The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,176

been poisoned with something, and we got sick. They didn’t warn us about that.”

Rin found that impossible to believe. “They haven’t opened any kitchens for you?”

“They have, but those kitchens feed perhaps a hundred mouths before they close.” Kesegi shrugged his bony shoulders. “Look around. Someone starves to death every day in this camp. Can’t you see?”

“But I thought—surely, Vaisra would—”

“Vaisra?” Auntie Fang snorted. “You’re on a first-name basis, are you?”

“No—I mean, yes, but—”

“Then you can talk to him!” Auntie Fang’s beady eyes glittered. “Tell him we’re starving. If he can’t feed all of us, just have them deliver food to me and Kesegi. We won’t tell anyone.”

“But that’s not how it works,” Rin stammered. “I mean—I can’t just—”

“Do it, you ungrateful cunt,” Auntie Fang snarled. “You owe us.”

“I owe you?” Rin repeated in disbelief.

“I took you into our home. I raised you for sixteen years.”

“You would have sold me into marriage!”

“And then you would have had a better life than any of us.” Auntie Fang pointed a skinny, accusing finger at Rin’s chest. “You would never have lacked for anything. All you had to do was spread your legs every once in a while, and you would have had anything you wanted to eat, anything you wanted to wear. But that wasn’t enough for you—you wanted to be special, to be important, to run off to Sinegard and join the Militia on its merry adventures.”

“You think this war has been fun for me?” Rin shouted. “I watched my friends die! I almost died!”

“We’ve all nearly died,” Auntie Fang scoffed. “Please. You’re not special.”

“You can’t talk to me like that,” Rin said.

“Oh, I know.” Auntie Fang swept into a low bow. “You’re so important. So respected. Do you want us to grovel at your feet, is that it? Heard your old bitch of an aunt was in the camps, so you couldn’t pass up the chance to rub it in her face?”

“Mother, stop,” Kesegi said quietly.

“That’s not why I came,” Rin said.

Auntie Fang’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “Then why did you come?”

Rin didn’t have an answer for her.

She didn’t know what she’d expected to find. Not home, not belonging, not Tutor Feyrik—and not this.

This was a mistake. She shouldn’t have come at all. She’d cut her ties to Tikany a long time ago. She should have kept it that way.

She backed away quickly, shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” she tried to say, but the words stuck in her throat.

She couldn’t look either of them in the eyes. She didn’t want to be here anymore, she didn’t want to feel like this anymore. She backed out onto the main path and broke into a quick walk. She wanted to run away, but couldn’t out of pride.

“Rin!” Kesegi shouted. He dashed out after her. “Wait.”

She halted in her tracks. Please say something to make me stay. Please.

“Yes?”

“If you can’t get us food, can you ask them for some blankets?” he asked. “Just one? It gets so cold at night.”

She forced herself to smile. “Of course.”

Over the next week a torrent of people poured into Arlong on foot, in rickety carts, or on rafts hastily constructed of anything that could float. The river became a slow-moving eddy of bodies packed against each other so tightly that the famous blue waters of the Dragon Province disappeared under the weight of human desperation.

Republican soldiers checked the new arrivals for weapons and valuables before corralling them in neat lines to whichever quarters of the refugee district still had space.

The refugees met with very little kindness. Republican soldiers, Dragons especially, were terribly condescending, shouting at the southerners when they couldn’t understand the rapid Arlong dialect.

Rin spent hours each day walking the docks with Venka. She was glad to have escaped processing duty, which involved standing guard over miserable lines while clerks marked the refugees’ arrivals and issued them temporary residence papers. That was probably more important than what she and Venka were doing, which was fishing out the refuse from the segments of the Murui near the refugee chokepoints, but Rin couldn’t bear to be around the large crowds of brown skin and accusing eyes.

“We’re going to have to cut them off at some point,” Venka remarked as she lifted an empty jug from the water. “They can’t possibly all fit here.”

“Only because the refugee district is tiny,” Rin said. “If they opened up the city barriers, or if they funneled them into the mountainside, there would be plenty of space.”

“Plenty of space, maybe. But we