Page 124 of Set Fire to the Gods
But that was all a lie, a story Madoc had told himself to get through the long, lonely nights when the power whispering through his veins had made the emotions around him too loud to ignore. He hadn’t survived because of Geoxus; he’d survived because he’d refused to die. Elias, Cassia, the Metaxas, their home in the stonemasons’ quarter—it had all been chance.
The god of earth looked like Petros now, threatening pain and fear to force the energeia out of him. How small Geoxus must have felt to need Madoc’s power, the way Petros had needed him to win Anathrasa’s approval. Looking at them, Madoc couldn’t believe he’d ever thought one would be his salvation from the other. God or man, they were both carved from the same clay.
They would get nothing from him.
A guard raised a stone in his fist, but as Madoc braced for the impact, a gritty female voice cut through the stagnant air.
“Enough.”
Madoc’s gaze was drawn to the hunched woman standing at the edge of his vision. Anathrasa watched him with a scowl from a bench below a massive painting of Deimos. The other countries of the world were scaled smaller around it to appear meager and unthreatening.
Hate shivered down Madoc’s spine. He could still feel the coolness of Ash’s skin beneath his fingers.Empty, he’d overheard Anathrasa tell Geoxus as they’d dragged him from the room.Not a drop of energeialeft inside her.
His birth mother had taken Ash’s igneia. Hadfedon it.
Ash’s panic replayed in every clenching breath Madoc took. She’d known what was happening to her, felt her power being ripped away, and he’d been unable to stop it, just as she’d been unable to save Cassia.
His pain was silenced beneath a suffocating blanket of rage.
“He needs to feed.” Anathrasa rose and walked closer, stopping between him and the guards. She moved more easily than before, her back straight and her steps light, and he couldn’t help thinking that it had to do with the strength she’d gained from consuming Ash’s energeia.
Dark thoughts swirled inside him. Geoxus had said he could take a god’s power—not for long, but maybe long enough to leave the god of earth defenseless.
To turn Geoxus’s geoeia on him.
Madoc didn’t even know if that was possible, much less how he would control a god’s power.
“I told you he’s too fatigued,” Anathrasa continued when Geoxus groaned in frustration. She’d been arguing this since they’d arrived. “He’s not going to be able to do what you want when his soul is starving.”
“Ignitus is in Crixion,” Geoxus said. “He’s got only a small group of guards to defend him. If he returns to Kula, he’ll have half the country rising to his defense. This needs to be done quickly. You told me he’d be ready. These exercises are becoming a waste of time.”
“This is how divinity works,” she answered calmly. “Your Deimans do not move mountains without first deriving strength from the earth.” She tugged at a white whisker jutting from her chin. “The boy needs a tithe.”
Madoc flinched.
“He needs pressure,” Petros growled. “He is willful. We went through this when he was a child. I tried to force the energeia out of him, but clearly I didn’t push him hard enough.”
“The Kulan girl did not force his anathreia free,” Geoxus mused, his fingers tapping on the arm of his throne. “He gave it willingly.” With a sigh, the god straightened, eyeing Madoc with paper-thin patience. “Very well, Madoc. You want the girl? You can have her. If that’s the cost of giving Petros this power—”
“I will never give Petros anything,” Madoc spat, realizing a moment too late that he should have first secured Ash’s safety. “He doesn’t deserve the power he has.”
He didn’t deserve to live. Madoc saw that clearly now. Petros hadtortured innocent people—the Metaxas, Jann’s family, the Undivine in the poor districts. For a while Madoc had thought it would be enough to punish Petros by taking his money, but now he could see that would never hurt him. All Petros did, he did with Geoxus’s approval. As much as Madoc tried to cut him, he would never draw blood.
The only way to stop Petros was to destroy him, and Geoxus, too.
Madoc was starting to sound a lot like Ash.
Petros scoffed. “Defiant to the end.”
Madoc’s glare narrowed on his father. It may have been pride that straightened his back, but it was hate that curled his hands into fists.
Geoxus shifted to the front of his seat, his brows raising as he looked from father to son. His sudden interest felt like needles piercing Madoc’s skin.
“So there is something else you want,” he said quietly.
Madoc’s mouth grew dry.
“We have been applying the wrong methods,” said Geoxus. “It seems a tithe is precisely what he needs.”
