“Elena.” He took her hands, his voice gentle. “I told you, I had to hide. Your father would not have believed me, even if I summoned flames before him. He was already lost. His fate already written in the flames. Even I could not have stopped it.”
“His fate,” she said darkly, working against the lump in her throat. “I could have convinced him. Brokered a partnership—”
“The Eternal Fire had already claimed him. I could do nothing,” he said.
“You could have warned him,” she said.
“And it would have changed nothing,” he responded.
They stared at each other—she, confused and hurt; he, wary and watchful. It was the same argument. The same patterns. They went around and around and arrived at the invariable conclusion. Silence.
Finally, Elena looked away. She felt her anger leaching out, replaced by a bone-weary grief that seemed to have never loosened its grip since Rani. All at once, she was acutely aware of the grime on her clothes, the blood in her hair, a filth that sank deeper than skin. She wanted to sleep. To scream. To scrub her skin until her hands felt raw and she saw the white gleam of bone. Maybe then this grief would leave her. Maybe then she could walk without this burden bearing down until it ripped through her stomach and left her bleeding.
Hollowed.
“We counted the survivors in the city,” Samson said, breaking the silence. He hesitated, then placed his hand on her shoulder. It was warm, heavy. “Mostly Ravani, with some Sesharian refugees who settled south. They’ll be in the square soon. You should address them.”
“And the Jantari soldiers?” she asked.
“They’ll be dealt with.”
“We crushed civilians when we breached the wall. I sent out a crew to search for survivors, but they found none.” She met his gaze. “Our intel said all civilians were kept in the inner city, under tight watch. But Visha reported her recons to you. Did you know they were there?”
A pause.
“You saved thousands of Ravani, Elena. Tens of thousands, in exchange for seventy.”
“That wasn’t an answer to my question.”
“No,” he said, and the flame on his wrist flickered, then stilled. “But you and Visha were right to continue the mission. We have Magar now. The city is free of the Jantari, thanks to you.”
Thanks to you.A twinge of guilt reverberated through her ribs, hammering against her heart. “I regret it,” she said.
Her voice, though soft, seemed to echo in the hall.
Samson stilled. Even Visha and Chandi in the room over must have noticed, because she could no longer hear their murmurs. Samson steppedcloser, his eyes raking over her, through her, and she had the odd sensation of being stripped down, examined, and found lacking.
“Regret,” he said slowly, pulling out the word as if tasting it for the first time.
“Yes,” she said, uneasy. She was pinned between him and the table. With no escape, Elena faced him. She faced the Prophet and the darkness beginning to bleed into his eyes. “You are their Prophet,ourProphet. Surely you must feel regret for killing your followers.”
Samson cocked his head and regarded her with a cold, almost reptilian focus. “I have had many regrets in my life, Elena Aadya Ravence, but this is not one of them. Tell me. Did you feel regret when you destroyed those Jantari mines and set off landslides, crushing the tiny village?”
She stared at him, speechless.
He drew closer, and she saw now how his blue eyes were not dark, but hot like burning coals. “You told me you wanted vengeance against the Jantari. This is part of it. Thesesacrifices,” he said, and she flinched, as if struck. “There is no room for regret, or those who feel it. So, tell me, rani. Do you still want vengeance, or will I have to leave you behind?”
Elena swallowed. There was a fervor in his eyes, vicious and bright, like fire glinting off a sword. But when he hooked his fingers beneath her chin, drawing her in with a touch so gentle that the absence of pain felt like a prick, she realized the look in his eyes was more than just fervor. It was zeal. The unshakable belief of the righteous, whoknew, without a tremor of doubt, that their actions were justified.
Because he was a god, and gods did not answer to the laws of men.
“Should I leave you behind?” he said, his breath brushing her lips.
Disgust, guilt, anger rippled through her as she wrestled for an answer. The long cool hall stretched onward, and outside the great doors, she began to hear the chatter of a crowd gathering. Survivors. Her people, freed because of him. Because of them.
“No,” she spat.
His nail lightly scraped the underside of her chin. “Good. Because regret immobilizes you. Makes you weak. You are a god, Elena, whether you believe it or not. And gods do not fret about regrets, not when we have a war to win.” He let her go. “I would hate parting ways with you, my rani.”
