The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

by R.F. Kuang

“The Federation soldiers don’t feel anything.” Kitay nodded in agreement. “They don’t think of themselves as people. They are parts of a machine. They do as they are commanded, and the only time they feel joy is when reveling in another person’s suffering. There is no reasoning with them. There is no attempting to understand them. They are accustomed to propagating such grotesque evil that they cannot properly be called human.”

Brainwashed away from their humanity

A rational explanation eluded her. Because the answer could not be rational. It was not founded in military strategy. It was not because of a shortage of food rations, or because of the risk of insurgency or backlash. It was, simply, what happened when one race decided that the other was insignificant.

If she went with him, she would help him to unleash monsters. Monsters worse than the chimei. Monsters worse than anything in the Emperor’s Menagerie—because these monsters were not beasts, mindless things that could be leashed and controlled, but warriors. Shamans. The gods walking in humans, with no regard for the mortal world.

“Men are selfish and petty,” argued Erlang Shen, Grand Marshal of the Heavenly Forces. “Their life spans are so short that they give no thought to the future of the land. If we lend them aid, they will drain this earth and squabble among themselves. There will be no peace.”

How was she to explain this to him? Kitay had never studied Lore. Kitay had never truly believed in the gods, not even after the battle at Sinegard. Kitay thought that shamanism was a metaphor for arcane martial arts, that Rin and Altan’s abilities were sleights of hand and parlor tricks.

How can you teach this? Even in real world context

The paths before her were clear. Altan or Jiang. Commander or master. Victory and revenge, or . . . or whatever Jiang had promised her. But what had he ever promised her? Only wisdom. Only understanding. Enlightenment. But those meant only further warnings, petty excuses to hold her back from exercising a power that she knew she could access . . .

Overlooking the beaty of elightenmet

Only the Pantheon remained sacred, the one thing in the universe that Mugen still had no access to.

Sacred

When space and time again became tangible concepts to her, Rin perceived that they were at a campfire. She saw drums, she heard people chanting and singing, and she knew that song, she had been taught that song when she was a little girl, she could not believe she had ever forgotten that song . . . all Speerlies could sing that song before their fifth birthday.

First we forget, then we remember

“This is why we are strong. We draw our strength from centuries and centuries of unforgotten injustices.

Strength from injustice

She had thought she understood Altan’s power, but only now did she realize the depth of it. The weight of it. He was burdened with the legacy of a million souls forgotten by history, vengeful souls screaming for justice.

They moved as perfect complements to each other. They achieved a better synchronization than Rin had even with Nezha, for Nezha knew how she moved only by observing her. Altan didn’t have to—Altan knew by instinct who she was, how she would fight, because they were the same. They were two parts of a whole. They were Speerlies.

He leaned forward and grasped her face in both hands. She thought for a bizarre moment that he was going to kiss her. He didn’t. He pressed his forehead against hers for a long time. She closed her eyes. She drank in the sensation of her skin against his. She seared it into her memory.

I have lost everything I care about. I don’t want peace, I want revenge.” “Revenge will only bring you pain.”

And then she was before her god. The Phoenix was so much more beautiful up close, and so much more terrible. As she watched, it unfurled its great wings behind her back and spread them. They stretched to the ends of the room. The Phoenix tilted its head to the side and fixed her with its ember eyes. Rin saw entire civilizations rise and fall in those eyes. She saw cities built from the ground up, then burning, then crumbling into ash.

“Total victory,” she said. “It’s what you want, isn’t it?” “What I want?” The Phoenix sounded amused. “The gods do not want anything. The gods merely exist. We cannot help what we are; we are pure essence, pure element. You humans inflict everything on yourselves, and then blame us afterward. Every calamity has been man-made. We do not force you to do anything. We have only ever helped.”

“Nothing is written,” said the Phoenix. “You humans always think you’re destined for things, for tragedy or for greatness. Destiny is a myth. Destiny is the only myth. The gods choose nothing. You chose. You chose to take the exam. You chose to come to Sinegard. You chose to pledge Lore, you chose to study the paths of the gods, and you chose to follow your commander’s demands over your master’s warnings. At every critical juncture you were given an option; you were given a way out. Yet you picked precisely the roads that led you here.

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.

The Phoenix awakening

“Have you ever considered,” he said slowly, “that that was exactly what they thought of us?”

How could she compare the lives lost? One genocide against another—how did they balance on the scale of justice? And who was she, to imagine that she could make that comparison?

“This is what you have to tell yourself,” Qara said fiercely. “You have to believe that it was necessary. That it stopped something worse. And even if it wasn’t, it’s the lie we’ll tell ourselves, starting today and every day afterward.

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.

Oh to be human

Immigrants, we get the job done.