The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,54

filthy, but beneath a thick layer of grime was the face of someone not so much older than herself.

“What are you doing in the forest?” Rin asked her.

“We ran,” said the woman. “As soon as we heard the Mugenese were coming. I’d heard what they do to Nikara women. I wasn’t going to—I mean, they weren’t—”

“They’re your sisters?”

“No,” said the woman. “Just two girls who lived in my alley. I tried to get more to come with me. They wouldn’t leave.”

“You were wise to go,” Rin said. “How have you survived all this time?”

The woman hesitated. Rin could read the lie assembling behind her eyes. The woman had an answer, she just wasn’t sure if she should speak it.

The smallest girl piped up. “The lady in the hut.”

The woman’s face tightened, which meant the girl had told the truth.

“What lady?” Rin asked.

“She protects us,” said the girl. “She knows things. She tells us when to hide and which roots we can eat and where to lay traps for birds. She said that as long as we obeyed her, then we would be safe.”

“Then she should have taken you far away from this place,” said Rin.

“She can’t. She won’t leave here.”

Rin felt a sudden, scorching suspicion of who this lady was.

“And why can’t she leave?” she asked.

“Shush,” the woman told the girl, but the girl kept speaking.

“Because she says she lost her daughter in the Dragon King’s palace, and she’s waiting for her to come back.”

Rin’s mouth filled with the taste of blood. Her knees buckled.

What is she doing here?

The woman put a tentative hand on Rin’s elbow. “Are—are you all right?”

“She’s here,” Rin murmured. The words felt thick and coppery on her tongue. “Take me to her.”

She had to go. She had no choice. She was a fly caught in a web; she was a hypnotized mouse crawling straight into a viper’s jaws. She could not walk away now, not until she knew what Su Daji wanted.

Chapter 8

Rin followed the girls along a winding path deep into the heart of the forest. Moonlight did not penetrate the upper canopy; the trees seemed packed with threats that hissed, buzzed, and lurked hidden within the shadows. Rin kept a small flame burning in her hand to serve as a lamp, but the trees loomed so thick she was afraid to grow her fire any larger lest they catch ablaze.

She willed her racing heart to slow. She wasn’t some scared little girl. She wasn’t afraid of the dark.

But she couldn’t quell her dread of what lay within.

“This way,” said the woman.

Rin ducked beneath a cluster of leaves and pushed through the underbrush, wincing as thorny branches scraped at her knees.

What am I doing?

If Kitay were here, he’d call her an idiot. He’d suggest she set the whole forest on fire and be done with it, Trifecta be damned. Instead, Rin was walking straight into Daji’s lair like dazed, entranced prey. Was stumbling right up to the woman who, for the better part of the last year, had spared no effort trying to torture, capture, or manipulate her.

But Daji didn’t want to kill her. She hadn’t ever before, and she didn’t now. Rin was sure of that. If Daji had wanted Rin dead, she would have killed her at the base of the Red Cliffs. She would have pressed a shard of shrapnel deep into Rin’s arteries and watched, smiling, as Rin bled out on the sand at her feet.

Rin had survived the Red Cliffs only because of Daji’s design. The Vipress still needed something from her, and Rin had to at least find out what it was.

“We’re here,” said the woman.

Cautiously, Rin expanded her flame to illuminate their surroundings. They had stopped before a tiny hut constructed with tree branches, vines, and deer hides. The interior couldn’t possibly fit more than two people.

The woman called toward the hut, “My lady, we’ve returned.”

“I hear four pairs of footsteps.” A feeble, trembling voice drifted from within. “What have you brought me?”

“A visitor,” Rin said.

A short pause. “Come alone.”

Rin dropped to her knees and crawled into the hut.

The former Empress of Nikan sat shrouded in darkness. Gone were her robes and jewelry. She was rank and filthy, wrapped in tattered clothes caked so thoroughly with dirt that Rin couldn’t tell their original color. Her hair had lost its luster; the tantalizing gleam had disappeared from her eyes. She looked like she had aged twenty years in the span of months. This wasn’t just the toll of