“It’s Elena’s code.”
“It sounds like gibberish.”
“That’s why it’s a code.”
“Or a bad rhyme written by a queen who fancies herself a poet—”
“And you’re what, patron of the arts now? Go on, then. Give me a couplet.”
Visha scowled, looking at Akino as he strode out of the weapons arsenal. “Ask our resident poet. I bet he can come up with a better rhyme.”
“Don’t drag me into this,” Akino said. He set down Samson’s urumi, the blades freshly shined and whetted, the silver almost blue in the early light. “Try not to let Jantari blood rust on the blades again. It was a bitch to clean.”
“I’m afraid I can’t promise that,” Samson said as he ran a finger lightly, almost reverently, along the edge of his sword. It had been his mother’s blade. An ancestral heirloom, passed down from her mother and the one before her, generations of priestesses who had prayed and sang for a son of the sea. For a god, cursed and radiant.
There had been a time when the old sky warriors wielded urumis with as many as five blades. One day, he would wield seven. One for each of the council kingdoms that had ignored Seshar’s call for help, and one for Seshar herself.
For now, he wielded two blades to mirror the two antlers of the Great Serpent. Samson slowly belted the urumi around his waist, its weight familiar and natural. It felt like an extension of himself. For what was a god without his instruments?
“Just send the code,” Chandi said.
Visha grumbled, but Samson noticed how her gaze lingered on Chandi, how her hand trembled, ever so slightly, inches away from Chandi’s own. She began to encrypt the message, although not without another curse about untalented queens.
He searched Chandi, but his commander had not noticed. And at this, he felt a dull ache, sweet if only for its nostalgia. Once before, he had loved a boy who had never noticed. Once, he had hung on to every one of his gestures, every flick of his glance, to see if heknew. Because Samson couldn’t bring himself to admit it. He had not the courage to say it first.
The memory of Yassen brought back a few nights ago, when he had felt the intoxicating pull of Elena’s pulse and tasted the rich red earth of her fire, the vivacious flow of her prana. Theabundanceof her Agni. Even with his urumi, his Agni felt like a match flame compared with hers. It wasunfair, that his Agni was the one fading whenhewas the stronger wielder;heknew more of their shared nature. Quickly, his grief flaked away under the strength of his disquieted envy. Samson stood, startling his officers.
“Give Elena an urumi,” he said. “A singular silver blade, forged from the same fire as mine. You know the one.”
Visha leaned back in her seat, curious, but both his commander and his master of arms frowned.
“You want to tap into her Agni now? Has yours—” Chandi said.
“I am fine,” Samson said. “And I don’t mean to tap hers yet. I want only to establish a connection.”
“It would be dangerous to give her your twin, Blue Star,” Akino said. “She can learn how to use it as a conduit, trace your Agni back to your own center. If she understood—”
“Tell me, when you and your sister added another blade to my urumi, why did you make a third?” Samson said.
Akino swallowed. “It was a safety measure, in case the second blade—”
“You were afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle two tongues,” he said softly. Akino flinched from his accusation, however gentle. Samson dropped his hand to his waist, touching the hilt of his urumi. “But I can handle more, Akino. When Elena uses the blade and channels her Agni through it, she’ll open the connection toherown center. And then you will add the third blade to mine. And I will control both our Agni at once.”
Akino’s eyes widened in comprehension. He sprang to his feet and rushed to the arsenal.
Meanwhile, Visha reached into a black case and removed the remnants of the Arohassin’s message: the floating sensors, the metal lotus, and the pod. She set them on the table and opened a holo. A transcript of the rebels’ message rose before him, along with a new one.
“They’re growing antsy,” Visha said. “They want us to respond before—” But then her eyes floated above his shoulder.
“Your Majesty,” she said coolly.
He whipped around to see Elena standing in the doorway.
“Who’s growing antsy?” she asked.
“No one—” Visha said.
“The Cyleoni—” Chandi answered.
