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A couple of the guards are moving towards me, and I swing my net to keep them back, but I know this won't be won by simple physical fighting. Thankfully that isn't all that the colosseum is about. We might celebrate martial virtue but there is another side to the colosseum as well. I reach down within myself, for the magic that waits within, And I use that power to reach out to every creature I can feel.

I reach out with tendrils of power, connecting to the beasts that are kept beneath the colosseum, waiting there to kill gladiators and the prisoners for the amusement of the crowd. I can feel the giant snake there, the iron hide, the thunder hooves. Above all, I can feel the shadow cats.

I call to the creatures of the colosseum, and they answer that call. I feel them charging against the bars that hold them back, smashing their way free from their pens, or simply stepping into the shadows in the case of my shadow cat. I called to them and they come to me, roaring up from the depths of the colosseum, hitting the iron gates in a charge that smashes them from their hinges.

I don't just summon the beasts bred for battle either. I call the birds from the sky and the rats that scuttle around the hidden places. I call all of the creatures nearby, my power rolling out in waves. They are the army that Lady Elara thought she would unleash on the city, but now they are mine.

And I am not her, which means I must keep tighter control over these creatures than she would have done. Her plan was simply to unleash them and cause chaos, seizing power as they terrorized the city. I cannot allow that, will not allow that. I hold to them and direct them, focusing them on the soldiers, on our enemies, while forcing them to leave the ordinary people alone.

I feel as though my mind is being dragged in a thousand different directions, and that is the greatest challenge of this not the power required. I have power, I have always had power. The challenge is to control it. I force myself to focus, determined not to let go of any of the animals I am connected with.

I watch the battle through the eyes of birds, using their sight to direct the movements of the beasts. The Ironhide thunders into the colosseum, slamming into a knot of soldiers near Rowan, its great iron horn plunging through one of them who seeks to stab him. Thunder hooves charge in and I stop them near the gladiators, allowing them to climb onto their backs, to give them the advantage of mounts in the fight. I see Cesca balanced on one, swinging down with her sword, lightning crackling along the edge.

The birds give me enough warning to know that a guard is coming up behind me, yet I'm not sure I can react in time. I can't remember which muscles are mine and which belong to the creatures, can't remember how to use my hands to swing my net around to tangle the blade.

The seconds seem to stretch out. My heartbeat slows. I can see the guard’s blade advancing at a glacial pace towards my throat.

Am I about to die? Will I be killed because I have given so much of myself to controlling the creatures that I cannot control my own body? The guard steps up next to me, sword raised to finish me.

That is when the shadow cat leaps out of my shadow to pounce on him. Its claws rend his flesh, while its teeth come down on his throat, tearing it away in a spray of blood that I can taste as if it were my mouth doing the killing.

I can sense the attacks of different creatures. I can feel soldiers caught within the coils of my body, feel the play of the muscles as I slowly crush them. I can feel my claws ripping through my foes. I can taste blood a dozen different ways, hear the screams of the dying.

In it all I see a fresh wave of soldiers heading into the colosseum. Looking at them from above with the birds, I see them as simple shapes, a dart followed by a bigger square. It takes me a moment to pick out the people there. Some are injured, perhaps from fighting elsewhere in the city, perhaps from the violence last night. The ones in front are riding horses, while those behind have heavy armor and are glowing with magic.

The horses are a mistake.

“Rear,”

I whisper to them, and they do it all at once, bucking and kicking, throwing their riders from their backs. Some of the soldiers seem to realize that their mounts are under the control of another, and they kick free of them, struggling to get away. Some of them will lash out with their swords, killing their horses rather than letting them go free as I set them running away.

That is the nature of Aetheria: they destroy what they cannot control.

That is the purpose of the games, too, the reason we were all brought here. We fight because we are given no choice. Many of us die, and I can feel the pulsing power of the stones beneath Aetheria, to which those victims’ powers are sacrificed. They feed the stones in their death.

The few who survive become a part of the broader system of the empire, turned into nobles for it, given a reason not to rise up or fight against it.

The remaining soldiers move forward into the colosseum, and I meet them with a countercharge of creatures, an entire menagerie descending on them with all the speed and violence they hold. The soldiers struggle to maintain its height formation in the face of such an assault, and that means that gladiators can slip in behind the beasts, magical powers and attacks with weapons blending together in a furious whirlwind of violence.

I see that violence from every viewpoint, every possible angle. I feel it when a blade slides into one of the beasts’ bodies, when a spear is driven into the coils of the snake. I feel all their pain, their anger, their fear. I feel that they understand that this is their chance to be free, but I hold on to them tightly to keep them from harming any of the citizens of the city. I will not allow this to be a tidal wave of destruction.

I will not allow it but I'm no longer sure quite who I am. “I”

seems like such a nebulous concept when I am spread out among so many different creatures, able to experience the world in so many different ways. I feel as though I am one giant being composed of many different creatures. I suspect this is what it must feel like to be a god.

Dimly, I'm aware that it isn't a good thing not to be able to find myself. That I should be able to locate a single body to call my own. But how would I even begin to do that? I have too much to do controlling all of the beasts the way I once might have controlled weapons.

“Lyra, you need to focus. You need to come back to yourself.”

The words seemed to come to me from a long way away and right next to me all at once. As if someone is shouting in my ear, but those ears are impossible to locate.

I know that voice. A voice that's so familiar, so solid, so safe. A voice that seems to ground me. I follow that voice, focusing on it.

“Lyra, come back!”

Rowan calls, and now I know that it is Rowan. I can feel his hands on my arms, and that sensation reminds me that I have arms. I am not lost, I am standing right in the middle of the battle.

I throw one command out into the rest of the beasts: Only the guards. I hope it will be enough.

Now I pull back to myself, feeling the sensations of my body as I return to having just a single body. I have a measure of control over the creatures but no longer the full immersion that I once had. That is too much to maintain for long. The shadow cat is curled next to me, guarding me. Rowan is standing nearby too, keeping away the last guards nearby.

There are only a few of those left, and even as I watch, they turn to run. The stands are full of rioting people, shouting and fighting, but it seems that our side is the one that is coming out on top here. The beasts I called from the depths of the colosseum have made the crucial difference.

They have not saved everyone, though. Almost half of the dozen gladiators who stood beside me on the sands and refused the emperor's order to fight now lie dead. Bella is among them, so I don't know what that means for her connections within the city. Will they still fight by our side now that she is gone? Will I be able to control them and hold them back from a cascade of retaliation?

I don't know, and I don't have any time to think. We have won here in the colosseum but that is not the same as winning the whole empire. The emperor is still out there, and the last I saw of him he was fleeing, heading back in the direction of his imperial palace.

That means he's heading in the direction of Alaric. I cannot allow him to get to Alaric first. If that happens, even if we win the fight, I will lose the one thing that matters more than anything.

“The emperor is getting away,”

I say to Rowan. “Gather up the rest of the gladiators and anyone else who wants to join us. We need to march on the palace.”

“And will the beasts be coming with us?”

he asks. He sounds something between awestruck and afraid. I nod.

“They will.”