The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,135

and fizzled out.

“Is Ramsa still at it?” he asked. “How adorable. Is he well? We never liked him, we’ll rip out his fingernails one by one after this.”

He tossed Rin up and down by her ankle as he spoke. She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out.

“Did you really think you were going to fight us?” He sounded amused. “We can’t be killed, child.”

“Altan stopped you once,” she snarled.

“He did,” Feylen acknowledged, “but you’re a far cry from Altan Trengsin.”

He stopped tossing her and held her still in the air, buffeted on all sides by winds so strong she could barely keep her eyes open. He hung before her, arms outstretched, tattered clothes rippling in the wind, daring her to attack and knowing that she couldn’t.

“Isn’t it fun to fly?” he asked. The winds whipped harder and harder around her until it felt like a thousand steel blades jamming into every tender point of her body.

“Just kill me,” she gasped. “Get it over with.”

“Oh, we’re not going to kill you,” said Feylen. “She told us not to do that. We’re just supposed to hurt you.”

He waved a hand. The winds yanked her away.

She flew up, weightless and utterly out of control, and crumpled against the masthead. She hung there, splayed out like a dissected corpse, for just the briefest moment before the drop. She landed in a crumpled heap on the Kingfisher’s deck. She couldn’t draw enough breath to scream. Every part of her body was on fire. She tried making her limbs move but they wouldn’t obey her.

Her senses came back in blurs. She saw a shape above her, heard a garbled voice shouting her name.

“Kitay?” she whispered.

His arms shifted under her midriff. He was trying to lift her up, but the pain of the slightest movement was enormous. She whimpered, shaking.

“You’re okay,” Kitay said. “I’ve got you.”

She clutched at his arm, unable to speak. They huddled against each other, watching the planks continue to peel off the Kingfisher. Feylen was stripping the fleet apart, bit by bit.

Rin could do nothing but convulse with fear. She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to see. The panic had taken over, and the same thoughts echoed over and over in her mind. We’re going to drown. He’s going to rip the ships apart and we will fall into the water and we will drown.

Kitay shook her shoulder. “Rin. Look.”

She opened her eyes and saw a shock of white hair. Chaghan had climbed out on the broken planks, was teetering wildly on the edge. He looked like a little child dancing on a roof. Somehow, despite the howling winds, he did not fall.

He lifted his arms above his head.

Instantly the air felt colder. Thicker, somehow. Just as abruptly, the wind stopped.

Feylen hung still in the air, as if some invisible force was holding him in place.

Rin couldn’t tell what Chaghan was doing, but she could feel the power in the air. It seemed as if Chaghan had established some invisible connection to Feylen, some thread that only the two of them could perceive, some psychospiritual plane upon which to wage a battle of wills.

For a moment it seemed as if Chaghan was winning.

Feylen’s head jerked back and forth; his legs twitched, as if he were seizing.

Rin’s grip tightened on Kitay’s arm. A bubble of hope rose in her chest.

Please. Please let Chaghan win.

Then she saw Qara hunched over on the deck, rocking back and forth, muttering something over and over under her breath.

“No,” Qara whispered. “No, no, no!”

Chaghan’s head jerked to the side. His limbs moved spastically, flailing without purpose or direction, as if someone who had very little knowledge of the human body was controlling him from somewhere far away.

Qara started to scream.

Chaghan went limp. Then he flew backward, like a little white flag of surrender, so frail that Rin was afraid the winds themselves might rip him apart.

“You think you can contain us, little shaman?” The winds resumed, twice as ferocious. Another gust swept both Chaghan and Qara off the ship into the churning waves below.

Rin saw Nezha watching, horrified, from the Griffon, just close enough to be in earshot.

“Do something!” she screamed. “You coward! Do something!”

Nezha stood still, his mouth open, eyes wide as if he were trapped. His expression went slack. He did nothing.

A gust of wind tore the Kingfisher’s deck in half, ripping the very floorboards from beneath Rin’s feet. She fell through the fragments of wood, bumped and dragged along the rough surface, until