Madoc faced her, the palace at his back, the quiet stable yard feeling expansive around them. His eyes went hard with distrust. “Yes to both. Why?”
Ash matched his stiff-backed stance. She recognized that type of reaction. Many of the other fire dancers had looked at her like that whenever she’d slipped and said something against Ignitus, their features contorting with equal parts disgust that she’d spoken against their god and uncertainty that maybe they’d heard her wrong.
But Madoc’s reaction wasn’t in relation to his god. It was about his sister, and the difference made Ash’s chest swell with the need to explain.
She bit her lips, which made his eyes drop to her mouth.
She hadn’t meant to do that.
Sheshouldhave meant to do that.
She shouldn’t be worried about what he thought of her, but his eyes were dark and deep and he was standing so close, almost as closeas they had been in the dance.
He was so flustering.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Ash said. “I know what it’s like for someone you love to be trapped. Not knowing what the next day will bring for them. Forced to watch them suffer. It makes you feel so—”
“Helpless,” Madoc finished, studying her.
Ash nodded. “Yes,” she whispered, though she barely heard her own voice.
Behind her, the centurions at the gate shouted. “Halt! No beggars in Geoxus’s palace!”
“Let me through!” a different voice cried. “I must—I must see—Father God, please—”
Ash whirled at the sound of a fist striking flesh. The centurions had closed together, blocking the open gate, while a lone figure struggled to pass them.
“Father—” The man coughed, gurgled. “Father God—”
Madoc lurched forward, squinting in the darkness. “No—Stavos? Stavos—let him through! He’s one of Geoxus’s champions!”
Madoc took off and Ash shot after him by instinct, sandals slapping the packed earth.
Her stomach roiled. Stavos was here?
They got to the gate as the centurions pulled apart. Stavos fell to the ground between them.
Blood and bruises covered his body, and each breath came with a quivering gasp, vibrating his ribs, his arms—and the three arrows sticking out of his back.
A knot twisted in Ash’s gut. She had wanted Stavos to suffer, butshe couldn’t muster any satisfaction about this. Only nausea.
A lantern hung in the gate’s archway over them, casting the barest light. She grabbed for some of the igneia and flared it into a ball in her hands, bringing brighter light to the ground.
The centurions gasped. One snapped, “Damn Kulans.”
Madoc knelt and eased Stavos onto his side. “You, get help!” he shouted at a centurion. “Find him bandages, something!”
One of the guards bolted for the palace, the other for the guardhouse.
Ash moved the ball of fire closer. Her body ached as blood dripped from Stavos’s lips. She wanted to pull the igneia from her hands into her heart, infuse herself with strength. That desire grew when Madoc looked up at her and she realized he was just as scared as she was.
If Madoc was part of the plot against Ignitus and the gladiator her god feared, how did he manage to fill his eyes with such raw, honest horror?
Ash balanced the fire in one hand as she dropped to her knees and grabbed Stavos’s sweat-stained collar. Her resolve was fraying. If Madoc wasn’t part of this, and Stavos was dying—she had no leads. She had nothing.
Her mother’s murderer was here, bleeding out in front of her. He was dying at her feet, as she had wanted, as she hadachedfor.
It didn’t feel like justice.
