Chapter 24 Elena
ELENA
Every great man must know how to betray.
—a Sesharian proverb
The Ahi Sea glimmered beneath her like a liquid sheet of black glass, trapping starlight within its dark and unknowable depths.
It was as if she were staring into a void.
A deep, unsettling feeling limned the bottom of her chest, and Elena looked away.
The sea always frightened her. She had only traveled across it once, on a state visit to Nbru with her father back when he still took trips to the first continent. Then, and even now, she had retreated.
“Nervous?” Kirri asked.
“Is it that obvious?”
Before Kirri could answer, the panel chimed, and a holo of Syla appeared before them.
“Elena,” he cried, “you are either mad or a genius for a maneuver like this.”
“Some say there’s a fine line between the two,” she said.
“Spoken like your father,” he grumbled, though a smile tugged at his mouth. “When Kirri first told me of your plan, I had half a mind to call back my men. But he was right. We can cut two stalks with one sword. I just hope that at least one of you succeeds.”
It will be me, she thought suddenly, with more vehemence than she expected. When she returned to Magar with the Yumi in tow, the people would flock to her, and she would accept them despite their betrayals and show them the power of a true leader. A queen, not a butcher.
“I will see you in Goldor, then, with the Yumi,” she said.
When the line cut, Elena turned back to the dark sea. Kirri sat beside her, and after some time, he spoke, the edges of his reflection furring within the glass.
“There’s a strange thing about this sea.” He sounded almost wistful. “It will hide nearly everything and everyone. A man could disappear out here, and no one would know it.”
Elena blinked as a cold shock washed through her.
She had the sudden memory of standing on top of the dunes with Yassen as he gazed out over the desert.
All the quiet, with no one to judge your shortcomings.
A man could disappear out here, and no one would know it.
Kirri must have noticed the alarm in her reflection, because his smile faltered.
“Oh—I—I don’t mean that I have something to hide—”
“I know what you mean,” she said in a hushed voice, thinking of Yassen in the moonlight and his simple wish to be free. Her heart ached. “It’s the illusion that enchants us. Here, we can forget ourselves and our duties and just be.”
She was quiet after that, and Kirri had the good sense to leave her alone.
She thought of Samson and his bitter rage, Chandi and her calculating patience, Visha and her subtle poisons—and her own withering pride.
They were caught in a torturous dance to hurt and make others hurt worse than they had.
She could not escape it. And she did not have the heart to tell Kirri that people like her, people like them, could never afford true freedom.
There were worse ways to live and die than bleeding for one’s own home, but the thought of freedom—from it all—immobilized her.
Why are you running, Elena? Yassen whispered. His murky reflection flickered in the dark window. What shriveled version of freedom are you fighting for?
She turned, but there was no one beside her. Elena shuddered.
It took them over a day to fly across the Ahi Sea as they painstakingly avoided Ayoni airspace, so by the time Kirri shook her gently awake, Elena longed for the sight of land.
The mountains came first.
They broke the blue horizon like blackened knuckles.
Bruised and vast. Deep red veins of cooling magma trickled down their southern faces.
As they flew closer, she saw the infamous black beaches of the Mokshi coast where, centuries ago, a foolish Paguan king had waged an invasion, only to be sent back a boat full of his sons’ severed heads.
“Hailing Moksh,” the pilot called.
Elena only half listened to the pilot as she drank in the towering cliffs of the western coast and the great statues of the first queens carved within.
Yamni and Yamsiya, the twin regents. The priestess and the warrior.
Their large stone eyes seemed to follow her, and deep within her gut, Elena felt a strange warmth blooming.
“Tower, come in,” the pilot repeated. “Requesting clearance for landing.”
Silence.
Elena frowned, turning to the pilot, when she saw movement flicker in the south.
Just there, beyond the cliffs, toward the famed capital of Azadi.
She had never been to the Yumi city, but now she tasted its name on her tongue, pressing it against the back curve of her teeth for the last syllable.
Azadi. It was a Yumi word, a word of power and consequence.
The same cry the Sixth Prophet had taken as she burned down armies and kingdoms, singing her vicious call for freedom.
Azadi, azadi, azadi.
The ancient name, the ancient call of freedom, plucked something within her.
She had heard of the city’s glorious black marble and silver-veined spires and its floating universities dedicated to the ancient teachings of the Great Goddess.
And then there was the infamous palace, thin and long like a shard.
But when they finally cleared the cliffs, it was not the palace, or towers, or universities that she noticed but a kingdom—burning.
Faint fingers of smoke writhed between the broken spires. Scorch marks marred the faces of some buildings, while rubble dotted the streets. She saw no armies, no pulse fire, no encroaching enemies, but she saw the evidence of an attack in the city.
“Shit,” Kirri said. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Pilot,” Elena called, but the soldier was already pulling away from the burning city.
“What is happening?” Kirri cried. “I thought you said Moksh called for you—”
“Pilot!”
“Your Majesty, no one is answering our hails. We must turn—”
A garbled voice broke through the static. “Reroute westward, Cyleoni.”
Elena grabbed the pilot’s comms. “Who is this? What happened in Azadi? Has there been an invasion?”
The static thinned, then doubled. “The general—” The voice broke, then chimed again. “—sister queen. We’ve sent the coordinates.”
“What about the queen? What has happened to her?”
But there was no answer. On the panel, a new pair of coordinates flickered, and the pilot banked toward the western mountains. Elena twisted just as the burning city slipped out of her view, and then all she saw were the black clouds of smoke slowly rising to meet the dawn.
They dove through the cliffs, hurtling past the twin queens, and up the western coastline. Elena frantically scanned the forests for smoke, but they remained untouched by fire. Had the fighting only been in the capital, then? She hailed the comms again, but no Yumi answered.
Suddenly, Elena felt a low pull in her stomach, a quickening in her blood not unlike when she summoned her Agni.
As they descended, Elena caught glimpses of a river, the water so pure, so bright, it burned silver.
The Yumi temple sat on its banks. It was greater than any Ravani temple, older, prouder, and looking upon it, Elena felt a finger curl underneath the base of her skull and tug.
She was out of the tanker the moment they landed, her heart thumping wildly, her blood a raucous call that seemed to answer the river’s song.
The temple was made of two large pyramids stacked upon each other, one below, the other floating upside down above, their peaks meeting in a sliver through which only sunlight could pass.
Four waterfalls fell between the corners of the pyramids in a never-ending stream.
Elena stumbled, overwhelmed by the vastness of the two structures, the way the dark walls seemed to drink in the light and reflect it with a slight green iridescence.
Kirri called to her as the temple doors opened.
Two Yumi descended the great steps. Twins, joined at the hip.
They walked in perfect unison, their orange robes and black hair unfurling like flickering flames.
They wore no jewelry, no ornaments, no weapons twined in their hair.
Their robes were plain, spun of smooth silk.
At first glance, there was nothing extraordinary about the priestesses.
But then Elena saw their eyes.
Heat seeped out of her bones.
They were black on black, so dark that it seemed shadows themselves lived within. The Yumi regarded her, unblinking.
Elena took a step back. “Who are you? Where is your queen?”
“There has been a glorious revolution,” they said, their voices lilting, echoing. “The queen is dead.”
“Dead?” Terror, anger, confusion rose and swept through her in rapid succession, followed swiftly by a cold and heavy dread. “At whose hand?”
“At our own.” Their lips twisted into a serene smile. “Welcome, Elena Aadya Ravence. Queen of Fire. Blood of Alabore. The Divine Grace of Desert and Sky. We have been expecting you.”