Chapter 38 Jaya #2
“Yumi,” he gasped.
Others began to turn to her.
Their curiosity sent an ugly pang of disgust and jealousy through Jaya.
She remembered others touching her hair as a child.
But look, her hair is soft! She is not one.
Their frowns, the confusion in their eyes, the simple What are you?
closing her throat in a panic. She had to get out.
Jaya pushed past them, ignoring the curses, the questions, when suddenly the crowd opened, and she was spit in front of the temple gates.
Behind them.
Samson and Elena turned at her sudden appearance.
“Gamemaster?” Samson said.
Elena studied her with distrust, and Jaya felt the prick of her old hatred, like a sleeping fire stirred. You will find a way. You must.
“Prophet. Queen.” Jaya instinctively began to bow, then stopped short. She no longer bowed to queens or kings. “Have you come to bless us?”
She tried to hide the sneer in her voice, but Elena caught it.
“Stay out of the way, gamemaster,” she said.
Jaya held, defiant. For a moment, she forgot Akaros’s warnings, Div’s coma, the Prophet, and the crowd.
She saw only the fires and the gold caps and Elena’s and Leo’s statues, rising above it all.
But then ululations started through the crowd as Samson stepped forward, and Jaya ducked back, swallowing her burning pride.
“The queen and I have come here today to usher in a new era of peace. Forget what transpired here a few weeks ago. We hold no animosity for each other. And as proof,” he said, raising his urumi, “we will create a new temple fire. One made by us both.”
Elena raised her hand, her fingers quickly tapping out signs Jaya could not read.
Without warning, an inferno blazed down her arm.
Its light blinded Jaya, and she staggered back as the crowd gasped.
With a crack of his urumi, Samson summoned his flame, and together, they lit the torches on top of the gates.
“Before you all, we promise, as queen and Prophet, to bring freedom to Ravence,” Elena called.
“Ravence and Seshar,” Samson said.
To this, Elena nodded, and perhaps it signified nothing.
Perhaps, as the queen quickly pulled on a smile, as the gatherers caught their bearings, as loud prayers, roars of approval, and desperate pleas to be blessed thundered through the street, there was nothing to read.
But Jaya had spent suns studying fighters.
Their strengths and weaknesses. Their tells.
And when Elena faced the crowd, away from Samson so that he could not notice, Jaya saw the slight quiver in her throat.
She felt a breathless thrill in the pit of her stomach, an exhilaration similar to finding a fighter who fought in ways she had not anticipated in her designs. Jaya gripped her lotus and followed the Firebloods into the temple.
“Are you tracking us now, gamemaster?” Elena asked.
Jaya shrugged. “Is that a crime?”
Elena scowled. Jaya noted the practiced violence in the way she stood, how she held her head and arms slightly forward, as if ready to leap.
Charged violence, Jaya amended. Elena’s eyes, dark and calculating, swept over her, and Jaya felt her skin prickle as the queen took her in.
She was taller than Elena, leaner too, but where Jaya was wiry, Elena was sharper.
They were mirrors. Broken apart and put back together in the memory of resemblance.
Samson moved forward, breaking Jaya from her study. He looked gaunter than before, his cheeks pallid and sunken. “Have you come to pray, gamemaster?”
She had not prayed in many suns. But she nodded and knelt with them.
The ceremony was short. The priestess, a Ravani woman, stumbled her way through Sesharian litanies of the Serpent.
Her icon had been erected on top of the Phoenix, but bits of the bird still flared through.
A feather there. A talon here. The Firebloods barely uttered their prayers, Samson’s eyes always roaming, Elena silent and still.
This is a performance, Jaya thought.
She could hear the crowd outside, waiting. How many hoped to be blessed by these two? How many believed them to be their saviors?
She stood when the others rose.
“May I speak with you?” she said to Elena.
Elena shared a glance with Samson, then nodded. They were left alone, the temple fire crackling softly in the near dark.
“What is it you need with me, Arohassin?” Elena said. She did not try to hide the derision dripping from her voice.
Believe me, I despise your presence too, Jaya thought acidly. For a moment, she considered leaving.
But she had heard the whispers, seen the nervous glances.
More so, she noticed how the Prophet had thinned into a husk of a man.
If she had all the time in the world, then maybe she would wait.
Create a game to flawless execution. But no challenger won a game without a risk.
No gamemaster outsmarted the players without inviting danger.
“The Sesharians are losing faith in the Prophet,” she said. To her credit, Elena fought down her shock. Jaya then told her about the whispers, the pilgrims, the unrest. So what if she exaggerated? Div was running out of time.
When she was done, the queen said slowly, “They are wrong. He deserves their faith.”
“Wh-what? I thought… Didn’t he…?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Are you defending him? Because I heard he nearly killed you.”
“And I should use the Arohassin to kill him? The same people who killed my father and my Yassen?” Elena’s voice hardened.
“Be grateful, gamemaster, that I’m not telling of your transgression to the Black Scales.
This is your warning. If you speak of this with me again, you and your like will be driven into the earth. ”
Jaya snorted. “So, you’re protecting him.”
Something cold and sharp flickered across Elena’s face. Her mouth twisted into a half snarl, half smile. “He is my Prophet.”
She turned to go, and Jaya licked her lips, thinking, Just say it.
“Your Agni is stronger than his.”
Elena stopped short. “What?”
“I—I have been studying Agni. For suns now. The nature of its heat, its burning point, the life force it demands. How one can differ from another.”
“How?”
“From scrolls. Some from the black market, others stolen from the Royal Library.” Elena scowled at that, and Jaya shrugged. “What else can you expect? You royals keep all the knowledge to yourselves and, even then, fail to learn it.”
Elena’s voice was a low growl. “And what did you learn?”
“Agni is a force. One rooted in elemental nature, powered by the gods themselves. And the gods are not equal. They are jealous and vicious and fight each other for more. There are even rumors of gods learning to devour and steal each other’s power.
” She held out the metal lotus. “This will help prevent Samson from taking your power. See, it can form any weapon.” She demonstrated, the black sand hissing into a slingsword, then a chakram, then an urumi.
“It might come to your aid, if he turns against you. Again.”
Elena studied her for a long moment, her body completely still. Then she drew in a deep breath and left.
Jaya stood alone, the sand gently susurrating around her.
Damn it. She had been sure Elena would take the bait.
But something nagged at her. For as much as Elena had claimed her allegiance to the Prophet, Jaya had noticed her gaze slide past her to the broken vestiges of the Phoenix.
And the look in her eyes wasn’t one of piety.
It had been of pain.
This would be a slow game, then. No matter.
Those were her favorite.