by Sara Raasch
Petros’s words were lies. Cassia had no burns on her clothing or skin. She’d been crushed by rock, by this boulder beside her.
But maybe she wouldn’t have been if Ash had never come.
The gates at the front of the villa opened. More movement, and the sudden roar of voices waiting outside.
The gates closed.
He couldn’t let go of Cassia’s hand.
He would find out what had happened to his sister, and those responsible would suffer.
Madoc didn’t know how much time had passed, but soon he became aware of a man standing beside him. The familiar disappointment and irritation scraped at Madoc’s skin.
“When you were a child, you used to feed a stray dog in the street, do you remember?” Petros asked.
A scrounging gray mutt with a half-torn ear. Madoc remembered.
“You were so determined to make it a pet. Every day you brought it scraps from the kitchen, and every day, it came a little closer, until one day it was close enough for you to touch. What happened then?”
Madoc gritted his teeth, the faint scars on his forearm tingling.
“It bit you,” Petros said. “The guards had to crush it with stones to loosen its jaw.” He inhaled slowly. Exhaled on a sigh. “You are still that same boy, trying to coax the loyalty out of a wild animal, and shocked when it betrays you.”
In Madoc’s mind, he rose. His hands closed around Petros’s throat. He squeezed until the life was gone, and the void belonged to his father.
But Madoc didn’t rise. He didn’t let go of Cassia’s hand.
“A father’s duty is to teach his son the hard lessons of life, even if that means taking away the things he loves.” Petros patted Madoc’s shoulder, not noticing how Madoc flinched away. “Get some rest. At dawn, you need to put the Kulan girl down.”
With that, Petros turned and walked away.
Cassia was smaller than Madoc realized.
Even when she was young, she’d been loud—banging pans together or shouting for attention. When her geoeia had manifested, she’d become a nightmare. Madoc would walk headfirst into dust storms of her making or have to catch stones she hurled his way. When she was happy, everyone was happy. When she was mad, everyone needed to hide.
But as Madoc wrapped her in a blanket that a servant had brought out to air, he realized it had been her soul that had taken up so much room. Without it, she was no more than the bones that had carried her.
With trembling hands, he bound her arms to her sides and smoothed down her hair. Fighting the bile that clawed up his throat, he covered her face and the marks on her legs. He needed to take her home to clean her up; then they could bring her to the burial fields outside the city, where her body would reunite with the earth over time. But the thought sickened him.
He longed for the void to take him over so that he could feel nothing, but it denied him. With every breath, he swallowed glass. Each brush of her cold skin burrowed ice through his bones. She was broken, and pale, and bloodied, and everything about her was wrong.
And it hurt. It hurt to touch her. It hurt to look at her. It hurt not to find Petros and siphon the life out of him. It hurt not to chase Ash down and demand the truth about what had happened. It hurt because maybe he was too much of a coward to do any of that. Maybe that was why he hadn’t gotten Cassia sooner—not because he’d put his faith in Geoxus, or because he’d thought incriminating Petros would set her free, but because he’d been weak.
He wouldn’t be weak now. She needed him to tend to her, so he would.
When he was done, he felt as if a hand had closed around his throat. His breath came out in a fractured sob.
He forced swallow after swallow until the tension subsided. He would not cry here.
He removed his armor and left it on the ground.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
He picked her up, rested her fragile head against his chest. She weighed practically nothing, but still his arms and lungs trembled with the effort.
Petros’s guards didn’t stop him. They opened the gate without a word and closed it behind him. The crowd was gone now; only a few servants remained to clean up the mess.
At dawn, you need to put the Kulan girl down.
Ash.
Ash had come here when he’d told her not to, and now Cassia was dead.
He crossed the street, stopping when someone stepped into the light of a nearby torch.
Elias took one look at the bundle in Madoc’s arms and caved forward, arms around his waist. He shook silently, and tears streamed from Madoc’s eyes.
“Get up.” His voice broke. “We’re not doing this here.”
Elias got up.
They walked home, taking turns carrying their sister.
By the time they reached the stonemasons’ quarter, the ache in Madoc’s chest had stretched to his arms. No one had bothered them on the roads—it was too late for most to be out, and those who were seemed to recognize that they should be left alone.
He and Elias hadn’t spoken, but there were words Elias wanted to say, Madoc could tell. Every so often, Elias’s breath would grow rough. He’d punch his thigh, swallow a sob. Maybe it was better that he didn’t speak. Their failure had cost Cassia her life.
The taverns and brothels were beginning to close as they made the final turn down their alley. Elias led the way, head bowed, and when they entered the courtyard, Madoc was surprised to see the lights in the house still lit. As if expecting them, Danon rushed outside, Ilena on his heels.
They were dressed strangely—wearing too many clothes, maybe all they owned. Ilena had a bag over her shoulder, and it fell with a clatter on the ground, baskets and utensils rolling free.
Were they leaving?
A sharp pain jabbed at his empty stomach.
He looked to Elias, wondering again why he’d been at Petros’s—but Elias only shook his head, the hair falling over his eyes, and rushed toward their mother.
“No,” Ilena said, and all the questions died. “No.”
She turned to go back inside. The bag was left on the doorway.
“Is that . . .” Danon’s gaze bounced between them, horrified. “What happened? You said we were all leaving!” Elias ignored him, pushing by to follow Ilena inside.
Through the window, Madoc saw her crumple against the side of the table and fall to the floor.
Steeling himself, he carried Cassia into the house. He took her to the bedroom and laid her on the bare mattress.
He was right—they had been leaving. The blankets were gone.
Why? Would they have told him?
He felt something tear open inside him. The hot spill of shame and guilt and loss. He was alone. Even when he’d wandered the streets, searching for help, he’d never felt this alone.
The next moments were a blur. Danon’s relentless questions. Ilena’s wail of grief. Ava was crying. Elias, for once, tried to keep them all calm.
Ilena came and lay beside her daughter on the bed. Madoc, now curled in a ball in the corner, wanted to lie beside them, but he couldn’t let go of his knees. The void had reached him, finally, and it was sucking in every emotion, screaming with hunger. There was too much here to feed it. Too much pain. Too much grief.
“You didn’t listen,” Ilena whispered. Her words weren’t for Cassia, they were for Madoc, and he crawled to her, pressing his forehead against the edge of the mattress. “I told you we’d handle this as a family. But you didn’t listen.”
Her pain was like a noose around her neck, closing off her words. Madoc couldn’t stand it. He could take it. He would, for her.
He rocked onto his heels. Her back was to him. Tentatively, he placed one quaking hand on her shoulder and opened himself up to her pain.
Instantly, he tasted her bitter despair. It was like Ash’s grief, but more potent, and even as he hated himself for the rush it gave him, he hoped it gave her peace.
“No.” She shook him off. Sat up. Faced
him. “Don’t you do it, Madoc. I will feel every bit of this.”
He was disgusted with himself.
He rose and left the room. He shoved by Danon, still holding a packed bag on his thighs, and Elias, carrying Ava around the kitchen.
No one stopped him.
He wanted out of this house. Out of this district—this entire city. He wanted to run so far no one would ever find him. Anger rose up in him, as harsh as Ilena’s pain. He wished Cassia had never found him on the temple steps. That he had stayed an orphan, unwanted. Unattached.
Unable to hurt anyone.
He was done fighting. Done pretending he was a gladiator. He pushed out through the Metaxas’ front door, his last view of their home the floor above, where Seneca watched him from her balcony, a candle in one hand, a cat curled in the other. He walked, the minutes turning to hours as he passed the quarry and the aqueduct, winding through the alleys toward South Gate. And as the sun glittered over the golden water, he skirted around the crowds on the streets that headed toward the arena in their black and gray paint, ready to cheer him to victory.
He wouldn’t be there.
Twenty
Ash
THE SUN HAD barely risen, but already it scorched the arena. The logical part of Ash’s brain whirled. Heat is good. It will slow my opponent.
She braced one hand on the arched entryway that would spill her out into the fighting pit. The warm, gritty stone was all that kept her from dropping to her knees.
That, and the Deiman centurions standing guard at the end of the hall, there to make sure she didn’t run. She wouldn’t show weakness in front of them.
If she won this fight, Kula would keep the fishing rights in the Telsa Channel, the stock in their glass trade, the two valuable seaports. The vital resources Ignitus had staked on this war.
If she lost, Kula would slip even further into poverty.
Madoc’s life or fishing ports. Madoc or Kula.
Cassia. Saving Ash’s life. Once—by pulling her away from Petros. A second time—by shoving Ash aside and taking the weight of the boulder meant for her.
Because of Seneca. Ash still couldn’t process what she had seen. Hints of connections threatened to tie the remaining pieces of the mystery together, but she refused to think about them now. She couldn’t unravel yet.
The look of disgusted shock that had paled Madoc’s face in the villa’s main room would forever be branded in Ash’s mind. Where had he been? Petros obviously hadn’t captured him.
Ash wanted to talk to Madoc. She wanted to apologize. She wanted to bear the weight of the blame she knew that she deserved from him.
She and Tor had failed. Not just failed—they had gotten an innocent girl killed.
Just like Rook. My fault, my fault, all of it—
Ash gagged, her fist to her mouth. She had lost count of how many times she had vomited since centurions had locked her in a chamber in Geoxus’s palace last night. Getting to this moment—the roar of the crowd and the heat of the sun and the wide, waiting glitter of sand—had been a blur of grief.
Drums rumbled across the arena. The crowd thundered, pushed to hysteria by the unorthodox detour from the usual structured wars. They wouldn’t have more parades and parties; they wouldn’t get the final audition fights. This was it. This fight would end the Kulans’ stay in Deimos.
This would end everything.
“Ash Nikau will fight on behalf of Kula,” an announcer bellowed.
Ash hobbled out of the tunnel. Sand slid over her feet, velvet soft and warm, and she lifted her eyes to the cheering crowd. People wore elaborate costumes, mock armor and full body paint and signs that read Death to Kula!, Geoxus Prevails, and Glory, Glory.
To her right, bodies packed the grandest viewing box. Untouched food weighed down a table while around it, upper-class Deimans mingled with Kulans.
Ash spotted Tor, Taro, and Spark. They were at the edge, watching her, faces gaunt with sleeplessness and strain. They had prepared her for the battle, but centurions had kept a close watch the whole time and escorted them out as soon as they’d finished. She hadn’t gotten a chance to ask what she should do.
In the viewing box beside Tor, clutching the railing just as tightly, stood their god.
Ignitus hadn’t spoken to them until they’d returned to the palace. There, Ash had been too grief-stricken to say more than that Petros was plotting against Ignitus—Your god has no idea what’s coming for him.
Tor had scrambled to apologize. Geoxus had every right to execute them for what they had done.
But Ignitus had shaken his head. “Tell me what happened tomorrow,” he had said, “after you defeat my brother’s champion.”
He had shown restraint. He had shown—dare Ash even think it?—kindness.
Ash lifted her hand to the viewing box. Tor nodded at her, solemn.
Ignitus lifted his hand in return. “Ash!” he cheered, though there was no joy in it.
Tor glanced at him, then caught the cheer. “Ash! Ash!”
Soon, all the Kulans in the box were chanting her name. Beating it alongside the heavy drums.
Ash dropped her head, tears welling, heat streaking through her in stabs of sorrow.
“Fuel and flame,” she whispered. “I am fuel and flame.”
“Madoc Aurelius,” the announcer said, “will fight on behalf of Deimos.”
The crowd, being mostly Deiman citizens, made such a noise that Ash fought to keep from covering her ears.
She turned, slowly, and faced the archway where Madoc would emerge.
It was empty.
A moment passed. The crowd’s cheers grew.
Why was he delaying? Was Geoxus making him wait in order to build anticipation?
Ash cut a glance at the other half of the viewing box. Geoxus had his arms crossed over his broad chest, flicking his scowl back and forth from Madoc’s archway to Ignitus, a few paces to his left. Geoxus’s people applauded—one of them was Madoc’s sponsor, Lucius.
Another was Petros, smugly gazing down at the tunnel.
Ash fought not to tear the igneia from the firepit that waited for her and hurl it all at him.
The cheers faded; the crowd was confused.
Ash’s eyes flipped back to the archway to see a man striding across the sands toward her. Her heart seized before she realized it was Elias, not Madoc.
And he was wearing Madoc’s armor.
“What trick is this, brother?” Ignitus’s voice broke the edge of Ash’s awareness.
“Stop the fight!” Geoxus boomed. “Find my champion!”
Commotion filled the stands, but Ash didn’t look away from Elias. She matched his pace, holding her breath against the sizzle of wariness that compelled her to turn back. Why was he here? Why was he outfitted to fight?
Where was Madoc?
They met in the center of the pit, Ash’s bowl of raging flames to one side, a pile of boulders that she knew were just for show on the another, and a rack of weapons between the two.
The moment she drew close enough to see Elias’s face, Ash’s chest bucked. He was seething at her, shoulders rising and falling in tight breaths.
“Elias,” Ash said slowly, “where is Madoc?”
Guilt wrung her veins until black spots danced across her vision. Madoc hadn’t been able to face her, so he’d sent his brother in his stead?
“He never should’ve been a gladiator,” Elias told her. A bead of sweat darted down his face. “It always should’ve been me. I hid behind him and let him take the hits—” He hiccuped and scrubbed the back of his hand across his nose, giving his head a jerky shake.
The crowd started to boo. They wanted blood. They wanted Madoc to charge out and destroy the Kulan gladiator.
Back in Elias’s tunnel, centurions were talking ferociously, giving orders, shouting. They sprinted into the darkness, no doubt searching for Madoc.
“Where is he?” Ash tried again. “He can’t want you to do this.”
“
He never showed.” Elias gave a shrug, calm despite the tears in his eyes. “I told the centurions he just didn’t want to be disturbed, but truth is, I haven’t seen him since last night. This isn’t his fight anymore.”
Madoc had left?
Guilt piled on guilt, regret clacked atop regret, until Ash couldn’t pull in a breath for all the agony clogging her body.
“Elias—”
“I failed Madoc,” he whimpered, eyes on the sand. “I failed Cassia. I was going to take her home and our family was going to leave the city and they would’ve been safe—”
Elias’s eyes shot up to meet Ash’s.
And she buckled, faltering back a step under the raw fury that punctuated his glare.
“But now she’s dead,” Elias snarled. “She’s dead because I trusted you.”
He clenched one of his hands and the boulder pile next to him shifted. One rock rose above the others, and Ash dropped into a defensive stance.
“Elias—Elias, stop!” She held a hand out to him, one toward the rock. “I’m sorry.” Anguish pinched her words. “I’m so sorry about Cassia.”
His face turned scarlet, then purple. “Don’t say her name. Don’t even talk about her.”
The rock flew.
Ash flattened to the ground a beat too late. The rock tore across her shoulder.
Pushing the pain to the back of her mind, she twisted to her feet, pulling igneia to fill her palms with open flames.
Elias circled her, slow, meticulous steps, his eyes watchful and intense.
Around them, the crowd had resumed their cheers as though Elias was, in fact, Madoc. But surely the gods were still fuming. Surely Ignitus was crying foul on this breach of war rules. Surely someone would stop this.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to fix this!” Ash straightened, snapping the flames into her heart. “I don’t want to fight. I won’t.”
Elias stopped. Sand mounded around his ankles. “I will.”
More rocks flew at her. Ash batted away the first one, but the second caught her in the temple and she hit the ground, sand spraying in her face. She spat it out, but the world spun and flickers of light played over her eyes.
“You were supposed to save her.”
