3. SIEGE OF BIKONG

She can . . . see me?

I look down at the crescent blade, slit through my chest.

I look up at Cloud.

"What do you see?" I whisper, and cringe. Surely she can't—

"Dust. Less than, really."

—hear me.

Cloud can hear me.

"Why did you have me kill the defector?" Cloud asks, and I step back from her glaive.

"I only told you to decline the head, not to kill him."

Cloud waves a hand, as if it's all the same.

Warriors. Sometimes I still can't believe I am one. "He claimed that Miasma had given the role of lieutenant to the person he killed," I say. "But Miasma has an eye for talent. And the accomplice—from the way he fought—had no talent."

"So you're a judge of fighters now? How well do you fight?" Cloud's glaive hurtles in before I can reply.

"Will you stop that?"

"Why should I?" Cloud cuts through my waist, ribboning me like a radish. "I can't kill you. What are you anyway? A spirit?"

Divinespirit, thank you very much. But yes, a spirit who, up until now, has been unable to interact with the living world in this form. Neither Ren, Tourmaline, Miasma, Crow, nor Cloud could see me before, let alone hear me. What changed? I wonder as Dewdrop thinks, How strange, which isn't comforting, coming from a seventy-thousand-year-old deity.

"Let me guess why you're here." Cloud gives my spirit one final slice, then strides to the middle of the tent. She sits behind a low table. "You don't trust me to wage this war."

The Cloud of old would have said it hatefully. We didn't always see eye to eye. We still don't. But Cloud didn't tell Ren about Cicada. She's been monitoring the South at my request. Maybe it's foolish to hope she'll listen again.

Or maybe we've made progress. "You need to withdraw from Bikong."

"Withdraw?" Cloud laughs, then sees that I'm serious. "Did you not read my reports on how I broke the dams?" I did. I sent the rain. But I let Cloud go on. "You should have seen it—how Talon and all his empire soldiers ran from the waters! Now he's holed up in that fort like a rat. Just wait. He'll come scuttling out once I break the walls."

My heart sinks with every word of Cloud's. Arrogance was my downfall. I didn't think anyone could outsmart me.

Cicada of the Southlands did.

"Have you forgotten, Cloud? The North is now allied with the South. While you fight Miasma's forces here, you leave the Marshlands capital open for Cicada's taking."

Cloud crosses her arms. "You still don't have evidence of their alliance."

Not this again. "I don't need evidence."

"What about Cicada's feud with Miasma? I did some digging of my own; I know Cicada thinks the empire sponsored the pirates who killed her sister Cricket."

Old news. "Vengeance is—"

"—for peasants. Hear me out," says Cloud as I bristle. "Cicada and Miasma are only allies of convenience. If things go badly here at Bikong for Miasma's forces, Cicada won't swoop in to help them. Likewise, if I fall back to the Marshlands capital before Cicada can secure it, Miasma won't send them assistance. So long as I've crushed the empire's fighting spirit here"—Cloud slams two fingers down on the table like it's a chessboard—"Cicada won't move. And I have them crushed."

"Even so—"

"And don't downplay yourself. I know your snakelike ways." I frown, but Cloud grins. "You must've sent forces to replace mine in the Marshlands. Well?"

"Only a few," I grumble. And Tourmaline leads them. But mentioning her is a weapon I should save, for when Cloud is one push from being convinced. "Our soldiers need your help."

"And I will help, after I win. Have a little faith in me. Lotus would." The moonlight is diffuse in the tent, but in Cloud's gaze, it seems concentrated. Her eyes sparkle, then grow shadowed. "Lotus." Her gaze rises to an approximation of mine. "If you're here, where's Lotus's body?"

I hesitate.

My undoing. Cloud is on her feet, advancing on me. "What happened? Answer me, Zephyr."

Lie. Lie. Lie."I-it was the peach wine." I bite my lip, look aside. "I drank it and . . . separated from the body."

"You left her unguarded."

"Cloud . . ." She speaks of the body as if it's more than a vessel that will never again house Lotus's spirit. "Cloud," I say more firmly. "She's gone."

"You don't know for certain. You didn't search for her spirit. I will."

Ask her how, says the voice of reason in my head. Force her to face reality. Kill her hope. Reveal to her that you're a god; you know what you're talking about.

In the past, I'd have done just that. When Cloud orders me to go back "or I never want to see your face again," it shouldn't feel like a threat. The feeling is mutual, past-me would have said, instead of actually listening to Cloud, like I do now.

As I drift away, the camp disappearing below, Dewdrop finally speaks.

I have a very bad feeling about this. The way she could see you . . .

"Ku saw Qilin's spirit." My mind winces as I say it. Qilin's spirit, which departed as I was banished into her body, robbing me of my two real sisters and Ku of her one.

That's different, Dewdrop argues. Humans can sometimessee the ghosts of relatives. But gods cannot be detected by mortals until we adopt a fleshly form, or until they depart theirs as spirits or ghosts. The Marshlands rush by beneath us. I have a theory, but Nadir would know better.

Nadir would, as the god-sister of mine who made the first mortals. I thought she'd understand my connection to them, but she doesn't. I can already feel her disappointment, waiting for me back at home. It can't be helped. All I can do now is win. Then, at least, I won't disappoint myself.

The night is a shade lighter by the time I return to the Westlands, over a thousand l covered in half an hour. The shrine is undisturbed; Lotus's body is as I left it. I descend into it, but my fingers don't move when I make a fist. My spirit is like the wine, puddled and unabsorbed.

I rise out of the body. Descend into it once more.

Still no adherence.

I warned you, Dewdrop thinks as I float back out.

"It's the alcohol. It'll wear off."

What makes you so certain?

"The other soldier's spirit returned."

They were human. You're a god masquerading as one.Dewdrop looks over the body. What if she vomits? What if she chokes to death?

I . . . didn't consider that. Lotus's heartbeat feels strong when I check it, but Dewdrop has a point. Even the sturdiest humans are frail compared to us gods.

"Stay here," I say at last, "and stand guard." Dewdrop is silent. "Please, Dewdrop. Do this one thing for me."

How am I to stand guard? What shall you have me do if something happens?

"Just—alert me!" With that, I soar, escaping the scene.

"Gods!" Cloud curses and spins on me when I say her name, back in the tent. "I told you to leave!"

"I did. I asked"—a bee—"Tourmaline to guard the body."

I omit the rest. Cloud never did approve of me assuming Lotus's form. For all I know, she'll be happy to hear of this . . . complication. I'm alone in my anxiety, an anxiety I didn't have to unlock. I could have lied to Cloud from the start, then returned to the body a few hours later, when it was more sober. But protecting Cloud's hope was easier than telling her the truth. And right now, there are more pressing truths she needs to face.

"Cloud, you have to withdraw from Bikong."

"Hells, I thought you were done."

I would be if Cloud weren't so mule-headed. "Make an excuse to Ren, or lose on purpose."

"Do you hear yourself ?"

"Withdraw."

"No."

"Do it!"

"Never." A drumbeat pulses through the camp, percussed by shouts. Reinforcements! Miasma's! "Perfect timing," says Cloud. "I'll show you how silly you sound." She dons her helmet, focused but unharried, and holds up a hand when I open my mouth. "No. Shush. You're a soldier in my tent. Report to me. How is Ren?" I keep my silence. "I saw the title of queen on her missives. What changed?"

Nothing significant, just the return of my four-month-old head. "We convinced her," I snap as Cloud checks over her armor. Then I sigh. "She's well. So is Tourmaline."

Cloud's shoulders stiffen. "Did I ask about Tourmaline?"

"She's been helping me with my fighting."

"Then come! Fight with us." Cloud grabs her glaive and twirls it, smirking as I shy away. "Watch and learn, Zephyr. I don't know when you became such a defeatist, but I'll show you how sieges are won."

"Cloud—"

She strides out of the tent. Fuming, I follow, floating in her mare's wake after she mounts, my spirit apparent to no one else.

The drums beat on. Before our camp, our soldiers are already in formation, rectangular shields overlapping like gills. Cloud rides through their ranks. The walls of Bikong loom to our right, overlooking the Mica. The river is swollen, the banks overrun, Talon's camp reduced to flotsam in the mud.

At our final line of soldiers, Cloud stops.

Troops from the empire stand ahead of her, at least ten rows deep, but their ranks are thin. It speaks to Miasma's pride: The battle-wise don't need numbers to lift a siege.

They will rely on strategy.

I reexamine the walls of Bikong on our right. Talon and his company are behind them. Charging out would be suicidal; they'd be bottlenecked by the gates and our garrison. Even so, I ask Cloud, "How broken did you say their fighting spirits are?"

"In smithereens," Cloud says under her breath. "Trust me."

Trust doesn't come easily to me. But neither does pole fighting or delegating my ideas. Nothing has been easy as Lotus. What is one more thing, I tell myself, even as I hear phantom screams. The enemy ranks swim. The stillness is an illusion. The lines will break, as they do in my nightmares, and I will be powerless in the bedlam.

But when our line finally breaks, it's for Cloud. Alone, she rides into the plain.

"Well?" she asks, voice lifted. "Who dares challenge me?"

Wind. Whinnies. The creak of armor.

"I," says a voice in reply.

A warrior, cloaked in leopard skin, eye patched in black, rides out of Miasma's front line. She stops a hundred strides from Cloud, and recognition lights my mind. I've met her. General Leopard. It was she who greeted me when I defected to Miasma.

"Where is your prime ministress?" Cloud hollers.

"Not here to waste time on the likes of you."

Miasma isn't here.Then who did she send in command?

"The likes of me." Cloud scoffs. "The likes of me, whom she released after I shot you in the eye. How does it feel to be so treasured?" As she speaks, two empire soldiers carry something oblong to Leopard. "What's that? Your coffin?"

"Yours." The coffin is set down, and Leopard draws her broadsword. "By order of the prime ministress, I'm to take you alive if you surrender and dead if you resist!"

Cloud looks to her glaive. "Blue Serpent, I'm sorry. You will have to suffer the blood of a rodent today."

I palm my face.

"Come at me!" roars Leopard.

"With pleasure!" Cloud roars back, whirling her glaive overhead.

"Cloud, wait—"

She's beside me, and then she's not. I'm left in a cloud of dust as steel meets steel in a terrifying, brilliant chorus. On the far side of the plain, Cloud and her mare twist around.

Near me, Leopard does the same.

Glaive and broadsword cross again.

Seven bouts. Fifteen. At twenty, Leopard tears off her armor. Cloud copies her. Why, Cloud? For range of motion? Or some other warrior reason? Only Cloud would know. As she said, I have to trust her. I just don't trust the enemy soldiers. For what it's worth, they're watching this display of might as raptly as ours while I watch them, gaze scouring their ranks.

Stilling on him.

He cuts a slender figure atop his horse amid the cavalry, his long hair astream, his eyes on the duel unfolding in the plain. Just like the others, he doesn't see me.

Some ill, addled part of me wishes he could.

It's cured by Cloud's roar. She's hot on Leopard's hooves as the other warrior retreats—pulling Cloud with her, toward the enemy. My eyes widen. Careful! I mean to shout, before I've even seen the metal glint between Leopard's arm and torso.

"Careful" becomes "Crossbolt!"

Backward Cloud snaps in her saddle. The crossbolt clears the air over her face and strikes the ground.

The ground. Not Cloud.My heart resumes beating as Cloud rights herself. Her eyes narrow to slits. She jabs her glaive at Leopard.

"Milk-dribbling coward!" she screams as the warrior reaches her own lines. "Teat-sucking rat!"

Leopard wheels her steed around, refacing Cloud.

"Let it go, General."

My heart stops for a second time.

His voice. In real life. I'm not dreaming it.

"Master Crow—"

"We'll fight her another day." The gong sounds, ordering Leopard's retreat. Shields lift to let her back in. Before the line can close, he rides out.

He trots into the plain in nothing more than his black robes and cloak, painfully exposed to the elements—and to Cloud's wrath.

"Interloper! I wasn't done with her!"

"Cloud," Crow acknowledges. "It's good to see you well."

"You—"

I float to Cloud; she glares at me as if I'm to blame for the Northern strategist's conduct.

If it helps, I'm just as vexed by it. Do you have a death wish? I think furiously to Crow as Cloud shouts, "Tomorrow! I will fight you, and I will drown your minions like I did Talon's!"

Crow bows from atop his mount. "I look forward to it."

Death wish confirmed.

"Don't," I warn Cloud as her face reddens.

"Don't this, don't that." A muscle jumps in her jaw. She squeezes Blue Serpent, and my throat feels like it's in her vise grip too before she turns her mare, rear to Crow.

I exhale.

Our soldiers retreat, respectively, under the drone of gongs. As the empire withdraws to its camp along the riverbank, I linger, watching them. Watching him. He winds to his tent; I float higher to mark its spot. As a spirit, I could easily go to him. Tap his shoulder.

Whisper in his ear a reprimand.

Don't you dare die to anyone else.

I shake my head, clearing it, and catch up to Cloud, who's muttering expletives.

"Coward. Rat. That slimy, asslicking strategist." She's talking about Crow—at least, I think she is. We pass before Bikong's walls, dawn fanning over the top. The light is soft—

Sharpening to a point between the battlements.

This time, Cloud doesn't react fast enough.

The crossbolt flies down.

I don't see where it hits her. I just see a mist of blood.

And then I see nothing at all. The walls of Bikong vanish as my spirit flies, falls, and thuds. My hair is matted with sweat. Wine—it soaks my back.

I'm in Lotus's body again.