Rise Up from the Embers

by Sara Raasch

  She hated that, selfishly, she felt vindicated. Her torturer was dead.

  But if Anathrasa had killed Florus, then either she was strong enough to make him mortal on her own now, or she had forced Madoc to drain him as he had drained Geoxus and Ignitus.

  In a final roar of foam and froth, Hydra made the sea swallow the ship whole, leaving the rest of Anathrasa’s fleet unharmed, if horrified by what they would have to face.

  Tor’s head dropped to his chest.

  Around Ash, their mostly Apuitian crew went silent, watching the wave decimate the Deiman ship. But on their other ships, the ones carrying Florus’s Itzan warriors—the crews began to shriek. Not screaming in pain or wailing in grief; it was a screeching battle cry, a chant Ash couldn’t make out, but the feel of it caught her chest like wildfire. The chant was agony, and it was power, and it was misery, and Anathrasa would regret having killed Florus and displaying his body in that vile, taunting way.

  Ash pulled Hydra close. She didn’t mourn Florus on her own, but she mourned for Hydra’s loss. “She will pay for this.”

  Hydra sobbed hard, once. She pushed back from Ash, face red with tears, and growled. “I’m coming with you.”

  Ash inhaled as deeply as she could. Her part of the plan was to appear in the main arena and keep Anathrasa distracted. Tor would lead their fight here, keeping Anathrasa’s army at bay.

  Hydra had been meant to sneak through the city to find Florus and the Metaxas.

  The Metaxas still needed saving. Ash eyed the sea where the ship with Florus’s body had so recently sat, letting her mind calm, letting it calculate.

  What other cruelty did Anathrasa have planned?

  “All right,” Ash said. She looked at Tor. “Hydra’s with me. As soon as you break into the city, send groups scouting for the Metaxas and any other innocents who want to flee.”

  “Should the water goddess stay here?” Tor cocked his head at the remaining Deiman ships. “If you can so easily take down one vessel—”

  Hydra shook her head. A grim smile twisted her lips and she nodded at the sound on the air, the chanting Itzan warriors. “You won’t need me. The Itzans will be ruthless now.”

  Tor looked around. He met Ash’s gaze and his own sobered, dark and purposeful.

  “Be careful,” he told her.

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  They would get out of this. They would survive to attack again.

  And together, they would all see another dawn.

  “Let’s go,” Ash told Hydra, and she burst into flames, one thought pulsing in her mind: the grand arena.

  Last time she had been there, she had been dead on the sands from Elias’s attack. Madoc had had to save her. Then Anathrasa had taken Ash’s igneia, and her world had been chaos ever since.

  So when Ash appeared in Crixion’s main arena, she had a moment of painful nostalgia. The only thing different about it was the decorations. Banners fluttered from the high balconies, displaying an ivory circle instead of Geoxus’s symbols. All signs of him were gone, his signature stones and gems, his onyx decor.

  Ash stood in the center of the arena’s fighting pit, staring up at the banners, and breathed.

  The decorations were truly the only thing that had changed since she had been here last.

  The stands were full. Full as though the audience that had watched her fight Elias had never left, waiting to see her bleed again.

  Next to her, Hydra hissed in a breath. “What did we interrupt?”

  Ash turned, eyes flicking from person to person, pulse roaring in her ears and sweat already dripping down her back. There were no gladiators midfight. And the crowd wasn’t cheering or booing; they didn’t even react when she and Hydra appeared. They sat in the seats, quiet, observant. It was eerie, as if the dead were watching them, and Ash’s hands started to shake even as she pulled blue fire into her palms.

  “I don’t think we interrupted anything,” Ash said. “I think she knew we’d come.”

  This was why the city had been empty. Everyone was here.

  Hydra grimaced and matched Ash’s fire with palmfuls of ice crystals. “Shit.”

  What had they walked into?

  After a steadying breath, Ash screamed into the stands, “Anathrasa! Face me!”

  The crowd didn’t react. They looked like the gladiators on the ships that had attacked Igna.

  “She’s controlling them,” Hydra whispered. She twisted so she and Ash stood back to back, ice and fire at the ready. “We’re too late.”

  She felt Hydra deflate, just a little, just enough to spear Ash in the gut with panic.

  “We are not too late,” Ash told her. “We are not too late until Anathrasa rips the geoeia and igneia from my body.”

  She felt a rumble in Hydra’s back—morbid laughter. But it gave Ash strength.

  “Anathrasa!” she shouted. “I have what I need to defeat you. Come out and face me. You are not the only Mother Goddess anymore!”

  As one, the crowd started to stomp. First one foot, then the other, a slow, thunderous build that wound the tension. It played the wrongness like a taut string.

  Ash and Hydra spun in a slow circle, each eyeing the stands, searching for some sign that Anathrasa had heard her—

  When a door opened in the wall ahead of Ash.

  She stopped. Hydra turned, looking over Ash’s shoulder.

  A shadowed figure walked out, feet sliding through the arena’s golden sands. The moment the morning sun’s light caught on his face, his armor, the weapons at his sides, Ash went slack.

  Hydra spun, grabbing Ash’s wrist. “Ash, it’s a trick.”

  “Madoc.” His name slid out of her mouth and she almost sobbed. She lifted her hands, snapped the flames out. “Madoc.”

  When she’d seen Florus’s body on display, part of her had been certain Madoc was dead too.

  He was still alive. He was here, and—

  “Ash!” Hydra shook her. “It’s a trick. She’s trying to distract you, like she did to me with Florus.” Her voice cracked on her brother’s name.

  Hydra was right, and it broke Ash’s heart. Anathrasa had planned this too.

  Madoc kept walking across the arena toward them.

  Ash took Hydra’s hand. “With me.” It was a question. A plea.

  Hydra squeezed her fingers in unspoken confirmation, and they began walking, mimicking Madoc’s steady pace.

  He didn’t look at Ash, didn’t react to her being here. His movements were stiff and unnatural, and Ash wanted to scream.

  Panic made Ash’s chest buck.

  Had Anathrasa overtaken him? Were they truly too late?

  Ash almost collapsed on the sand, but she made herself stand tall. She wouldn’t play Anathrasa’s sick game.

  She and Hydra stopped walking. Madoc did the same, close enough now that Ash could see his eyes. They were vacant and dark, his face void of expression, just as much a shell as the thundering crowd around them.

  This was the world Anathrasa wanted: one she controlled in every way.

  “Madoc,” Ash tried. “I heard your prayer. I heard you, and I’m here now.”

  He didn’t move.

  Ash noted his armor. It was fighting armor, not ceremonial.

  Her pulse sped up. “Madoc, please. I don’t know how to help you. Give me some sign that you’re still there. Let me—”

  “Oh, he’s not there, sweetie.”

  Ash’s muscles went utterly rigid. Next to her, Hydra whirled around. Such a look of fury overcame her that Ash knew who had spoken before she even turned.

  The goddess of air hovered a hand’s width above the sands, arms behind her back, golden hair flowing in a gentle breeze. Behind her, shifting from eagle form back into a man, was Biotus.

  Aera’s round, childlike face twisted in a manic smile that only grew as she lowered all the way to the ground. “At least,” she continued, taking delicate steps through the sand, “not the parts that matter to you.
He’s better now. Just as Anathrasa will make us all better.”

  “You killed Florus,” Hydra growled. Her hands balled into fists. Spikes of ice flared up her arms, and Ash knew she should try to calm her, but she didn’t. There was no calming this situation. No stopping this fight.

  It was building and building, and they couldn’t escape it.

  Aera cut a wide circle around Ash and Hydra, then came to stand beside Madoc. “I did no such thing,” she cooed. “My group lost. Yours did too, didn’t they, Biotus? It was one of the Deiman gladiators who got Florus’s heart.”

  Biotus hadn’t followed Aera, putting Hydra and Ash directly between them. It sent an uncomfortable itch up Ash’s back.

  Hydra went so still Ash thought she’d turned to ice. “What?”

  Biotus folded his arms across his beefy chest and grinned wickedly. “Gladiators ripped Florus’s heart clean out of his chest. After that one”—he pointed at Madoc—“made him mortal.”

  Hydra was now panting, shoulders heaving. Ash felt her fury on the air, electric and contagious, and she faced Madoc, wanting to burn this stadium to the ground. More than that, she wanted to run. To grab his hand and run and forget all the horrible things that had led them here.

  That wish sparked from what felt like a lifetime ago, in Crixion’s library. They should have run that night.

  Ash’s hands fisted, wrenching tighter when Aera traced her finger along Madoc’s jaw. The only solace was that, while he didn’t shove her away, he didn’t lean into her touch, either.

  “Anathrasa let Florus die,” Ash said, more for Hydra’s benefit, reminding her who the real villain was. “We didn’t come to fight you. Where is she?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to fight him?” Aera looked at Ash, ignoring her question as she wrapped her fingers around the tense muscles of Madoc’s forearm.

  “We’re not playing these games,” Ash growled. “Where is Anathrasa?”

  “He’s very impressive now,” Aera said. “Unhindered. A real champion. The Mother Goddess has used this vessel for tremendous feats now that he’s wholly given over to her.”

  Ash almost cried out. Aera’s words struck like a knife to her soul, confirmation that Madoc wasn’t himself. Not anymore.

  “Shut up!” Hydra spun, flaring ice shards in the sand at Aera’s feet. “Where is our mother?”

  Her question echoed off the stands, the crowd still stomping.

  Aera pouted. She’d launched herself up to avoid the ice but lowered now and put her hand on Madoc’s shoulder. “Are you going to let her speak to me like that, lover?”

  Ash called on igneia and had a ball of fire in her hand before she could think not to. Arm lifted, she aimed to hurl it at Aera—

  But Madoc intercepted.

  He grabbed Ash’s wrist, twisted, and threw her across the arena. Ash went flying, only gathering her wits enough to vanish in fire and reappear on her feet before she hit the wall.

  This wasn’t him. She told herself that, held it against the agony that cut her.

  Ash looked back at Madoc, gasping.

  He was crouched for a fight. And then he was running at her.

  Behind him, Hydra hurled water whips and ice shards at Aera and Biotus. Dark shadows of birds and hawks pinpricked the sky as Biotus called animals to his defense while the arena’s sands caught up in funnels of Aera’s aereia.

  Madoc was closer. Closer still. The tendons in his neck stretched and he leaped at her.

  Ash had no choice.

  She wouldn’t leave him. Even if it meant she had to fight him.

  Twenty-Three

  MADOC

  THE GOD KILLER attacked with a vengeance. Blue flames spouted from her raised palms, a wave of heat searing his side as he dived to the sand. He coughed as his throat filled with dust. From the corner of his eye, he saw her lunge toward him, and he shoved himself back, sputtering.

  “Stop!” she shouted at him, as if she hadn’t just attacked him. “Madoc, can you hear me?”

  Madoc.

  He didn’t know a Madoc. He only knew Anathrasa. His only purpose was to protect the Mother Goddess. He was her soldier. Her servant.

  From the opposite end of the arena came a howl of manic laughter, magnified on the whipping wind. A tornado was ripping apart the southern stands, tossing bodies and hunks of stones into the air and over the ledge of the arena. Aera stood behind it, dress and hair dancing wildly. She shot another blast of aereia toward Hydra, who was fending off a giant lion behind a defensive dome of ice.

  Anathrasa’s servant shoved to his feet, then stumbled when the ground began to shake.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” the God Killer said, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist.

  He wanted to hurt her.

  He needed to kill her.

  With a roar, the servant sprinted toward the God Killer, knives bared. She threw another bolt of fire at him, but he dodged it, then dropped low to sweep her legs. She fell hard on her back, a huff of breath parting her lips, and when she screamed, the air hummed with a chilling vibration. He glanced up, searching for her next attack, only to find beads of water flying across the sands from all directions, congealing into a blast of hail that scraped his skin.

  In his distraction, she leaped to her feet and charged toward him.

  Drain her. The Mother Goddess’s order resounded through his body.

  He threw himself toward the God Killer, hooking her ankle. She tripped, but when he reached for her calf, a black root shot from the ground, snaking around his arm. Another hooked around his back. Instantly they tightened, cutting off his circulation, stifling his breath. He gasped, panic roaring through his blood.

  “Stop fighting me!” The God Killer’s voice trembled. Her eyes were glassy with tears. Her hair, pale with dust, was plastered to her cheek. A screech filled the air as a small black bird dived toward her. She batted it aside with a wave of water, but soon another followed, and another. An entire flock of birds sacrificing themselves at Biotus’s command, pelting her with sharp beaks and pointed claws. She raised her hands, blocking them with a weave of roots, and the pattering sound of their bodies bouncing off the hard surface filled the servant’s ears.

  Get up, the Mother Goddess ordered.

  The order was not meant just for him. The ground began quaking as the bodies in the stands rushed to the edge of the arena, driven by Anathrasa’s call. They jumped over the railings, landing on the sand, sprinting toward him, and toward the goddess of water, still battling her siblings.

  He tried to peel off the vines, but they were too tight. His gaze shot to the God Killer fending off a wall of Anathrasa’s soldiers. They fell in droves, then piled over one another to get closer to her. With a scream, she swung her arms in a wide arc, and a high wall of flames drew a hot, blue-tinged circle around her. The soldiers barreled into it, unafraid, but this was no ordinary fire. The moment a mortal body touched it, it burned them to ashes.

  As the servant continued to struggle with the vines, some of the soldiers cut to the back, to where the circle of flames was not yet closed. The God Killer shoved them away with a blast of ice, but they were too many. A man fell against the servant’s back. The soldier was broad-chested. Deiman. His eyes were like black coals, unfocused and empty, and the back of his tunic was still aflame.

  A thought slipped through the servant’s mind, too slick to cling to. A villa atop a hill. A sponsor shouting orders to his prized fighters. Lucius.

  The thought was gone.

  “Cut me free,” he told the Deiman soldier.

  The soldier, ignoring the fire that ate at his clothes, pulled a knife from his belt and hacked at the vines. Before he could sever them completely, a root tore from the earth and wrapped around his chest. It lifted him like a doll and threw him through the haze of smoke, out of sight.

  Rushing to beat the God Killer’s next attack, the servant ripped through the last threads of the vine holding him and hurtled towa
rd her, tackling her to the ground.

  Geoeia. Igneia. Floreia. Hydreia. He could feel it all raging inside her. His anathreia hungered for it, its sharp teeth biting at the shell of her soul. He would tithe it from her, split open her soul and drink its power like spilled milk.

  “Stop!” She writhed beneath him, then twisted, her chest to his. He locked her hands over her head and dropped his forearm to her throat. Her lips parted on a gasp.

  The heat was more intense now—sweat blurred his vision and made his grasp slick. The circle around them had been closed, a wall of flames blocking them from the war beyond.

  He inhaled, drawing the power out of her like poison from a wound. His teeth bared with the effort. Blood pulsed in his temples.

  “Madoc, please!” she managed.

  Take her powers. End this. Beyond the flames, he could see a shadow rising at a dozen different points, and knew the army was attempting to climb over the barrier.

  He pressed harder. Reached deeper.

  “You know me,” she wheezed.

  Lies, the Mother Goddess hissed.

  “We met here, in this arena . . .” She swallowed a breath, fighting harder. His muscles clenched as energeia surged through his body. It fought against the seams of his soul, threatening to tear out of him. Pain ricocheted down his spine and limbs.

  Draining her would kill him.

  It didn’t matter.

  “We fought just like this . . . ,” she gasped. “No energeia. Which was good because . . . you didn’t have any.”

  Pigstock.

  He shook his head, the crackling flames warring with the thunder of his heart. That wasn’t the Mother Goddess’s voice. It had come from another place. A locked room in his memory.

  “We danced,” she said. “Do you remember? At the palace. The night we found Stavos.”

  He flinched, his arm loosening around her throat and wrists. He could see a body just as clearly as if he’d been laid out on the ground beside them. Stavos. The champion had stumbled through the palace gates, arrows in his back. Someone had murdered him.

  “You remember Stavos,” she said, blinking. “Do you remember Jann, too? You beat him here with anathreia.”