The Poppy War

by R. F. Kuang

  “I can give you worship,” she promised. “I can give you an unending flow of blood.”

  The Phoenix inclined its head. Its want was tangible, as great as her hatred. The Phoenix could not help what it craved; it was an agent of destruction, and it needed an avatar. Rin could give it one.

  Don’t, cried the ghost of Mai’rinnen Tearza.

  “Do it,” Rin whispered.

  “Your will is mine,” said the Phoenix.

  For one moment, glorious air rushed into the chamber, sweet air, filling her lungs.

  Then she burned. The pain was immediate and intense. There was no time for her to even gasp. It was as if a roaring wall of flame had attacked every part of her at once, forcing her onto her knees and then onto the floor when her knees buckled.

  She writhed and contorted at the base of the carving, clawing at the floor, trying to find some grounding against the pain. It was relentless, however, consuming her in waves of greater and greater intensity. She would have screamed, but she couldn’t force air into her seizing throat.

  It seemed to last for an eternity. Rin cried and whimpered, silently begging the impassive figure looming over her . . . anything, death even, would be better than this; she just wanted it to stop.

  But death wasn’t coming; she wasn’t dying, she wasn’t hurt, even; she could see no change in her body even though it felt as if she were being consumed by fire . . . no, she was whole, but something was burning inside. Something was disappearing.

  Then Rin felt herself jerked back by a force infinitely greater than she was; her head flung back, arms stretched out to the sides. She had become a conduit. An open door without a gatekeeper. The power came not from her but from the terrible source on the other side; she was merely the portal that let it into this world. She erupted in a column of flame. The fire filled the temple, gushed out the doors and into the night where many miles away Federation children lay sleeping in their beds.

  The whole world was on fire.

  She had not just altered the fabric of the universe, had not simply rewritten the script. She had torn it, ripped a great gaping hole in the cloth of reality, and set fire to it with the ravenous rage of an uncontrollable god.

  Once, the fabric had contained the stories of millions of lives—the lives of every man, woman, and child on the longbow island—civilians who had gone to bed easy, knowing that what their soldiers did across the narrow sea was a far-off dream, fulfilling the promise of their Emperor of some great destiny that they had been conditioned to believe in since birth.

  In an instant, the script had written their stories to the end.

  At one point in time those people existed.

  And then they didn’t.

  Because nothing was written. The Phoenix had told Rin that, and the Phoenix had shown Rin that.

  And now the unrealized futures of millions were scorched out of existence, like a sky full of stars suddenly darkened.

  She could not abide the terrible guilt of it, so she closed her mind off to the reality. She burned away the part of her that would have felt remorse for those deaths, because if she felt them, if she felt each and every single one of them, it would have torn her apart. The lives were so many that she ceased to acknowledge them for what they were.

  Those weren’t lives.

  She thought of the pathetic little noise a candle wick made when she licked her fingers and pinched it. She thought of incense sticks fizzling out when they had burned to the end. She thought of the flies that she had crushed under her finger.

  Those weren’t lives.

  The death of one soldier was a tragedy, because she could imagine the pain he felt at the very end: the hopes he had, the finest details like the way he put on his uniform, whether he had a family, whether he had kids whom he told he would see right after he came back from the war. His life was an entire world constructed around him, and the passing of that was a tragedy.

  But she could not possibly multiply that by thousands. That kind of thinking did not compute. The scale was unimaginable. So she didn’t bother to try.

  The part of her that was capable of considering that no longer worked.

  Those weren’t lives.

  They were numbers.

  They were a necessary subtraction.

  Hours later, it seemed, the pain slowly subsided. Rin drew breath in great, hoarse gasps. Air had never tasted so sweet. She uncurled herself from the fetal position she’d withdrawn into and slowly pulled herself up, clutching at the carving for support.

  She tried to stand. Her legs trembled. Flames erupted wherever her hands touched stone. She lit sparks every time she moved. Whatever gift the Phoenix had given her, she couldn’t control it, couldn’t contain it or use it in discrete bits. It was a flood of divine fire pouring straight from the heavens, and she barely functioned as the channel. She could hardly keep from dissolving into the flames herself.

  The fire was everywhere: in her eyes, streaming from her nostrils and mouth. A burning sensation consumed her throat and she opened her mouth to scream. The fire burst out of her mouth, on and on, a blazing ball in the air before her.

  Somehow she dragged herself out of the temple. Then she collapsed into the sand.

  Chapter 26

  When Rin woke inside yet another unfamiliar room, she was seized with a panic so great that she could not breathe. Not this again. No. She had been caught again, she was back in Mugen’s clutches, and they were going to cut her to pieces and splay her out like a rabbit . . .

  But when she flung her arms outward, no restraints kept them down. And when she tried to sit up, nothing stopped her. She was bound by no chains. The weight she felt on her chest was a thin blanket, not a strap.

  She was lying on a bed. Not tied down to an operating table. Not shackled to a floor.

  It was only a bed.

  She curled in on herself, clutched her knees to her chest, and rocked back and forth until her breathing slowed and she had calmed enough to take stock of her surroundings.

  The room was small, dark, and windowless. Wooden floors. Wooden ceiling, wooden walls. The floor moved beneath her, tilting back and forth gently, the way a mother rocked an infant. She thought at first that she had been drugged again, for what else could explain the way the room shifted rhythmically even when she lay still?

  It took her a while to realize that she might be out at sea.

  She flexed her limbs gingerly, and a fresh wave of pain rolled over her. She tried it again, and it hurt less this time. Amazingly, none of her limbs were broken. She was all of herself. She was whole, intact.

  She rolled to her side and gingerly placed her bare feet on the cool floor. She took a deep breath and tried to stand, but her legs gave out under her and she immediately collapsed against the small bed. She had never been out on open sea before. She was suddenly nauseated, and although her stomach was empty, she dry-heaved over the side of the bed for several minutes before she finally got a grip on herself.

  Her stained, tattered shift was gone. Someone had dressed her in a clean set of black robes. She thought the cloth felt oddly familiar, until she examined the fabric and realized she had worn robes like this before. They were Cike robes.

  For the first time, the possibility struck her that she was not on enemy ground.

  Hoping against hope, not daring to wish, Rin slid off the bed and found the strength to stand. She approached the door. Her arm trembled as she tried the handle.

  It swung free.

  She walked up the first staircase she saw and climbed onto a wooden deck, and when she saw the open sky above her, purple in the evening light, she could have cried.

  “She awakens!”

  She turned her head, dazed. She knew that voice.

  Ramsa waved to her from the other end of the deck. He held a mop in one hand, a bucket in the other. He smiled widely at her, dropped the mop, and started at a run toward her.

  The sight of him was so unexpected that for a long moment Rin stood
still, staring at him in confusion. Then she walked tentatively toward him, hand outstretched. It had been so long since she had seen any of the Cike that she was half-convinced that Ramsa was an illusion, some terrible trick conjured by Shiro to torture her.

  She would have welcomed the mirage anyway, if she could at least hold on to something.

  But he was real—no sooner had he reached her than Ramsa knocked her hand aside and wrapped his skinny arms around her in a tight embrace. And as she pressed her face into his thin shoulder, every part of him felt and looked so real: his bony frame, the warmth of his skin, the scarring around his eyepatch. He was solid. He was there.

  She was not dreaming.

  Ramsa broke away and stared at her eyes, frowning. “Shit,” he said. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Your eyes,” he said.

  “What about them?”

  “They look like Altan’s.”

  At the sound of that name she began to cry in earnest.

  “Hey. Hey, now,” Ramsa said, patting her awkwardly on the head. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”

  “How did you . . . where?” She choked out incoherent questions in between her sobs.

  “Well, we’re several miles out from the southern coast,” said Ramsa. “Aratsha has been navigating for us. We think it’s best if we stay off the shore for a while. Things are getting messy on the mainland.”

  “‘We’ . . . ?” Rin repeated with bated breath. Could it be?

  Ramsa nodded, grinning broadly. “We’re all here. Everyone else is belowdecks. Well—except the twins, but they’ll join us in a few days.”

  “How?” Rin demanded. The Cike hadn’t known what happened at the Chuluu Korikh. They couldn’t have known what happened in the research facility. How could they have known to come to Speer?

  “We waited at the rendezvous point like Altan commanded,” Ramsa explained. “When you didn’t show, we knew something had happened. Unegen tracked the Federation soldiers all the way to that . . . that place. We staked the whole thing out, sent Unegen in to try to figure out a way to grab you, but then . . .” Ramsa trailed off. “Well. You know.”

  “That was Altan,” Rin said. She felt a fresh pang of grief the moment she said it, and her face crumpled.

  “We saw,” Ramsa said softly. “We figured that was him.”

  “He saved me.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ramsa hesitated. “So he’s definitely . . .”

  She began to sob.

  “Fuck,” Ramsa said quietly. “Chaghan’s . . . someone’s going to have to tell Chaghan.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Close. Qara sent us a message with a raven but it didn’t say much, except that they’re coming. We’ll rendezvous with them soon. She’ll know how to find us.”

  She looked up at him. “How did you find me?”

  “After a lot of corpse digging.” Ramsa shot her a thin smile. “We searched the rubble for survivors for two days. Nothing. Then your friend had the idea to sail to the island, and that’s where we stumbled upon you. You were lying on a sheet of glass, Rin. Sand all around you, and you were on a sheet of clear crystal. It was something like a story. A fairy tale.”

  Not a fairy tale, she thought. She had burned so hot that she had melted down the sand around her. That was no story. It was a nightmare.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “About three days. We put you up in the captain’s cabin.”

  Three days? How long had she been without food? Her legs nearly gave way under her then, and she hastily shifted to lean against the rail. Her head felt very, very light. She turned to face the sea. The spray of ocean mist felt wonderful against her face. She lost herself for a minute, basked in lingering rays of the sun, until she remembered herself.

  In a small voice she asked, “What did I do?”

  Ramsa’s smile slid off his face.

  He looked uneasy, trying to decide upon words, but then another familiar voice spoke from behind her.

  “We were rather hoping you’d tell us.”

  And then there was Kitay.

  Lovely, wonderful Kitay. Amazingly unharmed Kitay.

  There was a hard glint to his eyes that she had never seen in him before. He looked as if he had aged five years. He looked like his father. He was like a sword that had been sharpened, metal that had been tempered.

  “You’re okay,” she whispered.

  “I made them take me along after you left with Altan,” Kitay said with a wry smile. “They took some convincing.”

  “Good thing he did, too,” said Ramsa. “It was his idea to search the island.”

  “And I was right,” said Kitay. “I’ve never been so glad to be right.” He rushed forward and hugged Rin tightly. “You didn’t give up on me at Golyn Niis. I couldn’t give up on you.”

  All Rin wanted to do was stand forever in that embrace. She wanted to forget everything, to forget the war, to forget her gods. It was enough to simply be, to know that her friends were alive and that the entire world was not so dark after all.

  But she could not remain inside this happy delusion.

  More powerful than her desire to forget was her desire to know. What had the Phoenix done? What, precisely, had she accomplished in the temple?

  “I need to know what I did,” she said. “Right now.”

  Ramsa looked uncomfortable. There was something he wasn’t telling her. “Why don’t you come back belowdecks?” he suggested, shooting Kitay a glance. “Everyone else is in the mess. It’s probably best if we talk about this together.”

  Rin began to follow him, but Kitay reached for her wrist. He leveled a grim look at Ramsa.

  “Actually,” said Kitay, “I’d rather talk to her alone.”

  Ramsa shot Rin a confused glance, but she hesitantly nodded her assent.

  “Sure.” Ramsa backed away. “We’ll be belowdecks when you’re ready.”

  Kitay remained silent until Ramsa had walked out of earshot. Rin watched his expression but couldn’t tell what he was thinking. What was wrong with him? Why didn’t he look happier to see her? She thought she might go mad from anxiety if he didn’t say something.

  “So it’s true,” he said finally. “You can really call gods.”

  His eyes hadn’t left her face. She wished she had a mirror, so that she could see her own crimson eyes.

  “What is it? What are you not telling me?”

  “Do you really have no idea?” Kitay whispered.

  She shrank from him, suddenly fearful. She had some idea. She had more than an idea. But she needed confirmation.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “Come with me,” Kitay said. She followed him the length of the deck until they stood on the other side of the ship.

  Then he pointed out to the horizon.

  “There.”

  Far out over the water sprouted the most unnatural-looking cloud Rin had ever seen. It was a massive, dense plume of ash, spreading over the earth like a flood. It looked like a thundercloud, but it was erupting upward from a dark landmass, not concentrated in the sky. Great rolls of gray and black smoke billowed out, like a slow-growing mushroom. Illuminated from behind by red rays of the setting sun, it looked like it was bleeding bright rivulets of blood into the ocean.

  It looked like something alive, like a vengeful smoke giant arisen from the depths of the ocean. It was somehow beautiful, the way that the Empress was beautiful: lovely and terrible all at once. Rin could not tear her eyes away.

  “What is that? What happened?”

  “I didn’t see it happen,” said Kitay. “I only felt it. Even miles away from the shore, I felt it. A great trembling under my feet. A sudden jolt, and then everything was still. When we went outside, the sky was pitch-black. The ash blotted out the sun for days. This is the first sunset I’ve seen since we found you.”

  Rin’s insides curdled. That small, dark landmass, there in the dista
nce . . . that was Mugen?

  “What is it?” she asked in a small voice. “The cloud?”

  “Pyroclastic flows. Ash clouds. Do you remember the old fire mountain eruptions we studied in Yim’s class?” Kitay asked.

  She nodded.

  “That’s what happened. The landmass under the island was stable for millennia, and then it erupted without warning. I’ve spent days trying to puzzle out how it happened, Rin. Trying to imagine how it must have felt for the people on the island. I’ll bet most of the population was incinerated in their homes. The survivors wouldn’t have lasted much longer. The whole island is trapped in a firestorm of poisonous vapors and molten debris,” said Kitay. His voice was oddly flat. “We couldn’t get nearer if we tried. We would choke. The ship would burn from the heat a mile off.”

  “So Mugen is gone?” Rin breathed. “They’re all dead?”

  “If they aren’t, they will be soon,” said Kitay. “I’ve imagined it so many times. I’ve pieced things together from what we studied. The fire mountain would have emitted an avalanche of hot ash and volcanic gas. It would have swallowed their country whole. If they didn’t burn to death, they choked. If they didn’t choke to death, they were buried under rubble. And if all of that didn’t kill them, then they’ll starve to death, because sure as hell nothing is going to grow on that island now, because the ash would have decimated the island agriculture. When the lava dries, the island will be a solid tomb.”

  Rin stared out at the plume of ash, watched the smoke yet unfurling, bit by bit, like an eternally burning furnace.

  The Federation of Mugen had become, in some perverse way, like the Chuluu Korikh. The island across the narrow strait had turned into a stone mountain of its own. The citizens of the Federation were prisoners arrested in suspended animation, never to reawaken.

  Had she really destroyed that island? She felt a swell of panicked confusion. Impossible. It couldn’t be. That kind of natural disaster could not have been her doing. This was a freak coincidence. An accident.