Ashi’s own grating breath deafened her as she looked up, numb.
Each god could spy through their energeia. Try as Ignitus did to limit his siblings’ access, he couldn’t get rid of all other energeias—which meant the earth god had been able to watch this fight.
And he was here, now, standing in the viewing box next to Ignitus.
Geoxus’s body was half dust and dirt, a product of traveling through stone, as all the gods could do with their elements. He formed as he rose over Ignitus, rock yielding to flesh and blood. He was his brother’s opposite in all but their black hair and brown skin; where Ignitus was long and slender, Geoxus was all chiseled solidity and muscle.
He spoke, breaking into Ash’s shock with a searing crack as his voice came from every pebble and rock and particle of sand in the arena: “Your mortal interfered, brother. You cheated. I declare war on Kula.”
Three
Madoc
“CAN YOU BELIEVE it?” Elias huffed, a wild light in his eyes as they raced down the narrow street. Madoc had seen the same excitement in half the faces they’d passed since the foreman at the quarry had dismissed them early from work, and felt the rush of anticipation buzzing from the crowds that had gathered on the street corners.
War was coming to Deimos. The fire god, Ignitus, was bringing his best Kulan gladiators to battle the fiercest of Geoxus’s champions in the arena. For two weeks and four strenuous rounds, the competitors would battle their fellow fighters for a chance to advance and represent their country in the final match to the death. People would swarm to see their favorites attack with earth and fire. Parades would jam the streets and parties would last until dawn.
There was nothing the people of Deimos liked better than blood soaking its golden sand.
“That we’re at war with Kula? Or that we got a half day off work?” Madoc asked. They’d been creating the foundation for a newbathhouse near the market for the last two weeks. When news of war had hit the streets, the foreman had been in such a hurry to join the thousands signing up for gladiator tryouts that he’d tripped over a bale of straw.
Madoc didn’t blame him. Those lucky enough to become trainees made one hundred gold coins a week. Those good enough to make Geoxus’s prized Honored Eight—the finalists who would compete for the chance to fight in the final match—made a thousand coins for each level they advanced. It was rumored that several spots had opened, too, on account of some illness running through the gladiator barracks. Three of the champions from the last war ten months ago against Cenhelm had died of it, and their positions could be anyone’s.
Madoc’s thoughts returned to Lucius’s trainer, and his offer in South Gate. That much coin would have been nice, but he had no intention of dying for it.
“Both,” Elias said as they turned the corner into the stonemasons’ quarter. Signs were already posted outside the apothecary declaring death to the Kulan gladiators, and showing images of their fire god snuffed out by sand. “We’ll be off for all the trial matches, as well. That’s two weeks’ vacation thanks to Ignitus.”
“Unpaid,” Madoc added, and received a jab to his ribs from Elias.
“In case you forgot, we raked in a winning purse last night. No digging for our dinner in Divine trash heaps this week!” Madoc winced, remembering a rough spot last month when he and Elias had searched for scraps of food in the Glykeria District—a wealthy, Divine area of the city—but Elias’s joy was unrelenting. He spread his arms. “Welcome to Deimos, Kulans!”
From across the street came a stream ofboos.
Madoc grabbed Elias’s sleeve, dragging him around a mule-drawn cart on the bricked path. Still, he grinned. His back ached from double shifts churning the vats of sand, water, and cement into mortar. His hands were blistered and sore from slopping the gray sludge into the spaces between stones shaped by the geoeia of the Earth Divine masons. Elias’s geoeia abilities were fit for the more refined jobs of masonry—shaping towers or carving intricate doorways—but his father’s debts had tarnished the Metaxa name, so he was forced to work with Madoc and other Undivine, doing whatever cheap labor they could get.
Neither of them was complaining about some time off.
They cut through a narrow alley toward the small courtyard the Metaxa family shared with four other families. The air here smelled faintly like dust and simmering stock, and the top of each door was lined with broken gemstones—Geoxus’s eyes, people called them, though the truth was the Father God could see, hear,move, through any kind of earth. He was always close, and even in a place thick with thieves and hunger, reminders like this warmed Madoc.
It meant he was never alone, however much he felt that way.
But as they drew closer, wind gusted down the narrow alley, carrying a spray of dust from the ground and an uneasy quiet. There was no laughter, no arguments carried from the courtyards or from inside the open windows. Even the street beyond, normally filled with horses, carts, and beggars, was still. Just as the wrongness of it registered in Madoc’s brain, Elias stopped, his head tilting slightly.
In wordless vigilance, they crept forward, past a splintering bluedoor and a small bronze prayer statue tucked into an alcove near their courtyard. The dried flowers and incense Madoc had placed beneath them before their last fight were crushed, as if someone had stomped through them.
His heart raced faster.
They reached the gate to their home but found it open, swinging on its hinge with a quiet squeal. The white and green stones of a children’s game had been abandoned beneath the potted orange trees, and the community meal table was empty. Including the six of them in the Metaxa home, eighteen souls shared this tight space, and yet no one seemed to be here.
Dread curled in Madoc’s gut as he registered the glowing embers in the central hearth and the tunic left halfway out of the washing basin beside it.
It was as if everyone had disappeared, or hidden.
Madoc scanned for intruders. Thieves were not unusual in the quarter, but they would have taken the clothes on the line, or broken into one of the homes. His gaze jerked up the stairs, to the balconies that led to the tenants on the top floor. The windows were shuttered. The doors, closed.
“What is...” Elias stumbled over a broken bowl but caught himself before falling. “Mother? Cassia!Danon!” He called for his younger brother, racing toward the first-floor apartment. “Ava!” Elias shouted, making fresh fear swell within Madoc’s lungs. He didn’t know what he’d do if five-year-old Ava was hurt—if any of them had been harmed. They might not be his family by blood, but they were all he had.
The door swung inward at Elias’s push, and Madoc blinked to adjust his eyes to the group of people crowded in the small kitchen.
