Chapter 18 Elena
ELENA
The Great Serpent is a wicked and benevolent god who descended from the kingdoms of the skies to the dark waters of the sea. To worship Her is to crave power itself. To demean Her is to damn oneself.
—from The Legends and Myths of Sayon
Sunlight pushed limply through the dark pines to outline Samson’s shoulders with a cold, thin light.
He strode slowly, purposefully—a man who’d already won.
He slipped in and out of the shadows with an oily slickness, and a small, irrational part of Elena wondered if that was not from where he had come.
He and his lies and that devilish fire. But when Samson turned, finally feeling the weight of her gaze, she kept her countenance hard and unreadable.
She did not even acknowledge his questioning eyes as she faced Syla.
“I’ll be sure to send Kirri back with Ravani sweets. I know a priestess who makes the best ladoos, far better than your favorites in the palace.”
Syla laughed. “Send them with my men instead. I want Kirri to stay and help you with the plans.”
And be your eyes and ears, she thought.
“Here.” He gave her a holopod. “If you ever need to communicate with me directly, or need anything at all, you can reach me through this.”
Elena turned it over and saw the Cyleoni black gada engraved on the back. A palace-grade pod. With a dull pang, she remembered the Phoenix engraved behind her and Leo’s own pods.
“Thank you.” She slipped it into her pocket. “I will see you soon, then, yes?”
Syla bowed. She bowed stiffly in return, and when the ramp of the tanker lifted, she found the king gazing up with the pinched, thoughtful expression of a man who had bartered his silver for gold and questioned its shine.
You will dance along with me, as long as I need.
They returned to Magar under a leaden sky.
Dark, heavy clouds had crept down from the mountains, bringing the promise of a storm.
Elena turned her face to the wind. In the desert, the aroma of dry stone and sand preceded the rain, but here in the canyons, an electric tang, rich and sharp, knifed down her throat, more taste than scent.
Visha, Chandi, Kruppa, and Akino waited for them, but she ignored their questions, striding past the cruisers. Samson called after her. But she only hurried down the canyon, and soon, his voice rang hollow within the boulders.
Heavens help me, Yassen. She gripped his holopod, her fingers trembling with rage. I want to claw his face off.
A light drizzle began to fall by the time she reached the temple. To her surprise, she found Samson already sitting on the steps.
“How—”
“I knew this would be the first place you would go.” His urumi flashed around his waist as he rose to his feet. “So I took a cruiser, like a sane person.”
He leaned one hand on a pillar, the other resting right above his blade. “Why are you running from me, Elena Aadya Ravence?”
Around them, passersby paused. A few hailed the Prophet, while others stopped to consider the scene: her, standing at the edge of the courtyard in the soft rain; him, waiting under the temple entrance with a weapon around his waist. Blocking her way.
Elena considered turning away then and avoiding a spectacle.
But she would be damned if she was going to allow him to bar her from her own temple.
“I am not running,” she said, her voice thin with strain.
Samson stalked forward, each step slow and measured. “Then why are you avoiding me?”
I am avoiding an idiot who just bartered my country for fucking steel.
Gradually, with great effort, Elena forced her hands to uncurl. She counted to three, then to ten. Then, “Get out of my way, Samson.”
Samson stopped just on the other side of the gate, but he did not move out of her path. “You might think I overstepped, but I am ensuring victory for both our countries. Ravence and Seshar.”
The roar of cruisers made her turn, and she saw Kruppa and the others arrive. The priestess began to walk toward the temple and stopped, frowning as she saw Samson standing within the gates.
“Blue Star,” she began.
He chuckled, his voice a low whisper so only Elena could hear. “See how even your own have come to regard me? Worship me? I am your Prophet and command your fires. I am not your enemy, Elena.”
Her eyes slowly slid to Kruppa. “Leave,” she growled.
“Your Majesty—”
But Elena’s gaze did not falter, and the priestess shrank back. Out of the corner of her eye, Elena saw Chandi lean forward with a taut alertness, almost as if she feared that Elena would harm the precious Blue Star. The thought made her smile.
Samson clocked it. “Does that amuse you?”
“Your hypocrisy amuses me, O Prophet. You call yourself powerful when your very power comes from my people.” Her eyes found his. “Your Eternal Fire is built upon the beliefs of the Ravani.”
“You mean your false god?” He looked up at the Phoenix soaring upon the temple spire. “How many times do I have to explain? There is no Holy Bird. There never was. You have fallen for a lie, but just like Leo, you’re too stubborn to see it.”
“Do not say his name,” she said.
At this, Samson’s smile twisted into a vicious, vindictive sneer. “Do you know what he told me? That your people would never accept me. But I command your Eternal Fire. I heal your burned. I brought the army that freed this city.”
It struck her then. Samson was right. He did control the Eternal Fire. He had done so on the day it had tried to attack them, and he had done it on the day her father had burned. Samson had killed her father. Samson had unleashed the Eternal Fire upon them all.
She trembled with the realization, and when she met Samson’s eyes, he flinched back from the fury in them.
“You lied,” she said, her voice dark and terrible. “You unbound the Eternal Fire and set it upon my father. The guards, the priests, the officials—they died because of you.”
“No,” Samson snapped. “Leo died because he tried to harm me, and the Eternal Fire sought to protect its Prophet. It has a mind of its own. And Leo was a tyrant. A murderer. He killed those priests. He killed helpless people in his manhunt, and for what? To leave his kingdom ruined and burned? His daughter helpless and lost? Surely you can see that he was wrong, Elena. Even if you loved him, surely you must see that he could have done better by you.”
“No,” Elena choked out, even as something broke within her, revealing a pain so raw and acute that it felt as if he had reached out and wrenched her heart.
Because he was right, again. Leo Malhari Ravence had been a cruel and cunning king—but he was also her father.
She had seen him regret. Seen him sink under the weight of his sins.
She staggered forward. “You want to talk about a ruined kingdom? That is what you will bring on us with your Jantari steel obsession.”
“We must attack the mines,” Samson said. “We need to weaken Jantar from within. It’s the only way Farin will even consider Sesharian and Ravani liberation—”
“We cannot do both,” she cut in.
“We must.” Samson’s voice shook with such force that she felt its impact like a punch to her gut. The rain had quickened, but more people were beginning to gather, to listen.
“Ravence and Seshar,” she began.
“You once said you understood my people. Then hear this. The only reason, the real reason, Leo allowed more Sesharian refugees into Ravence was because he wanted to use our hate for his own gain. We would willingly fight his war against Jantar. But what do you think would have happened once he beat out the metalheads?” Samson stalked forward, his eyes sharp as the twin blades of his urumi.
“He would have packed up his armies and dismissed the Sesharians who had bled for him. He would have lounged on his throne, gloating in his victory, while those same Sesharian soldiers cried for their stolen homeland.” He jabbed his finger to the north, to the horizon, toward Palace Hill.
“He would have won on the back of Sesharians, but he wouldn’t have given a shit about their own home. My home.”
“And if the roles were reversed?” she said softly.
Samson frowned, his arm lowering a degree. “What?”
“If it had been Ravani refugees in Seshar, wouldn’t you do the same?
” She stepped forward, so close that he took a step back, his frown deepening into a scowl.
She raised her hand, jabbing her finger into his chest. Once, twice, like twin pulse shots.
“That’s what you’re doing now. Using refugees.
Ravani, Sesharian, any poor fool who needs to believe in something.
You take them and mold them to become your soldiers.
Your weapons. To fight your. Fucking. War. ”
Samson stared, his mouth frozen. His throat bobbed, but no words came.
He simply stared down at her, and in his widened eyes, she saw understanding flare and die, followed quickly by loathing.
His expression changed then, the peaks and angles of his face sharpening into anger.
It happened so fast, so viciously, as if lightning surged through him, threatening to snap and break everything around.
Elena retreated, but Samson did not move. When he finally spoke, his voice was strangely, frighteningly calm.
“Tell me. If Yassen hadn’t been there, could you have taken down those mines? Could you have taken this city? Who even are you, alone?”
He leaned down, his breath hot against her nose. “A spoiled, privileged queen who doesn’t know her friends from her enemies.”
His words bored into her, opening a wound she had tried to ignore. I am something, she wanted to say. She was the queen of Ravence. She had an army, a kingdom, a throne. Once.
She had the power of Agni, a power that even the Jantari feared when she had burned down their mines. With Yassen’s help.
She had broken through the gates of Magar and freed the city. And crushed civilians.