Chapter 18 Elena #2
The voice, contrarian and wicked, whispered in her mind. It sounded like the rush of flames, their soft hiss and sharp pops.
Who even are you, alone?
Samson watched her, and for a moment, pity flashed in his eyes, and that made her feel even worse. She would not allow him to walk over her as if this wasn’t her land, her people, her kingdom.
It was hers and hers alone.
“You are driving us to ruin,” she said.
“I am saving us,” he snapped, his voice cracking the air with a definitive, resounding slap.
Around them, the crowd stiffened. She could feel the prickle of heat of their collective gaze. Elena swallowed as a hiss thrummed through her body at the pull of Samson’s Agni. He glowered, all spite, all fury, leveled into his cursed eyes.
Eyes too blue, she thought. A cursed, dangerous man.
“Do you want to know the truth, Elena?” Samson held up his hand, and a blue flame slowly emerged, winding down his wrist to his elbow.
“You believe that only those like you deserve power. That the rest of us should be forced to kneel. To bend. But you forget one thing, queen. There are higher things than kings, and I am one of them.”
Lightning split the heavens with a loud shriek that shook the valley.
Its echo reverberated through her, building.
And with every thunderous drum of the rain, Elena felt her control slipping, her anger swelling until all she could see, all she wanted, was him kneeling before her once more, face in the dirt, begging for her forgiveness.
“You are a butcher, not a Prophet,” she snarled.
With a sudden hiss, blue flames surged down Samson’s arms and legs, covering his body in a coat of flames that defied the rain and burned with an intense brilliance.
But Elena responded in turn. Heat rushed through her body, her heart pumping erratically as her Agni sensed its brethren awaken. A red flame looped around her wrist.
“Careful, queen,” he said, eyeing her flame.
She slid out the slingsword from her waist. “Careful, Butcher.”
With a violent, smooth motion, Samson whipped out his urumi and slashed downward. The tongues of the twin blades narrowly missed her shoulder as Elena jumped, but she did not expect the flames. They dashed forward, skipping along the length of the blades and singeing her cheekbone.
She stumbled back, cheek throbbing. The crowd started, some crying out for Samson, others for her.
She barely had time to bring up her weapon before he charged, his blades slapping against her slingsword.
Elena swatted away a parry, but his flames beat her face, and she was forced to retreat.
She gasped, robbed of oxygen. Out of instinct, she ducked and rolled, red flames cloaking her like a blanket.
Samson, propelled by his own momentum, missed her, and Elena took the opportunity to jump to her feet and pull the trigger of her slingsword.
The blade slit the length of his back, ripping the cloth.
She caught a glimpse of marred skin and dark scars, and then he was on her, relentless.
His urumi sang a high, vicious song as it sliced through her flames. There were yells and cries from the crowd, pleas to stop. She tried to pull back her blade, but he was too fast, too merciless. A force of pure power and fury. His flames leapt on top of hers, tearing, biting.
Elena drew up her flames to shield herself, but Samson parted the blaze as easily as a butcher cutting off the neck of a bird.
His urumi flashed, and she ducked. The blade hissed over her head.
Elena lunged to the side—and forgot the second blade.
Its tongue grazed her stomach, and a stinging sensation exploded down her skin.
Elena roared in pain, but he easily snapped his blade, and her sword was torn from her grasp. She reeled back. Blood dripped down her wrist. In a desperate attempt, she fired a volley of flames, each seething and intense, snapping with sparks. His blue inferno merely swallowed them into its own.
She spun to avoid his next advance when his inferno broke through the defense of her fiery cocoon, and she saw Samson’s face. His monstrous rage.
He was going to kill her.
“Sam—”
He grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall.
Her head banged against the stone. A buzz filled her ears.
Gasping, Elena felt something thick and hot trail down her forehead and cheek.
Dark spots danced in her vision. Her chest cramped, the pain intensifying with each second.
She struggled—clawing, spitting, howling—but Samson did not even wince as he leaned in close.
“You are nothing without a butcher, queen,” he snarled, his breath hot against her ear. “And I am far worse than that.”
He let her go, and Elena crashed to her knees.
She hacked out blood as the rain soaked her skin, her cuts.
Her vision wavered, and she saw Samson’s dirt-speckled boots, his silver blades.
For a moment, she feared that he would raise his urumi and cut off her head, but he only took a step back, and then he was gone.
He left her like that—they all did. Even her own people. They eyed her with a mixture of horror and pity, and then followed their Prophet until she was left cold and alone, wheezing in the rain.