The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,220

officer would carry out his orders or flee.

She and Kitay sat in stunned silence. Kitay’s temporary calm had evaporated—he was staring at the dishes, blinking very rapidly, mouth half-open as if unsure what to say. Rin, too, felt lost in a fog of panic. The betrayal had been so sudden, so unexpected, her overriding thought was fury at her sheer stupidity, for accepting food from the kitchens without even stopping to think.

Someone was trying to kill her. Someone was trying to kill her in the most obvious way possible, and they’d almost succeeded.

She realized then that she could never feel safe in her own office again.

The door creaked open.

Rin jumped. “What is it?”

It was a messenger. He hesitated, taking in their distressed faces, and then tentatively lifted a scroll in Rin’s direction. “There’s, ah, a missive.”

“From who?” Kitay asked.

“It’s sealed with the House of—”

“Bring it here,” Rin said curtly. “Then get out.”

The moment the door swung closed, she ripped the scroll open with her teeth. She didn’t know why her heart was hammering so loudly, why she still felt a surge of fearful anticipation even though Nezha had lost, had fled, had retreated so far out into the ocean that he couldn’t possibly threaten her here.

Calm down, she told herself. This is nothing. He has nothing. Just a formality from a defeated foe.

Hello, Rin. Hope you’re enjoying the palace. Did you take my old rooms?

You’ll have realized by now, I think, that this country is in deep shit. Let me guess, Kitay’s been going through agricultural reports all morning. He’s probably losing his mind over the inconsistencies. Here’s a hint—the smarter magistrates always underreport their crop yields to get more subsidies. Or they might really just be starving. Hard to know, huh?

“That patronizing shit,” Rin muttered.

“Hold on.” Kitay was already on the second page. He skimmed the bottom, blinked, and then handed it to her. “Keep reading.”

The kitchen staff are good, but you’ll find that several are quite loyal to my family. I hope you didn’t eat the lunch.

Rin’s mouth went dry. He couldn’t know that. How did he know that?

Don’t punish them all. It’ll either be the head cook, Hairui, or his assistant. The others don’t have a backbone. I mean, knowing you, you’ve probably had them all thrown in prison. But at least let Minmin and Little Xing back in the kitchens. They make excellent steamed buns. And you like those, don’t you?

She lowered the letter. She suddenly found it hard to breathe; the walls seemed to constrict around her, the air deprived of oxygen.

Someone’s spying on us.

“Nezha’s not on Speer,” she said. “He’s here.”

“He can’t be,” Kitay said. “Our scouts saw him leaving—”

“That means nothing. He could have snuck back. He controls the fucking water, Kitay, you don’t think he could have traveled up the river in one night? He’s watching us—”

“There’s no place for him to go,” Kitay said. “That’d be suicide. Come on, Rin—what, do you think he’s crouched in a shack somewhere in the city? Peeking out at you from behind corners?”

“He knows about the granaries.” Her pitch shot up several octaves. “He knows about the fucking cooks! Pray tell, Kitay, how the fuck would he know that unless he—”

“Because it’s the easiest guess in the world,” Kitay said. “And he knows about the granaries because those were the same problems that he’s been dealing with for months. Up until we arrived, feeding this country was his problem. He doesn’t have eyes over your shoulder, he’s just trying to rattle you. Don’t let him win.”

Rin shot him an incredulous look. “I think you’re giving quite a lot of credit to his capabilities for conjecture.”

“And I think you’re massively overestimating how much Nezha wants to die,” Kitay said. “He’s not hiding in the city. That’s certain suicide. He’s got scouts, yes, but we’re in his fucking capital—of course people are going to report to him.”

“Then he’ll know—”

“So he’ll know. We’ve just got to operate assuming Nezha has a good idea of what we’re planning. That’s inevitable with regimes in power—you can’t keep your operations secret for long, there are too many people involved. In the end, it won’t matter. We’ve got too many advantages. You just can’t squander them by freaking the fuck out.”

She forced herself to take several deep, shaky breaths. Gradually, her pulse slowed. The darkness creeping at the edges of her vision faded away. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to organize her thoughts, trying to take stock of the problem.

She knew