The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,136

she hit the water.

Kitay landed beside her. His eyes were closed. He sank instantly. She wrapped her arms around his chest, kicking furiously to keep them both afloat, and struggled to swim toward the Kingfisher, but the water kept sweeping them backward.

Her gut clenched.

The current.

Lake Boyang emptied into a waterfall on its southern border. It was a short, narrow drop—small enough that its current had little effect on heavy warships. It was harmless to sailors. Deadly to swimmers.

The Kingfisher rapidly receded from Rin’s sight as the current dragged them faster and faster to the edge. She saw a rope drifting beside them and grabbed wildly for it, desperate for anything to hang on to.

Miraculously it was still tethered to the fleet. The line went taut; they stopped drifting. She forced her freezing fingers around the cord against the rushing waters, struggled to wrap it in loops around Kitay’s torso, her wrists.

Her limbs had gone numb with the cold. She couldn’t move her fingers; they were locked tight around the rope.

“Help us!” she screamed. “Someone help!”

Someone stood up from the Kingfisher’s prow.

Jinzha. Their eyes met across the water. His face was wild, frantic—she wanted to think he had seen her, but maybe his attention was fixed only on his own disappearing chance of survival.

Then he disappeared. She couldn’t tell if Jinzha had cut the rope or if he’d simply gone down under another burst of Feylen’s attack, but she felt a jerk in the line just before it went slack.

They spun away from the fleet, hurtling toward the waterfall. There was one second of weightlessness, a confusing and delicious moment of utter disorientation, and then the water claimed them.

Chapter 21

Rin ran across a dark field, chasing after a fiery silhouette that she was never going to catch. Her legs moved as if treading water—she was too slow, too clumsy, and the farther back she fell from the silhouette, the more her despair weighed her down, until her legs were so heavy that she couldn’t run any longer.

“Please,” she cried. “Wait.”

The silhouette stopped.

When Altan turned around, she saw he was already burning, his handsome features charred and twisted, blackened skin peeled away to reveal pristine, gleaming bone.

And then he was looming above her. Somehow he was still magnificent, still beautiful, even when arrested in the moment of his death. He knelt in front of her, took her face in his scorching hands, and brought their foreheads close together.

“They’re right, you know,” he said.

“About what?” She saw oceans of fire in his eyes. His grip was hurting her; it always had. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to let her go or to kiss her.

His fingers dug into her cheeks. “It should have been you.”

His face morphed into Qara’s.

Rin screamed and jerked away.

“Tiger’s tits. I’m not that ugly.” Qara wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Welcome to the world of the living.”

Rin sat up and spat out a mouthful of lake water. She was shivering uncontrollably; it took her a while before she could push words out from between numb, clumsy lips. “Where are we?”

“Right by the riverbank,” Qara said. “Maybe a mile out of Boyang.”

“What about the rest?” Rin fought a swell of panic. “Ramsa? Suni? Nezha?”

Qara didn’t answer, which meant she didn’t know, which meant that the Cike had either gotten away or drowned.

Rin took several deep breaths to keep from hyperventilating. You don’t know they’re dead, she told herself. And Nezha, if anyone, had to be alive. The water protected him like he was its child. The waves would have shielded him, whether he consciously called them or not.

And if the others are dead, there’s nothing you can do.

She forced her mind to compartmentalize, to lock up her concern and shove it away. She could grieve later. First she needed to survive.

“Kitay’s all right,” Chaghan told her. He looked like a living corpse; his lips were the same dark shade as his fingers, which were blue up to the middle joint. “Just went out to get some firewood.”

Rin pulled her knees up to her chest, still shaking. “Feylen. That was Feylen.”

The twins nodded.

“But why—what was he—” She couldn’t understand why they looked so calm. “What’s he doing with them? What does he want?”

“Well, Feylen the man probably wants to die,” Chaghan said.

“Then what does—”

“The Wind God? Who knows?” He rubbed his hands up and down his arms. “The gods are agents of pure chaos. Behind the veil they’re balanced, each one against the other sixty-three, but