withering in his throat as he found Cassia’s arms pinned to the wall by molded clay. She struggled against her bindings, back bowing. Strips of hair clung to her dirty face.
“She’s sorry,” Elias was saying. “She didn’t mean anything by it. She was just trying to protect our mother.”
Tears of frustration streamed down Cassia’s cheeks.
“Are we done lying?” Petros asked.
Madoc wanted to kill him. Wanted to tear him limb from limb. He could barely feel the buzz of all the warring emotions in the room over his own hate.
“Let’s see your geoeia, Great Quarry Bull,” said Petros. “A little demonstration. I doubt anyone will notice if you make a mess.” He motioned to the chairs, tipped over or broken. The fragments of dishes burrowed into the red mat at Madoc’s feet. The candles were snuffed out and broken against the ground; the only light came through the open door.
“I have no geoeia.”
Petros lifted his hand again, and the bindings tightened around Cassia’s wrists. Her scream of agony cut him to the marrow. Frantically, Elias pulled at the clay with his geoeia, but each effort only doubled the bonds. Petros would not loosen his hold.
“It doesn’t take much pressure to crack the bones of the wrist,” Petros mused.
“Stop!” Madoc shouted. He caught sight of Seneca leaning heavily against the far wall behind Petros’s guard, her long white hair coated with gray dust. He couldn’t tell if she was injured.
“How about we sweeten the pot?” Petros taunted. “Show me how you fight, and I’ll let the girl go.”
Rage hardened Madoc’s veins. He glanced at Elias, his stare hard. If Petros wanted a show, he would get one. Sweat and dust burned Madoc’s eyes. He stepped away from the table, bits of dishes crackling beneath his feet. His hand dropped to his thigh, ready to give the signal.
This was a test, just like the tests in his youth, only now he wasn’t five years old and afraid. Now he had Elias. Now he had a family.
He tapped his thigh, but nothing happened.
Petros’s gaze pinched.
“Come on,” Madoc muttered. Elias could lift a broken cup off the floor, flick a stone across the room, anything. But when he tapped his thigh again, the earth stayed quiet.
Panic laced through his ribs.
“My mistake,” said Petros bitterly. “It looks like you are just pigstock after all.” He snapped his fingers and his guard stepped forward. “Bring the girl.”
Cassia’s sobs gave way to a soft moan as her bindings loosened.
“No.” Madoc lunged toward Petros. “Please. I’ll do whatever you like. You want to see geoeia? Let’s go outside in the courtyard. I’ll show you.”
Petros’s disappointment turned to disgust. “The girl attacked me. I could ask Geoxus for permission to execute her. Taking her to my house is a mercy.”
“Your house?” Elias balked. The guard had crossed the room and removed a set of cuffs from his belt. They were wooden and spiked along the inside. “Wait. You’re shackling her?”
Madoc could feel his own control slipping. He’d seen the centurions shackle Divine lawbreakers so they could be taken to the jail. The wooden spikes in the cuffs that encircled the wrists and ankles could not be manipulated by geoeia. If the prisoner moved too fast, or tried to summon the earth to their bidding, the spikes impaled their skin and destroyed their focus. It was supposedly excruciating. A Divine man who mixed mortar with them had worn the shackles once after drunkenly attacking a centurion and now could barely bend his wrists.
Cassia wanted to be a centurion. She was supposed to be the one keeping order, not breaking it.
“Cause me more trouble, and you’ll be next,” Petros told Elias as the spikes were fastened around her thin wrists. “We’ll set her indenture at fifteen hundred gold coins. That’s only fair for her actions today.”
“That’s more than we make in three years at the quarry!” Elias cried.
“We’ll pay it,” Madoc promised. “Let her stay, and I promise we’ll make good on it.”
“I don’t think so,” Petros said. “The Metaxas have defaulted on the payment of their debts in the past, if I recall.”
Rage hardened Madoc’s muscles. This wasn’t happening. He had to stop Petros. He’d been foolish thinking a few gold coins earned in a fight would hurt his father. The man was a monster. He needed to be destroyed.
“Stop.” Cassia glanced up to Madoc, a fierceness filling her gaze even as the guard jerked her upright. “Don’t be stupid.” She lowered her chin toward the table, where the rest of