The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

by R.F. Kuang

If there was one thing Rin had learned about her country’s history, it was that the only permanent thing about the Nikara Empire was war.

She had bribed a teacher. She had stolen opium. She had burned herself, lied to her foster parents, abandoned her responsibilities at the store, and broken a marriage deal. And she was going to Sinegard.

But the misery she felt now was a good misery. This misery she reveled in, because she had chosen it for herself.

“The gods did not send these heroes from the skies. Rather they chose three children—war orphans, peasants whose parents had been killed in village raids. They were born of the humblest origins. But they were meant to walk with the gods.”

“I understand the truth of things,” she murmured. “I know what it means to exist.” He smiled. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” She understood, then, that Jiang was very far from mad. He might, in fact, be the sanest person she had ever met.

Do not pack your fucking teapots.”

Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.

It was utter carnage. It was beautiful.

You asked me why I wouldn’t stop him. Now you understand. You can’t stop an avenger. You can’t reason with a madman. You think I am running, and I admit to you that I am afraid. I am afraid of what he might do in his quest for vengeance. And I am afraid that he is right.”

Rin had been tortured, bound, beaten, and starved, but her mind was her own. Her god was her own. She would die before she betrayed it.

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

The gods had no power at all, except what she gave them.