“Have you heard from Farin?” he said, changing the subject, as Chandi and Jaya entered the courtyard. Akaros took his time, his movements slow, relaxed, no doubt already making note of the guards along the hall. Samson felt a cold heat lick the back of his throat as they came.
He searched Chandi’s face, but she had said nothing about Akino’s disappearance, or the lack of miners, as they flew back to Cyleon. She had merely asked for his urumi. She held it now, the steel pristine and spotless, almost blue in the sunlight.
“Ah, there you are.” Akaros stooped into a low, mocking bow. “Your Majesty.”
“I never imagined an Arohassin to break his back before a king.” Syla regarded him stiffly, his lips thin. “Have you brought your chief architect?”
“Gamemaster.” Jaya spoke up. “Though, I haven’t officially received my certification from the boards.”
“No, I imagine your superiors delayed that when you destroyed Rani.”
Jaya fell silent as Akaros heaved a long, dramatic sigh. “Sordid bureaucratic entities hardly deserve to be saved, Your Majesty. They’re just buildings, taking up space. Not actual men and women trapped within.”
Samson stiffened as Akaros’s eyes slid to him. Syla cast him a look, as did the servant boy, as did the others, the guards, the heavens, and Samson felt the invisible ropes tighten around his chest, biting into his skin. He wanted them to stop looking. To stop judging. They hadn’t been there, they did not know, could not even begin to understand—
Chandi’s hand brushed against his. “Here.”
Samson took his urumi, wrapping his fingers around the hilt, and the familiar weight of his sword comforted him. In the twin blades, he caught his reflection: high forehead and sharp cheeks, eyes too blue.
You were born a god, he reminded himself. So why, then, did he feel such pain?
“Have you heard from Farin?” he asked again.
Syla hesitated. His face darkened.
“You have,” Samson said. “Tell me what he said.”
“Farin asks to bargain,” Syla said.
“So then why don’t you look happy?”
Syla paused. He glanced at his advisor, who opened another holo. “It’s best you see for yourself.”
Samson stared in horror as he saw the reports, the images, the fires.
Soldiers raided Sesharian homes on the islands. They flung out clothes, knickknacks, priceless family heirlooms. A man screamed as a soldier grabbed his child and threw him across the threshold. The child tried to get up, but he wasn’t fast enough. The Jantari yanked him by the hair and pulled him away from his family.
They boarded them on trucks. Children only. Wide-eyed and soft-cheeked, many who had only heard of the cruelty of the mines but never seen it for themselves.
“These children must be protected. Shielded from the evils of terrorist influences,” Farin said in a news comm. “It starts from their own homes, from their parents who have been poisoned by such ideologies. Effective immediately, all Sesharian children aged between five and eighteen will be given admittance to mining colonies here in Jantar. They will be given an education in trade and commerce. They will be keptsafe.These terrorists believe we are hurting Sesharians, when they themselves killed over four hundred brave men and women in the mine attacks. These children are at risk, and it is our responsibility to see to their welfare.”
Soldiers marched the streets, keeping back the wailing parents. Some charged the lines, yelling, cursing, and a zeemir flashed, grey and bright in the sun. It came singing down. A woman screamed as it cut into her hip, down her thigh, out her leg. She tumbled, wailing.
Her blood was the same crimson red as the fires.
Samson dropped the pod and stumbled back. He blinked rapidly but the images would not go away. The boy with eyes wide like the twin moons, holding the guardrails of a tanker. The father screaming himself hoarse.
He looked to Chandi, who had gone pale.
“What have we done?” she whispered.
“He cannot do this,” Samson said. When the king did not respond, Samson charged forward and gripped his collar. “How can you just stand there!”
The advisor shouted for the guards, but Syla merely met his eyes with a chilled disgust.
“If I recall, Butcher,” Syla said, “it was you who left those men and women behind.”
Samson staggered as if struck. Syla smoothed his collar, his voice maddeningly calm.
