At the mention of their eccentric old neighbor, Elias snickered. “Courting gifts won’t help. She’s not interested, you sorry pigstock.”
Madoc chuckled, used to the good-humored insult from his friend’s smart mouth. Elias knew that Madoc’s strange intuitions were far from ordinary, but he enjoyed reminding Madoc who had the real power.
“Did you enjoy yourself tonight? I gave the signal ten times before you decided to step in.”
Elias frowned. “What was it again?”
Madoc gave an exaggerated tap of his left hand against his thigh.
“Oh, right.” Elias laughed, and Madoc shoved him to the side. “It’s okay. The Great Quarry Bull can take a hit or two.”
Madoc groaned at the name Elias had chosen so that no one would be able to trace Madoc back to their home. It was true that he tended to heal quickly, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t felt each grain of sand flung in Fentus’s assault. Only a true Earth Divine could use geoeia to harden their skin like a rock.
They turned toward the river and the stonemasons’ quarter. Madoc had lived there with Elias Metaxa and his family since Elias’s sister Cassia had found him begging on the temple steps eleven years ago. Though Elias and Cassia were Divine, their mother, Ilena, andher other children were not, and when her Divine husband had died, leaving them with unsurmountable debt, they’d been forced to move into the slums with the Undivine.
“It was quite a show, wasn’t it?” Elias’s voice had quieted but was still pitched with delight. “Did you see how far I sent that dust wave? I’ll bet I’m the only one in the city aside from Geoxus himself who can throw geoeia like that.” He grinned, but his sandals scuffed the ground with each heavy step. It appeared their opponent wasn’t the only one who’d pushed his limits at the fight.
Madoc gave a snort. Elias might have put on a show tonight, but it was Madoc who had sensed Fentus’s weakness. Most of the time Madoc tried to ignore the constant battery of emotions people generally thought they were hiding beneath the surface, but at times like this it came in handy. He was learning to use empathy to his advantage. Where Elias was getting stronger, Madoc was getting smarter.
For months they’d practiced their routine, failing in the first three fights before finally finding their rhythm and securing a sloppy win. Madoc, looking the part of a fighter and trueborn Earth Divine, faced the opponents while Elias, who’d sworn to his mother never to enter a fight, stood on the sidelines, throwing his geoeia from a distance.
Making it seem like Madoc was the one doing it weakened the strength of Elias’s blows, but what the attack lacked in power, Madoc himself made up for in brute force. No one had any idea that he didn’t have geoeia, and due to the severe punishments imposed on cheaters, no one suspected their lie.
Not even Lucius’s trainer had seen the truth.
Madoc’s mouth opened, his conversation with the trainer ready to spill out, but he stopped himself. He was bound by the same promise as Elias—they’d both sworn they wouldn’t fight in the high-stakes matches Petros hosted around the city each week—and telling him about Lucius would only lead to trouble. Elias was distracted by shiny things, and a chance to earn real coin, like the payouts the gladiators made when they fought for Geoxus, would have them facing foreign competitors twice as formidable as Fentus, or leave them in a cell pondering their fates.
Anger sliced through Madoc’s disappointment as his mind returned to the boatyard. They’d beaten Fentus and walked away with nothing.
“We had him,” Madoc muttered. “That much coin could have gotten us through the rest of the month.” The half they would’ve given to the temple could have kept a kid off the street, or paid for new cots in the sanctuary, or kept someone out of Petros’s greedy grip.
“Oh.” Elias removed the swollen leather purse tucked inside his belt and slapped it against Madoc’s chest. “Did I forget to mention I snatched this from the bookmaker while he was carrying on about you being a cheat?”
Madoc grabbed the satchel, the thrill of his victory slamming back through him as he pulled open the strings and looked inside. Gold glinted back at him, dimly lit by the moon above. Geoxus had blessed them after all.
“You could have started with this,” Madoc said, clutching the purse.
“I could have,” Elias agreed. “But it wouldn’t have been nearly as dramatic.”
They veered to the opposite side of the street, up the broad stone steps of the temple where a dozen homeless Undivine slept, moaning softly in hunger or pain. As Madoc drew closer to the gates of the sanctuary, he felt as if a hand were closing around his throat. It didn’t matter how many years had passed since he’d first come here, he would never forget that thin, desperate hope that had pushed him to reach his skinny arm into the offering box, praying for a coin to steal so that he could buy something to eat.
Thirteen years later that same slot remained in the weathered wood of the door, beneath the line of gemstones people touched for luck or prayer. His large hand wouldn’t fit through now, but the coins did. They fell to the bottom of the box with a quiet jingle.
He would never be that boy again. As long as he could fight, he would fill these coffers, returning what he could of the money that Petros stole from the people.
The Divine might turn away pigstock like him, but the temple never would.
“There goes my new chariot,” Elias whined. “I hope you’re happy.”
Madoc grinned. “I’m sure your mother wouldn’t be at all suspicious if we came home in a chariot.” They couldn’t even afford a carriage ride across town. After their first win, Elias had brought a fat duck home for dinner, and Ilena had accused him of gambling and made him give the bird to Seneca to teach him a lesson.
Elias scowled.
Ilena wasn’t their only concern. Half the take usually went to the family to pay the bills and keep Petros and his dogs at bay, but if word got out that they’d bought new clothes, or spent more than they could pull at the quarry, Petros would hear of it and have them arrested for hiding taxable income.
“Does killing my dreams make you happy?” Elias asked, his glare scalding.
Madoc laughed all the way down the steps, but the truth needled deep beneath his skin. Tonight’s winnings were a bandage over a gaping wound. The Undivine would suffer as long as they were powerless, and they were powerless because they would never be afforded the same jobs, homes, and schools that those with geoeia had. In Deimos, if you were born pigstock, you died pigstock, and one man made sure you remembered your place.
