the Metaxas—had been in danger. Even if it had started a war.
It struck him just how brave Ash actually was. She hadn’t just defended her mother, she was defending her people. Facing a god’s wrath if her intentions were discovered. Somehow, amid the lies and bloodshed, she had found honor, and it made any war their gods fought feel small and petty.
“Do you miss her?” He didn’t know why he asked. They were opposing gladiators, both fighting their own battles. But he knew what it was like to be told your mother was dead, and even if he’d only been a child, he felt the kindling of likeness between them.
“Yes,” she said, a small line forming between her brows. “Do you miss yours? Your birth mother, I mean.”
“I never knew her.” He sighed. “It would be nice to talk to her. Petros is Earth Divine, so this . . . anathreia must have come from her side. Maybe she could tell me how it works.”
She watched him, all long black lashes and deep-brown eyes.
“My mother taught me how to use igneia. At home, before I started training.” She kicked at the bench in front of her. “She never wanted me to fight.”
Her words cut off, as if she suddenly remembered who she was talking to.
He didn’t want her to stop.
“Ilena doesn’t like me fighting either.” He’d felt her fear and desperation in the preparation room after the fight. Whether she admitted it or not, what he’d done to Jann had scared her, and that made it so much worse.
Ash nodded. “My family has been gladiators for generations. It’s in our blood, according to Ignitus.” Her jaw clenched over his name, but softened with a small smile. “My mother pushed me to do other things.”
“Fire dancing?” Madoc asked.
A flush blossomed on her cheeks. “Yes. I loved it, but I was still born to fight and had to train for the arena. It was just a matter of time before the dance was real.”
Her pain shifted to a softer kind of grief, and he felt his own regret mingle with it. Dancing made her happy. He would have liked to see her that way.
“If what I saw at the ball is any indication, you must be pretty good.”
“Well, I don’t usually dance like that at ceremonies.” She snorted. “Fire dancing isn’t quite so forward.”
Madoc shrugged. “I didn’t mind.”
She smiled.
He did too.
“What’s it like then?” he asked. “Fire dancing, I mean.”
A light filled her eyes. “It’s heat and hunger and life. It’s a celebration of everything good about igneia.”
Longing pulled at him. Elias had once told him geoeia was a necessary part of himself, like his lungs or his heart. Madoc had never imagined energeia feeling so crucial, but hearing the passion in Ash’s voice gave him a strange hope that anathreia wasn’t all force and power. That it might have an upside.
“It must take a lot of practice,” he said, realizing how much control she employed to use igneia. In the arena with Jann, Madoc hadn’t even felt like himself.
“It does.” She hiccuped a laugh. “Once I was in the galley of a ship on the way to Lakhu—we were always traveling for the next war. I was practicing a twist with igneia.” She leaned to the side, turning her wrist to emulate the path of the fire. “I went a little too far. I nearly set the ship on fire.”
Madoc winced. “I don’t imagine that went over well.”
“Everyone was meeting with Ignitus,” she said. “Taro found me covered in soot and corn flour—I’d grabbed the first thing in reach to put out the flames, but that just made it worse. She doused the fire before anyone knew what had happened. She called me Corn Cake for a year after that.”
He wasn’t going to laugh.
It happened anyway.
“I’m sorry,” he said, getting himself under control. “You don’t exactly look like a corn cake.”
Ash was trying to hold her lips in a straight line, but they twitched with the effort. “Madoc isn’t much better. Unless you’re an angry bird. Madoc. Madoc.”
He gaped at her. “That hurts, Corn Cake.”
She covered her mouth with both hands, stifling her laughter. Her joy lifted his shoulders. It smoothed the rough edges inside him. He wished she would put her hands down so he could hear the full force of it.
“Not as much as watching you flail around the arena,” she said, humor in her eyes. “You were serious about not training.”