whooped, urging them to bloodshed.
Blue fire flickered on Ignitus’s arms, the tips of his hair.
Rook’s lower lip trembled. Ash went motionless, her hands splayed between them.
“Lynx is dead,” Rook whispered. “He died the morning after we left Igna.”
Ash sucked in a breath.
“My son has been dead for four days, and Ignitus claims he just got the news.” Rook opened his fist and let the scroll drop to the sand. “But he waited to give me the letter until this morning because all he cares about, all he’s ever cared about, is war.”
A howl bubbled in Ash’s throat. She fought it down, willed it down, because Ignitus watched and already Rook had gone too far and she needed to be the one to save them both.
“Rook,” she begged, “I’m so sorry. I loved Lynx too. I’m so—” She swallowed. “Fight me. One more round, we’ll fake a win, and we can walk out of here.” She lowered her voice. “You’ll get your revenge. I swear, Rook. Please.”
Sweat, tears, and dust from the arena made a paste on Rook’s face, thick streaks of brown across his dark skin. He didn’t look angry. He looked . . . tired.
“I should’ve gotten Lynx out years ago,” Rook said. “Char should’ve taken you too. We all should have run instead of playing his sick games. You deserve better than this life. Lynx deserved better. And I can’t—” He coughed, sniffing back tears. “I’m sorry, Ash.”
He took off—sprinting away from her, toward Ignitus.
Agony seared hotter than any flame, gouged deeper than any wound. Ash flung herself after him. “No! Stop, please—”
Momentum carried Rook as he leaped into the air and grabbed the wall of the viewing box, kicking the rough edge of the stone to propel himself onto the railing.
The crowd had gone silent again. Shocked, awed, intrigued.
In the viewing box, Ignitus watched Rook come at him, his anger dimmed to disgust. His attendants cowered behind him; his guards held flames in their hands but didn’t attack, held in place by Ignitus’s two lifted fingers.
Rook balanced on the railing, readied his knife, and hurled himself at Ignitus.
The blade sank into the god’s neck.
For a moment, Ash thought it had worked. Ignitus didn’t move, as if stricken in the early shock of death. His eyes were frozen on Rook, who gasped for breath before him.
Calmly, Ignitus reached up and removed the knife. A thin stream of blood spurted out of the wound, but before Ash had even blinked, it was closing, mending itself.
She had never seen a god injured before. She had heard about it, dreamed of it, but this was worse. Now she knew, undeniably—the gods could not be killed.
But they could. The Mother Goddess was dead. How, how—
Rook fumbled against the railing. Ash choked, so far below, helplessly watching him.
Ignitus dropped the blade. In the horrified silence of the arena, it clattered against the marble of the viewing box’s floor.
“Mistake,” Ignitus growled, and punched his hands palm out at Rook.
Fire blasted like a cannonball. Only Ignitus’s fire could burn a Kulan.
A great blue knot shot out of Ignitus’s fingers and slammed into Rook’s chest, knocking him down, down, down.
His body crashed into the fighting pit.
Ash raced for him, her sandals slipping on the gritty dirt. She dropped to her knees next to Rook, hands hovering over the concave circle burned into his chest. Blackened skin and bone, charred muscle, bulging cauterized veins, all fought to escape.
Her stomach seized, nausea and horror coming out as a sob. “Rook,” Ash said, as though he could undo it, as though he could still choose not to leave her too. “Please, Rook, hold on—”
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and fell in a perfect circle on the sand.
Blood on the sand. Char’s lips moving across the arena. A sword in her chest.
Ignitus, glaring. He was over them right now, scowling in the morning sunlight.
Tears gathered in Rook’s eyes. He inhaled, but the air got stuck in the void, and he heaved. The motion rocked a bag out of his pocket, spilling gold, teal, and pink marbles. The toy that Lynx loved.
Ash scrambled to lift Rook, but she couldn’t stand and she couldn’t run and a scream tore through her that she muffled in Rook’s shoulder.
In the stands, the crowd stomped and cheered, stomped and cheered.
Nine
Madoc
MADOC WON HIS first elimination match of the war by forfeit.
After a restless night replaying Petros’s bold claims about Madoc’s abilities and failing to push Ash’s hate-filled eyes out of his mind, he