When the flames finally dissipated, Samson crashed to his knees. An awful, racking pain thrummed down his sword arm. He saw chips of bone. A smoking mound of flesh. It was like the Ravani funeral pyres, except there were no prayers to follow these men.
He felt sick.
He felt disgusted.
He felt like his namesake, the Butcher, full of power, full of shame.
But then he found her in the ash. Grasped her reaching hands. Anddespite his self-contempt, Samson felt better knowing that at least someone just as powerful, just as horrible, shared his abasement.
“Sam,” Elena gasped.
He pulled on his best smile. “I believe I’m late for our appointment to tea.”
CHAPTER 55
SAMSON
We are not good people, my love, but we have suffered enough.
—fromThe Odyssey of Goromount: A Play
Samson clambered onto theLord of Seaafter the others. Suns ago, he had once stepped onto this deck in the grey cage of a Jantari uniform and been hailed a traitor. But now cheers greeted him. Sesharians, laughing as free men, called to him, and their joy brought a raw, fierce swell of pride in his chest. This was the victory he had dreamed of. This was the destiny he had been born to.
He accepted a beer. It was warm, far too old, but he savored its bitter taste anyway. A nervousness jittered through him. Where was Elena? She had disappeared in the throng. He searched the deck but did not find her.
“Blue Star,” a deckhand said. His friends turned, grinned. “They said you were coming.”
“I told Maya she was full of shit—”
“I held hope—”
“—the way you slid up was badass—”
“—did you see the Ravani queen and her fire?”
Their questions overwhelmed him, but it was the last one that snagged him.
“Have you seen her?” he asked the man, his heart tremoring in his throat.
The deckhand smiled inwardly, and his friends grinned, some chuckling with a mischievous look in their eyes.
“The last I saw, she was heading to the captain’s cabin. Something about making tea.”
His heart quickened. “Thank you.”
He clinked his beer against the deckhand’s and hurried to the cabin, each step increasing his nerves, his excitement. Why did his belly feel as if it was filled with hornets? It was only Elena.OnlyElena. He had just seen her. They had just spoken. Of course she would run off without telling him. That hard-nosed, impossible woman—
He came to the entrance of the cabin and stopped.
Elena looked up from bandaging her arm, her eyes meeting his.
His heart stuttered, slowed. Then flared up again, quicker than a tempest.
“Y-you’re hurt,” he said.
Her gaze slunk down his shoulders, his chest, his legs, and Samson felt hot and cold all at once. The edge of her lip curved into a soft smile. “So are you.”
He stepped in and did what he had wanted to do the moment he had seen her within the inferno: He swept her into his arms and crushed her against his aching chest. She laughed, and the rumble of her laughter against his skin thrummed through him like quicksilver, bright and joyous.
