“I suggest you surrender, now, before you force my hand,” he said.
“Are you mad?” Edmund snapped. “You’ll burn us all down.”
“Not us, just you,” Samson replied.
And before Edmund could respond, Samson leapt forward, quick as a snake, and grabbed the urumi from his hand. With a flick of his wrist, the weapon ionized. The Jantari shouted, some reaching for their zeemirs, others for their guns. He whipped around, slicing two of the soldiersacross their chests. Blood sprayed, hot. Fetid. Edmund backpedaled as the others scrambled for their triggers, but Samson was all momentum, a typhoon. He slashed down, cutting one soldier diagonally from neck to waist. He toppled in half. Samson whirled, blade singing—
“Kill the hostages!” Edmund howled as he ran for the barricade. “Kill the Rav—”
Red and blue flames burst forth, blocking his path, surrounding them. Edmund wheeled around just as Samson knocked the zeemir from the remaining soldier’s hands.
“Tell. Me. Edmund,” Samson said, each word punctuated as he rammed the hilt of his urumi against the soldier’s head. The man wobbled, sank to his knees. Slowly, Samson gripped his chin from behind. “Do you know the smell of burning flesh?”
He whipped his urumi with a sharp crack, and the blue flames leapt. They swept past Edmund and jumped onto the soldier, biting and tearing, cutting his bloodcurdling screams short. Still, Samson held up the sagging body as the scent of burning flesh became unbearable and the soldier became a blackened, broken husk of a thing.
Edmund gagged, vomited. “Devil,” he cried. “Butcher.”
Finally, Samson let go. The corpse toppled as he bent down and slowly wiped his hands on the white flag. Then, carefully, he folded it. Held out the peace offering, its surface marred with blood, and smiled at Edmund.
“I think it’s time for you to surrender.”
CHAPTER 4
ELENA
We are a stubborn lot. Even when armies come to desecrate our temples and rebuke our god, we refuse. Perhaps that is our greatest rebellion, and our terrible tragedy—this refusal to stop believing.
—from the diaries of Priestess Nomu of the Fire Order
How many captured?” Elena asked.
“About eight hundred Jantari,” Samson said. Blood flecked his jaw, dry and rust colored, but he made no move to wipe it off. She wondered if she too had blood on her that she had not noticed.
They had set up a rudimentary command center in the city square, in the hall that had once been filled with dignitaries and bureaucrats. The Jantari had taken it over, and Elena saw the remnants of their control: communication panels and pods, various headgears and military equipment, even a zeemir, recently polished. In the next room, the Jantari had kept their weapons arsenal and battlesuits. Chandi and Visha were in there, taking stock. Elena could hear their quiet murmur, the scuffle of their feet. The hall was a reprieve from the chaos of the city, but Elena found the quiet discerning, unnatural.
She nodded toward the control panel that had once been Edmund’s.
“Are you sure no codes or messages were sent out? To Rani? To Farin?”
“None,” Samson said. “We took out their communications tower in the south. They were in the black.”
“And the Ravani army? How many soldiers were imprisoned?”
“Two hundred, or at least that’s how many we found. They’re in bad shape. But they’re alive. And grateful.”
A blue flame, half-formed, flickered like a ghost around his wrist. Ever since he had proclaimed himself the Prophet, Samson was more open with his powers. Fire, it seemed, was always around him. Even when she couldn’t see it, she could feel it. Like awakening a limb that had fallen asleep, tiny pinpricks of awareness traveled through her bones. She could feel her inner spark, her Agni, ripple beneath her skin, yearning to be released. But she held it back. Something about so flagrantly flaring her powers filled her with distaste.
Samson’s eyes slid to her. “What is it? You’re fidgeting.”
“You’re wielding,” she retorted, pointing to his wrist.
“A habit.”
“One you kept conveniently hidden in Rani,” she said before she could stop herself.
He sighed. “Again, Elena?”
She bristled at his tone, but more so, she felt the same sensation of slow strangulation. They had discussed this before. Samson wastheProphet. She had seen it, felt the awful depth of his powers. As a Ravani who had been raised on the stories of the Prophet, she knew she shouldbelievein him and his fight for freedom. He had promised her vengeance. But in the months after she had taken his hand, her disbelief and unease had grown. He did not claim fealty to the Phoenix. He had allowed the order to be killed, watched her father fall into madness during his hunt—
