Chapter 12 Elena
ELENA
I have tasted and seen the Prophet’s hunger. Nothing can compare to its wretchedness.
—from the dairies of Priestess Nomu of the Fire Order
Samson was waiting for her the next day in the cool bowels of the canyons. He leaned against the wall, one foot raised, head bent in thought, his urumi belted silver around his waist.
How he did not cut himself was beyond her. She had heard from Black Scales that only those who had dedicated suns to learning the art of the urumi wore the sword like belts or sashes. Warriors, the soldiers called them, voices hushed with awe.
Fools was a better moniker.
As Samson turned to her, Elena wondered, not for the first time, if he was inured to death. That, by being the Prophet reborn, he thought himself above it. Even when it coiled around him in the form of a silver metal snake, he stood unperturbed, smiling at her.
“Ready?” he said.
“I told you that you won’t need your urumi,” she said.
“You don’t need it, but I do,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made her pause. Was it envy? Want? She studied him, but he was already unlooping the urumi, his long fingers deftly wrapping around the leather-bound hilt as the twin blades unfurled with a hiss.
He flicked his wrist, a movement so quick she almost didn’t see it, and the blades ionized. The air tightened, charged. Elena took an involuntary step back as a blue flame rippled down his hand and split, spiraling down the blades of the urumi.
It had taken a matter of seconds, without warning.
Elena blinked, realizing only now how her heart jackhammered in short successive beats. Leave. Run.
Samson’s eyes slid to hers. In the blue light of the flames, they almost seemed to glow.
“Your turn,” he said.
Elena swallowed. She forced herself to inhale deeply, to still her yammering heart and push back the wave of dread that seemed to seize her bones the moment his inferno had taken its first breath.
She shifted her weight, raising her left heel ever so slightly.
She felt Samson’s eyes on her, tracking her every movement.
It sent every breath a hot thrill down her spine, along with an instinctual fear, like the ancient preservation of self.
The fight or flight. But Elena ground her teeth and turned her ankle, thrusting out her arms just as the heat in her gut flowed up, out, down her biceps, her elbows, her hands and blazed into a red flame so bright and fierce it towered over them.
As she felt its power, its presence, ripple through her body, Elena almost forgot her fear.
Almost.
The blades flashed as Samson slashed, and the flames tore forth with an eager hunger that set her teeth on edge.
The air thickened, so hot and claustrophobic that Elena struggled to breathe, but then Samson pulled his arm to his chest and the fire died at once.
Black scorch marks were left in its wake.
He turned to her, lifting an eyebrow. Well?
Elena spun, splaying out her fingers to form lotuses, and then cut diagonally. While Samson’s fire had been hungry, it had been controlled. Hers shot forth with a quickness that surprised her. Elena peeled back, but as she brought her palms together, she felt its resistance.
She could almost hear the whine of her Agni, its hurt in being denied, before she crushed palm to palm, and it dissipated into smoke.
Elena straightened with a shudder. It was happening more often now.
Her Agni, resisting in small ways. Its hunger growing.
When she had destroyed the mines, she had not wanted control.
She wanted everything to burn. When she had summoned the flames during the attack, it was Samson who had taken it, addled it, and honed their infernos into a controlled blaze.
She looked down at her hands, at the sparks just dying.
Even now, she could feel her Agni rustle within her, its appetite indulged but not whetted. It wanted more.
She turned to Samson, who was watching her with close interest. Again, she wondered if this was a mistake.
She was protective of her Agni, for no reason other than it was hers and hers alone.
But Samson knew more. He could control his Agni with a precision that made her bristle, a ferocity that made her ache in want. And then there was the other part.
The healing.
She saw how his blue flames had enveloped the young girl, knitting back her skin and bones and the scars into his mark.
Elena remembered how the mother had fallen reverently onto her knees, sobbing, and it had filled her with such bitterness she was surprised her stomach hadn’t shriveled with the acidity.
Word was spreading. The Prophet was here.
Her people were beginning to look to Samson to lead them. Not her, the queen. But him, a butcher.
A butcher who could heal the burned in a land that knew too much of burning.
“Why are you holding back?” Samson said.
The question took her by surprise. “What?”
“Just now, when you wielded the flames, you were restrained. I could feel it,” he said.
“I wasn’t—” she began and stopped short. Did she dare tell him? The small bouts of resistance, the refusal of the inferno to disappear. She studied Samson, his tall, dark frame, legs spread wide, as if he was ready to leap, arms relaxed, as if he knew he was in charge.
“I didn’t think there was a need to burn with… abandon,” she said.
Samson laughed. “With abandon? That’s what fire is. It is a wild, beautiful, and dangerous force. You’re denying its true nature by repressing it.”
“If that’s so, then how do you control it?” she said.
“Simple,” Samson said. “I understand it. By understanding it, I can control it.”
“You need to be more specific,” she said dryly.
“Agni is, by its nature, ravenous. It wants and takes and will not be appeased until it consumes everything. Until one day it consumes us.” At this, he smiled, sharp and rueful.
“As Fireblood, we are its instruments. Its… guardians. Like the Prophet.” His smile deepened, carving into something more dangerous.
“Agni flows through us into the world. But you cannot channel it well if you resist its hunger.”
“I—I can manage it,” she said with a scowl.
“And yet you’re afraid of it consuming you,” Samson said, and at this, she stilled.
With one smooth motion, Samson curled his urumi around his shoulder and strode toward her. It took her unawares, but Elena forced herself not to flinch.
Samson stopped before her, so close she had to look up to meet his eyes. He smelled of ash and musk, but below that, something fresh, pleasant even, like earth after the rain. He placed one hand below his belly button, the other on his chest.
“There are two places where Agni can reside. Your navel chakra”—he tapped his stomach—“or your heart.” He patted his chest. “Prana, the life force that exists in all things, flows through ours nadis and powers our chakra centers. As guardians of the Agneepath, we can manipulate prana. Manifest it into flame, into infernos.”
He slowly dropped his hands and took hers. She sucked in her breath as he placed her hands on his chest and stomach. His heart thrummed beneath her fingers. She tried not to stare at the scar peeking through his open collar, or how his chest trembled, ever so slightly, at her touch.
“But manipulating prana is tricky. If you overshoot, you can burn yourself from within. Or your Agni begins to eat itself and fade.” He paused, his hands wavering over her own.
“This is why you can’t refuse the nature of Agni.
You’ll block prana and corrupt your chakras.
You’re essentially giving yourself a slow, gruesome death.
We control Agni by accepting its nature.
The inferno will respond to you if you understand that it wants to burn.
We can’t avoid its appetite because its appetite is ours. It is a part of you. It is you.”
And she saw it then, in his eyes. The desire to burn, the want for more. Always more. It was an ache she knew, a hunger she felt in her bones and was afraid to acknowledge. But he had accepted it, controlled it, and now he, a Prophet who could heal the burned, was a master of Agni.
But she had seen his rapacity. His hunger knew no bounds, had no qualms. After all, Samson had not even blinked when he learned of the crushed Ravani civilians under the wall.
He had moved on to the next objective, the next mission, without so much as a guilty dream.
Her estrangement from her own people was because of him. All of this was a result of him.
His want.
His desire.
Elena pulled her hands back.
“Maybe it is for you. But I don’t want to burn without regret,” she said.
He dropped her hands. “Who said there wasn’t regret?”
She began to speak when Samson slipped the urumi down from his shoulder to his waist. Over the sounds of sliding metal, his voice was soft.
“I have regrets that will last more than a lifetime, Elena,” he said. “But I also have a purpose that will outlast that—Seshar. Ravence, for you. What we pay now… does it matter? Will it matter, if it means freeing our homes?”
She said nothing to this, afraid her voice would betray her.
He pulled back, his smile grim. “If we must face consequences, let it be after the war. You and I can burn together then.”
This time, when he unleashed his inferno, Elena felt her own Agni rise, as if in fear. As if in recognition.
They trained every dawn as they waited on the Cyleoni.
The boulders bore the brunt of their attacks, their red faces slashed with scorch marks and blades.
She began to understand the breadth of his power, the obsession of his control.
Samson Kytuu wielded his Agni with the fervency of a thousand devotees clamoring up to the high temple.
Every swing, every thrust, every twist—feverishly controlled.