The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,110

on the beach that night in an unusually good mood.

Jinzha and his council met by the shore to decide what to do with their prisoners. In addition to the captured Federation soldiers there were also the men of the Eighth Division—a larger Militia force than any conquered town they had dealt with so far. They were too big of a threat to let loose. Short of a mass execution, their options were to take an unwieldy number of prisoners—far too many to feed—or to let them go.

“Execute them,” Rin said immediately.

“More than a thousand men?” Jinzha shook his head. “We’re not monsters.”

“But they deserve it,” she said. “The Mugenese, at least. You know if the tables were turned, if the Federation had taken our men prisoners, they’d be dead already.”

She was so sure that it was a moot debate. But nobody nodded in agreement. She glanced around the circle, confused. Was the conclusion not clear? Why did they all look so uncomfortable?

“They’d be good at the wheels,” Admiral Molkoi said. “It’d give our men a break.”

“You’re joking,” Rin said. “You’d have to feed them, for starters—”

“So we’ll give them a subsistence diet,” said Molkoi.

“Our troops need that food!”

“Our troops have survived on less,” Molkoi said. “And it is best they don’t get used to the excess.”

Rin gawked at him. “You’ll put our troops on stricter rations so men who have committed treason can live?”

He shrugged. “They’re Nikara men. We won’t execute our own kind.”

“They stopped being Nikara the moment they let the Federation stroll into their homes,” she snapped. “They should be rounded up. And beheaded.”

None of the others would meet her eye.

“Nezha?” she asked.

He wouldn’t look at her. All he did was shake his head.

She flushed with anger. “These soldiers were collaborating with the Federation. Feeding them. Housing them. That’s treason. That should be punishable by death. Forget the soldiers—you should have the whole city punished!”

“Perhaps under Daji’s reign,” said Jinzha. “Not under the Republic. We can’t garner a reputation for brutality—”

“Because they helped them!” She was shouting now, and they were all staring at her, but she didn’t care. “The Federation! You don’t know what they did—just because you spent the war hiding in Arlong, you didn’t see what—”

Jinzha turned to Nezha. “Brother, put a muzzle on your Speerly, or—”

“I am not a dog!” Rin shrieked.

Sheer rage took over. She launched herself at Jinzha—and didn’t manage two steps before Admiral Molkoi tackled her to the ground so hard that for a moment the night stars blinked out of the sky, and it was all she could do to simply breathe.

“That’s enough,” Nezha said quietly. “She’s calmed down. Let her go.”

The pressure on her chest disappeared. Rin curled into a ball, choking miserably.

“Someone take her outside of camp,” Jinzha said. “Bind her, gag her, I don’t care. We’ll deal with this in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” said Molkoi.

“She hasn’t eaten,” Nezha said.

“Then have someone bring her food or water if she asks,” Jinzha said. “Just get her out of my sight.”

Rin screamed.

No one could hear her—they’d banished her to a stretch of forest outside the camp perimeter—so she screamed louder, again and again, bashing her fists against a tree until blood ran down her knuckles while rage built up hotter and hotter in her chest. And for a moment she thought—hoped—that the crimson fury sparking in her vision might explode into flames, real flames, finally—

But nothing. No sparks lit her fingers; no divine laughter rippled through her thoughts. She could feel the Seal at the back of her mind, a pulsing, sickly thing, blurring and softening her anger every time it reached a peak. And that only doubled her rage, made her shriek louder in frustration, but it was a pointless tantrum because the fire remained out of her grasp; dancing, taunting her behind the barrier in her head.

Please, she thought. I need you, I need the fire, I need to burn . . .

The Phoenix remained silent.

She sank to her knees.

She could hear Altan laughing. That wasn’t the Seal, that was her own imagination, but she heard it as clearly as if he were standing right beside her.

“Look at you,” he said.

“Pathetic,” he said.

“It’s not coming back,” he said. “You’re lost, you’re done, you’re not a Speerly, you’re just a stupid little girl throwing a temper tantrum in the forest.”

Finally her voice and strength gave out and the anger ebbed pathetically, ineffectually, away. Then she was alone with the indifferent silence of the trees, with no company except for