“There goes my new chariot,” Elias whined. “I hope you’re happy.”
Madoc grinned. “I’m sure your mother wouldn’t be at all suspicious if we came home in a chariot.” They couldn’t even afford a carriage ride across town. After their first win, Elias had brought a fat duck home for dinner, and Ilena had accused him of gambling and made him give the bird to Seneca to teach him a lesson.
Elias scowled.
Ilena wasn’t their only concern. Half the take usually went to the family to pay the bills and keep Petros and his dogs at bay, but if word got out that they’d bought new clothes, or spent more than they could pull at the quarry, Petros would hear of it and have them arrested for hiding taxable income.
“Does killing my dreams make you happy?” Elias asked, his glare scalding.
Madoc laughed all the way down the steps, but the truth needled deep beneath his skin. Tonight’s winnings were a bandage over a gaping wound. The Undivine would suffer as long as they were powerless, and they were powerless because they would never be afforded the same jobs, homes, and schools that those with geoeia had. In Deimos, if you were born pigstock, you died pigstock, and one man made sure you remembered your place.
Madoc would not be truly happy until Petros had lost everything.
Two
Ash
THE GREAT DEFEAT dance was Ash’s favorite, but the story it told was a lie.
The dancers waiting with her on the sun-warmed arena sands wore costumes representing the six gods, with another dancer in white to symbolize the long-dead Mother Goddess. Around them, the largest arena in Kula hung as quiet as the windless noonday sky; the crowd’s enthusiasm had simmered down from boisterous to a tense, eager silence.
“They recognize what dance we’re going to do,” whispered the boy who was playing Biotus, the god of animal bioseia. He shifted in his costume of heavy furs, sweat beading along his brow, but he nodded at the watchful crowd. “Look at them—oh, this is going to be good.”
Ash could taste his—and the crowd’s—anticipation on the air. It tasted of salty sweat covered by one of the other dancers’ too-sweet tangerine perfume.
The god of fire always staged performances before arena matches—just not this dance, the extravagant costumes, the undeniable insult. This dance was typically reserved for the holiday marking the Mother Goddess’s defeat.
Ash rolled her eyes. “It’s a waste. Geoxus isn’t even here.”
Not that she wanted the earth god here. But his absence made this dance feel unnecessary.
The gods rarely traveled for anything less than gladiator wars, two-week affairs of pomp and arena matches that settled blatant offenses and gave the winning god huge prizes: ports, land, trade routes. The cause of this fight had only been Geoxus accusing the fire god of letting his people fish in Deiman territory—the fight after this dance would resolve that, and give a small reward to the winning god, a chest of gold or a season of harvest.
On Ash’s other side, the dancer representing Hydra, the water goddess, sighed, rippling her sheer blue veil. “I know,” she moaned. “Geoxus is nice to look at.”
Ash snapped a sharp look at her. “That is not what I meant.”
Music cut off their whispers. The dancer playing Hydra gave Ash a grin from behind her veil, clearly not believing her denial. The gods were all painfully beautiful.
Ash shot air out her nose and dropped her eyes to her bare feet. This was why she tried not to talk with the other fire dancers—most people saw the gods exactly as they wanted to be seen. Gorgeous and immortal, powerful and fair. Poverty wasn’t their fault; they always wanted the best for their children. Even when they were cruel, they were still merciful and avenging.
But those were all lies, too. Lies as potent as the Great Defeat dance. Lies that made Ash feel alone, though she was standing in the center of hundreds of people.
This self-pity was not helping. Ash bit down on her lower lip. She knew that all the lies were worthwhile. She would dance in a moment and get a reprieve in the music and movement; her mother would fight in the match that followed, and she would win. Then they’d get to walk out of this arena, together and alive.
She’d tell a thousand lies if it meant another day with her mother.
Her eyes lifted to the stands. The arena was an imposing structure of black granite, obsidian, and jagged spikes of lava rock