A knot formed in his throat, but he swallowed it down, searching for the Kulan guards who surely would be nearby. He didn’t see them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close.
“Do you want to be alone?” Ash asked as he finished climbing the steps to meet her under the shelter.
Yes. No.
“Did you follow me all this way to ask me that?” His tone was gruffer than he’d intended. As he moved closer, he gripped the satchelof coins against his side to keep it from jingling. Again, he looked for her guards, but either they were well disguised among the other patrons or she’d lost them between here and the arena.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d snuck away unattended.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He laughed dryly. He’d just been told he wasn’t fully Deiman, but instead might belong to the dead seventh goddess who’d been killed by her six children hundreds of years ago. Seneca thought that he could drain souls like a coconut. And his own brother was convinced he’d die before the war was over.
“I’m great.”
Her lips pulled to the side, as if trying to hide a smile, and when she knotted her fists in the long fabric of her cloak, she looked younger, more girl than gladiator.
“Me too,” she said, her gaze flicking to the nearest centurion, standing on the steps that led to the market. She turned her back to him, and Madoc did the same.
“Are you here to pray?” she asked. The breeze teased a loose strand of hair across her forehead. He waited for her to tuck it inside her hood, behind the half-heart-shaped shell of her ear, but she didn’t.
He shrugged. Could he pray here if Geoxus wasn’t his god? He didn’t know where to start to pray to Anathrasa. “To think. Maybe to hide.”
“Good luck with that,” she said, scowling up at the giant statue before them. “What are you going to do? About Cassia, I mean. Are you really going to try to win this war?”
Her questions filled the space between them, filled his lungs until he felt like he would choke.
He didn’t know how to answer. He’d barely known how he beat Jann; he had no idea how he was supposed to face a seasoned opponent trying to kill him with fire.
Especially if his opponent was her.
“I can’t help you,” he said instead. If she’d come here to change his mind, she’d made a needless trip. “I don’t know how I do what I do... it just happens.”
She didn’t move.
Neither did he.
“My mother...” She hesitated. “My mother used to say energeia listens to the heart, not the mind.”
He wasn’t exactly sure what this meant, but he knew power didn’t come from will alone—if it did, it would have manifested when Petros had tried to force it out of him as a child.
As it had in the tunnel, her grief misted around her, palpable and familiar. This time, though, he did not try to take it. Instead, he pictured Stavos and Ash’s mother in the arena—him cheating, Ash rushing to help—and rage spiked on her behalf. Madoc would have interfered in that fight too if Ilena, or Cassia—any of the Metaxas—had been in danger. Even if it had started a war.
It struck him just how brave Ash actually was. She hadn’t just defended her mother, she was defending her people. Facing a god’s wrath if her intentions were discovered. Somehow, amid the lies and bloodshed, she had found honor, and it made any war their gods fought feel small and petty.
“Do you miss her?” He didn’t know why he asked. They were opposing gladiators, both fighting their own battles. But he knewwhat it was like to be told your mother was dead, and even if he’d only been a child, he felt the kindling of likeness between them.
“Yes,” she said, a small line forming between her brows. “Do you miss yours? Your birth mother, I mean.”
“I never knew her.” He sighed. “It would be nice to talk to her. Petros is Earth Divine, so this... anathreia must have come from her side. Maybe she could tell me how it works.”
She watched him, all long black lashes and deep-brown eyes.
“My mother taught me how to use igneia. At home, before I started training.” She kicked at the bench in front of her. “She never wanted me to fight.”
Her words cut off, as if she suddenly remembered who she was talking to.
He didn’t want her to stop.
