The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,73

“We’ll take our chances. Souji?”

Souji’s grip tightened around her neck. “Sorry, Princess.”

Rin writhed, just hard enough to force Souji to lean forward and use his weight to press her back against the dirt. That brought his wrist close enough to her mouth. She bared her teeth and bit down. She broke skin; she tasted copper and salt on her tongue. Souji shrieked. The pressure on her neck disappeared. Something slammed into the side of her head.

She fell back, temples ringing, blood dribbling onto her chin.

She saw two Soujis looming over her, and both looked so outraged that she couldn’t help but laugh.

“You taste good,” she said.

He responded with a slap to her face. Then another. The blows stung like lightning; head swimming, ears ringing, she could do nothing but lie still and absorb them like a corpse.

“Not so chatty now, are you?”

She gurgled something incomprehensible. He pulled his fist back, and that was the last thing she saw.

She was lying on the same floor when she awoke. Everything hurt. When she twitched, she felt the stretch of bruises along her back, bruises from blows she didn’t remember taking. Souji had kept kicking long after she’d passed out.

Breathing was agony. She had to learn to take small, suffocatingly insufficient breaths, expanding her lungs just enough not to crack her likely broken ribs.

After a few seconds, her fear gave way to confusion.

She ought to be dead.

Why wasn’t she dead yet?

“There you go.” Souji’s voice. She saw his boots standing several feet away. “I’m assuming we don’t have to verify her identity.”

Who was he talking to? Rin tried to crane her neck to see, but her puffy eyes limited her view, and she couldn’t tilt her head up any farther than thirty degrees. She lay curled on her side; her field of vision was restricted to the dirt floor and the wall of the tent.

Footsteps sounded close to her head. Someone put the heel of their boot on her neck.

“The Young Marshal wants her alive,” spoke an unfamiliar voice.

Rin stiffened. The Young Marshal. This man was Nezha’s envoy.

“His orders were to take her alive if we can manage, and dead if she puts up a fight,” said the envoy. “I say we preempt a resistance. I’ve seen what she can do when she’s awake.”

“We can keep her dosed,” spoke another voice across the room. “We brought enough opium for the journey. That keeps her harmless.”

“You’re going to stake your lives on that?” Souji asked. “Go on, press a little harder. None of us will tattle.”

Rin winced, bracing herself for the impact. But it never came—suddenly the boot lifted from her neck, and footsteps sounded away from her head. She heard the tent flaps rustle.

“You can’t kill her.”

Her eyes widened. Daji?

“Who’s this hag?” Souji asked. “Someone toss her out.”

There was a flurry of movement, a clash of steel, then a loud clatter as weapons dropped to the floor.

“Don’t touch me,” Daji said, very slowly, very calmly. “Now step away.”

The tent fell silent.

“She’s a chosen manifestation of the gods.” Daji’s voice grew louder as she crossed the tent toward Rin. “Her body is a bridge between this world and the Pantheon. If you hurt her, then her god will come flooding through in full force to our realm. Have you ever encountered the Phoenix? You will be ash before you can blink.”

That’s not true, Rin thought, befuddled. That’s not how it works. If they hurt her now, without Kitay, the Phoenix could do nothing to help her.

But none of them knew that. No one objected. The men were utterly silent, hanging on Daji’s every word.

Rin could imagine what was happening. She’d suffered the Vipress’s hypnosis before. Daji’s eyes induced paralysis—those bright, yellow serpent’s eyes that enticed and beckoned; those pupils that engorged to become gates into dark and lovely visions of butterfly wings and wretched nostalgia. The Vipress made her prey desire. Yearn. Hurt.

When Souji at last spoke, his voice sounded different—dazed, hesitant. “Then what do we do?”

“There is a mountain in Snake Province,” Daji said. “Not far from here. It will be quite a march, but—”

“We have a dirigible,” said one of Nezha’s envoys. He spoke eagerly, like he was trying to impress. If Rin weren’t so terrified, she would have laughed. “We have the fuel. We could fly there in less than a day.”

“Very good, officer,” Daji cooed.

No one objected. Daji had these men well and truly trapped. Good, Rin thought. Now gut them.

But Daji didn’t move.

“I’ve heard of this mountain,” Souji said