“Snapping like snakes in a pit.”
Chandi and his commanders had split up the Jantari throughout the city to minimize chances of riots. This prison only held a hundred soldiers, but still, Samson had asked for quick-fingered Black Scales to keep watch. Even a hundred Jantari soldiers could spell trouble.
Eight hundred Jantari soldiers left, in my care, he thought, and it sent a vicious thrill through him. Great Serpent Above, it feltgood. Delicious. All these Jantari soldiers, defeated and imprisoned by Sesharians. Chandi may not prefer to gloat, but he savored the sight of their muddied uniforms and broken zeemirs. He had played a pet and puppet to Farin for so long that he had almost forgotten the sweetness of victory, selfish and hard-won. All these suns, he and his Black Scales had answered to Farin. Fought his petty battles, serviced his whims. Samson’s victories had never truly been his—they had been for Jantar. For their king.
But this one, this one was his.
And Elena’s, he thought after a beat. But unlike him, she did not revel in it, and it was this that made his smile falter.
“Elena regrets breaching the wall,” he said.
“I told you,” Chandi said. “She does not have the stomach for war. Or its costs. Let’s go to the Sona Range and be done with her.”
Samson said nothing, not because he did not agree, but because he did not wish to admit it. Chandi was right, in her own way. Elena had never fought battles, never led an army, never played an obedient puppet to a king. She was born into power, when he had had to claw for it, kill for it. And now that she had finally bloodied her hands, she whimpered. Regretted.
It filled him with fierce awe and envy, a pernicious tangle that ensnared him tight. She was of Agni. How could someone like her, someoneofpower and madefrompower, regret? But it was her capacity to evenfeelremorse that made him ache—simply because he had forfeited it many suns ago.
Remorse had made him feel more human, less monstrous. And he grieved for that lost part of himself.
“She is of Agni, Chandi,” he said bitterly. “I owe it to myself to understand her powers. Maybe she’ll surprise us.”
Chandi scoffed but made no rebuke. He was her general, and like any loyal soldier, she knew when to hold her complaints.
Samson locked eyes with a tall Jantari standing by the fence line. The soldier was broad shouldered, with a thick neck and shaved head. Deliberately, he dropped his cigarette and, with his gaze never leaving Samson’s, crushed it slowly with the heel of his boot. Stamped, again and again.
“That one’s ready to charge. Like a mohanti,” Chandi said. “Probably just as small-brained.”
Samson did not flinch under the soldier’s gaze, but he was not stupid. The Jantari would revolt. It was in their blood to squash opposition, like it was in his blood to cut down their metal hands. They were an inexorable pair. The tyrant and the rebel. Changing faces, spaces, but dancing the same song all the same.
They’re always watching, the inferno purred.
Reflexively, Samson touched his lower chakra beneath his belly button, where the core spark of his Agni lived. Its hiss traveled up his abdomen, his chest, licking the insides of his throat. He could taste its hunger.
A few Black Scales who were warming themselves around a small fire suddenly jumped back as the flames swelled. Even at this distance, Samson could hear the inferno call to him.
But he clenched his hand, and the flames coiled back, hissing in displeasure. A shooting pain, sharp and electric like hitting his elbow against a corner, traveled through his arm and across his chest. Samson gritted his teeth. If it weren’t for the Jantari before him, he would have gasped.
“Blue Star?” Chandi asked, a tinge of worry in her voice.
“I’m all right, I’m all right.” Samson ran a hand through his hair to nonchalantly shake off the pain in his arm. His mouth felt strangely dry and swollen. The scar across his chest began to itch, but he fought the urge to pick it.Not yet.
“What happened to Edmund?” he asked, hoping Chandi would move on.
But she studied him, her eyes flicking from his arm to his face. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
No, he thought desperately.Not yet.
“Is that him?” Samson said, pointing to a man hunched over in the far corner. The Jantari general was talking fiercely to a group of angry, exhausted men. They seemed to soak in his every word. Ripples began to move through the prisoners, more turning toward their surviving leader.
“Shit,” Chandi said.
“Move Edmund,” Samson said. “Get him out before we have a riot.”
He glanced back at the glaring soldier. He had become deathly still, his shoulders taut like a pulled bow.Skies above, he does look like an ox.Uneasily, Samson looked away.
“Execute any pilots and their remaining commanding officers. That should shut them up for a bit.”
Chandi nodded and motioned to one of the sentries. “How many tonight?”
