That was when the fire began.
It sparked from his palms. Two bright white flares that made her jerkback and cover her face. There were cries around the room, startled shouts. Then the light darkened. Slitting her fingers, Jaya saw that the flares had coiled into two blue flames that slowly twined around the sand. It was working.It was working.The flames grew in length around the blades, swelling, hissing, and Samson leaned forward just as she did—breaths caught—and then the urumi collapsed.
The metal lotus hit the table with a clang that echoed through the room.
The others were silent, stunned. But the Butcher rose slowly, and she could see the quick movement behind his eyes, the strategies weaving and unspooling, his hunger growing. He recalled the sand urumi and swung.
“General,” Chandi began.
The blades rent two deep dents in an adjoining table. He swung again and again. By the time he was done, the table lay crumpled and bent.
Samson stepped back, panting. “You have a deal, gamemaster. Go and gather your Sandsworn.”
But she watched the flames around his wrists. All the secrets of Agni, its nature, its power, were but five feet away from her. Div’s cure was within her grasp. She had the urge to take his Agni and pry open its mystery, to see the truth of its being. To re-create it for herself.
With great effort, Jaya tore away to raise her army.
CHAPTER 27
ELENA
I can give my flesh for my people to eat, and still, they will ask for my bones.
—from the diaries of Priestess Nomu of the Fire Order
Elena followed the priestesses into the temple, alone. The Yamni did not allow the Cyleoni into their sacred home, and Kirri, seeing the priestesses’ twitching hair, had not protested. She supposed she should feel afraid. The stairway was steep and dark, the priestesses strange, quiet, but Elena found herself climbing the steps two at a time. There was somethinghere. Her Agni hissed, and the dull roar in her ears only strengthened as they entered the temple hall.
The hall was a deep, cavernous chamber with sloped, latticed ceilings that met at a hidden point. Sunlight bounced off two long silver pools that ran alongside the walkway, their waters so still, so clear, they might as well have been mirrors. But as Elena neared the end of the path, her gaze pulled from the pools to the icon above. The Goddess towered over them. Tall, monstrous—beautiful. She held two weapons, a slingsword inHer upper left, a spear of fire in Her lower right, Her other hands splayed in perfect halves of a lotus. Made of the same obsidian as the temple, She commanded an unspeakable gravity that plucked invisible strings within Elena and yanked her forward.
“Our Goddess welcomes you, little queen.”
A priestess walked from behind the silver altar. Unlike the other Yamni, she was of Elena’s height with golden irises, as if the Goddess had taken a kernel of fire and set it within her eyes. Scriptures were inked across her face, and when she dropped her hood—Elena inhaled sharply—she saw that the priestess was completely bald.
Clipped.
She knew enough from Ferma’s stories to understand that a clipped Yumi was an abomination. A shame. And yet the twin priestesses bowed low to her, the ends of their hair sweeping across the floor. “High Sister.”
The high sister turned to Elena. The sleeves of her robe inched back as she raised her arms, revealing red tattoos swirling down her brown skin. She opened her palms for Elena to take.
“I have waited a long time to meet you, Elena.”
Elena made no move to take her hands. Though her Agni still hummed with a beating desperation, though she knew something in this room called to her, Elena retreated. “Why?”
The high sister smiled gently, lowering her hands. “Because your mother said you would come.”
Elena felt something sharp and small still in her heart.“What?”
“A few weeks before the queen’s death, Ferma sent us a message saying your mother was not well. That she was prone to hallucinations and long silences. That when she did speak, she spoke of three fires. Your Spear begged me to help. So I met your mother. I journeyed into your dunes, and we met under the shared gaze of the moons, and she told me of you. She told me that I would one day see visions of a woman so broken and embittered by her own grief that she could not connect with the Goddess’s fire. At first, I did not understand. But then I saw you in our temple fire, and I knew.” She touched Elena’s elbow, her voice strong and warm with conviction. “I could not help your mother. But I can help you, Elena. Trust your Ferma, if not us.”
Elena trembled. She remembered their glittering, broken reflections asFerma said,Maybe the dance in the scroll isn’t one dedicated to the Phoenix. Maybe it’s of the Goddess.
What was it about this place that made her memories so fresh, her grief so raw?
“H-help?” Elena said. Her mother had been mad. She was not. “I—I do not need your help. I would like to meet your next-in-line regent—”
The high sister rested her hand on Elena’s arm to stop her from shaking. “You struggle to hear the flames. And I know your Agni could not withstand the Prophet’s attack. But I can help you.”
Elena tensed at the mention of Samson, and she had to stop herself from touching the marks on her neck.
