The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

by R.F. Kuang

Well, fuck the heavenly order of things. If getting married to a gross old man was her preordained role on this earth, then Rin was determined to rewrite it.

“No, you consider the consequences,” Rin snapped. “If you decide my score is void, that means this simple shopgirl was clever enough to bypass your famous anticheating protocols. And that means you’re shit at your job. And I bet the magistrate will be just thrilled to let you take the blame for whatever cheating did or didn’t happen.”

She had made it all the way across the country to a place she had spent years dreaming of, only to discover a hostile, confusing city that despised southerners. She had no home in Tikany or Sinegard. Everywhere she traveled, everywhere she escaped to, she was just a war orphan who was not supposed to be there.

Nezha clambered to his feet, scarlet-faced. “You—how dare you—” “Just as you said.” Rin dipped her head into a mocking bow. “I only know one kick.”

Jiang moved through the world like he didn’t belong there. He acted as if he came from a country of near-humans, people who acted almost exactly like Nikara but not quite, and his behavior was that of a confused visitor who had stopped bothering with trying to imitate those around him. He didn’t belong—not simply in Sinegard, but in the very idea of a physical earth. He acted like the rules of nature did not apply to him. Perhaps they didn’t.

Because if she could just erase her past, then she could write herself into whoever she wanted to be in the present. Student. Scholar. Soldier. Anything except who she used to be.

When man begins to think that he is responsible for writing the script of the world, he forgets the forces that dream up our reality.

“No one else would have the patience to learn what I have taught you. It’s merely our job to remember. I have searched for years for an apprentice, and only you have ever understood the truth of the world.”

If you were the victim, what could you say to make your tormentor recognize you as human? How did you get your enemy to recognize you at all? And why should an oppressor care? Warfare was about absolutes. Us or them. Victory or defeat. There was no middle way. There was no mercy. No surrender.

I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible. Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.