It was a behemoth, tall as two men and wider than three. Thick metal coils hooked three Jantari soldiers within its belly. Where the men ended and the machine started, Elena could not tell. They were more metal than flesh, more weapon than man. The hull rolled through the street, crushing stone, limbs, soldiers. She watched it flick Kavson off his feet as if he were nothing but a fly. Visha fired, but it was useless. The hull came. Brutal. Relentless. Elena raised her hands to form the Lotus, the first form of her Agni, but her sparks fizzled in her palms, as bleary as her mind.
Suddenly, a sound pierced through the fog of her mind.
It was a hiss. Low and dangerous.
Her fingers smarted. Elena felt heat building in her arms, her legs, her throat as the fire that licked the buildings curved toward the sky. Every part of her, every cell, vibrated with the rhythmic hissing.
The inferno bent as if it too knew.
The Prophet was here.
CHAPTER 3
SAMSON
Son of sea, son of sea! See the horrors they have done unto me!
—from the hymns of the Great Serpent
Your eyes are too blue, his mother had told him.That is a curse.
But I was born a god.
Samson relished the heat building through his arms, his chest, as he gunned the cruiser. He zipped past smoking rubble, racing toward the signal blinking on his screen as Chandi took up his flank. Behind them, the northern wall had already fallen. After the western tower had crumbled, the Jantari had been too distracted to notice his creeping assassins, and his Black Scales had made quick work after. The northern gates hadopenedfor them. In his rearview mirror, Samson could see his Black Scales marching in, and he almost laughed at the sight.
He swung around a corner, and a shot rang out. Samson swerved. He saw the sniper—but Chandi spotted him first.
She fired her bloodsplitter, the icy-blue bolt slamming into the sniper with an electric keen and splitting his head in two. With something akinto amusement, Samson watched the Jantari fall. He wanted to see if the soldier had been a former mine overseer. Or, better yet, an island hunter. But the blinking light on his screen tore him back, and he pushed onward.
He could feel her Agni. Raw and powerful, flaring. He was getting closer, and he did not need Visha’s signal to know it. Heat skittered through his body in anticipation.
A blue flame slithered down his wrist.
Wait, he told it.
“This way!” Chandi shouted and veered to the left. He followed as the wail of warbirds and sirens clanged through the air.
Wait.
They flew past a broken storefront. Past Jantari soldiers crumpled in the rubble. He could hear pulse guns in the distance, along with a strange, high whistle. The blue fire twisted tighter.
Wait.
They barged onto a side street, Chandi slamming through a soldier and sending him flying. His zeemir clattered to the ground. She was already off and grabbing the weapon as Samson leapt and broke into a sprint, the sounds of pulse fire rising, his Agni swelling with such desire, suchwant, that it took all his control to curb it as he burst around the corner.
She was the first thing he saw.
Black braids and bleeding lips. Eyes bright and burning as she raised her gun. She was several yards ahead, but she turned. Her gaze caught his for a moment, and Samson saw Elena’s eyes widen, her mouth twist in… wariness? Relief? He did not have the time to understand because then he saw the hull in the distance marching toward her.
The blue flame hissed again.
This time, he answered it.
With one smooth movement, he unfurled the urumi around his waist. The long, snakelike blades whipped through the dirt with a sharp ring. Silver serpents spiraled up the twin tongues. It was the weapon of his people. The weapon the Jantari would come to fear. Samson flicked his wrist, and the urumi ionized with electricity as he closed his eyes and sought his inner Agni. He willed it to grow. To swell. Todevour.
The blue flame on his wrist flared, rushing down the urumi.
Samson let it go.
