think you’d learn so quickly. Not to worry—we have time before the final match.”
Madoc felt as though he were back in the moving room, only the floor had been torn away, and he was falling, nothing to cling to.
“Am I a descendant of the Mother Goddess?” he managed. “Are there more like me? How am I supposed to—”
“I know this must be a great burden on you,” Geoxus told him, somber again. “If I could ease your suffering, I would. But Deimos is depending on you, Madoc. We cannot show weakness now. One crack in a foundation is all it takes to crumble a tower.”
Madoc avoided the god’s gaze, ashamed of all the cracks in his own foundation—all the questions and doubt poking through his gladiator facade.
“This is only the beginning,” Geoxus continued. “I’ll explain more when you’re ready. All you need to know now is that great things are in store for our people because of you.” He straightened and snapped his fingers to summon the servant from the bedside. “Get our champion something to eat. He must be famished.”
Madoc had never been less hungry. Everything about this was wrong.
Geoxus already knew of Petros’s corruption and had him “under control.” The Father God was cheating at war. He wasn’t even Madoc’s god, not fully.
The intuition that Madoc trusted in every fight, the anathreia that told him when to stall and when to attack, was sending a warning through his soul.
Be ready, it said.
He would be.
Eighteen
Ash
ASH AND TOR changed into old leather garments, grabbed weapons from their training supplies, and rushed out of the palace.
When they came to the bridge over the Nien River, Ash grabbed Tor’s arm. She nodded at a fishing boat docked a few paces away, the oars tucked under a faded tarp.
“Energeia” was all she said, with a quick look at the stone road under their feet.
If Geoxus had been listening to their conversation with Ignitus, he might know what they were planning. He could be tracking them through the rock of this path. But if they took a boat across the river instead of the stone bridge, he couldn’t follow them through the hydreia. They could dock far down and rush off into the city while Geoxus scrambled to locate them again.
Tor and Ash worked their way down the riverbank and leaped into the boat. They shoved off, rowing hard for the opposite side of the river.
Did the road groan when their feet left the rocks? Did a stone crack somewhere, sounding more like a bark of frustration?
Ash rowed hard and fast. The air smelled of chalky grit and crisp chill, of mildew-streaked river water and salted fish. She willed herself to believe that Hydra wasn’t involved in this when the current of the river tried to push them off course.
Straining and sweat drenched, Tor and Ash reached the eastern bank of the Nien. They pushed the boat back into the water, hoping it would find its way to the other shore and whoever they had stolen it from.
Then they sprinted into Crixion.
Though they kept their weapons hidden, they still must have given off an air of aggression, for no pickpockets accosted them and passing groups of drunk revelers gave them wide berth.
The streets got progressively narrower, the buildings shabbier. Ash and Tor turned a corner and saw a short, manicured path leading up to a massive closed gate that was lined with precious gems, all of it dripping wealth even in the night’s shadows. This villa’s shuttered walls were opulently out of place, a jewel lodged in muck to remind the impoverished of what they would never have.
This was Petros’s villa. Ash and Tor simultaneously slowed to a walk.
“How will we find them?” Ash whispered. The street was nearly abandoned; only one building showed signs of life, two up from where Petros’s villa capped this street. It had a gauzy red curtain draped across the window and a sign over the entrance with a picture of an embracing, half-naked couple.
“Patience,” Tor said. “Walk with purpose.”
Don’t stick out, Ash translated. She focused ahead, subtly scanning the edges of the road for Madoc. Her stomach tightened, but not in anxiety or fear—she was, somehow, excited.
She hadn’t gotten to save Char. But she would help Madoc save Cassia.
Ash bit the inside of her cheek. If nothing else came of tonight, that would be enough.
Before they got to the end of the street, a figure pulled out of the shadows around the corner.
Elias jogged toward them. His face