The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,157

air.

The prisoner shrieked. “Golyn Niis!”

Altan kept the flames held perilously close to the prisoner’s eyes. “Elaborate.”

“We never needed to take Khurdalain,” spat the prisoner. “The goal was always Golyn Niis. All your best divisions came flocking to the coast as soon as this war started. Idiots. We never even wanted this beach town.”

“But the fleet,” said Altan. “Khurdalain has been your point of entry for every offensive. You can’t get to Golyn Niis without going through Khurdalain.”

“There was another fleet,” hissed the prisoner. “There have been many fleets, sailing south of this pathetic city. They found the mountain pass. You poor idiots, did you think you could keep that a secret? They’re cutting straight toward Golyn Niis itself. Your war capital will burn, our Armed Forces are cutting directly across your heartland, and you’re still holed up here in this pathetic excuse for a city.”

Altan drew his hand back.

Rin flinched instinctively, expecting him to lash out again.

But Altan only extinguished his flame and patted the prisoner condescendingly on the head. “Good boy,” he said in a low whisper. “Thank you.”

He nodded to Rin and Chaghan, indicating they were about to leave.

“Wait,” the prisoner said hastily. “You said you’d let me go.”

Altan tilted his face up to the ceiling and sighed. A thin trickle of sweat ran from the bone under his ear down his neck.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll let you go.”

He whipped his hand across the prisoner’s neck. A spray of blood flew outward.

The prisoner bore an astonished expression. He made a last startled, choked noise. Then his eyes drooped closed and his head slumped forward. The smell of cooked meat and burned blood filled the air.

Rin tasted bile in the back of her throat. It was a long while before she remembered how to breathe.

Altan rose to his feet. The veins at his neck protruded in the dim light. He took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, like an opium smoker, like a man who had just filled his lungs with a drug. He turned toward them. His eyes glowed bright red in the darkness. His eyes were nothing human.

“Fine,” he said to his lieutenant. “You were right.”

Chaghan hadn’t moved throughout the entire interrogation.

“I’m rarely wrong,” said Chaghan.

Part III

Chapter 21

Baji yawned loudly, winced, and pulled his neck far to the side. A series of cracks punctuated the still morning air. There was no room to lie down in the river sampan, so sleep had to be acquired in short, fitful bursts, bent over in cramp-inducing positions. He blinked blearily for a minute, and then reached across the narrow boat with his foot to nudge Rin’s leg.

“I can take watch now.”

“I’m fine,” Rin said. She sat huddled with her hands shoved into her armpits, slumped forward so that her head rested on her knees. She stared blankly out at the running water.

“You really should get some sleep.”

“Can’t.”

“You should try.”

“I’ve tried,” Rin said shortly.

Rin could not silence the Talwu’s voice in her head. She had heard the Hexagram uttered only once, but she was unlikely to forget a single word. It had been seared into her mind, and no matter how many times she revisited it, she could not interpret it in a way that did not leave her feeling sick with dread.

Abrupt with fire, with death . . . as though burning; as though dying . . . the subject is with tears flowing in torrents . . . great joy in decapitating enemies . . .

She used to think divination was a pale science, a vague approximation if valuable at all. But the Talwu’s words were anything but vague. There was only one possible fate for Golyn Niis.

You have cast the Twenty-Sixth Hexagram. The Net. Chaghan had said the net meant a trap had been laid. But had the trap been laid for Golyn Niis? Had it already been sprung, or were they heading straight toward their deaths?

“You’re going to wear yourself out. Fretting won’t make these boats run any faster.” Baji pulled his head to the side until he heard another satisfying crack. “And it won’t make the dead come back to life.”

They raced up the Golyn River, making absurd time in a journey that should have taken a month on horseback. Aratsha ferried them along the river at blinding speed. Still, it took them a week to travel the length of the Golyn River to the lush delta where Golyn Niis had been built.

Rin glanced up to look at the boat at the very fore, where