The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,104

as a result.

But Rin had never been interested in cosmology or theology. She’d only been interested in the gods for what power they could give her, and she couldn’t formulate what little she remembered of Jiang’s ramblings into any sort of valid objection.

“So what?” she asked finally. “So what does that mean for us?”

She already knew Kitay’s conclusion. She just wanted to hear him say it out loud, to see if he would dare. Because the logical conclusion was terrifying. If they were so deeply separated by race, if the Hesperians were innately more intelligent, more capable, and more powerful—then what was the point of resistance? Why shouldn’t the world be theirs?

He hesitated. “Rin, I just think—”

“You think we should just surrender,” she accused. “That we’d be better off under their rule.”

“I don’t,” he said. “But I do think it might be inevitable.”

“It’s not inevitable. Nothing ever is.” Rin pointed toward the wagon, where Jiang and Daji lay asleep. “They were children in the occupied north. They didn’t have arquebuses or airships, and they expelled the Hesperians and united the Empire—”

“And they lost it just two decades later. Our odds aren’t looking much better the second time around.”

“We’ll be stronger this time.”

“You know that’s not true, Rin. As a country, as a people, we’re weaker than we’ve ever been. If we beat them, it will be due to a massive stroke of good fortune, and it will come at a great cost to human life. So don’t blame me for wondering whether it’s worth the struggle.”

“Do you know what Sinegard was like for me?” she asked suddenly.

He frowned. “Why does that—”

“No, listen. Do you know what it was like to be the country idiot who everyone thought was barely literate because my tongue was flat, my skin was dark, and I didn’t know that you’re supposed to bow to the master at the end of every class?”

“I’m not saying—”

“I thought there was something inherently wrong with me,” she said. “That I was just born uglier, weaker, and less intelligent than everyone around me. I thought that, because that’s what everyone told me. And you’re arguing that means I had no right to defy them.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“But it’s analogous. If the Hesperians are so innately better, then the next rung on the ladder is pale-skinned northerners like you, and the Speerlies are sitting on the bottom.” She was burning a handprint into the grass they were sitting on; smoke wafted around them. “And then, by your logic, it’s fine that the Empire turned us into slaves. It’s fine that they wiped us off the map, and that the official histories mention us only in footnotes. It’s only natural.”

“You know I’d never argue that,” Kitay said.

“That’s the implication of your logic,” she said. “And I won’t accept that. I can’t.”

“But that doesn’t matter.” He drew his knees up to his chest. He looked so small then, a much diminished version of the Kitay she’d always known. “Don’t you get it? There is still no foreseeable path that leads to our victory. What do you think is going to happen after we get to Dog Province? You can hide from the airships for a little bit, but how the fuck are you going to defeat it?”

“Simple,” she said. “We’ve got a plan.”

He gave a shaky, helpless laugh. “Let’s hear it, then.”

“We’ve got a problem of power asymmetry now,” she said. “Which means we only win if this war occurs in three phases. The first is a strategic retreat. That’s what is happening now, intentionally or not. Second is the long stalemate. Then, at last, the counteroffensive.”

He sighed. “And how are you going to launch this counteroffensive? You have maybe a tenth of their ranged capabilities.”

“That’s fine. We have gods.”

“You can’t win this war with just a handful of shamans.”

“I beat the Federation on my own, didn’t I?”

“Well, barring genocide—”

“We can beat them with shamanism constrained to armed combatants on the battlefield,” she insisted. “The same way we’ve been hunting down the Mugenese now.”

“Maybe. But it’s just you and Jiang and the Vipress, that’s not nearly—”

“Enough?” She lifted her chin. “What if there were more?”

“Don’t you dare open the Chuluu Korikh,” Kitay said.

“No.” She shuddered at the thought of that place. “We won’t go back to that mountain. But Jiang and Daji want to march north. Up to Mount Tianshan.”

“So I heard.” He eyed her skeptically. “What’s in Mount Tianshan?”

“Come on, Kitay. You can figure this out.”

His gaze wandered over toward the