The first, commanded by Jinzha, would go up the Murui through the center of Hare Province, the agricultural heartland of the north. The second fleet, led by Tsolin and General Hu, would race up the rugged coastline around Snake Province to destroy Tiger Province ships before they could be deployed inland to fend off the main vanguard.

Combined, they were to squeeze the northeastern provinces between the inland attack and the coast. Daji would be forced to fight an enemy on two fronts, and both over water—a terrain the Militia had never been comfortable with.

In terms of sheer manpower, the Republic was still outnumbered. The Militia had tens of thousands of men on the Republican Army. But if Vaisra’s fleet did its job, and if the Hesperians kept their word, there was a good chance they might win this war.

“Guys! Wait!”

“Oh, shit,” Nezha muttered.

Rin turned around to see Venka running barefoot down the pier toward them. She clutched a crossbow to her chest.

Nezha cleared his throat as Venka came to a halt in front of him. “Uh, Venka, this isn’t a good time.”

“Just take this,” Venka panted. She passed the crossbow into Rin’s hands. “I took it from my father’s workshop. Latest model. Reloads automatically.”

Nezha shot Rin an uncomfortable glance. “This isn’t really—”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Venka asked. She ran her fingers over the body. “See this? Intricate trigger latch mechanism. We finally figured out how to get it to work; this is just the prototype but I think it’s ready—”

“We’re boarding in minutes,” Nezha interrupted. “What do you want?”

“Take me with you,” Venka said bluntly.

Rin noticed Venka had a pack strapped to her back, but she didn’t have a uniform.

“Absolutely not,” Nezha said.

Venka’s cheeks reddened. “Why not? I’m all better now.”

“You can’t even bend your left arm.”

“She doesn’t need to,” Rin said. “Not if she’s firing a crossbow.”

“Are you insane?” Nezha demanded. “She can’t run around with a crossbow that big; she’ll be exhausted—”

“Then we’ll mount it on the ship,” Rin said. “And she’ll be removed from the heat of the battle. She’ll need protection between rounds to reload, so she’ll be surrounded by a unit of archers. It’ll be safe.”

Venka looked triumphantly at Nezha. “What she said.”