The Poppy War полностью

“We’re the final front,” said Altan. “If we fail, this country’s lost.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Excited?”

Chapter 13

Clang.

Rin barely got her sword up in time to stop Altan’s trident from slicing her face in half. She did her best to ground herself, to dispel the ki of the blow evenly across her body and into the dirt, but even so, her legs trembled from the impact.

She and Altan had been at this for hours, it seemed. Her arms ached; her lungs seized for air.

But Altan wasn’t done. He shifted the trident, caught the blade of her sword between two prongs, and twisted hard. The pressure wrenched the sword out of Rin’s hands and sent it clattering against the ground. Altan pressed the tip of his trident to her throat. She raised her arms hastily in surrender.

“You’re reacting based on fear,” Altan said. “You’re not controlling this fight. You need to clear your mind and concentrate. Concentrate on me. Not my weapon.”

“It’s a bit hard when you’re trying to jab my eyes out,” she muttered, pushing his trident away from her face.

Altan lowered his weapon. “You’re still hedging. You’re resisting. You’ve got to let the Phoenix in. When you’ve called the god, when the god is walking in you, that’s a state of ecstasy. It’s a ki amplifier. You don’t get tired. You’re capable of extraordinary exertion. You don’t feel pain. You have to sink into that state.”

Rin could recall vividly the state of mind he wanted her to embrace. The burning feeling in her veins, the red lenses that shielded her vision. How other people became not people but targets. How she didn’t need rest, only pain, pain to fuel the fire.

The only times Rin had consciously been in this state were during the Trials, and then again at Sinegard. Both times she had been furious, desperate.

She hadn’t been able to rekindle the same state of mind since. She hadn’t been that angry since. She had only been confused, agitated, and, like right now, exhausted.

“Learn to tame it,” Altan said. “Learn to sink in and out of it. If you’re focused only on your enemy’s weapon, you’ll always be on the defensive. Look past the weapon to your target. Focus on what you want to kill.”

Altan was a much better teacher than Jiang. Jiang was frustratingly vague, absentminded, and deliberately obtuse. Jiang liked to dance around the answers, liked to make her circle around the truth like a starving vulture before he would give her a gratifying morsel of understanding.

But Altan wasted no time. He cut straight to the chase, gave her precisely the answers that she wanted. He understood her fears, and he knew what she was capable of.

Training with Altan was like training with an older brother. It was so bizarre for someone to tell her that they were the same—that his joints hyperextended like hers did, so she should turn out her foot in such a way. To have similarities with someone else, similarities that lay deep in their genes, was an overwhelmingly wonderful sensation.

With Altan she felt as if she belonged—not just to the same division or army, but to something deeper and older. She felt situated within an ancient web of lineage. She had a place. She was not a nameless war orphan; she was a Speerly.

At least, everyone seemed to think so. But despite everything, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. She couldn’t call the god as easily as Altan could. Couldn’t move with the same grace as he could. Was that heritage, or training?

“Were you always like this?” she asked.

Altan appeared to tense. “Like what?”

“Like . . . you.” She gestured vaguely at him. “You’re—you’re not like the other students. Other soldiers. Could you always summon the fire? Could you always fight like you do?”

Altan’s expression was unreadable. “I trained at Sinegard for a long time.”

“But so did I!”

“You weren’t trained like a Speerly. But you’re a warrior, too. It’s in your blood. I’ll beat your heritage into you soon enough.” Altan gestured to her with his trident. “Weapons up.”

“Why a trident?” she asked when he finally let her take a break. “Why not a sword?” She hadn’t seen any other soldier who didn’t wield the standard Militia halberd and sword.

“Longer reach,” he said. “Opponents don’t come in close quarters when you’re fighting inside a silo of fire.”

She touched the prongs. The ends had been sharpened many times over; they were not shiny or smooth, but etched with the evidence of multiple battles. “Is that Speerly-made?”

It had to be. The trident was metal all the way through, not like Nikara weapons, which had wooden hilts. The trident was heavier, true, but Altan needed a weapon that wouldn’t burn through when he touched it.