Excerpt: THE BURNING QUEEN by Aparna Verma

To be forgiven, one must be burned. That’s what the Ravani say. They believe fire will cleanse one of all sins and bear them anew. But they have said nothing of the inferno’s wrath.

Leo Malhari Ravence believed he could defy the Eternal Fire and defeat its Prophet. Through burning, subterfuge, and murder, he attempted to catch her—until he learned that the Prophet was not a woman, but a man. By then, it was too late. He had killed the priests of the order and made an enemy of the gods. Perhaps it was divine retribution, then, that led to the Arohassin attack. On the day of his daughter’s coronation, the great king knelt within the Eternal Fire, and the Arohassin bombed his city and temple. But theirs was not the blow to kill him. For you see, the Eternal Fire had tasted his sins and claimed its due. The Phoenix demanded Her sacrifice. Thus, Leo Malhari Ravence, Guardian of Fire, Son of Alabore, the Divine Grace of Desert and Sky, and the Twentieth Phoenix King, died by his own making.

Within the chaos and clamor of the attack, an assassin of the Arohassin found himself embroiled in a battle of another kind—one of the heart. Yassen Knight had sworn allegiance to the Arohassin. After his botched assassination of King Bormani of Veran, he was given a chance to win back his freedom by sabotaging the new queen’s coronation. He infiltrated the palace. Obtained the position of bodyguard to the heir. Laid the trap. But there was one thing our assassin did not anticipate: the heir herself. Elena Aadya Ravence became his undoing. So on the eve of her destruction, Yassen Knight made a fatal decision. He saved the new queen. He led her to safety within the Sona mountains of Jantar. He hid her within his father’s cabin and told himself he had done so selfishly—to redeem himself. But the heart is a strange tormentor. Somewhere in between her anger and his regret, their sorrow and loneliness, he came to understand her. He learned every inch and curve of her face, every tremble of her lip. The wants of her desire, the edges of her pain. He would know her face even in the darkness of death. Perhaps that is how love begins—as forgiveness.

As surrender.

He told her of his broken past, and she told him of her grief. He admitted how his ache for belonging had never eased, and she showed him a home worth saving. The heart is a strange tormentor, yes, but it is also a great revealer of truths hidden from oneself. When the Arohassin and Jantari attacked the mountainside, when the mines burned and the fires pinned them down, Yassen Knight discovered one final, lasting truth: He did not need a home. He had Elena, and she was worth saving. So our brave knight, our lonely bleeding boy, told Elena to run. He would find her, he said.

You’d better, she replied.

She did not turn back when the bullet sliced through his chest. She did not stop running. Elena Aadya Ravence escaped into the dark bowels of the mountains and howled in agony. She had learned how to wield fire through the scrolls. She had even learned how to withstand the Eternal Fire and walk the Agneepath of her forefathers. But she had never learned how to handle this sudden, weighty grief. In the span of a month, she had lost her Spear, her father, her lover, and her kingdom. What was left other than to despair? But the heart is a strange tormentor. It refused to wither. She refused to let their deaths be in vain. So Elena Aadya Ravence, the queen of Ravence and last of her name, crawled through the shadowed tunnels of the mountain and found refuge among the Black Scales. Little did she know that they had been waiting for her.

That he had been waiting for her.

Samson Kytuu rose from the ashes of her dead kingdom. He shattered the eyes of the false god and proclaimed himself Prophet. He was no longer the puppet of a metal Jantari king, or the servant of a mad Ravani one. He was a god, and he will wage a war greater than Sayon has ever seen.

The desert howled around them in rippling waves, spitting sand and rock against the curved window of the hoverpod. Even through the thick glass, Elena could smell the desert: its dry camphor, underlaid with something bitter and savage.

“Brace for landing,” the pilot called.

Elena did not sit. She placed her hands against the sill and leaned forward so that her nose pressed against the glass, leaving a smudge of ash. She needed to see it with her own eyes, to affirm that the rumors were real. That these, the dark amorphous forms of billowing sand, were wraiths of a god made alive.

A god so cursed that the desert raged before it.

When the mountains of the Agnee Range snapped up through the storm, Elena went rigid. There, nestled between the dark teeth of the cliffs, was the Eternal Fire. It licked the open sky as if sensing her approach. She began to shake. Not long ago, she had come to these same mountains with the blazing, glorious hope of a kingdom behind her.

Only ghosts followed her now.

The pod docked, and Elena stumbled after the Black Scale soldiers as they ascended the temple stairs. The winds were not so fierce this high, but she could taste salt in the air, intermingled with the acidity of smoke. With it, memories came flitting back: the hot breath of the inferno, the piercing note in her father’s screams, the temple crumbling like a crushed flower underneath a cruel hand.

Elena faltered on the steps. Above, in the ruins of the temple where she had been crowned queen, the ghosts awaited. Her father, Ferma, the guards, all those who had died in her name. All the ones she could not save. She felt their unearthly stares prick her flesh with the cold, tender care of a carver’s blade cutting through a skinned bird.

Ahead, one of the soldiers turned. She had dark, liquid eyes and a tattoo of a skull hand wrapped around her throat. She smiled, and the ghosts wailed.

“Come, he’s waiting,” she called.

With a stuttering heart, Elena let go of the crumbling railing. The wailing of the ghosts manifested into a keen, needling down her ears and setting her teeth on edge. Elena slipped her hand into her pocket and grasped Yassen’s holopod. She traced its familiar scratches, and her chest loosened a degree. He had led her this far. Been so brave, so fierce. She borrowed courage from it and from him, wherever he was.

Elena trudged toward the Eternal Fire, blinking furiously as its heat buffeted against her face. Fallen columns and crushed diyas littered the ground. Scorch marks marred the white marble foundation, but her gaze, like an arrow flying true, settled on him.

The man basking within the inferno, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Her heart ratcheted up a notch, and all her earlier anticipation came crashing back. The flames sensed it. They trembled at her approach, rising, singing in soft hisses. As they grew louder, Elena felt the air tighten until it grew sharp, physical, like a match poised to strike.

The man turned.

The match struck, and Elena felt a deep, burning sensation ripple through the air and her body, cauterizing her nerves.

Eyes too blue, she thought. Eyes cursed in the desert.

They drank in the sight of her: the tousled hair of a month of no sleep; the cuts on her arms; the darkened skin of her hands. A slow smile spread across his face.

“I knew we’d find you,” Samson said.

His voice seemed to come from the flames themselves, a thick, crackling song. The flames swooned. Her mind teetered between disbelief and fear. He could not be alive. He should not be alive. But then Samson stepped forward and took her hands, and the shock of his touch, warm and tender like the flames she summoned, jolted her back.

“You’re alive,” she said.

He smiled again, so bright and blinding that for a moment, Elena felt her fear dissipate, flooded out by relief.

“You’re alive,” she gasped. She crushed him in an embrace, and Samson laughed, the flames rumbling with him. He smelled of smoke and ginger, like spices roasted and set alight. His arms were heavy and strong as he pressed her into his chest and rested his chin on top of her head.

“I am, my rani,” he said.

That was when she noticed the flames.

Not the ones of the Eternal Fire, but the others. They crawled up the staircase, encroaching on all sides. Blue like an unblemished sky. Blue like the roiling sea. Blue like his cursed eyes.

Elena pulled away. A question, the one that festered inside her like a parasite as the Black Scales had smuggled her out of Jantar, rose in her throat. She did not want to say it and make her fears real. But Samson only looked at her, expectant. And she saw then that his smile had never reached his eyes.

“How?” she said, her voice a low rasp. “How did you survive?”

Samson spread his hands, and blue flames rolled down his shoulders, spiraling around his arms. “I am the Prophet, darling.”

There is a new god, the soldiers had told her. A god that the desert bends to. A foreign god that your people never anticipated.

“But—you—you’re.” Her tongue twisted in on itself. “H-how can that be possible? You’re Sesharian. You don’t believe in the Phoenix. And you—your fire…”

“Fire knows its brethren,” he said, watching her. “We are the same, you and I.”

She took another step back, watching the blue flames with a mixture of wariness and fascination. She could not deny that she felt a pull. Deep inside her, something ancient and raw. A burning that seared her veins with a heady potency and a creeping alarm, like when two predators in the wild see each other from a distance and awareness of their own danger flows between them. “I can wield fire, but I am not the Prophet. What makes you one, then?”

Samson considered her, his head tilting in an achingly familiar gesture that reminded her of hot afternoons spent on her balcony discussing their vision for Ravence. But there was something sharp in the slant of his mouth.

“Let me show you.”

He turned to the Eternal Fire, and in that moment, Elena felt a mysterious sensation begin to build within her. A foreboding, a curiosity. It heightened as he raised his hand and the Eternal Fire, the one she could not control, the one she had spent months trying to even hold, bent. All its heads, all the angry, biting flames, bent.

Elena stared, stunned. Her mind raced, going through the stories of the Prophet, the Phoenix, her father’s hunt, and all the while, that terrible sensation grew stronger.

“Where is the Phoenix?” Her voice was barely a whisper above the hiss of the flames. “The stories say that you were supposed to rise with Her.”

When he spoke, the flames spoke with him. “There is no Phoenix. There never was. Only a lie, conjured by con men. The true master and architect of the Eternal Fire is the Great Serpent, and you and I, Elena, are of Her like. We are the gods now. We will take back Ravence and Seshar and watch the world bend.”

Ravence.

The very name sent an ache through her. Her home lay ruined and burned, occupied by enemies. And before her was the very god the stories claimed would free it.

Stories that, according to him, were no longer true.

Samson must have sensed her hesitation, because he stepped closer, holding out his hand. In the light of the inferno, she could see the ash streaks on his cheeks, the spark of madness or genius in his eyes.

“I know what it means to burn,” he said softly. “I know its misery. Its hunger.”

Elena flinched. He drew closer, his voice low, dangerous.

“And if we can make Jantar just taste that misery, would you not be avenged? Tell me, rani. Would you not be pleased to have Farin’s head at your feet?”

Her heart thundered. Her desire, on his lips, made her sick, thrilled. Around her, Elena could feel the hot rage of the inferno, the cold stares of the ghosts. Vengeance. For her people, her father, Ferma, Yassen, herself. The desire rippled through her with a slow heat, her every breath scraping the inside of her throat like a finely toothed comb. Elena watched the inferno with a new mixture of horror and wonder. Vengeance lay at her fingertips.

At theirs.

“How,” she began, and stopped when she met his eyes. Because in them, she saw her same fury reflected—tenfold. Only his was colder, crueler, a wrath that seemed at once unfathomable and endless. If he harbored that much fury, what kind of god was he? A savior, like the stories said? Or a monster, like she had once believed? Elena paused, uncertain. Yet below her alarm, she sensed an awareness tugging her belly with an incessant urgency, and as she considered it, she felt his Agni twinge in recognition. Like knows like. Fire knows its brethren. The realization hummed through her bones, filling her ears with a buzz that built until all she could hear was the steady murmur of the inferno as it knelt before a cursed god.

A god who offered her his hand.

Slowly, Elena raised hers.

“Will you help me, then?” she said.

Samson smiled. A crude, vicious smile.

A butcher’s smile, she thought.

He took her hand. “We start with Ravence.”

I have woken to a strange world where heroes have turned beasts, and beasts turned men. Where the heartless grow merciful, and the merciful—heartless.

—from the diaries of Priestess Nomu of the Fire Order

It was impossible to distinguish the smell of rancid metal from that of burning flesh. Elena pressed herself against the canyon wall, trying to breathe through her mouth, but the stench crawled down her nose and sat in her throat. She could taste their fear. Her people, already dying.

Carefully, Elena scaled the canyon, the fine webbing of her gloves and kneecaps sucking onto the rough faces of the rocks. The cliffs of southern Ravence towered above her, red and severe, their stiff, craggy faces unlike the soft, ever-changing curves of the dunes. Their silence swallowed her. She felt like a beetle. Small. Inadequate.

She paused on a ledge and flexed her tired arms, wincing. They had been climbing for hours. Behind her, the others vaulted softly onto the ledge. Visha did not stop to rest. The strategist was already flicking open her pod with a gloved hand, studying the maps. The holos cast a pale blue light on her face, leeching the color from her cheeks and making the sharp angles of her nose and chin as stark as the cliffs.

“I say we have about a few more minutes’ climb before we reach the base of the tower,” she said. She elongated her s’s, savoring them like morsels of meat caught in her teeth. Behind her, the twins, Akino and Akiri, were unbuckling their pouches, sliding out various weapons: stun grenades, hand-sized explosives, pulse guns, and of course, their daggers. They were Black Scale issued, with a winged serpent on the hilt.

Elena had warned them not to carry too much weight. The climb was long and narrow, but while she leaned against the wall, trying not to pant, the Black Scales moved with calculated ease, each move measured, bouts of energy managed. Visha was barely sweating.

“We’ve lost connection to the comms,” Akiri said, checking her pod.

“So… it’s only us… from here,” Elena said.

Akino glanced at her and must have noticed the sweat on her brow, for he turned away, frowning.

“Lucky bastards,” he said. “They’re down there while we have to deal with this smell.”

“Skies above, it’s horrid,” Akiri said. Her eyes avoided Elena’s. “And we’ve been moving so slow. And taking too many breaks. If I have to smell this another minute—”

“Quit prattling,” Visha snapped. The twins immediately quieted. “Phoenix set the pace. We’ve made good time, even if we are on the later side.”

Elena’s cheeks burned, but she ignored the slight. “I say… we rest another minute. Then head up. The tower is just ahead of us…” She sucked in air and blew out slowly. “So that means the rocks above will be crawling with Jantari. I can take lead and—”

“Let me,” Visha interjected.

Elena paused. Though Visha met her eyes, there was a force in her voice that left Elena unsettled, like someone had run a wet rag down her sweaty arms.

“I did recon. I know the area. I can scout the cliffs ahead and make it back without losing too much time,” Visha continued. “I’ll move… quicker.”

Elena wrestled the urge to panic. They aren’t disobeying me, she thought. This was her mission. Her orders. Her team. After two months of studying Black Scale military tactics, suffering their grueling training, and planning the operation down to every single minute, every second, she had earned her right to lead. Never mind the fact that every Black Scale, including the three before her, had once vowed to serve her and her kingdom. They were her men, in name. But in spirit? Elena felt that same odd uncertainty, the unease that skittered like the fast-fading vestiges of a dream. Crouched before her, dressed in their black battlesuits with their silver horned shoulders, the Black Scales looked like sleek, vicious gargoyles. Demons of a god.

They will follow me, she thought furiously.

“We’ll move together,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her misgivings. Visha’s face remained carefully neutral, while Akiri scowled, and Akino glanced at his sister.

Mine, she thought desperately.

Something flickered at the edge of her vision. Elena whirled, but the soldiers flew into movement. Their speed astonished her, even now. Visha with her throwing knife, poised and ready; the twins with their guns, one red, the other blue, both stamped with the seal of their leader. The black serpent.

The shadows flittered again. Elena was reaching for her gun when the shadows paled, then diminished as a bright, searing light flooded the top of the canyon.

“Get down!” Visha hissed.

Elena shrank back. The searchlight skimmed over them, every indention, every nook in the wall, suddenly bright and visible, before the light passed and the shadows rushed back with uncanny swiftness.

She waited a beat, then straightened slowly. Visha checked her pod.

“The tower is on,” she said.

“But I thought—” Akino began.

“We’re late,” Akiri said flatly. Though Elena was facing away from her, she could feel her glower. “And those fucking junk brains are right on time.”

They were supposed to have reached the tower base before the searchlight activated. Elena had made it a point in her briefing. Planned it, in the minute-by-minute breakdown. And now it’s on me. I moved too slow, took too many breaks. She watched the rocks above, heart bleating. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“We can still make it,” Visha said.

Akino collected his weapons, but Elena noticed an added urgency in his movements. Visha pocketed her pod. Akiri was no longer scowling, but there was a dark, almost murderous look in her eyes. Elena could almost imagine her thoughts: If I die because of this Ravani bitch—

“We will make it,” Elena said. She met their gazes, biting back her nerves as they stared, eyes like flint. She fished hurriedly in her pockets for her pod, not Yassen’s, but the other. It was smooth and unmarred, face clean of scratches. A novice’s pod, she thought suddenly as she drew it. Not a captain’s.

“Here, look at this,” she said, highlighting a route in red. It indicated a path that diverged from their planned route, hugging the rocks and then climbing up the steep cliffs of the western side of the tower. There was a sheer drop of several hundred feet on this side, which Elena noted. “But it will work,” she said hastily. “We can’t go the eastern route like we had planned. The Jantari guards will be out. But they won’t expect someone creeping up the cliffs because—”

“It’s a suicide mission,” Akiri said.

Visha shot her a look. “Not if we move carefully. And quickly.”

Akiri opened her mouth to retort, then seemed to think better of it. Akino belted on his gun, flexed his hands. His scar, hanging down from the edge of his eyebrow like a thin crescent moon, scrunched as he smiled.

“I’ll beat you to it, di,” he said to Akiri.

She sniffed. “Like hell you will. I was born two minutes before you.”

The searchlight swung back, and they hid in the crevice again. By the time it receded, Elena felt heat building in her arms, something gritty on her tongue. It took her a moment to realize it was ash.

Her Agni was stirring.

Which could only mean that he was growing impatient.

“We should move forward,” Visha said.

“On my signal,” Elena cut in.

Visha met her gaze, eyes narrowing. “Right. Captain.”

Elena crept up the wall. She could feel Visha’s cold, disparaging gaze on her neck, could feel all their eyes boring holes into her shoulders like perfectly round pulse wounds. She had a sudden, irrational fear that if she looked down, she would find their guns pointing at her. She got caught in the pulse fire, she could almost imagine Visha saying. Poor, poor queen. Elena gripped her gun. She did not look down.

She climbed up onto the next ledge and sidled along the wall until she found the path cutting into the cliff. Once they reached it, she began to move quicker, rounded the corner, the others on her flank.

The corridor sloped upward, then veered left, but the swollen curve of a boulder blocked the view ahead. A blind spot. Elena crept forward. She strained to listen past the blood pounding in her ears for any sound, any indication of something waiting ahead. Nothing. Even the wind held its secrets.

Cautiously, Elena continued. The boulder loomed above her, its red face dark in the moonless night. Twenty paces, ten, five…

As Elena reached the turn, she spotted movement in the shadows in the corridor ahead. She held up her hand, signaling, but then the shadow morphed, and a man stepped toward the far wall, his back to her. He had a jagged silver weapon strapped to his shoulder. Zeemir. Elena backpedaled. The soldier had not seen her. He was too busy fiddling with his pants, the jangle of his belt bouncing through the air. She stepped back and crashed right into Visha.

The strategist hissed, and it was this sound, so quick and innocuous, that made the soldier whirl around. His eyes widened.

“The devils—” he began, reaching for his gun. But Visha was already moving, a blur of armor and knives and bright teeth, her dagger slicing cleanly into his neck as his pulse shot ripped through the fragile quiet. It cleaved through the boulder, rock and dust exploding in the air. Elena dove to the ground. An alarm wailed, and the searchlight swung around, its white, searing light washing out the rocks, Visha, the twins.

The memory came rushing back, pinning her to the ground.

The hoverpod’s searchlight. The burning mountain. Yassen, grasping her hand.

Elena, run.

She clawed onto her knees. Shapes swam in and out of her vision. Her men, where were her men? Elena clutched her gun, calling. Suddenly, someone grabbed her elbow.

“Come on!” Visha shouted.

She pulled her up and they sprinted through the western passage as the searchlight whirled, trying to find them. Elena heard soldiers shouting over each other. Some went down the southern path, away from them, while others turned to the canyons in the east. A few came rushing toward the western cliffs. Toward them.

“Down here,” Visha said. She rushed to the edge of the path and hopped down on the ledge jutting underneath it. Elena followed, just in time as the soldiers rounded the corner and ran past. They were heading in the direction of their fallen comrade.

“The twins—” Elena began.

“Don’t worry about them,” Visha said. “Now climb.”

Above them, Elena saw the western watchtower pierce the night sky like a cold, sharp talon. Unlike the canyons, the watchtower was fashioned of obsidian rock. Its red veins shone with a dim, violent light.

Miles below, beyond the lip of the cliff, the city slumbered in fitful sleep. Magar, the Walled Oasis. A large wall ringed the city like a wedding band of sandstone. Elena spotted lights glowing along its ramparts. Only the city center was a dark, silent mass.

The Jantari had enacted a curfew. According to Visha’s intel, citizens were corralled in the city center and had to be given special permission, or escort, to approach the wall.

As she stared down at the silent city, Elena felt bitterness growing within her. Tonight was Laal Joon. Today, her people were supposed to celebrate the founding of Ravence. They were supposed to light diyas. Bathe the city in showers of crimson powder so that every building, every man and woman, looked to be on fire.

But no diyas lit the street. No songs rumbled through the canyons.

There was only a chilling winter wind, and the far, cold stars to bear witness.

They crawled upward and finally climbed onto the flat ground of the tower. A sentry spotted them, but before he could shout, Visha’s gloved hand flashed, quick as a snake. The sentry cried out as her blade buried into his shoulder. He fumbled for his gun, but Visha had already crossed the distance and slipped off her gloves.

With an almost tender gesture, she touched her bare hands to his face.

He screamed as his skin began to bubble.

The poison in her hands corroded his cheeks, darkening his chin, his lips, until he was choking on his own spit. He sagged in her arms. Visha removed her hands, and he slammed to the ground, like a tree toppled.

Elena looked away from his glassy, white-rimmed gaze.

There was a reason the Black Scales called the strategist the vicious vishkanya.

Visha already had her gloves back on as she sidestepped the dead man.

“Here,” she said, but Elena backed away as she tried to hand her the explosives. “It’s all right. My body’s poison won’t harm you.”

Still, Elena made sure not to touch the uncovered skin of Visha’s wrist. Her hands shook as she took the explosives. If Visha noticed, she made no comment. Elena pasted her three explosives around the western base as Jantari soldiers raced out of the eastern front. She ran back around, trigger in hand, to where Visha was placing her explosives.

“Check the city wall,” Visha said, handing her a heat scope.

Elena peered down the cliff, picking up heat signatures. She spotted three soldiers patrolling the ramparts of the wall directly below them. Two more were on the far corner, immobile.

“There are five. Three sentries, two for relief on the southeastern side,” she said, sweeping her gaze. “Several more huddled within the wall, possibly their barracks. In the west—” she began, turning, and stopped abruptly. Something had caught her eye. Elena swept back south, picking out the human-shaped signatures. What had…?

Suddenly, she saw it. A small heat signature, too small to be human. It flickered like a flame. A candle.

A diya, she realized.

There were diyas scattered alongside the Jantari barracks. Diyas that Ravani had left out to light the way for Jodhaa and Alabore and their kin as they made their way through the desert. Diyas to celebrate the marking of Laal Joon. Elena picked them out, slow horror constricting her throat.

“I thought you said all the civilians are kept in the city center,” she said.

“What?”

“There are civilians just inside the wall,” she said. “They’re the ones who put up the diyas. Look.”

Visha surveyed the wall below, her lips pressed into a thin, hard line. When she handed the scope back, there was no flicker of guilt on her face. No remorse. “We’re still sticking to the plan.”

“You knew.” Elena stepped back. “You knew there were civilians close to the western wall. Phoenix Above, Visha! You told me we’d hit only Jantari guards—”

Visha calmly placed the last explosive. “Give me the remote.”

“No.”

“Great skies above, if you don’t—”

Elena took another step back, sparks crackling up her wrists. “Try me.”

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 tower snap. 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, he would 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.