The flame flickered, and for a moment, her eyes shifted from brown to a pale gold—like those of the man in his dreams. He froze. Fear, sudden and ancient, threaded down his spine. But then the fire steadied, and the shadows wavered, and Elena’s eyes were the same warm brown, the same they had always been.
“What is it?” she asked, peering at him.
Samson blinked. Whatever he had seen, he must have imagined.I am tired, that’s all.
“I dance too, but differently.” He patted the urumi at his waist. “You use your body only. I use my body and a sword. I have more control then, and more power.”
“So if I were to use an urumi, my Agni will become more…” She paused, as if tasting the word on her tongue. “Surgical.”
He smiled, knifelike. “Precisely.”
“But I prefer a slingsword. It’s cleaner, better.”
“You can learn.”
Elena eyed his urumi, though he wondered, with distant amusement, if she was staring at his waist for other reasons. “If we want to learn about each other’s Agni, then we learn them in their original states. Without weapons.”
She watched him closely, and he realized this was a test. A challenge.
He opened his palm, and a blue flame burst to life without a sound. The effort sent a cold chill through his arm, but he ignored it. “You and I are made of the same thing.”
He extended his hand.
“Show me your Agni, and I’ll show you what I know of mine.”
She stared at his hand and then, slowly, placed her own in his. Their flames intertwined. Not a kiss, not an embrace, but a trapping. A sizing up of sorts. Elena squeezed, and heat sizzled up his arm as their flames sparked and died between their palms.
“Leave your urumi, Prophet,” she said, brushing past him. “You don’t need it to dance.”
CHAPTER 12
ELENA
I have tasted and seen the Prophet’s hunger. Nothing can compare to its wretchedness.
—from the dairies of Priestess Nomu of the Fire Order
Samson was waiting for her the next day in the cool bowels of the canyons. He leaned against the wall, one foot raised, head bent in thought, his urumi belted silver around his waist.
How he did not cut himself was beyond her. She had heard from Black Scales that only those who had dedicated suns to learning the art of the urumi wore the sword like belts or sashes.Warriors, the soldiers called them, voices hushed with awe.
Foolswas a better moniker.
As Samson turned to her, Elena wondered, not for the first time, if he was inured to death. That, by being the Prophet reborn, he thought himself above it. Even when it coiled around him in the form of a silver metal snake, he stood unperturbed, smiling at her.
“Ready?” he said.
“I told you that you won’t need your urumi,” she said.
“You don’t need it, but I do,” he said, and there was something in his voice that made her pause. Was it envy? Want? She studied him, but he was already unlooping the urumi, his long fingers deftly wrapping around the leather-bound hilt as the twin blades unfurled with a hiss.
He flicked his wrist, a movement so quick she almost didn’t see it, and the blades ionized. The air tightened, charged. Elena took an involuntary step back as a blue flame rippled down his hand and split, spiraling down the blades of the urumi.
It had taken a matter of seconds, without warning.
Elena blinked, realizing only now how her heart jackhammered in short successive beats.Leave. Run.
Samson’s eyes slid to hers. In the blue light of the flames, they almost seemed to glow.
