hovering over her shoulder. She didn’t see; her face was downcast. He could have pulled away, and she would have been none the wiser. But he didn’t.
She was hurting. He could feel the white sparks of pain crackling in the space between their skin. Deep, like a gash in her soul. He didn’t know how she still managed to stand, how it didn’t topple her over.
It reminded him of the day Ilena had learned her husband had died in the arena. How she’d curled up in a ball on the floor beside the bed, unable to climb onto the mattress. There’s a hole in my chest. That’s what she’d told them. And Madoc had prayed for Geoxus to fill it, the way he’d prayed for help and Cassia had found him on the temple steps.
Now he felt that same hole inside Ash. It pulled at him, and it didn’t matter if she was a killer or an enemy or if they were at war. He’d lost Cassia, but this one, small thing he could fix.
Geoxus, he prayed, as he’d prayed all those years ago for Ilena. Please help her.
“What are you . . .” Ash sucked in a hard breath.
His gaze snapped to hers. He didn’t move. She didn’t move. His hand still hovered over her shoulder, fingers curled slightly like he could grab her grief and pull it out of her. Cool breath stretched his lungs. He felt lighter. Stronger. Geoxus had heard him—Madoc could feel his power gliding over his muscles. More, it whispered, and he complied. His fingers inched closer, hungry now for her grief, for her pain, for the hate that she must have felt for all of Deimos . . .
“Madoc.”
He drew back sharply, his hand falling like lead to his side. They were both breathing hard, shoulders heaving. He didn’t know what had come over him; this didn’t feel like any prayer Geoxus had answered before. Her pain had felt purer than any emotion he’d sensed in the past. It was clear, and potent, and he’d been compelled to do something to ease it.
Something was definitely wrong with him.
“What was that? What did you do?” she snapped.
He needed to get away from her before he made things worse.
“Wait,” said Ash as he turned.
He hesitated.
“How . . .” She gave a startled laugh. “How did you do that? I feel . . . different.” He turned back to find her shaking her head. “Those guards. You did something to them. They were taking me, but you changed their minds. You made them leave.” She heaved out a breath; even her uncertainty buzzed in his veins.
He looked down at his hand, the one that had hovered over Ash’s shoulder, as if expecting to see some kind of mark, but there was none.
“I asked for help,” he said.
“From who?”
He swallowed, the taste of her pain still fresh on his tongue, and glanced to the stones in the walls around them. “Who else?”
“Your god?” She scoffed. “You asked Geoxus to help me, an enemy gladiator, and he listened? I don’t think so.”
Panic raced up his spine. He’d felt Geoxus’s strength working through him, just as he had all those years ago with Ilena. It couldn’t have been anything else.
“What are you?” she asked. It took him a moment to register that the light in her eyes wasn’t fear but wonder. “You don’t use geoeia like an Earth Divine. You don’t fight like a gladiator. Are you even Deiman?”
“Of course I am,” he said.
“Your gift isn’t a Deiman gift.”
It wasn’t a gift at all, except when he and Elias were stealing bread or fighting. It was pigstock geoeia, some strange manifestation of the Father God’s power, but that didn’t explain what he’d just done. He wished now that someone could tell him what was wrong with him, but only his family knew of his intuition. He’d never seen a healer for it—Ilena had made it clear that talking about it would put him in danger. When you were Undivine, people saw you as one thing only—pigstock—and acting as if you were anything else made those with real power very upset.
Still, he bristled. Ash called him out as easily as his family, though she’d known him less than a day. “There’s sand everywhere. Tiny pieces of gravel you can’t even see. I used geoeia.”
He wished the arena would fall in on them both, ending this quickly.
“Gravel didn’t change the minds of those soldiers, or make me . . .” Her