her voice. “You’ve been taking the energeia from gladiators. Stavos. How many others?”
“It’s hard to say,” said Seneca, her brow scrunched. “Dozens? Hundreds?”
“People thought I killed Stavos to advance,” Madoc said. He trembled, remembering the arrows in Stavos’s back. Remembering his last, strained breaths.
“We did it for you,” Petros said. He turned to Seneca. “I told you he was ungrateful.”
Seneca chuckled.
Madoc glanced to Geoxus, remembering the god’s despair over his champion’s murder. Now there was only self-righteous greed.
His grief, his love for Stavos, had only been an act.
“It’s a pity the Kulan champions travel in packs,” Seneca continued. “I would have liked some time alone with your mother, Ash. I hear she was very powerful.”
Ash jerked forward, but Madoc blocked her path. Seneca was baiting her.
He stared at the fragile old woman. The seventh goddess—Anathrasa. She could harness the power of souls and had tried to cleanse the world of anyone, god or mortal, who she couldn’t control—or had, before her god-children had risen against her and drained her power. But before that, could she do the same things as Madoc? Convince Jann to surrender. Draw out Ash’s grief.
What else could she do?
Push energeia into gods.
He shuddered as this understanding worked its way into his bones. As much as he didn’t want it to be true, he thirsted for more. Something was cracking inside him, tearing open. Questions he’d suffocated long ago.
Who am I? What am I?
Anathrasa had answers.
“You’re fortunate, you know,” Geoxus said, smiling a little. “She might have killed you. Broken open your soul and emptied it, like she did with so many before you.”
Like draining the milk from a coconut. That’s what Seneca had said in the preparation room.
“It is all I seem to be able to do now,” Anathrasa said tightly.
“There are others like me?” Madoc’s stare locked on Anathrasa, hope surging through him at the prospect of not carrying this burden alone.
“There were, in the past.” She batted a hand at him. “I could not put all my hope in one fragile mortal. They crack like eggs. One slip, and their skull is broken. Weak bones are truly the flaw of human design. Weak bones and saggy skin.” She pinched the wobbling flesh beneath one arm. “Soul energy is not so easily released. It matures over time. It builds by feeding on emotions.”
Madoc’s stomach turned as he recalled the beatings he’d taken in his childhood—how Petros had tried to force the power out of him at a young age. Pain or not, there was a strange satisfaction in knowing his father had been wrong.
“Some died as their powers came to be. Weak constitutions,” Anathrasa continued. “I used to think absorbing the soul energy of the stronger ones would bring my powers back, but alas. They, too, eventually faded. But you, Madoc, have matured nicely. You will be a true champion.”
“You killed your own children,” Ash breathed, horrified.
Madoc could see why the gods had turned against the Mother Goddess in the old stories. She was a monster.
But so was Geoxus.
He didn’t want Madoc to make Deimos equal. He wanted to build an indestructible country.
Geoxus. Petros. Anathrasa. They all wanted the same thing: power.
Ash’s words returned, streamlining the chaos in his brain into one singular thought.
Seneca was there. She took Cassia’s divinity.
Cassia was dead because of Anathrasa.
Pain wrenched Madoc’s muscles around his bones. He saw Cassia lying in the indentation of earth, the boulder beside her. Had she been trying to lift it when it had fallen? Had it been flung her way by Petros, or one of his guards, and she’d found herself unable to stop it?
Anathrasa had made her powerless, but Petros and Geoxus were just as guilty of her death.
Madoc stalked forward, fury raking through him, but was stopped by Ash. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her chest drew flush against his back.
Her anger flooded him, potent and scalding and edged with ferocity.
She meant to protect him. He could feel her intention, truer than any words. He grasped it with all he had, his anchor in the storm.
“Enough of this!” Geoxus growled, still driven by a frantic energy that scraped Madoc’s paper-thin resolve. “Take Ignitus’s gladiator to the jail—we may find use for her in the future. The rest of us will return to the palace. There’s much to do, Madoc. Much we must prepare.”
“No.”
Geoxus, heading toward the door, froze. He turned toward Madoc. Behind him, Petros’s face was red with fury.
“No?” Geoxus asked.
Madoc felt as if his bones would shake apart. His