The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,205
her sister, sobbing. “Pipaji!”
Just as Rin and Lianhua reached to drag Jiuto away, Pipaji lifted her head. “Don’t.”
Her eyes shot open. They were their normal, lovely brown.
Rin hesitated, left hand clutching the neck of Jiuto’s shirt.
“It’s okay.” Pipaji reached her arms up, stroking her sister’s hair. “Jiuto, calm down. I’m okay.”
Jiuto’s sobs instantly subsided to frightened hiccups. Pipaji rubbed her hand in circles against her sister’s back, whispering a stream of comfort into her ear.
Rin shot Lianhua a glance. “Is she—”
Lianhua sat frozen, hands outstretched. “I’m not sure. I fixed the rib, but the rest—I mean, there’s something . . .”
Pipaji met Rin’s gaze over Jiuto’s shoulder. Her face was pinched in discomfort. “They’re so loud.”
Rin’s heart sank. “Who’s being loud?”
“They’re screaming,” Pipaji murmured. Her eyes darkened. “They’re so . . . oh.”
“Focus on us,” Rin said urgently. “On your sister—”
“I can’t.” Pipaji’s hands, still wrapped around Jiuto’s shoulders, started to twitch. They curved into claws, scratching at the air. “She’s in there, she’s . . .”
“Get her away,” Rin ordered Lianhua.
Lianhua understood immediately. She wrapped her arms around Jiuto’s waist and pulled. Jiuto struggled, wailing, but Lianhua didn’t let go. She dragged Jiuto away from the beach and up toward the forest, until finally Jiuto’s wails faded into the distance.
“Stay with me,” Rin told Pipaji. “Pipaji, listen to my voice—”
Pipaji didn’t respond.
Rin didn’t know what to do. She wanted to wrap her arms around Pipaji and comfort her, but she was afraid to touch. A great purple cloud blossomed around Pipaji’s collarbones, stretching up to her neck, turning her entire visage a bright, smooth violet. Pipaji’s back arched. She choked wordlessly, struggling against some invisible force.
Rin skirted backward, suddenly terrified.
Pipaji turned her head toward Rin. The movement looked horrifically unnatural, as if her limbs were being yanked this way and that by unseen puppet strings.
“Please,” she said. Her eyes flickered the faintest brown. “While I’m here.”
Rin held her gaze, stricken.
Death or the Chuluu Korikh. Five simple, devastating words. Rin had known them from the start. There were only two possible fates for the Cike: death or immurement. A commander made sure it was the first. A commander culls.
“I need you to focus.” Rin spoke with a calm she did not feel. She could not relinquish her responsibility; she had to do this. At this point, it was a mercy. “You still have to fight it. You can’t poison me.”
“I won’t,” Pipaji whispered.
“Thank you.” Rin reached out, cupped the side of Pipaji’s head with her left hand, pressed one knee against Pipaji’s shoulder for leverage, and wrenched.
The crack was louder than she’d expected. Rin shook out her fingers, focusing on the pain so she wouldn’t have to look at Pipaji’s glassy eyes. She’d never broken a neck before. She’d been taught the method in theory; she’d practiced plenty of times on dummies at Sinegard. But until now, she hadn’t realized how much force it really took to make a spine snap.
Then it was over.
Rin entered the city on foot. No one announced her presence; no musicians or dancers followed in her wake. Barely anyone noticed her; the city was too consumed with its own collapse. In her exhaustion, all she perceived was a great flurry of movement; of burned and bloody bodies carried into the city on stretchers; of crowds streaming out of Arlong’s gates dragging along sacks spilling with clothing, heirlooms, and silver; of bodies packed in teetering hordes atop the remnants of Arlong’s fleet, escaping in the few ships that hadn’t been sunk in the Dragon’s wrath.
Vaguely she understood that she had won.
Arlong was destroyed. The Hesperians had fled. Nezha and his government had made a hasty retreat out the channel. Rin learned these facts over the next hour, had them repeated to her over and over again by ecstatic officers, but she was drifting about in a fugue state, so tired and confused that she thought they were joking.
For how could this be called a victory?
She knew what victory felt like. Victory was when she scoured enemy troops from the field with a divine blaze, and her men rallied around her, screaming as they took back what was rightfully theirs. Victory felt deserved. Just.
But this felt like cheating—like her opponent had tripped and she’d been declared the winner by accident, which made this outcome a slippery, precarious thing, a victory that could be torn away at any time for any reason.
“I don’t understand,” she kept saying to Kitay. “What happened?”