“I promise you,” Samson said, his voice fierce. “The day you’re free, we’ll hunt down Akaros himself. I’ll cut off his head.”
Yassen said nothing. Nursing a grudge took effort, pain, and when he wanted to be free of his past, he wanted to be free of that too. Revenge. Bloodshed. The works.
A clean slate. A new name.
He did not have the heart for retribution.
“Fine. But do it after you see me off. I won’t come with you,” he said.
Samson began to retort and thought better of it. He chucked a white shirt at Yassen.
“This will suit you,” he said. His eyes lingered on the burnt flesh of Yassen’s arm. “Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes, like a ghost is traveling through my body,” Yassen said. He straightened and grabbed a pair of cotton trousers. “Now, if you could leave.”
Samson paused before the door. The rain was falling harder, thick wet drops that sounded as if a million tiny soldiers were waging battle on the roof.
“We leave right after dawn,” he said. The door closed softly behind him.
Yassen dropped the shirt to the floor. He crossed the room and leaned out the window. The rain splashed his face, soaked his hair, trailed down his naked torso. He wanted to feel its chill in his bones.
Through the mist, Yassen could make out the silhouettes of the sandscrapers and chhatris. Beyond them lay the desert suburbs and, somewhere in the outskirts, his home.
Home. What a strange word.It was meant to be a haven, a place where he could finally die in peace, but it felt more like a curse. A dream that perhaps he would never achieve.
He had never belonged in Ravence, with his colorless eyes. The Jantari spurned him as soon as they heard the desert on his tongue. He had always been an orphan, even before he became one.
His parents had tried to shield him, but they too bore the same ostracization.Traitors, they had called his family before they died.Abomination, they had called him.
And when his parents had died, his neighbors had stared at him with pity, as if he were a wounded shobu.No one will adopt an orphan like him,they had whispered. He had wanted to pluck the pity from their eyes and bury it deep in the desert.
Yet here he was on Palace Hill, in the palace, looking down upon the city that had spawned him. He, who had never even dreamed of setting foot within the royal courtyards, slept in its chambers.
Yassen closed his eyes and tasted the salty rain.
He, the orphan from the desert outskirts, would show them. He had to.
CHAPTER 12
ELENA
There is a rage that comes with fire. An all-consuming fury that boils away any sliver of fear. This is why the Prophet is so powerful. She serves the heavy hand of justice without the fear of death. Her lifetime contains a multitude of generations, and our life is only a blink in hers.
—from the diaries of Priestess Nomu of the Fire Order
You lost control,” Ferma said once she left her father’s office.
“What?” Elena said, startled. She had been lost in thought, wondering why her father had visited the library. She peered at Ferma. “Lost control of what?”
“In the gamefield,” Ferma said. “You beat the everlasting shit out of the assassin when he gave you the game.”
“Oh, that.” Elena sighed. “He’s trained in the Unsung, Ferma. I could tell by his stance. But he wouldn’t use it. I tried to goad him, but…”
“But he was smart enough to take the hit.” Ferma shook her head. “You know better than to attack a fallen enemy.”
Elena said nothing. She may not be queen yet, but she knew the way of kings: their swift cruelty; their harsh justice. King Farzand had ruthlessly killed the stranded Jantari army after they had gotten lost in the northern sandstorms. Those men and women had been helpless, but he had not wavered, not even to return their bodies to their families. He had burned them all in a great pyre, several miles north of Palace Hill.
She did not have the stomach to do what King Farzand had done. But at least she knew this: Never underestimate a fallen enemy.
