The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,234

that Speer was suffused with history and blood, with the power of thousands of vengeful deceased who haunted its every corner.

There are places in the world where the boundaries between the gods and mortals are thin, Chaghan had once told her. Where reality blurs, where the gods very nearly materialize.

The Speerlies had made their home in such a place, right on the edge of mortality and madness, and the Phoenix had both punished and blessed them in turn.

The Dead Island’s legacy ran through Rin’s blood. Now it called her home to finish what she’d started, to see her revenge through to the end. When she returned to that island, she’d be in the Phoenix’s holy domain, one step closer to divinity.

She’d destroyed a nation from that island once before. She wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

They crossed the channel in a small fisherman’s dinghy. Rin sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, shivering against the ocean breeze while Kitay fussed with the sails. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing more to be said. Everything had been spilled the night the fields in Tikany burned, and now what lay between them was a quiet, exhausted resignation. There was no point in commiseration or reassurance. Rin knew what happened next and Kitay thought he did; now there was only the wait.

When the Dead Island emerged on the horizon, a gray, ashy mound that at first seemed indistinguishable from the mist, Kitay reached over and rubbed his thumb over her wrist.

“It’ll be all right,” he murmured. “We’ll fix this.”

She gave him a tight smile, twisted around to face the island, and said nothing.

Nezha was waiting on the beach when their vessel approached the shallows. He didn’t appear to be armed, but that didn’t matter. Neither of them was far from their army. Rin had troops waiting in ships off the coast of Snake Province, spyglasses trained on the horizon for the first sign of her beacon. She could only assume that Nezha’s reinforcements were doing the same.

No, she was counting on it.

“Scared?” she inquired as she stepped onto the sand.

He gave her a hollow smile. “You know I can’t die.”

“We’re trying to broker a peace here.” Kitay dropped an anchor off the side of the dinghy, then followed Rin onto the shore. “Let’s not start off with death threats, shall we?”

“Fair enough.” Nezha gestured farther up the beach, where Rin saw he’d prepared three chairs and a square tea table covered in ink, brushes, and blank parchment. “After you.”

They crossed the length of the beach in silence.

Rin couldn’t help but take quick, furtive glances at Nezha as she walked beside him.

He looked wrecked. He still carried himself like a general. His shoulders never slumped; his voice never wavered. Yet every part of him seemed diminished, stretched thin and whittled down. His scarred mouth, once twisted on one side into a jeering grin, now seemed trapped in a painful rictus.

She’d expected him to jeer at her, to gloat over their capitulation, but he didn’t seem at all like he was enjoying this. He looked exhausted. He looked like someone waiting to die.

They pulled their chairs out and sat. Rin nearly laughed when the first thing Nezha did was politely, meticulously pour each of them a full, steaming cup of tea. It lent such an air of ceremony, of normalcy, to negotiations made possible by an ocean of blood.

Neither she nor Kitay touched their cups. Nezha drained his in a single swallow.

“Well, then.” He reached for an ink brush and held it lightly over the parchment. “Where shall we start?”

“Tell us their final terms,” Rin said.

Nezha faltered for a moment. He’d expected more of a dance. “You mean—”

“Lay it all out,” she said. “List every last thing it’ll take to get the Hesperians off our back. We’re not here to bandy words. Just tell us how much it’ll cost.”

“As you wish.” He cleared his throat. He had no papers to consult; he knew by heart what the Hesperians wanted. “The Consortium is willing to withdraw their forces, commit to a signed armistice, and provide enough shipments of grain, dried meat, and starches to tide the entire country over to the next harvest.”

“Great Tortoise,” Kitay breathed. “Thank—”

Rin spoke over him. “And in return?”

“First, full amnesty for all soldiers and leadership involved with the Republic,” Nezha said. “That benefits you, too. You need people to keep the country running. Let them go back home with their safety guaranteed, and they’ll work for you. I’ll