Visha puffed out her cheeks and then exhaled slowly. When she spoke, her voice was flat and toneless. “If you don’t give me the remote, they’ll still die. But then so will the thousands of Ravani trapped in the city.”
For a moment, Elena hesitated, but it was all Visha needed. She launched forward, and as her gloved hand neared Elena, some irrational part, some part still fearful of her poison, made Elena flinch. Visha snatched the remote, and before Elena could stop her, she pressed the button.
The world erupted.
Elena was thrown off her feet as earth and sky bled into pools of red. She flung out her arm, clawing the air desperately, and found stone. Gasping, she hugged the boulder just as she saw the towersnap. Like a finger broken from a hand, a branch severed from its tree. It crashed down the cliffs and cleaved the wall below, shattering stone, lights—people.
Somewhere, Visha let out a whoop. The wall had been breached. The signal had gone out, and on the northeastern wall,hewould saunter in. But Elena felt no sense of victory. All she could hear, all she could see, were the alarms screeching into the night and the diyas, smashed beneath sandstone. Ravani, civilians, crushed to death by her hand. Snuffed out, like a candle choked.
CHAPTER 2
ELENA
The Phoenix’s love is strange. At once, it nourishes. Protects. And yet the kiss of fire is so gruesome that I wish to no longer bear Her worship.
—from the diaries of Priestess Nomu of the Fire Order
Smoke filled the breach. Elena felt it vine through her chest, squeezing her lungs as she climbed over fallen fragments of the wall. A small force of fifty Black Scale soldiers, those who had been lying in wait at the bottom of the cliffs, had already ripped through and taken the Jantari unawares. The larger, second force would break through the northeastern wall. Already, she could hear pulse fire in the distance. She should be running toward it, should be in position when Samson and his forces descended into the center.
But Elena did not hurry.
She surveyed the debris, the splotches of blood, the crumpled bodies. A mangled sensation built in her chest.
People.
Her people.
She swayed, trying to catch her balance, and a hand, broken and bloody, crunched under her boot.
She wanted to scream.
She fell, instead.
Her hands and feet began to move of their own accord. Distantly, Elena realized she had started to dig through the rubble. Stones bit into her skin. Scraped her palms. Her gloves were in ruins. She hissed as she felt the sting of the cuts, leaving bloody handprints in her wake.
“What are you doing?”
She whirled to find Visha standing in the breach, a hand on her hip.
It was the sight of Visha’s unbloodied hands, gloved and spotless while hers were red and ruined, that made Elena bristle until all she could see, all she could think about, were those fucking perfect hands.
She rose, snarling.
Visha started, reaching for the urumi on her belt. It was too late.
The flame lanced through the air like an arrow, ripping the sword from her grasp.
“What the hells are you doing!” she barked.
“You lied,” Elena said, stalking forward. “You told us after your recon that only soldiers manned the walls, but there were Ravani there.Goddamn civilians, Visha.”
“Listen, I—” Visha said, taking another step back. Her heel struck the edge of a broken sandstone, and she tottered before regaining her balance. “We need to get to the others.”
“We need to dig out the survivors,” Elena said.
Visha laughed, short and harsh. “That’s not our orders.”
“Those might be yours. Not mine.”
