The Burning God (The Poppy War #3) - R.F. Kuang Page 0,89

couldn’t remember what she had wanted to ask him. She didn’t even know where to start.

His expression softened. “Are you trying to see if I remember you? Because I do, you know. You’re difficult to forget.”

“I know you do, but . . .” She felt tongue-tied and bewildered, the way she’d often felt during the years she’d spent as Jiang’s apprentice, groping at the truth about the gods before she even understood what she was looking for. She felt the absence of knowledge like a gap inside her. But she didn’t know how to phrase her questions, couldn’t trace the contours of what she lacked. “I suppose I wanted to know . . . well, the Seal, Daji said that—”

“You want to know what the Seal is doing to me.” Jiang’s voice took on a hard edge. “You’re wondering if I am the same man who trained you. I am not.”

Rin shuddered as memories rose unbidden to her mind: flashes of the vision the Sorqan Sira had once showed her, a nightmare of savaged corpses and manic laughter. “Then are you . . .”

“The Gatekeeper?” Jiang tilted his head. “Riga’s right hand? The man who overthrew the Mugenese? No. I don’t think I am him, either.”

“I don’t understand.”

“How can I describe it?” He paused, tapping at his chin. “It’s like seeing a warped reflection in a mirror. Sometimes we are the same and sometimes we are not; sometimes he moves with me, and sometimes he acts of his own volition. Sometimes I catch glimpses of his past, but it’s like I’m watching from far away like a helpless observer, and that—”

He broke off, wincing, and pressed his fingers against his temples. Rin watched the headache pass; she’d witnessed these spasms before. They never lasted more than several seconds.

“And other times?” she prompted, after the lines around his eyes relaxed.

“Other times the memories are from my perspective, but it’s like I’m experiencing them for the first time. For him, it’s a memory. He already knows what happened. But for me, it’s like watching a story unfold, but I don’t know its ending. The only thing I do know, with absolute certainty, is that I did it. I see the bodies, and I know I’m responsible.”

Rin tried to wrap her head around this, and failed. She couldn’t see how one could live with two different sets of memories, belonging to two different personalities, and still remain sane.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Knowing what I’ve done? Yes, it hurts. Unlike anything you could ever imagine.”

Rin didn’t have to imagine. She knew very well how it felt for a chasm of guilt to eat at her soul, to try to sleep when an abyss of vengeful souls whispered that she’d put them there, and for that she deserved to die.

But she had owned her memories. She knew what she’d done, and she’d come to terms with it. How did Jiang relate to his crimes? How could he take responsibility for them if he still couldn’t identify with the person who had done them? And if he couldn’t face his own past, couldn’t even recognize it as his, was he doomed to remain a divided man, trapped in the schism of his psyche?

She phrased her next question carefully. She could tell she’d pushed him to the edge—he looked pale and skittish, ready to bolt if she said the wrong thing. She was reminded of her time at the Academy, when she’d had to mince and contort her words so that Jiang wouldn’t mock them, skirt them, or simply pretend she hadn’t spoken.

She understood now what he had been afraid of.

“Do you think . . .” She swallowed, shook her head, and started over. “Do you think you’ll transform back to the person you were supposed to be? Before the Seal?”

“Is that who you want me to become?” he inquired.

“I think that’s the man we need,” she said. She blurted out her next words before her boldness receded. “But the Sorqan Sira said that man was a monster.”

He didn’t answer for a while. He sat back, watching the shore, trailing his fingers through the murky water. She couldn’t tell what was going on behind those pale, pale eyes.

“The Sorqan Sira was right,” he said at last.

Rin had thought—hoped, really—that when she came near enough to Kitay, she’d start sensing his presence, a warm familiarity that might gradually strengthen as she drew closer. She didn’t think it would be so sudden. One morning she woke up shaking and