If there was a Phoenix or a god in the heavens, She must be laughing at him.
“You and the order will remain here,” Leo said wearily. “And my men will cut down your last seven priests if you do not reveal the Prophet to me. You have until Elena’s coronation day. Do you understand, Saayna?”
When she finally turned to him, her eyes were grim. “I pray that when the Prophet arrives, she burns you first. In front of Elena.”
Then she was gone, robes whispering across the floor as she slipped back into the temple and its vicious Eternal Fire.
Leo walked down the steps, hands shaking. He knew that if he looked back now, he would crumble. Instead, he carefully stared at the horizon until his eyes burned.
I will find you, Prophet. Wherever you are, I will root you out and burn you before Saayna.
“The Arohassin attacked a patrol near the Yoddha Base,” Arish said as they boarded the hoverpod. “We sustained a few injuries, but the Arohassin left this.” He motioned and a holo floated to them. It showed something black in the sand, some great, coiling serpent, but as the image came closer, Leo realized it was no monster. It was a rune.
“Who has seen this?” he said through pressed lips.
“Only us,” Arish said, and indeed, the hoverpod was empty except for them.
“And the soldiers at the base?”
“The Black Scales and a few of our officers saw, but they think it’s some nonsensical mark of the Arohassin.”
Leo stared at the rune smoldering on the dune like a fresh brand on an animal. He could not say why, but something was unnatural about the symbol.
“They know,” he said. “They know about the Prophet.”
And they left the rune to goad me, he wanted to add. And if the Arohassin knew about his search for the Prophet…
Mother’s Gold, I have a traitor.He gripped his chair, thinking quickly. No one knew about the runes except him, Arish, Muftasa, Samson, and the high priestess. Arish and Muftasa would never betray him. Saayna had been kept under his watch ever since they found the runes on the priest. Was it Samson then? Or Yassen Knight?
“How did they get there?” he asked. “Did we catch any of them?”
“We believe they camped in Teranghar and used cruisers to cross the sands. A Black Scale captured one, Your Majesty,” Arish said, and the holo shifted to show the face of a boy with a crooked nose and small eyes. “Goes by the code name Mason. A Jantari, only seventeen suns. He’s a new recruit.”
“That’s why they left him behind,” Leo muttered. He shifted the holo back to the rune.
“Do you suppose they know who she is? The Prophet?”
“No,” Leo said at once, but a sliver of doubt made the word sound small.They couldn’t.After all, the Arohassin did not believe in the Phoenix. Why would they then chase a prophet?
Leo peered at the rune. The Arohassin had left black sand in his desert, along the southern border, and the irony did not escape him. They had finally shown their hand, but could it be that they did not understand what they held?
“Maybe they know what the runes mean, maybe not,” Leo mused. “But I bet that they burned this because they want me to know they are watching. That they have eyes and ears everywhere.”
Before Arish could respond, the door of the hoverpod opened.
With a quick wave of his hand, Arish closed the holos as Majnu and the guards entered.
“What is it?” Arish snapped. “Did I not tell you to wait outside?”
“The high priestess told us to board. She said that the temple…” He hesitated. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “It needs to be cleansed. They want to burn their dead.”
Leo looked out the windows. In a tangle of thorned rakins, the red buds small and new on the dark branches, he saw an orange robe.
“Leave behind a few guards and the Yumi to help,” he said. “It’s the least we can do.”
Silence crept across the hoverpod. Finally, Majnu turned and barked out orders. A few guards slunk out of the hoverpod, and Leo saw the ashen look on their faces. He had asked them to commit the unforgivable. Perhaps they cursed his name. Perhaps they cursed themselves, but Leo knew they would remain loyal to their king. The desert bred hard men, and their blood ran thick.
The hoverpod hummed as the doors closed and the remaining guards took their places. The pilot engaged the gears, and they rose into the tormented sky. A northern wind played across the desert. Dunes shifted and melted underneath him, but Leo paid no mind. It was only when they reached the southern border and he saw the rune burned along the face of the dune that he noticed the sand hadn’t shifted. It remained perfectly still, while the desert around it rolled with the wind.
