Kitay pinched it up with two fingers.

“That’s clever,” he said. “Gross, but clever.”

“What is it?”

“It’s incredible. This has to be a Sinegard graduate’s work. Or a Yuelu graduate. No one else is this smart.” He held the object toward her. She recoiled. It smelled awful—a combination of rank animal odor and the sharp, acrid smell of poison that brought back memories of embalmed pig fetuses from her medical classes with Master Enro.

She wrinkled her nose. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“Pig’s bladder.” Kitay turned it over in his palm and gave it a shake. “Resistant to acid, at least to some degree. It’s why the poison hasn’t been diluted before it reached Arlong.”

He rubbed the edge of the bladder between his fingers. “This stays intact so the agent doesn’t dissolve into the water until it reaches downstream. It was meant to last several days, a week at most.”

The bladder popped open under the pressure. Liquid spilled out onto Kitay’s hand, making his skin hiss and pucker. A yellow cloud seeped into the air. The acrid odor intensified. Kitay cursed and flung the bladder back out over the side of the ship, then hastily wiped his skin against his uniform.

“Fuck.” He examined his hand, which had developed a pale, angry rash.

Rin yanked him away from the gas cloud. To her relief, it dissipated in seconds. “Tiger’s tits, are you—”

“I’m fine. It’s not deep, I don’t think.” Kitay cradled his hand inside his elbow and winced. “Go get Salkhi. I think we’re getting close.”

Salkhi split the Fourteenth Brigade into squads of six that dispersed through the surrounding region for a ground expedition. The Cike found the poison source first. It was visible the moment they emerged from the tree line—a blocky, three-story building with bell towers at both ends, erected in the architectural style of the old Hesperian missions.

At the southern wall, a single pipe extended over the river—a channel meant to move waste and sewage into the water. Instead, it dispensed poisonous pods into the river with a mechanical regularity.

Someone, or something, was dropping them off from inside.

“This is it.” Kitay motioned for the rest of the Cike to crouch low behind the bushes. “We’ve got to get someone in there.”

“What about the guard?” Rin whispered.

“What guard? There’s no one there.”

He was right. The mission looked barely garrisoned. Rin could count the soldiers on one hand, and after half an hour of scoping the perimeter, they didn’t find any others on patrol.

“That makes no sense,” she said.

“Maybe they just don’t have the men,” Kitay said.

“Then why poke the dragon?” Baji asked. “If they don’t have backup, that strike was idiotic. This whole town is dead.”

“Maybe it’s an ambush,” Rin said.

Kitay looked unconvinced. “But they’re not expecting us.”

“It could be protocol. They might all just be hiding inside.”

“That’s not how you lay out defenses. You only do that if you’re under siege.”

“So you want us to attack a building with minimal intelligence? What if there’s a platoon in there?”

Kitay pulled a flare rocket from his pocket. “I know a way to find out.”

“Hold on,” Ramsa said. “Captain Salkhi said not to engage.”

“Fuck Salkhi,” Kitay said with a violence that was utterly unlike him. Before Rin could stop him he lit the fuse, aimed, and loosed the flare toward the patch of woods behind the mission.

A bang rocked the forest. Several seconds later Rin heard shouts from inside the mission. Then a group of men armed with farming implements emerged from the doors and ran toward the explosion.

“There’s your guard,” Kitay said.

Rin hoisted her trident. “Oh, fuck you.”

Kitay counted under his breath as he watched the men. “About fifteen. There are twenty-four of us.” He glanced back at Baji and Suni. “Think you can keep them out of the mission until the others get here?”

“Don’t insult us,” Baji said. “Go.”

Only two guards remained at the mission’s doors. Kitay dispatched one with his crossbow. Rin grappled with the other for a few minutes until at last she disarmed him and slammed her trident into his throat. She wrenched it back out and he dropped.

The doors stood wide open before them. Rin peered into the dark interior. The smell of rotting corpses hit her like a wall, so thick and sharp that her eyes watered. She covered her mouth with her sleeve. “You coming?”

Thud.

She turned. Kitay stood over the second guard, crossbow pointed down, wiping flecks of blood off his chin with the back of his hand. He caught her staring at him.

“Just making sure,” he said.

Inside they found a slaughterhouse.

Rin’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Then she saw pig carcasses everywhere she looked—tossed on the floor, piled up in the corners, splayed over tables, all sliced open with surgical precision.

“Tiger’s tits,” she muttered.

Someone had killed them all solely for their bladders. The sheer waste amazed her. So much rotting meat was piled on these floors, and refugees in the next province over were so thin their ribs pushed through their ragged garments.

“Found them,” Kitay said.

She followed his line of sight across the room. A dozen open barrels stood lined up against the wall. They contained the poison in liquid form—a noxious yellow concoction that sent toxic fumes spiraling lazily into the air above them. Above the barrels were shelves and shelves of metal canisters. More than Rin could count.

Rin had seen those canisters before, stacked neatly on shelves just like these. She’d stared up at them for hours while Mugenese scientists strapped her to a bed and forced opiates into her veins.

Kitay’s face had turned a greenish color. He knew that gas from Golyn Niis.

“I wouldn’t touch that.” A figure emerged from the stairwell opposite them. Kitay jerked his crossbow up. Rin crouched back, trident poised to throw as she squinted to make out the figure’s face in the darkness.

The figure stepped into the light. “Took you long enough.”

Kitay let his arms drop. “Niang?”

Rin wouldn’t have recognized her. War had transformed Niang. Even into their third year at Sinegard, Niang had always looked like a child—innocent, round-faced, and adorable. She’d never looked like she belonged at a military academy. Now she just looked like a soldier, scarred and hardened like the rest of them.

“Please tell me you’re not behind this,” said Kitay.

“What? The pods?” Niang traced her fingers over the edge of a barrel. Her hands were covered in angry red welts. “Clever design, wasn’t it? I was hoping someone might notice.”

As Niang moved farther into light, Rin saw that the welts hadn’t just formed on her hands. Her neck and face were mottled red, as if her skin had been scraped raw with the flat side of a blade.

“Those canisters,” Rin said. “They’re from the Federation.”