The stones and gems around him trembled as the great silver snake reared its head, and the Great Serpent looked upon him.
“Son of sea,” She sang.
The fire, he wanted to warn Her.Look out for the fire!
But it was rising, forming into a figure with unnaturally long, terrible black limbs. It struck the side of the god. The Great Serpent hissed, roiling back, and the figure was not a figure, but a bird, a Phoenix, and it gave a great cry worth eons of grief and rage as it dove for the Serpent’s throat.
Stop!he cried.Stop!
But the gods would not listen, and the shadows did not care. They rose around him. Swallowed him, and he was drowning again. Hands clutched his throat and gold eyes laughed above him.
For a moment, he could see nothing. Then the lights rushed back, and he felt arms pulling him up and up. A familiar face.
Elena shook him, and he could see her lips shape his name, but he couldn’t hear her voice.Help me, he pleaded. A bone-deep chill slithered through his body.Help me, please!But his voice caught in his throat. He clawed his neck, his torso, wishing for heat, for warmth, but his Agni would not come. There was only the piercing cold. Only a wide, gaping hole, and the waiting darkness beyond.
CHAPTER 35
ELENA
The Phoenix, the Goddess, and the Serpent. All bound by the same fire. All damned by it.
—fromA Critique of the Ancient Gods(note: debunked by historians)
Ravence and Seshar are the same, little queen.
Samson sagged in her arms, his face sweaty and grey as his body grew alarmingly cold.
You help one, and you’ll save the other.
Around her, Syla called for the medics as Chandi shouted for them all to step back, give him air, let him breathe. But Elena could tell he was not breathing, that touching the feather had snapped something within him.
“Sam,” she whispered.
Hands pulled at her. Chandi, barking at her to get up and make way for the medics. Elena was pushed away. She had never seen the commander so panicked, her eyes wide with violent desperation as she grabbed Samson’s hand and begged him to hold on, to fight.
Fight what?she wanted to ask, but her question caught in the frays of her chest as medics rushed past her. Syla stood to the side, his mouth slack. Even the Arohassin woman looked alarmed, her knuckles white around her stylus. Only the bearded man seemed untouched by the chaos. He stood still with the gravitational quality of a boulder in a sandstorm. His dark eyes met hers.
Fire, he mouthed.
Elena blinked, and then she understood. She pushed through the guards and medics.
“Get away,” Chandi snarled.
“I can help him,” Elena said, though she did not know how, not really, only that something within her too had shifted when he took the feather from her palm.
“He needs fire, Chandi,” she said, pitching her voice low to calm the commander. “Let me help him.”
Chandi hesitated, but then Samson let out a soft gasp, and she shuddered. She closed her eyes. Her face rippled with emotions Elena could not read, but when she opened her eyes, there was a steeliness there that made Elena balk.
“If you kill him, I swear I’ll cut you down right here.”
Chandi unspooled her urumi with a hiss. She moved aside, hovering close so that when Elena stepped forward, she could still see the malicious glint of her blade.
On the hover stretcher, Samson shivered violently. His eyes fluttered, unseeing.
Too much water, Elena thought.
Too much greed, too much ambition. Samson Kytuu was a man of war, and he had already razed the earth with his merciless inferno. How many more would die? How many more would he bury?
