was smeared across her chest and coated her once pristine armor. Ash, her lips formed.
In unison, Char at the edge, Madoc—Ignitus—close and heavy. Where would you go?
The next morning, after Ash had readied herself—dressed in utilitarian reed armor now—and choked down a handful of breadsticks for breakfast, Kulan guards corralled her into a carriage and out of the palace’s complex.
Other elimination fights would occur this week, on Ignitus’s side and on Geoxus’s, as well as dozens of lesser fights throughout the city to keep the crowds amused. But the current odd number of Kulan champions meant one wouldn’t fight until the rest of Ignitus’s gladiators arrived from their fights abroad. Maybe Tor would be in the stands when she and Rook fought, cheering for her, and she would know he forgave her for acting impetuously yesterday.
The carriage crossed a narrow bridge. The Nien River glittered in the clear morning, diamonds in blue, before the western edge of Crixion swallowed her up.
Ash didn’t know the city well enough to identify its neighborhoods, but they wound through an area that was dirtier than the palace’s complex, with clumsy buildings sagging into one another and strands of laundry stretched window to window. People crowded the streets in a flurry of excitement, all heading in the same direction: to the grand arena. Children in faux gladiator outfits brandished wooden shields and retractable rocks on strings; men and women jostled one another good-naturedly, slathered in silver paint with names written on their skin.
JANN arched over one man’s brow. Another had RACLIN in script down his left arm.
And Ash saw more than one person with MADOC scrawled on their bodies.
When the Kulan carriage came into view, a few Deiman people even called out “Ash!” while others shouted “Rook!”
She swallowed hard, her hands in fists on her knees. She hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Rook about their fight. She needed to win if she was to have any hope of earning Ignitus’s trust and uncovering more about whatever it was he feared. But would Rook agree? She needed to beat him—but if he won, he would earn a fair amount of gold, money he could use to help Lynx.
Suddenly Ash regretted all the time she had wasted. She needed to talk with Rook.
A lurching left turn, and the carriage swung to a halt near Crixion’s largest arena. This area was clearly meant for gladiators, soldiers, and arena workers—it was shadowed and blocked off by a low stone wall. Beyond that wall, farther down the right side of the arena, Ash could see a line of Deiman citizens in stained togas and well-worn tunics.
Some whooped into the air. Another person cried “Bets! Place your official bets here!”
Ash’s eyes darted around the rest of the yard, but Rook wasn’t here. Maybe he would enter from another tunnel. Or maybe Ignitus had changed his mind and wouldn’t make her fight him.
Guards swarmed her when Ash descended onto the dusty road, and she let them usher her into the arena.
The passageway was unlit but for dawn’s rays in the entrance yard. It was a short chute of stone with a few closed doors and the golden sands of the arena’s fighting pit at the end.
A match raged within between nonchampion Deiman gladiators to warm up the crowd. Ash saw only part of their battle, two warriors hurling each other back and forth with stones.
The crowd above stomped and cheered.
Ash and her escorts reached the end of the hall as one of the Deiman fighters dropped to his knees. He lifted his hands, coated in bloodstained sand, and shouted his surrender.
Most of the crowd booed at his weakness; some cheered for the victor. Regardless, their match was ended, and an announcer’s voice cut over the throng:
“Two Kulan champions will take the ring!”
Servants scurried out from other halls and deftly set up for the fight.
Ash couldn’t breathe. This was it. Her first arena match. But she wasn’t fighting some feral stranger; it was Rook, who had always saved the best armor for Char, who had tried to make Ash a chocolate tart for her birthday one year but accidentally swapped salt for sugar. He’d been mortified, but Ash had laughed herself to tears.
Ash curled her hands into sweaty fists and stepped out of the darkness.
The arena’s stands were full. A few people milled about the stairways, searching for seats, while a vendor sold hot wine and meat on sticks. In the very center of the pit there was now a shallow