by Sara Raasch
The last remnants of Ash’s shock shattered beneath the heavy drop of rage.
Ignitus may have been the god of fire, but he didn’t know what it was like to feel this kind of fire, an anger so pure and absolute that even the sun shied from it.
She wouldn’t tell him. The reason Hydra and Florus had had to form a blockade around their countries was to prevent their warmongering siblings from drawing them into fights. Whatever dispute Ignitus wanted to start with Hydra, a peaceful goddess, Ash would let him fail at it. She wouldn’t assist him in anything that would lead to more bloodshed.
“You,” he started, “broke our holy laws. Your mother lost. The Nikaus today have nearly undone their lineage’s good deeds.”
Sweat pasted Ash’s orange-and-scarlet dancing costume to her skin, and her breaths came in stunted gasps. She bit back a whimper, calling on her fury to keep her strong.
But one of his words hooked her. Nearly?
Ignitus took slow steps around her, his bare feet squishing in the water-soaked carpet. He didn’t mention it, merely nudged the empty bowl out of the way as he left her direct line of sight. “My brother’s gladiator, though,” he continued, “was the most foolish of all today.”
Slowly, Ash stood. Her legs tingled at being unbent, but she felt better not being on her knees. “Great Ignitus,” she said, turning to follow him, “I didn’t—”
“Stavos thought that his poisoned knife would not be seen.” Ignitus’s eyes locked on hers. “He thought that my Kulans would not meet his cheating with violent force.”
Was that a spark in his eyes, a smile on his lips?
“Aren’t you angry with me?” Her voice was no higher than a whisper.
Ignitus grinned. “I have every right to be, don’t I? Geoxus denied any wrongdoing on the part of his gladiator—but I owned your wrongdoing, Ash. Though it may be difficult to believe, I am proud of you. Some of my guards and a few gladiators have mentioned seeing Stavos of Xiphos’s hidden blade. But who took action against him?”
He waited, the wonder in his voice unmistakable.
Ash gawked at him. “I did, Great Ignitus.”
Ignitus tipped his head. A lock of hair fell across his shoulder. “You used igneia dancing techniques to subdue Stavos. It was elegant.”
He was taller than her, his eyes dark and endless, and Ash couldn’t remember ever looking at him directly for so long. She felt drugged, fuzzy, her mouth filled with cotton.
To break the spell, she swept her eyes to the side. The hair that had fallen across Ignitus’s shoulder glinted in the flame light. A few strands underneath were gray-white. Ash frowned. Was that coloring a sign of age, like in mortals? Doubtful. Likely they were strands of silver Ignitus had had servants weave into his hair.
“Geoxus’s war declaration holds,” Ignitus said. “We sail to Deimos tomorrow. Kula stands to lose much. But”—he leaned closer—“I am not angry, because I have found my next victor. You.”
Ash gaped at her god, seeing the smile of hunger he gave before he urged his gladiators to face death. The smile he had given before a sword pinned Char to the fighting sand.
“I’m a dancer,” Ash tried.
“You’re a Nikau. I know Char taught you how to fight. This is what you were born to do.”
No, Ash wanted to say. This wasn’t her destiny.
This wasn’t what her mother had wanted for her.
But Ash wasn’t only herself, standing there before Ignitus. The Nikau legacy was strong—a line of fierce igneia gladiators who had brought Ignitus hundreds of wins. She was her mother, her grandmother, her aunt, a cousin, a living corpse of all the Nikau gladiators who had died over centuries of fighting. Char had tried to resist by making the best of this role and bringing as many wins as she could to Kula’s coffers. But she had still died, and Ash would still take her place.
A sob gripped Ash’s throat and she choked on it, coughing, wanting to break. Char was dead and nothing would change. Nothing would—
A question struck Ash like lightning, cutting into her spiral of panic and dread.
What would change this dangerous, bloody cycle?
Ash remembered the Great Defeat dance. The Mother Goddess, who had decimated the world, dead at the end—probably not by Ignitus’s hand alone. But she had been killed by something. That was the truth in the story: the Mother Goddess was dead.
So there had to be a way to kill Ignitus too.
The revelation blossomed in Ash’s heart, swelling like a surge of drums and a crash of cymbals. She wanted that, she realized. She had wanted that her whole life: wanted Ignitus to die.
As one of Ignitus’s gladiators, Ash would have access to him. He would dine with her, discuss fighting strategies and the best uses of igneia. She could use that. Unlock his secrets.
And kill him.
That would change their world. That would free Kula from this bloodshed.
Ignitus’s ivory teeth glowed against his dark-brown skin. “Geoxus thinks to shame me for your interference. But you are angry that his gladiator defeated Char. Let it fuel you. Be one of my champions and avenge your mother.”
This close, he smelled like cinders and coal and sunlight.
Everything else fell away. “Yes, Great Ignitus,” Ash said. “I will avenge my mother.”
Ash had gone with Char to Deimos for a lesser arena fight three years ago. They had stood at the bow of Ignitus’s ship with Tor’s Undivine twin sister, Taro, who had chuckled and said that Crixion’s lighthouse looked like a part of a man that should not be on display.
Taro had elbowed Char. “Do you think Geoxus modeled this after his own lighthouse?”
Char had laughed, bright and clear and real. It had made Ash laugh too, though she didn’t entirely understand the joke.
Char had misinterpreted her reaction and seized Ash’s arms. “Have you been with a man?” she had asked, a quiet whisper. “Are you careful?”
“Mama—no,” Ash had managed. She had been fifteen at the time, and when would she have had time to? On Ignitus’s crowded ships or in rooms she shared with Char in foreign arenas?
The few private moments Ash got, when she had a room to herself or a lock on the washroom door, her fingers had trailed over velvet-soft skin that made her flush with a heat not unlike igneia. But she had never met anyone she cared to be with. Any conversations she had with people her own age ended in Ash abruptly leaving, distraught by how devoted they were to their god or goddess. The only time she felt anything like connection was in dancing, but even in Ash’s limited experience, she knew a relationship built on physical movement wasn’t worthwhile.
Char had looked unconvinced. She pulled her into a hug, shoulder digging into Ash’s throat. “You must be careful. You’re the last of the Nikau line. Our blood is a burden.”
Had Char been any other mother, Ash might have heard that as You are a burden. But she had never once doubted Char’s love for her.
Now the captain of this Kulan ship hammered a bell above deck. Everyone onboard had waited three long days to hear that signal—they were entering Crixion’s main port. The lighthouse would be just beyond the wall Ash was staring at, the one hung with a round mirror.
“This is madness,” Tor said for what had to be the hundredth time. He was sitting on a chair, letting Taro style his hair for the welcoming ceremony. “You can’t fight in a war.”
Tor’s distant lineage from Ignitus hadn’t stopped the fire god from naming Tor one of his other war champions, hoping that his grief at losing Char would fuel him like it fueled Ash.
“It’s the least I can do, isn’t it?” Ash used her pinky to clear a smudge of golden paint under her eye. She was shaking; the gold smeared. “I caused it.”
“You did not.” Tor’s tone was cutting. “We all saw Stavos cheat. You reacted, but you did not cause this, Ash. Don’t let me hear you say that again.”
Ash dropped her eyes. Guilt rubbed her soul, but she tried to believe what Tor said. This was Stavos’s fault. It
was Geoxus’s fault, Ignitus’s. This war, the impending bloodshed, wasn’t her burden to bear.
The structure of gladiator wars was meant to be distractingly opulent. Prizes like land and resources deserved fanfare, and the glory drove most people into a frenzy of love for their god.
At the start, each god selected eight champions. Those champions fought among themselves in nonlethal elimination trials, with the winners of each round earning gold and prestige. Between rounds, the hosting god threw lavish dinners, theatrical performances, fireworks displays—whatever best showed off their wealth and power. The war ended when each god’s remaining champion fought in a to-the-death match. The victorious god received riches and resources from the losing god—as well as incomparable bragging rights.
Though the elimination rounds were nonlethal, that did not always mean they were harmless. The two weeks of a war flowed with opulence and blood in equal measure.
One of Ignitus’s other champions was also in this ship’s lower-deck room: Rook, a distant great-grandson of Ignitus. Rook had once been a loyal fighter, but the birth of his Undivine son, Lynx, had altered how he viewed Kula, and Undivine, and Ignitus himself. Rook now hated being a gladiator more than Char ever had.
“I think she’s got a good plan to press Ignitus for weakness,” Rook told Tor. He held his arms lifted while Spark, Taro’s wife and a healer, an Undivine woman with nimble hands and endless patience, painted golden sunbursts on his bare chest. “About time someone took a stand.”
“She’s a child,” Tor snapped.
“She’s eighteen. Ignitus doesn’t let any of our children get to be children. You need any help”—he nodded at Ash, his black curls shifting—“you let me know.”
Rook’s fighting schedule often left Lynx alone. He was seven now, cared for mostly by the servants in Rook’s Igna villa. But Lynx had fallen gravely ill while Rook was traveling two weeks ago. Lynx’s mother had run off years back and Rook had no other family—and Ignitus had denied Rook’s requests to stay with his Undivine son.
Ash bowed her head at Rook and inadvertently eyed the lantern Taro had put out earlier, as though the flame might still spring to life and Ignitus would overhear them all.
“Don’t encourage her,” Tor snapped. “Trying to kill a god is folly. Remember Wolfsbane.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a battle cry, a warning, an omen. Remember Wolfsbane.
More than thirty years ago, a gladiator named Wolfsbane had come undone. Too many fights, too much death, too much loss. At a postfight celebration, Wolfsbane had taken a knife from the dining set, walked up to Ignitus, and stabbed him in the heart.
A mortal would have died. But a god retaliated.
Ignitus put Wolfsbane on display so everyone would know what happened to Kulans who turned on their god. Only Ignitus’s fire could burn a live Kulan. He seared Wolfsbane’s mouth shut, and he had Wolfsbane’s limbs removed in increments. He cauterized the wounds himself.
Wolfsbane had stayed alive for eight days.
Ash swallowed a kick of revulsion. “I won’t end up like Wolfsbane. Ignitus thinks my mother’s loss rallied me to his side, and he is proud enough that he believes I am fighting for him, seeking justice from Deimos. I’ll get close to him and figure out what it was that killed the Mother Goddess so I can kill him the same way. I can’t stand aside anymore. I shouldn’t have hidden while Mama—”
Ash stopped, her voice wavering. She braced her hands on either side of the mirror, her sparkling reflection staring back at her in the light of the porthole window.
“Char loved watching you dance, using igneia to create beauty,” Tor tried. “She didn’t want this life for you.”
“Well, I didn’t want to watch my mother die. Rook doesn’t want to be away from his son. You don’t want to have to worry about me dying, too, and Taro and Spark want more out of life than playing our nursemaids. Show me even one person in this room who got what they wanted.”
Tor went silent. Taro, putting oil in his curls, watched Ash in the mirror with a pained gaze, the same she knew Rook and Spark were giving her.
But Ash straightened, fighting to ignore them, and adjusted a curl here, a bead there. She had prepared her mother this way dozens of times. As a child, she had begged Char to let her wear the makeup and clothes too, just to play. But these weren’t toys.
This Kulan armor, made from reeds dipped in gold—it was ceremonial and dense.
These wrapping sandals fit with garnets at the intersections—they weighted Ash’s feet, made her feel unable to walk or run.
The weave of even more reeds that stretched across her thighs—her legs ached at the bulk.
The iron curlers that had styled her thick black hair. The sparkling garnets and golden picks that held it off her face. The sweeps of makeup: kohl to highlight her dark eyes, shimmering gold on her lids and across her cheekbones, sticky scarlet on her lips. This all made her a gladiator now. She had to be strong.
She had to be emotionless.
Ash glared into her own eyes.
“You and Rook. I heard Ignitus mention Brand and Raya.” Ash shifted her gaze to Tor in the mirror. “I don’t know the other fighters Ignitus named as champions.”
A few of Ignitus’s lesser-known gladiators had been selected to fill the other champion positions, leaving slots for gladiators like Brand and Raya who were currently in other countries, fighting battles over minor offenses. They were on their way to Crixion now.
For a moment, Ash thought Tor might not respond. But after a long pause, he sighed.
“The lesser-known gladiators are strong but unpracticed in wars. Ignitus is hoping their loyalty will compensate.” He didn’t look at Ash, as if refusing to admit that he was giving her this advice. “He will select the first fight pairings after the opening ceremony. Rook and I will help if you’re paired against us, but if Brand gets here in time, you’ll likely be pitted against him. He’s the only one who outranks you by blood, so Ignitus will be curious to see which of you fares best.”
Tor looked up at her reflection. “Brand loves making Ignitus proud, and he will only consider it a victory if he kills or maims you. When you fight him, you must intend the same.”
Ash felt the world shift with Tor’s bluntness. She wasn’t a child, deserving of softened half-truths. She set her hands into fists, hoping the action hid her fear. What had she said to comfort Char?
Let me fight for you, Mama. Let me take your place.
Ash chuckled bitterly. She had gotten what she wanted after all. She would wind through Crixion in a grand parade and begin the painstaking work of murdering people for Ignitus.
To earn Ignitus’s favor, Ash reminded herself, and destroy him.
“Let’s get this over with,” Rook said as Spark put away her paints. His chest was covered in dozens of golden sunbursts. “The sooner we start this, the sooner we get back to Kula.”
“The war will last two weeks no matter what we do,” Tor said. If he meant to sound comforting, it came out short. He stood and added, “It will pass quickly. It always does.”
“And they make those clay marbles here,” Ash added. “For that game Lynx loves?”
A smile puckered Rook’s cheeks. It didn’t reach his dark eyes, rimmed with kohl and gold. “When I dropped him off at the infirmary, the nurses said he was so ill he’d have to be confined to his bed.”
Tor put his hand on Rook’s shoulder. Spark cast a sullen glance at Taro, the room sobering.
“For Lynx,” Ash whispered, dipping her gaze to the floor.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Rook’s hand rise, dabbing at his face.
For Char, Ash added to herself. For Thorn. Tor and Taro’s Undivine cousin, and his two children, also Undivine. For Wisteria. A woman who ran one of the orphanages in Kula, and had been helping Taro and Spark work to find a child. For all the other fire dancers.
A bell tolled above deck. Silently, Taro left, followed by Rook and Spark. Tor lingered.
<
br /> “You look just like her,” he offered. “Her fuel and flame.”
Heat welled in Ash’s chest and tears rose, threatening to streak kohl down her cheeks.
Tor offered her his arm and led her through the ship, up into the high, burning light of day.
Crixion’s main port, Iov, was a bay with a narrow opening to the Hontori Sea. At one side of the entrance, the lighthouse rose in a jut of ivory; a military fort stood at the other.
Hilly and steep, Crixion unfurled around Iov as if for inspection. Igna’s buildings were all black, volcanic materials, but these structures were shining and white. Old trees had made themselves comfortable among the buildings instead of being burned to the roots. The air was rank with city grime and body odor and the salt of the sea, but not with charcoal or sulfur.
Geoxus was a warmongering god, but he wasn’t petty. He rationed his resources and engaged in fights without draining his country. This was what Kula could look like if Ignitus made decisions for the good of his people instead of his own pride.
Ignitus had chosen to complete the final stretch of the journey to Crixion on his ships instead of by materializing there in his fiery form. A physical arrival was more impactful to the Deimans, to make them arrange the necessary welcome throughout the city.
The ships docked in the shadows of the Port of Iov temple, a marble building with an exact likeness of the earth god in rose quartz on its steps. Couuntless Deimans stood in front of it, stretching in long lines into the city, highlighting the parade route that the waiting carriages would follow to the grandest arena in the city center.
Holding back the crowd—though no one fought to press closer—were two unbroken lines of Deiman centurions in pleated leather skirts and polished breastplates, gray-silver capes pinned to their shoulders and helmets glinting in the afternoon sun. Each one had their left hand extended, palm up, spinning a small funnel of stones with geoeia. Not throwing them, not shouting threats; just reminding the crowd and the Kulans that they were trained in using earth energy.
The sheer number of geoeia-wielding centurions made Ash’s mouth go dry as the ship’s gangplank lowered. Geoxus wanted to intimidate Ignitus and his champions.
