Twenty-Three

Madoc

MADOC SPAT BLOOD onto the smooth sandstone floor. The taste of it was bitter copper in his mouth, and as his tongue prodded a gash on the inside of his cheek, the bright spark of pain centered him.

“Get up,” Geoxus snarled from his twisted onyx throne. The glossy black spikes that made up the back fanned behind him like the tail feathers of a deadly bird. “Get him up.”

Madoc was hoisted to stand by two centurions. The metal plates of their armor pinched his sides, cold against his sweat-slicked skin. He swayed, unsteady, when they left him.

“I’m losing patience,” Geoxus said between his teeth.

Madoc blinked at Petros, standing before him in the throne room. His father doubled in Madoc’s hazy vision, a pair of furious gazes circling in a slow dance. They’d been at this for the better part of an hour—Geoxus ordering Madoc to give Crixion’s tax collector igneia, to prove that Madoc had control of soul energy. Madoc refusing to even try.

A centurion or two punishing his insubordination with their metal-coated fists or the weight of a stone wall on his back.

Giving Petros igneia was only the first step of Madoc’s training, Geoxus had told him. Soon, Geoxus would summon Ignitus and the real work would begin.

Draining a god, infusing another with his power.

“Where’s Ash?” Madoc stumbled a little, then caught himself.

The end of a spear whipped through the air and struck him hard across the middle of his back. Pain seared through his flesh, the bruise instant and deep. With a grunt, he fell to one knee.

Madoc could make these guards do what he wanted—he was confident in at least that aspect of his anathreia now. But what would that accomplish? If Madoc turned the guards against Geoxus, Geoxus would kill them, and then the god of earth would call more guards, and when those ran out, he would stone Madoc himself.

Refusing Geoxus until he was sure of Ash’s safety was Madoc’s only play. He could take a hit—that’s what Elias had always said.

The reminder of his brother brought a new stab of pain. Elias would have been taken to the jail after his arrest. He would be safe there, at least for now.

Madoc hoped.

“Give Petros igneia,” Geoxus demanded. “You are Soul Divine, Madoc. Your anathreia is composed of the six energeias. Did you think Jann surrendered simply because you willed it? Or that the Kulan gladiator was healed by your good intentions? You manipulated their muscles, the air in their lungs and the iron and heat in their blood. You used aereia and hydreia and igneia, all at once. Now weed it out. Give Petros fire energy and show me you can control your powers. Do this, and I’ll call for Ignitus’s gladiator.” He sighed through his teeth. “I don’t expect my guards have been too lenient with her, now that she’s unable to defend herself.”

Disgust lodged in Madoc’s throat. Every prayer he’d ever uttered burned in his chest. Every stick of incense he’d lit shriveled in his memory. He’d needed something to believe in; he realized that now. He’d needed a father, and the Father God had become his answer. Without any proof, Madoc had sunk his belief into Geoxus, and in turn, Geoxus had been there. Guided him to take the money he’d won from Petros’s fights to the temple, where priests like Tyber could care for those in need. Let Madoc convince himself that he was worth something, even though he was pigstock.

But that was all a lie, a story Madoc had told himself to get through the long, lonely nights when the power whispering through his veins had made the emotions around him too loud to ignore. He hadn’t survived because of Geoxus; he’d survived because he’d refused to die. Elias, Cassia, the Metaxas, their home in the stonemasons’ quarter—it had all been chance.

The god of earth looked like Petros now, threatening pain and fear to force the energeia out of him. How small Geoxus must have felt to need Madoc’s power, the way Petros had needed him to win Anathrasa’s approval. Looking at them, Madoc couldn’t believe he’d ever thought one would be his salvation from the other. God or man, they were both carved from the same clay.

They would get nothing from him.

A guard raised a stone in his fist, but as Madoc braced for the impact, a gritty female voice cut through the stagnant air.

“Enough.”

Madoc’s gaze was drawn to the hunched woman standing at the edge of his vision. Anathrasa watched him with a scowl from a bench below a massive painting of Deimos. The other countries of the world were scaled smaller around it to appear meager and unthreatening.

Hate shivered down Madoc’s spine. He could still feel the coolness of Ash’s skin beneath his fingers. Empty, he’d overheard Anathrasa tell Geoxus as they’d dragged him from the room. Not a drop of energeia left inside her.

His birth mother had taken Ash’s igneia. Had fed on it.

Ash’s panic replayed in every clenching breath Madoc took. She’d known what was happening to her, felt her power being ripped away, and he’d been unable to stop it, just as she’d been unable to save Cassia.

His pain was silenced beneath a suffocating blanket of rage.

“He needs to feed.” Anathrasa rose and walked closer, stopping between him and the guards. She moved more easily than before, her back straight and her steps light, and he couldn’t help thinking that it had to do with the strength she’d gained from consuming Ash’s energeia.

Dark thoughts swirled inside him. Geoxus had said he could take a god’s power—not for long, but maybe long enough to leave the god of earth defenseless.

To turn Geoxus’s geoeia on him.

Madoc didn’t even know if that was possible, much less how he would control a god’s power.

“I told you he’s too fatigued,” Anathrasa continued when Geoxus groaned in frustration. She’d been arguing this since they’d arrived. “He’s not going to be able to do what you want when his soul is starving.”

“Ignitus is in Crixion,” Geoxus said. “He’s got only a small group of guards to defend him. If he returns to Kula, he’ll have half the country rising to his defense. This needs to be done quickly. You told me he’d be ready. These exercises are becoming a waste of time.”

“This is how divinity works,” she answered calmly. “Your Deimans do not move mountains without first deriving strength from the earth.” She tugged at a white whisker jutting from her chin. “The boy needs a tithe.”

Madoc flinched.

“He needs pressure,” Petros growled. “He is willful. We went through this when he was a child. I tried to force the energeia out of him, but clearly I didn’t push him hard enough.”

“The Kulan girl did not force his anathreia free,” Geoxus mused, his fingers tapping on the arm of his throne. “He gave it willingly.” With a sigh, the god straightened, eyeing Madoc with paper-thin patience. “Very well, Madoc. You want the girl? You can have her. If that’s the cost of giving Petros this power—”

“I will never give Petros anything,” Madoc spat, realizing a moment too late that he should have first secured Ash’s safety. “He doesn’t deserve the power he has.”

He didn’t deserve to live. Madoc saw that clearly now. Petros had tortured innocent people—the Metaxas, Jann’s family, the Undivine in the poor districts. For a while Madoc had thought it would be enough to punish Petros by taking his money, but now he could see that would never hurt him. All Petros did, he did with Geoxus’s approval. As much as Madoc tried to cut him, he would never draw blood.

The only way to stop Petros was to destroy him, and Geoxus, too.

Madoc was starting to sound a lot like Ash.

Petros scoffed. “Defiant to the end.”

Madoc’s glare narrowed on his father. It may have been pride that straightened his back, but it was hate that curled his hands into fists.

Geoxus shifted to the front of his seat, his brows raising as he looked from father to son. His sudden interest felt like needles piercing Madoc’s skin.

“So there is something else you want,” he said quietly.

Madoc’s mouth grew dry.

“We have been applying the wrong methods,” said Geoxus. “It seems a tithe is precisely what he needs.”

Anathrasa smiled.

“If you see a desirable tithe here, Madoc,” Geoxus said, motioning to Petros, “by all means, take it.”

Petros’s laugh fell flat. “That wasn’t what we discussed,” he said.

Greed blossomed deep in Madoc’s gut. Take the energeia, his soul whispered, bringing a pang of hunger.

“I don’t need your approval to change plans,” Geoxus told him.

“The boy is harboring a grudge,” Petros said. “He means to see me humiliated. Surely you aren’t actually considering—”

“Think carefully before you question a god,” snapped Anathrasa.

Petros blinked at her in surprise, then dabbed at the sweat beading on his brow. “Madoc’s going to give me power, not take it. Father God, how am I to lead your charge across the six countries if I’m nothing but pigstock?”

“There will always be others,” Geoxus said, his stare still set on Madoc. “If this is what my champion needs, this is what he shall have.”

Petros glanced at Anathrasa, but she, too, was looking at Madoc expectantly.

The tension in the room thinned, scraping at his resolve. The anger, the frustration, had given way to support and understanding.

Madoc tried to shove it off, but their expectations clung to his skin.

They wanted him to take a tithe. To do what Anathrasa had done to Cassia, and Ash, and Stavos, and countless more. The thought repulsed him. It fueled his hate.

“I don’t need anything from you.” The words scratched his raw throat. “Any of you.”

Petros’s shoulder jerked in a shrug. “See? There you have it.”

“But you do need it,” Anathrasa insisted to Madoc. “You want his energeia. I feel it in you. You are a vessel, thirsting to be filled.”

He shook his head, sweat stinging his eyes. As soon as Anathrasa mentioned it, Madoc felt the deep well inside his chest. The empty cavity that held the memories he didn’t want to keep.

“Let it expand inside you,” she whispered. “Don’t fight it.”

He did fight it. He tried to close his mind to the sudden abscess inside him, but it was already there, waiting. A void, like Cassia’s void, in his own soul.

“There is nothing to be afraid of.” Anathrasa moved closer. “It is as simple as breathing. In and out. That is the way of energeia.”

“Anathrasa!” Petros started toward her, betrayal creasing his face, but was stopped by one of Geoxus’s guards. “Anathrasa, look at me. Please!”

“Stay back,” Madoc warned Anathrasa, but she kept steadily creeping toward him, ignoring Petros, who was now attempting to shove past the guard.

“You sense emotions the way others hear or see. You taste their longing and anger, and it gives you strength. That’s the anathreia in you. It hungers for the souls of others. At first a sip would do, but now you need more to sustain yourself. You’ll need to drink from those with powerful energeia for your anathreia to thrive. Divine, like champions. Like Petros.”

“Let me through!” Petros shouted as a second guard held him back.

Madoc’s hands flexed, then fisted. She was talking in riddles, trying to get into his head. “Everyone’s soul is the same. Energeia doesn’t make a person’s soul stronger.”

“What is a soul but the collective will of the heart? Intention is power, Madoc, whether it be a storm of rage or a whisper of regret. Energeia amplifies that intention, turns it to action.” She pressed her fingers just below her collarbone. “You know what your heart wants, Madoc.”

Energeia listens to the heart, not the mind. Ash had told him that when they were in the temple. He could feel connections forming in his brain—links between his intuition and hunger, between emotions and life. To take a person’s energeia was to open their chest and rip out their beating heart.

It was a good thing Petros didn’t have one.

He shook his head to clear it. He couldn’t listen to Anathrasa. He refused to make himself like her in any way.

But when he breathed in, his veins were tingling. He glanced at the guards who had beaten him, now holding back Petros, awaiting their Father God’s command. At Geoxus, watching him with anticipation.

At Petros, arms crossed, glaring at Madoc with the same smug superiority that had haunted Madoc all his life.

“Petros hurt you, didn’t he?” murmured Anathrasa. “He took your sister away.”

Madoc flinched. Petros hadn’t killed Cassia alone. Anathrasa had made it possible.

“He wanted to frighten you,” she said. “Great power comes from fear. He planned on taking the mother—he knew you were fond of her—but the girl got in the way. You remember . . . that day he came to ask about the street fights.”

Don’t listen, he told himself. But his anathreia was already swirling to life, and his throat was parched for a taste.

“He hurt her to incentivize you,” Anathrasa whispered. “She was begging for death in the end.”

Petros had taken Cassia because of him.

Petros had killed her because of him.

“What are you doing?” Petros now faced Anathrasa with his arms open, pleading. “Anathrasa, you condemn me? I have given you everything!”

Madoc’s hands were shaking. His jaw flexed. He could see Cassia’s face, twisted in pain.

A burning, poisonous anger raced down his limbs. His sister’s death demanded vengeance. Elias had known it. Elias had tried to act on it.

Now it came down to Madoc.

Petros’s arms dropped to his sides. A sneer curled his lips as he lifted his gaze from Anathrasa to Madoc.

Madoc tried to shove away the panic now blaring inside him, but memories were clawing to the surface. Things he didn’t speak about or even admit existed. He’d locked it all away, but it was spilling free now, like his anathreia, no longer able to be contained.

Madoc closed his eyes.

He was hungry. It was dark. He was in his bedroom, where his father had thrown him after he couldn’t lift a rock in the garden. He swept the dust and small bits of dirt into the center of the room with his hands and tried to move them. He tried and tried and tried, but he was still hungry, and it was still dark.

He was on the street. Starvation gnawed at his stomach, as if his belly button and spine were chafing together with nothing in between. He picked the pieces off fish bones that someone had thrown out. But a growling dog stole the carcass from him before he got enough.

Elias was at the table, spinning a clay bowl of broth lazily with the twist of his finger. You can have some if you can get it, he said. Madoc tried to pull the bowl his way with geoeia. He focused all his efforts. In the end, he slugged Elias in the shoulder, and the broth spilled on the floor, and they were both hungry.

Three brutes with rocks in their hands attacked him on his way home from the market. Pigstock, they called him. They stole the wheat he’d bought for Ilena. The beads he’d gotten for Cassia. They kicked him and pummeled him until his vision went dark. That night, he heard Ilena tell Elias never to leave Madoc alone again. He wasn’t strong like them. He wasn’t safe. And he was ashamed.

He lifted the heavy stones at the quarry. He hoisted them overhead again, and again, while Elias mixed the mortar. If he couldn’t have geoeia, he would be so strong that no one would challenge him. The other Undivine laughed. Don’t bother. You’ll never be enough.

But he’d tried anyway. He’d taken the beatings in the arena while Elias threw geoeia from the safety of the crowd. He’d done what he could to pay their debts, to protect the family.

In the end, they were right. It was never enough.

He was never enough.

But now he would be. Now he had anathreia—not a single energy, but six combined.

“There it is,” the Mother Goddess coaxed. “Now I want you to open your eyes and take what you need from Petros.”

Madoc’s eyes opened. Hunger surged inside him, teeth as sharp as knives. A buzzing filled his ears.

Behind the Mother Goddess, Petros paled. “He needs a tithe. Very well. We’ll find another. These guards will do fine.”

At the flick of Geoxus’s wrist, the centurions holding Petros back from Anathrasa stepped away. Not even Petros’s personal attendants were willing to cross the floor to assist him.

Petros stalked toward Geoxus. “I’m his father. This will never work!”

Madoc raised his hands. His anger had an appetite, and he was done starving.

“Stop,” Madoc said.

Petros stopped, controlled by Madoc’s command.

“What . . . what is this? Geoxus?” Petros’s gaze shot to Madoc. “You?”

Madoc thought of Cassia as a child, forming clay figurines with a swipe of her hand.

Begging him and Elias to bring her along to the river to play.

Laughing at something stupid Danon did, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.

“Turn around,” Madoc told his father.

Petros did, twitching, fighting the pull of Madoc’s order.

“Stop this at once, Madoc!” Petros shouted, but his words were thin with fear.

Anathrasa moved closer to Madoc’s side. “Feed, my son.”

A tempest was building inside Madoc’s chest. Chills raced over his skin. Petros had hurt Cassia. Petros had tortured him. Elias’s father was dead because of this man. Raclin, Jann, so many lives ruined because of one person.

It ended now.

Madoc inhaled and felt a cool rush in his blood. It soothed his wounds. His muscles relaxed, infused with relief. His stare held Petros’s.

You’re done hurting people, he thought. You’ll never hurt anyone again.

“This isn’t right. This isn’t—Madoc!” Petros’s voice cracked as he fell to one knee and clutched his chest. “Anathrasa! My love, you can’t possibly . . .” His words gave way to hacking coughs. Panic contorted his features. Madoc tasted the hot bitterness of it and swallowed more.

“That’s it,” Anathrasa urged.

Petros fought through the pain and staggered toward him. The stones trembled around Madoc’s feet but didn’t rise. Hate lashed across the space between them, but Madoc took that too.

He grew stronger. Untouchable. He didn’t know how he’d survived so long without this. Now that he’d taken the edge off, he could feel how truly empty he was. This was only the start. He needed more. He needed to drink, and drink, until the pain was gone.

Petros’s strangled scream became a lullaby, calming Madoc’s last frayed nerve.

“Yes,” Anathrasa said, pride brightening her tone. “He deserves this.”

Deserves. The word pressed through the rush of blood in his ears. Madoc wasn’t just draining Petros—he was punishing him. The way Ash and Cassia had been punished by Anathrasa.

This wasn’t right.

It felt right.

“Stop,” he whispered.

He couldn’t. He didn’t want to.

“Stop,” he said louder, trying to get ahold of himself. “Stop.” He was taking too much, too fast. His anathreia was working against his will, swallowing gulps of soul energy on his behalf. He had to slow it down. There had to be a way to shut it off.

He was becoming just like those he most hated. If Ash saw him now, she would look at him the way she looked at Anathrasa. In fear. In disgust.

Ash. He held her name in the grip of his teeth. She was fighting him in the grand arena. Smiling at him in the temple. Touching his hand after he’d saved her from Elias’s wrath.

His outstretched hands jerked, severing his invisible hold on his father. Madoc staggered back, his heart kicking against his ribs. Before him, Petros lay motionless on the floor.

Trembling, Madoc crept closer. Panic warred with a heady pulse of power inside him, twisting his stomach. He reached for Petros with anathreia, searching for hate, for life.

With a jerk, Petros scrambled drunkenly to his knees. He pressed his palms to the marble floor like he was trying to lift a stone with geoeia, and hissed out a breath.

“Excellent.” Geoxus was clapping. “He’s fed. Now let’s see if he can give power in addition to taking it. Guards! One of you, step forward!”

Anathrasa nodded her approval as one of the guards lifted a hand.

Sickness speared through any victory Madoc had earned. He’d nearly killed his father. He’d nearly become his father.

But Petros would never hurt another person with his energeia again.

Madoc shuddered. His anathreia was barely contained. He felt like he could punch through a wall. Break bones with the clench of his fist.

But there was something wrong about it too. Tainted. An anger that wasn’t his own moved through his veins, heating his muscles.

Petros’s energeia was powerful, as Anathrasa had said, but it was slick and tasted like rusted metal. Madoc wanted to be rid of it, but he didn’t want to give it to anyone else. If there was a way to destroy it, he would do so.

At the flick of Geoxus’s hand, a guard rushed toward Petros and assisted him to his feet. Madoc watched his father struggle, saw the deep lines around his eyes and mouth and the bow of his spine. Anger warped his every feature, as if the ugliness inside him had finally risen to the surface.

“Should have killed you when you were a baby,” Petros spat. “Should have let the birds pick the flesh off your bones!”

Madoc recoiled. Petros’s smooth front had vanished. Fury was all that remained, and it smelled like death. With one last burst of strength, Petros grabbed the spear from the unsuspecting guard, then wrenched back his arm, prepared to hurl it at Madoc’s chest.

Without a second thought, Madoc lifted his hand.

“No.”

Petros’s arm arced down, plunging the spear into his own belly.

With a gasp, Madoc lunged forward, terror ripping through him. Petros staggered, then fell back with a grunt, his eyes wide, both hands curved around the pole protruding from his body. Blood stained his tunic, spreading to the floor beneath him.

A few gasping breaths, and then Petros went still.

Madoc’s anathreia screamed in his ears.

His father was dead. Had he done this? He’d meant to stop Petros, that was all. To protect himself.

But he’d wanted Petros punished too.

He was vaguely aware of movement. The guards, leaving Petros in a puddle of his own blood. Geoxus’s tightening frown. Anathrasa, closing in beside him.

“You’ve done well,” she said, for only him to hear. “You’re ready.”

Madoc was reeling. “I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t think he would . . .”

From the hall outside the throne room came a thunderous crash, and the sound of moving footsteps. All eyes turned toward the entrance, where four centurions came rushing beneath the silver-plated archway.

“Honorable Geoxus!” one shouted, bowing before the god of earth. “We told Ignitus to wait, but he insists on seeing you now!”

“I told you, no interruptions!” Geoxus bellowed.

Madoc could not take his eyes off his father. He’d done this. He’d done it, even though he hadn’t held the spear. Even if he hadn’t told Petros what to do. Intention is power.

The next crash shook the floor and had Geoxus sweeping toward the entryway.

A strong grip closed on Madoc’s forearm, dragging his gaze away from the horror before him to the old woman at his side.

“Forget Petros,” she said, more urgently now. “Your purpose is far greater than anything he could have accomplished.”

His eyes flashed to hers as a new dread overrode the churning anathreia in Madoc’s body.

“What are you talking about?”

Her mouth warped into a severe smile. “It’s time to do what you were made for.”

He shook his head. Jerked out of her hold. “I won’t help Geoxus.”

Not if it meant more of this.

“No—we have to stop him. Otherwise, he’ll destroy everything.” Anathrasa kept her gaze on Geoxus as he spouted orders to his guards. “I can’t take the energy from other gods after what they did to me—he was right about this, at least. You can.”

Her words took a beat to sink in.

“You want me to drain Geoxus.” His gaze flicked back to Petros. She seemed as unaffected by his death as she would be a spider she’d accidently crushed beneath her sandal.

She nodded.

“He thinks he’s humoring me, tossing me these gladiators to feed on in exchange for a Soul Divine heir. A child who can use anathreia at his master’s bidding. He thinks that I believe him when he says I’ll stay at his side as we march on the other countries. But he forgets that I’m the one who made him, and I see that all he truly wants is power.” Her fingers dug into Madoc’s wrist, her yellowed nails pressing into his skin. “Unless you want the death and destruction he craves, we must take his energeia now and make him mortal.”

We.

Madoc was trembling. There would never be a we between him and Anathrasa.

But the truth punctured through his defiance. Now that Geoxus had seen what Madoc could do, he would use him to bring destruction to the world. Petros was only the beginning. Madoc would be forced to use hundreds more as tithes, and eventually give others energeia. Deimos was in danger. Kula would be next, and then there would be no stopping Geoxus.

Anathrasa was right. He had to end this.

And then, if he still breathed, he would end her too.

Madoc’s stare landed on Geoxus. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to take a god’s energeia, just as he didn’t know what it would do to him if he was able to complete the task.

A god’s power did not belong in his body.

It would kill him.

But if it saved a thousand more families like the Metaxas, he had to try.

With Petros’s slippery energeia still sloshing through him, Madoc reopened the void, the pain tearing up his throat as he focused on Geoxus’s back. He reached for Cassia, an image of her to hold in his mind, but landed on Ash instead. She was walking beside him in the hallway alongside the arena, just after Ignitus had killed her opponent. Grief was falling off her in waves, but still she’d walked tall, as though even death would not bend her spine.

He grasped that strength now.

But before he could act on the hunger in his soul, another crash came from the corridor. Guards swooped through the door, shoving Madoc out of the way in their drive to surround Geoxus. Anathrasa howled in anger as she was pushed behind a row of centurions.

“. . . a fire in the atrium!” someone was shouting.

“Kulan gladiators with him . . .” came another voice.

Madoc could barely distinguish their words over the grind and clap of metal armor, too loud in his ears, and the slice of anxiety through the air. Had the Kulans come for Ash? If they had, he would make sure Geoxus did not stand between them.

He grabbed the nearest centurion by the shoulder, shoving him aside. Another turned, but Madoc only shook his head, and the man scrambled away with a cry. He peeled the guards back, like layers of an onion, but still ten centurions blocked his path to Geoxus.

A great rumble shook the ground, and Madoc’s gaze shot to the throne room door, where the ground punched up through the stones, a quaking wall of gravel rising to seal the exit of the room.

“They’re here!” a woman screamed. Anathrasa.

A knot twisted in Madoc’s throat as he searched for the old woman among the centurions. The last he’d seen her was near Petros, but his father’s body was now hidden by a sea of armor.

The exit barrier was turning black, and then red in the center. The temperature of the room shot up, raising panic in the air. What were the Kulans doing here?

The wall gave a crack and burst inward, splinters of rock flying toward the hive of centurions with the speed of loosed arrows. Debris pinged off metal armor and shields. Gargling screams echoed off the ceiling.

Madoc’s gaze landed on Ignitus, bathed in blue flames, surrounded by his guards. Tor with an orb of fire in each hand. A gladiator with a spear lifted overhead.

Ash.

Ash was here.

Madoc’s blood surged as Ignitus carved a path in flames toward his brother.

Chaos gripped the room. From all around him came the clang of metal and the crack of breaking bones. Shouts rang out in horror and fury alike as Ignitus’s guards clashed against the centurions.

Madoc breathed it in, his muscles tense and ready. His heartbeat came in hard kicks to his ribs.

“Ignitus!” Geoxus roared. The floor gave a hard lurch, and Madoc was tossed to his hands and knees. A centurion fell on top of him but didn’t move.

Madoc didn’t have to reach out to feel the void of the soldier’s soul.

He shoved off the soldier and rose, searching for Ash. He couldn’t see her. He didn’t understand why she was here, but it didn’t matter. He had to get to Geoxus.

“You side with Anathrasa and you bring death to the world, brother.” Ignitus’s voice rose above the screams. “Did you think I’d let you pick Kula apart until nothing remained? That I would stand by while the two of you finished what she started all those years ago? You’re a fool if you thought I wouldn’t fight back.”

Fire whipped in a ring around the room, a snake eating all those in its path. Madoc dived just as it singed a tapestry on the wall above. Still aflame, it ripped free with a crackle and landed on several centurions.

“The time of gladiators is over,” Ignitus said. “Now we fight our own battles.”

Geoxus laughed, the sound sending terror down Madoc’s spine.

“Finally, we agree,” the god of earth roared.

A rumble thrust through Madoc’s chest, shaking his organs. He fell backward as the far wall of the throne room exploded outward, revealing the blinding white light outside. The courtyard beyond was coated in dust, plants and trees crushed and knocked down by the blow. Half of the mortals in the room dived for cover. The others clashed, guided by a fevered, desperate need to survive.

A hundred stones rose into the air around the newly carved exit and hurled toward the god of fire in the center of the room. With a hiss, Ignitus thrust his hands out, creating a wall of fire to block the attack.

The ceiling groaned as a section gave way to Madoc’s left. He threw himself clear as giant hunks of stone fell, crushing centurions and Kulans alike, but bounced harmlessly off Geoxus’s shoulders as he charged toward Ignitus. The gods collided with a deafening boom that shook the entire palace from the roots to the tallest tower.

Outside, Madoc could hear faraway screams as giant sections of the building began to topple.

There was no time left. The palace would be destroyed, and when it was, Madoc would die, and no one would be able to stop Geoxus.

Wiping the film of dust from his eyes, he rushed forward, shoving two fighters out of his way. He lifted his arms, calling on the pain inside him, demanding it feed on the figure in black standing in the center of the room.

It began like a whisper. A soft breath against his neck.

Then it took hold like a hurricane.

His body jerked, a puppet on strings. He pulled and pulled on Geoxus’s soul, unable to stop each huge gulp that filled him. His bones pressed outward. His skin stretched to the point of tearing. In his head, he could hear his pulse like the galloping of a monstrous horse. He could feel the cold chafe of sand against his heart.

It was going to kill him. Taking the soul of a god would tear him apart.

Still, he thirsted.

“No!” Geoxus’s scream filled the room. Filled Madoc’s head. Burst in his ears.

He squeezed his eyes closed in concentration. He wound his fingers around the invisible threads of the god’s soul and pulled harder.

But something inside him twisted, shuddered. Heated. This was wrong. There were no more rough edges. No heavy weight on his bones. The soul energy had changed. It was lighter now, harder to hold on to.

It burned.

He couldn’t let go. He sucked air through his clenched jaw, trying to control it, to release the reins, but the god’s soul had wrapped its tendrils around his limbs, his chest, his throat. He couldn’t peel free.

He gasped, his heart pumping harder, at the point of overflowing.

“Madoc, stop!”

He heard Ash’s voice to his left. But his gaze locked on Ignitus, standing before him. The god’s head was thrown back, his mouth gaping. His arms hung loosely at his sides.

Behind him, holding his brother’s body as a shield, was Geoxus.

It took Madoc a moment to make sense of the image.

Ignitus and Geoxus had switched places.

Madoc had drained Ignitus’s power, not Geoxus’s.

The god of earth tore his gaze from Madoc’s shocked face and reached toward his onyx throne. A crack resounded off the walls as one of the spikes on the back broke free and hurtled through the air toward his waiting hand.

He twisted and rammed the pointed end into Ignitus’s chest.

Beside Madoc, Ash screamed.