Zaria built the pits with her own hands, dirt floors and torchlight, and she called them the only honest place that exists. She wanted all the scattered underground halls under her reign. But she knew where only one hall stood. Her own. The rest were rumors. A fighter cannot unite what she cannot find. So she climbed up. The spiral stair rose from the dirt into cloud light, glowing green and blue and purple. Each step pulled her farther from the torches. At the top she found the gods who kept maps she needed. She hated the brightness. She did not look away from it. In a stone colosseum painted with dying stars, two goddesses waited. Zaria knew them by reputation. Naga Shira, snakes writhing in her hair, eyes green as poison. And Oracle Titanlock, gold mask, arms thick as pillars. Oracle had never let her mask touch the floor. Both had wrestled across every underground hall. Both knew the way to each. "I need the locations," Zaria said. "The other halls. Give them to me." Oracle did not move. "No one gives a map. You earn it." "Fight her," Naga Shira said. Her snakes hissed. "Beat Oracle, you get what she knows." Zaria watched Oracle's feet first. She always did. Oracle shifted her weight to the left heel before she lunged. Zaria read it and stepped wide. The gold-masked goddess crashed past her into stone. They locked. Oracle was stronger. She drove Zaria back against a carved wall of exploding planets. Zaria's spine hit rock. Air left her. Oracle reached for her head, for the hold that had pinned a hundred gods. Zaria dropped low. She hooked Oracle's left heel, the same heel she had watched. She wrenched it out. Oracle fell hard, mask scraping toward the floor. The mask hovered an inch from the dirt. Oracle's hand slammed down to save it. That was the opening. Zaria rolled her, pinned both shoulders, and held. One. Two. Three. Oracle's shoulders stayed down. Silence. Naga Shira's snakes went still. Oracle pulled free and stood. She stared at Zaria a long moment. "You read my heel." "I read everyone's." Oracle wiped dirt from her mask. Her voice came out cold and exact. "Then you earned it." She knelt and drew in the dust. Lines. Marks. The paths to seven underground halls, scratched into the colosseum floor by her own hand. Zaria crouched and memorized every stroke. Seven halls. Seven doors she could finally reach. But Oracle was not finished. "The map is old," she said. "Three of these halls answer to one god now. He took them by force. He will not open his door to you." Zaria stared at the three marks clustered tight together. One owner. Three halls. A rival she had never met, already ahead of her. She stood. She had her map. Now she had an enemy to go with it.

Zaria held the map in her head. Four of the seven halls stood unclaimed. But the lines Oracle had scratched in the dust showed no distances. She knew the direction to each hall, not which stood closest. Guess wrong and she would lose days walking. Her rival would seize another hall while she wandered. She climbed the cloud stairway again, its steps glowing green and gold, to ask the one goddess who had walked all seven. Oracle Titanlock stood at the top, wiping dust from her gold mask. She did not turn when Zaria arrived. "You earned the map. You did not earn more." "The map has no distances," Zaria said. "Tell me which hall is nearest." "No." Oracle finally faced her. The mask caught the cloud light. "I give a map once. You want the rest, you win it again." Zaria set her feet. She had beaten this goddess already. But Oracle knew that now. Oracle would guard her left heel. Before they could lock, another goddess crossed the citadel floor. Red streaked her black hair. Two heavy belts hung at her waist. Zaria had heard of her in the pits below. Athena Strife. The goddess who forged belts no weak hand could lift. She stopped between them, flat-eyed. "Don't waste a match on a map," Athena said. She looked at Zaria. "You want nearest? Distance is weight. Oracle carried these halls in her feet for years." She turned to Oracle. "You know which door is closest. Your legs know." Oracle said nothing. Zaria watched her feet. When Athena named the closest hall, Oracle's weight shifted. The same tell. Her left heel pressed down, the way it did before a lie or a lunge. "The eastern hall," Zaria said. "Below the broken ridge. You flinched when she said closest." Oracle went still. The mask hid her eyes. "You read my heel again." "I read everyone's." A long silence. Then Oracle knelt and pressed her palm to the dust. She drew a single line out from the cluster of marks. "East. Two days' walk from your pits. Nearest of the four." Her voice turned cold and exact. "The other three unclaimed halls lie weeks apart. You chose the only one your rival can reach as fast as you." Zaria looked at the line. Two days. She could be at the door before the rival moved. Athena spoke behind her. "He hears about every claim. He'll come for the same door." Zaria memorized the path and stood. She had her direction now. One hall, close enough to win. But close enough meant her rival could run the same two days. She would not reach an empty door. She turned for the stairs. "Then I get there first."

Zaria started down from the cloud stairway with the eastern hall fixed in her head. Two days of open ground stood between her and the door. No shelter. No water. She would arrive at the broken ridge with nothing left in her legs, and her rival would arrive fresh. She knew it the way she knew a lie. A walk that long would empty her before the fight even began. She found Diana Maple below, in a high-roofed hall where a vast ring of cloud stone caught the torchlight. Diana wrestled in red wool that should have cooked her. Zaria had seen her climb the ranked ladder the hard way, with no favors. She trusted that. Trust came rare for Zaria. "The eastern hall is two days off," Zaria said. "I'll walk in drained. He won't." Diana wiped her brow. "Then don't walk." "There's no other way across." "There's a way. It isn't walking." Diana nodded toward the far wall. Wu Tianlong stood there, arms crossed. Zaria had heard of her. The Empress who claimed the sport's first hold as her blood right. Diana had beaten her, then learned from her. Now they stood on the same side. Beside Wu Tianlong, an ox the size of a wagon chewed at nothing. Its coat shifted purple and green, stars scattered through the hide like coals. "The beast carries weight," Wu Tianlong said. "It crosses open ground in half a day. I do not lend it." "Then set a price," Zaria said. Wu Tianlong studied her. "You read feet. Oracle said so. Prove it." She stepped onto the cloud stone ring. "Throw me. One fall. I keep the ox if you cannot." Zaria climbed into the ring. The crowd that gathered at the rail was all Greek robes and bared teeth, shouting, spilling drink. She shut them out. She watched Wu Tianlong's feet. They locked. Wu Tianlong drove forward, heavy and sure. Zaria gave ground. The Empress leaned into the push. Her back heel lifted a hair's width before she committed her weight. There. The tell. When the heel rose again, Zaria had already moved. She dropped low, hooked the planted ankle, and pulled the loaded leg out from under. Wu Tianlong hit the cloud stone flat. The crowd roared and flung popcorn over the rail. Wu Tianlong lay still a moment. Then she stood. "You read the heel." She almost smiled. "Take the ox." Zaria set her hand on the beast's warm flank. Half a day now, not two. She would reach the ridge with her legs under her. "One thing," Wu Tianlong said. "The ox is known. Your rival will see it cross. He will know exactly which door you ride for." Zaria swung up onto the broad back. She had traded a slow, empty arrival for a fast one that announced itself. The race was on, and now he knew the finish line.