With a sudden hiss, blue flames surged down Samson’s arms and legs, covering his body in a coat of flames that defied the rain and burned with an intense brilliance.
But Elena responded in turn. Heat rushed through her body, her heart pumping erratically as her Agni sensed its brethren awaken. A red flame looped around her wrist.
“Careful, queen,” he said, eyeing her flame.
She slid out the slingsword from her waist. “Careful, Butcher.”
With a violent, smooth motion, Samson whipped out his urumi and slashed downward. The tongues of the twin blades narrowly missed her shoulder as Elena jumped, but she did not expect the flames. They dashed forward, skipping along the length of the blades and singeing her cheekbone.
She stumbled back, cheek throbbing. The crowd started, some cryingout for Samson, others for her. She barely had time to bring up her weapon before he charged, his blades slapping against her slingsword. Elena swatted away a parry, but his flames beat her face, and she was forced to retreat. She gasped, robbed of oxygen. Out of instinct, she ducked and rolled, red flames cloaking her like a blanket. Samson, propelled by his own momentum, missed her, and Elena took the opportunity to jump to her feet and pull the trigger of her slingsword. The blade slit the length of his back, ripping the cloth. She caught a glimpse of marred skin and dark scars, and then he was on her, relentless.
His urumi sang a high, vicious song as it sliced through her flames. There were yells and cries from the crowd, pleas to stop. She tried to pull back her blade, but he was too fast, too merciless. A force of pure power and fury. His flames leapt on top of hers, tearing, biting.
Elena drew up her flames to shield herself, but Samson parted the blaze as easily as a butcher cutting off the neck of a bird. His urumi flashed, and she ducked. The blade hissed over her head. Elena lunged to the side—and forgot the second blade. Its tongue grazed her stomach, and a stinging sensation exploded down her skin.
Elena roared in pain, but he easily snapped his blade, and her sword was torn from her grasp. She reeled back. Blood dripped down her wrist. In a desperate attempt, she fired a volley of flames, each seething and intense, snapping with sparks. His blue inferno merely swallowed them into its own.
She spun to avoid his next advance when his inferno broke through the defense of her fiery cocoon, and she saw Samson’s face. His monstrous rage.
He was going to kill her.
“Sam—”
He grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall. Her head banged against the stone. A buzz filled her ears. Gasping, Elena felt something thick and hot trail down her forehead and cheek. Dark spots danced in her vision. Her chest cramped, the pain intensifying with each second. She struggled—clawing, spitting, howling—but Samson did not even wince as he leaned in close.
“You are nothing without a butcher, queen,” he snarled, his breath hot against her ear. “And I am far worse than that.”
He let her go, and Elena crashed to her knees. She hacked out bloodas the rain soaked her skin, her cuts. Her vision wavered, and she saw Samson’s dirt-speckled boots, his silver blades. For a moment, she feared that he would raise his urumi and cut off her head, but he only took a step back, and then he was gone.
He left her like that—they all did. Even her own people. They eyed her with a mixture of horror and pity, and then followed their Prophet until she was left cold and alone, wheezing in the rain.
CHAPTER 19
SAMSON
The Jantari would have us believe that they are undefeatable. That nothing can grow from the land they ravish. They are wrong. Our burial is our redemption.
—recordings from a Sesharian rebel meeting
You are driving us to ruin.
Samson looked down at his trembling hands, which were slick with rain. With her blood.
Carefully, he took a rag and dabbed away the specks from his hands and forearms. Then, piece by piece, he undressed. His wet shirt sucked against his skin as he stripped it off, and he turned in the mirror.
A red gash, about five inches long, razored across his back. The brightness of his new wound glared against the faded scars already littered along his spine.
He touched the cut, winced. A single ruby bead slipped down his finger and wrist.
Butcher, butcher, butcher, the fire sang.
Samson clenched his hands, but they continued to tremble.
What did Elena know of the things he had seen, the things he had done, the things—and people—he had sacrificed? She did not know what it meant to live in a home stolen from beneath you. She had never felt the brutal sting of a zeemir or the contemptuous gazes of the Jantari. She hadn’t experienced the cold, sickly feeling of beinglessthan even the dirt on their boots.
How could he tell her what it felt like to grow up with pale-eyed foreigners judging his every move? To live his life according to their terms? To camouflage himself in their ways and customs if only to carve a living for himself?
The Jantari had not just taken away his home. They had taken his dignity. His personhood. Because the man he was today, thebutchershe so easily called him, was not a true reflection of himself, but a creature forged to survive under their rule. How different would he be, Samson wondered as he stared at his bloody reflection, if he had lived in a free land? What would he have been like? Would he carry the same caustic rage he carried now?
