The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,149

about myself, but I already know. You can’t say anything to hurt me more.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” Suddenly his trident was in his hand, spinning as he advanced. “How’s this, then? You wanted me dead.”

She flinched. “No. I never.”

“You hated me. You were afraid of me, you couldn’t wait to be rid of me. Admit it, when I died you laughed.”

“No, I wept,” she said. “I wept for days, until I couldn’t breathe anymore, and then I tried to stop breathing, but every time, Enki brought me back to life, and then I hated myself because you said that I had to keep living, and I hated living because you’re the one who said I had to—”

“Why would you mourn me?” he asked quietly. “You barely even knew me.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I loved an idea of you. I was infatuated with you. I wanted to be you. But I didn’t know you then, and I’ll never really know what you were. I’m finished wondering now, Altan. I’m ready to kill you.”

The trident materialized in her hands.

She had a weapon now. She wasn’t defenseless against him. She’d never been defenseless. She had just never thought to look.

Altan’s eyes flickered to the prongs. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“You are not real,” she said calmly. “He’s dead, and I can’t hurt him anymore.”

“Look at me,” he said. “Look at my eyes. Tell me I’m not real.”

She lunged. He parried. She disentangled their prongs and advanced again.

He raised his voice. “Look at me.”

“I am,” she said softly. “I see everything.”

He faltered.

She stabbed him through the chest.

His eyes bulged open, but otherwise he didn’t move. A slow trickle of blood spilled out the side of his mouth. A red circle blossomed on his chest.

It wasn’t a fatal blow. She’d stabbed him just under the sternum. She had missed his heart. Eventually he might bleed to death, but she didn’t want him gone just yet. She needed him alive and conscious.

She still needed absolution.

Altan peered down at the prongs emerging from his chest. “Would you like to kill me?”

She withdrew her trident. Blood spilled out faster onto his uniform. “I’ve done it before.”

“But could you do it now?” he inquired. “Could you end me? If you kill me here, Rin, I’ll go.”

“I don’t want that.”

“Then you still need me.”

“Not the way I did.”

She’d realized, finally realized, that chasing the legacy of Altan Trengsin would give her no truth. She couldn’t replicate him in her mind, no matter how many times she tortured herself going over the memories. She could only inherit his pain.

And what was there to replicate? Who was Altan, really?

A scared boy from Speer who just wanted to go home, a broken boy who had learned that there was no home to return to, and a soldier who stayed alive just to spite everyone who thought he should be dead. A commander with no purpose, nothing to fight for, and nothing to care about except burning down the world.

Altan was no hero. That was so clear to her now, so stunningly clear that she felt as if she’d been doused in ice water, submerged and reborn.

She didn’t owe him her guilt.

She didn’t owe him anything.

“I still love you,” she said, because she had to be honest.

“I know. You’re a fool for it,” he said. He stepped forward, reached for her hand, and entwined his fingers in hers. “Kiss me. I know you’ve wanted to.”

She touched his blood-soaked fingers against her cheek. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and thought about what might have been.

“I loved you, too,” he said. “Do you believe that?”

“No, I don’t,” she said, and pressed her trident into his chest once more.

It slid smoothly in with no resistance. Rin didn’t know if that was because the vision of Altan was already fading, immaterial, or if Altan within this dream space was deliberately aiding her, sinking the three prongs neatly into that space in his rib cage that stood just over his heart.

When Rin breathed again it was a new and frightening sensation, at once mechanical and also terribly confusing. Was this her body, this mortal and clumsy vessel? One finger at a time she learned the inner workings of her body again. Learned the way air moved through her lungs. Learned to hear the sound of her heart pumping inside her.

She saw light all around her and above her, a perfect circle of blue. It took her a moment to realize that it was the roof of the yurt,