The Burning God by R. F. Kuang

Author:R. F. Kuang
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Published: 2020-11-17T00:00:00+00:00

Their misery intensified in the following days, because at last they’d reached an altitude high enough that everything was paved with ice.

Rin was initially undaunted. She’d had some half-baked idea that she might be able to ease their journey with the sheer force of flame. It worked at first. She became a human torch. She melted the slippery roads until they were walkable sludge, boiled water to drink, lit campfires by pointing, and kept the train warm by walking among the ranks.

But after two days of this continuous flame, a numbing exhaustion set in, and she found it harder and harder to reach for a force that drained her and tortured Kitay.

“I’m sorry,” she said every time she found him shaking atop a wagon, ghostly pale, fingers pressed into his temples so hard they left little grooves.

“I’m fine,” he said every time.

But she knew he was lying. She couldn’t keep pushing him like this; it would destroy them both. She started calling the fire only several hours a day, and then only to clear the roads ahead. The troops now had only their dwindling supply of torches to rely on for heat. Frostbite and hypothermia eroded their ranks. Soldiers stopped waking up after they’d gone to sleep.

Jiang, meanwhile, was deteriorating at a terrifying rate.

This march was killing him. There was no other way to describe it. He’d grown gaunt and pale, and he wasn’t eating. He couldn’t walk on his own anymore; they had to drag him along on a wagon. He hadn’t regained his lucidity, either. Sometimes he was mercifully placid, affable, and easy to order about like a child. More often he turned in on himself, gripped by some terrible visions that the rest of them couldn’t see, lashing out whenever anyone tried to help him. Then he became dangerous. Then the shadows started to creep.

Under Daji’s advice they often kept him in a sedated state, plying him with laudanum tea until he sank back against the corners of the wagon in a stupor. It made Rin sick to see his eyes dulled and uncomprehending, drool leaking out the side of his mouth, but she couldn’t think of any better options. They needed to keep him stable until they got to Mount Tianshan.

She didn’t know what Jiang was capable of when unhinged.

But they couldn’t sedate him constantly without doing permanent damage to his mind. He still needed regular stretches of sobriety, and these were so painful and humiliating that Rin couldn’t bring herself to watch.

One night Jiang woke the camp with such tortured screaming that Rin dashed immediately out of the tent where she slept and rushed to his side.

“Master?” She clenched his hand. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes flew open. He regarded her with his wide, pale eyes, and for a moment, he seemed almost calm.

“Hanelai?”

Rin reeled.

She’d heard that name before. Just once, just briefly, but she’d never forget it. She remembered kneeling on the freezing forest floor, her ankle throbbing, while Chaghan’s aunt, the Sorqan Sira, gripped her face in her hands and spoke a name that made the surrounding Ketreyids bristle.

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