16. SPLIT STONE

No pirate.

Ren wouldn't know there should be one, chained to the slab center-lake, but Cicada does.

The night goes hush.

"Guards." She begins to turn, her coronet glinting—

—then pinging off the steps as she's knocked flat. The pirate leans over her, hands at her neck—then he's flying back, bowled over by Ren. The two land halfway to the lake with a bonesplitting crack, and something between my brain and body snaps. Ren! I should go to Cicada—I'm Crow—but Ren. Let go! I want to shout as she locks her legs around the pirate. He's malnourished but unchained, whereas Ren's wrists are still cangued.

You've done enough! Let go!

But Ren is Ren, and when the pirate twists free and launches up the steps, she hurls herself after him, yelling "Cloud, now!"

Consciously or not, the pirate slows, searching for the new threat. Ren closes the gap, and I move too, to Cicada. I help her sit up just as the pirate seizes one of Ren's swords hanging from Cicada's sash. Fabric tears—the weapon now his—and I brace, prepared to block the attack.

Not prepared when the pirate rounds on Ren.

He swings, and I can't breathe. Even as metal strikes wood and the pirate stumbles, sword lodged in the cangue, I can't. Breathe. Someone darts past us. Tourmaline? Nearing the duo. How—? The pirate frees the blade, and my confusion melts. Faster, Tourmaline. He lifts the sword over Ren.

Faster!

The sword falls.

Out of the pirate's hands.

He stumbles. Lurches.

Collapses backward on the steps.

Under my palms, Cicada's shoulders jerk, her breathing ragged. She lowers the dart shooter—and raises it again as Tourmaline storms toward us, her cangue in splintered halves around each wrist. I struggle to my feet, putting myself in her path as Ren calls out, "Tourmaline. Stand down."

"She has Virtue."

"I know." Ren climbs the steps, and I breathe. She's okay. Only her cangue is damaged. Tourmaline snaps it off entirely, and Ren faces us. "Did he hurt you?"

"No," says Cicada. I help her up. "He barely touched me."

Because of Ren. She acted as I predicted, rescuing her captor—not that I expect Cicada to thank her.

Together, she and Ren stare at the pirate sprawled on the steps. His eyes are closed, blood trickling out the corner of his mouth, the dart in the left side of his neck.

Ren squats and checks for a pulse.

"Well?" Cicada has the gall to prompt.

"He lives." Ren withdraws her hand. "He must have hit his head."

Here is where Cicada offers an explanation, and at last, she does. "He was a prisoner of mine." She looks to the side. "A Fen pirate. I don't know how he got free. But I'll take care of him."

She calls for the guards.

None come.

"They're incapacitated." Tourmaline bows to Ren before Cicada can speak. "Forgive me for breaking orders."

In the silence, a picture emerges, one where Tourmaline could have defeated the guards whenever she wished. That she didn't is because of Ren's orders—given, I realize, to preserve Cicada's illusion of superiority. Only then, Ren surmised, would the girl speak her mind and heart.

She's been putting on a show again, without my help.

Something twangs in me, even though this is good. This is good, that Ren can fend for herself. My gaze falls to the stone step under her feet. It's cracked, like Ren's cangue. Was that the sound from earlier? Wood breaking stone? It should be impossible. But nothing is.

It just takes the right person.

Ren reaches for the fallen sword. "Even stone can split." She rises, careful and slow, with the weapon. "I may have lost my strategist at the Scarp, but together, we defeated Miasma's navy there." She faces Cicada. "United, we can defeat her again."

"And after Miasma?"

A simple question, but Cicada places it like a chess piece. After Miasma is Xin Bao.

How will Ren respond, knowing her and Cicada's differences?

"After is after," Ren says. "Until then, let's protect each other, eh?"

Cicada raises a brow.

"I don't want to pretend we have the same goals, but we can be equals. You have my word, and if that's not enough, you have my sword." Ren nods at Virtue, strung to Cicada's sash. "Keep it."

The cicadas start to sing. Or maybe I finally have the mind to notice them. At last.

Everything is happening as I orchestrated.

"Your Highness!"

A soldier, at the top of the steps. "It was her!" he cries as we look to him, pointing his sword at Tourmaline. "That warrior! She attacked us—"

"Yes, I've heard," Cicada says, voice dry. "I take it that the others have not yet regained their senses." The soldier hesitates, then nods. "Casualties?"

"None, Your Highness."

Cicada's silence is singed. Honorable Ren and her warrior, I can hear her thinking, being oh-so-careful not to hurt the enemy. What a joke she must seem to them! "Take them back to the feast courtyard," she commands.

"By myself ?" asks the soldier, and I can hardly fault the quaver in his voice.

"I see no one else."

"Should I take them as prisoners?"

"Just take them!" Cicada snaps. "Keep them in the courtyard and await my arrival."

"Lead the way," Ren says to the soldier, which only seems to fluster him more. He reaches for Tourmaline—rethinks it—then leads the way, as suggested, with Ren and Tourmaline following freely.

Cicada lets them go. She unstrings Virtue from her sash. The cicadas continue to sing.

An ungodly peal interrupts them as Virtue hits the steps, chucked down.

"They're exactly the same," Cicada growls while I blink at the new crack in the stone, crossing the one made by Ren's cangue in an X. "Exactly the same!" Cicada kicks the sword, and my eyes narrow. Gifted or not, it's still Ren's. I bend for it, then notice a glint several steps lower.

Cicada's coronet.

Retrieve that first.I do, returning to Cicada as she says, "When she called out for her swornsister—it felt genuine. She really wanted to help me. And in that moment . . ."

"You saw Cricket."

Cicada's gaze swings to me. I hold it, confidence rewarded when she nods.

"I felt Cricket's judgment, as if she were standing right here, if I were to let the pirate kill Ren." She stomps on the sword. "They're exactly the same in all the worst ways!"

The tinny reverberation of metal against stone fades, the cicadas reasserting their dominance. But are they cicadas? A cicada's cry is harsher, closer to a screech. This song is sweet.

Cricket song.

I glance at the coronet in my hand, circumference smooth save for a seam. The metal's been cut, resized instead of reforged.

Another head was meant to wear it.

Cricket's.

"She can't stop me," Cicada whispers, sinking to a crouch, arms around her legs, as my grip hardens around the coronet. If Cicada speaks as though Cricket still lives, that's because she does in the minds of many, including Crow's. He loved her. Cicada may have loved her sister too, but step by step, she's also trying to prove to the court that she is not Cricket. Her grudges run deeper. Her dreams are grander.

She hungers after the empire.

Enemy though she may be, I can relate to her ambition. Then Cicada whispers, "Just watch me: I will kill Xin Bao," and my empathy dies. I settle the coronet on her head; her eyes flick up. "You support my aspirations?"

"Of course," I say—hissing as Cicada kicks me in the shin, standing faster than I can blink.

"Don't lie. You've been quiet ever since we took Ren hostage. I know, Crow, I know," she says, and I can almost hear her thoughts in the silence.

I know you loved my sister.

I know you too think I'm not as good as her.

And if she says so? How do I answer? Do I tell what I think is the truth? Or do I lie?

"You don't think I should covet the throne," is what she says out loud, to my relief—and interest. Crow approved betraying the Ren-Cicada alliance. But I suppose neutralizing Ren, Xin Bao's protector, isn't quite interchangeable with killing the empress. If I were really Crow, I'd protect Cicada and her legacy. Even Miasma dares not wear the crown of empress-slayer.

But I'm not Crow. I don't have to want what's best for his lordess. "I've been gone a long time, Chanmei," I say. "And now Shuaimei's gone too. For over a year, you've run this kingdom alone. I trust you to know what you want."

"So you don't disapprove?"

I shake my head.

"You don't mind that I've changed?"

"I've changed too," I say, hoping Cicada might agree and tell me how, so that I can be a better Crow.

But even on this she doesn't cooperate. "That's questionable. Though, I suppose your standards have lowered." She gives me a sidelong look. "I really did ask that she join us, after I received your letter."

She? Who is she?

Crow's voice comes back to me.

I asked her to spare you. Another lie, I'd assumed. But Cicada would have no reason to lie. Then why—

A moan rises. The pirate. Still down—

A finger twitches.

Before I can say a thing, Cicada picks up Ren's sword, marches over, and smacks his head. He stills once more, and Cicada sighs.

"He'll need to be moved back to the lake." She glances to the moon gate. "I can't believe our guards are so useless."

Not useless, just unlucky to have faced Tourmaline for an opponent. "I'll rechain him."

"You? Can you even move him by yourself ?"

I'll show you.I grab the pirate by the armpits and tug.

He doesn't budge.

Cicada sighs again. "Clearly not. Slow down, before you get another ulcer."

"Another?"

"Am I misremembering?" Together, we haul the pirate, Cicada grunting with every step. "Was it—someone else—who almost broke—their spine—" We splash into the water. "—giving November a piggyback ride?" Cicada gasps out, then curses. "This is much harder than moving Ren," she says, and I snort, to my chagrin, then blame it on the absurdity of the situation.

"I trust that you can secure the chains?" Cicada pants when we reach the slab at the center of the lake.

"Yes," I pant back.

"Good. I'll have your head if he escapes again."

"Why mine?" She splashes me and I raise my hands. "Okay, okay! My head, then. What are you going to do?"

"Return the sword to Ren. I don't want it." Cicada picks up her skirts to go, then looks back. "Make sure you change into dry clothes. An ulcer might not kill you, but pneumonia will."

Is this what it's like to have a childhood friend? Hauling bodies together? Getting kicked, splashed, insulted? If so, I wasn't missing anything.

Still, as I watch Cicada walk up the steps, I find myself wondering if she would want what she wants if she were born into a different role. Not the heir to a kingdom, or the younger sibling in the shadow of an older, but just a girl.

Just a girl.

But of course, she's not just a girl, no matter how much she acts like one around Crow. And I'm not just Crow. My gaze falls to her wet tracks, overlapping with the pirate's.

I made sure not to leave any when I was here, earlier.

Yes, I was here. Masked, I'd shucked off my boots before wading into the lake, where the pirate was chained.

I'd put my lips to his ear.

Listen closely, if you want vengeance.

Within the hour, I'll lead the Southlands lordess through those gates. You'll have but one chance.

Avenge your brethren then.

I'd loosened his chains partially, enough to grant me a head start. Otherwise, he'd surely have caught me and asked why I was helping. I wasn't. I was only setting the stage for Ren to save Cicada, thereby marking the Southlands lordess's heart in a variation of Injure Yourself to Wound the Enemy. The pirate was but a pawn. He's served his purpose.

Now to end him, lest he talk upon waking. As soon as Cicada is gone, I crouch and plunge my hand into the water, searching the lake bed for a suitable rock. I'll make it quick and merciful, compared to Cicada's treatment; I still remember watching the monks torture the pirate. Granted, I hadn't believed in things such as qì and spirits then. I also hadn't murdered someone. Or worse.

Oh, I've done so much worse.

Isn't that right, Crow?He was my lone witness as I'd freed the pirate, and how his disapproval chilled me to the bone. He's been quiet since, and while I'm used to feeling alone . . .

Now I'm too alone.

I look up.

Crow?

Slowly, I rise, knee-deep in the lake.

He's nowhere in sight. Not beside me or before me.

Which leaves . . .

Turn—but denial roots me. Mortals can't take empty vessels like gods, and Crow is mortal. I've touched his spirit. I know this for certain. But then I hear it.

A clink of chains.

I turn, water sloshing around me—

Splashing as I'm pushed in.