Ash.
Fear solidified into a ball of ice in Madoc’s chest.
Ash had come here to get his sister out, just as they’d discussed.
Petros came beside Madoc, a puff of dust rising from his toga as he batted it clean. “I feared for your life, son. They were so angry. Sofuriouswith you.”
Madoc flinched. “Where is Cassia?”
Ash’s face fell.
Panic skirted along the edges of his focus.Why are you here? What did you do? Where is my sister?He wanted to shout, but he had no voice.
The anathreia. He could make her tell him. He would pull it out of her.
But it had quieted again. Receded into that hole in his chest.
“What happened?” he managed.
“They came for you.”
Madoc tore his gaze away from Ash to a scowling Geoxus, barely distinguishable from the shadows just behind him. A glow began to emanate from his hand, a phosphorescent rock for light. Its growing brightness cast an eerie gleam over the damage as Geoxus pressed it into the wall.
“Me?” Madoc’s brows furrowed.
“No,” Ash shouted. “Madoc, that isn’t true. You have to listen—”
“Quiet,” Tor warned as a guard raised the blunt end of his spear to strike her.
“It was fortunate you weren’t here!” Petros motioned to the damage around them. “The Kulan gladiators climbed over my wall. We were shocked, caught completely off guard!”
Madoc could feel Ash’s eyes on the side of his face. When his gaze flicked in her direction, tears were glistening in her eyes, gathering dust as they trailed down to her jaw.
Ash and Tor couldn’t have come to kill him. They wanted his help—they’d said they needed him. Madoc had helped Ash. He’d held her grief in his hands, and when she’d seen the real him, she hadn’t looked away. She wouldn’t have betrayed him.
But here she was, with Tor, and his sister was nowhere to be seen.
“They set fire to my villa in search of you, Madoc.” Petros heaved a breath, head shaking. “They kept asking for you—Where is Madoc? Where is your beloved son? They seemed to think you would be with me, not training with Lucius Pompino.”
“That’s not what happened!” Ash cried.
Madoc shook his head. This was wrong. It was as wrong as Geoxus placing the weight of his war on Madoc’s shoulders.
“What is the meaning of this?” Madoc spun to find Ignitus materializing through a haze of gray smoke. His white robes offset the pale blue glow above his skin—the igneia just waiting to be set loose on anyone in his way. “My gladiators are caught outside the palace and I am the last to hear of it? This is an outrage. Where are they?”
Madoc slunk back without thinking. He didn’t need to be Soul Divine to sense Ignitus’s fury—guards and servants jumped out of his way as he approached his brother.
“Encased in stone,” Geoxus growled, pointing to where Ash and Tor were trapped in the corner. “Which is more than they deserve for attacking a prized son of Deimos and trying to kill my top champion!”
Ignitus bared his teeth in anger. “Set them loose immediately.”
The ground beneath Madoc’s feet began to rumble.
“Tell me you had no part in this,” Geoxus responded.
Ignitus’s eyes pinched around the edges. “If I did, what would you do, brother?”
Madoc’s pulse raced as the gods faced off. He remembered what had happened last time they’d argued. The quaking earth in the stable yard under Stavos’s body. The plunge into darkness.
