“Oh, Father,” she gasped.
He squeezed her hands tight as he bowed his head, shoulders shaking silently. She rested her forehead against his.
“I would never do that to you,” she choked.
A tear fell, then another. Leo Malhari Ravence wept, quietly, and she held him, quietly, so that he could grieve without shame. He raised her wet hands and kissed her burned fingertips. Folded them between his, pressed together like in prayer.
“You were right. I never asked you what you wanted—because I was afraid. And I was selfish.” He let out a shaky breath. “I denied teaching you the Agneepath because to hold fire, to wield it like you did, means that you must give a sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice?” she said, growing still.
“On the eve of my coronation, my father showed me how to hold fire. And he told me it came with a price: the Eternal Fire would seek a sacrifice. One of blood or one of love. I refused.” A mournful smile crossed his face, and her chest tightened. “But your mother learned the truth through the scrolls. She saw how the Eternal Fire grew angrier, and on the day it threatened to kill me, she threw herself into the inferno.”
Elena felt as if someone had squeezed her heart, stopping it from beating. It made sense now. Aahnah’s obsession with the Royal Library, why she had kept her discoveries between her and Jasmine.She was afraid that he would try to stop her.
“Does—does that mean,” she began, and when Leo nodded, her hands trembled in his.
“You must give a sacrifice now,” Leo said.
“But I didn’t learn through you,” she said. “I learned through the scroll. The dance. Ferma said it was connected to the Yumi Goddess, not the Phoenix. Not the Eternal Fire. Surely that—”
“Elena,” Leo said, and the forced calm in his voice threatened to break her. “It is done. Whenever a Ravani heir holds the inferno, the Eternal Fire will seek a sacrifice.”
She shook her head fiercely. “No. I won’t give one. I can control the flames. Father, yousaw. I—I know how to wield them now. When the fire threatened to harm you, I pushed them away.” She searched his face, but Leo only looked at her with sorrow. “Please, Father. There must be something we can do. I cannot lose you and Ferma.”
For a long time, Leo said nothing. Then he gently released her hands, turning them palm up.
“I killed the priests,” he whispered, so softly that at first she didn’t hear. “And I made Ferma kill the ones that my men could not.”
“Father…” But Elena remembered the haunted look in Ferma’s eyes. “Wh-why?”
“I was searching for something,” he said, and when he looked at her, she realized that her father was afraid of her.Afraid of what I will think of him.“The Prophet is coming, Elena. The Eternal Fire has shown signs of the return. I thought it was one of the priests, but I was a fool.” He shook his head. “I—I don’t expect forgiveness. But I hope…” He took a deep breath to steady his voice. “I hope you’ll understand. This throne drives us to do things that we would have never done before.”
His hands quivered, but as he drew away, Elena touched his wrist.
“I do understand,” she said. She remembered Kiv, the gold cap in the crowd. How she brought him out under the pressure of the journalists and silenced him. The lies she had spun. How she hated herself for it. But it had been necessary, to break the gold caps and sustain the lies against Jangir. Ravence was better off without them, even if it tasted bitter to do so.
Leo watched her, and his eyes slowly widened in knowing. “What else happened at the parade?”
She told him, all of it. Kiv, Varun, Jangir. The gold caps harassing the poor beggar, how she had watched, powerless; Eshaant with his smile and his makhana, only to end up dead with his chest weeping blood. Her father listened silently, and when she finished, he gently took her hand.
“I won’t lie to you. It will get worse. One day, you’ll wake up and realize how much you’ve changed. How much of yourself you’ve lost. But remember this, Elena,” he said. “You will have me. You will have Diya, Samson, Yassen, the guards, the people who knew you as you were before. We can remind you of the woman you once were, so you won’t get lost. And if you’re not a fool like me,” he said with a rueful smile, “you will listen.”
She smiled in return, but then Leo’s face darkened. “Still, no one will understand what it takes to rule the throne. Not like you. So even if you take our advice, you must think for the kingdom. We might be at war soon, Elena. You must be ruthless. If you must become a villain, become one. Become whatever Ravence demands, because without you, it will die.”
And though Elena shivered from the gravity in his eyes, she nodded.
That night, she built Ferma’s funeral pyre.
Elena sent for bundles of azuriwood and piled them together herself. When the servants tried to help, she waved them away. Sweat beaded down her forehead as she worked. A cold wind blew in from the north, licking her face, and the Ravani Desert stretched along the horizon, the dunes crested by moonlight.
“You love nights like this,” Elena said. Her hands ached as she lugged another piece of wood. “Still and quiet. Well, mostly.”
Her voice rang through the courtyard, and Elena saw a servant shift uncomfortably. He whispered to another, glancing her way, and then strode back into the palace.
“They think I’m crazy, Ferma,” she said and laughed. “Who cares. You don’t.”
She grunted as she lifted a log. It was heavy, but Elena shouldered the weight and used her legs to pop the log on top of the pyre.
