The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,238

he did take the blow.

He lunged forward, fists aimed at her face, and once he did, it was like a glass pane had shattered. Then there was nothing holding her back, no sentiment, no pangs of guilt when she redirected her fury toward him.

She’d never fought Kitay before.

She realized this as they wrestled to the ground—a dim, floating observation that was really quite amazing, for almost everyone in her class at Sinegard had fought everyone else at some point. She’d sparred against Venka and Nezha plenty of times. Her first year, she’d tried so hard to kill Nezha that she’d nearly succeeded.

But she’d never once touched Kitay. Not even in practice. The few times they were paired against each other they found excuses to seek different partners, because neither of them could stand the thought of trying to hurt the other, not even for pretend.

She hadn’t realized how strong he was. Kitay in her mind was a scholar, a strategist. Kitay hadn’t seen combat since Vaisra’s northern expedition. He always waited out battles from a distance, kept safe by an entire squadron.

She’d forgotten that he, too, had been trained as a soldier. And he’d been very, very good at it.

Kitay was not as strong as Nezha, nor as fast as her. But he struck with crisp, deadly precision. His attacks landed with maximal force concentrated to the thinnest point of impact—the knife edge of his hand, the point of his knuckle, the protruding cap of his knee. He chose his targets carefully. He knew her body better than anyone; he knew the spots where she hurt the most—her amputated wrist, the scars along her back, her twice-cracked ribs. And he attacked them with brutal precision.

She was losing. She was getting exhausted, slowed by the accumulated hurts of a dozen direct blows. He’d maintained the offensive from the start. She was flailing to even parry; she wouldn’t last another minute.

“Give up,” he panted. “Give up, Rin, it’s over.”

“Fuck you,” she snarled, and flung her right fist toward his eye.

In her fury she forgot that fist did not exist, that she would not meet the sharp bones of his face with curled knuckles but the stump of her wrist, sore and vulnerable and protected only by a thin, irritated layer of skin.

The pain was white-hot, debilitating. She howled.

Kitay staggered back, out of her range, and picked Nezha’s knife up from the ground.

She flinched back, arms flung up instinctively to protect her chest. But he hadn’t pointed the blade at her.

Fuck.

She lunged and caught his wrist just as he plunged the blade toward his chest. She wasn’t strong enough; the tip burrowed under his skin and slid down, slicing a gash across his ribs. They struggled against each other, her pulling with all her might while he pushed the knife against himself, the sharp blade trembling just an inch from his chest.

She wasn’t going to win.

She couldn’t overpower him. He was stronger. He had both his hands.

But she didn’t have to physically defeat him—she only needed to break his will. And she knew one unspoken fact for a certainty, one truth that had underlined their bond since the day she’d met him.

Her will was so much stronger than his. It always had been.

She acted. He followed. Like two hands on a sword’s blade, she determined the direction and he provided the force; she was the visionary, and he was her willing executioner. He’d always enforced what she wanted. He would not defy her now.

She focused all her thoughts toward the Phoenix, railing against the fragile barrier of Kitay’s mind.

I know you’re there, she prayed to the silence. I know you’re with me.

“Give up,” Kitay said. But sweat was dripping down his forehead; his teeth were clenched with strain. “You can’t.”

Rin shut her eyes and redoubled her efforts, grasping around the void until she found a tiny filament, the barest hint of divine presence. That was enough.

Break him, she told the Phoenix.

She heard a shattering sound in her mind, a porcelain cup dashed against stone.

She saw a flash of red. The beach disappeared.

They were alone in the plane of spirit, standing on opposite sides of a great circle, both of them naked and fully revealed. It was all there, laid out between them. All their shared fury, vindictiveness, bloodlust, and guilt. Her cruelty. His complicity. Her desperation. His regret.

She saw him across the circle and knew that if she wanted to subdue him, all she had to do was think it. She’d nearly done