The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,213

bring our best,” Miragha said. “Ready whenever you are.”

“Hold on.” Rin scanned the soldiers until she found one holding a halberd. “Give me that.”

She wrapped a discarded Hesperian flag around the blade, knotted it tightly, and set the tip ablaze. She handed it back to the soldier. “You go in first. Let her think you’re me.”

He looked alarmed. “But—General, then—”

“You’ll be fine,” Rin said sternly. The arc of lightning, whatever it was, had not done lasting physical damage to her or Nezha. Against someone who wasn’t a shaman, it ought to have no effect at all. “Just prepare for a shock.”

She was impressed when he did not argue. He held the flaming halberd firm and gave her a curt, obedient nod.

“Do it,” Rin told Miragha.

Miragha gave the order. Her soldiers dragged the battering ram back several yards, then pushed it running against the door.

The wooden door smashed inward upon impact. The soldier with the halberd burst through, waving the torch about the dim interior, but nothing happened. The room was empty. When Rin walked inside, all she saw were toppled chairs and bare tables—and a trap door in the corner.

She pointed. “Down there.”

The soldier with the halberd descended first, Rin following several steps behind. The makeshift torch seemed a plausible imitation; its flame flickered and curved like something alive, casting distorted shadows against the wall.

Lightning immediately arced through the dark. The soldier yelped and dropped the halberd. In the brief, bright flash, Rin glimpsed a silhouette across the room—a crouched figure behind something the shape of a mounted cannon. That was enough. Flames burst from her palm and roared across the room. She heard a high mechanical whine, then saw an explosion of sparks, ricocheting across the room like a thunderstorm concentrated inside a jar.

The cannon-like device exploded. The lightning disappeared. When the smoke cleared, Rin’s flames, dancing steadily around her arms and shoulders as a makeshift lamp, illuminated a mass of scattered metallic parts and a limp form curled up in the corner.

Too easy, Rin thought as she crossed the room. If a soldier had designed this ambush, they wouldn’t have been so trigger-happy with the lightning. They would have known they would only get one chance; they would have waited until they’d established a clear line of fire at Rin.

But Sister Petra Ignatius was a scholar, not a soldier.

Rin pushed at Petra’s ribs with her foot, shoving her over onto her back. “If you wanted an audience, you could have just asked.”

Petra cringed under her boot. A thin trickle of blood ran down the left side of her face where shrapnel had sliced her temple, and bright red burn marks scorched her hands and neck, but she looked otherwise unharmed. Her eyes were open. She was conscious. She could talk.

Rin turned to the stairs, where Miragha waited with her troops. “Leave us.”

Miragha hesitated. “You sure?”

“She’s unarmed,” Rin said. “Post two troops to guard the exits and dispatch the rest back to the city center.”

“Yes, General.” Miragha followed her men back up through the trap door. The single column of sunlight winked out as they lowered the door closed behind them.

Then Rin and Petra were alone in the dim, fire-lit basement.

“Was that all you had?” Rin dragged a chair out from Petra’s work table and sat down. “An amateur’s ambush?”

Petra moaned softly as she drew herself to a sitting position.

“What is this?” Rin demanded. She snatched one of the machine’s broken fragments from the ground. The metal was spun in a tight coil, cold to the touch. “What does this do?”

Petra responded with wary silence. She tilted her head back against the wall, her stone-gray eyes roving up and down Rin’s form as if sizing up a wild animal.

Fine, thought Rin. Then she’d just have to resort to torture. She’d never done that before—she’d only ever watched Altan extract information with well-placed, sadistic bursts of flame—but the basic principles seemed simple enough. She knew how to hurt.

Then, absurdly, Petra began to laugh.

“As if you’d ever understand.” She raised an arm to wipe the blood from her eyes. “What, did you imagine you might devise a countermeasure? The theory behind my machines is centuries beyond your grasp. I could show you every component, every draft of my designs, and you still wouldn’t understand. You don’t have the brains.”

She rose to her feet. Rin tensed, prepared to strike. But Petra only stumbled to the chair opposite her and sat down, hands folded primly in her lap in some sick imitation of