Chapter 68 Elena
ELENA
I will burn and burn until I have become a shred of myself.
—from the diaries of Priestess Nomu of the Fire Order
She dreamed of Yassen dying again. He was caught in the flames as they built in power, and no matter how quickly he twisted, they lashed him.
His yelps of pain threatened to sunder her.
Elena lunged for him. The inferno beat her back, and despite her efforts, she could not control it.
The flames were silver and stark and sharp like swords, like a row of teeth. Suddenly, they swiveled to her.
You disgust me, they sang, except it was not their voice, not Samson’s, but Yassen’s. His lips curled into a sneer. You destroy everything between heaven and earth.
No, she sobbed, trying to tear away the flames. He was dying, couldn’t he see? Please, I am not like that.
You are a monster, he said, and his voice bent, morphed, until she heard both their voices, Yassen’s and Samson’s, condemning her. You disgust me.
Elena woke to iron bonds around her hands and feet. Her heart thundered with the force of ten thousand rivers rushing at once. Vestiges of the dream evaporated, but she could not shake the grim, accusatory sensation throttling her neck like a vise.
You disgust me.
A heavy metal collar hugged her neck, bearing down on her shoulders with a subtle but substantial weight. She was in a cell, the white walls rounded and bare. A silver screen separated her from the hall. Shaking, Elena rose to her feet when she heard footsteps.
“Hello?” she croaked. “Risha? Syla? Sam?”
Her voice broke under his name. She remembered his rasping breath, the flutter of his fingers as he had reached for her.
Wretchedly, she searched for his Agni and found not even a shadow, not even a spark.
A deep despair filled her then. A bleakness that suffused her limbs so that she could barely register the stir of air as the silver screen flickered off.
I’m sorry, Samson.
A guard appeared before her, holding a chain. “Come with me, Your Majesty.”
“Where?” she asked dully. “What is this?”
But the guard clipped the chain to her shackles and tugged hard.
Elena stumbled forward, almost losing her balance.
She moved in a daze, tripping over her feet as they went down a long white hallway as bare and empty as her cell.
She heard no song. No sounds of celebration.
Nothing but the rataplan of their footsteps.
Two armed guards stood at a black door at the end of the hall, and it was when she saw their bright oiled spears, their gruff, scornful looks, that Elena finally felt a delayed sort of panic. She stopped.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked. The guard yanked on the chain, but she dug in her heels—like she had done countless times when she danced—and remained rooted to her spot. “Tell me.”
But then the other guards grabbed her arms. Elena cried out as the door swung open. She twisted, kicking, cursing, as they hauled her into the dark, cavernous room. She could see nothing. Not the ceiling or the walls. Just a brooding, living darkness.
They shoved her forward, and Elena fell to her hands and knees with a yelp. The pallu of her black sari fell from her shoulders, and she could not remember when she had donned such a thing, when the lights flared.
Their brightness seared her vision, and she blinked blearily as a figure stood.
“The Kingdom of Tsuana calls this tribunal,” Queen Risha said.
Another light flared, this time to her left. Queen Kysha rose. “The Kingdom of Karven attends the tribunal.”
Another light, this time Syla. He looked wary, and afraid, his expression pinched, his eyes heavy.
Daz appeared next, his face stoic, unreadable.
Farin came forward, his metal voice grating through the large room, and when the last spotlight flashed, Elena turned, expecting Bormani, but his chair remained empty.
She stared at the vacant seat, dread threading up her spine.
“We call this tribunal to assess the crimes of Elena Aadya Ravence, queen of the Kingdom of Ravence, and give judgment according to the degree of her transgressions,” Risha said, her voice oddly remote.
Elena slowly raised herself to her feet.
She stood in the middle of a long circular table, and she could now see the outlines of tall, grand windows, shuttered shut.
Surely, she was still dreaming. She gritted her teeth, pinching the inner skin of her thumbs, but the figures did not melt or bend around her. This nightmare did not lift.
Risha continued. “Elena Aadya Ravence, you are charged with conspiring with terrorists and the murder and assassination of King Bormani of Veran. How do you plead?”
Elena blanched. “Th-this is a mistake. Syla. Daz,” she called, but they either turned away or flinched. “What has happened? Where is Bormani?”
“Obliterated to pieces because of your bombs,” Risha said, and her voice, so controlled, buckled under the strain of her anger. Or her disgust.
“Bombs? I have planted no bombs,” she said. “Risha, please. Unbind me—”
The door opened again, and Elena turned to see a Yumi hobbling through, followed by guards. Her mouth fell open in recognition.
“Rhumia?”
Though the Yumi stood tall, Elena saw pain in the dent of her brow, and then she saw the bloody stub of her ear. Rhumia refused to meet her gaze.
“Rhumia of Moksh,” Risha called out. “Tell us what you saw.”
Rhumia said nothing, her eyes flitting to Daz. The general stayed silent, his face impassive. Perhaps it was her imagination, but Elena thought she saw regret lacing his jaw. But then something seemed to pass between them, because Rhumia squared her shoulders.
“I found an Arohassin operative planting bombs throughout the palace,” Rhumia said, her voice dead. “I attempted to apprehend the assassin, but she escaped through the canals.”
She.
A slow terror beat through Elena, like the awful march of an army creeping to the battlefield.
“And were you able to identity the operative?” Risha asked.
“Her name is Jaya, a gamemaster of the Arohassin,” Rhumia said, and then, after a beat, “of Ravence.”
A guard stepped forward, holding a twisted metal scrap that Elena belatedly recognized as one of Jaya’s lotuses.
“We encountered the operative earlier, Your Majesties,” he said.
His voice was strong, filled with a conviction only the righteous could conjure.
“I found her coming from the direction of the Ravani queen’s chambers.
When the explosions began, strange fires burned through the queen’s rooms. All from this device.
“The fire was unnatural. Quicker than anything I’ve seen. It burned half of the western wing before we could stop it. A similar fire was found in the lower second wing. It also sprouted from a similar device, though this time, the flames were blue and came from Samson Kytuu’s room.
“We found five of these… metal lotuses in total. Had three of the five not been deactivated by the Yumi, we would be dealing with far more deaths.”
“What are you trying to say?” Farin purred, his voice knifing through Elena.
The guard, emboldened, stepped forward. “All evidence proves that Queen Elena and Samson Kytuu sought to assassinate the members of the council with the help of the Arohassin operative.”
Something shattered within Elena. Her heart plummeted, like an arrow loosed.
She remembered Jaya in her rooms, telling her how to sway the council.
Handing her the lotus. Asking to study their Agni with an earnestness Elena now recognized as subterfuge.
Had she really been blind, all this time?
She had come to tolerate the gamemaster, even trust her.
But now Elena saw the past in a different light, and everything became colder, starker.
She remembered Jaya flicking off her hood.
Clutching the orb with a strange possessiveness.
All those details, rendered anew with the brutality of truth.
It hurt to swallow. Elena blinked away hot, frustrated tears and forced herself to hold her head high, her chains rattling.
“Jaya is no friend of mine,” she said hoarsely.
But the guard ignored her. He turned to Syla and Daz, the awful lotus glinting in his hands. “We also believe she was aided by other accomplices.”
Daz caught the accusation. Slowly, he leaned forward, resting his hands on the table. “We Yumi of Moksh were not aware of Queen Elena’s conspiracy with the Arohassin. We aided Queen Elena solely for the purpose of brokering peace.”
Kysha snorted. “She was half-Yumi, wasn’t she? She was one of you. And she killed one of our own. Bormani sat with us not a day before. I say we give her head to Veran, let her blood seep into their soil and give Bormani’s soul justice.”
“She was no Yumi,” Rhumia snarled. “She was clipped. A blasphemy upon our Great Mother.”
Daz threw her a warning glance. “If I must stand tribunal, then I will do so to prove my innocence. Queen Elena alone conspired with the Arohassin.”
He looked at her then. There was no change in his expression, no quiver within his stoic facade.
But Elena understood that he was giving her a choice.
His imprisonment, perhaps even his death, rested now in her hands.
If she implicated Daz, or Syla, if she even admitted they had known of the Arohassin, then they would be standing here like this.
Perhaps, by giving her a choice, Daz was showing her mercy. Or hedging his bets.
Silence stretched between them. Elena squared her shoulders, forcing her voice to sound steady, convincing.
“Moksh and Cyleon had no relationship with the Arohassin. And I have deceived no one,” she said. “I came here only seeking peace. It is I who Jaya has deceived. I did not know of her true—”
Farin laughed, a high grating sound, like gears grinding together. “Did she deceive you like Yassen Knight deceived you? Or was she a woman of honor like Bormani’s failed assassin?”