by Sara Raasch
Then they sprinted into Crixion.
Though they kept their weapons hidden, they still must have given off an air of aggression, for no pickpockets accosted them and passing groups of drunk revelers gave them wide berth.
The streets got progressively narrower, the buildings shabbier. Ash and Tor turned a corner and saw a short, manicured path leading up to a massive closed gate that was lined with precious gems, all of it dripping wealth even in the night’s shadows. This villa’s shuttered walls were opulently out of place, a jewel lodged in muck to remind the impoverished of what they would never have.
This was Petros’s villa. Ash and Tor simultaneously slowed to a walk.
“How will we find them?” Ash whispered. The street was nearly abandoned; only one building showed signs of life, two up from where Petros’s villa capped this street. It had a gauzy red curtain draped across the window and a sign over the entrance with a picture of an embracing, half-naked couple.
“Patience,” Tor said. “Walk with purpose.”
Don’t stick out, Ash translated. She focused ahead, subtly scanning the edges of the road for Madoc. Her stomach tightened, but not in anxiety or fear—she was, somehow, excited.
She hadn’t gotten to save Char. But she would help Madoc save Cassia.
Ash bit the inside of her cheek. If nothing else came of tonight, that would be enough.
Before they got to the end of the street, a figure pulled out of the shadows around the corner.
Elias jogged toward them. His face was gaunt, and it only intensified when Ash glanced behind him.
Madoc wasn’t here.
“He never came to the carriage at the arena,” Elias said. He bounced on the balls of his feet, sticking his hands deep into the pockets of his knee-length tunic. “He didn’t come to Lucius’s villa, either. I waited around for him as long as I could, but—what if Petros got to him first?”
Ash blew a fast breath out her nose. Guilt and panic squeezed her throat. “Petros knows we’re coming. He’s prepared.”
She refused to let herself think beyond that. But the image of Stavos flashed through her mind. The arrows in his back. His look of horror.
If Petros had Madoc, and was doing to him whatever he’d done to make Stavos afraid . . .
The world tilted. Ash balled her hands, grounding herself.
Elias looked just as rattled, but also determined. “We need to do this anyway.”
Tor rubbed his jaw, scratching the rough bristles. His eyes were distant on the walls of the villa. “We’ll scout the villa first. See what’s waiting for us.” He looked at Elias. “Can you lift a section of the outer wall for us to slip inside? Something small, discreet.”
Elias exhaled a hard grunt. “Yes. Am I coming in too?”
Tor considered. Elias still bounced from foot to foot. His nerves were as untamable as Madoc’s—neither of them had been bred for fighting, and Ash realized Elias was weaponless. She almost called him on it—how much use would he be with only his geoeia?—but she realized he likely hadn’t brought weapons because he couldn’t get any without arousing suspicion.
She lifted a knife out of her sheath and extended it to him, handle first, keeping the blade hidden under her arm and out of sight of any passersby.
Elias eyed her, then the blade. He took it, scrubbing the back of his other hand across his nose. “Thanks. I—” He dug into his pocket again and handed something to her.
Two small stones and a knuckle-sized knot of downy fibers.
“We use those rocks to start fires, and the fiber as a tinder,” he explained. “I thought you’d need igneia, but I realized halfway here just how much fire we already have in this city. You Kulans could burn us all to the ground, couldn’t you?”
The tension in Ash’s chest alleviated at Elias’s gesture.
No Deiman worried about having igneia out in the city, not so far from an arena. It was ripe for the picking, torches lighting streets, lanterns hanging outside doorways.
She tucked the fire starter into her pocket. “To be fair, rocks are all over Kula too. You could just as easily decimate our country.”
Elias grinned. Ash felt a tightening of cameraderie.
“The knife is only for desperate situations,” Tor said. “Without Madoc, the situation has changed. I don’t like being short a fighter. Elias—Ash and I will scout the villa for Madoc and Cassia first. The two of us will be less to worry about than three. If we find them, we’ll get them out. You stay out here and hold the wall open in case we need to make a quick getaway.”
Elias looked noticeably relieved. “Yes. Of course. Whatever you need me to do to get this done as fast as possible. My family’s packed and waiting.”
Ash’s chest bucked. “You’re leaving?”
Elias shook his head. “Just them. Madoc and I are staying.” His face solidified. “We have to make sure Petros can’t use our family against us anymore.”
“Let’s go,” Tor interrupted, and he started off, drawing them closer to Petros’s villa.
Ash tripped along behind him, her nerves easing back up. Walls towered three stories over her head. Beyond them, firelight speckled the night with orange here, there. Voices lifted—guards giving orders, servants out of sight calling commands to one another as they settled the villa for the night.
Tor angled Ash and Elias to the right, keeping to the shadows that crowded the wall’s edge. Ahead of them, the villa’s wall bent to run along the eastern side of Petros’s complex.
Ash reached out, senses scrambling until she found igneia pulsing in a nearby lantern. Whoever had lit it would think the wind had blown it out as she pulled, the entirety of the fire soaking into her like water into a sponge. She pulled another lantern, a flickering candle; more and more, until she was saturated, her body scalding.
“Good luck,” Elias whispered.
Ash gave a small smile.
A moment passed. The earth under their feet trembled, rocks skittering around their sandals before the rough wall scraped against their shoulders. Ash bit down a chirp of surprise when a short arch appeared in the stone, so low she would have to squirm through on her belly. But it showed the villa’s courtyard beyond, with Petros’s soldiers and servants moving about, unaware.
Tor dropped to the ground and wriggled through first. When his feet disappeared into the hole, Ash flattened, using her elbows to work her way across the ground. Only when her body was half under the arch did she realize she was entirely dependent on Elias being able to hold this open if one of Petros’s guards tried to close it over her.
She scrambled on and heaved herself through the other side. Tor was waiting in the shadows, his eyes glinting in the moonlight as he took in the villa’s layout.
The main house was a grand structure of marble columns and silver lit by a few torches, a single firepit in the front courtyard, and the full white moon overhead. A few plain stone structures with shuttered windows sat around it—the stables and outbuildings. Two guards moved toward what was probably a barracks while a servant carried a basket loaded with laundry toward the backyard. Nearby, a small cluster of citrus trees made the air acidic with mingled orange and lemon oils. Some of them had gone rancid, and the stench tickled Ash’s nose.
“You take the main house,” Tor whispered. “I’ll take the outbuildings. Look for Cassia and Madoc, and keep an eye out for anything that could lead us to Petros’s true plan. Letters, documents, maps. But at the first sign of trouble, you run, Ash.” He flipped his eyes to her, imploring. “You get yourself out, no matter what.”
Ash nodded stiffly. She was operating on momentum and thoughtless action—if she paused too long, doubt and worries would obliterate her.
She didn’t give Tor another chance to speak. She took off, ducking in and out of shadows as she made her way to the main house.
Ash yanked igneia from torches along her way, giving her more shadows to move through and building her strength. By the time she reached the house, her pulse
was a hum.
She slipped along the wall until it ended in the open-air columns of a veranda. A hall stretched to her left, and a tall, narrow staircase lifted to the right; she headed for the stairs, ears straining for any shuffling servants or the clank of centurion armor.
The chill of the marble flooring penetrated Ash’s sandals. A shudder rippled between her shoulder blades and she pulled free her remaining knife. Moonlight cut through windows and spilled over the white tiles, but that was the only light—no torches, no flames, not even any of those phosphorescent rocks. The igneia Ash had stored in her chest felt flimsy suddenly, a dying flame choking for oxygen.
She forced herself on, edging step by step onto the second floor landing. One side had balconies every few paces that showed a courtyard below; the other had three doors. Farther on, another staircase led back to the first floor.
If Cassia or Madoc were in this house, Petros would keep them close so they wouldn’t be tempted to run. If one of these rooms was his, then the others might be theirs too.
Sweat slicked Ash’s palms. She took a step forward, crossing the empty hall, her shadow playing on the ornate ivory walls.
She headed for the door on the right. No—the middle one. No, definitely not the middle one—that door was overlaid with a scene of wailing figures beseeching Geoxus alongside . . . was that Petros? The moonlight blurred the image.
Ash backed away from that door, her hackles rising.
She grabbed the knob on the leftmost door and twisted.
It didn’t budge. Locked.
Breath a painful knot in her throat, Ash closed her eyes. This could mean death. This could mean a senseless end.
“Cassia?” she whispered into the doorframe. “Madoc? Are you there?”
Silence. Ash held her breath.
“Who are you?” a high voice whispered from the other side.
Ash choked on her relief. “Cassia! It’s—it’s Ash. You brought me records in the preparation chamber the other day.”
“Why are you here?” A pause. “And why did you ask for Madoc too?”
“Is he with you?”
“No—did Petros get him too?” Panic rose in Cassia’s voice. “What’s going on?”
Ash started to shake, but she couldn’t lose herself to questions now. She pushed on the door. “The door is stone—can you manipulate it?”
“If I could, I would’ve gotten out of here a long time ago. Petros had this whole room lined with wood. Listen, I’m not sure why you’re trying to free me, but I—”
“Wait. Did you say wood?”
“Yes?” Cassia’s voice twisted in question and worry.
“I’m going to try something. Stand back.”
She heard Cassia shuffle away.
Ash backed up a step too. She sheathed her knife and shook her hands out by her sides. The igneia she’d drawn into herself would have to be enough.
The stone door on this side had a small iron lock. Ash focused on it, exhaling, relaxing.
A ball of fire filled her palms. She remembered the dance of the Great Defeat, the fire rope she twisted high into the arena. She made one now, lengthening the fire as thin as she could hold it. Sweat popped along her forehead with the effort, but she gritted her teeth together and slithered the fire snake for the lock. It eased into the hole, and Ash closed her eyes, swaying with each small, sparking flame and pulsing with every sizzle on the iron lock’s grime.
That tumbler. Her flames pressed on it. Click. Another. And another.
The exterior lock released.
Ash pushed her flames on. They met the wooden interior and crackled hungrily, burning away the connection that kept Cassia imprisoned. She knew when fire burst into the room by Cassia’s startled gasp. A pull, and Ash sucked the igneia back into her heart.
She opened the main door. The wooden one swung inward, leaving the lock in the frame, and Cassia gaped at Ash as she stepped into the hall.
Ash half smiled. “We should go. Elias is waiting at the east wall.”
The moonlight shifted. Cassia’s eyes weren’t on Ash.
Ash looked over her shoulder to see a hulking form in the middle of the hallway.
Petros.
“You seem to have a habit of inserting yourself where you don’t belong,” he snarled.
He heaved his arms, ripping two massive chunks of marble from his own floor. As he threw them, Ash swung around and tackled Cassia, landing them flat just before the boulders sailed over their heads.
“Go!” Ash ripped Cassia to her feet and the two of them took off, sprinting around the rocks and down the opposite staircase. Petros thundered after them and the floor shook, the ceiling raining dust, the walls groaning as geoeia shifted and re-formed and—
Instinct seized Ash with white-hot panic. She hit the first floor and spun around in time to see a wave of razor-sharp rocks slicing through the moonlight toward her. A cry, and Ash washed a wall of flame up the stairs. She couldn’t see anything through orange and shadow, but she heard the clatter of stones hit the steps and the sharp wail of Petros taking the hit of fire.
Outside, a horn sounded, calling Petros’s centurions to mobilize. Alongside it, the earth rumbled, and a narrow window showed the walls of Petros’s villa stretching taller.
A failsafe.
Even if Ash, Cassia, and Tor got to the wall, Petros likely had Earth Divine guards stationed all around, holding it secure. Elias would be unable to keep the small opening for them.
And where was Madoc?
Horror shredded Ash’s resolve and she kept running. She skidded on the slick floor, a beat behind Cassia as they spilled into an atrium. They raced across it, leaping over a bare firepit and empty banquet tables.
The doors at the front end banged open and centurions surged into the room.
Cassia flung out her arms, catching Ash, the two of them gasping.
Before Ash had time to gather her wits enough to blast igneia, Cassia stomped on the stone floor. A violent crack trembled the room. Hands out under hovering stones, the centurions lurched at the unexpected quake. Cassia wasted no time—she grabbed the collar of Ash’s armor and dragged her toward a smaller door set in the side wall.
They flew out into the night and stumbled to a halt at the top of a set of stairs.
Cassia panted in recognition. “The soldiers’ barracks,” she said as Ash’s eyes adjusted to the shadows.
Centurions raced across the side yard, hefting weapons, barking orders. The villa door banged against the wall and drew the attention of one soldier, two, three—
A dozen centurions faced Ash and Cassia, spinning rocks with geoeia, poised to throw.
Reaching for Cassia’s sleeve, Ash took a step back—but she bumped into someone.
Her skin prickled when she looked up and saw Petros, surrounded by centurions.
With one hand, Ash shoved Cassia down the steps; with the other, she washed flame in an arch that provided a cover. Her igneia was dwindling and all torches had been extinguished; she would be defenseless soon, but Ash pushed her fire hotter, heavier, with everything she had left.
Hands clamped her throat.
Ash lost the hold on her igneia, the fire snuffing out, throwing the courtyard into darkness but for the heavy, brilliant moon. It made Petros’s eyes look ghostly and faded, his snarl feral, his fury potent.
It was impossible that this man was Madoc’s father.
Ash clawed at his hand on her neck. His grip was relentless, but her legs were free—she managed a solid kick to Petros’s stomach that bent him double.
Petros hurled her to the ground and she gasped on the surge of air. The centurions behind him moved, but he waved them off, grinning at Ash from his slumped position.
“I can see what my son finds so appealing about the young Kulan champion,” he rasped.
Fury raged in Ash’s stomach. She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t piece her thoughts together. And in the yard, she saw the centurions heave and pull the ear
th.
Cassia was fighting them, stones flying, and—flame. Tor was with her.
The world shifted and Ash tumbled down the steps to land in the yard at Tor’s feet. He scooped her up, clamping her to him in a gruff, brief hug.
A few paces away, Cassia whipped away from having moved the step.
“I’m out of igneia,” Ash gasped at Tor.
He grimaced. “You go in low and—down!”
The moon vanished.
Too late, Ash realized that a boulder hovered over her head.
She looked up at it. Pieces of dirt drifted off and brushed her cheeks.
The whole of the night slowed. The centurions, bent on blood; Tor spinning on Petros, who stood now on the edge of the side door’s step, his arms lifted.
And Cassia.
She eyed the boulder. Then, dust flying under her sandals, she ran and urled herself into Ash.
Ash flew backward and rolled across the ground. A centurion spread his arms wide and snapped them shut, simultaneously opening and closing a solid mass of earth around her body.
She writhed, pinned, helpless as Cassia took a wide-legged stance under the boulder.
“Cassia!” Ash squirmed, tasting earth and rocks, grit in her eyes. “Get out! Just get out!”
Cassia’s arms stayed lifted, bracing the rock over her head with geoeia.
Tor advanced at Petros with flames, but centurions blocked, three of them—four of them—five surging at him, finally taking him to the ground.
Cassia was alone against the centurions and Petros.
Ash bucked, but the soldier holding her bore down. She sank deeper, only her head staying above ground, her arms trapped and her legs twisted in stone and mud. Panic swarmed her with the delirium of drowning.
“Surrender, girl,” Petros barked at Cassia. His raised arms bulged, strain showing on his sweat-glistened face as he pushed down while Cassia pushed up. “You’re useful to me alive, but your death can be useful too.”
Her feet shifted, slipping, but she held. “No!” Cassia screamed.
That scream moved the rock infinitesimally toward Petros, the force of Cassia’s geoeia shoving him back, grinding his feet against the marble step.
