He stood beside the last gladiator, his hands empty without a weapon.
Please don’t make me use geoeia, he prayed.
Geoxus was talking. Congratulating the Honored Eight. Saying they would serve Deimos proudly. That their names would live on long after their deaths.
“You look confused, Madoc,” whispered Petros beside him. “Don’t worry. I told Geoxus how well you’ve fought in my amateur matches. How you’ve built your career in the streets. He was willing to forgive you for breaking the law in exchange for what I assured him would be a fierce showing in the arena. He thinks you might be his secret weapon—isn’t that something?”
Petros had told Geoxus he was a fighter. That’s why Madoc had felt watched at Headless Hill, why Geoxus had chosen him for the Honored Eight. His father was punishing him for what had happened with Cassia, or for beating his hired fighters, or because he’d been born. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. If he couldn’t keep Eliasclose enough to throw geoeia, Geoxus would see that he was a fraud.
He focused on Cassia’s face. He remembered her hand, stretching toward him when they were children, filled with a chunk of dry bread. How she’d sat with him on the temple steps while Ilena had shopped at the market, chattering like a bird about the shapes of the clouds, and how well she could swim in the river. She’d given him all her food, and when he’d gobbled it up, she’d taken his hand and pulled him across the street.
Come on, she’d said.Let’s go home.
Madoc would bring Cassia home, even if it took fighting. Even if it meant winning.
Even if he had to lie to a god.
Six
Ash
ASH INSTANTLY REGRETTED telling Tor about Hydra’s message.
They stood in the finest viewing box of Crixion’s grandest arena, just behind the god of earth and the god of fire. The whole of the city screamed for the eight Earth Divine champions Geoxus had just selected.
One of them was Stavos of Xiphos, and it took every speck of strength left within Ash to not look at him.
“Stop worrying.” Tor echoed Hydra’s words to Ignitus, but it sounded like a plea to himself.
Rook’s jaw worked. “Maybe she didn’t mean a direct threat. Maybe the rumor was over something”—he motioned at the lavishness of the obsidian stage below, the rows upon rows of gilded gladiator trainees—“frivolous.”
Ash unintentionally followed his pointing finger to where Geoxus’s champions now stood. The first, the largest—Stavos. He thrusthis arms into the air and bellowed a war cry that stoked a frenzy of screaming in his honor.
The last time Ash had seen his arms lifted like that, they had been lobbing a sword into Char’s body.
Heart thundering, Ash’s eyes fled to the last Deiman champion. Gods often gave slots in wars to up-and-coming trainees, betting on their determination to prove themselves. Never had one progressed very far, but they always provided a great show in the preliminary fights.
Madoc, though, had been so shocked at his god selecting him that he’d toppled into the other fighters around him. He couldn’t have been any older than Ash, but he was slightly taller, more muscular, as Deimans tended to be, with dark eyes that snapped back and forth over the arena. Did he occasionally look at Ash? He shifted so much that she couldn’t tell. His nervousness made Ash the most wary of him, out of all of Geoxus’s champions. Madoc had to be hiding great skill for the earth god to give one of his coveted war spots to someone who looked terrified to be here.
An announcer started bellowing out a list of the Deiman champions’ victories. A few paces ahead of Ash, Geoxus toasted each one, twisting his head back and forth slowly, clearly aware of how the rays from his arena’s light-amplifying mirrors caught the opals in the crown of onyx set on his dark, shoulder-length curls. The hem of his black toga kissed the marble floor of the viewing box, one end hooked around his arm as he tipped his goblet at Ignitus.
To anyone unfamiliar with the fire god’s emotions, Ignitus would appear disinterested. But that twitch over his eyebrow, the flare to his upper lip—he was furious. Ash could see Ignitus’s mind whirling,trying to plan how he could wrest away control for the next public gathering.
Rook had to be right—the only thing a god worried about was an offense to their reputation.
Even if Ignitus could lose Kula’s last fishing ports in this war.
“Wine!” Ignitus barked, and a servant scrambled forward to refill his empty goblet.
Ash scraped her palms on the leggings under her gilded reed armor, chest burning as she eyed Tor. Behind them, two of Ignitus’s other champions made jokes and pointed at the Deiman fighters.
Tor absently scrubbed his chin. “We have to be sure,” he whispered.
Ash stopped herself from wiping her palms on her leggings again. Fidgeting would give away her nerves, and she couldn’t afford to show weakness here.
“I could ask him,” she breathed.
Tor frowned down at her.
