The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,222

the whole curriculum—more emphasis on Strategy and Linguistics, less focus on Combat . . .”

“You can’t get rid of Combat,” Venka said.

“We can get rid of Combat the way Jun taught it,” Rin said. “Martial arts don’t belong on the battlefield, they belong on an opera stage. We have to teach a curriculum geared for modern warfare. Artillery—arquebuses, cannons, the whole gamut.”

“I want a dirigible division,” Venka said.

“We’ll get you one,” Kitay vowed.

“I want a dozen. All equipped with state-of-the-art cannons.”

“Whatever you like.”

As the night drew on, their ideas always went from bold to wishful to simply absurd. Kitay wanted to issue a standardized set of abacuses because pea-size beads, apparently, made better clacking noises. Venka wanted to ban intricate, heavy hair ornaments required by women of aristocracy on the grounds that they strained the neck, as well as the black, double-flapped headwear favored by northern bureaucrats on the grounds that they were ugly.

Those last few proposals were trivial, so obviously not worth their time. But it still thrilled them, tossing out ideas as if they had the power to speak them into being. And then remembering that they did, they fucking did, because they owned this country now and everyone had to do what they said.

“I want free tuition at all the scholars’ academies,” Rin said.

“I want the punishment for forced sexual intercourse to be castration,” Venka said.

“I want multiple copies made of every ancient text in the archives that will be disseminated to each of the top universities to prevent knowledge decay,” Kitay said.

And they could have it all. Because fuck it—they were in charge now; absurd as it was, they sat on the throne at Arlong, and what they said was law.

“I am the force of creation,” Rin murmured as she stared at the ceiling and watched it spin. Vaisra’s sorghum wine burned sweet and sour on her tongue; she wanted to swig more of it, just to feel her insides blaze. “I am the end and the beginning. The world is a painting and I hold the brush. I am a god.”

But morning always came and, along with the stabbing headaches of the previous night’s indulgences, returned the exhaustion, exasperation, and mounting despair that came with trying to repair a country that had spent the majority of its history at war.

Every bit of progress they made in Arlong, it seemed, was constantly being undone by bad news from the rest of the country. Bandit attacks were rampant. Epidemics were getting worse. Power vacuums had sprung up throughout the southeastern provinces Rin’s army had conquered, and since she didn’t have enough troops to deploy nationwide to cement her regime, a dozen pockets of local rebellion were forming that she’d later have to put down.

The biggest emergency was food. They were arguing about food in the war room. Dwindling grain was the subject of every missive they received from outlying cities, was the cause of almost every riot Rin’s troops had to quell. Until now Arlong had been fed by regular shipments of Hesperian supplies, and now those were gone.

Even Kitay couldn’t find a solution. No amount of juggling resources, diplomacy, or clever reorganization could mask the fact that the grain stores simply were not there.

Moag, who had been Rin’s best option, sent back a brief letter quashing their hopes.

No can do, little Speerly, she wrote. Can’t get you that much grain in such a short time frame. And Arlong’s treasures aren’t trading for much on the market right now. First of all, they’re hard to get past the embargo when they’re so obviously Nikara; second, Yin family artifacts have gone down quite a bit in value. I’m sure you can see why. Keep looking, I’m sure you’ll find something they want.

The perverse upside to the impending famine was that enlistment numbers shot up, since army recruits were the only ones guaranteed to receive two full rations a day. But then, of course, once this became widespread knowledge, fights and protests started breaking out around the barracks over this perceived injustice.

This, Rin thought, was a dreadfully apt metaphor for her frustrations with the city. For why shouldn’t the army receive priority? The strength of their defenses was critical, now more than ever—why couldn’t anyone else see that?

Every endless meeting, every redundant conversation they had about how to feed the city felt much more frustrating because Rin couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all a mere distraction. That she was wasting her time trying to restore a broken