Chapter 14 Samson
SAMSON
I believe the people who left the first continent brought their gods with them.
This has led to the creation of a protomyth of the fire gods.
The Phoenix, the Great Serpent, and the Yumi Goddess all exhibit similar origin stories and death cycles.
However, the question of power remains. If all three gods stem from the same protomyth, who then is the most powerful?
—from A Critique of the Ancient Gods (note: debunked by historians)
Elena hurried after Kruppa, Samson stumbling behind them as if in a daze.
He had been so close. So fucking close. The shape of her Agni haunted him, wavering in his mind’s eye as he remembered the excruciating flash of its power ricocheting through his body.
If only he had had a moment longer… He sought Elena, but people clamored forward as they weaved their way toward the temple.
“Prophet!”
“Bless me, Prophet!”
“Look upon me!”
In the distance, Elena turned. No doubt she observed that all the onlookers were Ravani bearing his mark. No doubt she noticed how no one hailed her. All her people latched on to him with an intense fervor, their faces wide, desperate.
“Prophet!” they called as they jostled past Elena and rushed to Samson.
Dimly, Samson knew he should bless them, but he moved in a stupor, his body aching for the phantomlike presence of Elena’s Agni that it had briefly tasted.
A hand grabbed his arm. Another his shoulder.
Samson jerked back, but no matter where he turned, people pressed forward, palms outstretched, faces upturned.
Prophet, Prophet, Prophet. A panicked cry bubbled and died in his throat as he suddenly remembered the tunnels, the sweet, rotten aroma of sweat and blood and bodies too close. There were too many, coming at once—
Someone touched his chest, his scar, and he jolted back into himself, the memory sluicing through his limbs like black, brackish water.
“Space,” he panted.
“Prophet, give me your mark—”
“SPACE!” he roared.
The followers recoiled, as if struck. Samson sucked in a fresh spurt of air. He knew, judging by the fear on their faces, that he’d been too brusque.
But he did not care. He could use fear, another day. Samson stumbled on, and the crowd parted for him like the sea before a relentless ship.
He found Elena and Kruppa already inside the temple.
The inferno roiled at his approach. That was his first warning.
When Samson reached for the fire, he could feel it resist his desire, and a quick, anxious alarm thumped through him.
The flames rustled, but when he turned to listen, he found their song indecipherable, spoken in a low hissing language he did not understand.
Speak to me, he commanded.
The tiny inferno did not respond.
Samson swallowed back his panic, but his throat felt painfully dry. Kruppa was busy unfurling the scrolls, talking rapidly.
“—the diary entries make no sense. Nomu’s timeline, her comments—gosh, even her syntax—it’s a mess. She never names the inferno as the Eternal Fire and seems to stop writing after the arrival of the Sixth Prophet. But then I started considering what your mother said, Elena, and I—”
“Kruppa, desert be blessed, slow down,” Elena laughed, though Samson noted how her eyes darted about uneasily. Did she sense the fire’s resistance too?
Behind his back, Samson curled his fingers. He imagined a flame darting out of the inferno—right into his hand. He concentrated on that image, the sensation of heat spidering down his palm, and pulled.
The inferno hissed and held. He glowered at it and commanded again. The fire only spat out sparks, as if cursing him.
A sick, cold sensation ran down his throat, like inhaling salt water in his dreams. Why was the inferno resisting him?
No flame could ever deny him. He was a god of Agni, blessed by the Great Serpent.
He was the wielder of the Eternal Fire and its pets, but the small temple fire remained in its hold, resolute.
Samson wrestled back his dread, but it had threaded into his bones now and he could feel it throb through his veins in time with the inferno’s crude, indecipherable song.
Great Serpent, what is happening?
“Don’t you see, Blue Star? There are three.”
Samson turned, broken from his thoughts, and found both Elena and Kruppa watching him.
“Three what?”
“Three manifestations of Agni.” Kruppa held up a scroll.
“‘I have felt the deep grief of the inferno. It is dark and bottomless, but not because it suffers alone. The grief is made of three. Three powers who have loved and betrayed and lost each other. Three sisters. Our god is but one.’” She looked up at him, shaking the scroll.
“This is proof! Our Phoenix does exist. She is one of the three powers.”
“I would not call that proof,” Samson began.
“What proof do you have of your own god other than faith?” Kruppa shot back.
“Your Eternal Fire bends to me,” he snapped. “I wield it. I can control it because it was created by the Great Serpent. What more proof do you need?”
“But it’s written here that one of the three—”
“Enough!” Elena cried.
They fell silent. Her face grew pinched, as if she were considering something, or listening. Samson watched her and the flames and wondered, with a sick jealousy, if the flames were only speaking to her.
He stepped forward. “Elena, what is the fire saying to you?”
Her mouth twisted. Her voice was flat, hard. “It tells me nothing. It has always told me nothing. The Eternal Fire barely ever speaks to me, unlike with you, Prophet.” She spat out the last word. He did not know if he should feel relieved or infuriated at her response.
Elena took the scroll from Kruppa and read it again. “‘Three powers who have loved and betrayed and lost each other. Three sisters.’” She looked between them both. “She must mean goddesses.”
“Like the Phoenix!” Kruppa cried.
“Like the Great Serpent,” he said.
“Like the Goddess Mother,” Elena said softly, almost to herself. Her eyes met his. “The third Agni is the Yumi’s Goddess.”
“That’s absurd,” he said. “There are other goddesses throughout our world. Tsuana’s horned shark, Nbru’s great huntress—Ayona has two! People even worship the fucking moons. You can’t just create gods out of nothing and claim them to be all-powerful.”
“Nor can you claim someone’s faith to be blasphemous,” Elena said.
“Elena, we are gods of Agni,” he said. “We are real. You can feel your fire running through your veins. How can you deny that?”
“And what if my Agni comes from a goddess, like yours?” she said.
Silence stretched between them. Samson held her gaze as his heart jackhammered hard enough to rattle his teeth. His throat bobbed, caught.
“You told me that your Agni came from the Great Serpent,” Elena said. “What if mine is connected to the Yumi’s Goddess? When I first learned how to wield the flames, it was Ferma who told me about the Mother. We should go to Moksh and seek out the Yumi—”
“No,” Samson said, finally finding his voice.
The flames swelled, and he felt their heat prick his skin as if to bite. He stepped away from the inferno and into the cool shadows. They curled around him, his old friends.
“A trip to Moksh will take days, and we both need to be here. Syla could contact us at any moment. Jantar could launch a counterattack when we’re gone.
We could lose Magar, Elena.” He broke off as a coughing fit overtook him.
A dry ache rattled down his throat and chest. Silently, he cursed the Eternal Fire.
“But if we have the Yumi with us, then I can sway the council. No one would dare to cross the Yumi.” Her mouth set. “I could go alone.”
“The Yumi won’t listen,” he rasped.
“They will listen, especially when I show them my Agni.”
He imagined it then: Elena standing on the shore of Moksh and turning the black sands to glass with her vicious, fervent desire.
He saw her returning with the Yumi, a powerful army of rage and death sweeping through Ravence, through Jantar, forcing the world to bend.
And he saw himself, faded, withered. His Agni so weak it emitted only one faint spark.
He would be made to watch as Farin retreated from Ravence and tightened his hold on Seshar, as Elena celebrated her freedom while his continued to be a plaything of kings. Seshar would be forgotten, as always.
He stepped out of the shadows. The heat returned, but he ignored the fire’s scathing sparks. He felt the flames twist, felt the Eternal Fire hum and the gods listen.
“We finish your training first. If you can wield the urumi with flames, then you will be ready to face the Yumi.”
“But why would the Yumi care if I can—”
“You want to convince them with your Agni? Then hone it first.”
The flames hissed in warning, but Elena could not hear them anyway. She nodded, once.
Kruppa clutched the scroll to her chest, watching them with uncertainty. “If you think you share the Goddess’s Agni, then who shares the Phoenix’s?”
Samson gave a wry smile. “No one alive, Priestess.”
He held out Elena’s urumi, but the queen crossed her arms. “You’ll have to do one thing for me first.”
He bit back his annoyance. “Do what?”
“Celebrate Laal Joon with me tomorrow afternoon. Magar never got the chance to honor the founding of Ravence. And now she can do so with her queen and Prophet.”
She smiled, and it sent an uncomfortable, dangerous sensation through him, simultaneously provocative and miserably infuriating. He hated how much he needed her Agni. How much he craved it. Her Agni bloomed so painstakingly close, so tantalizingly within his reach.
“Tomorrow, then.”
The temple fire crackled as if laughing, but whether in delight or cruelty, he could not tell.