“Samson will take care of them,” Elena said. “You will find that he has no qualms pursuing the Jantari on his own.”
Kirri rubbed his chin. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I don’t believe it’s prudent to fly all the way to Moksh during a time like this. How will you even convince the Yumi?”
“I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors of a… brawl between me and Samson,” she said suddenly.
The ambassador fell quiet. He regarded her carefully, his eyes wandering back to her cheek.
“Yes,” he said after a pause. “I have.”
“Then you may have heard of a great inferno enveloping us.” She stepped back, her palms beginning to warm. “The Yumi, I believe, will be interested in how I summoned that inferno.”
“You? The rumors say that it was only Samson.”
As he looked at her, caught between curiosity and unease, his eyes going from her cheek to her hands, Elena thought how easy it was to ensnare and twist someone’s belief. Samson had done it. He had taken their god, pronounced Her a lie, and replaced Her with himself. He had healed the burned and said to all naysayersSee. He had made the gods tangible, and her people had fallen for it.
But Elena understood the pain of Agni.
For every person he healed, Samson burned down another. For every belief he sowed, he destroyed a thousand more. A god like him could not proclaim himself all-mighty and all-powerful.
Not when someone like her existed.
Not when their Agni was made of three.
So Elena met Kirri’s gaze anddesired. A pinpoint of heat glowed in the middle of her palms, and then two flames flared up. Kirri gasped and stumbled back.
“I believe,” she said over the hiss of the flames, “the queen of Moksh will want to see how I can call her Goddess’s inferno.”
She twisted her hand, and the flames curled down her wrist, spiraling up her arms like twisting vines.
Kirri stared, his mouth agape. “H-how?”
“The Yumi can answer why I have such powers,” she said. Her voice barely faltered over the next lie. “I have seen visions of their Goddess, calling me. And I have seen you in them too, Kirri.” She offered a soft, secretive smile. “I’ve seen you bring great prosperity to Cyleon with the Yumi. Imagine it. Your name will go down in history, not as a simple ambassador to Ravence, but as the man who changed Cyleon’s fate.”
Kirri watched the flames with a mixture of fascination and horror, but she saw the hunger in his eyes too. Politicians like him always craved more. Legacy meant more than honor, and power, the great force that supplemented it all, was king. She needed only to show a glimpse of it.
Elena closed her palms, and the flames slowly disappeared with a whispered hiss. Her voice was soft. “What say you, Kirri?”
He rubbed his eyes, and when he withdrew his hands, he looked beyond the canyons again, to the mountains beyond.
“If I get you clearance, you must show your fire to Syla. Immediately after visiting Moksh.”
Elena nodded. “Done.”
He sighed and finally met her eyes. “Tonight, then.”
“Tonight.”
CHAPTER 23
SAMSON
A wise man seeks fortitude. A fool craves happiness.
—a Sesharian proverb
Samson’s hands trembled as he raised his smoking pipe to his lips. A single flame flared from his finger, bright and vicious, but then his chest spasmed, and pain nipped along his sword arm like a pup desperate for attention. Desperately, he inhaled. The sweet and slightly earthy smoke of ganja rolled through him, dampening the pain.
The sun glimmered low on the horizon, sinking between two pointed rocks in the distance. The pale shadows of the moons began to appear over the canyons.
