and moaned with gratitude. Heat filled her heart, searing and strengthening, calming her twisted nerves.
The guard cocked his head at her. “Champion? Are you all right?”
Ash nodded. “I am now.”
She turned, pulling the igneia back out and into her open hand—
But the hall behind her was empty. Petros was gone.
Ash staggered, her firelight wavering off the bare sandstone walls. Each crevice looked like eyes in the shadows, watching; ears, listening.
Petros knew she had overheard him. Geoxus knew too.
“Champion?” one guard pressed. “The carriage is waiting for you. The other champion is as well.”
She swung back to the guards. “Take me to Tor. Now.”
The guards led Ash to the arena’s outdoor stable yard, the one used by the gladiators and their attendants. Only two carriages remained: the one for Ignitus’s champions, with Tor, Taro, and Spark seated in the high, open-air compartment; and one that Ash didn’t recognize at first. It bustled with servants loading weapons and armor.
One of the servants was Elias. That was Madoc’s carriage.
Ash scanned the people around it, but Madoc wasn’t there. He hadn’t come back from the temple yet? Where was he?
The Kulan guards broke apart, two climbing into the driver’s seat of the carriage, one mounting a horse. Ash lingered on the ground, her fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides.
When Tor met her gaunt eyes, he instantly leaped over the carriage railing and closed the space between them. “What happened?”
But Ash turned back to Elias. He was handing up a load of wrapped swords. He felt her watching him and turned.
His eyebrows bowed, a question, before he stuffed his hands into his pockets and took slow, easy steps toward them. None of the other servants noticed; even the Kulan guards, who had been so impatient to leave, were distracted by something that had broken on the carriage.
“Petros is behind this,” Ash hissed when Elias was within earshot. “I heard him in the halls. He was talking to someone about how Stavos escaped from him. I think he’s the cause of the champions’ pox, the gladiators disappearing. I think he does something to them. And they talked about how Madoc knows too much, and Petros has Cassia so he can keep Madoc in line.” She looked up at Tor, breathless. “I don’t know what he’s planning, but he put Madoc in this war. He knows what Madoc is.”
“That rat,” Elias cursed. He ground his jaw. “I have to get Cassia out now. This ends today.”
He turned away, hands in fists as though he intended to march up to Petros right then.
Tor grabbed Elias’s shoulder, causing the boy to go utterly slack. But he dropped his hand when a few of the Deiman servants by the other carriage looked over.
They had to be careful. They had to be quick. Even out in the open, there was stone under their feet, in the building behind them.
Nowhere was safe.
“We can help you get Cassia,” Tor said, low. “She’s being held at Petros’s villa?”
Elias nodded, dumbstruck. “You’d help? Because you think Madoc will help you.”
“Because if Petros is behind this, then he’s the person we need to focus on,” Tor said. “If he’s poised to move against Ignitus—”
But Ash couldn’t bear thinking that they’d have to ally with Petros to bring down Ignitus. Everything about Petros felt oily and stained.
“You need to find Madoc,” Ash cut over Tor, talking to Elias. “I left him at the temple, but—you need to tell him.”
Elias nodded. His face went pale. “If Petros is the one who killed Stavos, he could go after Madoc next. What’s to stop him? He’s murdering gladiators.” Elias slid a hand through his short hair, pulling it up at the front. “I’ll find him. I’ll warn him.”
“Good.” Tor looked up at the Kulan guards. They were adjusting a bolt on the rear axle while Taro and Spark took up an idle conversation with them, keeping them occupied. A small grin of pride spread across Tor’s face, but he turned back to Elias.
“Find Madoc and meet us tonight outside Petros’s villa, just before midnight,” Tor said. Ash had heard this tone of his so many times—it had ordered Char through training drills, had reprimanded Ash for taking foolish risks. “The four of us—two Fire Divine, one Earth Divine, and a Soul Divine—should be able to sneak into Petros’s villa. We’ll split up, find Cassia, and get her out first. Ash and I—” He glanced at her. His face softened. “We’ll investigate on our own, after she’s safe. We’ll find