Rise Up from the Embers

by Sara Raasch

  Map

  Dedication

  To those of us who must now

  rise from the embers.

  Contents

  Cover

  Map

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Books by Sara Raasch

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  One

  MADOC

  MADOC HAD SAVED lives, altered thoughts, and drained the power from gods—but he could not stop the knife swinging toward his gut.

  With a grunt, he twisted away, but the steel sliced through the side of his sweat-soaked tunic, a breath away from his skin, and came to a stop beneath his left arm, beside his pounding heart.

  “You’re not trying,” Tor growled, his long, damp hair clinging to his jaw, his tunic stretching across his broad shoulders. He may have matched Madoc in size and build, but that was where the likeness ended. Tor was hardened by years of training; his reflexes were quick as flames. He was a seasoned Kulan gladiator—or at least he had been before his god was murdered.

  Now he was an accused traitor, on the run from a vengeful goddess—Madoc’s mother—just like the rest of them.

  Madoc shoved Tor back and wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm. They’d been training every day since they’d sailed out of Deimos’s war-ravaged capitol, Crixion, two weeks ago. They hoped to find refuge in the Apuit Islands with the goddess Hydra’s people, who they’d heard had allied with Florus, the god of plants. But with the gods of fire and earth both dead and Deimos in the grip of Anathrasa, the Mother Goddess, they had no idea how they’d be received. For all they knew, Hydra would think them spies and send her warriors to destroy them.

  That was, if Anathrasa didn’t hunt them down first.

  “This isn’t working,” he muttered. Though Tor had taught many fighters to use igneia, fire energy wasn’t the same as the anathreia Madoc himself possessed. If he was going to be any use to Ash and the others, Madoc needed to learn how to effectively manipulate soul energeia. But whenever he’d used it before, he’d either lost control or nearly killed himself in the process. Even with Tor’s lessons, Madoc was no more ready to face Anathrasa now than he had been when they’d fled Deimos.

  “Excuses.” Tor tucked his blade back into the leather sheath at his belt and wiped his palms on his reed leggings. “I’ve seen you make a seasoned gladiator cry for his mother. Rip the energeia from a god like a rotten tooth. If you’re going to drain the Mother Goddess before she finds a way to claim the other five countries, you’ll need to be ready for anything. You’re holding back.”

  Behind him, the ship’s rail bobbed against the horizon, churning Madoc’s stomach.

  He tripped over the hatch cover leading belowdecks as another wave hit the stern. The swells had been bigger the last two days, the air cooler. He could feel it now, needling each bead of sweat on his temple as the sun sank low in the pink sky.

  They were getting closer to Hydra’s islands.

  “If this boat would stop moving, I could concentrate.” He staggered to stand, glaring at Tor’s steady, wide-legged stance. Maybe he had saved Madoc when Geoxus’s palace had fallen, but Madoc was really beginning to hate him.

  “Anathrasa doesn’t care if you’re on the land or sea.”

  “She’ll care if he throws up on her.”

  Ash lounged on the wooden steps to the upper deck, waving five flame-tipped fingers in front of her face. Since Madoc had returned her igneia—transferred it through the conduit of his body with his soul energy—the fire she created was blue.

  Like the dead fire god’s.

  Madoc had heard Tor whispering with his sister, Taro, and her wife. They thought Madoc had accidentally given Ash the power he’d taken from Ignitus.

  He wasn’t sure they were wrong. None of them knew exactly what it meant, but if anyone was strong enough to figure it out, it was Ash.

  She was wearing two tunics to fight the cold, but her shins were uncovered, and his gaze had fallen to her bare ankles, crisscrossed by the leather straps of her sandals, when another wave knocked him sideways into the foremast.

  She laughed, and he couldn’t stop his grin, even as the small crowd that had gathered near the helm above her snickered. Every Kulan on this ship had their sea legs, but Madoc still spent every morning and night with his head over a bucket.

  “I’m not going to throw up.” Probably.

  “Focus,” Tor ordered. “Anathrasa will be ready. She’ll have protection. Aera and Biotus were allies of Geoxus—they’ll likely join her now that he is dead. And who knows how many of the god of earth’s centurions will rise to her aid once they realize what she can do?”

  Madoc shivered. His mother was cunning. She’d survived for centuries by tithing—sucking the souls out of the gladiators Geoxus had offered her. She would not be defenseless now. Those who stood against her would be tithed, and the rest would suffer in silent allegiance for fear that she’d turn on them next.

  “You know my intention,” Tor continued. “Now stop me.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem,” Ash said, snuffing out the blue flames in a closed fist. “You don’t really mean to hurt him. When he used anathreia to fight before, there was always a threat to his life.” Her dark eyes flicked to his. “Or mine.”

  Madoc’s shoulders drew together as he thought of the Deiman guards dragging Ash out of the preparation chamber at the arena after Anathrasa had taken away her energeia. A new sickness twisted his stomach as he remembered the palace, the tithes—his hollow soul, needing to be filled. His mother had forced him to take Petros’s power, even if it meant killing him, to make himself strong. He’d taken Ignitus’s power next, then Geoxus’s, and it had nearly destroyed him.

  If he hadn’t been able to give that power to Ash, it would have.

  Now a hunger for those same feelings, for the taste of another’s energeia, was with him all the time, pressing against his lungs with every breath. But he refused to give in, not when this ship was filled with people who’d risked their lives for him. Not when he knew what tithing had done to Ash. To his sister, Cassia.

  If he was going to be strong enough to drain whatever power his mother—the mother of all gods—had left, he needed to find another way to sate this growing need.

  “I have no problem making him bleed if that’s what it takes,” Tor said with a sharp smile.

  Madoc winced in Ash’s direction. “Has he always been like this?”

  “Oh, no.” She grinned. “He used to have a training room and full armory at his disposal.”

  Madoc sighed through his teeth as Tor drew his knife and advanced again, a driven look in his eyes that made Madoc suspect he hadn’t been kidding about making him bleed.

  He was close enough to strike, and Madoc raised his hands—empty, at Tor’s insistence—to defend himself. As they circled on the deck, Madoc reached out with his anathreia, feeling for Tor’s emotions, finding the same intense frustration as always.

  But it was laced with
something else. A thin, pulsing warmth that reminded him, with a jolt of pain, of Ilena.

  He blinked back his last image of his adopted mother, holding his face in her hands, telling him they would see each other again, just before she disappeared into the riots outside the temple to find Elias, Danon, and Ava. It was better this way—the farther Madoc was from Deimos, the safer they were—but he worried for them all the same.

  Tor’s head tilted. “What was that?” When Madoc shook his head, Tor stepped closer, dropping his weapon to his side. “What were you just thinking of?” Warmth spread across the space between them, driving a new spear of hunger into Madoc’s soul.

  Madoc glanced to Ash, who was now leaning forward, elbows on her knees.

  “Home,” he said quietly.

  He didn’t feel comfortable discussing this with Tor—his family was his to protect, even from friends. But if mentioning it helped him control his anathreia, he would do it.

  Tor breathed in slowly, his eyes lifting to the horizon. “When Ash was a child, we often traveled for matches and wars. She grew up on ships like this.”

  Madoc glanced at her, watching him with a confidence he didn’t deserve. If she knew how much he wanted to draw that confidence out of her, she wouldn’t be so steadfast.

  “When she missed Kula, I would tell her that Kula had come with her.” Tor stepped closer, resting one large hand on Madoc’s shoulder. The warmth was undeniable now, separate from the igneia in his veins, and Madoc held his breath, not trusting himself to swallow the air without a taste of it.

  “Home is here.” Tor moved his hand to Madoc’s chest, where he softly pounded his fist twice. “Not there.” He pointed behind them, to the sea. “The things that matter live inside us, and we protect them as we protect any other part of ourselves, with the power we’ve been given.”

  Madoc thought of Ilena and Elias. Danon and Ava. Even Cassia. And Ash, because she belonged with them, too. Only now he didn’t picture them fighting or running. They weren’t being hunted by Anathrasa or tortured in some prison cell as he’d dreamed every night these past two weeks. They were surrounded by a wall higher than those outside the grand arena. One fortified with the hardest, heaviest stones Elias had ever moved.

  He locked them safely behind his ribs.

  “Igneia is pulled from flames. Geoeia from stone.” Tor shook his head in wonder. “You already have a fine source to pull from—your own soul—you’re just afraid to do it.”

  Anathrasa had told him he needed other energeia to feed his power. He’d felt it work when he’d taken energeia from Petros and when he’d warped Jann’s mind in the arena. Though he thirsted for it now, he’d never considered taking anathreia from himself.

  Whatever soul he’d possessed himself had been broken a long time ago by Petros’s hands and Crixion’s streets.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Tor said, meeting Madoc’s gaze.

  When he breathed, he felt the fondness behind Tor’s frustration, but he didn’t take it. His hunger had changed; it solidified the walls around his fortress. A knot of muscle in his neck relaxed as his anathreia whirled to life inside him for the first time in two long weeks.

  Without warning, Tor lunged, knife aimed at Madoc’s heart.

  Stop.

  Tor’s hand froze in midair. He looked at it as if baffled, just before the knife dropped from his grip and embedded into the deck with a thunk.

  “Good.” With a grin, Tor spun, reaching out a hand to draw igneia from a lantern posted on the ship’s mast. The fire balled in his palm, then sliced across the air beside Madoc’s left shoulder. The sleeve of his tunic was charred; the heat seared his skin.

  Excitement raced through Madoc’s limbs as he rolled aside, then leaped to his feet. The next attack came just as fast, but this time he was ready. Tor wasn’t just coming after him, he was coming after Madoc’s family, his home. This wasn’t about fighting or training. It was about defending what was his.

  Madoc raised his empty hands, clutching the cold air as the energeia raced through him, ready for orders. “Stop.”

  The red flames licking Tor’s skin suddenly went out. He stumbled back as if hit by an invisible punch, then went straight over the side of the ship.

  Madoc’s anathreia retreated like a kicked puppy. For one second he gaped at a wide-eyed Ash before they both raced to where Tor had fallen. Madoc’s fingers dug into the splintering wooden rail as he searched the white-tipped waves. A moment passed, and then Tor sputtered to the surface, his arms circling as he treaded water.

  “Was that really necessary?” Ash asked, unable to hide her grin.

  Madoc laughed weakly.

  “Man overboard!” From the helm rushed a flock of sailors, including Taro, Tor’s sister. She wore the same glare Madoc had come to recognize from her, though now her eyes sparkled in amusement.

  “Can that soul energy of yours give you wings?” she asked. “Because you’ll want to be somewhere else when he gets back up here.”

  Ash giggled, but Madoc only winced.

  Following Taro’s lead, he reached to grab a thick coil of rope lying on the deck. With the help of Ash and Spark, Taro’s wife, they succeeded in dropping one end down to the ocean below and fastening the other around the nearest mast.

  Tor grabbed the end and began heaving himself up. Madoc didn’t need to see his face to feel the bolts of anger flying off him.

  “Maybe we should leave him down there a few minutes to cool off,” he suggested.

  “Just delaying the inevitable,” Taro said. “It was nice knowing you, Madoc.”

  He groaned as they laughed. They were joking, of course. Tor wouldn’t really kill him.

  He hoped.

  “Get him up here.” Behind them, Spark’s voice had dropped. Her worry prickled against Madoc’s skin even before he saw it etched into her face. He followed her gaze up to the crow’s nest, where a Kulan sailor was shouting to the crew at the helm while he watched the horizon through his spyglass.

  “What is it?” Ash tensed beside him, peering into the distance. The sun had dipped below the horizon now, painting the sky an angry scarlet. She snagged the arm of a sailor, a boy no more than fifteen, who was sprinting toward the mast.

  “Ships on the port side coming on fast.” The sailor’s voice cracked. “Too fast for a mortal crew. They’ve got help.”

  Madoc’s pulse quickened. “What kind of ships?”

  Please be Hydra’s or Florus’s fleet, he willed. Surely the goddess of water had the ability to make her ships cut through the waves at an accelerated clip.

  “Black and silver sails.” The sailor slipped free of Ash’s hold and raced toward the mast to uncoil the lines. “Three of them!”

  Madoc turned to Ash, a roar filling his ears. Only one country boasted the black and silver flag: Deimos.

  Anathrasa had found them.

  Shoving past Taro, he grabbed the thick corded rope Tor was climbing and heaved, straining to get the older man aboard as quickly as possible. Taro and Spark took up the slack behind him as Ash raced to the quarterdeck to see what was coming.

  “Next time,” Tor ground out between ragged breaths. “Try to keep my feet on the deck.”

  Madoc managed an apologetic shrug.

  “Deiman ships spotted on the port,” Taro barked at her brother as he clambered over the deck. He was soaked straight through and shrugged off his tunic with a violent shiver.

  “Can we outrun them?” Tor asked.

  Taro shook her head. “They’re coming on too quickly.”

  The mainsail cracked as it filled with air, and the Kulan ship sailed faster than an arrow. Madoc gripped the rail to hang on as sailors rushed around him, securing lines and shouting orders. Below him, the hull slapped against the waves, driving hard to the west, into the last smear of daylight.

  Anxiety snapped through the air. It mixed with a cold, snaking dread that pressed through Madoc’s skin, chilling him to the bone. He couldn’t think with all the emoti
ons screaming around him. He could no sooner drown it out than quiet the crowds in the grand arena during a war.

  He caught sight of Tor exchanging tense words with the captain, then Ash, pointing behind them into the night. He carved a path around the twin masts toward her, peering into the failing light and focusing on the heat of Ash’s skin as she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. Warmth rippled up his arm, through his chest, steadying him. Without thinking, he curved his other hand around the slope of her waist.

  “There!” she shouted. “Do you see them?”

  He squinted, and soon he could make out a flash of silver in the dark sky. As he stared into the gloom, another joined it. Then a third. Three Deiman ships, flying over the waves, the heavy hulls skimming the surface of the water as the sails above stretched to full capacity. The sight of them filled him with equal parts dread and wonder. He’d never seen ships move with that kind of effortless speed.

  “How are they going so fast?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ash said. “Earth Divine sailors can’t move a ship like that. They must be either Water Divine or . . .”

  “Air Divine.” Madoc blew a tight breath through his teeth. He’d once seen a gladiator with aereia create a tornado during a match—it wasn’t a stretch to imagine one manipulating the sea winds to their advantage. If there were Air Divine sailors aboard those ships, that would mean that Aera, who had been Geoxus’s ally before his death, had come to Deimos to join Anathrasa.

  Ash nodded, her brows drawn with worry—not just about who the ships carried, but what trouble they might bring. He hadn’t been the only one training these past two weeks. Her new igneia was different, more intense—she could pull the blue flames without a source but had trouble controlling them. This was the burden of possessing a god’s power in a mortal body.

  Sometimes he wondered how it hadn’t killed her.

  “Slow down!” called a sailor above them. “There’s something ahead!”

  They spun to search the darkness lying before them.

  “Land?” Hope lifted Ash’s voice. “Is it the islands?”

  Ash and Madoc dashed toward the bow of the ship, past the captain at the helm. Tor was already there, shooting a stream of fire into the night to light the way. Spark and Taro stood beside him, squinting ahead, to where a gray, shapeless mass expanded in the distance.