It was an intimate, wrenching connection, and Ash realized the truth that had been knocking at the door of her soul for days:
Ignitus was a monster, but killing him wouldn’t save Kula.
Anathrasa was alive. Which meant she had survived her god-children’s attempt on her life, and if she could regain her power, she would no doubt seek to restart the butchery she had wrought on the world centuries ago. How had she done it then? Had she manipulated the anathreia in mortals and warped them into an army that slaughtered those who resisted her control? Could gods be defeated at all? How could anyone possibly stop a force like her? She was weakened—but could she be killed?
“This isn’t just about a war anymore,” Ash managed. Her throat swelled. “Madoc can control anathreia. Geoxus wants to use him to enhance his own powers and invade the other countries. He had Anathrasa threaten to take Madoc’s energeia if he doesn’t obey.”
Ash didn’t mention the rest of Geoxus’s plan—that he thought Madoc could take a god’s energeia too. She didn’t want Ignitus to see Madoc as a threat.
Ignitus rolled his eyes skyward. “That damn fool. No one can use Anathrasa. Geoxus is so power hungry, it probably wasn’t difficult for her to manipulate him.”
Ash stiffened. “She can take energeia, but that’s the extent of her powers.”
Ignitus dropped his eyes to Ash with an exhausted smile. “Anathrasa was once queen of all the gods. She was manic and controlling and wanted to force the world into obedience—she could, with some of the weaker-willed mortals. We tried to kill her—we thought we had. But, obviously, we failed. And she’s had centuries to plot her revenge. Whatever Geoxus thinks he’ll get out of her is, I fear, a ruse that will only feed into something far worse.”
Dread hollowed Ash’s belly. No matter what Anathrasa’s true plan was, Madoc stood at the center of it.
She tried to get up, wobbling onto her knees. “We have to go to the palace. We have to—”
She pitched forward, the room spinning. Ignitus caught her shoulders.
“Steady now. We can’t do—”
“Let her go.”
Ash blinked and saw Tor framed in the stable doorway. Flames danced up his arms, highlighting Taro and Spark on either side of him.
Tor glared at Ignitus.
Who had his hands on Ash’s shoulders, her body wilting in his grip.
Ignitus sighed and released Ash, who wavered but managed to kneel upright on her own.
Tor dropped to the ground and grabbed her. “Are you all right? He said he heard a prayer from you here. What happened?”
He clearly meant the scorched stables. The burned bodies. Ash alone with Ignitus. How the last time he had seen her, she had been racing out of the arena after Madoc.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, because she couldn’t lie and tell him that she was fine. Even the thought made her stomach sour. The void inside her throbbed, aching, empty hands grasping for igneia that wasn’t there.
She had thought loneliness was a void. This was a void. Loneliness had been a chip in a vase.
Ash touched Tor’s shoulder until he pulled his focus away from Ignitus. “I know you’ll hate me for saying this,” she whispered, “but right now, Ignitus is our best chance of getting out of Deimos alive. He’s on our side.”
Tor’s face went gray. “What are you talking about?”
Ash told him everything that had happened. How Madoc saved her life. Geoxus’s plans to subdue the world. Anathrasa, revealing herself and taking Ash’s igneia.
Tor jolted at that. Behind him, Taro and Spark gasped.
Ignitus beat dust from his robe as he stood. “I’ve sent messages to my other god-siblings about Anathrasa before. It always bothered me that there was nothing left when we defeated her—they all thought her body vanished with her anathreia. But then Geoxus, Aera, and Biotus started targeting Kula, and Geoxus, especially, was so smug. More than normal. Something changed, has been changing, but Hydra and Florus ignored my worries because there was no proof. This is proof now, I’d say.”
“How did you defeat her last time?” Ash asked. In all the stories of their victory over Anathrasa, there were no hints as to what exactly the gods had done.
“Anathreia is the combination of all six energeias—fire, earth, animal, air, water, and plants. That was how she made us, at the beginning; she took a piece of her soul and split it apart. We knew we could never defeat her individually, as she’d always be stronger than any one of us, and