The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,189
been granted a power beyond imagination.
She had the strength of their ancestors. She held within her every Speerly who had died on that terrible day, and every Speerly who had ever lived on the Dead Island.
They were the Phoenix’s chosen people. The Phoenix thrived on anger, and Rin possessed that in abundance.
She reached for Altan. They were of one mind and one purpose.
They forced their way back into the world of the living.
Their eyes flared open at the same time.
One of Shiro’s assistants had been bending over them, back on the table in Shiro’s laboratory. The flames roiling from their bodies immolated him immediately, catching his hair and clothes so that when he reeled away from them, screaming, every bit of him was on fire.
Flames licked out in every direction. They caught the chemicals in the laboratory and combusted, shattering glass. They caught the alcohol used to sterilize wounds and spread rapidly on the fumes. The jar in the corner bearing the pickled man trembled from the heat and exploded, spilling its vile contents out onto the floor. The fumes of the embalming fluid caught fire, too, lighting up the room in an earnest blaze.
The lab assistant ran into the hallway, screaming for Shiro to save him.
Rin writhed and twisted where she lay. The straps keeping her down could not bear the heat of the flame at such a close angle. They snapped and she fell off the table, picked herself up, and turned just as Shiro rushed into the room clutching a reloading crossbow.
He shifted his aim from Altan to Rin and back again.
Rin tensed, but Shiro did not pull the trigger—whether out of inexperience or reluctance, Rin did not know.
“Beautiful,” he marveled in a low voice. The fire reflected in his hungry eyes, and for a moment made him seem as if he, too, possessed the scarlet eyes of the Speerlies.
“Shiro!” Altan roared.
The doctor did not move as Altan advanced. Rather he lowered his crossbow, held his arms out to Altan as if welcoming a son into his embrace.
Altan grabbed his tormentor by the face. And squeezed. Flames poured from his hands, white-hot flames, surrounding the doctor’s head like a crown. First Altan’s hands left fingerprints of black against around Shiro’s temples, and then the heat burned through bone and Altan’s fingers bored holes through Shiro’s skull. Shiro’s eyes bulged. His arms twitched madly. He dropped the crossbow.
Altan pressed Shiro’s skull between his hands. Shiro’s head split open with a wet crack.
The twitching stopped.
Altan dropped the body and stepped away from it. He turned to Rin. His eyes burned a brighter red than they ever had before.
“Okay,” he said. “Now we run.”
Rin scooped the crossbow off the ground and followed Altan out of the operating room.
“Where’s the exit?”
“No clue,” Altan said. “Look for light.”
They ran for their lives, turning corners at random. The research facility was a massive complex, far larger than Rin had imagined. As they ran, Rin saw that the hallway containing their cells was only one corridor in the mazelike interior; they passed empty barracks, many operating tables, and storage rooms stacked with canisters of gas.
Alarm bells sounded across the entire complex, alerting the soldiers to the breach.
Finally they found an exit: a side door in an empty corridor. It was boarded shut, but Altan pushed Rin aside and then kicked it down. She jumped out and helped him climb through.
“Over there!”
A Federation patrol group caught sight of them and raced in their direction.
Altan grabbed the crossbow from Rin and aimed it at the patrol group. Three soldiers dropped to the ground, but the others advanced over their comrades’ dead bodies.
The crossbow made a hollow clicking noise.
“Shit,” Altan said.
The patrol group drew closer.
Rin and Altan were starved, weakened, still half-drugged. And yet they fought, back to back. They moved as perfect complements to each other. They achieved a better synchronization than Rin had even with Nezha, for Nezha knew how she moved only by observing her. Altan didn’t have to—Altan knew by instinct who she was, how she would fight, because they were the same. They were two parts of a whole. They were Speerlies.
They dispatched the patrol of five, only to see another squadron of twenty approach them from the side of the building.
“Well, we can’t kill all of them,” said Altan.
Rin wasn’t sure about that. They kept running anyway.
Her feet were scraped raw from the cobbled floor. Altan gripped her arm as they ran, dragging her forward.