by Sara Raasch
So she knew what it looked like when someone used aereia. And she knew what it did not look like.
The crowd in the arena was hysterical. Madoc’s opponent scrambled for the exit, his face the ghastly gray of someone who had seen death. But Madoc hadn’t touched the man. The air hadn’t moved; all the dust, the geoeia from Jann’s attacks, hadn’t so much as twitched.
What had Madoc done to him?
“You said you thought he was Air Divine,” Tor whispered next to her.
Every muscle in Ash’s body, tense already, wound so tight that she started to see stars. Madoc having aereia had been a wild guess. “What else could it be?”
“Water, maybe?” Taro leaned around Ash to frown at her brother, one hand clasped in Spark’s, who watched from the end of the aisle. “He could’ve manipulated the water in Jann’s blood. Hurt him in ways we couldn’t see.”
The crowd’s voices had meshed into one steady cheer. “Madoc! Madoc! Madoc!”
They thought Madoc had used geoeia somehow. It wouldn’t occur to anyone else that he hadn’t used his god’s divine gift.
“But how would hydreia have affected me after Rook’s death?” Ash asked. “And Hydra’s people are peaceful.”
Tor’s arms were crossed over his chest, his face bowed in thought as Madoc lifted his hands to the audience. “Are they?”
Ash could see his mind working, connections weaving together.
Hydra had sent the message that Ash had intercepted, assuring Ignitus that his worries about an unknown threat were invalid. Had she lied? Could she have planted one of her people in Deimos to fight for Geoxus? Was that the gladiator Ignitus feared? But that meant then that Hydra was part of the stripping of Kula’s resources. That she was no longer a peaceful god.
Four gods had united against Ignitus, then? Why? And hydreia didn’t explain the way Madoc had soothed Ash’s grief after Rook’s death. The easing of her pain. The . . . sweetness.
Ash swallowed the memory, her body heat amplifying. Attendants ushered Madoc into the tunnels, and the arena crowd began to disperse.
The people seated around Tor, Ash, Taro, and Spark had been eyeing them the whole fight—here were Ignitus’s two remaining champions, as close to gods as a mortal could get. Now Ash watched some Deimans linger in their departure, tittering to themselves when she glanced their way.
Tor grunted, frustration bunching his shoulders. “Either that gladiator infiltrated the war at another god’s behest in order to weaken both Geoxus and Ignitus, or Geoxus is involved and allowed another god’s descendant to become his champion.” Tor looked not at Ash, but at Taro. “Whatever the case, someone’s working against Ignitus. Maybe . . . maybe he could be useful.”
“Could Madoc be the gladiator Ignitus mentioned?” Taro whispered. “The one he might fear? It makes sense.”
Everything kept pointing back to Madoc. But nothing about him fit this conspiracy, the vicious, merciless warrior he would have to be if he was truly planted here by another god.
Unless Madoc was a far better actor than Ash had given him credit for.
She hoped not. She hoped so hard it shocked her, a childlike wish that he not be hiding his true intentions. She wanted him to be genuine, to be sweet, to be everything he had seemed to be—because she wanted so badly to be that freely innocent herself.
Ash shook her head. “I don’t think he’s part of this. He said he’s only in this war to save his sister. That’s all he wants.”
Tor dropped his hand to his knee, his knuckles white in a fist. “You’re certain he wasn’t lying to you? If either of us goes into the final war match against him and he truly is part of a scheme against Ignitus—”
Tor flicked his eyes to the emptying arena, the blood-streaked sand.
Ash fought not to follow his gaze.
An image fell over her of confronting Madoc in an arena, her face frozen in the look of horror that Jann’s had shown before his surrender. Only she wouldn’t get to surrender.
“I’ve already looked into him,” Ash managed. “He isn’t part of this.”
“Is he truly innocent?” Tor stood, looking down at her. “Or do you just want him to be?”
Ash gaped. Tor had so quickly plucked out her truth.
She turned her shock into a scowl as Tor brushed past her, toward the stairs. Taro and Spark fell in without giving Ash a glance.
They thought Tor was right. Truthfully, it made sense—Ignitus had alluded to a gladiator being part of what he feared. And here was a gladiator with mysterious powers.
Maybe Ash’s judgment was clouded and she had missed the signs of his guilt.
The last time her judgment had been clouded, she had run into an arena’s fighting pit and started a war.
Ash shoved to her feet and followed Tor, her arms shaking.
The departing crowd headed for the main exit, which left the path down to the preparation chambers free. The guarding centurions gave Tor and Ash stiff nods and let their group pass without issue into the phosphorescent-stone-lit halls.
The preparation chambers for the Deimans were on the northern side of the arena. Only one of the doors was shut in the hall, and Taro and Spark took stances on either side of it. To keep watch, Ash realized—centurions wouldn’t hesitate to come to Madoc’s defense if he cried out.
Tor knocked.
Ash held her breath, pulse racing, when the door swung open.
It was one of the women who had been with Madoc after Rook’s death. The barest wrinkles around her eyes tightened, and a few lines of gray in her dark hair caught the stone light from within the room.
She recognized them. Ash only knew because the woman tried to slam the door shut.
Tor stuck his foot into the threshold, keeping it open a crack. “We just want to talk,” he said, his hands lifted in submission.
The woman scowled. “Unlikely.”
“Ilena? Who is—”
The voice died as the door opened wider.
Madoc had removed his breastplate, leaving a sweat-stained tunic matted to his side. Dust and blood clumped along his hairline; the skin under his left eye was already yellow. But for all the ferocity he could have harnessed—a victorious champion, fresh off a fight—the expression on his face was one of narrow-eyed confusion and suspicion.
“We’d like to speak with you,” Ash said.
Madoc’s face paled. He shook his concern off with a frown. “It’ll have to wait. I have somewhere I need to be.” He turned to Ilena, his voice lowering. “I’ll find him. I promise.”
Ash blinked, startled. “Find who?”
Madoc wouldn’t meet her eyes. “My brother.”
The sight of Madoc’s slumped shoulders would have been enough to stab Ash through her chest, but the pain in his words made her wheeze. “What? He’s gone too?”
“He disappeared during my fight,” Madoc said. “I don’t have much time before my sponsor comes back. I have to go.”
He touched a bag at his waist that clinked gently—those were his winnings from the fight against Jann. Geoxus paid his Deimans in coins, while Ignitus would have Ash’s gold bricks for beating Brand delivered to her room.
Ash cast her eyes to Tor, pleading. See? she wanted to say. A spy from another god wouldn’t be trying to pay a ransom with coin—he’d know he could only pay in blood.
Tor refused to meet Ash’s eyes, but she saw his jaw tighten. “We know there is another god involved in this war,” he stated. “And we know you aren’t Earth Divine.”
Tor’s abruptness yanked a gasp from Ash’s throat. A look of betrayal jolted across Madoc’s face, and seeing it was as good as a slap to her face.
“You need to leave,” Ilena snapped. A dimple punctured her eyebrows. “Now.”
“Wait.” Madoc put his hand on her shoulder. His jaw worked for a moment, his eyes on Ash, unreadable.
Did he hate her for telling his secret? Did he hate her for letting Tor use it against him?
After a long, agon
izing pause, Madoc backed away from the door. “Let them in,” he said.
Ilena pointed a threatening finger at Tor. “Champions or not,” she said to him, and included Ash with a tight glare, her nostrils flaring, “if you touch my son, I will kill you.”
“I believe you,” Tor said.
Only one other person was in this small room: a white-haired, blue-eyed woman sitting on a bench. She had also been with Madoc after Rook’s death, and she was old enough that very little seemed to rattle her.
Ash and Tor slipped inside. Ash pushed the door shut behind them, holding her back to the solid stone, hating that there wasn’t even a candle flame of igneia that she could pull on to calm her nerves. It was better, of course, that Ignitus wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation. Could Geoxus, though? They would have to take that risk.
Ash willed herself to grab control of the room before her resolve broke completely. She could feel the tension palpitating off Madoc even as he leaned against a table across the room from her, his ankles crossed, his arms folded.
“We’ll be quick,” Ash said. “And then I can—I can help you look for your brother.”
At Ash’s words, Tor cut a glare at her. This was a clandestine meeting between enemies. She couldn’t show mercy.
Tor eased down onto a bench, elbows on his knees. “The energeia you used to defeat Jann was not geoeia,” he started when the silence stretched. “And that could be useful to us.”
“What do you mean?” Ilena demanded. “Why would you think Madoc used another type of energeia?”
Ash eyed Madoc, whose gaze had dropped to the floor. Had he told this woman what he’d done to Ash in the arena tunnels—or would that be another secret she would have to reveal?
She hesitated, willing Madoc to fill in the gaps for Ilena. When he didn’t, Ash exhaled slowly. “After Ignitus killed my opponent during my first fight, Madoc took my grief.”
“He took nothing,” Ilena said immediately. He must have told her. But some of the strength had gone out of her voice. “He comforted you. That’s all.”
“It isn’t all,” Ash said. “My grief was gone. And he made the centurions leave me alone—they just left. Whatever he did to Jann was the same.”
She didn’t want Madoc to hate her. She didn’t know what else to do. This situation hurt—this room hurt.
But she had to be sure of who he was. What he was.
Finally, Madoc looked at Ash. His face was a mask. “If I did take your grief. If I did make the centurions leave. If I did these things. Do you know how?”
Ilena’s folded arms slipped apart to her sides. She grabbed Madoc’s hand and he wilted under her touch.
“Do you know how?” Tor pushed back at him.
Madoc looked away. He didn’t respond.
“What god are you descended from?” Tor’s voice was softer. Cautious.
Madoc sank back more heavily against the table. “My father is Deiman. Earth Divine.”
“And your mother?” Tor gave a questioning look to Ilena.
Ilena’s face turned pink. She was looking at Madoc, but the old woman spoke up.
“She isn’t his mother.”
Ilena threw a glare at her. “Seneca—”
“Not by blood, anyway.” Seneca pulled herself shakily to her feet. “Doesn’t know his birth mother.”
Tor held for a beat. He shifted back to Madoc. “You don’t know your birth mother,” he echoed. “So you truly don’t know what your energeia is?”
Madoc hesitated, his eyes flicking, once, to Ilena. He shook his head.
Tor looked up at Ash from the bench, a tangle of annoyance and doubt on his face. So far, what she had told him about Madoc had proven true, and she could see Tor’s options dwindling. He couldn’t approach this conversation sternly, as he might have intended, through coercion or blackmail—not if Madoc wasn’t involved with a plot against Ignitus, as Ash had said.
But he was something. Something different.
“It is rare, but not unheard of, for people with other divinities to live and grow under different gods,” Tor said. “The gods and their retinues travel. Children happen. But the odds of one being made a champion in a war are . . . impossible. The gods choose their war champions with more care than they show about anything else.”
Ilena bristled. “It sounds like you are accusing Madoc of something. It sounds like you are accusing Geoxus of something.” She waved at the stone walls.
“If your god is listening,” Tor said, picking up on her implications, “then I would be glad to have him make his presence known, to explain this to us. Because making someone from another god one of his war champions breaks every war law the gods hold most dear—and Geoxus has been quite protective of those laws recently.”
Tor didn’t look at Ash, but she felt his meaning: that her involvement in Char’s fight had broken the holy laws and given Geoxus fodder for this war.
My fault, her guilt trilled. All of this, my fault.
The room paused, everyone waiting for Geoxus to respond to Tor. No god who heard such an obvious dig at their pride would have stood by without confrontation.
So when a long moment passed and Geoxus didn’t appear, Ash exhaled. She heard a few other held breaths release too.
Tor looked back at Madoc. “What did it feel like? When you fought Jann. Did you feel the blood pumping through his veins? Did you feel the air grating in his lungs? Was there a plant poison?”
The muscles in Madoc’s arms bulged. Ash thought he wouldn’t respond until his lip curled. “It felt like I feel talking to you—angry.” But a muscle in his face twitched. Was that relief? Maybe he was glad to be talking about this. To not be lying. “I felt Jann’s anger,” Madoc clarified, less defensive. “His fear. Pain.”
“And with Ash.” Tor’s voice noticeably hitched. “What did that feel like?”
“Sorrow.” Madoc’s eyes slid back to Ash. He didn’t glare or sneer or anything she expected. He looked tired. “It felt like . . . a breaking heart.”
“You felt their emotions?” Tor pressed.
“Emotions?” pressed Seneca. “Or their souls?”
“Souls?” Ilena huffed. “That’s absurd. No one can control souls.”
But Tor looked up at Ilena, his eyes tight. “That’s not entirely true, though. Or it wasn’t always.”
“What?” Ash pressed. “What is—”
But she couldn’t finish her question. Souls. Soul energeia.
Tor rose, brushing his hands on his tunic, and Ash realized he was nervous. Scared, even. “The first goddess. The Mother Goddess, Anathrasa, was the goddess of souls.”
The silence that fell over the preparation chamber was thick with sweat, sand, and iron.
Ash went slack. “You’re saying he used energeia from the goddess who the other gods killed?” She was overcome with the desire to smooth away the anxiety that had turned Madoc’s face gray. She could see his chest fluttering, his brow pinched, his lips twisted in confused disgust.
“I’m not listening to this. I have to find my brother.” Madoc took a step forward.
“Some gods say Anathrasa endured.” Seneca clucked her tongue and grinned. “A horror story the gods tell each other. She survived! Shudder in fear!”
Her words hit Ash, flashing unavoidable light over the shadowed pieces she had been fumbling to connect for weeks.
Hydra’s message to Ignitus. I have heard no similar rumors. Stop worrying.
She took it from me, Stavos had said with his dying breath.
“The message. The person Ignitus fears. A mystery woman,” Ash said, her head ringing like a struck gong. She looked at Tor through a blur of wonder.
A god who had helped kill Anathrasa would be right to fear her.
He would be right to shudder at the mere rumor of her.
“It’s her,” Ash wheezed, lifting her hand to her mouth. “Tor—it’s her. Isn’t it? She’s back. Madoc—” Ash looked at him, sagging. “She’s his god. The go
ddess of souls.”
“Wait.” Ilena spun, her posture hard. “Ignitus mentioned her in a message? Does he know about Madoc?” Her face paled, but her eyes blazed. “What exactly do you want from us?”
“We thought a god planted Madoc in this war to rig it against Ignitus,” Ash said. “It seemed too convenient that Geoxus selected Madoc—a gladiator without geoeia—to become a champion without someone having an ulterior motive, as Tor said. And we’ve been tracking a person Ignitus fears—maybe . . . maybe he fears Anathrasa? But that’s impossible. She’s been dead for centuries.”
Ash’s euphoria fizzled out, a storm leaving behind a hot, muggy dawn.
If the Mother Goddess truly was back, and she was at the center of all of this—she had captured Stavos, murdered him; she had planted Madoc in this war—then the gods hadn’t killed her hundreds of years ago, like they’d said. And there was no proof that gods could be killed.
“You think the Mother Goddess is alive? And what—she intentionally put me in this war?” Madoc gawked. “If she survived, why would she wait until now to show herself? Not even show herself—just interfere with a war between Geoxus and Ignitus? I don’t think so.”
It was a stretch—and Ash breathed a little easier in it. “That’s true, I guess. If Anathrasa had survived, she would have brought down a reckoning on the other gods for turning on her. They killed her because she almost destroyed the world—it doesn’t make sense that she would have survived for hundreds of years without making herself known. Maybe she truly is dead and only a line of her descendants survived?”
Tor nodded, grim. “But if she or her line did survive, the world would not have endured this long. That kind of energeia control brought such chaos that it united all six gods, and we know how volatile they are.”
Ash chewed her lip. But who was the she Stavos had mentioned, then? Could it be as simple as an unknown assassin hired to kill him? Maybe Stavos wasn’t tied to this at all.
