The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,237

strikes were stiff and sluggish. She couldn’t see proof of any wounds, yet he winced with every motion, as if invisible knives were digging into his flesh.

And he wasn’t calling the Dragon.

Why wasn’t he calling the Dragon?

If Nezha had demanded more of her focus she would have noticed the way his golden circlets rang eerily every time he moved, darkening the skin around his wrists and ankles. But her mind was not on Nezha. He was just an obstacle, a great, blockish object that she needed out of the way. In that moment, Nezha was an afterthought.

Her mind was on the sky; her focus was on the fleet.

Was this how Jiang had always felt on the battlefield, when he’d felled columns with little more than a thought? The difference in scale was inconceivable. This wasn’t fighting. There was no struggle involved in this, no effort. She was simply writing reality. She was painting. She pointed, and balloons incinerated. She clenched her fist, and carriages exploded.

Her vision lurched, sharpened, expanded. When she’d sunk the Federation she’d been underground, alone inside a stone temple, and yet when she’d awakened the dormant volcano it had felt like she was floating right above the archipelago, keenly aware of the million sleeping souls beneath her, flaring like match heads, only to go suddenly, irreversibly dark.

Now, again, she saw the material world—such a flimsy thing, so fragile and temporary—through the eyes of a god. She saw the airships in such close detail she could have been standing under them. She saw the smooth texture of the airship balloons. Time dilated as she watched the fire ignite around them, ripping through whatever gas filled their interiors that was so delicious to the flame—

“Rin, stop!” She saw Nezha’s mouth moving seconds before she realized he was yelling. He wasn’t even really fighting anymore—he certainly couldn’t be trying, because his blows hardly landed, and his parries were sluggish.

She jerked her knee into his side, clamped her left hand against his shoulder, and pushed him hard to the ground.

His head slammed against the corner of the table. He slumped sideways, mouth agape. He didn’t get up.

She turned back to the fleet.

The beach faded from her sight. She saw what the fire saw—not bodies or ships but simply shapes, all equal, all simply kindling for the pyres of her worship. And she knew the Phoenix was pleased because its screeching laughter grew louder and louder, its presence intensifying until their minds felt as if they were one, as, from one end of the horizon to the other, she methodically wrecked the fleet—

Until it went silent.

The shock sent her reeling.

The sky seemed very blue and bright; the airships so far away. She was just a girl again, without fire. The Phoenix was gone, and when she reached to find it she met only a mute, indifferent wall.

She whirled on Kitay. “What have you—”

He was barely managing to stand, clutching the table for support. His face had turned a deathly gray. Sweat dripped from his temples, and his knees buckled so hard she was sure he was about to collapse.

“You can’t,” he whispered.

“Kitay—”

“Not without my help. Not without my permission. That was our deal.”

She gaped at him, astonished. He’d cut her off. The traitor, he’d fucking cut her off.

Kitay was her back door, her bridge, her single channel to the Phoenix. Since the moment they’d been anchored he’d always kept it open, had let her abuse his mind to funnel as much fire as she desired. He’d never closed it off. She’d almost forgotten that he could.

“I didn’t think I could, either,” he said. “I thought I couldn’t deny you anything. But I can, I always could, I’d just never really tried.”

“Kitay . . .”

“Stop this,” he ordered. A spasm rippled through his body and he lurched forward, wincing, but caught himself on the edge of the table before he fell. “Or you’ll never call the fire again.”

No. No, this wasn’t how this ended. She hadn’t come this far to be thwarted by Kitay’s idiotic scruples. He didn’t get to withhold her power like a condescending parent, dangling her toys just out of reach.

She saw the defiance in his eyes, and her heart shattered.

You, too?

She didn’t attack first. If Kitay hadn’t taken the first blow, she might not have had the will to strike him. Despite his betrayal he was still Kitay—her best friend, her anchor, the person she loved most in the world and the one person she’d sworn to always protect.

But