Rise Up from the Embers

by Sara Raasch

  “Of course you get to wear black,” Ilena said under her breath.

  He reached for the clothing in the man’s arms, taking the thin silver crown with a small sphere in the center off the top. An unending circle. People in the city were always talking about that when he helped them.

  As he traced the circle under his fingers, warmth tingled under his collarbone. There was something soothing about that circle. The shape of it. The meaning behind it. It was like his anathreia, ebbing and flowing. He hadn’t truly understood the nature of energeia before now.

  Before Anathrasa had taught him at the temple.

  “Madoc,” Elias said, tearing his focus from the crown. His brother and mother were staring at him, grim expressions on their faces. He looked down again at the circle, but the metal was now cold in his hands.

  What was he doing? Anathrasa wasn’t helping him do anything to get closer to the other gods. This crown was a leash tethering him to her, nothing more. He had the sudden urge to snap it in half.

  Gritting his teeth, he placed it on his head. Another time, another place, Elias would have laughed at him, but tonight he only looked away. Grabbing the black toga, Madoc stepped behind a screen, removed his tunic, and slid into the fine black silk. It slipped over his shoulders, cascading down his back. It was difficult to close—the knot in the sash at his waist wouldn’t stay tied. He had the sudden fear that it would loosen while he was at the party, and when the toga fell open everyone would see him naked.

  Ash would find that very funny, he imagined. The thought of her laughter settled him. He would have given anything to hear it now.

  “Dominus? The ball is about to begin.” The man who’d brought his clothes shifted nervously beside the door.

  With a sigh, Madoc stepped out. Elias gave a huff at the sight of his silk toga, but Ilena shot him a withering look as she approached and fastened the sash into a tight knot.

  “Keep your eyes open tonight,” she said quietly.

  He wanted to tell her this ball didn’t mean anything. Anathrasa would never be his mother. But too many ears were listening.

  He smiled. “You do the same.”

  She kissed his cheek and strode to the door, where four palace guards escorted them down the corridor and stairs toward the heart of the palace. He sensed their consciousness as they walked—it was as easy as breathing, after all the pain he’d tithed. A charged fog of worry wrapped around each of them, hidden behind their stoic demeanors. He hadn’t felt this in any of the guards before—they’d been pleased to serve the Mother Goddess, as eager as any of the palace staff. But now, he couldn’t help wondering if the guards, like Lucius, were wary of him.

  Madoc’s brows pinched together. He didn’t like the idea of people being frightened of him. He wasn’t like Anathrasa—he didn’t want war, or for people to be needlessly hurt. But how could anyone see that? All week he’d been telling the people his aid was her idea.

  He wanted to explain to them that he was different, that he was here to help them, but he couldn’t do that without betraying Anathrasa.

  Unless she didn’t have to know.

  He could rid these guards of their fear the way he had freed the people in the city of their pain. They didn’t have to talk about it. He could tithe before they’d even noticed. What was the harm in that? If nothing else, it was good practice for when he would take Aera’s and Biotus’s powers.

  Stepping closer to the front two guards, he inhaled, reaching for the tight tendrils of fear around their chests. Then he simply sliced the bands around them and set them free.

  The guard on his right, a lanky boy with a ghost of a beard, stumbled, then straightened. His steps were lighter, his shoulders drawn back. The guard to his left blew out a slow breath, his stocky arms relaxing at his sides.

  Elias gave Madoc a strange look, but Madoc only smiled.

  Music reached his ears, a flutter of strings and a warbling flute. The beat of a drum put a bounce in his step, and as he entered the courtyard, the buzz of emotion was as constant as the voices from the crowd. Respected Deiman men and women were in attendance, along with Aera’s entourage—a flock of beautiful, fierce people in barely there wisps of gauze and lace—and Biotus’s leather-clad warriors, who seemed content to feast and ogle the Air Divine in the absence of their leader, who still had yet to return after leaving the arena during the fight.

  But beneath the pulse of mingling energeias, Madoc felt the steady, familiar consciousness of the Undivine. Not just servants, but also attendees. Merchants in the harshly woven tunics of the working class. Esteemed tradeswomen in dresses no finer than Ilena’s had been when they’d lived in the quarter.

  He was certain Geoxus had never held a party that mixed Divine and Undivine guests, and as his gaze landed on Anathrasa, seated on a white marble throne beneath the starry sky, something bent in his soul straightened.

  He felt himself smile at her.

  She smiled back.

  Guilt ate at him. But this was what he’d always wanted, wasn’t it? Divine and Undivine on equal footing. And Anathrasa had brought it about.

  He didn’t want to be grateful for anything she offered. He knew it was wrong. And yet . . . he was glad.

  Perhaps she wasn’t as completely rotten as he’d thought.

  When she rose, the courtyard fell silent, as if everyone had been waiting for her to speak.

  “Our guest of honor has arrived,” she announced, raising her hands in his direction. A gap opened in the crowd, and he made his way toward her, returning the smiles of those he passed. Each one made his tense shoulders ease a little more.

  “You all know Madoc Aurelius,” she called as he took his place beside her. As every eye moved over him, he felt the heat creep up his spine. “Champion of Deimos. Beloved by our great Geoxus before his untimely death. He is a hero in every sense of the word, and I have spent the week proudly watching him attend to the sick and injured of our city as he would a beloved member of his own family.”

  Madoc scanned the crowd, finding Ilena and Elias still where he’d left them, on the far end of the courtyard. He could see that, despite her earlier complaints about possible stains on her white dress, Ilena held a goblet of wine in her hand, one she was making quick work of finishing.

  “It is with great honor that I present the pride of Deimos, and my heart—my beloved, too-long-estranged son, Madoc.”

  Madoc had expected to feel rage. Disgust. To force a smile to cover the scowl he was sure would twist his lips. But as the crowd erupted in cheers, he felt none of it. That strange tingling that he’d felt when he’d relieved the guards’ wariness on the walk over had returned beneath his breastbone, and he was almost . . . relieved.

  These people weren’t afraid of him, as he’d thought the guards had been. They were pleased.

  He wasn’t sure what to make of that. Were they happy with how Anathrasa had shaped their world?

  Was he?

  A centurion was waiting nearby, and as Anathrasa excused herself to speak to him, the crowd overran Madoc. Some simply wanted to make his acquaintance or say they’d cheered for him in the arena during the last war with Kula. Others wanted to thank him for healing their sister, or their father. It was overwhelming—all the gratitude and emotion pooling around him.

  But it was also . . . nice.

  Living with Petros as a child, he’d watched these parties from the back rooms, hidden because of his Undivine status. He’d been cursed at, and beaten, and had fully embraced his future as pigstock when Cassia had brought him home to live with the Metaxas. But even when he’d fought alongside Elias, he’d known he was a fraud—using Elias’s geoeia to trick the crowds.

  Now people knew who he was. They knew who his mother was. And they weren’t afraid or disgusted.

  A buzz filled his brain, headier than any wine could provide. He wished Ash were here. She belonged in a place like this—

  A cool hand grasped his. Madoc looked up into a Deiman woman’s face, h
er dark eyes lined with kohl and her lips curved in a sultry smile.

  “Does our champion dance?” she asked, but it was more of a command—before Madoc could reply, she’d dragged him out onto the floor.

  The woman entwined her arms around his neck, her body flush with his. Madoc went rigid, but music thrummed from instruments in the far corner, and as other bodies joined the dance alongside them, his tension again dissipated.

  Madoc’s hands settled on the woman’s hips and she swayed against him, pulling him along to the music.

  Everyone around him was smiling. Enjoying themselves.

  Happy.

  Anathrasa had made them happy.

  Maybe he should talk to her. Maybe she wasn’t fully set on the cruelty he’d thought—

  “Madoc. You’re needed.”

  He turned to see Elias standing too close to him. The woman looked at him with a frown that turned into a quick smile.

  “You could join us,” she purred.

  Madoc expected Elias to grin back at her. She was his type—pretty, flirty.

  But Elias grabbed Madoc’s forearm. “Not likely.”

  And he dragged Madoc off the dance floor.

  “What is wrong with you?” Madoc stumbled after him until they were both standing beside one of the stout white columns, where tables held suckling pigs and baked fish.

  “What is wrong with you?” Elias shot back. “What do you think you’re doing out there?”

  Madoc swallowed a knot of guilt, realizing he hadn’t looked for Elias and Ilena since the announcement had been made.

  “Jealous?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Hardly,” Elias muttered. “I think Ash might feel differently if she’d seen you dancing like that, though.”

  Madoc blinked, his mind clearing. Ash.

  He shook his head. He’d danced with that woman—and hadn’t thought at all about whether or not he should.

  “Half the guests are props, you know,” Elias continued. “Anathrasa probably told that woman to dance with you. Centurions pulled most of the people here out of their homes to put on a show tonight. Threatened to throw them in jail if they didn’t display the proper respect. Look at that man over there dancing. Have you ever seen someone less happy in your life?”

  Madoc followed Elias’s gaze to a man dancing alone beside the musicians. He didn’t look like he was in dancing shape—sweat dripped from his ruddy face, and he favored his left side—but his smile was as broad as the half-moon overhead.

  So broad, it appeared forced.

  But as Madoc focused on him, he felt only gratitude.

  “If he was unhappy, I would sense it,” he said, a frown pulling at his brows. People were talking all around, masking their private conversation, but he couldn’t be too careful.

  “Because nothing gets past you, is that it?”

  Madoc hesitated. He wasn’t claiming to know everything. But he had power—one that magnified the emotions of other people and was getting stronger by the day. He’d know if people were pretending for his benefit.

  He could tell for a fact that Elias felt no such pressure.

  Madoc looked for Anathrasa, but she must have gone somewhere with the centurion he’d seen her with earlier. Slowly, he took a plate and piled on food. “How do you know these people were taken out of their homes?”

  “I heard some centurions talking about it yesterday.” Elias reached for a goblet of wine a server carried by on a tray. “Said they were to arrest anyone who put up a fight.”

  Madoc remembered the way Anathrasa’s guards in the city had ushered away anyone who wasn’t happy with their presence. Had they been jailed as well, or were they at this party, forced to make amends by playing a part? His stomach was starting to churn.

  “She’s dangerous, Madoc. I’ve been thinking about what we discussed. About your . . . shared abilities.”

  Madoc hushed him, his teeth pressed together. The last thing he needed was Elias getting arrested with the others.

  “What happens to you if Ash really can destroy her?” his brother whispered.

  Madoc tried to swallow, but a knot had formed in his throat. “Anathrasa says I can’t kill her if I die because she’s too strong. I think the same is true in reverse.”

  “You think?” Elias scoffed, and Madoc felt his uncertainty, as thin and sharp as his own. “Well, that’s encouraging.”

  Doubt slivered through the lightness left over from his tithes on the palace guards. “It’s fine. We’re only connected to a point. She can tithe, but she still can’t use anathreia.”

  “I don’t know,” Elias said. “You seem like you’re having a good time.”

  Madoc stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Elias pulled him by the silky sleeve of his toga behind a pillar. “It just seems a little odd that I can tell this party’s one step above prison torture and you can’t.”

  Madoc flinched, glaring into the rainbow of colorful gowns sweeping across the courtyard. Lines cut between his brows as he measured the shadows beneath his brother’s eyes and wondered what he’d been through before Anathrasa had pulled him from prison.

  His gaze broke from Elias’s and shot around the courtyard, bouncing from one smiling face to the next as the laughter turned harsh in his ears. They appreciated him, he could feel it. But Anathrasa wanted him to drain the energeias from Aera and Biotus. To do that, she didn’t just need Madoc strong, she needed him willing. She needed him to believe in her cause.

  She needed him to trust her as much as he needed her to trust him. Otherwise he’d never do as she asked.

  “Boys.” Ilena strode toward them, the lines around her eyes strained, her white gown a sharp contrast to the sun-kissed tan of her skin. She was holding a new goblet of wine in her hand. “Having fun?”

  “How could we not?” Elias said, turning away. He didn’t mention Madoc’s connection to Anathrasa, and Madoc knew he never would. It was in their code as brothers to carry the burdens of each other’s secrets. “Madoc and I were just talking about how generous the Mother Goddess has been to the people of Deimos.”

  “Good,” Ilena said tightly, and her hard glare put Madoc in his place. “Because I’d hate to think what would happen if you weren’t enjoying yourselves.”

  It was one thing for Elias to point out something he’d been missing. It was entirely another for Ilena to do it. Her words cut him with the jagged edge of reality, and on his next breath, he tasted it—the sour bite of anxiety lacing through the air. It wafted off every person here, young and old, rich and poor, Divine and Undivine.

  He looked again at the man Elias had pointed out, dancing faster now, sweat leaking down his face, a pure stream of terror radiating off him. The woman who’d dragged Madoc to the dance floor was tangled up now with an Undivine man, but need pulsed off her, to dance, and keep dancing, to have fun. Near the corridor to their right, one of the guards Madoc had followed earlier was picking a fight with an Animal Divine warrior twice his size without a single ounce of self-preservation.

  Without the fear Madoc had taken from him.

  His pulse beat faster.

  How had he missed it?

  “It is a lovely celebration,” Ilena said, then gave a small smile. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go check on Ava and Danon.”

  With a strained look that punctured Madoc’s heart, she turned and strode back toward the corridor they’d come from. Before Elias could follow, Madoc snagged his arm.

  “She’s doing this to me,” he said, anxiety thinning his words. “Anathrasa. She’s making me see what she wants me to see.”

  Elias met his gaze, worried but steady, and Madoc knew what he was thinking.

  If Anathrasa was clouding Madoc’s mind, her anathreia was coming back. Once she could use it, she would be harder to kill. She could turn not just Geoxus’s centurions against Ash, but anyone she wished.

  Even him.

  He had to get the other gods’ energeias befo
re Anathrasa’s power grew. If she sensed what he’d done, he’d say he’d done it for her. He’d just have to get the powers to Ash before the Mother Goddess took them.

  “Aera,” he said. “She’s here somewhere. Help me get her alone.”

  Elias glanced over Madoc’s shoulder, to the far side of the courtyard. “I saw her go that way not too long ago.”

  Madoc set off that direction, a grim smile pulling his lips thin. Tonight, he would take Aera’s energeia—enough of it to transfer to Ash.

  Tonight, Anathrasa’s hold on his mind ended.

  Twelve

  ASH

  SHE WAS FLORUS’S champion?

  Ash’s pulse beat in her temples, rocking her vision, making her dizzy. “I’m not yours, Florus,” she spat, and she felt flames lick up her back, giving her wings of fire. “You just tried to kill me and held me prisoner for a week. I will not fight for you.”

  Biotus eyed her, her blue flames reflected in his dark eyes, and beamed as though she hadn’t spoken at all. “It’s an interesting challenge. I accept. If I defeat this mortal, you will come with me willingly to Crixion.”

  “You can’t sacrifice her, Florus!” Hydra shouted. “He’ll kill her!”

  “No.” Florus flicked a speck of something off his green tunic. “She can’t die. The fight will be to the surrender.”

  That made Biotus flinch and eye Ash again, the fire on her back, the way she’d appeared like a god.

  “Florus.” Hydra said his name like a gasp of pain. She was realizing how he knew that Ash couldn’t die—because he had tested the theory himself.

  Ash couldn’t look at Hydra. Couldn’t fall apart any more than she already had. “I am not yours, Florus,” she said again, her jaw clenched.

  “No, you’re the world’s, aren’t you?” Florus’s eyes were narrowed on her. “Prove it. Defeat the mighty god of bioseia. Save us, Ash Nikau.”