“It doesn’t take much pressure to crack the bones of the wrist,” Petros mused.
“Stop!” Madoc shouted. He caught sight of Seneca leaning heavily against the far wall behind Petros’s guard, her long white hair coated with gray dust. He couldn’t tell if she was injured.
“How about we sweeten the pot?” Petros taunted. “Show me how you fight, and I’ll let the girl go.”
Rage hardened Madoc’s veins. He glanced at Elias, his stare hard. If Petros wanted a show, he would get one. Sweat and dust burned Madoc’s eyes. He stepped away from the table, bits of dishes crackling beneath his feet. His hand dropped to his thigh, ready to give the signal.
This was a test, just like the tests in his youth, only now he wasn’t five years old and afraid. Now he had Elias. Now he had a family.
He tapped his thigh, but nothing happened.
Petros’s gaze pinched.
“Come on,” Madoc muttered. Elias could lift a broken cup off the floor, flick a stone across the room, anything. But when he tapped his thigh again, the earth stayed quiet.
Panic laced through his ribs.
“My mistake,” said Petros bitterly. “It looks like you are just pigstock after all.” He snapped his fingers and his guard stepped forward. “Bring the girl.”
Cassia’s sobs gave way to a soft moan as her bindings loosened.
“No.” Madoc lunged toward Petros. “Please. I’ll do whatever you like. You want to see geoeia? Let’s go outside in the courtyard. I’ll show you.”
Petros’s disappointment turned to disgust. “The girl attacked me. I could ask Geoxus for permission to execute her. Taking her to my house is a mercy.”
“Your house?” Elias balked. The guard had crossed the room and removed a set of cuffs from his belt. They were wooden and spiked along the inside. “Wait. You’re shackling her?”
Madoc could feel his own control slipping. He’d seen the centurions shackle Divine lawbreakers so they could be taken to the jail. The wooden spikes in the cuffs that encircled the wrists and ankles could not be manipulated by geoeia. If the prisoner moved too fast, or tried to summon the earth to their bidding, the spikes impaled their skin and destroyed their focus. It was supposedly excruciating. A Divine man who mixed mortar with them had worn the shackles once after drunkenly attacking a centurion and now could barely bend his wrists.
Cassia wanted to be a centurion. She was supposed to be the one keeping order, not breaking it.
“Cause me more trouble, and you’ll be next,” Petros told Elias as the spikes were fastened around her thin wrists. “We’ll set her indenture at fifteen hundred gold coins. That’s only fair for her actions today.”
“That’s more than we make in three years at the quarry!” Elias cried.
“We’ll pay it,” Madoc promised. “Let her stay, and I promise we’ll make good on it.”
“I don’t think so,” Petros said. “The Metaxas have defaulted on the payment of their debts in the past, if I recall.”
Rage hardened Madoc’s muscles. This wasn’t happening. He had to stop Petros. He’d been foolish thinking a few gold coins earned in a fight would hurt his father. The man was a monster. He needed to be destroyed.
“Stop.” Cassia glanced up to Madoc, a fierceness filling her gaze even as the guard jerked her upright. “Don’t be stupid.” She lowered her chin toward the table, where the rest of the family hid.
He couldn’t fight for one of them without risking all of them.
He couldn’t let her go.
It didn’t matter if they lived in the quarter, or if they had to eat other people’s scraps or nothing at all. They had each other—that was what Ilena always said. They could get through anything as long as they stayed together.
“These alleys are so small,” Petros complained. “We had to leave the carriage on the corner. Such a walk in this heat.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Cassia said again as the guard pulled her from the room. “I’ll be fine.”
With a smirk, the guard closed the door behind him. A moment later, the wood was sealed to the frame by a wall of clay from the outside.
“No!” Elias rammed his shoulder against the exit, but it gave only a small crack. He lifted his hands, trying to peel away the earth with geoeia, but it was solid, like Cassia’s wall bindings. Elias could chisel through it with his power, but it would take time and concentration.
Madoc wheeled on him as he shoved back the table. “What was that? Why didn’t you use your geoeia when I gave the sign?”
“And have him take you too?” Elias shot back as Madoc dropped to his knees at Ilena’s side. “You use geoeia and it proves you’re the one he’s looking for. He could have killed you on the spot!”
“Would you two shut up already?” Danon shouted.
On the ground, Ilena moaned and jerked beneath Madoc’s grip. He didn’t realize he’d touched her arm, or even how hard he was holding on to her, until he drew back, revealing the pink imprint of his fingertips.
“Are you all right?” Elias dropped to his knees at her side, worry drawing his tone tight.
Ilena blinked and prodded her forehead. “Yes . . . I . . .” She grabbed Elias’s arm and pulled herself up. “Where is Cassia?” Her unfocused gaze slid around the room. “What happened?”
Madoc’s head fell forward.
“Petros happened,” said Danon.
“What does that mean?” Ilena’s voice pitched. “Get me up!”
“She should stay down.” Seneca had hobbled over, leaning against the corner of the table as she extended a dusty towel in their direction. “That’s a nasty cut.”
Madoc took the cloth, holding it to Ilena’s head. His nerves were frayed, his blood pumping too fast. He needed to get out of this house.
He needed to bring Cassia home.
Ilena paled further as Danon explained what had happened.
“When is Cassia coming back?” Ava asked, latching onto her mother’s side.
Ilena didn’t answer. Her gaze had turned to Madoc and Elias.
“Fighting?” she whispered. Then, like a shot, she snagged the front of Elias’s tunic in her unrelenting grip. “Fighting? We don’t use energeia—or our fists, Madoc—to hurt anyone!”
Shame sliced through the jagged edges of his emotions. She didn’t want them fighting because of her husband, and they had done it anyway. He pressed his fingertips to his closed eyes. He couldn’t explain why he’d done it. He couldn’t make this okay. He’d wanted to hurt Petros, and instead, Petros had hurt him, just like always.
Elias peeled her fingers away with a muttered apology.
“I’ll talk to Petros. Tell him this was a misunderstanding.” Bracing herself against Madoc, Ilena stood, but one step had her stumbling into the side of the table.
“You need to lie down,” said Madoc.
“Don’t you tell me what to do,” she snapped, but when she wavered again, she gave a reluctant nod. “Just for a bit then.”
They helped Ilena to her room, righting the cot that had been overturned in the guard’s search. While Danon and Seneca attended to her, Madoc and Elias returned to work on the door.