The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,203

couldn’t stand Chaghan with his attitude that he knew better, that he’d foreseen this tragedy, because he hadn’t. She and Altan had gone to the mountain blind, and he had let them.

“I told you,” Chaghan said. “The Hexagrams can’t foresee the future. They’re portraits of the world as it is, descriptions of the forces at hand. The gods of the Pantheon represent sixty-four fundamental forces, and the Hexagrams reflect their undulations.

“And none of those undulations screamed, Don’t go to this mountain, you’ll be killed?”

“I did warn him,” Chaghan said quietly.

“You could have tried harder,” Rin said bitterly, even though she knew that, too, was an unfair accusation, and that she was saying it only to hurt Chaghan. “You could have told him he was about to die.”

“All of Altan’s Hexagrams spoke of death,” said Chaghan. “I didn’t expect that this time it would mark his own.”

She laughed out loud. “Aren’t you supposed to be a Seer? Do you ever see anything useful?”

“I saw Golyn Niis, didn’t I?” Chaghan snapped.

But the moment those words left his mouth he made a choking noise, and his features twisted with grief.

Rin didn’t say what they were both thinking—that maybe if they hadn’t gone to Golyn Niis, Altan wouldn’t have died.

She wished they had just fought the war out at Khurdalain. She wished they had abandoned the Empire completely and escaped back to the Night Castle, let the Federation ravage the countryside while they waited out the turmoil in the mountains, safe and insulated and alive.

Chaghan looked so miserable that Rin’s anger dissipated. Chaghan had, after all, tried to stop Altan. He’d failed. Neither of them could have talked Altan out of his frenzied death drive.

There was no way Chaghan could have predicted Altan’s future because the future was not written. Altan made his choices; at Khurdalain, at Golyn Niis, and finally on that pier, and neither of them could have stopped him.

“I should have known,” Chaghan said finally. “We have an enemy whom we love.”

“What?”

“I read it in Altan’s Hexagram. Months ago.”

“It meant the Empress,” she said.

“Perhaps,” he said, and turned his gaze out to the sea.

They watched Qara’s falcons in silence. The birds flew in great circles overhead, as if they were guides, as if they could lead a spirit toward the heavens.

Rin thought of the parade from so long ago, of the puppets of the animals of the Emperor’s Menagerie. Of the majestic kirin, that noble lion-headed beast, which appeared in the skies upon the death of a great leader.

Would a kirin appear for Altan?

Did he deserve one?

She found that she could not answer.

“The Empress should be the least of your concerns,” said Chaghan after a while. “Feylen’s getting stronger. And he always was powerful. Almost more so than Altan.”

Rin thought of that storm cloud she’d seen over the mountains. Those malicious blue eyes. “What does he want?”

“Who knows? The God of the Four Winds is one of the most mercurial entities of the Pantheon. His moods are entirely unpredictable. He will become a gentle breeze one day, and rip apart entire villages the next. He will sink ships and topple cities. He might be the end of this country.”

Chaghan spoke lightly, casually, as if he couldn’t care less if Nikan was destroyed the very next day. Rin had expected blame and accusation, but she heard none; only detachment, as if the Hinterlander held no stake in Nikan’s affairs now that Altan was gone. Maybe he didn’t.

“We’ll stop him,” Rin said.

Chaghan gave an indifferent shrug. “Good luck. It’ll take all of you.”

“Then will you command us?”

Chaghan shook his head “It couldn’t be me. Even back when I was Tyr’s lieutenant, I knew it could never be me. I was Altan’s Seer, but I was never slated to be a commander.”

“Why not?”

“A foreigner in charge of the Empire’s most lethal division? Not likely.” Chaghan folded his arms across his chest. “No, Altan named his successor before we left for Golyn Niis.”

Rin jerked her head up. That was news. “Who?”

Chaghan looked like he couldn’t believe she had asked.

“It’s you,” he said, as if it were obvious.

Rin felt like he had punched her in the solar plexus.

Altan had named her as his successor. Entrusted his legacy to her. He had written and signed the order in blood before they had even left Khurdalain.

“I am the commander of the Cike,” she said, and then had to repeat the words to herself before their meaning sank in. She held a status equivalent to the generals of the Warlords. She had the power to order the Cike to do as she wished. “I command the Cike.”

Chaghan looked sideways at her. His expression was grim. “You are going to paint the world in Altan’s blood, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to find and kill everyone responsible,” said Rin. “You cannot stop me.”

Chaghan laughed a dry, cutting laugh. “Oh, I’m not going to stop you.”

He held out his hand.

She grasped it, and the drowned land and the ash-choked sky bore witness to the pact between Seer and Speerly.

They had come to an understanding, she and Chaghan. They were no longer opposed, vying for Altan’s favor. They were allies, now, bound by the mutual atrocities they had committed.

They had a god to kill. A world to reshape. An Empress to overthrow.

They were bound by the blood they had spilled. They were bound by their suffering. They were bound by what had happened to them.

No.

This had not happened to her.

We do not force you to do anything, the Phoenix had whispered, and it had spoken the truth. The Phoenix, for all its power, could not compel Tearza to obey it. And it could not have compelled Rin, because she had agreed wholeheartedly to the bargain.

Jiang was wrong. She was not dabbling in forces she could not control, for the gods were not dangerous. The gods had no power at all, except what she gave them. The gods could affect the universe only through humans like her. Her destiny had not been written in the stars, or in the registers of the Pantheon. She had made her choices fully and autonomously. And though she called upon the gods to aid her in battle, they were her tools from beginning to end.

She was no victim of destiny. She was the last Speerly, commander of the Cike, and a shaman who called the gods to do her bidding.

And she would call the gods to do such terrible things.