Epilogue The Third Agni
EPILOGUE
THE THIRD AGNI
It was strange waking up as a forsaken god.
On one hand, Yassen felt like the sun had burned the clots of sin marking his skin and birthed him anew. Tender-fleshed, glorious. A godling still unaware of his deep and terrible power.
And on the other, in the dreams that would not wither, in the visions that pricked his eyesight like desert kair, he saw the ghosts.
They had come after he had burned the girl.
He did not know who they were. They did not speak or seem to notice him, but when he caught them edging the shadows, a cold, vicious dread beat through his chest. He felt as if he knew them.
Not from now, but from several lifetimes ago, a slow pouring of souls who all bore the prints of burning on their skin.
This is a mistake, he thought. I should be dead.
“Are you ready, Prophet?”
Prophet. That awful word again.
“Don’t call me that.” Amid his visions and confusion, they had dragged him to a gamefield. Yassen had no idea of how much time had passed, only that Akaros sauntered toward him now.
“It is what you are,” Akaros said. A ghost flickered in his shadow. Yassen could not see her face, but he saw her burns, a glowing red map of pain sprawling down her chest and abdomen. Reflexively, he touched his own stomach. But his skin lay intact, whole and strong.
“I am no god,” he said.
“We will teach you how to become one,” Akaros said as the sand hummed. “First, we’ll start off with summoning a simple flame.”
Yassen jerked back as shards shot up like a flock of crows cawing with anger. They stopped suddenly, sharp edges glinting over their heads.
“Elena and Samson used a channel,” Akaros said. “Something to help them center and focus their energy. Elena’s was dance. Samson’s, an urumi. We need to find yours.”
The shards plunged down. Yassen yelped and stumbled back, raising his hands above his head. The sand smacked into him, beating him into the ground. Thump. Thump. Thump. He buckled, smashing onto his knees.
The sand collapsed. Grains rained down into his hair, beneath his collar, as he peered blearily through his fingers. Akaros studied him, unimpressed.
“Again.”
The field hummed as another flock of shards streaked through the air. Yassen barely had time to get onto his feet before they slammed into him. He was brought to his knees much quicker this time.
“Again.”
This time, Yassen ran. He sprinted across the field, the shards hissing behind him as Akaros shouted in a clipped, bored voice.
“Focus on your Agni, Cass. Its shape. Its heat. Call to it.”
“I don’t know—heugh.” A shard slammed into his chest, and he crumpled instantly.
Black leather boots edged his vision as he lay there in the sand.
“The more time you spend squealing like a bitch,” Akaros said, “the less time Elena has left.”
Her name zipped through him like lightning, and Yassen felt himself rising to it, aching for her.
What right did Akaros have to take her name?
What right did any of them have to her memory?
Anger replaced his confusion, fueled by a vicious, desperate longing.
Yassen shot up with a snarl. Akaros jerked away in surprise, but Yassen pitched forward, slamming him into the ground.
They struggled in the sand, wrestling for the upper hand.
Yassen scrambled up—trying to get to his feet—and a boot rammed into his face.
Heat burst in his nose. Yassen cried out, gagging as blood dripped down his lips.
Akaros shoved him off and then pulled back his foot for another kick.
Yassen saw it. He tried to cup his bleeding nose, to move away, but the heat was spreading.
Down his head, his neck, into his shoulders and chest. Vicious and metallic like a slingsword, searing like lightning.
And all he could think, as he saw the grim menace in Akaros’s face, the promised violence in his coiled momentum, was how familiar this was.
This pain. He had lived with it all his life.
From the hunger that had gnawed his bones while stealing bread, to the grief that gripped his throat as he clutched a bleeding Samson, to the quiet sorrow lacing his ribs when he told Elena to leave him behind.
He was no stranger to pain. It thrummed through his veins, made up the very structure of his bones.
It was old and acute and intimate, like a secret. Like a dream, promised.
So he reached into it. He reached for his pain and its heat and he felt his Agni rush up, singing.
Like the desert come to life under the summer sun.
Like the beat of a million sweeping wings, it roared through him.
Yassen opened his palm. A flame, brilliant and brutal and beautiful, whipped forward.
Its long tongue lashed against Akaros. He jerked back, howling, but Yassen did not feel remorse.
Blood dripped steadily from his nose, darkening the ground. Yassen rose. He felt lightheaded and dizzy and triumphant. He felt exhausted.
A spider-soft voice rang through the speakers.
“His channel is pain.”
He whirled around in surprise, recognition peeling away to shock as he saw a thin, tall figure, wreathed in black.
A ghost, he thought. But unlike the others, this ghost had seen him.
“Taran?”
The leader of the Arohassin regarded him slowly, languidly. His red eyes had always unnerved Yassen, but today, they seemed to pierce into the very bleating, ruinous mess of him.
“It’s been a long time, Yassen,” Taran said.
“Taran, how—” he began when he felt a sudden strange breathlessness. He turned as Akaros stamped out his flame. It squealed in pain, and his body ached as if Akaros had stomped on him.
“Stop it,” he gasped.
Akaros kicked the pile of ash. “See, Prophet? Fire is your spawn.”
This is a lie. This is a dream.
Yassen stumbled, but Taran steadied him. His voice, always spider soft, eased through his clamoring thoughts.
“You must feel overwhelmed, coming back from the dead. But you are among friends, Yassen. We will help you understand your powers. We will teach you how to hone it.”
“Am I a hostage?” Yassen said. “Is this hell?”
Taran laughed. Bright, genuine, a laugh that should not belong to a man like him.
“Hell has always reigned on Sayon.” He shook his head. “But you are here to set it right.”
He gestured to the glass wall where, beyond, Yassen could see the dying boy’s metal coffin. “Div’s blood is a unique match to yours, and he’s kept you alive. He’s been comatose for over a sun because of a gold-caps riot.”
He pointed up, to the silver screen. “Jaya dedicated a whole sun to studying the nature of Agni, and she’s helped keep you alive. She almost lost her life because of some jealous, power-hungry kings.”
He raised another finger. “There’s Akaros. You’ve known him all your life, blamed him for your miseries. He’s kept you alive. He almost lost his student earlier because of you.”
“Taran—”
“And then there’s Maya. She’s been working with the Sesharian rebel groups for months to overthrow the Jantari. She’s kept you alive. And she almost lost her life too because of the same jealous, power-hungry kings.”
“Taran, please,” Yassen said.
“You are here because we decided to save you, Yassen Knight. You are not a hostage. You were a choice. And we have sacrificed so much, and will continue to sacrifice much more, to keep you alive.”
Yassen stared at him. He felt lost, stuck.
Like he was standing in the pit of a dune, the sand slowly sucking him in.
Pressure built up in his spine, his limbs.
He knew better than to trust the Arohassin.
How many times had they manipulated him?
How many times had they plucked him from the brink of death only to find that their touch had left scars?
Their promises only ruin. But he saw the boy whose blood pumped through him even now, and he felt a sudden guilt then.
“Why?” His voice came out strained, broken from exhaustion and the sinking feeling that whatever the answer may be, it would leave him wanting. “Why would you do all of this?”
“Because you are the Prophet. Because, with you, we can finally end the reign of all kings. Because you are now a symbol of hope. And they will hate you for it. They will fear you, Yassen Knight, and one day, they will even come to love you.”
His heart hammered as his Agni stirred and sighed as if in agreement.
“You asked where Elena is. And I will answer honestly. Jaya tried to kill both her and Samson, along with the kings and queens of the second continent, under my orders. She succeeded in only killing one. Bormani. Remember?” Taran smiled as Yassen shuddered.
“But can I tell you the truth? I made a mistake. I underestimated Farin.”
Yassen froze as Taran met his eyes. “He took Elena and Samson as his prisoners.
They are to be executed. Seshar and Ravence will be subsumed by Jantar, your desert ruined, your people oppressed.
And the other kings will do nothing to stop him.
The last we heard, the council voted to execute Elena.
Do you see now why the reign of kings must end?
They will continue to demean and kill the ones we love until they grow fat with power, and even then, it will not be enough. It will never be enough.
“But you, my friend, have been given a gift. By the gods, by nature, by fate, whatever you want to believe in. You can change history, Yassen. Avenge your friends. Help me bring Farin to his knees.”
Elena. Samson. Yassen took an involuntary step forward.
“I must go to them,” he said.
“After you have done something for me,” Taran said.
Yassen stilled. A cold, familiar dread wormed down his throat. How many times had he heard this from the Arohassin?
Just one last task.
One more job.
“What do you want?” he asked warily.
“I would like to collect more of your blood. Fireblood, actually. You see, Jaya has made these lovely lotuses that we will arm with your… essence.”
“Weapons,” Yassen said. “You want to make weapons with my blood.”
Taran smiled. “Not weapons, Yassen. Advantages in our war against kings.”
“No.” He had already seen the destruction his inferno had wrought. He did not wish to burn someone else when he knew so intimately of its pain. “I need to find my friends.”
Taran’s face did not change. His smile did not quiver. In fact, he delivered his response with the same gentle tone as before, but Yassen felt the fire’s warning, a raw, instinctual danger rising from his stomach to his throat, as Taran slipped his hand into his pocket.
“I am not asking, Yassen.”
He felt a strange, sudden sundering then, like an axe cutting his thoughts in half. His mind emptied. An absence echoed through him, and he could not tell why he was here, standing in a gamefield that smelled faintly of ash.
“Wh-what?” He looked to Taran, who simply watched him, a pod balanced delicately in his slender hand. Yassen lunged for him, tripped, and crashed to his knees.
“You—you.” He scratched the ground so hard that his nails dug into his skin, drawing blood. He tried to rise again, fell. “You can’t force me.”
“Oh, Yassen,” Taran said, and for once, his voice changed to reveal sorrow. “I can make you do anything.”
He turned the pod. Yassen shrieked as pain blistered down his right arm.
White-hot, electric. Reflexively, almost immediately, he drew upon it, and a fire bloomed in his hand.
Twisting, Yassen attempted to fling it at Taran, but he tapped the pod, and Yassen gasped as he was cut off from all sensation.
He could not feel anything—his hands, his feet, his pain, or his Agni.
Only a deep, aching absence. Like a rose snipped from the stem, he wilted.
“No,” he whispered. He stumbled forward, his hand catching on Taran’s sleeve, and it was then that he noticed the sensor blinking beneath his skin. In his forearm. The drug moved quickly. Yassen sagged. His head rolled, and then he was falling.
Elena, he called.
But only Taran knelt above him. It was he who gently brushed back his hair as Yassen’s vision sank.
“Sleep now, Prophet,” Taran whispered. “We have much to achieve together.”