Set Fire to the Gods

by Sara Raasch

  The answer throbbed in Ash’s mind. Geoxus. He was talking to Geoxus.

  Ash had to find Madoc.

  She bolted around another corner—and went sprawling through the air.

  The floor rose up in a sharp wall that sliced right at calf height. Ash tucked her head before she hit the ground, rolling across her shoulders at the last moment. The flip rounded her onto her feet facing the way she’d come.

  There Petros stood. His cheeks were red from chasing after her, his hand extended as the floor sank back to normal beneath him.

  All thought left Ash’s mind. The only thing that broke through was terror.

  She was panting, her body shaking. She had no weapons. She had nothing.

  Petros scowled at her, his stout face turning purple with rage. “The Kulan. You—”

  “Champion!”

  Ash flung herself around. Up the hall, a trio of Ignitus’s guards were running toward her, flames in their hands.

  She almost wept. When she opened her mouth, she heard herself croak out a trembling whimper, but she couldn’t muster enough shame to care.

  The faces of the Kulan guards were fuming when they stopped before her.

  “Ignitus has been asking for you,” one snapped. They were likely angry that she had been difficult to find. “He requests you join him for dinner with his other champion.”

  Ash pulled the igneia out of the guard’s palm. He started, grimacing at her until she pressed that hand to her chest and moaned with gratitude. Heat filled her heart, searing and strengthening, calming her twisted nerves.

  The guard cocked his head at her. “Champion? Are you all right?”

  Ash nodded. “I am now.”

  She turned, pulling the igneia back out and into her open hand—

  But the hall behind her was empty. Petros was gone.

  Ash staggered, her firelight wavering off the bare sandstone walls. Each crevice looked like eyes in the shadows, watching; ears, listening.

  Petros knew she had overheard him. Geoxus knew too.

  “Champion?” one guard pressed. “The carriage is waiting for you. The other champion is as well.”

  She swung back to the guards. “Take me to Tor. Now.”

  The guards led Ash to the arena’s outdoor stable yard, the one used by the gladiators and their attendants. Only two carriages remained: the one for Ignitus’s champions, with Tor, Taro, and Spark seated in the high, open-air compartment; and one that Ash didn’t recognize at first. It bustled with servants loading weapons and armor.

  One of the servants was Elias. That was Madoc’s carriage.

  Ash scanned the people around it, but Madoc wasn’t there. He hadn’t come back from the temple yet? Where was he?

  The Kulan guards broke apart, two climbing into the driver’s seat of the carriage, one mounting a horse. Ash lingered on the ground, her fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides.

  When Tor met her gaunt eyes, he instantly leaped over the carriage railing and closed the space between them. “What happened?”

  But Ash turned back to Elias. He was handing up a load of wrapped swords. He felt her watching him and turned.

  His eyebrows bowed, a question, before he stuffed his hands into his pockets and took slow, easy steps toward them. None of the other servants noticed; even the Kulan guards, who had been so impatient to leave, were distracted by something that had broken on the carriage.

  “Petros is behind this,” Ash hissed when Elias was within earshot. “I heard him in the halls. He was talking to someone about how Stavos escaped from him. I think he’s the cause of the champions’ pox, the gladiators disappearing. I think he does something to them. And they talked about how Madoc knows too much, and Petros has Cassia so he can keep Madoc in line.” She looked up at Tor, breathless. “I don’t know what he’s planning, but he put Madoc in this war. He knows what Madoc is.”

  “That rat,” Elias cursed. He ground his jaw. “I have to get Cassia out now. This ends today.”

  He turned away, hands in fists as though he intended to march up to Petros right then.

  Tor grabbed Elias’s shoulder, causing the boy to go utterly slack. But he dropped his hand when a few of the Deiman servants by the other carriage looked over.

  They had to be careful. They had to be quick. Even out in the open, there was stone under their feet, in the building behind them.

  Nowhere was safe.

  “We can help you get Cassia,” Tor said, low. “She’s being held at Petros’s villa?”

  Elias nodded, dumbstruck. “You’d help? Because you think Madoc will help you.”

  “Because if Petros is behind this, then he’s the person we need to focus on,” Tor said. “If he’s poised to move against Ignitus—”

  But Ash couldn’t bear thinking that they’d have to ally with Petros to bring down Ignitus. Everything about Petros felt oily and stained.

  “You need to find Madoc,” Ash cut over Tor, talking to Elias. “I left him at the temple, but—you need to tell him.”

  Elias nodded. His face went pale. “If Petros is the one who killed Stavos, he could go after Madoc next. What’s to stop him? He’s murdering gladiators.” Elias slid a hand through his short hair, pulling it up at the front. “I’ll find him. I’ll warn him.”

  “Good.” Tor looked up at the Kulan guards. They were adjusting a bolt on the rear axle while Taro and Spark took up an idle conversation with them, keeping them occupied. A small grin of pride spread across Tor’s face, but he turned back to Elias.

  “Find Madoc and meet us tonight outside Petros’s villa, just before midnight,” Tor said. Ash had heard this tone of his so many times—it had ordered Char through training drills, had reprimanded Ash for taking foolish risks. “The four of us—two Fire Divine, one Earth Divine, and a Soul Divine—should be able to sneak into Petros’s villa. We’ll split up, find Cassia, and get her out first. Ash and I—” He glanced at her. His face softened. “We’ll investigate on our own, after she’s safe. We’ll find out what Petros has been hiding.”

  Elias nodded. Again. “Okay. Yeah, that sounds good.” He shook his hands out by his sides, his body humming with pent-up anxiety. “Tonight. Before midnight. Petros’s villa is in the Olantin District in South Gate. You can’t miss it—it’s the only big, rich house there. I—” He started to turn back to the carriage. “Thank you,” he whispered over his shoulder before sprinting away.

  “The Kulans tried to pass a threat from me to Madoc!” Elias shouted as he rejoined the servants. “They’re so scared of him, they can’t even threaten him themselves!”

  The servants broke out in a chorus of laughter.

  Ash gave a brittle smile, but it froze on her face.

  “Champions—the carriage is ready now,” one of the guards called.

  Tor took her arm and led her to it. “Who was Petros talking to?” he whispered.

  The carriage rocked as Ash pulled herself up. She looked down at Tor, her insides shifting with the carriage.

  “Who do you think he was talking to?” was all she could say in response.

  Tor swallowed, hard, and gave a curt nod.

  Geoxus. Petros may have been the one making the moves, but Geoxus was giving the orders. Which meant it was all connected: Madoc, his anathreia; the target painted on Kula by Geoxus, Aera, and Biotus; even Stavos using the poisoned blade on Char. Had Geoxus told him to do that in order to get rid of Ignitus’s strongest gladiator and Geoxus’s biggest threat?

  The only pieces that still didn’t connect were why Petros had captured Stavos, why he was dead, and what had happened to the other missing gladiators.

  Ash sat next to Spark and let the healer check on a cut Brand had slashed across her thigh. Her mind was far away, poking at the lingering uncertainties.

  Part of her felt like these final questions, and the waiting answers, would be worse than all the other revelations. Like the dark green-gray hue the sea would take before a punishing typhoon.

  S
o Ash sat up straighter, watching Crixion roll past, and thought about how tonight, she would help Madoc get his sister back.

  The moment Ash and Tor returned to the palace, servants swept them away to get ready for the dinner Ignitus had requested. He wanted to strategize about the final battles, they said.

  Ash found it hard to care about the war when so many other dangers stalked around it.

  As night fell, guards led them to Ignitus’s personal chamber. They reached an entryway with flames whipping in braziers on either side of two towering white doors, making the area smell of earthy burned pine.

  “Wait here,” one guard said, and slipped inside. The other took up a stance before the doors.

  Tor idly stepped away from him, his arms folded over his beige tunic. Ash followed, the two taking a slow stroll across the wide, empty marble floor. Her hands shook, built-up energy begging for release, and she fought to keep from breaking into a run just for some way to expel the unbearable emotions reeling inside her.

  “We need to excuse ourselves from this dinner at the first opportunity,” Tor whispered. “It’ll take about thirty minutes to get to Petros’s villa.”

  “How will we evade the guards?” Ash eyed the one by the door. “How—”

  She stopped and planted her hands over her mouth.

  Tor swung on her, eyes twisted. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “I forgot to tell you and Elias that Petros knows I heard him. Oh no.” She dug her hands into her loose curls. “He knows, so he’ll be expecting me to do something like this. And if it was Geoxus who was talking to him, then Geoxus likely was spying on us in the preparation chamber, even though we tried to get him to show himself. He knows we talked with Madoc—”

  Tor touched her shoulder. “Calm, Ash. You were right to take risks. You were right to push for a better future. What Madoc is changes everything.” He exhaled, face slack, and bent close to her, his voice a brush of whisper. “You have shouldered so much since Char died. Most of that is my fault, for being so shortsighted. I’m telling you I see it now, the possibility for a future, and we can’t let that possibility escape. We’ll take this opportunity—we’ll free an innocent girl and find out what Petros and Geoxus are planning against Kula. And we’ll use that to take down Ignitus.”

  “What if Kula still gets hurt?” Ash breathed. She fiddled with the hem of the tunic she had changed into, a weave of treated Kulan leaves that left one arm bare. “What if in defeating Ignitus, we open Kula up to being conquered by Geoxus or some other god?”

  “If we have the power to destroy one god, all gods will fear us.”

  “What I meant was—” Ash licked her lips, but she couldn’t get the words to come out.

  These words that had been swelling in her heart since Cassia had brought the records detailing Kula’s lost resources.

  These words that had been choking her since she’d wondered if Ignitus had sent a message to Hydra asking for help.

  Is killing Ignitus really best for Kula—or is it just best for our revenge?

  Anxiety skittered through Ash’s chest. Horror. Disgust.

  “How many wars has Ignitus fought in your lifetime?” Ash asked instead.

  Tor watched her, his eyes narrow, curious, and cautious. “Thirty-one.”

  “And how many of those did he start?”

  “Does it matter? Good Kulans suffered either way.”

  “But the other gods sometimes harm Kula to instigate wars. Ignitus couldn’t just let them get away with it. Could he? He had to respond.” She looked at the striated marble under her sandals. “I just want to be sure that this is right. That he is the monster we think he is.”

  “Ash.” Tor took a step closer, his eyes darkening. “Where is this coming from?”

  She fought against the instinct to reach for the igneia in the braziers, knowing Tor would feel her nervously pulling strength. “Have we ever talked to him? Have we ever tried to understand what—”

  Tor seized her shoulders. Ash gawked up at him.

  The guard didn’t flinch. He might have even been smiling at the sight of Ignitus’s two champions scuffling before their coming battle.

  “There is nothing to understand,” Tor said, the veins bulging around his eyes. “That monster killed Char and Rook, and we are close to bringing him to justice.”

  Tor’s fury pulled Ash’s awareness to a fine, sharp point.

  Char had been Ignitus’s best. She’d constantly defeated his other gladiators during training fights. Her control of igneia was unprecedented, deliberate, and smooth.

  If Kula’s resources were at risk, who else should Ignitus have gambled on?

  Tears gathered in Ash’s eyes. She couldn’t bear the deluge of thoughts that broke free, things she had never in her life predicted she would think.

  Behind Tor, the door opened.

  “Remember who killed your mother,” he told her in a rumbling whisper. “These questions disgrace her memory, and Rook’s too. You’ve come so far, Ash. Don’t back down now.”

  Tor spun away—but not before Ash saw his bloodshot eyes, the pain on his face.

  She had broken his heart with her uncertainty. She had broken her own too.

  This was why she had shoved down thoughts like this for as long as she had. They would destroy her.

  Ash trembled. Tor entered the room at a servant’s beckoning, and the absence of him made her feel cold under the high, exposed ceilings of the hall. She wanted to tell him how sick her own questions made her, how much she hated the doubt twining around her heart.

  She wanted to be angry again. She wanted to fume with vengeance.

  But she could only step forward, her shoulders bent, and enter Ignitus’s room.

  The wide, well-lit chamber appeared to have many uses. A ruffled bed on a short dais filled one corner. On a table in the center of the room, food waited, steaming plates of roasted chicken and spiced orange slices and charred peppers arrayed before three chairs. To the left, shelves of scrolls and books peered down at a desk strewn with papers and quills.

  Ignitus sat at that desk, forehead in his hands, body hunched over a stack of papers. He didn’t seem to know Tor and Ash were here. A servant poured wine into three waiting goblets on the table, and when the guards shut the door with a thud, Ignitus still didn’t react.

  Tor curled his fingers into fists. He didn’t eye Ash in question as he usually would have—their conversation had cracked something between them. Nausea gripped Ash when she realized that what had broken was trust.

  Ignitus launched himself from the chair and swept the papers off the desk. “Damn it!”

  As the papers flurried through the room like leaves off a tree, Ignitus covered his face and took a slow breath, clearly gathering himself. This was the most disheveled Ash had ever seen him. Scarlet wrappings tangled around his hips, brushing the tops of his feet, his chest bare. His hair, unornamented, erupted around his face. The gray strands were prominent now, looped into a single coil that fell down his shoulder.

  That wasn’t a chunk of silver thread woven into his hair. Why did he have it?

  “Wine,” he barked, and the servant dashed to bring him one of the goblets from the table.

  “Great Ignitus,” Tor started, “we can leave, if you wish.”

  Ignitus snatched the goblet from the servant and downed the whole thing before chucking it across the floor. He blinked at Tor, frowned, and looked at Ash.

  “Nikau.” There was tangible relief in Ignitus’s voice. “That champion of my brother’s—Madoc. His latest win was . . . troubling.” He glanced at the stone floor and walls with a grimace. Geoxus could easily spy here—it was his palace, crafted of his stones. “You were with him the night of the ball. Tell me—what have you noticed about him?”

  Now you want my help? Why? she wanted to ask. She wanted to beg him for an answer.

  Ash’s throat was raw from holding back tears. She felt Tor watching her, waiting.

  Judgment and warine
ss from Tor; eagerness and hope from Ignitus.

  The emotions made no sense, and churned the already confusing thoughts in her head.

  What would Ignitus do if she told him the truth: that Madoc might be descended from a goddess Ignitus supposedly helped kill long ago? How would he react if she dropped to her knees and told him how much Kula was suffering, about the poverty and disease? Had anyone ever brought their concerns to him before? Or had they stayed silent out of fear rather than working with him to better their country?

  Ash’s eyes fell to the ground. Her heart beat so hard it ached.

  Remember who killed your mother.

  Stavos had killed her. But Ash remembered the way Char hadn’t even noticed Ash in the hall before her fight. Her stilted conversation, the loss of focus as she bore unimaginable burdens.

  Ignitus did that.

  Ignitus did that.

  Rook had sobbed on the arena sands, his pockets heavy with marbles he would never get to give to his son. Ignitus had chosen to tell Rook about Lynx just before that fight.

  Ignitus did that.

  Heat sparked in Ash’s chest. It sent feeling into her numb limbs.

  Good intentions or not, misunderstanding or lies, Ignitus was still a monster.

  Ash gulped in the air, tinged with the scent of crackled chicken skin and grape wine. “Actually, Great Ignitus, I overheard Madoc tell his attendant that he would be meeting someone in one of Crixion’s poor districts tonight. As you said—he is troubling. There is more going on with him. With your permission, I would like to follow him and find out what.”

  Ignitus puckered his lips. “I do not like the idea of my champion venturing into this pit of a city alone. I’ll send one of my guards to follow Madoc.”

  He started to snap for his guards when Ash’s chest bucked.

  “If Madoc sees them, they will have no good reason to be following him,” she said. “But if he discovers me, it won’t be unusual. I already have a rapport with him.”

  Ignitus hesitated.

  Tor stepped forward. “I will go with her, Great Ignitus. Surely your two strongest champions can handle the dregs of Crixion.”

  That earned something that was almost a smile. “Indeed.” Ignitus held for another long moment. Finally, he nodded. “Report to me as soon as you are back.”