by Sara Raasch
“Or become mortal,” Ash finished.
Ignitus’s gray hair; the wrinkles around Geoxus’s eyes. Putting a part of their energeias into another vessel had started to weaken the gods’ immortalities.
So there was a way to kill Ignitus—by taking away or giving up his energeia. Now that Ash no longer wanted to kill him, having that answer felt cruel.
Ignitus clapped his hands together. “We need to return to Kula. Geoxus isn’t the only one who can gather an army. We’ll be ready for him and for whatever Anathrasa tries to do, and we’ll get the other gods to stand against them too.”
Tor gaped up at Ignitus. Ash recognized the shock on his face—it was the first time he had heard Ignitus say something in defense of Kula.
She understood the discomfort of listening to Ignitus speak and realizing that she agreed with what he said. It was a foreign sensation.
“He’s going to help us,” Ash told Tor. “All the wars, the arena fights—he’s been trying to protect Kula’s resources. I don’t forgive him.” She looked pointedly at Ignitus. “But he can help us now.”
Ignitus sulked. But he flinched when Tor pushed to his feet, eyes studious. Ignitus returned the stare before shifting and dropping his gaze.
He deferred to Tor.
Ash’s lips parted. The whole world felt like it fractured and remade itself anew.
Tor’s breath grated as he lifted his hand and pointed a finger at Ignitus, trembling. “Things will be different,” he said. “When we return to Kula, we want to be involved in its governing.”
Ignitus straightened his shoulders. “I’m the god of Kula. It’s my job to rule it.”
“You’ve done a shit job,” Tor said.
The surprise that painted Ignitus’s face was one of the most satisfying things Ash had ever seen.
“Kula is our country too,” Tor continued. He was close to tears.
Ash grabbed Tor’s hand and used it to pull herself to her feet. She felt stronger now, filled with the sensation of something long broken coming together. “What he’s trying to say is—you aren’t alone in ruling Kula. We all want to help make our country safe.”
Ignitus started. His eyes shifted back to Tor, and after a long moment, his eyelids fluttered.
“I’ll consider making some changes,” he whispered.
Tor nodded. A tear slid down his cheek, but he looked back at Taro. “We need to get all the Kulans to the docks. Our ship shouldn’t take long to prepare. The sooner we leave, the better.”
Ash braced herself. “I have to go to the palace. I’m not leaving without Madoc.”
Tor whipped a look at her, but she held up her hand.
“If we leave him, Geoxus and Anathrasa will force Madoc to take away other gods’ energeias and give them to Geoxus so he can invade the world. I won’t let them do that. We need to save him.”
“Ash—” Tor bit off whatever he’d been about to say. He looked her up and down. “Can you fight?”
He didn’t mention her lack of igneia, but it was heavy in his eyes.
She ground her teeth and nodded—though she truly didn’t know if she could fight. She had managed to fend off four centurions, but that was only thanks to Ignitus’s assistance. What would she do against Geoxus, Anathrasa, Petros, and even more centurions?
“I’ll have my guards head for the palace,” Ignitus said. “Brand and Raya haven’t yet left—they can help too. You just worry about getting Madoc. Leave the fighting to us.”
Ash bowed her head in thanks. She wasn’t sure she could speak.
What would Char say about this alliance?
Their god swept away, making for the corridor and his soldiers in the arena beyond. Taro and Spark shot aside, and once he left, they closed in on Ash, wrapping her up in a shared hug.
But Tor turned away, his eyes on the ceiling.
Ash pulled herself out of Taro’s arms. She took a wobbling step forward, surprised when she was able to catch herself and stand upright.
“I know this isn’t what you wanted,” she said.
He flinched but didn’t face her.
“I know you hate him,” she pressed. “I know you blame him for my mother and for every other horrible thing that has happened in Kula. And I know you probably hate me now too, for putting us in a position where we have to ally with him. But I’d do it all again, Tor. I’d relive you hating me over and over, if it meant bringing about what just happened—because talking with Ignitus, I felt all the horrible things I let happen start to heal—the war, Rook’s death.” Ash coughed, tears falling. “I felt hope.”
Ash didn’t have a chance to scrub her eyes clean before a blur of darkness and muscle grabbed her into a hug.
“None of this was your fault, Ash,” he whispered into her hair. “And I don’t hate you. Never. You’re so like your mother—but better, as she used to tell me. I’m prouder of you than I can say—and I know Char and Rook would be too.”
Ash sobbed, clinging to him, absorbing the feel of his lungs expanding and the pounding of his heart under her forehead.
Taro and Spark moved in from behind. And though she had no igneia, though more bloodshed no doubt stood between them and leaving Deimos, Ash relished this moment of calm.
In the comfort, she felt Char’s love.
She felt Rook’s strength.
She felt all of Kula swell with possibility.
Whatever Anathrasa truly wanted, whatever misguided invasion Geoxus had planned—none of it mattered.
Ash had peace in Kula within her grasp, and nothing would stop her from seeing it through.
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 th
at 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 t
o 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.”