Ash’s grip pumped around Madoc’s hand—he hadn’t realized they were still touching until that moment—and then she drew back, eyeing him with the same suspicion he’d turned her way.
“You think I . . .” Madoc scoffed. “I’ve been with you half the night.”
Her wary stare was all the answer he needed, and as he looked across the grounds to the other Deiman champions now glaring his way, one word entered his mind: advancement.
Stavos was a trained champion. Everyone knew Madoc didn’t have a chance at beating him in the arena. Since the forfeited match, speculation had flown that Madoc had poisoned him or delivered some threat that had made the other man run. While the city had cheered the dramatic twist, the gladiators at Lucius’s villa had begun to whisper behind his back.
Madoc had kept his head down, focusing on his next chance to earn more coin. But now the missing gladiator could no longer be ignored. He had been found by Madoc, and died in his arms.
Madoc swallowed, his throat making an audible click as more stares turned in his direction. His gaze darted to Geoxus, only to find the Father God already looking his way, his stare as hard and gleaming as quartz. Madoc’s bones quaked. He felt the bile climb up his throat.
“How very interesting,” said Ignitus, raising one brow at his brother. “Your dead gladiator was discovered by the same man he was meant to battle.” Ignitus hummed thoughtfully. “Tell me, Geoxus, how is it that Madoc found your fallen hero? It couldn’t be possible that he strayed from the party to clean up his mess, would it?”
Madoc gritted his teeth.
“He wasn’t alone,” said the centurion captain, now rising to his feet. “He was with a Kulan gladiator.”
Ignitus’s pointed glare turned to Madoc and Ash, a wisp of blue flame licking over his skin as fury smoldered in his dark eyes.
Ash’s sharp intake of breath sent a spike through Madoc’s spine. Now everyone was staring at them. The gods. The centurions. The gladiators. Every servant and citizen who remained. Desperately, he searched for Elias, or even Cassia, but if they were here, he couldn’t find them.
Fear pounded through his blood. Ash knew he didn’t have geoeia—that he had something else. Would she tell the gods now in order to clear herself? If she did—if Geoxus found out Madoc was lying about who he was—all remaining trust in him would be invalidated. They would never believe he wasn’t linked to Stavos’s death.
Madoc straightened his back. “We had nothing to do with this. I was as surprised as anyone else when Stavos didn’t show at our match.”
She took it from me.
Who took what? If he knew, he could tell Geoxus. But without any other information he would come off as desperate, hopelessly trying to deflect the blame.
“Liar,” snapped one of the Deiman gladiators—Raclin, a woman with a shaved head and a vicious scar through her lips. Her hate slid through the people between them, a stream bending insidiously around stones.
“I swear it,” Madoc said. “I did nothing to that man.”
“And the enemy you were keeping company with?” Now it was Jann who had spoken, a gladiator Madoc had seen in practice who could move walls with the flick of a finger. He was taller than the rest, and lanky, right down to the spindly braid over his right shoulder.
A centurion stepped closer, the glint of his knife catching Madoc’s eye. Another guard joined him, this one stepping in front of Ash. Madoc was suddenly thrust back into the makeshift arena in South Gate, when Petros’s bookie had called him a cheat, only now there was nowhere to run.
“Is it against the law for enemies to keep each other company here?” Ash asked, the low, sultry timbre of her voice catching Madoc by surprise. She slid closer, tucking herself beneath his arm. The heat of her skin pressed through the thick cloth of his tunic. Each curve of her body fit against him with scalding familiarity, his arm and chest adjusting to her without thought.
Her gaze met his through long, dark lashes, and his heart lodged in his throat.
“We have no such laws in our land,” she said. She had the power to destroy him—to let the Father God crush him in front of a despising crowd—but she stayed by his side. There was honor in that, even if she did it only to further her own cause.