The Poppy War

Past Cike commanders had either gone frothing mad and had to be dragged into the Chuluu Korikh against their will, or been killed on assignment and never come back.

Few had died with such grace as Altan Trengsin.

“War’s already here. A traitor sits on the throne of the Empire,” she said stubbornly. “I will see her burn.”

She had not always known the shape of him. She had loved the version of him she’d constructed for herself. She had admired him. She had idolized him. She had adored an idea of him, an archetype, a version of him that was invulnerable.

But now she knew the truth, she knew the realness of Altan and his vulnerabilities and most of all his pain . . . and still she loved him.

Altan Trengsin was not invincible after all.

She had been clutching Kitay’s hand for hours, fingers wound tightly around his, and she never wanted to let go

“There’s no peacetime for the Cike. There’s never a shortage of people the Empress wants dead.”

“Call off your men, or I will summon into existence things that should not be in this world.”

Rin stared at him in awe. The man before her was not the doddering, eccentric embarrassment of the Academy. This man was a soldier.

This man was a shaman.

Together?

Together.

If they hadn’t spent so much time hating each other, Rin thought, they might have trained together.