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It is hard to keep track of the days at Ironhold. Every morning we train, out in the practice spaces, drilling with our weapons in long lines, running and lifting heavy rocks to develop our bodies.

“Now wrestling practice! Partner up!”

We work under the watchful eye of Lord Darius, the former gladiator who is master of Ironhold.

He is in his late forties now, but there is still a hardness to him even though his dark hair is peppered with grey.

I know from experience that he truly believes in the holy nature of the games, seeing them as an essential rite to please the gods and give magical power to the stones beneath the city from which all our powers flow.

When it comes to the line drills, I train with a spear and a weighted chain which features a hooked blade on the end.

The combination makes me a long-range fighter who must seek to dodge and move in my bouts, avoiding close-range fighting as much as possible.

But I must wrestle along with the others, partly just because I've been commanded to and partly because, if an opponent does close with me, I need to be able to break away and return to the distance where I am used to fighting.

I find myself partnered with Cesca, who doesn't look happy about it.

We practice trips and throws together, but the majority of the wrestling practice is just going against one another, trying to throw one another again and again.

Soon we are both covered in dust from our battles.

Around us the others are practicing in the same way.

Rowan is throwing his partners with ease, his size and strength coupled now with the experience of having fought in multiple games within the Colosseum.

He is as experienced a gladiator as I am, even if he has one mark fewer crossing the circle of his brand.

“Switch partners!”

Lord Darius commands.

He oversees so much of our training personally, as if wanting to make sure that each of us is trained to the highest pitch of perfection before we are cast into the games to live or die.

It is one of the paradoxes of the colosseum that we are trained with care and attention, given the best food, healers, experts in massage and physical preparation, only to be set against one another in fights to the death.

I head for Rowan, but Cesca gets to him first.

I can see her eyes roving over him as she approaches, and she puts a sway into her step that I suspect is designed to catch his eye.

Again, it seems to me that she's looking for someone stronger to latch onto in order to make sure that she survives her time.

I can’t even blame her for it.

She has some magic, but she is smaller and weaker than most others here.

I end up with a muscular female gladiator who seems to be a part of the latest intake, because the brand on her shoulder has no marks across it yet.

She wears the iron collar of a slave gladiator.

There are always new arrivals at Ironhold, taken from around the empire because they have displayed magical talents, and Aetheria is determined to claim them all for itself.

The city says that magic flows outwards from it, so any who display magical talents beyond its walls belong to it.

Now, I know that it is a way of ensuring that Aetheria maintains control over magic, not giving the frontiers enough magical practitioners to mount an uprising.

Aetheria keeps itself powerful with those it takes and weakens the fringes of its empire.

“I’m Lyra,”

I say to the gladiator, because I don't know her.

She has cut her dark hair short so that no one can get a grip on it, while her deep brown eyes lock onto mine without warmth.

“Aya,”

she replies, in an unfriendly tone.

We circle one another and come to grips.

It's obvious from the start that she isn't holding back.

She's bigger and stronger than me, and I must move around cautiously, trying to find angles where she can't bring her whole strength to bear.

She grabs me, throwing me to the ground hard and then landing on top of me with her full weight to pin me in place. The move knocks the breath from my lungs.

“You're not so tough,”

she says, as she does it.

I manage to squirm out from underneath her, but she grabs me again, lifting me and throwing me with bruising force.

“How are you the favorite gladiator of the Colosseum?”

Aya demands.

She continues to out-wrestle me, using her greater size and strength to pick me up and fling me around.

I try to trip her, to catch her out, but it's obvious she's used to fighting at close quarters.

And it seems she wants to prove a point by hurting me.

As one of the gladiators with the most experience here, I'm a target now.

She must know she can make her name by beating me convincingly in practice.

So she does.

She throws me this way and that, not giving me a chance to get my breath back.

“Change partners!”

Lord Darius calls.

I see Cesca pull back from Rowan with a lingering touch as he releases her from the pin he's been holding her in. He looks briefly confused and embarrassed. I go to work with him, but I don't make it there.

“Not you, Lyra Thornwind. A patron has come for you.”

Shock runs through me at those words, along with fear at what might be about to happen.

I shouldn’t be surprised that I have acquired a new patron.

I have been without a patron for weeks now, and as one of the most successful gladiators in the games, it was inevitable that a noble would decide they wanted to forge a connection with me.

I suspect that if I weren't a beast whisperer, I would already have attracted a new patron.

As it is the nobles are being cautious, not least because of the rumors that I somehow had my previous patron killed.

In any case, they don't want to risk upsetting the emperor by being closely linked to me when he continues to think that I might be a threat to him, and has all beast whisperers persecuted.

But now, someone has decided it is worth the risk.

Perhaps the price of my patronage is cheap enough now that a minor noble thinks they can gain something by being seen with me.

Perhaps someone has simply decided that they gain more than they lose by being around me.

Whatever has happened I don't have a choice about it.

None of the gladiators here do, even the nominally free ones.

The only advantage they have is that there are limits to the commands that their patrons can give them.

But they cannot deny a patron access.

The whole system of the Colosseum seems to be based on connecting the most powerful gladiators with the nobility, drawing them in and making them a part of it if they succeed in the games.

But that is exactly what makes me fear what might happen next.

As a slave gladiator, a noble patron can do almost anything they wish with me.

They can hurt me, use me, as they wish.

The prospect of that makes me shake with the terror of what might be done to me.

And still, I have no choice.

I'm forced to follow a trainer up through the fortress.

Ironhold is a place of granite walls and flickering torches, in contrast to the beautiful marble of the city below.

It seems designed at every step to remind us that we are captives here, held in by the great walls, patrolled by soldiers who have their own glimmers of power.

Fear builds in me as the trainer leads me through the interior of the fortress.

The last time a patron paid to see me, it was because she wanted to hurt me.

Ravenna’s mother had decided to take his revenge for me killing her in the arena.

She is dead now, but there's nothing stopping another patron from being as cruel, or worse.

I am led to a large, mostly empty room in one of the higher parts of the fortress, where there is a single couch.

I steel myself for the sight of whoever will be there waiting for me, and I'm surprised to find that it's a familiar figure: a woman in her forties, her dark hair pinned in place by a golden comb, wearing a white dress trimmed with more gold.

“Lady Elara,”

I exclaim as I step into the room.

The trainer shuts the door behind us, and Lady Elara sweeps me up in a hug.

I suspect that's for the benefit of the trainer if he tries to sneak a last glimpse of us.

The noble woman has long put out the rumor that she became my patron only because she was infatuated with me, and that she had taken me as her lover.

It is a rumor that makes her look a little weak to the other nobles, ruled by her emotions.

But it serves to disguise the real nature of the connection between us: that she is a fellow beast whisperer, the head of an organization dedicated to protecting them from persecution within the empire: the spectral covenant.

“We must be careful what we say,”

she whispers to me.

“I would have brought you to my home, but there are limits to what I can do at the moment.

If I come to you, it looks like I simply can't keep away.

If I bring you to me, I'm making a more formal claim of patronage.”

“Would that be such a bad thing now?”

I ask. “I am without a patron, and the emperor has put aside his claim on me.”

“Tiberius is jealous,”

Lady Elara says. “If he sees me claim you as mine again, he may prevent it just to spite me, or you.”

“You think he cares enough about me for that?” I ask.

“Consider who he sent you as your last patron,”

Lady Elara says. “The mother of a gladiator you killed? He thinks you're safe enough with that dampener on your wrist, but that doesn't mean he's going to be kind to you. He will allow me this much, I think. Maybe more. I will think on it.”

“Why did you come here?”

I ask, still staying close to her, still whispering. I have no doubt that the guards listen. It means we must be careful. Besides me being this close shows them what they expect to see.

“I came to tell you that the time is almost right for the rebellion.”

She's risking a lot just by whispering those words here. It's unlikely she will be overheard, but if someone does, the words will implicate her in treason. Noble or not, she will not survive such a thing.

“You've been telling me that a rebellion is coming for a while. I'm still not sure I want to take part in something like that.”

She has assumed that I will stand against the emperor because of what I am, that I will do what she wants, but I’m not sure if I can risk it.

“Don't you hate him?”

She demands. “Don't you hate the whole system of Aetheria?”

I can't deny that, but it doesn't mean I share her priorities. "At the moment, I'm focused on getting my freedom and getting Alaric safe."

“Then you aren't thinking big enough,”

Lady Elara replies. “This isn't just about the two of you but about every beast whisperer in the empire. People will rise up. They're ready to come together, but they need the right symbol. They need you.”

“And what do you want me to do?”

I ask. “What exactly would my role be in all of this?”

“For one thing, I want you to rally the gladiators to our cause,”

she says. “They are held here, but they are some of the most powerful warriors in the empire, at the peak of their training and conditioning. Your guards can hold one or two of you in if you try to escape, but if you all act together…”

“You're acting as if I could even persuade them,”

I say. “As if it would be easy to just get them all to do what I wanted. Most of them here are afraid of me, or hate me or both. Isn't it better to wait? One more season, and I will be free.”

“Free to do what?”

Lady Elara asks. She looks at me carefully. “What do you think will happen when, if, you earn your freedom? Do you think the emperor will just hand over Alaric? Do you think that you will be safe as a beast whisperer out in Aetheria? Currently, you are protected by being in the games, but the moment you're out there in the world, the emperor and his cronies will try to kill you.”

“If you haven't noticed, people have been trying to kill me anyway,”

I snap back. Throughout my time at Ironhold, I have been handed difficult matchups, designed to test me to my limits, or just to kill me outright. Last season, an assassin got into Ironhold specifically to target me. The idea that I'm safe here is ludicrous.

“But they can't just have you killed directly,”

Lady Elara says. “The emperor can give you difficult matchups but he can't just order you executed. Out in the world… he could just decide to send a squad of soldiers to murder you. And you wouldn't be in a position to affect things as easily. You would be outside, the way I am, not able to talk to people easily. You must use your one chance to persuade people here to join us.”

I wish it were that easy. I'm not even sure that I'm a part of her rebellion. She has taught me much about what it means to be a beast whisperer, but I never signed up to stage a coup. Especially not the kind of bloody rebellion she seems to want. My goal has always been to survive and become free.

“Think about it, that's all I'm asking,”

Lady Elara says. “If we change things you will be free anyway, and you will get a chance for revenge on all those who have put you here. If you stay here and try to work within the system, it will swallow you whole.”

She steps back from me, heading for the door. “Please just think about it.”

I know I will be able to do little else, but I’m still not sure if I can give her the commitment, or the answers, she wants. I must focus on my own freedom, on Alaric’s, and on the games that are coming up.