The Poppy War

A boy named Han raised his hand. “The Trifecta?”

Muted snickers sounded around the classroom. The Trifecta—the Vipress, the Dragon Emperor, and the Gatekeeper—were three heroic soldiers who had unified the Empire against the Federation. They were real—the woman known as the Vipress still sat on the throne at Sinegard—but their legendary martial arts abilities were the subject of children’s tales. Rin had grown up hearing stories about how the Trifecta had single-handedly flattened entire Federation battalions, leveraging storms and floods with their supernatural powers. But even she thought it sounded ridiculous in a lecture about history.

“Don’t laugh. The Trifecta were important—without their political machinations, we might never have rallied the Twelve Provinces,” said Yim. “But that’s not the answer I’m looking for.”

Rin raised her hand. She had memorized this answer from Tutor Feyrik’s history primers. “We razed the heartland. Pursued a strategy of slash and burn. When the Federation army marched too far inland, their supply lines ran out and they couldn’t feed their armies.”

Yim acknowledged this answer with a shrug. “Good answer, but false. That’s just propaganda they put in the countryside textbooks. The slash-and-burn strategy hurt the rural countryside more than it hurt Mugen. Anyone else?”

It was the wiry-haired boy in the front who got it right. “We won because we lost Speer.”

Yim nodded. “Stand up. Explain.”

The boy shoved his hair back and stood. “We won the war because losing Speer made Hesperia intervene. And, uh, Hesperia’s naval abilities were vastly superior to Mugen’s. They won the war over the ocean theater, and Nikan got looped into the subsequent peace treaty. The victory wasn’t really ours at all.”

“Correct,” Yim said.

The boy sat, looking immensely relieved.

“Nikan did not win the Second Poppy War,” Yim reiterated. “The Federation is gone because we were so pathetic that the great naval powers to the west felt bad for us. We did such a terrible job defending our country that it took genocide for Hesperia to intervene. While Nikara forces were tied up on the northern front, a fleet of Federation ships razed the Dead Island overnight. Every man, woman, and child on Speer was butchered, and their bodies burned. An entire race, gone in a day.”

Their class was silent. They had grown up hearing stories about the destruction of Speer, a tiny island that punctuated the ocean between the Nariin Sea and Omonod Bay like a teardrop, lying just beside Snake Province. It had been the Empire’s only remaining tributary state, conquered and annexed at the height of the Red Emperor’s reign. It held a fraught place in Nikan’s history, a glaring example of the massive failure of the disunited army under the Warlords’ regime.

Rin had always wondered whether the loss of Speer was purely an accident. If any other province had been destroyed the way Speer had, the Nikara Empire wouldn’t have stopped with a peace treaty. They would have fought until the Federation of Mugen was in pieces.

But the Speerlies weren’t really Nikara at all. Tall and brown-skinned, they were an island people who had always been ethnically separate from the Nikara mainlanders. They spoke their own language, wrote in their own script, and practiced their own religion. They had joined the Imperial Militia only at the Red Emperor’s sword point.

This all pointed to strained relations between the Nikara and the Speerlies all the way up through the Second Poppy War. So, Rin thought, if any Nikara territory had to be sacrificed, Speer was the obvious choice.

“We have survived the last century through nothing more than sheer luck and the charity of the west,” said Yim. “But even with Hesperia’s help, Nikan only barely managed to drive out the Federation invaders. Under pressure from Hesperia, the Federation signed the Non-Aggression Pact at the end of the Second Poppy War, and Nikan has retained its independence since. The Federation has been relegated to trading outposts on the edge of the Horse Province, and for the past nearly two decades, they’ve more or less behaved.

“But the Mugenese grow restless, and Hesperia has never been good about keeping its promises. The heroes of the Trifecta have been reduced to one; the Emperor is dead, the Gatekeeper is lost, and only the Empress remains on the throne. Perhaps worse, we have no Speerly soldiers.” Yim paused. “Our best fighting force is gone. Nikan no longer possesses the assets that helped us survive the Second Poppy War. Hesperia cannot be relied upon to save us again. If the past centuries have taught us anything, it is that Nikan’s enemies never rest. But this time when they come, we intend to be ready.”

The noontime bell marked lunch.

Food was served from giant cauldrons lined up by the far wall—congee, fish stew, and loaves of rice flour buns—distributed by cooks who seemed wholly indifferent to their jobs.

The students were given portions just large enough to sate their growling stomachs, but not so much that they felt fully satisfied. Students who tried to pass through the line again were sent back to their tables empty-handed.

To Rin, the prospect of regular meals was more than generous—she’d frequently gone without dinner in the Fang household. But her classmates complained to Raban about the single portions.

“Jima’s philosophy is that hunger is good. It’ll keep you light, focused,” explained Raban.

“It’ll keep us miserable,” Nezha grumbled.

Rin rolled her eyes but kept her mouth shut. They sat crammed in two rows of twenty-five along the wooden table near the end of the mess hall. The other tables were occupied by the apprentices, but not even Nezha had the nerve to attempt to sit among them.

Rin found herself crammed between Niang and the wiry-haired boy who had spoken up in History class.

“I’m Kitay,” he introduced himself, once he’d finished inhaling his stew.

He was one year her junior and looked it—scrawny, freckled, with enormous ears. He also happened to have achieved the highest Keju score in Sinegard Municipality, by far the most competitive testing region, which was especially impressive for someone who had taken it a year early. He had a photographic memory, he wanted to study Strategy under Master Irjah once he got past the Trials, and didn’t she think Jun was kind of an asshole?

“Yes. And I’m Runin. Rin,” she said, once he let her get a word in.

“Oh, you’re the one Nezha hates.”

Rin supposed there were worse reputations to have. In any case, Kitay didn’t seem to hold it against her. “What’s his problem, anyway?” she asked.

“His father is the Dragon Warlord and his aunts have been concubines to the throne for generations. You’d be a prick too if your family was both rich and attractive.”

“Do you know him?” Rin asked.

“We grew up together. Me, Nezha, and Venka. Shared the same tutor. I thought they’d be nicer to me once we were all at the Academy.” Kitay shrugged, glancing at the far end of the table, where Nezha and Venka appeared to be holding court. “Guess I thought wrong.”

Rin wasn’t surprised that Nezha had cut Kitay out of his social circle. There was no way Nezha would have stuck around anyone half as witty as Kitay—there were too many opportunities for Kitay to upstage him. “What’d you do to offend him?”

Kitay pulled a face. “Nothing, except beat him on the exam. Nezha’s prickly about his ego. Why, what did you do?”

“I gave him that black eye,” she admitted.

Kitay raised an eyebrow. “Nice.”

Lore was scheduled for after lunch, and then Linguistics. Rin had been looking forward to Lore all day. But the apprentices who led them to the class looked like they were trying not to laugh. They climbed the winding steps to the fifth tier, higher up than any of their other classes. Finally they stopped at an enclosed garden.

“What are we doing here?” Nezha asked.

“This is your classroom,” said one of the apprentices. They glanced at each other, grinned, and then left. After five minutes, the cause of their amusement became clear. The Lore Master didn’t show. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.

The class milled around the garden awkwardly, trying to figure out what they were supposed to do.

“We’ve been pranked,” suggested Han. “They led us to the wrong place.”

“What do they grow in here, anyway?” Nezha pulled a flower down to his nose and sniffed it. “Gross.”

Rin took a closer look at the flowers, then her eyes widened. She’d seen those petals before.

Nezha recognized it at the same moment that she did.

“Shit,” he said. “That’s a poppy plant.”

Their class reacted like a startled nest of dormice. They scurried hastily away from the poppy plant as if mere proximity would get them high.

Rin fought the absurd urge to burst out laughing. Here on the other side of the country was at least one thing she was familiar with.

“We’re going to be expelled,” Venka wailed.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s not our poppy plant,” Kitay said.

Venka flapped her hands around her face. “But Jima said if we were even within ten paces of—”

“It’s not like they can expel the entire class,” Kitay said. “I bet he’s testing us. Seeing if we really want to learn.”

“Or testing us to see how we’ll react around illegal drugs!” Venka shrilled.

“Oh, calm down,” Rin said. “You can’t get high just by touching it.”

Venka did not calm down. “But Jima didn’t say she had to catch us high, she said—”

“I don’t think it’s a real class,” Nezha interrupted. “I bet the apprentices are just having their bit of fun.”

Kitay looked doubtful. “It’s on our schedule. And we saw the Lore Master, he was at orientation.”

“Then where were his apprentices?” Nezha shot back. “What color was his belt? Why don’t you see anyone walking around with Lore stitched into their armbands? This is stupid.”

Nezha stalked out through the gates. Encouraged, the rest of the class followed him out, one by one. Finally Rin and Kitay were the only ones left in the garden.

Rin sat down and leaned back on her elbows, admiring the variety of plants in the garden. Aside from the blood-red poppy flowers, there were tiny cacti with pink and yellow blossoms, fluorescent mushrooms glowing faintly in the dark corners under shelves, and leafy green bushes that emitted a tealike odor.

“This isn’t a garden,” she said. “This is a drug farm.”

Now she really wanted to meet the Lore Master.

Kitay sat down next to her. “You know, the great shamans of legend used to ingest drugs before battle. Gave them magical powers, so the stories say.” He smiled. “You think that’s what the Lore Master teaches?”

“Honestly?” Rin picked at the grass. “I think he just comes in here to get high.”

CHAPTER 4

Classes only escalated in difficulty as the weeks progressed. Their mornings were devoted to Combat, Medicine, History, and Strategy. On most days Rin’s head was reeling by noon, crammed with names of theorems she’d never heard and titles of books she needed to finish by the end of the week.

Combat class kept their bodies exhausted along with their minds. Jun put them through a torturous series of calisthenics—they regularly ran up the Academy stairs and back down, did handstands in the courtyard for hours on end, and cycled through basic martial arts forms with bags of bricks hanging from their arms. Every week Jun took them to a lake at the bottom of the mountain and had them swim the entire length.

Rin and a handful of other students had never been taught to swim. Jun demonstrated the proper form exactly once. After that, it was up to them not to drown.

Their homework was heavy and clearly meant to push the first-years right up against their limits. So when the Weapons Master, Sonnen, taught them the correct proportions of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal necessary to mix the incendiary fire powder that powered war rockets, he also had them create their own impromptu missiles. And when the Medicine Master, Enro, assigned them to learn the names of all the bones in the human body, she also expected them to know the most common patterns of breakage and how to identify them.

It was Strategy, though, taught by Master Irjah, that was their hardest course. Their first day of class he distributed a thick tome—Sunzi’s Principles of War—and announced that they were to have it memorized by the end of the week.

“This thing is massive!” Han complained. “How are we supposed to do the rest of our homework?”

“Altan Trengsin learned it in a night,” said Irjah.

The class exchanged exasperated looks. The masters had been singing the praises of Altan Trengsin since the start of the term. Rin gathered he was some kind of genius, apparently the most brilliant student to come through Sinegard in decades.

Han looked as irritated as she felt. “Okay, but we’re not Altan.”

“Then try to be,” said Irjah. “Class dismissed.”

Rin settled into a routine of constant study and very little sleep; their course schedules left the first-years with no time to do anything else.

Autumn had just started to bite at Sinegard. A cold gust of wind accompanied them as they raced up the steps one morning. It rustled through the trees in a thunderous crescendo. The pupils had not yet received their thicker winter robes, and their teeth chattered in unison as they huddled together under a large mimosa tree at the far end of the second-tier courtyard.

Despite the cold, Jun refused to move Combat class indoors before the snowfall made it impossible to hold outside. He was a brutal teacher who seemed to delight in their discomfort.

“Pain is good for you,” he said as he forced them to crouch in low, torturous endurance stances. “The martial artists of old used to hold this position for an hour straight before training.”

“The martial artists of old must have had amazing thighs,” Kitay gasped.

Their morning calisthenics were still miserable, but at least they had finally moved past fundamentals to their first weapon-based arts: staff techniques.

Jun had just assumed his position at the fore of the courtyard when a loud shuffle sounded above his head. A smattering of leaves fell down right over where he stood.

Everyone glanced up.

Perched high up on a thick branch of the mimosa tree stood their long-absent Lore Master.

He wielded a large pair of gardening shears, cheerfully clipping leaves at random while singing an off-key melody loudly to himself.

After hearing a few words of the song, Rin recognized it as “The Gatekeeper’s Touches.” Rin knew it from her many trips delivering opium to Tikany’s whorehouses—it was an obscene ditty bordering on erotica. The Lore Master butchered the tune, but he sang it aloud with wild abandon.

“I can’t touch you there, miss / else you’ll perish from the bliss …”

Niang shook with suppressed giggles. Kitay’s jaw hung wide open as he stared at the tree.

“Jiang, I’ve got a class,” Jun snapped.

“So teach your class,” said Master Jiang. “Leave me alone.”

“We need the courtyard.”

“You don’t need all of the courtyard. You don’t need this tree,” Jiang said petulantly.

Jun whipped his iron staff through the air several times and slammed it against the base of the tree. The trunk actually shook from the impact. There was the crackling noise of deadweight dropping through several layers of dry mimosa leaves.

Master Jiang landed in a crumpled heap on the stone floor.

Rin’s first thought was that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Her second thought was that he must be dead.

But Jiang simply rolled to a sitting position, shook out his left leg, and brushed his white hair back past his shoulders. “That was rude,” he said dreamily as blood trickled down his left temple.

“Must you bumble around like a lackwit?” Jun snapped.

“Must you interrupt my morning gardening session?” Jiang responded.

“You’re not doing any gardening,” Jun said. “You are here purely to annoy me.”

“I think you’re flattering yourself.”

Jun slammed his staff on the ground, making Jiang jump in surprise. “Out!”

Jiang adopted a dramatically wounded expression and hauled himself up to his feet. He flounced out of the garden, swaying his hips like a whorehouse dancer. “If for me your heart aches / I’ll lick you like a mooncake …”

“You’re right,” Kitay whispered to Rin. “He has been getting high.”

“Attention!” Jun shouted at the gawking class. He still had a mimosa leaf stuck in his hair. It quivered every time he spoke.

The class hastily lined up in two rows before him, staves at the ready.

“When I give the signal, you will repeat the following sequence.” He demonstrated with his staff as he spoke. “Forward. Back. Upper left parry. Return. Upper right parry. Return. Lower left parry. Return. Lower right parry. Return. Spin, pass through the back, return. Understood?”

They nodded mutely. No one dared admit that they had missed nearly the entire sequence. Jun’s demonstrations were usually rapid, but he had moved faster just now than any of them could follow.

“Well then.” Jun slammed his staff against the floor. “Begin.”

It was a fiasco. They moved with no rhythm or purpose. Nezha blazed through the sequence at twice the speed of the rest of the class, but he was one of the only students who was able to do it at all. The rest of them either omitted half the sequence or badly mangled the directions.

“Ow!”

Kitay, parrying where he should have turned, hit Rin in the back. She jerked forward, knocking Venka in the head by accident.

“Stop!” Jun shouted.

Their flailing subsided.

“I’m going to tell you a story about the great strategist Sunzi.” Jun paced along their ranks, breathing heavily. “When Sunzi finished writing his great treatise, Principles of War, he submitted the chapters to the Red Emperor. The Emperor decided to test Sunzi’s wisdom by having him train a group of people with no military experience: the Emperor’s concubines. Sunzi agreed and assembled the women outside the palace gates. He told them: ‘When I say, “Eyes front,” you will look straight ahead. When I say, “Left turn,” you will face your left. When I say, “Right turn,” you must face your right. When I say, “About turn,” you must turn one hundred and eighty degrees. Is that clear?’ The women nodded. Sunzi then gave the signal, ‘Right turn.’ But the women only burst out laughing.”

Jun paused in front of Niang, whose face was pinched in trepidation.

“Sunzi told the Emperor, ‘If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame.’ So he turned to the concubines and repeated his instructions. ‘Right turn,’ he commanded. Again, the women fell about laughing.”

Jun swiveled his head slowly, making eye contact with each one of them. “This time, Sunzi told the Emperor, ‘If words of command are not clear, then the general is to blame. But if words of command are clear, but orders are not executed, then the troop leaders are to blame.’ Then he selected the two most senior concubines in the group and had them beheaded.”

Niang’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head.

Jun stalked back to the front of the courtyard and raised his staff. While they watched, terrified, Jun repeated the sequence, slowly this time, calling out the moves as he performed them. “Was that clear?”

They nodded.

He slammed his staff against the floor. “Then begin.”

They drilled. They were flawless.

Combat was a soul-sucking, spirit-crushing ordeal, but there was at least the fun of nightly practice sessions. These were guided drill periods supervised by two of Jun’s apprentices, Kureel and Jeeha. The apprentices were somewhat lazy teachers, and disproportionately enthused at the prospect of inflicting as much pain as possible on imagined opponents. As such, drill periods usually bordered on disaster, with Jeeha and Kureel milling around, shouting bits of advice while the pupils sparred against one another.

“Unless you’ve got a weapon, don’t aim for the face.” Jeeha guided Venka’s hand down so her extended knife hand strike would land on Nezha’s throat rather than his nose. “Aside from the nose, the face is practically all made of bone. You’ll only bruise your hand. The neck’s a better target. With enough force, you could fatally collapse the windpipe. At the very least, you’ll give him breathing trouble.”

Kureel knelt down next to Kitay and Han, who were rolling around the ground in mutual headlocks. “Biting is an excellent technique if you’re in a tight spot.”

A moment later, Han shrieked in pain.

A handful of first-years clustered around a wooden dummy as Jeeha demonstrated a proper knife hand strike. “Nikara monks used to believe this point was a major ki center.” Jeeha indicated a spot under the dummy’s stomach and punched it dramatically.

Rin took the bait to speed things along. “Is it?”

“Nah. No such thing as ki centers. But this area below the rib cage has a ton of necessary organs that are exposed. Also, it’s where your diaphragm is. Hah!” Jeeha slammed his fist into the dummy. “That should immobilize any opponent for a good few seconds. Gives you time to scratch out their eyes.”

“That seems vulgar,” said Rin.

Jeeha shrugged. “We aren’t here to be sophisticated. We’re here to fuck people up.”

“I’ll show you all one last blow,” Kureel announced as the session drew to a close. “This is the only kick you’ll ever need, really. A kick to bring down the most powerful warriors.”

Jeeha blinked in confusion. He turned his head to ask her what she meant. And Kureel raised her knee and jammed the ball of her foot into Jeeha’s groin.

Mandatory drill sessions lasted for only two hours, but the first-years began staying in the studio to practice their forms long after the period had ended. The only problem was that the students with previous training seized this chance to show off. Nezha performed a series of twirling leaps in the center of the room, attempting spinning kicks that became progressively more flamboyant. A small ring of his classmates gathered around to watch.

“Admiring our prince?” Kitay strolled across the room to stand next to Rin.

“I fail to see how this would be useful in battle,” Rin said. Nezha was now spinning a full 540 degrees in the air before kicking. It looked very pretty, but also very pointless.

“Oh, it’s not. A lot of old arts are like that—cool to watch, practically useless. The lineages were adapted for stage opera, not combat, and then adapted back. That’s where the Red Junk Opera got their name, you know. The founding members were martial artists posing as street performers to get closer to their targets. You should read the history of inherited arts sometime, it’s fascinating.”

“Is there anything you haven’t read about?” Rin asked. Kitay seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of almost every topic. That day over lunch he had given Rin a lecture on how fish-gutting techniques differed across provinces.

“I have a soft spot for martial arts,” said Kitay. “Anyway, it’s depressing when you see people who can’t tell the difference between self-defense and performance art.”

Nezha landed, crouched impressively, after a particularly high leap. Several of their classmates, absurdly, began to clap.

Nezha straightened up, ignoring the applause, and caught Rin’s eye. “That’s what family arts are,” he said, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

“I’m sure you’ll be the terror of the school,” said Rin. “You can dance for donations. I’ll toss you an ingot.”

A sneer twisted Nezha’s face. “You’re just jealous you have no inherited arts.”

“I’m glad I don’t, if they all look as absurd as yours.”

“The House of Yin innovated the most powerful kicking-based technique in the Empire,” Nezha snapped. “Let’s see how you’d like being on the receiving end.”

“I think I’d be fine,” Rin said. “Though it would be a dazzling visual spectacle.”

“At least I’m not an artless peasant,” Nezha spat. “You’ve never done martial arts before in your life. You only know one kick.”

“And you keep calling me a peasant. It’s like you only know one insult.”

“Duel me, then,” Nezha said. “Fight to incapacitation for ten seconds or first blood. Right here, right now.”

“You’re on,” Rin started to say, but Kitay slapped a hand over her mouth.

“Oh, no. Oh, no, no.” Kitay yanked Rin back. “You heard Jun, you shouldn’t—”

But Rin shrugged Kitay off. “Jun’s not here, is he?”

Nezha grinned nastily. “Venka! Get over here!”

Venka broke off her conversation with Niang at the other end of the room and flounced over, flushed at Nezha’s summons.

“Referee us,” Nezha said, not taking his eyes off Rin.

Venka folded her hands behind her back, imitating Master Jun, and lifted her chin. “Begin.”

The rest of their class had now formed a circle around Nezha and Rin. Rin was too angry to notice their stares. She had eyes only for Nezha. He began moving around her, darting back and forth with quick, elegant movements.

Kitay was right, Rin thought. Nezha really did look like he was performing stage opera. He didn’t seem particularly lethal then, just foolish.

She narrowed her eyes and crouched low, following Nezha’s movements carefully.

There. A clear opening. Rin raised a leg and kicked out, hard.

Her leg caught Nezha in midair with a satisfying whoomph.

Nezha uttered an unnatural shriek and clutched his crotch, whimpering.

The entire studio fell silent as all heads swiveled in their direction.

Nezha clambered to his feet, scarlet-faced. “You—how dare you—”

“Just as you said.” Rin dipped her head into a mocking bow. “I only know one kick.”

Humiliating Nezha felt good, but the political repercussions were immediate and brutal. It didn’t take long for their class to form alliances. Nezha, mortally offended, made it clear that associating with Rin meant social alienation. He pointedly refused to speak to her or acknowledge her existence, unless it was to make snide comments about her accent. One by one the members of their class, terrified of receiving the same treatment, followed suit.

Kitay was the one exception. He had grown up on Nezha’s bad side, he told Rin, and it wasn’t about to start bothering him now.

“Besides,” he said, “that look on his face? Priceless.”

Rin was grateful for Kitay’s loyalty, but was amazed by how cruel the other students could be. There was apparently no end of things about Rin to be mocked: her dark skin, her lack of status, her country accent. It was annoying, but Rin was able to brush the taunts off—until her classmates started snickering every time she talked.

“Is my accent so obvious?” she asked Kitay.

“It’s getting better,” he said. “Just try rolling the ends of your words more. Shorten your vowels. And add the r sound where it doesn’t exist. That’s a good rule of thumb.”

“Ar. Arrr.” Rin gagged. “Why do Sinegardians have to sound like they’re chewing cud?”

“Power dictates acceptability,” Kitay mused. “If the capital had been built in Tikany, I’m sure we’d be running around dark as wood bark.”

In the following days Nezha didn’t utter a single word to her, because he didn’t have to. His adoring followers wasted no opportunity to mock Rin. Nezha’s manipulations turned out to be brilliant—once he established that Rin was the prime target, he could just sit back and watch.

Venka, who was obsessively attached to Nezha, actively snubbed Rin whenever she had the chance. Niang was better; she wouldn’t associate with Rin in public, but she at least spoke to her in the privacy of their dorm.

“You could try apologizing,” Niang whispered one night after Venka had gone to sleep.

Apologizing was the last thing Rin had in mind. She wasn’t about to concede defeat by massaging Nezha’s ego. “It was his idea to duel,” she snapped. “It’s not my fault he got what he was asking for.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Niang said. “Just say you’re sorry, and then he’ll forget about you. Nezha just likes to be respected.”

“For what?” Rin demanded. “He hasn’t done anything to earn my respect. All he’s done is act high and mighty, like being from Sinegard makes him so special.”

“Apologizing won’t help,” interjected Venka, who apparently hadn’t been asleep after all. “And being from Sinegard does make us special. Nezha and I”—it was always Nezha and I with Venka—“have trained for the Academy since we could walk. It’s in our blood. It’s our destiny. But you? You’re nothing. You’re just some tramp from the south. You shouldn’t even be here.”

Rin sat up straight in her bed, suddenly hot with anger. “I took the same test as you, Venka. I have every right to be at this school.”

“You’re just here to fill up the quota,” Venka retorted. “I mean, the Keju has to seem fair.”

Annoying as Venka was, Rin scarcely had the time or energy to pay much attention to her. They stopped snapping at each other after several days, but only because they were too exhausted to speak. When training sessions ended for the week, they straggled back to the dormitory, muscles aching so much they could barely walk. Without a word, they shed their uniforms and collapsed on their bunks.

They awoke almost immediately to a rapping at their door.

“Get up,” said Raban when Rin yanked the door open.

“What the—”

Raban peered over her shoulder at Venka and Niang, who were whining incoherently from their bunks. “You too. Hurry up.”

“What’s the matter?” Rin mumbled grumpily, rubbing at her eyes. “We’ve got sweeping duty in six hours.”

“Just come.”

Still complaining, the girls wriggled into their tunics and met Raban outside, where the boys had already assembled.