A chill crawling down his spine, Madoc took the final turn out of South Gate and into Market Square, an area where Divine and Undivine mingled. An open-air temple protecting the giant bronze statue of their Father God towered high above the empty street. In a few hours, vendors would fill the square, selling clay gladiator dolls and silver and black banners alongside food and textiles, but for now it was still, lit only by the beaten copper streetlamps.
Madoc’s remaining sandal caught a raised stone on the street and tore the leather strap. With a curse, he took it off and tucked it into the back of his belt. Now he didn’t even have the coin to replace it.
Maybe he could sweet-talk Cassia into fixing it tomorrow. She would, after she smacked him upside the head with it. She had informed Madoc and Elias on more than one occasion that she did not have the time or patience to coddle giant babies.
With a resigned sigh, he headed for the corner where an olive seller sold his wares during the day. Elias always chose this place to meet because he liked the look of the merchant’s daughter.
“Took you long enough.”
Madoc turned to find the scrawniest stonemason ever to live jogging across the street. As he approached, a grin dimpled his right cheek, half hidden by his shaggy black hair.
Relief broadened the smile on Madoc’s lips, masking the fear that prickled beneath his breastbone. Now that he was with Elias, Madoc realized just how close they’d been to getting pulled apart.
“I had a few stops on the way back,” Madoc said. “Had to get a drink. Picked up some pickled bull testicles from the South Gate market for Seneca.”
At the mention of their eccentric old neighbor, Elias snickered. “Courting gifts won’t help. She’s not interested, you sorry pigstock.”
Madoc chuckled, used to the good-humored insult from his friend’s smart mouth. Elias knew that Madoc’s strange intuitions were far from ordinary, but he enjoyed reminding Madoc who had the real power.
“Did you enjoy yourself tonight? I gave the signal ten times before you decided to step in.”
Elias frowned. “What was it again?”
Madoc gave an exaggerated tap of his left hand against his thigh.
“Oh, right.” Elias laughed, and Madoc shoved him to the side. “It’s okay. The Great Quarry Bull can take a hit or two.”
Madoc groaned at the name Elias had chosen so that no one would be able to trace Madoc back to their home. It was true that he tended to heal quickly, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t felt each grain of sand flung in Fentus’s assault. Only a true Earth Divine could use geoeia to harden their skin like a rock.
They turned toward the river and the stonemasons’ quarter. Madoc had lived there with Elias Metaxa and his family since Elias’s sister Cassia had found him begging on the temple steps eleven years ago. Though Elias and Cassia were Divine, their mother, Ilena, and her other children were not, and when her Divine husband had died, leaving them with unsurmountable debt, they’d been forced to move into the slums with the Undivine.
“It was quite a show, wasn’t it?” Elias’s voice had quieted but was still pitched with delight. “Did you see how far I sent that dust wave? I’ll bet I’m the only one in the city aside from Geoxus himself who can throw geoeia like that.” He grinned, but his sandals scuffed the ground with each heavy step. It appeared their opponent wasn’t the only one who’d pushed his limits at the fight.
Madoc gave a snort. Elias might have put on a show tonight, but it was Madoc who had sensed Fentus’s weakness. Most of the time Madoc tried to ignore the constant battery of emotions people generally thought they were hiding beneath the surface, but at times like this it came in handy. He was learning to use empathy to his advantage. Where Elias was getting stronger, Madoc was getting smarter.
For months they’d practiced their routine, failing in the first three fights before finally finding their rhythm and securing a sloppy win. Madoc, looking the part of a fighter and trueborn Earth Divine, faced the opponents while Elias, who’d sworn to his mother never to enter a fight, stood on the sidelines, throwing his geoeia from a distance.
Making it seem like Madoc was the one doing it weakened the strength of Elias’s blows, but what the attack lacked in power, Madoc himself made up for in brute force. No one had any idea that he didn’t have geoeia, and due to the severe punishments imposed on cheaters, no one suspected their lie.
Not even Lucius’s trainer had seen the truth.
Madoc’s mouth opened, his conversation with the trainer ready to spill out, but he stopped himself. He was bound by the same promise as Elias—they’d both sworn they wouldn’t fight in the high-stakes matches Petros hosted around the city each week—and telling him about Lucius would only lead to trouble. Elias was distracted by shiny things, and a chance to earn real coin, like the payouts the gladiators made when they fought for Geoxus, would have them facing foreign competitors twice as formidable as Fentus, or leave them in a cell pondering their fates.
Anger sliced through Madoc’s disappointment as his mind returned to the boatyard. They’d beaten Fentus and walked away with nothing.
“We had him,” Madoc muttered. “That much coin could have gotten us through the rest of the month.” The half they would’ve given to the temple could have kept a kid off the street, or paid for new cots in the sanctuary, or kept someone out of Petros’s greedy grip.
“Oh.” Elias removed the swollen leather purse tucked inside his belt and slapped it against Madoc’s chest. “Did I forget to mention I snatched this from the bookmaker while he was carrying on about you being a cheat?”
Madoc grabbed the satchel, the thrill of his victory slamming back through him as he pulled open the strings and looked inside. Gold glinted back at him, dimly lit by the moon above. Geoxus had blessed them after all.
“You could have started with this,” Madoc said, clutching the purse.
“I could have,” Elias agreed. “But it wouldn’t have been nearly as dramatic.”
They veered to the opposite side of the street, up the broad stone steps of the temple where a dozen homeless Undivine slept, moaning softly in hunger or pain. As Madoc drew closer to the gates of the sanctuary, he felt as if a hand were closing around his throat. It didn’t matter how many years had passed since he’d first come here, he would never forget that thin, desperate hope that had pushed him to reach his skinny arm into the offering box, praying for a coin to steal so that he could buy something to eat.
Thirteen years later that same slot remained in the weathered wood of the door, beneath the line of gemstones people touched for luck or prayer. His large hand wouldn’t fit through now, but the coins did. They fell to the bottom of the box with a quiet jingle.
He would never be that boy again. As long as he could fight, he would fill these coffers, returning what he could of the money that Petros stole from the people.
The Divine might turn away pigstock like him, but the temple never would.
“There goes my new chariot,” Elias whined. “I hope you’re happy.”
Madoc grinned. “I’m sure your mother wouldn’t be at all suspicious if we came home in a chariot.” They couldn’t even afford a carriage ride across town. After their first win, Elias had brought a fat duck home for dinner, and Ilena had accused him of gambling and made him give the bird to Seneca to teach him a lesson.