He met her gaze, and his questions were mirrored in her own. If the Arohassin knew of the ore’s existence, did they then know how to unlock it?
“Leave us, Akino,” she said.
When they were alone, Chandi handed him the pod. “As soon as I saw this… thing, I suspected it was the Arohassin. The last time I saw black sand this far south, they left a rune for the old king. Purely to fuck withhim.” She indicated a holo. “Our intel was right. The Arohassin and the Jantari are in a stalemate, and it seems like the Arohassin want to break it, with us. They want to meet us, here in Magar.”
“When?”
“In ten days.” She studied him. “Are you okay?”
He made no move to open the pod. In fact, he had no desire to hold it, not when Akaros had held it too. Something brutish and dangerous stirred within him. Thick and black, seeping into his veins with a steady malice like Visha’s poisons. The same familiar fury gripped his throat. If he was going to be in the same room as Akaros, he would kill him.
He had sworn it.
“Blue Star?”
“He’s toying with us. With me.” Samson clenched his hands, his skin stretched tautly over his knuckles. “This is another one of his mind games.”
“A game we can play.” She waved at the pool of sand. “Why do you think they sent us this thing? They want to show us what they have. Weapons. Tech.An edge. Don’t you see? We can use them.”
“We don’t need the Arohassin,” he snarled.
Sparks flared down his hand, unbidden, but Chandi did not shy away. She held her ground, eyes steady, mouth fixed, and for a moment, his anger wavered in the face of her defiance.
“You’re not alone this time, Blue Star,” she said softly. “He can’t hurt you.”
His throat closed. He still remembered the sting of Akaros’s whip. The tremor in Yassen’s desperate cries. It had been long ago, when he was a boy, helpless, weak. But he was a god now. Powerful, radiant. And yet, and yet…
“Forget the Arohassin,” he said in Ambari, the old Sesharian tongue. “My Agni is enough. Or have you forgotten the Makara mines?”
The other half—when I saved you, when I saved you all—was left unspoken. Not as a threat. But a reminder. A reminder of all they had bled and sacrificed for, together.
“I have never forgotten Makara,” she said coolly, though something flickered in her eyes, something he could not quite place. “I know my debts.”
“Then trust me,” he said. “We do not need the Arohassin. I’ve led youthis far, yes? Look at what we’ve achieved, what we’ve soon to gain.” He nodded toward the rising moons, to the Eternal Fire that blazed in the north. “We have my Agni. We have Elena’s. We don’t need Akaros or his mind games to win freedom now.”
Chandi nodded slowly, though he could still see doubt in her eyes. But when she spoke again, her voice had lost its chilly tone, replaced now by a potency that reminded Samson of the riptide that had delivered him to the fishermen, to safety.
“So what’s next, General?”
He slipped the pod into his pocket. “Cyleon.”
“But I thought Elena did not want to attack the mines.”
“She will.” He turned toward Magar. “I’ll make her see.”
He found Elena simply by feeling for the pull of her Agni. It was warm and steady, a constant blaze that made him envious of its sureness.
She crouched among the ruins of the watchtower, and when he settled down beside her, she shifted to make room. Together, they watched the canyons change color. From red to rust to a deep purple, they bled forth until the twin moons rose and shadows marked their faces. For a long time, they sat in silence.
Finally, as songbirds trilled, Elena spoke.
“The mother was wrong,” she said. “She shouldn’t have demanded the Sesharian boy be thrown out. And the onlookers…” She shook her head, her face crumpling, and for a moment, he felt sympathy for her. Because he knew what it felt like to have your own people act against your morals. To feel your own faith break. When his father had bent to the Jantari, he had felt revulsion, but deeper yet, loss. As if something integral had been broken.
“If you hadn’t acted, we would have had a mob on our hands.” She glanced down at the city. The lights looked small and distant, little candle flames that could easily be capped, or enraged. “Do you think they’ll tear down the temple themselves, or will you do it?”
He shifted away from the prick of her accusation.You are as stubborn as Leo, he thought. Both clung to their faith, even though they were not fervent believers. He supposed that was the nature of desperate men—to grasp the tattered remains of their belief as it burned down around them.
By tomorrow, word would have spread of his miracle. And they would come, the believers and the skeptics. They would come calling and leave bearing his sign. It was the natural progression of things.
