Fang Runin

"I don't believe in gods, but I believe in power."

- Fang Runin, Chapter 8, The Poppy War (Book)

Fang Runin, often referred to as simply Rin is a member of The Cike.

Early Life
Rin is one of the many war orphans from the Second Poppy War. She was adopted by Auntie Fang and Uncle Fang, a couple of opium smugglers from Tikany, a small town in Nikara's Rooster Province. The adoption was an imperial mandate issued by the Empress, dictating that all households with fewer than three children have to take in war orphans.

Rin worked as a shopgirl and an opium runner for the Fangs from an early age. She also helped raise the Fang's biological son, Kesegi. Rin received some education from Tutor Feyrik's tuition-free classes as a child, but her education was cut short when the Fangs decided she should spend more time as a shopgirl.

On her fourteenth birthday, the Fangs introduced Rin to Matchmaker Liew. Rin was promised to Tikany's import inspector, a man three times her age. Horrified by the prospect of marriage, Rin persuaded Tutor Feyrik to help her pass the Keju, a prestigious and notoriously difficult Imperial Examination.

After studying intensely for two years, Rin passed the Keju with the top mark in the Rooster Province, and was admitted into Sinegard Academy.

Sinegard Academy
When Rin first arrives at Sinegard Academy, she is stunned by everything around her. However, she is also ridiculed for being from the south and dark-skinned by the majority of the students and as a result, only has one friend, Chen Kitay. Despite her early struggles and her unfair dismissal from combat class, Rin excels at the academy, even learning combat from Lore Master Jiang Ziya after her dismissal from the class. She aces her exam for Strategy, ensuring at least one teacher will take her on for another year and securing her spot at the school.

At the very end of her term during the last fight of the combat portion of the trials, Rin fights Yin Nezha, her fiercest rival. During the fight, Rin calls the Phoenix for the first time without realizing. She wins, but nearly kills Nezha. After her victory, she runs to find Jiang who helps to calm the god. Rin pledges Lore after this in order to learn how to use this power. She spends her remaining time in Sinegard training with Jiang.

Joining the Cike
After the events of the battle of Sinegard, Rin is placed under the command of the Cike, a mysterious group of assassins who live to serve the Empress. Here, she also meets Altan Trengsin, former Sinegard student and current mentor after Jiang mysteriously disappears. She joins them in the siege of Khurdalain, where she fights alongside them for the rest of the book.

Personality
Initially, Rin is a war orphan determined to escape the peasant village of Tikany where her adoptive family has arranged for her marriage. Despite her treatment by Auntie Fang, she has developed a sarcastic and blunt personality. Even at fourteen, she is strong-willed self-destructive, burning herself to stay awake while studying. Her more cunning and observant nature is apparent when she steals opium from the Fangs and uses it to bribe Tutor Feyrik into teaching her for the Keju. She can be hot-headed and impulsive as demonstrated numerous times throughout her education at Sinegard.

Physical Description
Rin is described as both dark-skinned and scrawny. She wore her hair long prior to her time at Sinegard Academy, but cut it short with the advice of Tutor Feyrik. During her studies at Sinegard Academy, Rin trained and gained a fair amount of muscle, filling up her form. After she demolishes the Federation of Mugen, her eyes turn red, like how Altan's were previously.

Powers and Abilities

 * Combat Abilities: Rin has formidable combat skills, and she was taught animal-based martial arts by Jiang. She was named the top student of her year in Combat after beating Nezha in the Battle Ring, who was previously the class's reigning champion. She is proficient in sword-fighting and combat with Altan's trident.
 * Shamanism: Rin has the ability to channel The Phoenix, a deity traditionally worshiped by the Speerly. This allows her to summon fire at will, but she requires opium to control it. After Daji places a Seal on Rin that bars her from being able to reach the Pantheon and yield the Phoenix's power in The Dragon Rebuplic, she is cut-off from her fire-summoning abilities. This lasts until Daji's venom is removed by the Sorqan Sira and she becomes anchored to Kitay, through whom she manages to once again call the Phoenix. Her fire power is unreachable once the two are separated.

Jiang Ziya
Jiang Ziya is the Lore Master at Sinegard Academy, and he directly tutored Rin in martial arts and shamanism. Rin is Jiang's first student in several years. He takes interest in her after learning that she was teaching herself martial arts, even after being kicked out of Jun's Combat class.

During her time in the Cike under Altan, she goes to free the former Cike operatives from the Chuuluu Korikh and comes across Jiang, who has imprisoned himself there. She learns that he was The Gatekeeper.

Chen Kitay
Rin met Kitayduring her first year at Sinegard Academy, and he quickly became her closest and most loyal friend during her school years. When Rin was ostracised by her classmates due to her rivalry with Nezha, Kitay was the only person who remained her friend. Kitay invited Rin to stay over at his home during the school break at the end of her first year.

They remained close after the school years, although the events at the end of The Poppy War revealed fundamental and potentially irreconcilable differences in their moral ideologies when Rin committed mass genocide after calling on the Pheonix.

In The Dragon Republic, we learn that Kitay left the company of the Cike to dwell in Ankhiluun, an amphibious town that operates extralegally of The Empire, where he worked as an accountant for the Pirate Queen Moag. However, he was treated more like a prisoner under house arrest than an employee, and was later rescued by Nezha's crew after Rin was recruited by the Dragon Warlord.

Kitay and Rin eventually reconciled during the Northern Campaign. Kitay served as a strategist for Nezha's older brother, Jinzha, and even became spiritually bonded for life with Rin by the Sorqan Sira, which was the only known way for Rin to call the Phoenix after Su Daji sealed her with venom.

After this bond was established, Kitay and Rin grew closer than before; however, the relationship between these two characters by the end of the second book appears to be purely platonic, with a dynamic not unlike Chaghan and Qara's before the latter's unfortunate death.

The second book ended with Kitay and Rin on the run from The Dragon Republic, determined to rally the Southern Provinces to defeat the Hesperians and the Dragon Warlord, effectively setting themselves against Nezha.

Altan Trengsin
Rin first saw Altan Trengsin during her first year at Sinegard. At the time, Altan was a fifth year student and the star of the school. She quickly became infatuated with both his fighting skills and looks, but thought little of him in the subsequent years after he left.

After the battle of Sinegard, Empress Su Daji and General Irjah decided that Rin would be best suited in the Cike, the Empress's elite team of assassins because of her powers. At this point, Rin comes back into contact with Altan, who is now the Commander of the Cike. Because of the past events at Sinegard, Rin discovers she is a Speerly like Altan and finds immediate connection to him, which later turns into almost a deep obsession.

Together, they travel to Khurdalain to meet up with the rest of the Cike. During the next several months, Altan tries to get Rin to unleash the Phoenix again. However, she has struggle doing so. Not long after, she gets the hang of it and they head for Golyn Niis, where Rin follows Altan on his ultimate plan to unleash an army of shamans against The Empire.

Unfortunately, when they finally reach the Chuluu Korinkh, they realize the danger in releasing the shamans that lay dormant there, but not before they accidentally let The Wind God, Feylen, escape. They are then captured by the Federation, having been betrayed by Su Daji, and sent to the old Federation Lab in the Snake Province, where they are tortured by Dr. Eyimchi Shiro, the same scientist who experimented on Altan and hundreds of other Speerlies in the Second Poppy War.

After being injected with unatural amounts of opium, Altan and Rin are empowered in the spirit realm, where they wake from their drugged state with vengeance and quickly escape the lab, killing Shiro and several guards in the process.

When they reach the end of pier outside, Altan touches foreheads with Rin and tells her to live for him, just before he turns around and self-combusts, destroying the lab and buying time for Rin to swim to Speerly Island to commune with the Phoenix.

The grief and anger of losing Altan is the driving force for many of her decisions in The Dragon Republic, and also the reason she is unable to call upon the Phoenix after Su Daji injects her with venom. Despite its uselessness, she uses Altan's trident for most of the book, though eventually turning it into a sword after encountering the Sorqan Sira with Kitay, who help her overcome her grief.

After fleeing the Dragon Republic, she constantly gets high to communicate with Altan in the spirit realm, where he constantly mocks her for her failures, which helps her overcome her guilt.

Yin Nezha
Rin met Nezha on her first day at Sinegard Academy and punched him in the face soon after. The two of them would be rivals throughout their time at the academy, which came to a stop during a fight at the end of their first year, which resulted in Rin calling the Phoenix for the first time.

Once the fighting started, they had no qualms about fighting together. Rin would call the Phoenix a second time, burning much of Sinegard in the process, after watching Nezha get stabbed by General Seyriu. They would go their separate ways after the battle and meet in Khurdalain, where Nezha apologizes for his behavior at Sinegard. Their relationship begins to mend before Nezha is captured during a gas attack.

They meet up again when the Republic captures her and the Cike, and Nezha explains that he survived the gas attack and attempts to convince her to join the Republic.

After Rin decides to join the Republic their friendship strengthens. However, When Rin confronts Nezha about being a shaman he lashes out at her. They are then separated after the battle at Boyang.

Su Daji
Rin first sees the Empress during a parade in Sinegard and is immediately smitten with her. After the battle of Sinegard, she wakes to find the Empress standing over her, having cooled the Phoenix within her. She, along with General Irjah decide to send Rin to serve with the Cike. Due to certain aspects of the events at the end of the book, Rin's goal now is to kill the Empress at all costs.

Rin and the rest of the Cike are now wanted criminals because The Empress told lies and put bounties on their heads. Seeing that they have a common enemy, they join the rebel group, the Dragon Republic, and make it their new mission to help them take out the empress, all the while Rin has to overcome a more serious threat, and getting over her crippling opium addiction.

Trivia

 * There are several influences on Rin's character, including Mao Zedong and Azula of Avatar: The Last Airbender.