leaves that left one arm bare. “What if in defeating Ignitus, we open Kula up to being conquered by Geoxus or some other god?”
“If we have the power to destroy one god, all gods will fear us.”
“What I meant was—” Ash licked her lips, but she couldn’t get the words to come out.
These words that had been swelling in her heart since Cassia had brought the records detailing Kula’s lost resources.
These words that had been choking her since she’d wondered if Ignitus had sent a message to Hydra asking for help.
Is killing Ignitus really best for Kula—or is it just best for our revenge?
Anxiety skittered through Ash’s chest. Horror. Disgust.
“How many wars has Ignitus fought in your lifetime?” Ash asked instead.
Tor watched her, his eyes narrow, curious, and cautious. “Thirty-one.”
“And how many of those did he start?”
“Does it matter? Good Kulans suffered either way.”
“But the other gods sometimes harm Kula to instigate wars. Ignitus couldn’t just let them get away with it. Could he? He had to respond.” She looked at the striated marble under her sandals. “I just want to be sure that this is right. That he is the monster we think he is.”
“Ash.” Tor took a step closer, his eyes darkening. “Where is this coming from?”
She fought against the instinct to reach for the igneia in the braziers, knowing Tor would feel her nervously pulling strength. “Have we ever talked to him? Have we ever tried to understand what—”
Tor seized her shoulders. Ash gawked up at him.
The guard didn’t flinch. He might have even been smiling at the sight of Ignitus’s two champions scuffling before their coming battle.
“There is nothing to understand,” Tor said, the veins bulging around his eyes. “That monster killed Char and Rook, and we are close to bringing him to justice.”
Tor’s fury pulled Ash’s awareness to a fine, sharp point.
Char had been Ignitus’s best. She’d constantly defeated his other gladiators during training fights. Her control of igneia was unprecedented, deliberate, and smooth.
If Kula’s resources were at risk, who else should Ignitus have gambled on?
Tears gathered in Ash’s eyes. She couldn’t bear the deluge of thoughts that broke free, things she had never in her life predicted she would think.
Behind Tor, the door opened.
“Remember who killed your mother,” he told her in a rumbling whisper. “These questions disgrace her memory, and Rook’s too. You’ve come so far, Ash. Don’t back down now.”
Tor spun away—but not before Ash saw his bloodshot eyes, the pain on his face.
She had broken his heart with her uncertainty. She had broken her own too.
This was why she had shoved down thoughts like this for as long as she had. They would destroy her.
Ash trembled. Tor entered the room at a servant’s beckoning, and the absence of him made her feel cold under the high, exposed ceilings of the hall. She wanted to tell him how sick her own questions made her, how much she hated the doubt twining around her heart.
She wanted to be angry again. She wanted to fume with vengeance.
But she could only step forward, her shoulders bent, and enter Ignitus’s room.
The wide, well-lit chamber appeared to have many uses. A ruffled bed on a short dais filled one corner. On a table in the center of the room, food waited, steaming plates of roasted chicken and spiced orange slices and charred peppers arrayed before three chairs. To the left, shelves of scrolls and books peered down at a desk strewn with papers and quills.
Ignitus sat at that desk, forehead in his hands, body hunched over a stack of papers. He didn’t seem to know Tor and Ash were here. A servant poured wine into three waiting goblets on the table, and when the guards shut the door with a thud, Ignitus still didn’t react.
Tor curled his fingers into fists. He didn’t eye Ash in question as he usually would have—their conversation had cracked something between them. Nausea gripped Ash when she realized that what had broken was trust.
Ignitus launched himself from the chair and swept the papers off the desk. “Damn it!”
As the papers flurried through the room like leaves off a tree, Ignitus covered his face and took a slow breath, clearly gathering himself. This was the most disheveled Ash had ever seen him. Scarlet wrappings tangled around his hips, brushing the tops of his feet, his chest bare. His hair, unornamented, erupted around his face. The gray strands were prominent now, looped into a single coil that fell down his shoulder.