The Burning God (The Poppy War Book 3)

The mining tunnels felt more like a tomb than an escape. After Rin blew open the entrances with flame and several well-placed barrels of fire powder, the Southern Coalition filed in a packed column of bodies through a passage wide enough to fit only three men walking side by side. It seemed to stretch on for miles. All around them was cold stone, stale air, and a looming black that seemed to constrict like a vise as they pressed farther into the belly of the deep.

They stumbled through the dark, groping at the tunnel walls and tapping the floor before them to check for sudden drop-offs. Rin hated this—she wanted to light every inch of her body aflame and become a human lantern—but she knew that in such packed quarters, fire would suffocate. Altan had showed her once, with a pigeon in a glass vase, how quickly flames could eat up all the breathable air. She remembered clearly the eager fascination in his eyes as he watched the pigeon’s little neck pulse frantically, then go still.

So she walked at the head of the column, illuminating the way with a tiny flame flickering inside a cupped hand, while the back of the line followed in complete darkness.

An hour into their journey, the soldiers behind her began begging that they stop. Everyone wanted to rest. They were exhausted; many of them were marching with undressed open wounds dripping blood into the dirt. The dirigibles couldn’t reach them underground, they argued. Surely they would be safe for twenty minutes.

Rin refused. She and Jiang might have decimated the Republican front lines, but Nezha was certainly still alive, and she didn’t trust him to give up. He would have called for reinforcements long ago. Ground troops might be preparing to enter the tunnels as they marched. Nezha could use explosives and poisonous gas to smoke them out like rats right now, and then the Southern Coalition would disappear with muffled screams beneath the earth, and the only evidence they had ever existed would be ossified bones revealed eons later as the mountains eroded.

She ordered that they continue until they emerged out the other side. To her pleasant surprise, the troops obeyed her without question. She had expected to hear at least a little pushback—she had only just rejoined their ranks, with no explanation or apology, before she thrust them into a war zone wreaked by gods.

But she had broken them out of the Anvil. She’d done what the Southern Coalition had failed to do for months. Right now, her word was divine command.

At last, after what felt like an eternity, they emerged into a marvelous accident of nature—a cavern whose ceiling split into a jagged crack in the darkness, revealing the sky above. Rin stopped walking and tilted her head up at the stars. After a day spent underground trying to convince her racing heart at every second that she wasn’t being buried alive, she felt like she’d come up from drowning.

Had the night sky always shone so bright?

“We should rest here.” Kitay pointed to a ridge in the opposite wall. Rin squinted and saw a staircase carved into the stone—a narrow, precipitous set of steps, likely built by miners who hadn’t revisited these tunnels in years. “If anything starts coming through those tunnels, we’ve got a way out.”

“All right.” Rin suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion that until now had been kept at bay by adrenaline and fear. She was still afraid. But she couldn’t push herself or the army any farther, or they’d collapse. “Just until dawn. We start moving the moment the sun comes up.”

A collective moan of relief echoed through the tunnels when she gave the order. The southerners set down their packs, spread out through the cavern and its adjacent tunnels, and unfurled sleeping mats on the dirt. Rin wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner and close her eyes.

But she was in charge now, and she had work to do.

She walked through the huddled masses of soldiers and civilians, taking stock of what kind of numbers she had left. She lit their torches and warmed them with her flame. She answered honestly every question they asked about where she’d been—she told them about the Chuluu Korikh, the Trifecta’s return, and her break-in to Arabak.

She found, to her surprise, a great deal of new faces not from Monkey or Rooster Provinces, but from the north—mostly young and middle-aged men with the hardy physique of laborers.

“I don’t understand,” she told Venka. “Where’d they come from?”

“They’re miners,” Venka said. “The Hesperians set up tungsten mines all over the Daba range after they took over Arlong. They’ve got these drilling machines that blast through mountainside like you’ve never seen. But they still needed warm bodies to do the dangerous work—crawling into tunnels, loading the carts, testing the rock face. The northerners came down to work.”

“I guess they didn’t like it much,” Rin said.

“What do you expect? No one flees a good job to join rebel bandits. From what I’ve heard, those mines were hell. The machines were death traps. Some of those men weren’t allowed to see sunlight for days. They joined up the minute they saw us coming.”

It took Rin nearly two hours to move through the tunnels. Everyone wanted to speak to her, to hear her voice, to touch her. They didn’t believe that she was back or that she was alive. They had to see her fire with their own eyes.

“I’m real,” she assured them, over and over again. “I’m back. And I’ve got a plan.”

Quickly their doubt and confusion turned to wonder, then gratitude, and then clear and adamant loyalty. The more Rin spoke to the troops, the more she understood how the past day had played out in their minds. They had been on the brink of extermination, trapped for weeks in tunnels without enough food or water, awaiting imminent death from bullets, incineration, or starvation. Then Rin had shown up, returned from the stone mountain with barely a scratch and two of the Trifecta in tow, and reversed their fortunes in a single chaotic morning.

To them, what had just happened was divine intervention.

They might have been skeptical of her before. They couldn’t be skeptical now. She’d proven without a shadow of a doubt that Souji was wrong—that the Republic would never show them mercy, and that she was the south’s best hope for survival. And Rin realized, as she walked through the crowds of awed, grateful faces, that this army was finally hers for good.

Jiang wasn’t getting better.

He had recovered consciousness shortly after they reached the cavern, but he hadn’t spoken an intelligible word since. He gave no indication that he saw Rin as she approached his sleeping mat, where he sat like a child with his knees drawn up into his chest. He seemed lost somewhere inside himself, somewhere troubled and terrifying, and although Rin could tell from the way his mouth twitched and his eyes darted back and forth that he was fighting to claw his way back, she had no idea how to reach him.

“Hello, Master,” she said.

He acted as if he hadn’t heard her. His fingers fidgeted mindlessly at the hem of his shirt. He’d turned ghastly pale, sapphire veins visible under his skin like watery calligraphy.

She knelt down beside him. “I suppose we should thank you.”

She put her hand on his, hoping that physical contact might calm him. He yanked it away. Only then did he look directly at her. Rin saw fear in his eyes—not the momentary flinch of surprise, but a deep, bone-wrenching terror from which he couldn’t break free.

“He’s been like that for hours,” Daji said. She was curled up against the wall several feet away, gnawing at a strip of dried pork. “You won’t get any other response. Leave him alone, he’ll be fine.”

Rin couldn’t believe how indifferent she sounded. “He doesn’t look fine.”

“He’ll get over it. He’s been like that before.”

“I’m sure you’d know. You did that to him.”

Rin knew she was being cruel. But she meant to hurt. She wanted her words to twist like daggers, because the pained expression they elicited on Daji’s face was the only outlet for the confused dread she felt when she looked at Jiang.

“I am the only reason why he’s alive at all,” Daji said in a hard voice. “I did what I had to do to give him the only chance at peace he’d ever get.”

Rin glanced back at Jiang, who was now hunched over, whispering nonsense into his curled fingers. “And that’s peace?”

“Back then his mind was killing him,” Daji said. “I silenced it.”

“We’ve got a problem,” Kitay announced, appearing around the cavern wall. “You need to do something about Souji and Gurubai.”

Rin groaned. “Shit.”

She hadn’t seen a glimpse of Souji or Gurubai since the breakout began. They hadn’t even crossed her mind. She’d been so caught up in the exhilaration of the escape, in the sole objective of rescuing the south, she’d completely forgotten that not all of them might welcome her back.

“They’re making noises,” Kitay continued. “Telling their troops they need to split off when we’ve found the exit. We fix this tonight, or we’re facing a desertion or coup in the morning.”

“The boy is right,” Daji said. “You need to act now.”

“But there’s nothing to—oh.” Rin’s exhausted mind finally grasped what Daji was implying. “I see.”

She stood.

“What?” Kitay’s eyes darted back and forth between her and Daji. “We haven’t—what are you—”

“Execution.” Rin said. “Plain and simple. Do you know where they are?”

“Wait.” Kitay blinked at her, stunned by this sudden escalation. “That doesn’t mean—I mean, you just saved their lives—”

“Those two sold her to the Republic without a second thought,” Daji drawled. “If you think they won’t betray you again, then you’re too stupid to live.”

Kitay glared at Rin. “Was this her idea?”

“It’s the only option you’ve got,” Daji said.

“Is that how you ruled?” Kitay inquired. “Killing everyone who disagreed with you?”

“Of course,” Daji said, unfazed. “You cannot lead effectively when you have dissidents with this much influence. Riga had many enemies. Ziya and I took care of them for him. That was how we kept the Nikara front united.”

“That didn’t last very long.”

“They didn’t last very long. I lasted twenty years.” Daji arched an eyebrow. “And it wasn’t by being lenient.”

“We’ve done this before,” Rin told Kitay. “Ma Lien—”

“Ma Lien was on his deathbed,” Kitay snapped. “And that was different. We were operating from a point of weakness then, we didn’t have any other choices—”

“We’ve got no other choices now,” Rin said. “The ranks might obey me for the time being, but that loyalty isn’t sustainable. Not where we’re going. And Gurubai and Souji are too clever. They’re intensely charismatic in a way that I’ll never be, and given time and space they will find a way to oust me.”

“That’s not predetermined,” Kitay said. “Mistakes aside, they’re good leaders. You could work with them.”

It was a weak argument, and Rin could tell that he knew it. They all knew that this night had to end in blood. Rin could not continue sharing power with a coalition that had defied, obstructed, and betrayed her at every turn. If she was going to lead the south, she had to do it by her own vision. Alone and unopposed.

Kitay stopped trying to argue. They both knew there was nothing he could say. They had only one option; he was too smart not to see it. He might hate her for this, but he would forgive her, as he always did. He’d always had to forgive her for necessity.

Daji calmly pulled her knife from its sheath and handed it hilt-first to Rin.

“I don’t need that,” Rin said.

“Blades are quieter,” Daji said. “Fire agonizes. And you don’t want their screams to disturb the sleeping.”

Rin dealt with the Monkey Warlord first.

Gurubai had known she was coming. He was standing in the tunnels with his officers, the only people in the cavern who didn’t appear to be asleep. They were quietly discussing something. They fell silent when they saw her approach, but they didn’t move for their weapons.

“Leave us,” Gurubai said.

His officers departed without another word. They kept their heads down as they filed past; none gave Rin so much as a parting glance.

“They’re good soldiers,” Gurubai told Rin. “You’ve no cause to hurt them.”

“I know,” she said. “I won’t.”

She meant it. Without Gurubai to lead them, none of his officers had any reason to betray her. She knew those men. They weren’t ambitious power grabbers; they were capable, rational-minded soldiers. They cared about the south, and they knew now she was their best chance at survival.

Gurubai regarded her for a moment. “Will you burn me?”

“No.” She drew the knife Daji had given her. “You deserve better.”

Gurubai raised his arms in the air. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He’d resigned himself to his fate, Rin realized. There was no fight left in him.

He had lost so thoroughly. He’d been cornered in the mountains and starved out by a boy general, and then his only salvation had been the Speerly he thought he’d sold to his enemy. If his gamble had worked, if Vaisra and the Republic had kept their word, then Gurubai would have become a national hero. The savior of the south.

But it hadn’t, so he would die a disgraced traitor. So cruel were the whims of history.

“You are the worst thing to happen to this country,” Gurubai said. His voice carried no anger or invective, just resignation. He wasn’t trying to hurt her. He was delivering his final testimony. “These people deserve better than you.”

“I’m exactly what they deserve,” she said. “They don’t want peace, they want revenge. I’m it.”

“Revenge doesn’t make a stable nation.”

“Neither does cowardice,” she said. “That’s where you failed. You were only ever fighting to survive, Gurubai. I was fighting to win. And history doesn’t favor stability, it favors initiative.”

She pointed the blade at his heart and jerked her hand forward in one quick, smooth motion. His eyes bulged. She yanked the blade out and stepped back just before he crumpled, clutching at his chest.

She’d aimed badly. She’d known that as soon as she felt the blade make contact. Her left hand was clumsy and weak; she’d pierced not his heart but an inch below it. She had put him in excruciating pain, but his heart wouldn’t stop beating until he bled out.

Gurubai writhed at her feet, but he didn’t make a single sound. No screams, no whimpers. She respected that.

“You would have been a wonderful peacetime leader,” she said. He had been honest with her; she might as well afford him the same in return. “But we don’t need peace right now. We need blood.”

Footsteps sounded behind her. She swiveled around, then relaxed—it was just Kitay. He stepped forward and stood over Gurubai’s silent, twitching form, mouth curling in distaste.

“I see you started without me,” he said.

“I didn’t think you wanted to come.” Her voice felt detached from her body. Her hand shook as she watched Gurubai’s blood pooling over the stone floor. Her entire body shook; she could hear her teeth clattering in her skull. She registered this physiological reaction with a bemused, distant curiosity.

What was wrong with her?

She’d felt this same nervous ecstasy when she killed Ma Lien. When she killed the priest in Arabak. All three times she’d killed not with fire, but with her own hand. She was capable of such cruelties, even without the Phoenix’s power, and that both delighted and scared her.

Gurubai grabbed at Kitay’s ankle, choking. Blood bubbled out of his mouth.

“Don’t be cruel, Rin.” Kitay took the knife from her hand, knelt over Gurubai, and traced the sharp tip along the artery in his neck. Blood sprayed the cavern wall. Gurubai gave a final, violent thrash, and then he stopped moving.

Rin caught Souji as he was trying to flee.

Someone in Gurubai’s camp had warned him to run. They’d been too late. By the time Souji and his Iron Wolves made it to the cavern’s western exit, Rin was already waiting in the tunnel.

She waved. “Going somewhere?”

Souji stumbled to a halt. His usual confident smirk was gone, replaced with the desperate, dangerous look of a cornered wolf.

“Get out of my way,” he snarled.

Rin drew her index finger through the air. Casual streams of flame arced out the tip and danced along the tunnel walls.

“As you can see,” she said, “I have my fire back.”

Souji pulled out his sword. To Rin’s surprise, the Iron Wolves didn’t follow suit. They weren’t crowded close behind Souji like loyal followers would be. No—if they were loyal, they would have already joined him in the charge.

Instead they hung back, waiting.

Rin read the looks in their eyes—identical expressions of calculating uncertainty—and took a wild gamble.

“Disarm him,” she ordered.

They obeyed immediately.

Souji lunged at Rin. The Iron Wolves yanked him back. Two forced him to his knees. One wrenched the blade out of his hands and tossed it across the tunnel. The third jerked his head back so that he was forced to gaze up at Rin.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Souji screamed. “Let me go!”

None of the Iron Wolves spoke a word.

“Oh, Souji.” Rin strode toward him and bent down to ruffle his hair. He snapped like a dog, but he couldn’t reach her fingers. “What did you think was going to happen?”

Her heart pounded with giddy disbelief. This had gone wonderfully, ridiculously smoothly; she couldn’t have imagined a better outcome.

She patted his head. “You can beg now, if you like.”

He spat a gob of saliva onto her front. She slammed the toe of her boot into his stomach. He sagged to the side.

“Drop him,” Rin ordered.

The Iron Wolves let Souji crumple to the ground. She kept kicking.

She didn’t brutalize him like he had her. She kept her kicks confined to his gut, his thighs, and his groin. She didn’t aim to crack his ribs or his kneecaps—no, she needed him able to stand in front of a crowd.

But it felt good to hear the little girlish gasps escape from his throat. It kept that nervous ecstasy pounding through her veins.

She couldn’t believe she’d once, however briefly, considered sleeping with him. She thought about the weight of his arm around her waist, the heat of his breath against her ear. She kicked harder.

“You cunt,” Souji gasped.

“I love the way you talk to me,” she cooed.

He tried to hiss out another insult, but she slammed her foot into his mouth. Felt her toes split his lip against his teeth. She had never before mutilated an opponent with pure brute force. She’d done it plenty with fire, of course. But this was a different kind of satisfaction, like the pleasure she derived from hearing fabric rip.

Human bodies were so breakable, she marveled. So soft. Just meat on bones.

She restrained herself from kicking his skull in. She needed Souji’s face intact. Broken, maybe, but recognizable.

She and Kitay had decided not to kill him now. His death had to be a public display, a spectacle to legitimize her authority and to transform her takeover from an open secret to a universally acknowledged fact.

Daji, who had done this sort of thing quite often, had emphasized the importance of performative execution.

Don’t just let them fear, she’d said. Let them know.

“Tie him up,” Rin told the Iron Wolves. She knew, with certainty, she could trust them. No one wanted to burn. “Guard him in shifts during the night. We’ll finish this in the morning.”

At dawn Rin stood at the center of the cavern, right beneath the single shaft of sunlight that pierced through the cracked stone ceiling. She was aware of how absurdly symbolic this looked—the way her skin shone like polished bronze, the way she was the brightest figure in the darkness. It didn’t matter that the watching crowd knew this was orchestrated. This imagery would be seared into their minds forever.

Souji knelt beside her, hands bound behind his back. Dried blood crackled over every inch of his exposed skin.

“You may have asked where I’ve been these past months. Why I disappeared after the attack on Tikany.” She pointed to Souji’s bowed head. He didn’t stir; he was only half-conscious. “This man ambushed me and sent me to the Chuluu Korikh to rot. He betrayed me to the Young Marshal. And he betrayed all of you.”

The cavern was so silent that the only sound Rin heard in response was the echo of her own words.

The crowd was with her. She could see it in the grim set of their faces and the coldly furious glint in their eyes. Every person in this cavern wanted to see Souji die.

“This man trapped you in the Anvil. He tried to kill the only person who could save you. Why?” Rin aimed a hard kick at Souji’s back. He lurched forward and gave a muffled moan. He couldn’t speak up in his own defense; his mouth was stuffed with cloth. “Because he was jealous. Yang Souji couldn’t stand to see a Speerly leading his men. He needed to take charge himself. He wanted to own the Southern Coalition.”

She didn’t know where her words were coming from, but they poured out with ridiculous ease. She felt like a stage actor, chanting lines from some classical play, each dramatic phrase delivered in a deep, powerful voice that sounded nothing like her own.

When had she learned to act like this? Deep down, a fragment of her was scared that any minute the facade would drop, that her voice would falter, and that they’d all see her for the terrified girl she was.

Play the part, she thought. That, too, was Daji’s advice. You only have to wear this skin long enough for it to become a piece of you.

“The Southern Coalition is now finished,” she declared.

Her words met with dead silence. No one reacted. They waited.

She raised her voice. “Yang Souji and the Monkey Warlord are proof of the failures of coalition politics. They nearly destroyed you with their infighting. They had no strategy. They betrayed me and led you astray. But I have returned. I am your liberation. And now I alone will make the decisions for this army. Does anyone object?”

Of course no one objected. She had them in the palm of her hand. She was their Speerly, their savior, the only one who time after time had rescued them from certain death.

“Good.” She pointed down to Souji. She knew no one would try to protect him. Not a single person had spoken up in his defense. They weren’t watching to see whether she would kill him. They were watching to see how she would do it.

“This is what happens to those who defy me.” She looked to one of the Iron Wolves. “Remove the gag.”

The Iron Wolf stepped up and pulled the bunched-up rag from Souji’s mouth. Souji lurched forward, gasping.

Rin pressed the point of her knife under his chin and forced his gaze up to the crowd. “Confess your sins.”

Souji snarled and mumbled something incoherent.

Rin pushed the blade just a bit harder against Souji’s flesh, watching with pleasure as his throat bobbed tensely against steel.

“All you have to do is confess,” she said softly. “Then this all ends.”

Kitay hadn’t wanted her to force a confession. Kitay thought that Souji would rebel and lash out, that his dying words could only damage her. But Rin couldn’t let Souji die with his dignity, because then her detractors might take solace in his memory.

She had to annihilate him. Rin knew that his betrayal hadn’t been his decision alone—every person in this cavern was in some way complicit in his treachery. But she couldn’t execute them all. Souji had to be the scapegoat. His body had to take on the burden of everyone’s guilt. This leadership transition demanded public catharsis, and Souji was its sacrificial lamb.

She gave the knife another jab. Blood beaded on the tip. “Confess.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Souji said hoarsely.

“You sold me to Nezha,” she said. “And you trapped them in this mountain to die.”

That wasn’t strictly true. Souji had only ever meant to protect the south. For all she knew, Souji had made the best strategic decisions possible given the Republic’s overwhelming superiority. Souji certainly thought he was the only reason why the Southern Coalition had survived as long as they had. Perhaps he was even right.

But logic didn’t matter in this ritual. Fury and resentment did.

“Say it,” she demanded. “You sold me. You betrayed them.”

He turned to face her. “You belong in that mountain, you cunt.”

She just laughed. She wouldn’t lash out with flame, no matter how tempting that was. She had to maintain a facade of indifferent calm to exacerbate the difference between them—he the angry, snapping, cornered wolf and she the icy voice of unflappable authority.

“You sold me,” she repeated steadily. “You betrayed them.”

“You would have driven them to their deaths,” Souji said. “I did what I had to do to save them from you.”

“Then we’ll let the people decide.” Rin turned to the crowd. “Does anyone think this man saved you?”

Again, no one spoke up.

“Nezha told me he only wanted the Speerly.” Souji raised his voice to address the crowd. His voice cracked with fear. “He promised that’s all it would take, he said—”

Rin spoke over him. “Does anyone believe this man was stupid enough to make such a simple mistake?”

The implication was clear. She’d just accused Souji of collaboration. This was of course a lie, but she didn’t need to show proof. She didn’t even need to make a real argument. All she had to do was insinuate. These people would accept whatever narrative she gave them because they wanted to feed their anger. The judgment had concluded before the trial started.

“Show him.” Rin pointed to Souji like a hunter indicating a target to a pack of dogs. “Show him what the south does to its traitors.”

She stepped back. There followed a brief, anticipatory silence. Then the crowd surged forth, and Souji disappeared beneath a mass of bodies.

They didn’t just beat him. They tore his flesh apart. He must have screamed, but Rin couldn’t hear him. She couldn’t see him, either; she caught only the faintest glimpses of blood shining through the crowd. It was incredible, really, how easily a mass of weakened, half-starved men and women could together wrench entire limbs from a torso. She saw pieces of Souji’s uniform fly through the air. Beneath the feet of the crowd rolled what looked like an eyeball.

She didn’t join in. She didn’t have to.

“This is chaos.” Kitay’s face had turned a sickly gray. “This is dangerous.”

“Not to us,” Rin said.

This was violence, but it wasn’t chaos. This anger was utterly controlled, fine-tuned, directed, a massive swell of power that only she could control.

And it wasn’t just fueled by resentment toward Souji. In a sense, this massacre wasn’t about Souji at all. This was about demonstrating a change in loyalty, a gruesome apology by anyone who had ever spoken against her before. This was a blood sacrifice to a new figurehead.

And if anyone still doubted her leadership, then the screaming would at least strike fear deep into their hearts. Anyone on the fringes now understood the cost of opposition. Through love or hate, adoration or fear, she would have them one way or another.

Daji, standing at the far end of the crowd, caught Rin’s eye and smiled.

Rin’s heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear.

She understood what Daji had meant now. She could achieve so much with a simple show of strength. All she had to do was become the symbolic embodiment of power and liberation, and she could kill a man by pointing. She could make these people do anything.

You’ve got a god on your side. You want this nation? You take it.

Gradually the frenzy ceased. The crowd dispersed from the center of the cavern like a pack of wolves retreating when the meat was gone and the bones picked clean.

Souji was long dead. Not just dead—mutilated, his corpse so thoroughly desecrated that not a single part remained that looked recognizably human. The crowd had destroyed his body and in doing so demonstrated their rejection of everything he’d stood for—a wily mix of guerrilla resistance and clever politicking that, in different circumstances, might have succeeded. In different circumstances, Yang Souji might have liberated the south.

But so fell the whims of fate. Souji was dead, his officers were converted, and the takeover was complete.