Hope.
“Blue Star,” the girl said in Ambari, and knelt.
The Sesharian beside her, a tall, worn-looking man, followed. As did the next. And the next. All along the line, his people spoke his name. Officers rushed forward. Shouting, raising zeemirs, the blades glinting in the low light. But the Sesharians did not get up. They did not flinch. And Samson muscled down his horrified cry because to waver now was to squander their bravery. He marched on, his chains rattling, shrieks filling the air, to his death.
The tunnel delved lower than he had ever gone, deep into the heart of the mountain. The walls shook as another rumble reverberated through the tunnel.They are drilling too deep, he thought. But he knew why. Ore pulsed around them in shades of azure and sapphire and cerulean. Shadows pooled around his feet. He felt as if he was treading through a shallow river. Water seemed to rush above, below, all around.
And beneath it all, the whisper.
Butcher, it called.
It zipped through him like a physical force, rattling his bones. He felt water stain his clothes, his lips, but when he touched them, they were dry.
Butcher, Butcher, Butcher.The singsong whisper itched his ears.You have come at last.
A chill prickled up his spine. His teeth were chattering violently now, the fingertips of his right hand an alarming shade of blue. Ahead, Samson saw the flash of doors sliding back, and a silvery light filled the tunnel. He knew, with the deep certainty of the dying, that whatever lay ahead would be his undoing.
He concentrated on fire, on warmth. On memories, bright and true.
Chandi, walking beside him amid the canyons. Visha, slinging her arm around his, the smell of wine strong on her lips. Elena, threading her fingers through his hair as she kissed him.
But it was the memory of Yassen that he latched on to. It was the day they had stolen from the bakery. He had been chewing on his brokenlip when he found Yassen, the food already half-eaten. He had every right to be angry, but it was Yassen’s face—the immediate regret, the shy hesitancy—that had made him fold.
For Yassen, he would take any blow.
Samson focused on that memory, and as he walked forward, the whisper rising, he thought he saw a pair of golden eyes watching him. He blinked, and then they were gone.
They entered a tall chamber. Milky-white stalactites stretched down from the ceiling. A long, silver pool reflected them, doubling them, and Samson had the uneasy sensation of entering the mouth of a diseased, dying beast. When Samson looked beyond, he fell to his knees.
The skin of a great snake lay coiled in the center of the chamber. Silver amrithi—raw, unspoiled—glimmered within its scales with such radiance, it was as if the moons had been brought down from the heavens and sliced into tiny discs of luminescence.
“Great Serpent,” he gasped.
The bastards had found Her. After all these suns, after all he had sacrificed, it was Farin who had unearthed the chamber in the end.A metal so fine it can cut through steel.He had hoped to find it first, to use the amrithi for himself, but as Samson saw the Jantari guards lined up along the stone harbor and the sensors spaced out around the pool, he realized with a slow, thickening despair that Farin had beaten him once again.
Suddenly, the mountain rumbled. Dust and loose stones splashed into the pool as the guards shouted. Samson dove to the side. He crashed onto his back, and his chains strained, snapping. Feeling rushed back into his fingers just as terror locked his chest as he imagined the stalactites raining down, the mountain cracking, his god screaming in agony—
At once, the rumbling stilled. Samson stared up at the ceiling in the stilted silence that came after, his pulse thundering in his ears.
Butcher, Butcher, Butcher, the whisper sang,have you come to free me?
“Stay where you are,” Ren commanded.
It was then that he realized his hands were no longer bound. Samson blinked, then shot forward as Ren reached for his zeemir. The blade screeched. He reached for his Agni, pressing his entire will into his desperate plea, and he felt heat skate up his arms, his Agni rising to answer with a ferocity that made him almost cry in relief as he twisted his hands and—
“Move another muscle, Samson, and I will execute your queen.”
He stopped cold at the sound of Farin’s oily voice, and Ren struck him.
Samson gasped, falling to his knees. His vision wavered. When he looked up, he saw the guards shove Elena, and the sight of chains fastened around her neck, of her face streaked with blood, made all the fury within him still.
“Elena.”
His tormentor. His queen. She had betrayed him. So why was she here, then? Why was she bound? Why was she suddenly crying? There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wished to know, emotions swelling within him like a wave breaching, anger and bitterness giving away to confusion and fear, but then he saw Farin’s sardonic metal sneer, and he realized, with a cold, final clap, that she was here for him.
To die.
“Samson,” she cried.
