The Poppy War, #3
The Burning God
by R. F. Kuang
Contents
Chapter 11
Overview
In a flashback to Speer’s destruction, Riga coolly reveals he let the massacre happen, provoking Ziya’s grief and fury over Hanelai. Their confrontation turns violent until Daji intervenes with an unprecedented incantation that seizes all their minds. The moment marks the fracturing of their alliance and the birth of a binding.
Summary
Daji finds Riga eerily calm and reading myths as Speer burns across the strait. He frames their story through legend—men breaking the world, a woman mending it—hinting at destiny while dismissing the catastrophe he enabled. Daji recognizes something in Riga has changed since Lusan and the Hinterlands, and fears the gods’ retribution for their Speerly sacrifice.
Ziya bursts in, desperate for answers and for Hanelai’s safety. Riga’s smug silence confirms the fleets stood down; the Mugenese slaughter is deliberate and final. Ziya, devastated, accuses Riga of murdering Speer. Riga retaliates by taunting Ziya with past atrocities and cruelty, claiming necessity and superiority, and strikes him when Ziya curses him.
Their argument escalates into open combat. Ziya summons shadow beasts; Riga cleaves them effortlessly and prepares to finish the fight. Paralyzed by fear and history, Daji realizes neither will back down. At the last moment she throws herself between them and utters an unfamiliar incantation.
Time stills; a strange venomous force roots into all three minds. Riga collapses, Ziya reels, and Daji hears Tseveri’s mocking laughter. The clash ends not in victory but in a new, unsettling mental binding whose consequences will define and fracture their alliance.
Who Appears
- DajiTries to manage Riga and Ziya as Speer burns; intervenes with a new incantation that binds their minds.
- RigaColdly admits enabling Speer’s massacre, taunts Ziya, easily overpowers him until Daji’s spell collapses him.
- ZiyaShattered by Hanelai’s likely death; confronts Riga and attacks, but is stopped and ensnared by Daji’s spell.
- HanelaiOffstage Speerly beloved of Ziya; presumed killed, her loss triggers Ziya’s revolt against Riga.