He had lost.
“Why?” he said softly, for if he spoke louder, Farin would hear thetremble in his voice. “Why pretend to play peacemaker if you intended this?”
Farin paused. His green eye ticked back and forth from Samson to the dagger. His thumb curled around the dragon’s roaring mouth.
“Because your queen chose instead to give you up,” he said finally, and for once, his voice was not monotonous. It was laced with pity. “I gave Elena Seshar and Ravence in exchange for you, and she took the deal all too willingly.”
“You’re lying,” he whispered.
Farin’s eyes cut to him. “I lied about Seshar. But not about your queen, Samson. She lied to you herself.”
He remembered the heat of her lips, the quiver of her chest as she gasped into his mouth. She would not betray him. Not when she had looked at him with such desire and hunger—
But the truth in Farin’s eyes made him grow cold and wretched. He had not the energy to feel anger. Only a dead hopelessness. A despair so heavy it threatened to rip through his chest and stomach, disemboweling him.
Samson could not even feel the spark of his Agni.
He simply stared, with the slow realization that he had believed, however fiercely, in a lie. Elena had never loved him. She had never seen him as her equal. He was disposable, a pawn on her board, a sorry soldier for her games, and now that she had gotten her use, she had cast him off.
Broken, and alone.
Farin sighed, tucking the blade into his jacket. Gears popped and wheezed as he rose.
“You fought well, son of mine. Now it’s time for you to join your brethren.”
The door slid closed behind him. Samson listened to his fading footsteps until silence swallowed him once more.
“Too late,” he whispered into the darkness. “They have already forsaken me.”
CHAPTER 68
ELENA
I will burn and burn until I have become a shred of myself.
—from the diaries of Priestess Nomu of the Fire Order
She dreamed of Yassen dying again. He was caught in the flames as they built in power, and no matter how quickly he twisted, they lashed him. His yelps of pain threatened to sunder her. Elena lunged for him. The inferno beat her back, and despite her efforts, she could not control it. The flames were silver and stark and sharp like swords, like a row of teeth. Suddenly, they swiveled to her.
You disgust me, they sang, except it was not their voice, not Samson’s, but Yassen’s. His lips curled into a sneer.You destroy everything between heaven and earth.
No, she sobbed, trying to tear away the flames. He was dying, couldn’t he see?Please, I am not like that.
You are a monster, he said, and his voice bent, morphed, until she heard both their voices, Yassen’s and Samson’s, condemning her.You disgust me.
Elena woke to iron bonds around her hands and feet. Her heartthundered with the force of ten thousand rivers rushing at once. Vestiges of the dream evaporated, but she could not shake the grim, accusatory sensation throttling her neck like a vise.
You disgust me.
A heavy metal collar hugged her neck, bearing down on her shoulders with a subtle but substantial weight. She was in a cell, the white walls rounded and bare. A silver screen separated her from the hall. Shaking, Elena rose to her feet when she heard footsteps.
“Hello?” she croaked. “Risha? Syla?Sam?”
Her voice broke under his name. She remembered his rasping breath, the flutter of his fingers as he had reached for her. Wretchedly, she searched for his Agni and found not even a shadow, not even a spark. A deep despair filled her then. A bleakness that suffused her limbs so that she could barely register the stir of air as the silver screen flickered off.
I’m sorry, Samson.
A guard appeared before her, holding a chain. “Come with me, Your Majesty.”
