The answer throbbed in Ash’s mind.Geoxus. He was talking to Geoxus.
Ash had to find Madoc.
She bolted around another corner—and went sprawling through the air.
The floor rose up in a sharp wall that sliced right at calf height. Ash tucked her head before she hit the ground, rolling across her shoulders at the last moment. The flip rounded her onto her feet facing the way she’d come.
There Petros stood. His cheeks were red from chasing after her, his hand extended as the floor sank back to normal beneath him.
All thought left Ash’s mind. The only thing that broke through was terror.
She was panting, her body shaking. She had no weapons. She had nothing.
Petros scowled at her, his stout face turning purple with rage. “The Kulan. You—”
“Champion!”
Ash flung herself around. Up the hall, a trio of Ignitus’s guards were running toward her, flames in their hands.
She almost wept. When she opened her mouth, she heard herself croak out a trembling whimper, but she couldn’t muster enough shame to care.
The faces of the Kulan guards were fuming when they stopped before her.
“Ignitus has been asking for you,” one snapped. They were likely angry that she had been difficult to find. “He requests you join him fordinner with his other champion.”
Ash pulled the igneia out of the guard’s palm. He started, grimacing at her until she pressed that hand to her chest and moaned with gratitude. Heat filled her heart, searing and strengthening, calming her twisted nerves.
The guard cocked his head at her. “Champion? Are you all right?”
Ash nodded. “I am now.”
She turned, pulling the igneia back out and into her open hand—
But the hall behind her was empty. Petros was gone.
Ash staggered, her firelight wavering off the bare sandstone walls. Each crevice looked like eyes in the shadows, watching; ears, listening.
Petros knew she had overheard him. Geoxus knew too.
“Champion?” one guard pressed. “The carriage is waiting for you. The other champion is as well.”
She swung back to the guards. “Take me to Tor. Now.”
The guards led Ash to the arena’s outdoor stable yard, the one used by the gladiators and their attendants. Only two carriages remained: the one for Ignitus’s champions, with Tor, Taro, and Spark seated in the high, open-air compartment; and one that Ash didn’t recognize at first. It bustled with servants loading weapons and armor.
One of the servants was Elias. That was Madoc’s carriage.
Ash scanned the people around it, but Madoc wasn’t there. He hadn’t come back from the temple yet? Where was he?
The Kulan guards broke apart, two climbing into the driver’s seat of the carriage, one mounting a horse. Ash lingered on the ground, her fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides.
When Tor met her gaunt eyes, he instantly leaped over the carriage railing and closed the space between them. “What happened?”
But Ash turned back to Elias. He was handing up a load of wrapped swords. He felt her watching him and turned.
His eyebrows bowed, a question, before he stuffed his hands into his pockets and took slow, easy steps toward them. None of the other servants noticed; even the Kulan guards, who had been so impatient to leave, were distracted by something that had broken on the carriage.
“Petros is behind this,” Ash hissed when Elias was within earshot. “I heard him in the halls. He was talking to someone about how Stavos escaped from him. I thinkhe’sthe cause of the champions’ pox, the gladiators disappearing. I think he does something to them. And they talked about how Madoc knows too much, and Petros has Cassia so he can keep Madoc in line.” She looked up at Tor, breathless. “I don’t know what he’s planning, but he put Madoc in this war. He knows what Madoc is.”
