Chapter 39 Samson
SAMSON
I have seen too much pain, too much sorrow. Take this from me, O Great Serpent. Allow me the mercy of your waters.
—from The Lament of Seshar: A People’s History
He abandoned them beneath the earth.
Turned against his own men.
What else can you expect from a rustblood?
He had heard them. Ravani and Sesharian alike, whispering of his shortcomings, his sin.
He had hoped his appearance with Elena would help to show that the Prophet and the queen were one.
Something to bridge the gap, he had said.
Something to show he was not afraid of their judgment.
But he still heard their voices over the roar of the flames. He still heard them crying for help.
Samson hugged his jacket tighter as he slowly climbed the high temple steps.
A chill lingered in his bones, threading through his veins with ghostlike fingers and disappearing as soon as he tried to pin it down.
He had tried everything. Coals on his naked skin, layers of sweaters until he sweated underneath the winter sun.
Still, the chill persisted. Short of siphoning Elena’s Agni, only the Eternal Fire remained, and he could hear it rumbling just over the landing, calling him home.
Saayna bowed at his approach. “Prophet.”
“Saayna. How have you kept?”
Her eyes skittered over his sunken cheeks, his pale lips, and he thought he saw a flicker of worry—or was it doubt?—cross her face before she bowed once more.
“Well, now that we have been honored by your Divine Presence.”
Divine Presence. His stomach curdled. Would the divine leave his people like so?
“Prophet?”
She stared up at him, and Samson realized he had been standing still for too long. He kissed three of his fingers and placed them on Saayna’s head to bless her.
“We have brought provisions for you and your order. My men will bring them up, but they will need your direction.”
It was only after a beat that he noticed his fingers were trembling against her skin. He tucked his hand back into his coat. “Go.”
Saayna hesitated. Her brows pinched, and there was something furtive about her gaze, as if she was trying to piece him together without his noticing. But then she scurried off, and he was alone with the Eternal Fire.
It roiled at his approach, though no flames rushed to meet him.
He watched them split, separate tongues twisting away while others twined together.
Vicious red bled to burnt orange to cool blue and then the slight bite of green.
It was as if all the colors in the world could be found in the heart of a flame.
He stood, hypnotized by the conflagration.
Pity, how something so beautiful could wreak so much destruction.
He began to reach for a flame. Better to heal himself now before the priests came back.
He imagined the fire looping around his body, sinking into his skin, his bones, chasing away the chill and filling him with a peace he no longer recognized.
But even as he reached forward and curled his fingers, Samson felt resistance, as if someone was pushing against his hand and trying to pry it open.
“Come here,” he commanded.
At last, a tiny flame wrenched away from the inferno with a squawk. It danced within his palm, jittery and erratic, as if looking for an escape. Samson frowned.
In his mind’s eye, he followed the flames down to their roots as he had done before, in search of its savage song that spoke of the delicious tang of the earth and the clear notes of the wind.
A song of old when the desert was a forest, and the forest had been an ocean filled with creatures deep.
It had been thunderous, thrumming with power and a vicious vitality. He searched and heard… nothing.
Only the crackle of the flames, their whispers unknown to him.
Samson stumbled back, his heart thumping wildly.
He could taste it. Something foreign, a spice that salted the air with its tangy smoke.
He whipped around, scanning his surroundings, but he saw no priest, no soldier, not even a curious bird pecking at the debris.
Only the Eternal Fire remained. Only the flames stretched before him, crackling in a language he could no longer hear, and he did not know whether it was its silence or its refusal to greet him that hurt him more.
“Great Serpent,” he said.
And then it began to laugh.
Samson gasped as the Eternal Fire charged, biting his feet with soft pops, its laughter buzzing through his bones. He tried to push away the flames, but they merely toyed with him, snapping at his wrist, his knee, his neck.
“Listen to me!” he cried.
He attempted to fling off a flame that cracked his cheek, but it zipped away quickly in a laughter of sparks. The Eternal Fire swept in, trapping him. The air thickened with heat. Just walk through, he thought. I won’t burn.
A flame smacked his tricep, and Samson hissed in pain.
He raised his bruised arm. A welt, black as tar, curdled his skin and just as quickly disappeared.
The Eternal Fire attacked again. Samson fell to his knees, crying out as flames bit into his flesh, tearing away as he healed only to latch on again.
“Stop!” he commanded.
The inferno only roared in response, and it was then that he realized he could not feel the vigor of its vicious hunger or the heat of its power sizzle through his veins. All he felt was the sting of sudden betrayal.
The Eternal Fire was no longer his.
Get up, he thought. Get up, up, UP!
He crawled forward, gritting his teeth as the flames rained down their punishment. It was as if he was swimming against the current, each flame a wave beating against him. At long last, he reached the threshold, and the Eternal Fire roiled back.
Samson lay there, stunned. After a few minutes, sensation came back into his toes, his fingers, then the rest of his body. But he felt something different in his navel chakra: a cold so intense it bowled him over. His Agni shriveled, distant, weak.
You did not heal me, he thought.
The Eternal Fire yawned, the silence of its absent song roaring in his ears.
Samson pushed himself to his feet and ran down the landing, down the steps, down the burnt vestiges of the broken temple. He did not stop running until he saw the gleam of the tanker, and only when he was under the shadow of its wings did he finally collapse.
A soldier cried out in alarm. Others began to rush toward him.
I look feeble, he thought first. And then, I look mad.
Someone touched his arm. Saayna. Worry ringed her eyes as she sat him up and smoothed back his sweaty hair.
“Prophet?” she asked.
And in his delirium, he began to laugh. Saayna froze, watching him with an expression stuck between horror and confusion. But he could not stop. Could not bottle the feeling of panic as he thought, with awful clarity, Your Prophet is dying.
Samson ordered no one to disturb him once he returned to Magar.
He knew his men would say nothing, but if people saw him like this, they would begin to wonder, and he could not hear more whispers of his shortcomings.
Most of all, he could not bear Elena’s judgment.
His supporters may desert him. People were slow to accept gods, but quick to destroy them.
But if Elena forsook him… He shuddered at the thought.
Samson peeled off his clothes until he was bare chested. Gooseflesh prickled up his skin. Damn this cold.
He splashed water on his face when he heard a sound. Turning, he saw Elena in the doorway.
“Oh.”
Water dripped down his neck, his chest. She stared openly. Was that a smile flickering on her face? No, he must have imagined it, because when she met his eyes, her gaze was cool, controlled.
“We’ve got a comms channel open with the Yumi.”
“What?” He stared at her. “When?”
She handed him a towel, her eyes lingering on the scar on his chest. The weight of her gaze sent a strange fire down his spine. “Get dressed. We’re needed in the war room.”
“Why did you come yourself to tell me? You could have sent a soldier.”
“I wanted to spare someone else of your narcissism,” she said. “Coming?”
He laughed, surprised he still remembered how. “I am not a narcissist.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“And you know many?”
“Just one. But he’s enough for me to make sense of them all.”
He wagged a finger. “You have barely scratched the surface of Samson Kytuu.”
“See. He even refers to himself in the third person.”
Samson smiled as he toweled off and grabbed a sweater. He walked slowly in controlled strides to hide his limp when Elena stopped. She offered an arm.
“Chivalry isn’t dead, you know,” she said.
“I’m fine.” He pushed past her, and after a moment, Elena followed.
“What happened at the high temple?” she asked.
“Nothing. I said I’m fine.”
“You’re limping.”
“I am just tired, Elena.”
He could feel her staring, tasting the lie, but instead of responding with a quip, she rested her arm on his and squeezed.
“You don’t need to pretend with me,” she said quietly.
His heart flailed, ringing inside his chest. “I am not pretending.”
“All right,” she said, but her arm remained on his, steady and sure, and he leaned into her as they walked, his chest quickening and tightening with nameless, breathless sensation.
It looked as if they were walking arm in arm, the Prophet and the queen, but Samson could feel the weight of accusatory glares as they passed through the streets.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a Sesharian boy glowering, the serpent on his cheek curling inward as if to mock him.
An older man stood behind, his cheek a bloated red mess, as he had peeled off the skin to remove the mark.
Fear skittered down Samson’s spine, and he leaned closer to Elena.
A few stopped to bow. Many stared, and he caught the snatches of whispers, the offhand glares, the rippling agitation as the people looked upon their Prophet and found him wanting.
Elena gripped his arm. “Just stay with me.”