The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,190

They were at a port. They were by the sea.

They needed to get to the water, to the sea. Needed to swim across the narrow strait. Speer was so close . . .

You must go to the isle. You must go to the temple.

They reached the end of the pier. And stopped.

The night was lit up with torches.

It seemed as if the entire Federation army had assembled by the docks—Mugenese soldiers behind the pier, Mugenese ships in the water. There were hundreds of them. They were hundreds against two. The odds were not simply bad, they were insurmountable.

Rin felt a sensation of crushing despair. She couldn’t breathe under the weight of it. This was where it ended. This was Speer’s last stand.

Altan hadn’t let go of her arm. Blood dripped from his eyes, blood dropped from his mouth.

“Look.” He pointed. “Do you see that star? That’s the constellation of the Phoenix.”

She raised her head.

“Take it as your guide,” he said. “Speer is southeast of here. It’ll be a long swim.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “We’ll swim together. You’ll guide me.”

His hand closed around her fingers. He held them tight for a moment and then let go.

“No,” he said. “I’ll finish my duty.”

Panic twisted her insides.

“Altan, no.”

She couldn’t stop the onslaught of hot tears, but Altan wasn’t looking at her. He was gazing out at the assembled army.

“Tearza didn’t save our people,” he said. “I couldn’t save our people. But this comes close.”

“Altan, please . . .”

“It will be harder for you,” Altan said. “You’ll have to live with the consequences. But you’re brave . . . you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

“Don’t leave me,” she begged.

He leaned forward and grasped her face in both hands.

She thought for a bizarre moment that he was going to kiss her.

He didn’t. He pressed his forehead against hers for a long time.

She closed her eyes. She drank in the sensation of her skin against his. She seared it into her memory.

“You’re so much stronger than I am,” said Altan. Then he let her go.

She shook her head frantically. “No, I’m not, it’s you, I need you—”

“Someone’s got to destroy that research facility, Rin.”

He stepped away from her. Arms stretched forward, he walked toward the fleet.

“No,” Rin begged. “No!”

Altan took off at a run.

A hail of arrows erupted from the Federation force.

At the same moment Altan lit up like a torch.

He called the Phoenix and the Phoenix came; enveloping him, embracing him, loving him, bringing him back into the fold.

Altan was a silhouette in the light, a shadow of a man. She thought she saw him look back toward her. She thought she saw him smile.

She thought she heard a bird’s cackle.

Rin saw in the flames the image of Mai’rinnen Tearza. She was weeping.

The fire doesn’t give, the fire takes, and takes, and takes.

Rin screamed a wordless scream. Her voice was lost in the fire.

A great column of flame erupted from the site of Altan’s immolation.

A wave of heat rolled out in every direction, bowling over the Federation soldiers like they were straw. It hit Rin like a punch to the gut, and she pitched backward into the inky black water.

Chapter 25

She swam for hours. Days. An eternity. She remembered only the beginning, the initial shock as her body slammed into the water, how she thought she had died because she could not make her body obey, and because her skin prickled where it hit the water as if she had been flayed alive. If she craned her head she could see the research base burning. It was a beautiful burn, crimson and gold licking up in tendrils to the softly dark sky.

At first Rin swam the way she had been trained to at the Academy—a stroke with a minimized profile so her arms would not exit the water. The Federation archers would shoot her dead in the water if they saw her, if there were any left alive . . . Then the fatigue set in, and she simply moved her limbs to keep afloat, to keep drifting, without any consideration for technique. Her strokes became mechanical, automated, and formless.

Even the water had warmed from the heat of Altan’s conflagration. It felt like a bath, like a soft bed. She drifted, and thought it might be nice to drown. The ocean floor would be quiet. Nothing would hurt. There would be no Phoenix, no war, nothing at all, only silence . . . In those warm, dark depths she would feel