She stared out the window, and Samson watched their reflections on the glass.
“When this is over, what’s the first thing you’d like to do?”
He was startled by the stark normality of the question.What’s the first thing you’d like to do?As if they were discussing their plans for an ordinary day. As if, when this was over, they would survive. Walk out, hand in hand, the Butcher and the Burning Queen.
“I…” The words danced in his mind. The traitors. Slippery whenever he needed them. “I—I…”
I don’t deserve an ordinary, mundane day.Men—monsters—like him were the reason days twisted into horrors. So he relied on memory, on the past. It was only there he could find refuge.
“I would like a plate of cloud cookies,” he answered finally. “Raspberry and black currant flavored.”
He thought of Yassen, how they had shared tea on a balcony overlooking a garden. His bright eyes underneath the midsummer sun. The cool wind against their cheeks. If Samson had known that would be his last unremarkable day, maybe he would have held on to it longer.
“And some tea,” he added. He disliked tea, but it fit. “Vermilion. With a dab of honey.”
In her reflection, Elena’s lips trembled. “That was Yassen’s favorite.”
“I know.”
She began to pull away, when he asked, “What about you?”
“The same,” she said, her voice breaking. “But with two dollops of honey. It’s better that way.”
“Is it?”
She searched his reflection in the window, and for a moment, he saw her. He saw the same grief in her eyes, the exhaustion pulling down her mouth, the ache quivering in the soft muscles of her throat.
He stood to face her.
“Elena—” he began.
“Don’t fling yourself into the sea.” Her voice thickened. “I can’t swim. I won’t be able to save you. But when this is all over, we’re going to have tea. Vermilion. With lots of honey. And then—and then…”
He made a choked sound, between a gasp and a laugh. She nodded, beginning to turn, but slowly, slowly, he raised his hand, the back of his fingers lightly brushing her cheek.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
He stopped. But she did not leave. His hand hovered along her cheek, barely touching, and she did not push him away. Her dark eyes fixed on him, and he saw that strange light flicker in their depths.
He had fought hard for her friendship, and he knew he should be happy with it. He knew he did not deserve her love. Even if she had any left to give, he would only receive scraps of it. But he had always been a hungry man. He stood rooted. Unable to find the words, unwilling to relent. And in the silence, the weight of the unspoken bore down until Elena finally freed them.
“The men are ready for you.”
She left then, and he watched her go, his hand still hovering in the air.
Samson clicked his armor into place and wrapped his urumi around his waist. On the deck below, his few Black Scales and the Yumi stood at attention. The rest listened, the comms sharing his message to the other ship. But what would be his message?
Fight for Seshar? Fight for azadi?
What was the use of freedom when the men beside him may not live to see it?
His soldiers gazed up at him. There were ten of them, ten of the sixtythat had left Magar, but he saw their ghostly faces in the spots where they would have stood. Chandi, Akiri, Akino, the rest.
Of his officers, only Visha stood before him now, her face stony if not for the muscle fluttering in her jaw. She and the others were all dressed in black, their eyes rimmed with kohl and urumis laced in their hands. His angels of death. Samson felt a sudden, fierce pride for their composure. He knew they were hurt, mourning, and angry, but they remained stalwart like the soldiers he had trained them to be. Visha stood at the front, expectant. His gaze fell on her.
“When I was a boy, my mother told me that Seshar had been made by the Great Serpent.” His voice slipped underneath the hiss of the waves, reverberating across the deck. “She said the Serpent descended from the sky and made a resting place where She could sleep. And that when She left, She anointed warriors to protect Her home. Warriors made of the sky and sea. My mother told me that one day, the Great Serpent would return. But what will She find there now?”
He looked beyond the horizon where Seshar, in all her beauty, in all her misery, awaited. He saw Chandi plunging into the water chamber. He heard Akino and the trapped miners screaming his name. And he saw the Jantari zeemir above it all, hanging like a guillotine over their necks. His voice hardened.
