Elena paused. For a moment, he thought he saw a smile play across her lips, but just as quickly, her lips hardened.
“Clean him up,” she called out as she turned. “I don’t want a bloodied guard following me around.”
Yassen watched her exit, watched her say something to Samson behind the glass, watched Ferma follow her out. Only then, slowly, did he get to his feet. Pain lanced through his ribs. He hadn’t taken a beating like that in a long time—and the man who had done it to him then was dead.
Samson waited while he cleaned up and donned fresh clothes. The gamemaster took his suit and handed him a block of ice with a sympathetic smile. Yassen pressed it to his cheek.
“Your arm,” she said in a low voice. “You need to see a doctor.”
“I will, thank you,” he said.
She drew back, shaking her head. “That’s what they all say.”
She swept out without another word, leaving him alone with Samson.
“I’m sorry,” Samson said finally.
“It’s all right, Sam.”
“No, Cass, it’s not.” He shook his head. His eyes held the same brazen look they had on the night he had promised Yassen an escape. “I gave you my word that I would help you, but these people…”
“I’m taloned, Sam. Quit pitying me,” Yassen said. He dropped the ice in a waste bin and gripped his friend’s shoulder. “If we stick through this, you’ll be king, and I’ll be absolved of my crimes.”
Samson looked as if he was going to retort, but then he sighed.
“You’re right,” he said. “Go, you deserve rest. I’ll call for you later.”
Yassen clapped him on his back and left Samson standing alone under the blue lights.
He hurried toward his room, avoiding the stares of servants as they took in the bruises staining his face. Yassen glanced down at his arm, turning back the edge of his sleeve. He saw that the marks had changed; they were beginning to warm, to grow an angrier red. He could feel the creeping heat, the tingle in his nerves.
Spots swam in front of his eyes. He turned into the hallway to his room when the world began to tilt. He stumbled, his knees going weak. A salty, iron taste filled his mouth.
He grabbed the wall with his good arm and slunk forward. Darkness ringed his vision. Hot, blistering pain cracked up his arm. His fingers brushed something cold, sleek.The panel.He pressed his hand into the scanner. The door swung open, and Yassen fell inside.
A desert breeze licked his face, warm and delicate. He was faintly aware that the window was open. Strange, he had not left it like that. Yassen tried to crawl forward, but he couldn’t move. The breeze whispered, and he smelled the sweetness of a summer storm mixed with the promise of wet sand as he slowly lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 10
LEO
There are three types of fire. There is that of the Phoenix—a wild, vengeful power. There is that of the dragon—a cold, haughty power. And then there is the third—a fire that provides, nourishes, and heals. I do not know from where it draws its powers. I have yet to find it.
—from the diaries of Priestess Nomu of the Fire Order
Leo and Arish came to his private office—the real one fitted beside his chamber, not the facade behind his throne room. As he entered, Leo breathed in the smell of wet sand. There would be a storm soon. Good. The city needed a little rain.
The study was a large circular room, hung with lavish red curtains. An intricately patterned rug his grandfather had loved covered the floor, and a black granite table with golden veins sat before the large, floor-to-ceiling window. Overhead, a glass dome filtered light onto a seating area with sandalwood chairs and a chaise large enough to fit three men.
But what Leo loved the most about his study was the fire.
A ring of flames writhed around the room, their hiss a comfort to Leo. In the beginning, he disliked their heat, their unpredictability, the way a single flame blinded his eyes and made him see shadows afterward. But he had grown to appreciate the power of an inferno. Its chaotic beauty. His forefather had founded Ravence with a respect for fire, and it was a discipline Leo’s father had instilled in him.
Leo went to his desk and placed his hand down on the inlaid panel.
The floor rumbled, and the emblem of the Phoenix separated to reveal stone steps that disappeared into darkness. Arish took a floating lamp that hovered beside the chaise and sent the orb down the stairs to light their way.
“Wait,” Leo said. He waved at the fire, and the flames surrounding the room shot to the ceiling—a barrier should anyone enter his study unannounced.
