Rise Up from the Embers

by Sara Raasch

  But there was more to it. Tiny particles clinging to the once-wood that made her gasp.

  This fossil wasn’t quite anything—because it was pieces of everything.

  It was air. She breathed, but aereia wasn’t hers yet.

  It had once been fire, heat and pressure bearing down on these trees to transform them. But the fire was long gone.

  And, most important, it was stone.

  Yes, this petrified wood was mostly plant—but Ash could feel grains of stone buried in the petrified wood. They didn’t rage strongly like igneia did, but the geoeia was there all the same, quiet and steady and strong.

  “Geoeia!” She kept her eyes closed, her voice tight with relief. “Tor—it’s geoeia!”

  “Open this box,” he told her. “You have Geoxus’s power now? Use it. Remember how he moved—thunderous but intentional, heavy and grounded.”

  Ash’s brow furrowed and sweat popped up along her hairline.

  She couldn’t treat geoeia like igneia, just as she hadn’t been able to treat hydreia like igneia either. Geoeia was in no hurry. It was content to wait and watch, so much of what Ash was not.

  On a deep inhale, Ash called out to the stone particles around her. Some responded, tingling to life at the pull of her geoeia. One type of rock was strongest, shards of it all around her, humming at her awareness.

  “Quartz,” she said, half to herself, half to Tor.

  “Ah—Geoxus loved quartz. Remember? He’d drape himself in it. Rose and white and gray and black. Make it listen to you. You are its god now.”

  Ash seized that thought. I am your god now.

  Quartz was like a long-beloved pet of the earth god, and it reacted to Ash, thousands of slivers of it vibrating in every strand of petrified wood.

  Ash contracted her fingers, each one curling slowly, steadily. She was in no rush.

  Then she pushed.

  The floor of the petrified wood prison trembled, bucking Ash backward.

  “Good, Ash!” Tor called.

  She held her grip on the quartz, forcing every particle of it to expand outward, dragging the plant and air particles with it—

  The room quivered, and cracked, and exploded apart.

  Ash tucked into a ball as pieces of the petrified wood prison erupted around her. When the last one stilled, she yanked her hands down and blinked through the dust and debris.

  Tor was upon her in an instant, scooping her to her feet and sweeping her into a bear hug. She clung to him, arms knotted around his neck, hanging off the ground with the force of his grip around her waist.

  He set her down abruptly and looked her over from head to toe, noting the smears of dried blood on her body, her tattered clothing. “Are you all right? Where are you hurt?”

  Ash scrubbed the heel of her hand across her eyes, clearing her tears. “I’m fine,” she lied, because physically, she was. Everything else about her, though—her mind, her heart, her soul—teetered on the brink of collapse. But she couldn’t break down yet.

  The space they were in was a kind of holding cell. A low ceiling and wide floor were covered in velvety moss of the softest, calmest shade of hunter green, and steps at the edge of the room led to an open iron door.

  “What’s happening?” Ash looked back up at Tor. He was outfitted for battle, no surprise, and his eyes were bloodshot, likely from lack of sleep.

  “How long have I been missing?” she amended, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

  Tor’s face was grim. “Over a week.”

  Ash rocked backward. A week? Gods, what had happened in that time—to Hydra, to their building army, to Anathrasa’s own growing power, but mostly, to Madoc?

  In response to the questions on Ash’s face, Tor’s lips thinned. “Hydra has been here, looking for you. I followed just behind with a Water Divine crew. Hydra sensed this box by means of the water in these plants, but she had me come for you—she and Florus are in his throne room.” Darkness raced across Tor’s face. “Biotus is here.”

  Ash blinked, stunned. “What? Why?”

  “He’s demanding they surrender to Anathrasa and come with him to Crixion.”

  “Anathrasa said we had a month before she’d make a move!” But the plea sounded childlike in Ash’s ears. Of course Anathrasa hadn’t waited; likely she’d said that after the battle in the Apuit Islands just so she could get away.

  A low growl rumbled in her throat. Stupid. How could she not have foreseen this? Believing in Anathrasa’s promise of a timeline had made Ash soft, made her weak—

  Tor touched her shoulders. “We all believed her, Ash.” His face softened. “We’re going back to the Apuit Islands,” he said, and took a step away.

  But Ash stayed in place.

  “And leave Hydra to face Biotus?” Ash shook her head. “She’s earned my help.”

  “She’s a goddess, Ash. She can handle this.”

  “We need Hydra to prepare for our own attack. And I need floreia.”

  That made Ash’s chest swell. With all she had endured at the plant god’s hands, she was not leaving Itza without his energeia.

  And with Biotus here, she would make him give her bioseia too. She would get it all.

  Ash pushed around Tor. “Take me to them or go back to the Apuit Islands yourself.”

  “Ash.” Tor said her name, a warning. “We’re leaving. You need to rest.”

  Instinct screamed for Ash to listen to him. The gods were distracted now—she could get back on the boat Tor had used and flee to the Apuit Islands. She could get as far away from Florus—and Biotus—as possible.

  Her insides clenched with a desperate wail that she managed to choke down. She wanted to get away. She was tired and hungry and sore, and she was terrified still—so terrified that she was shaking before she could stop herself.

  Fury overcame her, pushed down for the past hours—days?—beneath her terror. But it leaped at her call now, raging and ready to obey and destroy.

  “I need,” she said, running a tongue over her lips, “floreia.”

  The world dissolved in orange and gilded blue, and before Ash could stop herself, she was an inferno. The moss-covered room faded around her.

  Hydra. Go to Hydra.

  The next thing she knew, Hydra was shrieking.

  “What the—Ash?” Her voice was sharp with shock and fear, but Ash barely had the sense to focus on that.

  She’d done it. She’d traveled through fire. She glanced down at her body. Alongside the melted divots she’d made in Hydra’s ice platform, her sealskin suit was entirely burned up, leaving only her fireproof Kulan underthings.

  And she was in Florus’s throne room.

  A towering ceiling arched over a long, narrow floor. Like that storage room, every surface was covered in moss, but peppered with trees and branches and vines—Ash expected to hear the chirping of birds or the buzzing of insects, but the silence around her was thick. Not the peaceful silence of a still forest; the tense silence of a held breath.

  Hydra stood next to her, tears in her eyes, hands to her mouth. Her watery eyes shot from Ash to the two gods beside her, and she looked like she was only barely restraining herself from grabbing Ash in a hug.

  But Florus was here, too, sitting on a throne made of one solid piece of tree trunk, formed and curved to his body. He stared at her, his expression blank; Ash appearing here was probably the last thing he’d expected.

  Right now, Florus was the least of Ash’s concerns.

  The god of bioseia towered next to Florus, clearly someone who was used to his size being intimidating enough to make everyone cower. Pelts of various furs were bundled over one shoulder, not for warmth, but more like trophies of kills, and he wore only worn fur wrappings around his muscular thighs. His pale chest was cut with swollen muscles, veins bulged up his rippling neck, and his dark eyes were filled with intensity beneath thick braids of red-brown hair.

  He looked as though he’d been in the middle of yelling. His dark
eyes locked on Ash, like an animal sensing prey.

  His intensity took on a seductive air and he made a show of slowly analyzing her. “Well, well. Anathrasa mentioned I might run into you—Ash Nikau, is it? The mortal who thinks she can defeat gods.”

  Ash returned his look with a grim smile. “I have defeated gods.”

  His facade tightened. “I didn’t come here to waste breath on a mortal girl,” he spat. He looked back at Florus. “I’m done playing games. I’m taking all of you to Crixion. You’d be smart to come quietly, or I’ll have fun laying waste to your islands with my creatures.”

  Ash noted then that the room was empty except for the four of them. There were surely mortals living in Florus’s palace—had they gotten to safety? She had to hope so.

  “That’s all this is—you playing Anathrasa’s servant?” Hydra stepped closer, hands on her hips. “Does she make you fetch her robe for her, too?”

  Biotus growled. “Careful. I’ve broken you once, I can break you again.”

  Hydra’s nostrils flared, her cheeks reddening. Ash didn’t know what Biotus had meant by that, but she was ready to fight if Hydra moved.

  The water goddess needed no one’s help, though. Hydra surged toward Biotus, rising high on a small wave of water that shot out of the plants at their feet. She was level with his soulless eyes. “We both know you did nothing but obey Aera’s orders just as you’re obeying Anathrasa now. You are a chained dog, Biotus, and I will drown you.”

  She reared a fist back, but vines shot up from the floor and twisted around her wrist.

  Hydra whipped a glare at Florus, who was now standing.

  “We’ll go with you, Biotus,” Florus said. “Willingly.”

  Biotus swung on him with a manic grin.

  Ash watched the plant god, who was looking straight at her, and wavered, the healed wounds from his attack aching.

  “If,” Florus added, “you can defeat my champion.”

  Biotus’s grin tightened. “Your champion? Ha! I’ll rip any Plant Divine to—”

  But Florus pointed at Ash. “Not Plant Divine. Her.”

  Eleven

  MADOC

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND why everything must be white,” Ilena muttered as a tight-lipped servant fastened a silver circle brooch to the front of her pristine white gown. She and Elias had been sent to Madoc’s room to prepare for tonight’s ball, a celebration Anathrasa had announced after Madoc’s visit to the temple, ten days ago.

  “It will be stained before they even bring out the feast,” she continued, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “Someone’s going to bump into me and spill their wine and this beautiful gown will be ruined.”

  Elias passed Madoc a knowing look as he adjusted the belt over his own white tunic. Ilena had been making subtle jabs about the ball all week. At first she’d been careful not to say anything in front of the palace staff, but as the days grew closer, she’d become bolder with her complaints.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out why. After Anathrasa’s announcement in the temple, word had spread of her mortal son—a human with the healing power of anathreia. Hundreds of Deimos’s most influential citizens would gather to celebrate his return tonight, and Ilena, who had loved Madoc as her own since he was six years old, was not taking the news well.

  She wasn’t alone, either. It was one thing for Anathrasa to announce their connection to a courtyard of injured fighters, but entirely another to stand before the most powerful people in Deimos and admit that Madoc had not been the Earth Divine gladiator they’d once called champion. He shuddered to think what the gladiators he used to train with would say about that. Given Lucius’s bitter expression at the arena ten days prior, he doubted the old sponsor would be too happy about it.

  He paced toward Ilena, the servant backing away wordlessly to give him room. There was little they could say without being overheard, so he simply hugged her close, calmed by the steel grip of her wiry arms.

  “You look lovely, Mother.” It didn’t matter who claimed him, or why. Ilena would always be his true mother.

  When he pulled back, her lip trembled.

  “I don’t like this, Madoc,” she said. “I don’t like being this close to her. Not after what she did.”

  Memory punched into Madoc’s chest. Every moment around Ilena brought thoughts of Cassia, and usually he managed to focus on other things to avoid the pain. But this moment, Ilena’s closeness brought memories of Cassia raging up through his mind and heart, the ache of missing her like a scar on his soul.

  “I know,” he whispered.

  “If she touches another one of my children, I . . .” Her hands fisted in his tunic.

  Madoc squeezed her shoulders.

  “I know,” he said again.

  Elias cleared his throat, gaze tilting to the servant who entered the room with a box of hairpins for Ilena. It was safe to assume Anathrasa’s staff was listening to everything.

  “We’ve hardly seen you this week,” he said, changing the subject as he sat on the edge of Madoc’s bed. “Where have you been?”

  “Everywhere,” Madoc answered, aware of the guards just outside the door, and the woman now trying to twist up Ilena’s unruly hair. “We went to the poorhouses in South Gate. Then the stonemason’s quarter. The shelters along the Nien River. I’ve been ti—” He swallowed the word, not wanting to worry his family. “Healing people.”

  After Anathrasa had seen the way the people responded to his work in the sanctuary, she’d prepared a tour around Crixion to earn the people’s loyalty. It was a chance for Madoc not only to gain her approval—something he’d need if she was going to be aware of him taking Aera’s and Biotus’s energeias—but also for him to continue to test their connection in small, subtle ways.

  When her focus was elsewhere, as it had been when she’d been trying to tithe in the garden, he could harm her. A small pinch to his arm or rib had her absently rubbing the afflicted area.

  When she was agitated, as she frequently became at her guards and servants, he could prick her heel by stepping on a small rock.

  When she was pleased with his healing, and with the gratitude of the people, nothing he did got to her.

  It had to be a matter of distraction. Tor had talked about being strong, protecting the people and things that mattered with the power he’d been given. Anathrasa had tried to wound him after he’d interrupted her tithing—a cut to her shoulder that he’d never felt. He’d been with Elias then at the palace barn. He’d felt like he had before all this began—when it was just the two of them, taking on the brutes of the city in a street fight.

  He’d felt safe, because Elias had his back.

  At the gladiator games, the thorns on the rose Anathrasa had grasped had cut his hand. He’d been anxious about the fighting. When she’d been angry at him on the docks, she’d attacked him and felt the slap.

  Every time they hurt each other they’d been upset.

  If that vulnerability made them weak, then he needed to guard himself against it. Keep calm. Keep his temper in check. If not, she could injure him.

  Maybe even do more. Apart from tithing on the servant girl in the garden, Anathrasa hadn’t shown an ability to fully use anathreia yet, but she might not need it. If she didn’t trust him, she could keep him in line through pain.

  “Healing people.” Ilena’s huff softened the lines that had formed between his brows, pulling him back to the room with his family. “Is it working? Are you . . .” She motioned toward him.

  He forced a smile, pushing his experiment with Anathrasa to the back of his mind. “Yeah. I’m pretty good at it, actually.”

  “Of course you are.” Her lips curved, but her eyes stayed wary.

  “And the people? They’re pleased to see you?” Elias’s pointed look said he meant Anathrasa, not Madoc.

  “Of course,” Madoc said. It wasn’t like he could object when centurions shoved a man who’d called him a traitor into a carriage or removed a group of sick women
who’d declined his healing from a hospital in South Gate. He had to stay quiet and look the part of the loyal son to gain Anathrasa’s trust. If the Mother Goddess seemed healthier with each healing, he noted it in silence and kept his mouth shut. He could no sooner risk her sensing his true intent than he could deny the people of Deimos—people Geoxus had ignored—the help they needed.

  And it wasn’t like he was hurting anyone. Quite the opposite—for the first time in his life, he was doing something that mattered. Not just winning a few coins in some street fight to donate to the temple, but making real change in people’s lives. Taking the cough from a baby. Watching a woman stand straight after removing the arthritis from her spine. Fixing a man’s hands that had been burned in the riots.

  He wanted to tell Ash about it. All of it—the smiles and relief. The rush of anathreia in his veins. The limitlessness of the power he was finally learning to control. Anathrasa wasn’t the only one getting stronger; he was too. But Ash hadn’t made contact with him since his arrival almost two weeks ago—Hydra hadn’t either—and that worried him. He knew she was busy learning her new powers and preparing for war, but he couldn’t help feeling as though something bad was happening. Something he could have helped her with.

  He told himself he was being lovesick and foolish. That this was the price of loving a goddess. When they did talk, he’d tell her about all of it—all except his link with Anathrasa. Ash would be too concerned, and with good reason. If she told Hydra, she might see him as a liability. Pull him away before he could do what he’d come to do.

  He couldn’t let that happen.

  He’d promised to help her. He’d vowed to be worthy enough to stand beside her.

  He couldn’t do any of that if he was deemed dangerous to their cause.

  “Well, I hope you’re still being careful,” Ilena cautioned. “The city is not safe.”

  Like Elias, she was talking about Anathrasa. He nodded.

  “You need to get dressed, dominus.” A man in white robes carried Madoc’s evening attire into the room—a black silk toga and silver-strapped sandals. It was almost exactly what he’d seen Geoxus wear at events during the war with Kula, and he was sure that wasn’t a coincidence. Anathrasa wanted the people of Deimos to know that her son was still one of them, and that their beloved fallen god was not forgotten.