“Oh, for sand’s sake, forget about Elena. I am tired of the world revolving around that fucking queen,” Jaya snarled. “We rescuedyou. Div gaveyouhis blood. Now it’s your turn to return the favor.”
“Elena survived on Sona,” Akaros said quietly. “Can’t you feel her Agni?”
“Agni?”
“Your inner fire,” Akaros said, and at this, the flame coiled tighter around Yassen. Again, he felt that ancient instinct, like an opening inside him. Yassen raised his hand, and the flame zipped up his arm. He shuddered.
“You’re one of three, Yassen,” Akaros said. “You, Elena, and Samson. Maybe there are more, I don’t know. I hope not. Fuck, you were trouble enough to get.”
“Me?” Yassen sat forward, so quick that Akaros flinched back. “Did you find me on the mountain? Did you find Elena, then, too?” The sudden memory of her running through the ravine, flames at her heels, sliced through his chest and carved downward to his Agni, for he was already understanding that it was an essential partinsidehim.
He could feel her. He didn’t know why, but he did.
When he focused on her, on her memory, Yassen saw a golden spark. It sat within him, below his belly button. Small and awfully bright for its size, sizzling with power. It pulsed as if it could feel his awareness turning to it.
“Keep your eyes closed,” Akaros said in a hushed voice.
Yassen hadn’t even realized he had closed his eyes. He obeyed, concentrating on his inner spark, his so-called Agni. It burnished from gold to bronze. Yassen reached for it, and as he did so, he felt something sharp and metallic in his throat, as if tasting lightning.
His Agni grew, and in its glaring light, he saw two infernos emerge. One was blue and small, so small that it barely even existed. The other wasthe color of deep reddish earth, as if soaked in blood and left out to wither and die. They felt familiar, and horribly, awfullywrong. He could taste something rotten in their core. Like spoiled meat, ridden with maggots. When he tried to feel for their warmth, all he felt was a blistering cold. So vicious it sank its claws into him.
Yassen recoiled. When he opened his eyes, he found Akaros and Jaya watching him intently.
“Did you find Elena and Samson?” Akaros asked.
“Can you siphon their Agnis?” Jaya said.
“I—I—” And then Yassen stopped, the realization stark and hard in its awful absurdity. “That was them? Thatwasthem. Their fires feltwrong.”
Akaros frowned as Jaya turned to him.
“Their Agnis are linked, Akaros. If something is corrupting theirs, then it’s only a matter of time before it reaches him. We need his Fireblood to wake up Div. Now,” she urged.
“I don’t know how,” Yassen said. “This—this fire, this Agni, I don’t understand—please, Akaros. Take me to Elena. She needs my help. She is in pain, I know it—”
“He is not ready,” Akaros said.
“Like hell he isn’t,” Jaya snarled, reaching for him.
It happened so quickly. At the sudden jerk of her hand, her flashing eyes, the thought of her hair sharpening, burrowing into him, Yassen heard the cold, crisp warning of his Agni, and he reacted. He could not stop himself. It was instinctual, ineluctable. He snapped his wrist, and the flame shot forward and latched around her arm.
Jaya screamed.
It sounded from far away. Upon his fire touching her skin, he was suddenly overcome by a flood of sensory information. The heat of her skin, the map of her veins, the intricate loops of her nadis, the bright, sparking cores of her chakras. It was brilliant and beautiful and terrifying. Like gazing into the glare of a thousand blazing suns, only to know they could not blind him. It filled him with a dizzying sense of power. Control. He knew at once her hair was not a weapon. He also knew that she wrote with her left hand, that she had a recent injury on her right leg, that she hated him, feared him, even desired him.
“Stop!” Akaros cried from a long, long distance.
With an almost detached curiosity, Yassen delved deeper. He saw the layers of her mind. Memories with their own heat signatures, sparks snapping in her brain with every thought, every emotion. He saw Div. Her parents. Akaros. Samson. Elena—Elena. He snagged. The sight of her, in Jaya’s memories, hit him cold.
Yassen yanked away. The flame curled back to his wrist as Jaya crumpled and Akaros rushed to her side. She was still screaming.
But it was the smell of her burning flesh that arrested him. He suddenly remembered the inferno searing his arm in the king’s chamber. The white-hot pain. The coppery tang of his scorched skin. His horror made anew.
“No.” Yassen fell forward, crashing to his knees. “No—no, no. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
He saw the vivid molten red of her burns. The stutter of her chest. This was his doing. His error. His power. He reached for her, jerked his hand back.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
