Home > Work > The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)
21 " Come back down,” he said, his expression suddenly grim. His fingers clenched tight around hers. “Listen, Rin. I don’t care what else happens up there. But you come back to me. "
― R.F. Kuang , The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3)
22 " She remembered the first time she'd ever laid eyes on Nezha, and then all the times thereafter. It hurt to see him. It hurt so much. "
23 " You don’t know who you’re dealing with.” She leaned down close until her lips brushed his skin, until her breath scorched the side of his face. “I’m not Sinegardian elite. I’m that savage mud-skinned Speerly bitch that wiped a country off the map. And sometimes when I get a little too angry, I snap. "
24 " I‘m exactly what they deserve,” she said. “They don‘t want peace, they want revenge. I‘m it. "
25 " When she turned, she only saw one silhouette against the dark.Nezha had come alone. Unarmed.He always looked different in the moonlight. His skin shone paler, his features looked softer, resembling less the harsh visage of his father and more the lovely fragility of his mother. He looked younger. He looked like the boy she'd known at school "
26 " She recognized the way he was looking at her. It was how she’d once looked at Altan. It was the way she’d seen Daji look at Riga—that look of wretched, desperate, and reproachful loyalty. It said, Do it. Take what you want, it said. I’ll hate you for it. But I’ll love you forever. I can’t help but love you. Ruin me, ruin us, and I’ll let you. "
27 " Sring Venka was a prim, spoiled Sinegardian princess turned lethal soldier turned brittle survivor; of course she’d walk into a war zone with red paint on her lips simply because she felt like it. "
28 " She'd been so stupid to once think that if she ended the Federation then she'd ended the hurting. War didn't end, not so cleanly - it just kept building up in little hurts that piled on one another until they exploded afresh into raw new wounds. "
29 " Let them think of us as dirt, Rin thought. She was dirt. Her army was dirt. But dirt was common, ubiquitous, and patient, and necessary. The soil gave life to the country. And the earth always reclaimed what it was owed. "
30 " But ideological purity is a battle cry, it’s not the stable foundation for a unified country. A nation means nothing if it can’t provide for the people in it. You have to act for their sake. "
31 " The tides of history had shifted. She had never before believed in fate, but this she came to know with more and more certainty as each day passed: the script of the world was now wholly, inalterably colored by a brilliant crimson streak. "
32 " They would take back the south with sheer numbers. The Mugenese and the Republic were strong, but the south was many. And if southerners were dirt like all the legends said, then they would crush their enemies with the overwhelming force of the earth until they could only dream of breathing. They would bury them with their bodies. They would drown them in their blood. "
33 " They’ve all gone completely mad.”“Throes of victory,” Rin said. “Growing pains.”“They’re skinning people alive,” Venka said.“Because they traded little girls for food rations.”“Oh. Fair enough.” Venka flicked an invisible speck of dust from her wrist. “I hope they castrated them, too. "
34 " Her voice, thin and reedy, faded without echo into the frigid air. But she screamed it again, and then again, and then again. It felt so good to say that she'd survived, that she'd fucking finally come out on top, that she didn't even care that she was screaming to corpses. "
35 " Hate was its own kind of fire and if you had nothing else, it kept you warm. "
36 " You never want to hurt them. But you have to. You have to put them through hell, because that’s the only way anyone else will survive. "
37 " If she let it linger, then she started to drown, and the only way to make those feelings stop was to burn instead. "
38 " I am the force of creation,” Rin murmured as she stared at the ceilingand watched it spin. Vaisra’s sorghum wine burned sweet and sour on hertongue; she wanted to swig more of it, just to feel her insides blaze. “I amthe end and the beginning. The world is a painting and I hold the brush. Iam a god. "
39 " I’ve reached behind the canvas, she thought. And now I hold the brush. "
40 " It doesn't go away. It never will. But when it hurts, lean into it. It's so much harder to stay alive. "