by Sara Raasch
He was making his way over to a lavish table of food, from which he could watch the action in the box unfold from a safe distance, when a giant stepped before him, his shadow blocking the light.
“Have you met Madoc yet, brother?” Aera asked, sliding her arm around Madoc’s.
The god of animals was a beast beside delicate Aera, his chest broad and bare, crossed by pelt straps, and his ship-mast thighs covered by a swatch of fur. Auburn braids of hair stretched to his muscular neck and shoulders, which flexed as he narrowed his black eyes on Madoc.
Madoc swallowed, feeling his bravery wither.
“Biotus.” He bowed his head.
“Madoc.” Biotus growled his name. “The one who drained my brothers dry. You must be proud. It’s not every day a mortal takes down a god.”
He stared at Madoc in the way a predator eyes his prey.
Madoc’s mouth was parched. He couldn’t think of what to say.
“Leave him alone, Biotus.” Aera slapped his shoulder playfully. “Madoc’s on our side. Isn’t that right?”
She smiled at him.
He nodded quickly. “I am, goddess.”
With a hard look, Biotus shoved past Madoc, nearly knocking him over on his way to the box’s exit. Madoc could feel the anger pulsing off him, the taste of copper on the back of his tongue that he knew was animal energeia. His heart begged to try it, even as his mind cautioned him to hold back.
His eyes flicked to Anathrasa, still talking with her servants.
“Don’t mind him. He’s just angry because his best soldiers haven’t yet arrived from Cenhelm. Their ships are quite slow.”
Her words reminded him of the way Crixion’s ships had flown over the waves, aided by Air Divine sailors, when they’d attacked with Anathrasa at the blockade before the Apuit Islands. The tension behind his neck increased.
“Where is he going?” he asked, worried about his family, back at the palace, and Ash, even though she was over the sea. And anyone who might cross paths with the god of animals.
“To track the rest of his fleet, I’d guess,” she said, her voice like a tinkling bell as she twisted a finger around a lock of her golden hair. It didn’t ease his mind—he’d rather Biotus stay within sight, and the possibility of an entire Cenhelmian fleet’s arrival in Crixion was daunting—but he couldn’t follow him and not raise Aera’s suspicion.
“This all must be very exciting for you,” she said. “Have you ever seen an Air Divine warrior fight an Animal Divine and an Earth Divine at once?”
Three people in the arena together? In past wars, it had been only one champion against another.
“How many rounds are there?” he asked.
“Just one.” She linked her arm with his and dragged him through the crowd of gossiping Deimans and Laks to the railing, where they could overlook the sparkling sand. Pots of flowers had been brought alongside it, and the sweet scent of jasmine and rose filled his nostrils.
His heart locked in his throat.
He could see the spot where he’d fought Jann below. Where he’d stood when Geoxus had chosen him for the Honored Eight. Where Ash had fallen when Elias had thrown all his geoeia at her.
The seats below and around them were filled to capacity. The spectators’ voices rose like thunder, their excitement thick in the morning air.
“Anathrasa!” called an announcer positioned near the base of the arena, his voice magnified on the wind. “We honor you with this first of three tribute games—a battle of strength between our fearless Earth Divine, the Air Divine from Lakhu, and the mighty Animal Divine of Cenhelm! The best among them will receive the ultimate honor—to serve in your army.” He paused, and the crowd roared their approval, but Madoc’s heart sank.
“Now,” the announcer continued. “Bring out the champions!”
Eight
ASH
THE WORLD BECAME a forest.
Thick brown trees shot up to support a fluffy emerald canopy that let shafts of golden light peek through. Ash stood on a bed of dew-laden undergrowth, watching leaves drift on a breeze in lazy spirals. The air smelled of moss and decay but also of life.
Everything was peaceful here.
Ash turned, watching the sunlight play in the canopy. The effect spun colors across the leaves—bright red and slants of butter yellow. It made her dizzy.
She was so dizzy.
She wanted to sleep.
“Ash, you have to wake up.”
Ash turned, her arms drifting through the velvety warm air, and then she was dancing, a luxurious spiral from a lifetime ago. As she danced, she saw Char standing nearby, watching.
“Mama?” Ash giggled. “Mama!”
She stopped. Pulses of red and yellow and black throbbed around her. The decay smell was stronger now and Ash grabbed her head. She was so dizzy. Why was she so dizzy?
“You have to fight through it, Ash,” Char said. “You know this isn’t right. Wake up!”
Ash shuddered, not cold, not feeling much of anything.
“Wake up!” Char begged again, and Ash twitched, rubbing her eyes hard.
When she blinked them open, Char was gone; the forest, gone. Around her towered scarlet flowers with hypnotic yellow centers and black smeared across their insides, all of them swaying in a breeze.
Ash swayed too. She tipped over, crying out, and when her hands and knees dropped to the undergrowth, she felt only thorns. They stabbed her hands and blood fell, staining the leaves and rising up her arms—
Ash screamed, flailing, but the blood rose and rose into her mouth, salty and metallic.
She was still screaming when her eyes opened, and the flowers were gone. No forest, no Char, no thorns or blood.
She was curled in the corner of a bare room. Six hexagonal walls wrapped around her with a solid floor and ceiling—no doors, no windows. The only light came from gently pulsing spots on each wall—they flickered in and out, a yellow-green hue much like Geoxus’s phosphorescent stones or Hydra’s algae.
Ash held still for one full breath. Her head throbbed, an ache in the veins at her temples, and her tongue tasted like she’d licked sand. Where was she? She had the foggiest memory of Florus showing up on the shore. And thorns? No, a vine—
A vine with a red flower.
The bastard had poisoned her.
Ash rose, slowly finding her footing on the rough floor.
Florus had poisoned and captured her.
Her stomach roiled, and she forced herself not to vomit. She wouldn’t think through the implications of this yet.
She would get out.
Gritting her teeth, she pulled blue flames into each hand and launched fire at the far wall. She pushed it hotter, as hot as she could handle; and even then, she gave it more. The floor and walls rippled in a scalding red glow as her heat sank into them, and still she pushed more, sweat breaking across her face and back, exertion tugging at the edges of her vision.
The entire room tipped upside down. Ash flipped, slamming against the far wall, the ceiling, the floor again. Embers from her escape attempt peppered the air around her as she spun, each toss ricocheting pain up her shoulder, her thigh, her skull.
“Florus!” Ash screamed. “Florus—stop!”
The room came to a halt, righted again—or maybe upside down now—but Ash crouched on the floor, shaking, her hair wild around her and the taste of blood in her mouth.
The god of plants materialized in the middle of the room, bringing with him the smell of earth, rich and heavy with life and fresh oxygen. It contrasted with how stale this room smelled, like a thousand years of neglect and rot.
Ash glared up at Florus. Should she attack him outright? Could she murder a god without Madoc first draining him?
The thought of his name broke her.
“Where is Madoc?” Ash gasped to the floor. “Did you side with Anathrasa? If you so much as—”
“Madoc? There’s no one by that name here,” Florus responded. “And I am not allied with An
athrasa.”
Ash watched his face for any sign of a lie, but his eyes were wide and innocent, his lips soft in a half smile. Only a crease on his forehead showed he was at all distressed.
Ash bolted to her feet and lunged at him.
Instantly, a dozen vines shot out of the floor, knotted around her, and yanked her back. Her shoulder blades crashed into the rough wall and the vines held her against it, more of them squirming up to hold each limb in a locked, solid embrace.
“What are you doing?” Ash screamed. “Stop this!”
Florus shook his head. “No.”
“I can break out of this,” Ash threatened. Her skin started to burn, a blue flame on her hands and feet that crackled the vines. “I’ll incinerate this whole prison.”
That earned a thoughtful smile. “This prison was made for one such as you. You cannot escape.” He stomped on the floor. “Petrified wood. It isn’t alive, so no water to use; it isn’t a stone, so no earth to use. It cannot be burned. It can only be manipulated by Plant Divine. And I will not give you floreia, Ash Nikau. You are not strong enough to save us.”
She let her fire fall, let the vines keep her against the wall. Her chest beat in and out, and with rasping breaths she wanted to scream again, but she managed, “What do you want?”
Florus stepped closer. “I told you. We won’t fail against Anathrasa again. I won’t let us.”
“You won’t let us.” Ash’s heart sank into her stomach. “Where’s Hydra?”
Had Hydra betrayed her? And where were Tor, Taro, Spark?
Ash felt her body heat spike again, but Florus shook his head. “Hydra will be quite upset when she finds out what I did. But she will get over it. We always do.”
Florus flicked his wrist and a fan of razor-sharp leaves grew out of the floor, each as long as Ash’s arm. Florus plucked one, testing its edge as one might a blade.
Ash bucked against the vines. “Florus.” But her throat constricted. She couldn’t breathe.
“Last time, our best efforts to kill Anathrasa failed,” Florus started, still looking at the sharp leaf. “We only made it so she can’t sustain her own anathreia. She can’t retain the souls she draws into herself. She can’t manipulate the emotions and thoughts of others—yet. But we tried with everything we had to accomplish more—we tried to defeat her, and we couldn’t.”
His eyes flicked to Ash.
“If she gets you, she’ll have my brothers’ energeias. She’ll be at her full power again. And what will we be able to do to stop her then? We can’t defeat her. We can only keep her in this weakened state.”
“I’m going to stop her, Florus.” Ash knew she sounded frantic, but she was. Her head still throbbed and each nerve tingled with desperate fear. “Ciela—that was her name?—I’m not Ciela. When I obtain all six energeias and become Soul Divine like Anathrasa, I’m going to kill her.”
“Anathrasa survived Ciela.”
“She won’t survive me. I know Anathrasa’s tricks. I know not to stop fighting until I’m sure she’s dead.”
“No.” Florus pointed the leaf at her. “It won’t matter. I won’t risk the possibility of Anathrasa getting my brothers’ powers from you. I’m ending this.”
He leaned forward, his eyes scrambling over her face, her matted hair, a gash on her chin dripping blood onto her collarbone.
“Ignitus? Geoxus? Are you in there?” Florus whispered. “Can you hear me, brothers? I’m going to kill these last pieces of you. I’ve prepared for this moment—Hydra always thought you’d leave us alone forever, but I knew you’d eventually come and ruin everything. So I made you this prison. It will contain your igneia, Ignitus. And your geoeia, Geoxus. So don’t try to fight me.”
Ash gasped, a bitter sob. “Florus, Ignitus and Geoxus aren’t here—it’s just me. I’m—”
Florus put the tip of the leaf against Ash’s lips. It sliced her skin and she tasted more blood, but she couldn’t pull away, her head bound to the wall.
Florus met her eyes again, and Ash saw the insanity in him. She lost herself in it; even when Ignitus had been at his most unhinged, he had never been calm like this, and Florus’s youthful face made it all the more horrifying.
“I’m going to kill this mortal shell,” Florus told her. Told Ignitus and Geoxus within her.
Ash heaved against the vines. “Wait, wait—”
“It’s the only way,” he said, and he almost looked sad. “When the shell dies, my brothers’ energeias will dissipate into the ether. They will be gone, and Anathrasa will never again be able to resume her full strength. This will all be over.”
“No, Florus!” Ash fought, but more vines held her; she burned, but when one vine snapped away, another was there to take its place. “That won’t stop Anathrasa! She’ll still be here, terrorizing the world—I have to kill her, Florus! Let me fight her!”
“Shh,” Florus cooed as though she was some tantruming child. “This will all be over soon.”
He lowered the spiked leaf.
“Florus!” Ash screamed. “Florus, don’t—”
He reared his arm back, shifted his weight, and drove the point of the leaf into her gut.
Ash choked. Before she could feel any pain, he stabbed her with another pointed leaf, and another, and another, until that was what held her body to the wall, not the vines.
Satisfied, Florus stepped back and folded his arms over his chest.
He was just going to stand there and watch her die.
Blood surged up Ash’s throat and spilled down her chin, until all she felt was an iron tang of blood everywhere, consuming her senses.
She couldn’t be dying. She couldn’t die at all—Madoc needed her. Tor needed her.
A tear streaked down her cheek. She sputtered, gasping, and the act wrenched her body against the leaves, sending a spark of pain up her side. That pain lit others until her mouth cracked open, but she couldn’t even scream; this pain was unbearable, unfathomable, an ache she couldn’t put a name to because it was so beyond what a body should experience.
With one last effort, Ash pushed fire at the leaves that held her. They burned to the wall and she dropped, freed, only to collapse on the floor in a puddle of blood and broken vines.
“Really, Ignitus?” Florus chastised. “Die with honor.”
“I . . . am not . . . Ignitus,” Ash gasped, each word agony. She pushed herself onto her hands and glowered up at Florus. “I am not . . . Geoxus. I am . . .”
Pain seized her. She doubled over, wailing, her insides constricting in a spasm that shot stars across her eyes.
She rolled to the side, hands around her middle—
Her wounds.
Her wounds were healing.
The ones on her stomach. The gaping hole in her shoulder.
She writhed on the floor, half taken by the throbbing sensation of healing and half terrified as the holes made by Florus’s leaves mended themselves.
Ash came to her knees, trembling, covered in blood and sweat and righteous fury. She looked up at Florus again, and his eyes were wide with realization.
“You have Ignitus’s and Geoxus’s energeias,” he said, “and you have their immortality too, it seems.”
Ash’s chest heaved. She used the wall to pull herself to her feet. Her focus sharpened to a single point, something dark rising from the pit of her soul and hunching her shoulders, curling her fingers into fists, peeling back her lips in a snarl.
“I am more god than you,” she growled.
“No,” Florus told her. But his voice was clipped. She had rattled him; she had rattled herself. “Anathrasa will never find you. She will never resume her full power. It is still over.”
When Ash lunged at Florus this time, she didn’t want to burn him; no, she wanted to rip his head off and let him bathe in his own blood.
But before she’d crossed the room, Florus was gone.
Ash slammed into the opposite wall in his wake. She whirled, searching for him, but she saw only the vi
nes, now withering away; the razor leaves covered in her blood; the stain on the floor of all the blood she had lost; and she knew she must look like death itself.
Ash beat her fists on the walls. Bruises formed, but she felt them tingle and heal. It was happening fast. She was a god. She couldn’t be killed. She couldn’t—
“Florus!” she screamed. “Florus! HYDRA!”
Ash reared back, gasping.
Hydra had briefly tried to teach Ash to travel like the gods. Focus. Meditate.
Ash knotted her fingers in her hair and turned in a circle, eyes shut, pulse hammering.
Hydra, she willed herself. Get to Hydra.
Madoc. Get to Madoc.
Madoc. If he took Aera’s aereia or Biotus’s bioseia without Ash there to receive it, the energeia would eventually kill him.
Ash sobbed. Her knees cracked to the floor, and she heaved, crying so hard she thought she might be sick.
Florus had tried to kill her. And that still might be her fate if she didn’t get out of this prison.
If she didn’t, no one would ever know what had happened to her. Tor, Taro, Spark—she would never see them again. Madoc—she would never touch him again, never feel the way he held her.
Her mind spiraled, thoughts and intentions too slippery to hold. All she could do was kneel there, weeping, half a god, half a girl, entirely defeated.
Nine
MADOC
THE GATES ON the south side of the arena, where Madoc himself had once entered, opened, and a line of Deimans stepped onto the golden sand. These weren’t the trained fighters Geoxus had treasured—most weren’t thick enough to fill out the gladiator armor they’d borrowed. Some weren’t even strong enough to lift their own weapons, dragging their swords on the ground behind them, or hoisting wobbling spears with both hands.
“They’re all fighting at once?” Madoc asked. He’d assumed Aera had meant one champion of each country, but now it looked as if this was going to include everyone.
“Yes, isn’t it exciting?” The goddess of air clapped her hands. “I heard Deimans were lined up in the streets all last week for a chance to appear in the arena. Everyone wants to be a hero and avenge Geoxus!”
