Set Fire to the Gods Page 2

  Maybe he could sweet-talk Cassia into fixing it tomorrow. She would, after she smacked him upside the head with it. She had informed Madoc and Elias on more than one occasion that she did not have the time or patience to coddle giant babies.

  With a resigned sigh, he headed for the corner where an olive seller sold his wares during the day. Elias always chose this place to meet because he liked the look of the merchant’s daughter.

  “Took you long enough.”

  Madoc turned to find the scrawniest stonemason ever to live jogging across the street. As he approached, a grin dimpled his right cheek, half hidden by his shaggy black hair.

  Relief broadened the smile on Madoc’s lips, masking the fear that prickled beneath his breastbone. Now that he was with Elias, Madoc realized just how close they’d been to getting pulled apart.

  “I had a few stops on the way back,” Madoc said. “Had to get a drink. Picked up some pickled bull testicles from the South Gate market for Seneca.”

  At the mention of their eccentric old neighbor, Elias snickered. “Courting gifts won’t help. She’s not interested, you sorry pigstock.”

  Madoc chuckled, used to the good-humored insult from his friend’s smart mouth. Elias knew that Madoc’s strange intuitions were far from ordinary, but he enjoyed reminding Madoc who had the real power.

  “Did you enjoy yourself tonight? I gave the signal ten times before you decided to step in.”

  Elias frowned. “What was it again?”

  Madoc gave an exaggerated tap of his left hand against his thigh.

  “Oh, right.” Elias laughed, and Madoc shoved him to the side. “It’s okay. The Great Quarry Bull can take a hit or two.”

  Madoc groaned at the name Elias had chosen so that no one would be able to trace Madoc back to their home. It was true that he tended to heal quickly, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t felt each grain of sand flung in Fentus’s assault. Only a true Earth Divine could use geoeia to harden their skin like a rock.

  They turned toward the river and the stonemasons’ quarter. Madoc had lived there with Elias Metaxa and his family since Elias’s sister Cassia had found him begging on the temple steps eleven years ago. Though Elias and Cassia were Divine, their mother, Ilena, and her other children were not, and when her Divine husband had died, leaving them with unsurmountable debt, they’d been forced to move into the slums with the Undivine.

  “It was quite a show, wasn’t it?” Elias’s voice had quieted but was still pitched with delight. “Did you see how far I sent that dust wave? I’ll bet I’m the only one in the city aside from Geoxus himself who can throw geoeia like that.” He grinned, but his sandals scuffed the ground with each heavy step. It appeared their opponent wasn’t the only one who’d pushed his limits at the fight.

  Madoc gave a snort. Elias might have put on a show tonight, but it was Madoc who had sensed Fentus’s weakness. Most of the time Madoc tried to ignore the constant battery of emotions people generally thought they were hiding beneath the surface, but at times like this it came in handy. He was learning to use empathy to his advantage. Where Elias was getting stronger, Madoc was getting smarter.

  For months they’d practiced their routine, failing in the first three fights before finally finding their rhythm and securing a sloppy win. Madoc, looking the part of a fighter and trueborn Earth Divine, faced the opponents while Elias, who’d sworn to his mother never to enter a fight, stood on the sidelines, throwing his geoeia from a distance.

  Making it seem like Madoc was the one doing it weakened the strength of Elias’s blows, but what the attack lacked in power, Madoc himself made up for in brute force. No one had any idea that he didn’t have geoeia, and due to the severe punishments imposed on cheaters, no one suspected their lie.

  Not even Lucius’s trainer had seen the truth.

  Madoc’s mouth opened, his conversation with the trainer ready to spill out, but he stopped himself. He was bound by the same promise as Elias—they’d both sworn they wouldn’t fight in the high-stakes matches Petros hosted around the city each week—and telling him about Lucius would only lead to trouble. Elias was distracted by shiny things, and a chance to earn real coin, like the payouts the gladiators made when they fought for Geoxus, would have them facing foreign competitors twice as formidable as Fentus, or leave them in a cell pondering their fates.

  Anger sliced through Madoc’s disappointment as his mind returned to the boatyard. They’d beaten Fentus and walked away with nothing.

  “We had him,” Madoc muttered. “That much coin could have gotten us through the rest of the month.” The half they would’ve given to the temple could have kept a kid off the street, or paid for new cots in the sanctuary, or kept someone out of Petros’s greedy grip.

  “Oh.” Elias removed the swollen leather purse tucked inside his belt and slapped it against Madoc’s chest. “Did I forget to mention I snatched this from the bookmaker while he was carrying on about you being a cheat?”

  Madoc grabbed the satchel, the thrill of his victory slamming back through him as he pulled open the strings and looked inside. Gold glinted back at him, dimly lit by the moon above. Geoxus had blessed them after all.

  “You could have started with this,” Madoc said, clutching the purse.

  “I could have,” Elias agreed. “But it wouldn’t have been nearly as dramatic.”

  They veered to the opposite side of the street, up the broad stone steps of the temple where a dozen homeless Undivine slept, moaning softly in hunger or pain. As Madoc drew closer to the gates of the sanctuary, he felt as if a hand were closing around his throat. It didn’t matter how many years had passed since he’d first come here, he would never forget that thin, desperate hope that had pushed him to reach his skinny arm into the offering box, praying for a coin to steal so that he could buy something to eat.

  Thirteen years later that same slot remained in the weathered wood of the door, beneath the line of gemstones people touched for luck or prayer. His large hand wouldn’t fit through now, but the coins did. They fell to the bottom of the box with a quiet jingle.

  He would never be that boy again. As long as he could fight, he would fill these coffers, returning what he could of the money that Petros stole from the people.

  The Divine might turn away pigstock like him, but the temple never would.

  “There goes my new chariot,” Elias whined. “I hope you’re happy.”

  Madoc grinned. “I’m sure your mother wouldn’t be at all suspicious if we came home in a chariot.” They couldn’t even afford a carriage ride across town. After their first win, Elias had brought a fat duck home for dinner, and Ilena had accused him of gambling and made him give the bird to Seneca to teach him a lesson.

  Elias scowled.

  Ilena wasn’t their only concern. Half the take usually went to the family to pay the bills and keep Petros and his dogs at bay, but if word got out that they’d bought new clothes, or spent more than they could pull at the quarry, Petros would hear of it and have them arrested for hiding taxable income.

  “Does killing my dreams make you happy?” Elias asked, his glare scalding.

  Madoc laughed all the way down the steps, but the truth needled deep beneath his skin. Tonight’s winnings were a bandage over a gaping wound. The Undivine would suffer as long as they were powerless, and they were powerless because they would never be afforded the same jobs, homes, and schools that those with geoeia had. In Deimos, if you were born pigstock, you died pigstock, and one man made sure you remembered your place.

  Madoc would not be truly happy until Petros had lost everything.

  Two

  Ash

  THE GREAT DEFEAT dance was Ash’s favorite, but the story it told was a lie.

  The dancers waiting with her on the sun-warmed arena sands wore costumes representing the six gods, with another dancer in white to symbolize the long-dead Mother Goddess. Around them, the largest arena in Kula hung as quiet as the windless noonday sky; the crowd’s enthusiasm ha
d simmered down from boisterous to a tense, eager silence.

  “They recognize what dance we’re going to do,” whispered the boy who was playing Biotus, the god of animal bioseia. He shifted in his costume of heavy furs, sweat beading along his brow, but he nodded at the watchful crowd. “Look at them—oh, this is going to be good.”

  Ash could taste his—and the crowd’s—anticipation on the air. It tasted of salty sweat covered by one of the other dancers’ too-sweet tangerine perfume.

  The god of fire always staged performances before arena matches—just not this dance, the extravagant costumes, the undeniable insult. This dance was typically reserved for the holiday marking the Mother Goddess’s defeat.

  Ash rolled her eyes. “It’s a waste. Geoxus isn’t even here.”

  Not that she wanted the earth god here. But his absence made this dance feel unnecessary.

  The gods rarely traveled for anything less than gladiator wars, two-week affairs of pomp and arena matches that settled blatant offenses and gave the winning god huge prizes: ports, land, trade routes. The cause of this fight had only been Geoxus accusing the fire god of letting his people fish in Deiman territory—the fight after this dance would resolve that, and give a small reward to the winning god, a chest of gold or a season of harvest.

  On Ash’s other side, the dancer representing Hydra, the water goddess, sighed, rippling her sheer blue veil. “I know,” she moaned. “Geoxus is nice to look at.”

  Ash snapped a sharp look at her. “That is not what I meant.”

  Music cut off their whispers. The dancer playing Hydra gave Ash a grin from behind her veil, clearly not believing her denial. The gods were all painfully beautiful.

  Ash shot air out her nose and dropped her eyes to her bare feet. This was why she tried not to talk with the other fire dancers—most people saw the gods exactly as they wanted to be seen. Gorgeous and immortal, powerful and fair. Poverty wasn’t their fault; they always wanted the best for their children. Even when they were cruel, they were still merciful and avenging.

  But those were all lies, too. Lies as potent as the Great Defeat dance. Lies that made Ash feel alone, though she was standing in the center of hundreds of people.

  This self-pity was not helping. Ash bit down on her lower lip. She knew that all the lies were worthwhile. She would dance in a moment and get a reprieve in the music and movement; her mother would fight in the match that followed, and she would win. Then they’d get to walk out of this arena, together and alive.

  She’d tell a thousand lies if it meant another day with her mother.

  Her eyes lifted to the stands. The arena was an imposing structure of black granite, obsidian, and jagged spikes of lava rock built in the usual tradition, where audience seating ran tiered laps around the center fighting pit. People filled every bench, some clasping orange and red streamers while others held signs painted with CHAR NIKAU—the fire god’s best gladiator.

  Ash noted a new addition with a startled flinch. A few people wore garish masks in Char’s likeness. One showed her sticking out her tongue, her eyes wide and cut with squirming red veins.

  Ash wrinkled her nose. People saw the gods as beautiful, but they saw her mother as snarling?

  The music swelled. Cymbals crashed, reverberating into silence.

  “Here we go,” the dancer playing Biotus cooed.

  Ash twitched to right herself, narrowing her mind to the performance.

  A harp rippled, and the dance began.

  Ash swayed her arms in practiced movements alongside the other dancers. For a moment, she felt a thrum of connection. She had nothing in common with these dancers, couldn’t even choke out a conversation with them for the lies she would have to tell, but in this dance, they were unified.

  And Ash wasn’t alone.

  The girl representing the goddess of air waved a flurry of streamers to symbolize air energy, or aereia. The Mother Goddess struck her down with a single elegant twirl.

  Next went Biotus. He stomped, vicious and growling. The Mother Goddess hurtled into his arms and dispatched him with her limbs twining around his broad body.

  Then came Hydra, with flapping cerulean silk to show the hydreia of water, and Florus, with vines for floreia.

  When most of the dancers lay sprawled around the Mother Goddess in defeat—not death, but rather their energies merely spent, or so the story went—the second to last stepped forward: Geoxus, the earth god, played by a tall boy covered in dust and sand. He lifted one foot before the Mother Goddess spun on him, blowing him a lethal kiss, and he fell. The crowd roared with laughter.

  The only performers left standing were the Mother Goddess and Ash—who played the lead role. She wore a tight bodice with silk pants that hung low on her hips, both in a wine red that made her brown skin gleam. Sheer orange fabric spooled down her shoulders, ending at the tips in bursts of vibrant blue, and her hair hung in thick black ringlets to midback. Kohl rimmed her eyes and blue paint coated her lips, giving a frosty edge to her smile.

  She loved this dance for the outfit she wore, for the connection she felt, for the swell of rapture that bubbled up from the core of the earth itself and filled her with power. This dance was a love letter to igneia, fire energy in its most beautiful, enchanting form.

  But she hated this dance for the role she played: Ignitus, the god of fire.

  Ash had a few more beats before her cue. Her eyes leaped to the arena’s grandest viewing box. On the right were a half dozen centurions from the western country of Deimos; they wore silver breastplates and short pleated skirts, bags at their waists holding stones they could control with geoeia. On the left, Kulan guards wore armor made of dried reeds that, when treated, proved as strong as leather and, better, fireproof.

  Divine soldiers like centurions and guards enforced laws among mortals; the immortal, unkillable gods technically didn’t need them for protection, but having them was a display of power.

  The Deiman centurions stood behind a plump man who had been chosen as Geoxus’s proxy for this fight, one of his many senators. The Kulan guards stood behind Ignitus.

  Ash’s earliest memory of her god was at a feast following Char’s first win. Ignitus gave Ash a candy in the shape of a sunburst, doting on the daughter of his next prodigy.

  The candy had been bitter, and Ignitus’s smile had been sickly sweet.

  It always struck Ash how normal her god looked in his ageless physical form. At will, Ignitus could become an inferno, or dissolve into a blue-white flare, or appear as a candle flame on a table. Now, he was dressed in baggy silks dyed orange and scarlet, his brown chest bare, his black hair adorned with gold baubles and scarlet garnets that caught the sunlight.

  Each of the six gods was the manifestation of their respective energies, the result of the Mother Goddess pushing her own soul energeia into fire, earth, air, water, animals, and plants. All the gods Ash had seen looked like their mortal descendants—save for that expression. The one Ignitus wore as he gripped the edge of the viewing box and ran his tongue over his lips: bloodlust.

  He didn’t care that with each match he fought against his god- siblings, he wagered gold, crops, or stakes in Kula’s exports, such as their glass. He didn’t care that he risked his gladiators’ lives, or that even if they won, they stockpiled memories of murder. He didn’t care that out beyond this packed arena, the capital city of Kula was a mess of poverty and starvation because so many harvests were lost to other countries, and resources were stripped to pay Ignitus’s debts.

  He just stared down at Ash portraying him and demanded glory.

  The music crashed, cymbals banging hard and fast. Ash’s heart lurched and her limbs took her into the movements from memory, the thrill of dancing driving all else from her mind.

  Three braziers spaced around the fighting sands thrashed with orange flames. Fire would give constantly if igneia was taken in steady, unselfish sips, one of the first tricks Ash had learned. But for this dance, she needed a great deal of power qu
ickly—she called on the igneia, and all three braziers snuffed out, the fire energy darting into her heart. There, she could channel it into her body, make herself move faster or heal quicker—or she could shoot it back out in powerful flames.

  Ash kicked a leg high, and as she twisted under it, she shot fire at the Mother Goddess. This dancer was Fire Divine, so the flames wouldn’t hurt her. Even if an esteemed position could be given to someone Undivine, the simple fact that they were descended from the fire god made all Kulans resistant to flame, no matter if they couldn’t control it.

  The Mother Goddess dipped backward to mimic being struck.

  Ash fed igneia out slowly, growing a whip until it coiled around the entire fighting pit. She whirled, twisting it in a high funnel that rose above the crowd. Arcs of orange cut through the powdered turquoise sky, each loop alive with dozens of sharp, stabbing tongues.

  This was the pinnacle of igneia: life and vibrancy and passion. This was proof that Ash’s power could do more than kill.

  The crowd gasped at the tornado of fire. Voices cheered, “Ignitus! Ignitus!”

  Ash yanked the funnel of scarlet fire down around the Mother Goddess. The dancer toppled with a piercing wail, her body limp alongside the prone bodies of the other gods, her children.

  Only Ash still stood, the god of fire, now the savior of humanity.

  This was the boldest lie. That, centuries ago, Ignitus had been solely responsible for defeating Anathrasa, the Mother Goddess who had created her six god-children at the beginning of time—then tried to kill them and their mortal descendants when she realized she couldn’t control them. She had nearly succeeded in wiping out all mortals, drenching the world in blood and war, before the gods stopped her. Ash had heard variations of that story in every country she had been to—each god claimed that they were responsible for that final assault. The truth of how Anathrasa had been defeated had been lost to the ages, buried under each god’s need to declare themselves a hero.