The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,76

taken a dagger and twisted it into his heart.

Riga clapped him on the back. “It’s for the best.”

“You didn’t have the right,” Ziya whispered.

Riga laughed a deep, cruel laugh. “Now is when you grow a spine?”

“Their blood is on you. You killed them.”

“‘You killed them,’” Riga imitated. “Don’t speak to me about killing innocents. Who leveled the Scarigon Plateau? Who tore Tseveri’s heart out of her chest?”

“Tseveri wasn’t my fault—”

“Oh, it’s never your fault,” Riga sneered. “You just lose control and people accidentally end up dead, and then you wake up and start whining about the people who are bold enough to do what’s necessary while fully conscious. Get a grip, brother. You murdered Tseveri. You let Hanelai go to her death. Why? Because you know what’s necessary and what’s at stake, and you know that in the grand scheme of things, those two little whores of yours were obstacles not worth mentioning. Think of what happened as a kindness. You know it probably was. You know the Speerlies would have botched self-rule the moment they got it, would have probably started butchering each other the moment we let them take charge. You know people like Hanelai were never particularly good at being free.”

“I hate you,” Ziya said. “I wish we were all dead.”

Riga lifted a hand and casually backhanded him across the face. The crack echoed through the room.

“I freed you from your shackles.” Riga advanced on the cringing Ziya, slowly unsheathing his sword. “I dragged both of you out of the occupied zone. I found the Hinterlanders, I took us to Mount Tianshan, and I brought you to the Pantheon. And you dare to defy me?”

The air thrummed, thick with something powerful, suffocating, and terrible.

Just bow, Daji wanted to cry at Ziya. Bow and it’ll be over.

But she was mute, rooted in place by fear.

Ziya hadn’t moved, either. The sight was bizarre, a grown man cowering like a child, but Daji knew what made him do it.

Fear was inscribed in Ziya’s bones, just like it was in hers. Blow by blow, cut by cut—over the last decade, since they were children, Riga had made sure of it.

She realized that both of them were glaring at her. Demanding a response. But what was the question? What could she possibly do to fix this?

“Nothing?” Ziya demanded.

“She won’t say anything,” Riga scoffed. “Little Daji knows what’s best for us.”

“You’re a coward,” Ziya snarled at her. “You’ve always been.”

“Oh, don’t bully her—”

“Fuck you.” Ziya slammed his staff against the floor. The sound made Daji jump.

Riga laughed. “You want to do this now?”

“Don’t,” Daji murmured, but the word came out in a terrified squeak. Neither of them heard.

Ziya flew at Riga. Riga opened his palm and immediately Ziya dropped to the ground, howling in pain.

Riga sighed theatrically. “You would lift your hand against me, brother?”

“You’re not my brother,” Ziya gasped.

A void opened in the air behind them. Shadowy beasts poured through, one after the other. Ziya pointed. They surged, but Riga sliced them down like paper animals, fast as they came.

“Please,” Riga said. The smile never dropped from his face. “You can do better than that.”

Ziya raised his staff high. Riga lifted his sword.

Somehow Daji found the strength to move. She flung herself into the space between them just before they rushed each other with enough force to split cracks in the stone floor, a force that shattered the world like it was an eggshell. Decades later she would wonder if she had known what she was doing back then, when she threw her hands against their chests and spoke the incantation she did. Had she known and accepted the consequences? Or had she done it by accident? Was everything that happened after a cruelty of chance?

All she knew in that moment was that all sound and motion stopped. Time hung still for an eternity. A strange venom, something she’d never summoned before, seeped through the air, rooted itself into all three of their minds, and unfurled to take a shape none of them had ever seen or experienced. Then Riga collapsed to the floor and Ziya reeled backward, and they both might have shouted, but the only thing Daji could hear past the blood thundering in her ears was the ghostly echo of Tseveri’s cold, mirthless laughter.

Chapter 12

Private Memorandum on the Nikara Republic, formerly known as the Nikara Empire or the Empire of Nikan, to the Office of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Hesperia.

Open trade in the Nikara territories continues to