Not even the money he’d earned to save her would help.
“I’m not a champion,” he muttered.
“You’re fighting, aren’t you?” Her gaze met his, steady and brighter than the gold gleaming beside them. “For your people. Your family. Where I’m from, we call that brave.”
She saw through him like he was made of glass. Like she wasn’t afraid, or disgusted by what he’d proven capable of.
It was she who was brave.
Her hand dropped to her side. He wished she had reached for him.
“That’s good,” he said with a dry laugh. “Because I may have to move to Kula when this is all over.”
Her smile started small, then rose like the sun, the heat of it warming his skin. He became aware of the distance from her arm to his, and the delicate, lethal shape of her fingers, and the flecks of gold in her irises.
She wasbeautiful.
He swallowed, his throat tight. He shouldn’t have been thinking this way about her. He shouldn’t be alone with her, laughing, either. They were enemies.
Who were both on the same side against Ignitus.
“You would love it in Igna,” she said. “Our capital city. It’s quiet enough that you can hear the sea if you’re anywhere near the shore, and the crackle of wood from all the fires. There’s glass everywhere, rainbows of it. And the food...” She sighed. “You’ve never had anything as good as our cacao pies.”
He could see her there, listening to the sea. Laughing with her friends. For a moment, he imagined her reaching for his hand, dragging him through a garden of glittering glass sculptures.
“Maybe I’ll visit it someday,” he said quietly.
She nodded, but her eyes were sad. “If the gods don’t tear my home apart first. Ignitus has lost most of our resources. If this doesn’t stop, there will be nothing left for me to go back to.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. And he was. But that didn’t mean he could help her kill her god. He was just a cheat from the stonemasons’ quarter with a power he didn’t fully know how to use.
“Madoc?”
At the sound of his name, Madoc startled, wincing as the coins against his side jingled. A man in a priest’s robe approached from behind the statue, where the covered sanctuary extended along the length of the market. He looked as ancient now as he had been when Madoc was five, and moved slowly, with a slight limp.
“Tyber,” said Madoc, calming Ash’s worry with a smile as he strode to meet the temple priest. Tyber’s robe was stained with gruel from the morning charity line, though he didn’t seem to notice.
“Is it true?” Tyber asked. “We heard a rumor that you’d become a gladiator....” He tapered off as his gaze landed on Ash, whose hands were wringing before her waist.
“It’s all right, Tyber, she’s a friend.”
Ash’s arms lowered. “Hello.”
Tyber nodded slowly. “Any friend of Madoc’s is a friend of the temple.”
Madoc felt her curious gaze warm the side of his face.
“Tyber and I have known each other a long time,” he explained. “Ever since I was five, when he caught me stealing from the offering box.”
Tyber gave an amused snort. “He’d gotten his arm stuck in the slot in the door. The poor boy had to wait until morning for me to fish him out.”
Ash didn’t laugh; instead her lips parted in surprise. Maybe it should have embarrassed him for her to know he’d been poor, but it didn’t. She already knew his other secrets.
“He let me stay in the sanctuary for a while,” Madoc explained. “It was softer than the streets.”
“Petros threw you out,” Ash said.
He nodded. “I was here for two years until Cassia found me.”
