The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,116

other than an icy professional curiosity. Rin almost wished that Petra would strike her, just so she knew she was human, but frustration seemed to slide off of her like rainwater from a tin roof.

However, as time passed with no results, she did start subjecting Rin to baser and baser experiments. She made Rin solve puzzles meant for children while she kept time with her little watch. She made Rin perform simple tasks of memorization that seemed designed to make her fail, watching without blinking as Rin became so frustrated that she started throwing things at the wall.

Eventually Petra asked her to stand for examinations naked.

“If you wanted to ogle me you could have asked earlier,” Rin said.

Petra didn’t react. “Quickly, please.”

Rin yanked her uniform off and tossed it in a bundle on the floor.

“Good.” Petra passed her an empty cup. “Now urinate in this for me.”

Rin stared at her in disbelief. “Right now?”

“I’m doing fluids analysis tonight,” Petra said. “Go on.”

Rin set her jaw. “I’m not doing that.”

“Would you like a sheet for privacy?”

“I don’t care,” Rin said. “This isn’t about science. You don’t have a clue what you’re doing, you’re just being spiteful.”

Petra sat down and crossed one leg over the other. “Urinate, please.”

“Fuck that.” Rin tossed the cup onto the floor. “Admit it. You’ve no idea what you’re doing. All your treatises and all your instruments, and you don’t have a single clue about how shamanism works or how to measure Chaos, if that really even exists. You’re shooting in the dark.”

Petra stood up from her chair. Her nostrils flared white.

Rin had finally struck a nerve. She hoped that Petra might hit her then, if only to break that inhuman mask of control. But Petra only cocked her head to the side.

“Remember your situation.” Her voice retained its icy calm. “I am asking you to cooperate only out of etiquette. Refuse, and I will have you strapped to that bed. Now. Will you behave?”

Rin wanted to kill her.

If she hadn’t been so exhausted, if she had been an ounce more impulsive, then she would have. It would have been so easy to knock Petra to the floor and jam every sharp instrument on the table into her neck, her chest, her eyes. It would have felt so good.

But Rin couldn’t act on impulse anymore.

She felt the sheer, overwhelming weight of Hesperia’s military might restricting her options like an invisible cage. They held her life hostage. They held her friends and her entire nation hostage.

Against all of that, Sealed off from the fire and the Phoenix, she was helpless.

So she held her tongue and forced down her fury as Petra’s requests became more and more humiliating. She complied when Petra made her lean naked against the wall while she drew intricate diagrams of her genitals. She sat still when Petra inserted a long, thick needle into her right arm and drew so much blood that she fainted when she stood up to return to her quarters and couldn’t stand back up for half a day. And she bit her tongue and didn’t react when Petra waved a packet of opium under her nose, trying to entice her to draw the fire out by offering her favorite vice.

“Go on,” Petra said. “I’ve read about your kind. You can’t resist the smoke. You crave it in your bones. Isn’t that how the Red Emperor subdued your ancestors? Call the fire for me, and I’ll let you have a little.”

That last meeting left Rin so furious that the moment she left Petra’s quarters, she shrieked in fury and punched the wall so hard that her knuckle split open. For a moment she stood still, stunned, while blood ran down the back of her hand and dripped off her wrist. Then she sank to her knees and started to cry.

“Are you all right?”

It was Augus, the baby-faced, blue-eyed missionary. Rin gave him a wary look. “Go away.”

He reached for her bleeding hand. “You’re upset.”

She jerked it out of his grasp. “I don’t want your pity.”

He sat down next to her, fished a linen out of his pocket, and passed it to her. “Here. Why don’t you wrap that up?”

Rin’s knuckle was bleeding faster than she had realized. After getting her blood drawn the week before, the very sight of it made her want to faint. Reluctantly she took the cloth.

Augus watched as she looped it tightly around her hand. She realized she couldn’t tie off the knot by herself.

“I can do that,”