Rise Up from the Embers

by Sara Raasch

  “Anathrasa?” Madoc burst through the door of the kitchen, eliciting a shout of surprise from a cook. Behind him, a dozen servants gaped at Madoc, then immediately bowed their heads.

  “Ilena?” he shouted, but his mother did not respond. “You!” Madoc motioned to the cook, a man with a broad chest and dark berry stains on his apron. “Have you seen the gods?” When the man shook his head, Madoc’s teeth clenched. “I’m looking for a woman, Ilena Metaxa. She’s a guest of the palace. Dark hair, about this tall.” He held out a hand to indicate her height, using the other to swipe the sweat out of his eyes.

  The cook’s brows scrunched together. “I’m sorry, dominus, I don’t . . .”

  Madoc pressed an image of Ilena into the man’s head with his energeia. He reached for any hint of recognition in the cook’s memory, but it was like kneading one of the piles of dough on the marble slab beside them. The man’s thoughts were soft, his emotions shapeless and dull.

  “I don’t know this woman,” the cook said. He blinked, his eyes unfocused.

  Madoc wanted to shake him.

  Only someone with soul energeia could manipulate another’s thoughts, and since it hadn’t been him, it had to be Anathrasa.

  She’d made him see what she’d wanted him to at the party, and now she was turning the minds of her servants. How could he not have seen how powerful she’d become?

  She must have hidden that from him, too.

  “Aera,” Madoc said, raising his voice to the rest of the staff. “Biotus. Where are they?”

  The cook blinked. The servants behind him seemed confused.

  “Dominus, the goddess of air lives in Lakhu,” the cook said kindly. “And Biotus—”

  “Anathrasa,” Madoc interrupted, pressing deeper into the man’s consciousness for answers the Mother Goddess had not already erased. “Where has she gone?”

  “The Mother Goddess must complete the circle,” he said. A woman behind him repeated his words. They nodded fervently, their belief unshakable.

  “Stop,” Madoc growled, using his anathreia to quiet them. It didn’t matter; the other servants were all muttering the same thing. A dull roar rose in the hot, crowded room.

  “The Mother Goddess must complete the circle.”

  “Stop!” he shouted, using his power to force their compliance.

  They stopped and stared at him blankly.

  Certain he would get no answers there, he stumbled back through the door. He tried to think of places he hadn’t searched yet, but the gods could have taken Ilena anywhere in the city. For all he knew, they’d boarded a ship to Lakhu or Cenhelm, or headed north through Deimos.

  He needed to check on Elias—maybe Ilena had returned while he’d been searching the grounds—but before he turned down the corridor that would lead to their balcony, he cut up the stairs to his own room. Perhaps Ilena had gone there to find him.

  But his quarters were dark.

  He raced past the bed, toward the open doors that led to the balcony, where a torch had been lit outside.

  “Ilena?” he called. “Ilena!”

  “She isn’t here.”

  Spinning away from the balcony doors, he lifted his hands, ready to use the anathreia raging inside him to defend himself.

  At the sight of the woman in white, his shoulders pinched together.

  “Anathrasa.”

  “I like it better when you call me Mother.” She stepped into the light beside his bed, her chin high and back straight. She was still wearing her gown from the party, a shimmering wrap of white, latched at the shoulder by a silver circle—an image he was coming to despise. Anathrasa was not a rebirth, not a fresh start. She was a hole humanity would fall into.

  “Where is Ilena?” he asked, not yet lowering his hands.

  She clucked her tongue in her cheek, and he was reminded of how she had once looked much older and would make that noise when she disapproved of the trouble he and Elias had gotten into.

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me how long you’ve been in contact with Ash.”

  Madoc inhaled slowly, lowering his arms but still ready for anything. Denying it would do him no good; it was clear she already knew the truth. Aera must have seen Ash before she’d left the library.

  “She traveled through the fire like Ignitus,” he said. “She wanted Aera’s power. I’d been trying to get it for you, but I couldn’t. When Ash realized I was telling the truth, she left. Now, where is Ilena?”

  Anathrasa sighed. “Aera seemed to think Ash was here longer than just a few moments.”

  His heart kicked against his ribs. Had Aera been spying on him? What had she heard?

  Madoc weighed his options. If Anathrasa thought he was being dishonest, she could hurt Ilena. Control her, like she had the cook and the palace servants. Maybe do something worse now that she had more power.

  If he told the truth, it could put Ash in more danger, or compromise her ability to kill Anathrasa—something he might already have done by linking himself to the Mother Goddess.

  But Ash had Hydra, Tor, and the Water Divine behind her. And Ilena had only him and Elias.

  “Aera lies,” he said.

  “Not to me.” Anathrasa crossed in front of a table against the wall, glancing at her reflection in the basin of water he’d washed with this morning. He felt a sudden surge of hope that Hydra was listening through it—that she could warn and protect Ash.

  Anathrasa must have had the same thought, because she casually lifted the edge of the bowl and sent it crashing to the floor.

  Madoc’s spine snapped straight. Sharp pieces of ceramic littered the floor, damp and shining in the light from the balcony.

  “She and Biotus are plotting against you,” Madoc said. “I heard them talking in the library.”

  Anathrasa smiled.

  “You heard exactly what you were meant to hear,” she said. “Biotus doesn’t trust you—with good reason, it would seem. He wanted to test your allegiance. He thought that if you overheard his plans and reported them to me, we’d know you were on our side.”

  “And I have,” he said, clinging to the hope that this could buy him some time.

  Anathrasa chuckled. “Aera resisted, as we’d planned. You really can’t stand to see a woman in distress, can you?”

  He felt the blood drain from his face.

  “You were supposed to comfort her,” Anathrasa said, her smile growing hard. “Get her to lower her guard. And then you were supposed to take her energeia and give it to me.” She pouted. “No, Aera and Biotus didn’t know that part.”

  Anathrasa had planned this. She’d set him up to drain Aera, even to seduce her, maybe. He felt sick.

  “But you were going to give the aereia to Ash all along, weren’t you? That’s why she came to meet you at the palace.”

  Tension laced Madoc’s shoulders tighter together.

  “Do you know what the punishment for treason is, Madoc?”

  Anathrasa’s mouth stretched into a thin line. She walked through the shards of pottery toward him, the muscles in her neck bulging.

  “The prison guards are particularly creative, as Elias can tell you.” Madoc flinched at her words, remembering the offhand comment about torture that Elias had made at the party. “But seeing as that would hurt me as well, we’ll need a different strategy.”

  She came closer, and he found himself taking a quick step back.

  “Don’t hurt Ilena,” he said before he could stop himself. “I’m sorry I lied to you about Ash. I can still get the energeia from Aera and Biotus and give it to you.”

  She stalked closer.

  “You will,” she said, “but not without more of a guarantee. I see that now.”

  He backed into the wall, scraping his heel against the plaster, which made her own eyes pinch in pained surprise.

  “At first, I found this connection between us to be a nuisance,” she said. “But then I could feel it—my anathreia returning with every tithe you made. I haven’t felt so ali
ve in hundreds of years.”

  What had he done? That lightness he’d felt, the high of tithing, it wasn’t merely his own. It was her emotions, woven with his. He could feel it now. Her intrusion in his soul. Their energeias, braided together.

  He’d been helping her without realizing it. Making her stronger with every breath of power he took. Dread mingled with panic inside him. He’d known that they had this link, and he’d continued anyway. Selfishly. Foolishly.

  He wanted to tell himself that he would have stopped if he’d known what he was doing, but he couldn’t say for certain. Tithing had felt so right. So necessary, so useful. For years he’d wanted to do something that had mattered to help the people of Crixion, and now he had the chance. But in doing so, he’d made Anathrasa stronger. Had he deliberately ignored the possible consequences? Looked only to the good he was doing, while he turned away from the bad?

  He shouldn’t have started tithing. He should have paid more attention to Tor’s training, reached into himself for the power he needed.

  Instead, he’d made Ash’s fight more difficult. He’d put his family in danger.

  He should have run with Ash and never looked back.

  “It is a privilege to serve you,” he said, trying to look earnest, but feeling his shoulders rise with each sharp breath.

  He thought of the slap on Anathrasa’s cheek. The cut on her hand. The way she hadn’t been able to hurt him when he’d been with Elias.

  He needed to be calm. To stay steady.

  But she had Ilena.

  “Of course it is,” Anathrasa said. “And, I suppose, for me to be connected to you as well. It’s nice, not being alone, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t like the softness in her tone. The way she was looking at him like a son rather than a weapon. He could feel the anxiety rippling through his body, thinning his control.

  Making him vulnerable.

  “I’m sorry about Ilena,” she said with a small frown. “I did like her. She possessed an impressive amount of fortitude for a mortal.”

  Madoc shuddered. “What did you do?”

  “Be still,” Anathrasa whispered. “I’ll show you.”

  She placed her hand on his chest.

  His lungs seized as they had when he’d kissed Aera, and his blood screamed through his veins. Her hand felt like daggers, pressing through his skin, wrapping his heart in knives. He gasped and fell to his knees, his arms too heavy to push her back.

  “Let me in.” Anathrasa’s voice sounded far away. An echo in a tunnel.

  He called on his anathreia to protect him, his body to defend itself, but he could do neither. He fought for calm, for the safety he’d felt with Elias. For focus. But it slipped through his fingers. He was frozen, choked out by the grip of her energeia.

  Energeia he’d built for her.

  “Let me in,” she said again, and he couldn’t help it. He felt as if his mind had been flayed, the walls around his thoughts sliced open. He saw Ilena, pressed against a door, her white dress from the party ripped at the shoulder, as if she’d been in a fight. A thin hand squeezed around her throat—

  Anathrasa’s hand.

  “No,” Madoc gasped.

  He saw a dank cell, the bars corroded. Inside, a man scrambled against the far wall, a fighter—his legs were still coated with the golden dust from the arena. His back was sanded raw, blood running in streaks across his side. His matted black hair hung in his eyes as his blue gaze flicked up in terror.

  Elias.

  This was before tonight. After Madoc had fled the city with Ash and Tor. He’d left Elias to this fate. To torture.

  Tears pooled in Madoc’s eyes.

  Let me in, he heard Anathrasa say in his mind.

  No, he thought.

  He was on a ship, gripping the siding, trying not to vomit from seasickness. He focused on the sound of Ash’s laughter and couldn’t help but smile.

  He was eating smoked fish with Tor. Listening to a story about Char, Ash’s mother. It was clear from the way Tor described her smile that he’d been in love with her.

  Madoc looked down, and Ash’s hand was woven in his.

  No. He tried to fight Anathrasa off, to keep her out of his private thoughts, but any effort to focus his mind on other things—on the people he’d healed at the Temple, or even the battle in the arena—was in vain. She mined deeper into his memories, forcing him to see exactly what she wanted.

  Ash was kissing him belowdecks. Leaning into him to watch the sunrise, her back against his chest. Under him in the tent in the Apuit Islands.

  He pressed his lips to Ash’s, and she had igneia and geoeia.

  Hydra touched her, and she had hydreia.

  Ash would be the greatest warrior the world had ever seen. Stronger than Anathrasa. Stronger than anyone.

  He would fight for her.

  He would prove to her that he was strong enough, and brave enough, and just enough to stand beside her.

  He loved her with every fragile strand of his soul.

  Inside his mind, Anathrasa sighed. That wasn’t so hard, was it? He trembled at the sound of her voice, thundering through him.

  Then, silence.

  The pain was gone, but he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. Was he dead?

  He didn’t have time for panic. An instant later, he rolled to his hands and knees, and then stood. His breath came in steady pulls. His eyes blinked, his throat swallowed.

  He controlled none of it.

  Through a stranger’s eyes, he looked down at Anathrasa. She beamed up at him.

  “You’re truly mine now,” she said.

  He screamed, but knew he was shouting into a void.

  Anathrasa knew everything.

  When Madoc didn’t return to check on Elias, Elias came to him. At the knock on the door, Madoc stood, a prisoner in his own body. He could hear with his ears. See with his eyes. But the movement of his muscles was dictated by Anathrasa. He knew, even without speaking, that his voice would say her words. It was as if everything that made him himself had been locked in a box in his mind, while the rest of him was used as a puppet.

  He let his brother into the room.

  “Did you find her?” Elias demanded, pushing inside. He’d changed his clothes from the party—a thick woven tunic and leggings. Travel clothes, Madoc realized, in preparation for a voyage.

  He was ready to take the family and run.

  Elias, Madoc willed. Anathrasa did something to me. I’m trapped. You need to get to Ash. You need to talk to Hydra . . .

  “No,” his mouth said.

  Elias gave him a strange look. “Then did you find the other gods?”

  “Yes,” his mouth said.

  Anathrasa had left an hour ago to meet with Aera and Biotus. There was something going on, something she’d hidden from him behind a screen of anathreia.

  Run! Madoc screamed silently. This isn’t me. She’s controlling me. He didn’t know what he was capable of. He didn’t know if he could stop himself if his body attacked Elias. Why hadn’t he stayed in control? Kept his guard up around her? Endangering Ilena had made him frantic. He’d practically opened the door to his soul and invited her in.

  He blinked, and saw Ilena again, pressed against the door, her hands clawing at Anathrasa’s fist around her neck. He didn’t know where she was, or if she was okay. Anathrasa had attacked her, but it felt like his hands. His memories.

  His fault.

  “All right,” said Elias slowly. “Do they know where our mother is?”

  She’s gone, and Cassia’s gone, and you need to get Ava and Danon and get out of here!

  “She’s safe,” he said.

  He wanted to beat his own head against the wall.

  “She’s safe,” Elias repeated, looking at him like he’d lost his mind. “So where is she?”

  Madoc’s head tilted. “Come with me. I’ll take you to her.”

  Elias gave him a wary look. “I’ve got to stay with Danon and Ava.”


  “They’ll be all right.”

  Don’t listen to me. Madoc willed his body to move, his mouth to speak the words he was shouting inside his head, but all he said was, “Anathrasa won’t harm them.”

  He walked out of his room, turning right down the open corridor.

  “Oh, I’m fairly certain she will,” Elias argued, hurrying after him.

  The Madoc locked inside recoiled in pain, battered again by images of Elias in rags in a prison cell after he’d taken Madoc’s place in the arena and fought Ash. Madoc could still see the terror in his eyes. The blood on his back. The way he’d scrambled into a corner like a beaten animal.

  “—and Anathrasa is good and fair.” His mouth finished, but the sound of his voice startled him. What had he been saying? He’d barely registered the words as his own.

  But they weren’t his own. They were Anathrasa’s.

  When he reached the stairs, he began descending them one at a time, ignoring the panic raging inside his own body. “She has my loyalty.”

  The words were flat, scripted by another consciousness—by Anathrasa.

  Elias balked. “You’re serious right now.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You trust her.”

  “With all my soul,” he said.

  Madoc reached for anathreia, but it was unresponsive. He felt more pigstock than he ever had.

  Elias slowed. When Madoc turned, he could see the lines of his brother’s frown, deepened by the shadows from the flickering sconces.

  “She got to you,” Elias said.

  Madoc’s lips turned up in a smile. “I’ve just come to see reason.”

  Elias shuddered. A thought Madoc couldn’t read slipped across his face and then was hidden by a guarded scowl. “If I resist, are you going to use your anathreia to make me go with you anyway?”

  I don’t know. Madoc could no sooner control the sun in the sky than his own body.

  “Yes,” his mouth said.

  Tension stretched between them.

  “If I go with you, will you leave Danon and Ava out of it?”

  Madoc and Elias both waited for Madoc’s answer.

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s get on with it,” Elias said. It was clear from the resigned look on his face that he knew this would end badly, but he couldn’t risk leaving Ilena in the hands of Anathrasa. In that moment, Madoc both hated and loved him more than ever.