The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,14

Why couldn’t she end this whole war in seconds? Wasn’t that so obviously the next move?

She wished she could do it. There were times when she wanted so badly to send walls of flame roaring across the entire south, clearing out the Mugenese the way one might raze a field of blighted crops, with no regard for the collateral damage.

But every time that desire surged within her, she ran up against the same pulsing black venom that clouded her mind—Su Daji’s parting gift, the Seal that cut her off from direct access to the Pantheon.

Maybe it was a blessing that her mind remained blocked by the Seal, that she was forced to use Kitay as a conduit for her power. Kitay kept her sane. Stable. He let her call the fire, but only in targeted, limited bursts.

Without Kitay, Rin was terrified of what she might do.

“If I were you,” Souji said, “I would have gotten rid of them all. One single blaze, and the south would be clean. Fuck prudence.”

She shot him a wry look. “Then you’d be dead, too.”

“Just as well,” he said, and sounded like he meant it.

Rin felt as if eternity had passed by the time the sun set. Twenty-four hours ago, she had led troops into battle for the first time. That afternoon, she’d liberated a village. Now her wrist throbbed, her knees shook, and a headache pounded behind her eyes.

She could not silence the memory of that scream in the temple. She needed to silence it.

Back in her tent, she dug a packet of opium out from the bottom of her traveling satchel and pressed a nugget into a pipe.

“Do you have to?” Kitay asked. It wasn’t really a question. They’d had this argument a thousand times, and every time arrived at the same lack of resolution. He just felt obligated to express his displeasure. By now they were simply going through the motions.

“It’s not your business,” she said.

“You need to sleep. You’ve been up nearly forty-eight hours.”

“I’ll sleep after this. I can’t relax without it.”

“It smells awful.”

“So go sleep somewhere else.”

Silently Kitay stood up and walked out of the tent.

Rin didn’t watch him go. She lifted the pipe to her mouth, lit the bowl with her fingers, and breathed in deep. Then she curled over on her side and drew her knees into her chest.

In seconds she saw the Seal—a live, pulsing thing, reeking so strongly of the Vipress’s venom that Su Daji might have been standing in the tent right next to her. She used to curse the Seal, used to barrel pointlessly against the immutable barrier of venom that wouldn’t leave her mind.

But she’d since found a better use for it.

Rin drifted toward the glistening characters. The Seal tilted toward her, opened, and swallowed her. There was a brief moment of blinding, terrifying darkness, and then she was in a dark room with no doors or windows.

Daji’s poison was composed of desire—the things she would kill for, the things she missed so badly she wanted to die.

Altan materialized on cue.

Rin used to be so afraid of him. She’d felt a little thrill of fear every time she’d looked at him, and she’d liked it. When he was alive, she’d never known if he was going to caress or throttle her. The first time she’d seen him inside the Seal, he’d nearly convinced her to follow him into oblivion. But now she kept him leashed in her mind, firmly under control, and he spoke only when she wanted him to.

Still the fear remained. She couldn’t help it, nor did she want to.

She needed someone who could still scare her.

“There you are.” He reached a hand out to stroke her cheek. “Did you miss me?”

“Get back,” she said. “Sit down.”

He held his hands up and obeyed, crossing his legs on the dark floor. “Whatever you say, darling.”

She sat down across from him. “I killed dozens of people last night. Probably some of them innocent.”

Altan tilted his head to the side. “And how did that make you feel?” His tone was perfectly neutral, without judgment.

Even so, she felt a swell in her chest, a familiar toxic squeeze, like her lungs were eroding under the sheer weight of her guilt. She exhaled, fighting to remain calm. Altan stayed under her control only so long as she was calm. “You would have done it.”

“And why would I have done it, kiddo?”

“Because you were ruthless,” she said. “You did strategy by the numbers. You would have known you