Page 5

It’s strange to think that once, I couldn’t find my way around Ironhold. The fortress used to seem like an impenetrable maze to me, with too many twists and turns to ever make sense of. But now I've been here as long as any other gladiator. Only the trainers and people like Lord Darius have been here longer.

It is in the nature of the gladiators that none of us is here for very long. The seasons in the colosseum come and go, and we either succeed in making it to our five, or we die quickly. The brutality of the system means that there are no veterans here, no gladiators who have been inside the games forever. We are tested and either given to the city as nobles or slain.

I probably know the interior of the fortress as well as any gladiator at this point, not least because I have explored it through other eyes. I have seen it through the eyes of the mice who scurry down its corridors. I have explored the strange scents of the place through noses far finer than any human’s. I have seen it through eyes that can perceive no color, and eyes that perceive a spectrum beyond anything I have seen before.

It means I am able to find a route through it, heading into the depths, looking for Alaric.

I search him out using my powers. I cannot sense him the way I would with a beast but I can borrow the eyes of the rats and the spiders in the darkest dungeon depths, looking for him that way. I see him sitting on the edge of a bed in a cell with a door whose bars let in only a flicker of light from the corridor beyond.

I try to read his expressions through the sight of the mouse crouched in the corner, but even here it seems as though Alaric puts up a mask to the world, determined not to show his emotions. He is whistling pointedly, nonchalantly, as if hoping that any guard listening will not believe that he is afraid. He makes it seem as if he doesn’t care, when I have seen enough of the real heart of him to know that he will care very much indeed.

There are many guards around the fortress even if there is only one making sure that Alaric does not flee. I think about his cell as I make my way down towards it, moving quietly, checking every corner for the possibility that someone might be waiting for me around it. He has not been confined to luxurious quarters this time. His nobility counts for nothing.

Or maybe it does; a slave gladiator would probably have been killed out of hand. He got a trial, and I suspect that the only reason he has been condemned is because of the interference of the emperor.

Why would the emperor interfere? That question runs through my head as I walk, tension filling me with every sound, every hint of movement in the shadows.

Why would he condemn the son of one of his highest born nobles, and one of the most popular gladiators in the games? It is another decision that seems confusing, even mad from him. Certainly, it is cruel, because Alaric should get some leniency based simply on the fact that he was trying to save me. If he hadn't killed Callus, I would be dead now. There was no way to stop the assassin short of killing him.

I hold myself still in an alcove, waiting for the guard to pass me on his rounds. I hold my breath as he moves past me, then connect with another rat a little way away. I see a mop and bucket nearby and I use the rat to push them over, the clatter of them as they fall audible even back where I stand.

I hear the guard curse and he goes to check on the disturbance, one hand on the sword at his belt, as if expecting rogue gladiators to jump out at him at any moment. I watch him go, not daring to move from my hiding place until he is out of sight.

The moment he is, however, I hurry in the direction of Alaric’s cell. I know I will not have long.

“Alaric!”

I call out to him, not really daring to raise my voice in case the guard hears me. “Alaric, it’s me!”

There is a pause and the sound of metal moving as Alaric moves towards the door in his chains. I hate that they have chained him as well as putting him in this place. It is an additional indignity that he does not require. The cell alone should be enough to hold him, but they have put manacles on him as if to remind him of just how perilous his position is.

“Lyra, what are you doing here?”

he asks as he makes it to the door. His features look drawn and pale. It is obvious he has not been well treated in the run-up to his trial, and my guess is that no one has fed him properly. No one wants to waste food on a condemned man.

“I wanted to see you,”

I say. “I needed to see you.”

“This is the last place you should want to see me,”

Alaric replies. “I can hardly be my brilliant best here.”

He flashes a smile, but there's something false about it. The whole thing is an act, presumably for my benefit, so that he doesn't show me just how hurt he is by all of this.

“It's so wrong that they're doing this to you,”

I say. “You shouldn't be executed for something like this.”

I hear him sigh. “Ultimately, those are the rules of Ironhold. They kept them brutally simple. No questions about who was defending themselves from whom, who provoked whom, no excuses. I guess otherwise they would spend half their time trying to sort through exactly why one gladiator killed another, and this place would be chaos.”

How can he make excuses for the people who have condemned him to die? For the system that allows no room for mercy or nuance? I am not the one in the cell and even so I cannot tolerate it.

“It shouldn’t be like this,” I insist.

“Well, no,”

he says. “I should be out in the middle of the arena, performing for the crowds, while beautiful noble women swoon at my feet.”

“Only noble women?” I say.

He raises an eyebrow. “Why, can you think of anyone else who might be interested in me?”

I reach through the bars for him, wanting to pull him to me to kiss him, to show him that I have not forgotten him, and that I will do everything I can to get him out of here.

But he pulls back before I can do it.

“You shouldn't be here, Lyra. It's dangerous for you.”

“If you mean the guard, I've distracted him,” I say.

“I don't just mean that. You're right, ordinarily someone in a situation like this would be shown leniency. Especially a noble. During my trial, I got the feeling that the arch magistrate wanted to acquit me, or at least let me off with nothing more than some token punishment.”

I briefly shudder at the thought of that because I know there is nothing token about the punishments handed out at Ironhold. I have suffered some of them, and they have been brutal. But it's what I thought would happen, that, at most, Alaric would suffer a harsh whipping and then be allowed to continue as a gladiator.

“But the emperor interfered,” I say.

Alaric nods. “And he's doing it for a reason. It could just be to make an example of me or because he's in a cruel mood. The gods know that he’s unpredictable enough, but I don't think that's it. I don't even think this is about me. I heard him mention you, Lyra. He knows we're close. How could he not when I killed someone to save you?”

The emperor knows that Alaric and I are together, which means he believes that Alaric is a way to get to me. All of a sudden I find myself agreeing with Alaric: coming down here was not a good idea. If anything, it's exactly what the emperor wanted me to do.

“So you see, you need to go,”

Alaric says, his voice filled with urgency. “You need to go and just forget about me. Your attachment to me is what makes this situation valuable to them. They will try to use it against you. Go, Lyra.”

“I'll go but there's no way I'm going to forget about you,”

I say. “And there's no way I'm just going to leave you to die.”

“There's nothing you can do,”

Alaric says. He sounds far too resigned to his fate.

I don't believe that. I won’t believe that.

Even so, I must go. I hurry away from Alaric’s cell, fear propelling me. I head back along the route leading into the rest of the fortress. I've barely come to the first turning when I hear booted feet coming the other way. I try to look for somewhere to hide, but there is nowhere.

Lord Darius comes around the corner, accompanied by at least half a dozen guards, all the ones who should have been guarding Alaric. But now I realize that the point wasn't to guard him but to trap me. Lord Darius tried to warn me away, but at the same time he knew exactly what I would do. He knew I would come and try to help Alaric, that I would disobey his command in this, the emperor’s command.

“You were told not to come here, Lyra,”

he says. “Now, you will pay the price of that. The emperor requires your presence.”