Page 121 of Set Fire to the Gods
Ignitus dropped his eyes to Ash with an exhausted smile. “Anathrasa was once queen of all the gods. She was manic and controlling and wanted to force the world into obedience—she could, with some of the weaker-willed mortals. We tried to kill her—we thought we had. But, obviously, we failed. And she’s had centuries to plot her revenge. Whatever Geoxus thinks he’ll get out of her is, I fear, a ruse that will only feed into something far worse.”
Dread hollowed Ash’s belly. No matter what Anathrasa’s true plan was, Madoc stood at the center of it.
She tried to get up, wobbling onto her knees. “We have to go to the palace. We have to—”
She pitched forward, the room spinning. Ignitus caught her shoulders.
“Steady now. We can’t do—”
“Let her go.”
Ash blinked and saw Tor framed in the stable doorway. Flames danced up his arms, highlighting Taro and Spark on either side of him.
Tor glared at Ignitus.
Who had his hands on Ash’s shoulders, her body wilting in his grip.
Ignitus sighed and released Ash, who wavered but managed to kneel upright on her own.
Tor dropped to the ground and grabbed her. “Are you all right? He said he heard a prayer from you here. What happened?”
He clearly meant the scorched stables. The burned bodies. Ash alone with Ignitus. How the last time he had seen her, she had been racing out of the arena after Madoc.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, because she couldn’t lie and tell him that she was fine. Even the thought made her stomach sour. The void inside her throbbed, aching, empty hands grasping for igneia that wasn’t there.
She had thought loneliness was a void.Thiswas a void. Loneliness had been a chip in a vase.
Ash touched Tor’s shoulder until he pulled his focus away from Ignitus. “I know you’ll hate me for saying this,” she whispered, “but right now, Ignitus is our best chance of getting out of Deimos alive. He’s on our side.”
Tor’s face went gray. “What are you talking about?”
Ash told him everything that had happened. How Madoc saved her life. Geoxus’s plans to subdue the world. Anathrasa, revealingherself and taking Ash’s igneia.
Tor jolted at that. Behind him, Taro and Spark gasped.
Ignitus beat dust from his robe as he stood. “I’ve sent messages to my other god-siblings about Anathrasa before. It always bothered me that there was nothing left when we defeated her—they all thought her body vanished with her anathreia. But then Geoxus, Aera, and Biotus started targeting Kula, and Geoxus, especially, was sosmug. More than normal. Something changed, has been changing, but Hydra and Florus ignored my worries because there was no proof.Thisis proof now, I’d say.”
“How did you defeat her last time?” Ash asked. In all the stories of their victory over Anathrasa, there were no hints as to what exactly the gods had done.
“Anathreia is the combination of all six energeias—fire, earth, animal, air, water, and plants. That was how she made us, at the beginning; she took a piece of her soul and split it apart. We knew we could never defeat her individually, as she’d always be stronger than any one of us, and we couldn’t risk all six of us attacking her at once. She’d only give us one chance to fight her. So”—Ignitus gave a grim smile—“we decided to make a single vessel just as powerful as she was. One vessel, one shot, one fight. We took the strongest mortal we had and each put pieces of our energeias into her.”
Ash’s eyebrows shot up. “You created a Soul Divine mortal?”
“In a way. She was more of a vessel for our energeias. Our fighter lured Anathrasa into what became the first arena—and so that fighter was the first gladiator. She managed to drain the Mother Goddess of her anathreia. Or most of it.”
Ash wheezed.I can’t have a gladiator involved again.
Ignitus had said that to her when she’d confronted him about letting her help.
“The threat you feared wasn’t a gladiator—thesolutionwas a gladiator,” Ash said, breathless.
Ignitus scowled. “I don’t think such a solution will be possible this time, though. That gladiator was still mortal in the end—she’s been dead for centuries. We’d need all the gods to put pieces of their energeias into a vessel again, and if Geoxus thinks Anathrasa is his to control, he’ll never rise against her.”
“Wait.” Ash’s heart kicked up. “Youcangive me igneia back?”
The fall of sympathy on Ignitus’s face was sudden and soft. “It isn’t that simple. Putting pieces of our energeias into a mortal proved... costly. Many mortals died before we found one who could withstand a god’s direct energeia. And as for us—” Ignitus pulled his hair to the side, tugging free the gray-white strand. “We were not made to break apart our souls like Anathrasa did when she made us. She’s the goddess of souls; we are not. Giving away our energeia is to give away our very beings. It started to kill each of us. We had to stop, or—”
“Or become mortal,” Ash finished.
