“Altan, you’re hurting me.”

His grip only tightened. “You could at least fucking try—”

“I’ve tried!” she exploded. “It’s not easy, all right? I can’t just . . . I’m not you.”

“Are you a toddler?” Altan said, as if curious. He didn’t shout, but his voice took on a strangled monotone, carefully controlled and deadly quiet. That was how she knew he was furious. “Or are you, perhaps, an idiot masquerading as a soldier? You said you needed time. I have allotted you months. On Speer, you would have been disowned by now. Your family would have hurled you into the ocean for the sheer embarrassment.”

“I’m sorry,” Rin whispered, then immediately regretted it. Altan didn’t want her apology. He wanted her humiliation. He wanted her to burn in shame, to feel so miserable with herself that she couldn’t bear it.

And she did. How was it that he could make her feel so small? She felt more useless than she had at Sinegard when Jun had humiliated her before everyone. This was worse. This was a thousand times worse, because unlike Jun, Altan mattered to her. Altan was a Speerly, Altan was her commander. She needed his approval like she needed air.

He pushed her violently away from him.

Rin fought the urge to touch her collarbone, where she knew she would soon have two bruises left by Altan’s thumbs, perfectly formed dents like teardrops. She swallowed hard, averted her eyes, and said nothing.

“You call yourself a Sinegard-trained soldier?” Altan’s voice had sunk to barely more than a whisper, and it was worse than if he were shouting. She wished he were shouting. Anything would be better than this cold evisceration. “You’re no soldier. You’re deadweight. Until you can call the fire, you’re fucking useless to me. You’re here because you’re purportedly a Speerly. So far I have seen no proof that you are. Fix this. Prove your worth. Do your fucking job or get out.”

She saved her tears for after she was out of the office. Her eyes were still red when she entered the mess hall.

“Have you been crying?” Nezha demanded as he sat down across from her.

“Go away,” she mumbled.

He didn’t go away. “Tell me what happened.”

Rin bit her lower lip. She wasn’t supposed to speak to Nezha. It would have been a double betrayal to complain to him about Altan.

“Was it Altan? Did he say something?”

She looked away pointedly.

“Wait. What’s that?” Nezha reached for her collarbone.

She slapped his hand away and yanked at her uniform.

“You’re just going to sit there and take it?” Nezha asked in disbelief. “I remember a girl who punched me in the face for uttering an ill word about her teacher.”

“Altan’s different,” Rin said.

“Not so different that he gets to talk to you like that,” Nezha said. His eyes slid over her collarbone. “It was Altan. Tiger’s tits. They’re saying he’s gone mad in the Fifth, but I never thought he’d actually resort to this.”

“You don’t get to talk,” Rin snapped. Why did Nezha think he could now take on the role of confidant? “You made fun of me for years at Sinegard. You didn’t say a kind word to me until Mugen was at our doorstep.”

To his credit, Nezha actually looked guilty. “Rin, I’m—”

She cut him off before he could get a word in. “I was the war orphan from the south, and you were the rich kid from Sinegard, and you tormented me. You made Sinegard a living hell, Nezha.”

It felt good to say it out loud. It felt good to see Nezha’s stricken expression. They had skirted around this since Nezha had arrived, had acted as if they had always been friends at the Academy, because theirs had been such a childish feud compared to the very real battles they were fighting now. But if he wanted to malign her commander, then she would remind him exactly whom he was talking to.

Nezha slammed a hand on the table, just as Altan had, but this time she didn’t flinch.

“You weren’t the only victim!” he said. “The first day we met you punched me. Then you kicked me in the balls. Then you tackled me in class. In front of Jun. In front of everyone. How do you think that felt? How fucking embarrassing do you think that was? Look, I’m sorry, all right? I’m really sorry.” The remorse in Nezha’s voice sounded genuine. “But I saved your life. Doesn’t that make us at least a little square?”

Square? Square? She had to laugh. “You almost got me expelled!”

“And you almost killed me,” he said.

That shut her up.

“I was scared of you,” Nezha continued. “And I lashed out. I was stupid. I was a spoiled brat. I was a real pain in the ass. I thought I was better than you, and I’m not. I’m sorry.”

Rin was too stunned to come up with a response, so she turned away. “I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” she said stiffly to the wall.

“Fine,” Nezha snapped. “Sorry I tried. I’ll leave you alone, then.”

He grabbed his plate, stood up, and walked briskly away. She let him.

Night watch was lonely and boring without Nezha. All of the Cike had watch duty on rotation, but at that moment Rin was convinced Altan had placed her there as punishment. What was the point of staring down at a coastline where nothing ever happened? If another fleet did show up, Qara’s birds would see it days in advance.

Rin twisted her fingers irritably together as she huddled against the wall, trying to warm herself. Stupid, she thought, glaring at her hands. Probably she wouldn’t feel so cold if she could just summon a bit of flame.

Everything felt awful. The mere thought of both Altan and Nezha made her cringe. She knew vaguely that she’d fucked up, that she’d probably done something that she shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t reason a way out of this dilemma. She wasn’t even sure precisely what the matter was, only that both were furious with her.

She heard then a droning noise; so faint at first she thought she was imagining it. But then it increased quickly in volume, like a fast-approaching swarm of bees. The noise reached a peak and clarified into human shouts. She squinted; the commotion wasn’t coming from the coastline but from the downtown districts behind her. She jumped down from her perch and ran to look down the other side. A flood of civilians streamed into the alleyways, a frantic stampede of bodies. She searched the crowd and saw Qara and Unegen emerging from their barracks. She scaled down the wall and wove through the flood of bodies, pushing against the crowd to reach them.

“What’s going on?” She grabbed Unegen’s arm. “Why are they running?”

“No clue,” Unegen said. “Find the others.”

A civilian—an old woman—tried to push past Rin but stumbled. Rin knelt to help her, but the woman had already picked herself up, scurrying along faster than Rin had ever seen an old person move. Men, women, and children streamed around her, some barefoot, some only half-dressed, wearing identical expressions of terror in their frenzy to flee out the city gates.

“What the hell is going on?” Baji, bleary-eyed and shirtless, pushed through the crowd toward them. “Great Tortoise. Are we evacuating now?”