The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,112

his acknowledgment or respect. She needed nothing from him at all.

She just needed him gone. Out of the equation; off the chessboard.

“You do realize they’re going to destroy you,” he said.

She lifted her chin. “Are those your last words?”

“Everything you do convinces them you should not exist.” Blood trickled from his lips. He knew he was a dead man; all he could do now was try to rattle her. “Every time you call the fire, you remind the Gray Order why you cannot remain free. The only reason you stand here now is because you’ve been useful in the south. But they’ll come for you soon, my dear. These are your final days. Enjoy them.”

Rin didn’t flinch.

If he thought he could unsettle her with words, he was wrong. Once, perhaps, he could manipulate her with coaxing, praise, and insults like she was clay in his hands. Once, she’d clung to everything he said because she was weak and drifting, flailing about for anything solid to hold on to. But nothing he said could shake her now.

She couldn’t feel the revulsion she’d anticipated at the sight of him. She’d spent so long thinking of Vaisra as a monster. This man had traded everything for power—his southern allies, all three of his sons, and Rin herself. But she found she couldn’t fault him for that. Like her, like the Trifecta, Vaisra had only been pursuing his vision for Nikan with a ruthless and single-minded determination. The only difference between them was that he’d lost.

“Do you know your biggest mistake?” she asked softly. “You should have gambled on me.”

Before Vaisra could respond, she seized his chin and brought his mouth to hers. He tried to twist away. She gripped the back of his head and kept it pressed against her face. He struggled, but he was so weak. He bit desperately at her lips. The taste of blood filled her mouth, but she just pressed her lips harder against his.

Then she funneled flame into his mouth.

It wasn’t enough simply to kill him. She had to humiliate and mutilate him. She had to force an inferno down his throat and char him from the inside, to feel his burned flesh sloughing away under her fingers. She wanted overkill. She had to reduce him to a pile of something unfixable, unrecognizable.

This couldn’t undo the past. It couldn’t bring Suni, Baji, or Ramsa back, couldn’t erase all the tortures she’d suffered at his commands. Couldn’t erase the scar on her back or restore her missing hand. But it felt good. The point of revenge wasn’t to heal. The point was that the exhilaration, however temporary, drowned out the hurt.

He went limp against her. She let his body drop; he fell forward, chest curled over his knees, as if he were bowing to her.

She breathed deep, inhaling the smoky tang of his burning innards. She knew this ecstasy wouldn’t last. It would fade away in minutes, and then she’d want more. She almost wished that he would come back to life so she could kill him again, and then again, that she might keep experiencing the thrill of glimpsing the wretched fear in his eyes before her flames extinguished their light.

She felt the same way now that she did every time she destroyed a Mugenese contingent. She knew revenge was a drug. She knew it couldn’t sustain her forever. But right now, while she was riding the high, before her adrenaline crashed and the weight and horror of what she’d just done flooded back through the crevices of her mind, while she stood breathing hard over the blackened ashes of the man who had destroyed almost everything she loved, it felt better than anything in the world.

She didn’t see the last dirigible swooping low through the smoke at Jiang until it was too late.

“Watch out!” she screamed, but the boom of cannons drowned out her voice.

Jiang dropped like a puppet with cut strings. His beasts vanished. The dirigible veered tentatively backward, as if trying to assess the damage before it took a second shot. She flung her head back and screamed fire. A single jet of flame ripped through the airship balloon. The carriage spiraled into the ground and exploded.

Rin sprinted through the raining wreckage to Jiang.

He lay still where he had fallen. She pressed her fingers into his neck. She felt a pulse, strong and insistent. Good. She patted her hand over his body, trying to check the extent of his wounds. But there was no