Ash had gone with Char to Deimos for a lesser arena fight three years ago. They had stood at the bow of Ignitus’s ship with Tor’s Undivine twin sister, Taro, who had chuckled and said that Crixion’s lighthouse looked like a part of a man that should not be on display.
Taro had elbowed Char. “Do you think Geoxus modeled this after his own lighthouse?”
Char had laughed, bright and clear and real. It had made Ash laugh too, though she didn’t entirely understand the joke.
Char had misinterpreted her reaction and seized Ash’s arms. “Have you been with a man?” she had asked, a quiet whisper. “Are you careful?”
“Mama—no,” Ash had managed. She had been fifteen at the time, and when would she have had time to? On Ignitus’s crowded ships or in rooms she shared with Char in foreign arenas?
The few private moments Ash got, when she had a room to herself or a lock on the washroom door, her fingers had trailed over velvet-soft skin that made her flush with a heat not unlike igneia. But she had never met anyone she cared to be with. Any conversations she had with people her own age ended in Ash abruptly leaving, distraught by how devoted they were to their god or goddess. The only time she felt anything like connection was in dancing, but even in Ash’s limited experience, she knew a relationship built on physical movement wasn’t worthwhile.
Char had looked unconvinced. She pulled her into a hug, shoulder digging into Ash’s throat. “You must be careful. You’re the last of the Nikau line. Our blood is a burden.”
Had Char been any other mother, Ash might have heard that as You are a burden. But she had never once doubted Char’s love for her.
Now the captain of this Kulan ship hammered a bell above deck. Everyone onboard had waited three long days to hear that signal—they were entering Crixion’s main port. The lighthouse would be just beyond the wall Ash was staring at, the one hung with a round mirror.
“This is madness,” Tor said for what had to be the hundredth time. He was sitting on a chair, letting Taro style his hair for the welcoming ceremony. “You can’t fight in a war.”
Tor’s distant lineage from Ignitus hadn’t stopped the fire god from naming Tor one of his other war champions, hoping that his grief at losing Char would fuel him like it fueled Ash.
“It’s the least I can do, isn’t it?” Ash used her pinky to clear a smudge of golden paint under her eye. She was shaking; the gold smeared. “I caused it.”
“You did not.” Tor’s tone was cutting. “We all saw Stavos cheat. You reacted, but you did not cause this, Ash. Don’t let me hear you say that again.”
Ash dropped her eyes. Guilt rubbed her soul, but she tried to believe what Tor said. This was Stavos’s fault. It was Geoxus’s fault, Ignitus’s. This war, the impending bloodshed, wasn’t her burden to bear.
The structure of gladiator wars was meant to be distractingly opulent. Prizes like land and resources deserved fanfare, and the glory drove most people into a frenzy of love for their god.
At the start, each god selected eight champions. Those champions fought among themselves in nonlethal elimination trials, with the winners of each round earning gold and prestige. Between rounds, the hosting god threw lavish dinners, theatrical performances, fireworks displays—whatever best showed off their wealth and power. The war ended when each god’s remaining champion fought in a to-the-death match. The victorious god received riches and resources from the losing god—as well as incomparable bragging rights.
Though the elimination rounds were nonlethal, that did not always mean they were harmless. The two weeks of a war flowed with opulence and blood in equal measure.
One of Ignitus’s other champions was also in this ship’s lower-deck room: Rook, a distant great-grandson of Ignitus. Rook had once been a loyal fighter, but the birth of his Undivine son, Lynx, had altered how he viewed Kula, and Undivine, and Ignitus himself. Rook now hated being a gladiator more than Char ever had.
“I think she’s got a good plan to press Ignitus for weakness,” Rook told Tor. He held his arms lifted while Spark, Taro’s wife and a healer, an Undivine woman with nimble hands and endless patience, painted golden sunbursts on his bare chest. “About time someone took a stand.”
“She’s a child,” Tor snapped.
“She’s eighteen. Ignitus doesn’t let any of our children get to be