The Poppy War

She knew their names, of course—the White Tiger, the Black Tortoise, the Azure Dragon, and the Vermilion Bird.

Pain could make her focus.

If a tree by a well-traveled road has this much fruit, then there must be something wrong with the fruit.

“A scholar traveling a well-trodden road passes a pear tree. The tree is laden with fruit so heavy that the branches bend over with its weight. Yet he does not pick the fruit. Why?”

They were bound by the blood they had spilled. They were bound by their suffering. They were bound by what had happened to them.

“This is what you have to tell yourself,” Qara said fiercely. “You have to believe that it was necessary. That it stopped something worse. And even if it wasn’t, it’s the lie we’ll tell ourselves, starting today and every day afterward. You made your choice. There’s nothing you can do about it now. It’s over.”

“Get that look off your face. We made our decisions, and we survived with our country intact. Worth it is worth it.”

But Qara suddenly looked angry. “What do you want from me? Do you want forgiveness? I can’t give you that.”

“I just . . .”

“Would you like to compare death tolls?” she asked sharply. “Would you like to argue about whose guilt is greater? You created an eruption, and we caused a flood. Entire villages, drowned in an instant. Flattened. You destroyed the enemy. We killed the Nikara.”

I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible.

Was she now a goddess or a monster?

Perhaps neither. Perhaps both.

When she cried, there was no one to comfort her. She choked on her tears and buried her face in the mattress. She stifled her screams in the hard straw padding, then decided she didn’t care who heard her, and screamed out loud into the dark.