The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

by R.F. Kuang

His sword arm faltered, then dropped. The soldier made a startled gurgling noise as he stared in disbelief at the blade protruding from his stomach. He fell forward and lay still. Nezha met Rin’s eyes, and then wrenched his sword out of the soldier’s back. With his other hand he flung a spare weapon at her. She pulled it from the air. Her fingers closed with familiarity around the hilt. A wave of relief shot through her. She had a weapon. “Thanks,” she said. “On your left,” he responded. Without thinking they sank into a formation; back to back, fighting while covering each other’s blind spots. They made a startlingly good team. Rin covered for Nezha’s overstretched attacks; Nezha guarded Rin’s lower corners. They were each intimately familiar with the other’s weaknesses: Rin knew Nezha was slow to bring his guard back up after missed blows; Nezha parried from above while Rin ducked in low for close-quarters attacks. It wasn’t as if she could read his mind. She had simply spent so much time observing him that she knew exactly how he was going to attack. They were like a well-oiled machine. They were a spontaneously coordinated dance. They weren’t two parts of a whole, not quite, but they came close. If they hadn’t spent so much time hating each other, Rin thought, they might have trained together. Backs to each other, swords at the enemy, they fought with savage desperation. They fought better than men twice their age. They drew on each other’s strengths; as long as Nezha ...