“I’ll ask Ignitus,” she whispered. It was all she could think to say, her eyes darting between Tor and Rook. “When I win. I’ll ask him about the rumors.”
“Don’t think about that,” Tor told her. “Think about the fight. Think about right now, and nothing else. Geoxus’s fighter will be sloppy from his limited formal training. He’ll likely only know a few attacks. You can learn his patterns. You can—”
“Tor.” Rook planted a hand in the center of Tor’s chest. “She’ll be fine.”
But the panic in Tor’s eyes stoked the same feeling in Ash’s chest.
She was walking into a fight against a Deiman gladiator. Just like Char had.
“Thanks,” Ash said to him, and to Rook.
She made her way forward, a knot in her throat, a weight in her gut.
That weight matched the heaviness of the ceremonial armor she still wore. It would be a hindrance, but it didn’t seem as though the gods would give her time to change.
Grit crunched beneath her sandals as she stepped into the fighting ring. The empty space around her struck like static.
This ring was for her. The crowd of other Deiman gladiators at the edges, the people thundering in the stands—they would watch her fight.
The knot in Ash’s throat grew, grew and grew, and she thought she might throw up.
She swallowed hard, hands in fists. She was a gladiator. She was her mother’s daughter.
A cheer went up—heckling, too—and the edge of the ring birthed Madoc.
“Show us why Geoxus picked you!” someone called.
The muscles in Madoc’s jaw bulged and he ruffled his fingers through his short black hair. His hand was shaking. Was he nervous?
She could use that. She would use that.
This was how she would earn her god’s trust. Afterward, Ash would go to Ignitus and ask, Surely there is no one who can worry you, Great Ignitus?
This victory would bring her closer to finding her god’s weaknesses.
Ash took stock of her body and how she was standing—legs squared, jaw set, fingers in controlled fists. She wasn’t giving away her own nerves, was she?
Above the fighting pit, Geoxus and Ignitus idly sipped wine, but their eyes blazed. The fingers of Ignitus’s right hand were rigid on his goblet, even so far as the viewing box his knuckles visibly white.
Tor and Rook shouldered their way to the edge of the crowd. Tor nodded at Ash, reassuring.
Madoc settled into a fighting stance. His leather skirt wavered around his braced legs, the muscles of his thighs taut. He’d taken off his gilded breastplate at some point—Ash envied him that easy freedom; her armor was one massive piece—and wore only a baggy linen shirt that cut deep down his chest, revealing a patch of dark, sweat-dampened hair. Sweat sheened his neck and face too, and his dark eyes flickered in the mirrored afternoon sun, creating a kaleidoscope of sparking light.
Ash didn’t take a fighting stance. Char rarely had.
“Steady, love,” came Tor’s voice from nearby.
My fuel and flame.
A drum thudded. Silence fell like a boulder into a pond.
“Attack!” Geoxus bellowed.
Ash inhaled, long, deep, centering. She needed to strike before Madoc did, to prevent him from using whatever tactics made him untamed. She needed to throw him off.
Ash dived across the ring. She raised a fist, pretending she was going for an overhead strike, and Madoc dropped his weight to lift an arm in a block. The fabric on his shirt went up on the side, revealing tan skin and the arch of his hip bone. Ash released her fake hit and slid to the ground, gliding across the sand, momentum carrying her under Madoc’s lifted arm.
She put her hand on his stomach. Even without igneia, Kulans had high body heat, a natural burn that would feel like a lit match to him.
Madoc chirped in surprise. The heat must have been more intense than Ash intended, because as she spun back onto her feet, Madoc crossed his arms over his head and yanked off his shirt as if she’d set the whole piece of fabric aflame.
Scars stretched across his back, a quilt of marks that rippled down his spine. Ash could tell that the ones across the middle had come from a whip.
She scolded herself as she felt an unexpected pull in her chest. Sympathy meant death. Likely Madoc had earned those scars in training—but they were old, long healed, which meant he was more experienced than his nervousness had suggested.
Halfway through ripping off his shirt, Madoc realized she’d tricked him, the fabric tangling