Chapter 31 Elena
ELENA
Villain, hero, and conqueror is our Great Mother. To behold her is to behold the truth.
—from Hymns of the Goddess of the Yamuna
The Yumi took her back to the Cyleoni tanker, but when their crawler came to a stop, Elena made no move to leave.
She stared out at Kirri waiting alone on the ramp, the temple rising behind him, and felt a sense of deep, utter loss.
Humiliation, bare and cruel in its learned normality, lined her bones as if melded to her body.
She thought of Samson gloating upon her return, the haughty purr of his blue inferno.
She did not have it within her to bend to him again.
“I hope you will consider my offer,” Daz said.
She said nothing to this, trapped by her own frayed pride. She could only imagine what Samson would say.
Seeking out rebels and usurpers? Elena Aadya Ravence, you wicked girl. See how you are nothing without us?
She swallowed her anger. “I appreciate your hospitality, General.”
She began to reach for the door when Daz, quietly, said, “I loved my sister, but her pride was her undoing. It has been the downfall of many great rulers. But hatred to the point of obsession? It has led to the death of countries, little queen.”
Elena stilled. She could feel his keen gaze prickle the back of her head, discerning her base desires. “May the Goddess’s Light guide you.”
She jumped out before he could say anything more. She boarded the tanker with Kirri, and soon, they rose into the night sky. Elena turned to watch the red glow of the mountains fade into the horizon until the waves swallowed the coast, and Moksh disappeared beyond the sea.
“You do not look happy,” Kirri said as he set down a cup of tea. “Did the queen agree?”
Elena looked away, unable to bear the weight of his gaze. “No.”
“But your fire. You had visions sent by their Goddess. How could she disagree?”
“Because she is dead.”
“What?”
Elena told him then of Daz, the coup, the Yamni, and the high sister.
She left out her visions of the abyss, the insatiable inferno she had briefly controlled, and the third Agni.
By the time she finished, the tea had long gone cold.
A pale, grey dawn washed the horizon. In the window, she saw the wavering outline of Yassen’s ghost. Before, she would have been alarmed by such visions, thinking herself mad, but now…
now she gazed at Yassen’s watery reflection with a resigned acceptance. Of course ghosts plagued her now.
Kirri sat back in his seat, chewing his lip.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, pensive.
“It makes me uneasy to take aid from a usurper. But we will need the Yumi. To attend the council, to end the war, to stop Farin.” He sighed.
“I’ll set our coordinates for Goldor and inform King Syla.
Let us discuss General Daz’s proposal together. ”
Elena nodded, when a thought struck her. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the high sister’s gift.
“What is that?” Kirri asked.
“I have no idea,” Elena said.
It felt familiar, like a detail of a childhood story, long forgotten. She could almost taste the memory on her tongue. But when she turned over the disc and saw the inscription on the back, she let out an involuntary gasp.
A. M.
She would recognize those initials anywhere, the tiny loop curling from the foot of the A, the slanted lines of the M. Her mother had always inscribed her initials on the things she read, the objects she studied.
Aahnah Madhani had held this feather. Had she given it to Sura? Or was it Sura who had first given it to her, then taken it back upon her death?
“Your Majesty, what is it?” Kirri searched her face. “Are you well?”
“This—this…” She set down the feather with trembling fingers. A question, pellucid and sharp, cut through the terrible roar of her heart.
Why did my mother study this feather?
There are stories of the Phoenix giving Her feathers to men, Aahnah had told her. Tokens that brought much fortune and power to the holder. But a god’s gift is a strange thing. It always demands a price, at the end.
Had her mother paid that price? Was that why she had jumped to her death?
“I—I need air,” Elena said, rising, when a soldier appeared at the doorway.
“We just received word from the Sesharians. They’ve taken the mines.”
Kirri asked, “And the ore?”
“They secured fifty payloads, sir.”
He sucked in his breath. “Fifty?”
“Fifty.” The soldier smiled. “Looks like the Butcher is useful after all.”
Elena rocked a little, stunned, as Kirri clucked in approval.
So Samson had succeeded in the end. They would hail him a conquering hero and call her a contemptuous queen who would not ally with a usurper.
They would crown him, glorify him, all because she would not sell her kingdom.
It was horribly, brutally unfair. She had the wild, irrational urge then to return to her desert and be alone in her dunes, away from these men.
To be free—like Yassen had wished. Of kingdoms and gods and dreams of power. She closed her eyes, hoping to find a sliver of that peace, but Elena only found her burgeoning longing to hurt. She only wanted to shake these men and wreak the same misery they had inflicted on her and her kingdom.
She could not leave. Queens did not have that luxury. Ravence demanded her to remain, to stand there with resentment barely hidden behind her face, as Kirri asked for their arrival time in Cyleon.
In the curved glass of the tanker, Yassen’s ghost smiled sorrowfully.