The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)

by R.F. Kuang

Here’s a prophecy for you, she’d said. One will die. One will rule. And one will sleep for eternity.

“People are attracted to power, darling. They can’t help themselves. Power seduces. Exert it, make a show of it, and they’ll follow you.”

“Stop pretending to care about ethics, it’s embarrassing. At some point, you’ll have to convince yourself that you’re above right and wrong. Morality doesn’t apply to you.” She

This was chaos, but chaos was where she thrived. A world at peace, at stalemate, at cease-fire, had no use for her. She understood now what she needed to do to cling to power: submerge the world in chaos, and forge her authority from the broken pieces.

She knew revenge was a drug. She knew it couldn’t sustain her forever. But right now, while she was riding the high, before her adrenaline crashed and the weight and horror of what she’d just done flooded back through the crevices of her mind, while she stood breathing hard over the blackened ashes of the man who had destroyed almost everything she loved, it felt better than anything in the world.

Dying was easy. Living was so much harder—that was the most important lesson Altan had ever taught her.