by Sara Raasch
“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.
Seven
Madoc
MADOC REACTED BY instinct. His hand sliced down to the inside of the fighter’s shoulder, stopping her just before she hit the mark. The heat from her skin immediately scalded his palm and shot through his muscles and the small bones of his hand and wrist. Even without energeia, she was burning. If she had hit him where she’d intended, he’d just as soon be dead.
The girl bucked her hips, throwing his weight forward. His hands slapped against the sand on either side of her head, but his thighs gripped harder. Their faces were close now, close enough that he could feel her hot puff of breath on his jaw and see her smoldering eyes pinch with fury. His shadow cut across her shoulders and chest, highlighting the taut swells of muscle and the wells just above her collarbone. Blood from his lip dripped in a splash on her cheek, sliding down her jaw like a painted tear.
She was a trained warrior. She was better than him, faster than him. She moved like flames, even without the fire energy she so surely loved. If they’d been allowed to use energeia, he never would have stood a chance. But without, their match had come down to physical size, and he had that, if nothing else, over her.
Desperation had her writhing beneath him, her arms flexing within the grip of his knees. It pulled at him like too much gravity. It warred with the roar of the crowd, and the demands ringing through his head.
Fight.
Win.
Do not shame your god.
He hadn’t anticipated being chosen for the Honored Eight, but now that he had been, he couldn’t waste this opportunity. If he made it to the first match—the first real match—and won, he would bring home a thousand gold pieces. Add that to the training money and they’d have most of what they needed to pay off Cassia’s indenture.
“Get up, Ash!” called a male voice from the edge of the fighting pit. “Get up!”
Ash. Was that her name? It must be, because the girl’s eyes rounded and her efforts renewed, every muscle jerking in a frenzied attempt to break free.
Madoc held fast, wrongness tearing through him as he dropped his forearm to the girl’s—Ash’s—throat, careful not to press down too hard. His jaw tightened as the heels of her sandals pushed through the sand behind him. In his mind, he heard Ilena telling him not to use his fists to hurt people, and he swallowed a new gulp of shame.
“Surrender,” he pleaded. “We can end this.”
Static screamed in his ears over the gallop of his heartbeat.
He had to win.
He had to secure his place in the Honored Eight and get as much coin as he could.
Madoc’s breath scraped his raw throat. Disgust rolled through him, hotter than the feel of the girl’s skin. His eyes dropped from hers, unable to hold her stare, but he was destroyed instead by the quiver of her full lower lip, and the way it whitened as she gripped it between her teeth.
He wanted away from this girl and her potent, intoxicating fear. He wanted out of this grand arena. He wanted to run until his legs gave up and his vision went dim.
He wanted anything other than to hurt this girl the way Petros might hurt Cassia.
“Well done!”
Geoxus’s voice boomed across the stands, and the arena went silent. His applause echoed off the ground, the slap of a hammer against an anvil.
“Come now, Madoc. We don’t need to kill her. Leave that for the real match.”
Madoc scrambled to his feet. His gaze flew to the Deiman gladiators, his eyes landing on Stavos, now jeering at a gasping Ash. Had he really poisoned Ash’s mother? Was that why she’d started this war? Regardless, Madoc fought the urge to shove him out of the circle. He had to remind himself they were on the same side.
The Kulan fighter rose beside him, coughing, wavering as she planted her feet. He didn’t chance a look her way. Instead, he focused on the viewing box, where Geoxus beamed and Ignitus glowered.
Maybe Madoc was Kulan too, because his skin was burning. He was half naked in front of a full stadium. People were cheering for him, screaming his name, hurling insults at a girl he’d never wanted to fight. Arkos’s ear
lier demands that gladiators keep their heads high and their backs straight were the only things keeping him from crossing his arms over his chest to cover himself. Never in his life had he wanted to disappear so badly.
But this was what he needed—he had pleased the Father God. He had humiliated his opponent. He had shown he was worthy of Geoxus’s attention.
The Father God had to listen to him now.
Beside him, Ash gave a small wince, then dropped to her knees, her back still heaving with each breath as she dipped her head in reverence to her god.
Madoc had no idea if he was supposed to do the same.
“Line up!” From beyond the circle came the shouted orders of the trainers. They were returning to the tunnels beneath the stands. Relief flooded through him; he needed to get out of here and find Elias. He needed a moment to think.
In the box above, Ignitus spun toward his guards, leaving Geoxus surrounded by advisers. Only then did Ash rise.
“Next time we meet, you won’t be so lucky,” she hissed.
Madoc swallowed. All the lightness in her tone had been stripped away, leaving only anger. He knew he should scoff, or at least pretend he wasn’t rattled, but appearances were the last thing on his mind.
“I know.”
Her gaze shot to his, a promise of fire in her dark eyes. Her jaw twitched as if she might say more, but instead she tore off toward her people, who were congregating near the mouth of the center tunnel.
Madoc searched for his tunic and armor, but they were nowhere to be found. Someone must have already grabbed them. Sweat dripped down his temples, no longer from the fight but from this new wave of humiliation. Slipping into the nearest line, he forced his chin up and tried to pretend the whistles from the stands weren’t directed at him as he marched with the others out of the arena.
He’d no sooner crossed beneath the tunnel’s arched entrance than he was pulled aside by a broad, foreboding man in white silk.
“Come with me, Madoc of Crixion.” Lucius Pompino’s voice ground over Madoc’s name, as if the sound of it irritated him. “Geoxus wants to congratulate you in front of Ignitus.”
Madoc’s stomach dropped. “Now?” He swiped at the dried blood beneath his nostrils with the back of his hand. How could he face his god? He didn’t even have a shirt on.