Six

Ash

ASH INSTANTLY REGRETTED telling Tor about Hydra’s message.

They stood in the finest viewing box of Crixion’s grandest arena, just behind the god of earth and the god of fire. The whole of the city screamed for the eight Earth Divine champions Geoxus had just selected.

One of them was Stavos of Xiphos, and it took every speck of strength left within Ash to not look at him.

“Stop worrying.” Tor echoed Hydra’s words to Ignitus, but it sounded like a plea to himself.

Rook’s jaw worked. “Maybe she didn’t mean a direct threat. Maybe the rumor was over something”—he motioned at the lavishness of the obsidian stage below, the rows upon rows of gilded gladiator trainees—“frivolous.”

Ash unintentionally followed his pointing finger to where Geoxus’s champions now stood. The first, the largest—Stavos. He thrust his arms into the air and bellowed a war cry that stoked a frenzy of screaming in his honor.

The last time Ash had seen his arms lifted like that, they had been lobbing a sword into Char’s body.

Heart thundering, Ash’s eyes fled to the last Deiman champion. Gods often gave slots in wars to up-and-coming trainees, betting on their determination to prove themselves. Never had one progressed very far, but they always provided a great show in the preliminary fights.

Madoc, though, had been so shocked at his god selecting him that he’d toppled into the other fighters around him. He couldn’t have been any older than Ash, but he was slightly taller, more muscular, as Deimans tended to be, with dark eyes that snapped back and forth over the arena. Did he occasionally look at Ash? He shifted so much that she couldn’t tell. His nervousness made Ash the most wary of him, out of all of Geoxus’s champions. Madoc had to be hiding great skill for the earth god to give one of his coveted war spots to someone who looked terrified to be here.

An announcer started bellowing out a list of the Deiman champions’ victories. A few paces ahead of Ash, Geoxus toasted each one, twisting his head back and forth slowly, clearly aware of how the rays from his arena’s light-amplifying mirrors caught the opals in the crown of onyx set on his dark, shoulder-length curls. The hem of his black toga kissed the marble floor of the viewing box, one end hooked around his arm as he tipped his goblet at Ignitus.

To anyone unfamiliar with the fire god’s emotions, Ignitus would appear disinterested. But that twitch over his eyebrow, the flare to his upper lip—he was furious. Ash could see Ignitus’s mind whirling, trying to plan how he could wrest away control for the next public gathering.

Rook had to be right—the only thing a god worried about was an offense to their reputation.

Even if Ignitus could lose Kula’s last fishing ports in this war.

“Wine!” Ignitus barked, and a servant scrambled forward to refill his empty goblet.

Ash scraped her palms on the leggings under her gilded reed armor, chest burning as she eyed Tor. Behind them, two of Ignitus’s other champions made jokes and pointed at the Deiman fighters.

Tor absently scrubbed his chin. “We have to be sure,” he whispered.

Ash stopped herself from wiping her palms on her leggings again. Fidgeting would give away her nerves, and she couldn’t afford to show weakness here.

“I could ask him,” she breathed.

Tor frowned down at her.

She braced, expecting him to reject her idea. “I could mention rumors I’ve heard. His worries are my worries, right? I’m one of his champions. I heard horrible rumors of someone who could weaken him. I have to know if it’s true, and who might slight my god.”

Tor’s consideration darkened. A long moment passed before he nodded.

“But I’ll be the one to ask him,” Tor added on a huff of breath.

Ash tensed. Ignitus was muttering something no doubt contentious as Geoxus slapped him good-naturedly on the shoulder.

No, she wanted to argue. Let me. I should do it—I cannot lose you too.

The crowd in the stands cheered as the announcer described the victories of Jann of Arsia. Hawkers sold wine and food, shouting their prices as they walked the rows of seats. Even the Kulan champions behind Ash were jovial, snatching wine flasks from a table in the viewing box.

But Tor set off, focused, crossing the few paces of marble to the railing where Ignitus stood with Geoxus. The Deiman champions remained in that perfect row on the center stage, their backs to an assortment of Geoxus’s highest ranking officials.

The announcer moved on. “And, finally, mighty Stavos of Xiphos, who, despite the fire god’s meddling, snatched victory from the burning flames of treason!”

Rook cut along behind Tor. Ash stumbled, her body jolting to keep up with them both. Her heart now raced so hard, she could barely fill her lungs against the incessant pounding.

By the time they reached Ignitus, she felt as if her throat had swollen shut, and all she could see was the broadsword sticking out of Char’s chest.

“Great Ignitus,” Tor started. “If I may request an audience?”

Ignitus took a sip of his wine and scowled. “This tastes like vinegar,” he snapped.

Geoxus, in turn, downed a whole glass. “Really? I imported it special from Kula.”

Ignitus’s face flared red.

“Great Ignitus,” Tor said again, louder. “If I—”

“What?” A flash of blue fire lit on Ignitus’s arms.

Ash lurched, wanting to beg Tor to stop. She was wrong, she had misheard Hydra—

“A moment of your time, Great Ignitus,” Tor said. “In private, please.”

Geoxus chuckled. “Go—quell your champion’s nerves about the war.”

Ignitus shifted. A look of calculation passed over his face, and he smiled. “You misread their intention in coming over. Allow me to properly introduce you, brother, to Ash Nikau.”

Ash choked. But Ignitus’s smile was full and rich now.

Tor shot in front of Ash, his back to her. “My god Ignitus, I—”

“Ash is my newest fighter,” Ignitus said. “She was extensively trained by my late gladiator, and it was Ash who took action to stop your gladiator from using his poisoned blade.”

Geoxus assessed her face, her neck; lower, lower. Wrinkles at the edges of his eyes dug deeper, and that detail settled oddly in Ash’s mind.

Ignitus didn’t have wrinkles by his eyes. It was a sign of age, too mortal for a god.

But Geoxus snapped his gaze back to Ignitus and yanked Ash’s focus away. “There was no poisoned blade. It is tragic that you have forced this child to be a champion merely to support your made-up claims of sabotage.”

Ignitus darkened. “Nikau comes from a line of my most elite fighters. She may be young, but you yourself wasted a champion slot on an untrained street rat.”

He batted his hand at Madoc, far below and oblivious.

For the first time, Geoxus lost his composure long enough to scowl. “That street rat came from my most trusted sponsor—he’s brought me nine war-winning champions, you know. Another of my advisers assures me that he will heap victories at my feet. He’s straight from the slums of Crixion. Quite wild, brother. Untamed. He’ll tear the limbs from your young champion.”

Ash’s fingers were in such tight fists that she felt her nails puncture her palms.

Tor slid back to stand at Ash’s side. He didn’t say anything—couldn’t—but with him on one side and Rook on the other, Ash could almost pretend that two gods weren’t discussing her like livestock on a farm.

Ignitus cocked his head. “Interesting.” He clicked his tongue and grinned at Ash.

She hated him. She hated him, and she feared everything about the look he gave her.

“A proposal, Geoxus,” Ignitus said. “Let’s give the crowd a taste of the events to come. Your young champion against mine—but without energeia. We’ll put true skill to the test, the talents your obscure fighter supposedly has against the training and superior breeding of mine.”

Disagree, Ash begged Geoxus. Cast him off—

But Geoxus smiled and snapped his fingers.

The viewing box rumbled and a staircase indented from the railing all the way down to the fighting pit. The crowd on either side of the newly appeared path shouted in awe, the exclamation rippling across the stadium.

“Ready the boy,” Geoxus told a nearby servant. “Clear a space below.”

One servant scurried down the stairs for the stage; others followed and began shooing the trainees back.

A space cleared, a perfect circle on the velvet sands. A fighting ring.

Someone in the sand whooped with excitement. It caught like stray flames, and soon everyone was hooting and cheering. “Fight!” they chanted. “Fight! Fight!”

“Ash Nikau.” Ignitus said her name loud. He set a hand on her shoulder and she staggered, fighting a wince. “You will bring glory to Kula.”

It was a command. It was a threat.

Ash turned, pulling out of Ignitus’s grip, though he hadn’t dismissed her. But she couldn’t think rationally, could barely see enough to manage one foot in front of the other toward the stairs.

Now. She was going to fight a Deiman gladiator right now.

“The gods demand a match!” The announcer’s voice shifted, alight with eagerness. “Two of their champions will fight to the surrender in a test of physical strength—no energeia!”

Ash’s stomach cramped. The crowd crooned. No energeia meant the fight would be for indulgence—just fists. Just talent.

She could do that. Char and Tor had trained her in every type of combat.

Tor and Rook started down the staircase ahead of her so Ignitus couldn’t call them back or argue for them to stay. She focused on their rigid backs as she descended, and when they hit the sand, a path to the makeshift ring through the gladiator trainees waited. Some cheered like the crowd; a few whistled at her.

Ash walked toward the fighting ring, numb.

Tor caught her arm. “Ash.” His voice was deep and heavy, and to the people around, it looked as though he was offering her a final tip.

“I’ll ask Ignitus,” she whispered. It was all she could think to say, her eyes darting between Tor and Rook. “When I win. I’ll ask him about the rumors.”

“Don’t think about that,” Tor told her. “Think about the fight. Think about right now, and nothing else. Geoxus’s fighter will be sloppy from his limited formal training. He’ll likely only know a few attacks. You can learn his patterns. You can—”

“Tor.” Rook planted a hand in the center of Tor’s chest. “She’ll be fine.”

But the panic in Tor’s eyes stoked the same feeling in Ash’s chest.

She was walking into a fight against a Deiman gladiator. Just like Char had.

“Thanks,” Ash said to him, and to Rook.

She made her way forward, a knot in her throat, a weight in her gut.

That weight matched the heaviness of the ceremonial armor she still wore. It would be a hindrance, but it didn’t seem as though the gods would give her time to change.

Grit crunched beneath her sandals as she stepped into the fighting ring. The empty space around her struck like static.

This ring was for her. The crowd of other Deiman gladiators at the edges, the people thundering in the stands—they would watch her fight.

The knot in Ash’s throat grew, grew and grew, and she thought she might throw up.

She swallowed hard, hands in fists. She was a gladiator. She was her mother’s daughter.

A cheer went up—heckling, too—and the edge of the ring birthed Madoc.

“Show us why Geoxus picked you!” someone called.

The muscles in Madoc’s jaw bulged and he ruffled his fingers through his short black hair. His hand was shaking. Was he nervous?

She could use that. She would use that.

This was how she would earn her god’s trust. Afterward, Ash would go to Ignitus and ask, Surely there is no one who can worry you, Great Ignitus?

This victory would bring her closer to finding her god’s weaknesses.

Ash took stock of her body and how she was standing—legs squared, jaw set, fingers in controlled fists. She wasn’t giving away her own nerves, was she?

Above the fighting pit, Geoxus and Ignitus idly sipped wine, but their eyes blazed. The fingers of Ignitus’s right hand were rigid on his goblet, even so far as the viewing box his knuckles visibly white.

Tor and Rook shouldered their way to the edge of the crowd. Tor nodded at Ash, reassuring.

Madoc settled into a fighting stance. His leather skirt wavered around his braced legs, the muscles of his thighs taut. He’d taken off his gilded breastplate at some point—Ash envied him that easy freedom; her armor was one massive piece—and wore only a baggy linen shirt that cut deep down his chest, revealing a patch of dark, sweat-dampened hair. Sweat sheened his neck and face too, and his dark eyes flickered in the mirrored afternoon sun, creating a kaleidoscope of sparking light.

Ash didn’t take a fighting stance. Char rarely had.

“Steady, love,” came Tor’s voice from nearby.

My fuel and flame.

A drum thudded. Silence fell like a boulder into a pond.

“Attack!” Geoxus bellowed.

Ash inhaled, long, deep, centering. She needed to strike before Madoc did, to prevent him from using whatever tactics made him untamed. She needed to throw him off.

Ash dived across the ring. She raised a fist, pretending she was going for an overhead strike, and Madoc dropped his weight to lift an arm in a block. The fabric on his shirt went up on the side, revealing tan skin and the arch of his hip bone. Ash released her fake hit and slid to the ground, gliding across the sand, momentum carrying her under Madoc’s lifted arm.

She put her hand on his stomach. Even without igneia, Kulans had high body heat, a natural burn that would feel like a lit match to him.

Madoc chirped in surprise. The heat must have been more intense than Ash intended, because as she spun back onto her feet, Madoc crossed his arms over his head and yanked off his shirt as if she’d set the whole piece of fabric aflame.

Scars stretched across his back, a quilt of marks that rippled down his spine. Ash could tell that the ones across the middle had come from a whip.

She scolded herself as she felt an unexpected pull in her chest. Sympathy meant death. Likely Madoc had earned those scars in training—but they were old, long healed, which meant he was more experienced than his nervousness had suggested.

Halfway through ripping off his shirt, Madoc realized she’d tricked him, the fabric tangling around his arms and grim annoyance pinching his lips in a line.

The crowd barked and shrieked. Above them, Ignitus bayed laughter.

Madoc’s eyes went from Ash’s smugness to his unburned shirt and stomach. “No energeia,” he reminded her.

Ash smiled innocently. “I can’t help it if Deimans run cold. Want me to warm you—”

“Careful, Madoc,” came a voice over Ash’s shoulder. “Rules don’t matter to this one.”

Ash glanced back, unable to suppress the jerk of shock that launched her a full step away from Stavos.

He was here. Of course he’d come down from the black stage to watch the fight. But he was close, and he was staring straight at her, one eyebrow arching as his lip lifted in a sneer.

She knew Tor and Rook were across the ring, but she couldn’t spot them when she flipped her back to Stavos. She tried to focus on Madoc, who chucked his shirt aside.

Her vision wavered, her hands shaking so hard she knew everyone could see.

“Wouldn’t surprise me if she tried to burn us all up here and now,” Stavos continued. “But don’t worry, Madoc. At the end of it, she isn’t really a gladiator—she’s a dancer. Give us a twirl there, sweetheart.” He clicked his tongue at her.

The fighters closest to him laughed. The sound echoed through Ash’s mind, a ricochet of disgust.

Madoc, crouched in a defensive stance, didn’t attack. He looked at her anew. “You’re the girl who interfered in the fight,” he said. “You caused this war.”

“I did not cause this war,” Ash shot back, tapping into her anger and smothering the grief that writhed in her stomach. “Stavos poisoned my mother. He used an illegal move.”

She needed to attack. She should go for Madoc’s middle again. Maybe—

“Go ahead and keep saying that,” Stavos said, chuckling. But there was a tension to it, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw him elbow the men near him, egging them on to boisterous, supportive laughter. “Won’t matter. Soon, Geoxus’ll make sure everyone gets what they deserve, even your lying god.”

Ash winced. Stavos’s taunt drove into her chest.

Two voices overlapped. One, Ash recognized as Tor’s—somewhere to her left, he started to shout Stavos’s name.

But the other voice overpowered him.

“If I need your help, Stavos,” Madoc bit out, “I’ll ask for it.”

Ash felt a wash of surprise—and the smallest, most toxic wave of gratitude.

She glared at Madoc. “I don’t need a Deiman to defend me.”

She charged, bringing a true overhead strike down on Madoc. He blocked. Her wrist slammed onto his forearm, jarring all the way to her gut.

Stavos pierced the air with a whistle. “There’s that Kulan heat!”

The ring of fighters was manic now. They jostled each other and cackled wildly, shouting requests of Ash, the dancer. Ash, Ignitus’s pretty flame girl.

She fought to ignore them. She threw another punch, but Madoc blocked that too. Stavos’s face merged with Madoc’s, and she struck, hard; again, harder. Madoc blocked her attacks, his arms a blur.

One of his hands landed on her shoulder and spun her away from him. Careening, Ash fumbled to stay upright—and stopped in front of Stavos.

He bent closer to her but made sure not to enter the ring, not making the same mistake she had. “You want to know the real reason I won in Kula?” he asked, words low and fast, the stench of his breath like onions and garlic. “My god told me your mother would be an easy kill. And she was. She was weak and lazy, and you’ll die just like her.”

No one else heard him. Even the fighters closest to him were still drunk on their cheers, so only Ash felt the world tip at the spark in Stavos’s eyes, the way he slid his tongue over his teeth.

She lost her senses. She saw Char, dead. Her mother’s blood spreading across the sand, over the arena, darkening all of Igna.

A blur descended on her. Fingers clamped her arm and jerked her, spinning the ring in a wash of faces before Madoc had her knotted against him.

Panic and regret surged through Ash. Stupid, stupid—Stavos had been a distraction. Had he and Madoc planned this?

Madoc’s grip was unyielding, like being encased in stone. Ash’s shoulders scratched on the bristly hairs across his chest, but she couldn’t think of any moves to break free. He was probably glad to have her squirming, his arms restraining her against the sharp-cut steel of his muscles, and if she could feel every tendon of his, she knew he could feel the same of her.

“Are Deimans making it part of their training to fight dishonorably now?” Ash growled.

She tried to hook Madoc’s leg with her foot, but he bent backward, tilting her. As she kicked wildly, the crowd bellowed.

She couldn’t see Madoc’s face, but she heard him huff and felt his arms readjust around her. “I wouldn’t know,” he panted. “I’ve never trained.”

Ash spotted Tor. She almost cried out with relief, but he mimed throwing his head backward.

She did just that, her skull pummeling Madoc’s face. He let out a shocked oomph and his grip slipped, enough to give her room to free her arm, which she bent upward and slammed into his nose. Bone connected with a solid crunch, and Madoc’s grip released.

Ash was the one who held on to his arms now. She landed on the sand, dropped her weight, and heaved forward, propelling Madoc up, over, and down in a brutal, jarring flip. The effort left her breathless and sticky with sweat.

He slammed hard against the ground, grunting with the force. Ash doubled back to plan her next move—but Madoc whirled, kicking her feet out from under her.

Ash crashed down on top of him. For a moment, they were a tangle of limbs, too many arms, too many fingers. She scrambled, trying to aim a fist at his now-bloodied face, but he dodged it by grabbing her waist and flipping them both.

Madoc landed on top of her with his thighs pinning her arms to her sides.

Ash’s instincts screamed in fury and revolt. Sweat glossed Madoc’s short black curls to his temples, and blood poured from where she’d smashed her elbow into his nose. He lifted one fist back in the threat of a punch, the muscles bunching in his arms, his bare chest a sculpted illustration of Deiman might.

He looked like the gladiators depicted in mosaics and sculptures. Something a god would point at and tell his children, This is what you should aspire to be.

“Surrender,” Madoc ordered gruffly.

Ash’s eyes flicked up to where her god watched, but she couldn’t see him over the crowd. He was there, though. He was always there.

Stavos was there too. She could feel his eyes burning her skin.

“You’ll have to kill me,” she told Madoc. She would not lose unless she was incapacitated or dead. Ignitus would accept nothing less—he would barely accept that.

Madoc looked momentarily horrified at the line she had drawn: victory or death. He raised his arm higher, but there was a flash in his black eyes that might have been fear. His chest beat in and out in gasping breaths, skin glistening with exertion.

“Show the Kulan dancer her place!” Stavos called. The crowd answered with barks.

Madoc grimaced. He glared up at Stavos.

Ash might not have entirely understood Taro’s joke about the Port of Iov’s lighthouse looking like a man’s lighthouse, but she knew that the most sensitive part of her opponent was now directly over her chest.

She bucked her hips to make room and spun onto her side, thrusting her shoulder up into Madoc’s crotch.