Page 7

I don't know what to do as I make my way back to Ironhold. I had thought that the emperor was done with me, but it's clear that he will never be done with me. He will never let me go, will never let me simply be free.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm trapped by my own power and fame. If I were any other gladiator, if I had any other power, the emperor would not be interfering in my life like this, would not be using the people I love against me. He would not care.

But then, if I were not a beast whisperer, perhaps I would not have survived this long. I have seen skilled, strong fighters killed in the colosseum. People with powers that seem deadlier at first glance than my own. They have not made it to their five seasons, but have died instead on the sand for the entertainment of the people of the city.

An old, familiar hatred rises up inside me with that thought, and I had never thought that I would hate anything until the imperial soldiers took me to be a slave gladiator here in Aetheria. It is hatred for the entire way the empire is run. For the emperor, certainly, but also for the system of the games, for the fact that so many die for so little reason.

And now I have promised the emperor that I will help it all continue. With my performances I will pacify the crowd and help to keep the city under control. It is the exact opposite of everything Lady Elara wants from me. But if I do not do it, then what? Alaric will die. He is a hostage now against my good behavior.

The guards take me back to the fortress, removing my manacles and leaving me there in the practice yard. Almost as soon as they do so, Rowan hurries up to me.

“Lyra, are you all right? I heard that the guards had taken you. Lord Darius announced it to the rest of us to make it clear that we weren't to try to get to Alaric.”

He sounds terrified that something horrible must have happened to me.

“I'm fine,”

I say automatically, but then pause. “No, I don't think I am fine. They took me to the emperor.”

“What did he do?”

Rowan asks, looking afraid for me. Looking at me, too, as if searching for fresh injuries. The emperor has hurt me before to prove that he can.

“He made me beg for Alaric’s life,” I say.

Rowan frowns. “That doesn't sound so bad. Although I'm sure he found ways to make it worse.”

I sigh, leading Rowan off into a secluded part of the practice grounds. I take up a wooden weapon from a rack of them, striking a post half-heartedly so that it doesn't look like we're doing anything other than simply working out together.

“He made me promise that I would stay in the games after my five seasons,”

I say. “That I will continue to be a gladiator, and fight to entertain the crowds.”

Rowan looks horrified by that prospect. “But he can’t do that.”

“He's the emperor,”

I point out.

Rowan shakes his head as if it is too much for even the emperor to demand.

“Even the emperor can't force you to keep fighting,”

Rowan says. “The colosseum is the heart of Aetheria. Its traditions are so ancient and embedded that even the emperor can't really go against them. To do that… it would cause uproar, maybe even unrest.”

Which is presumably why Lady Elara thinks that I can make a difference from within it. It's also why the emperor needs my agreement, however unwilling, for this part.

“Which is why he got me to agree to it, rather than simply commanding it,” I say.

“You agreed to keep fighting in the colosseum?”

Rowan doesn't sound any less shocked than he was before. “Why would you do that?”

“Because the emperor has agreed that he will not have Alaric executed as long as I keep fighting and winning to entertain the crowd.”

Rowan shakes his head. He reaches out to take me by the shoulders. “Do you think that's what Alaric would want, Lyra? You are buying him a reprieve, but not his freedom, and to do it you're placing your own life at risk. The emperor plans to keep you fighting until you finally die in there.”

“Then I need to keep from dying,”

I say, trying to sound more confident than I am about my odds.

“I don't care how well you've done so far,”

Rowan says. “No one can be lucky all the time, and it only takes one thrust of a weapon at the wrong moment for you to die.”

“Do you think I don't know that?”

I say. I can’t keep the hurt out of my voice. I know the situation I’m in.

Rowan tilts his head to one side. “I'm not sure if you do. You're acting as though you're invincible, but now you don't even have your powers to help you.”

I lower my voice even further. What I'm about to tell him puts us both in danger, along with Selene Ravenscroft. It gives Rowan a measure of power over me that I wouldn't give to anyone else in here except Alaric.

“I still have my powers,”

I whisper to him. “Selene Ravenscroft adjusted my dampener. I have full access to all the powers of a beast whisperer.”

Rowan’s eyes widen at that, perhaps as much because of the involvement of the arch magistrate as because I have my powers back.

“That’s…”

I can see him thinking about it. “That's so dangerous for you, Lyra. If you slip even once and people think that you have your powers back… you could be executed.”

“I have some leeway, I think,”

I say. “After all, my dampener was meant to limit my power, not cut me off from it completely. It only cut me off from my powers completely after it was tampered with the first time. People expect me to have at least some power.”

“But the emperor still won't react well if you start summoning creatures to your aid,”

Rowan says. I'm worried now about having told him because it's obvious he's not going to let this go, and there's a chance that someone else will overhear us.

“Which is why I'll be discreet,” I say.

“And when you can't be?”

Rowan counters. “When it's a choice between doing something spectacular and being killed on the sands? If you're going to fight there forever, do you really think you'll never be in a situation where you need to use your full powers? Do you think that even with them you can survive everything?”

“I must try,”

I say. “Alaric’s life depends upon it.”

“Do you think he'd want you to let yourself be controlled by the emperor like this?”

Rowan asks again.

“Is it so different from the power Lady Tyra has over you because she still controls your sisters?”

I say. It’s a low blow, but I need to make him see my position.

Rowan’s expression darkens, possibly because he knows I have a point. We are both in situations where others have control of the ones we love, and that means they can make us do what they want.

“There's a difference,”

he insists. “Two more seasons, and I will be out of here. Just two more and I will be able to take a place as a free citizen of Aetheria. I will be able to get a position where I can work to free my sisters.”

I shake my head. “Do you really think that Lady Tyra will ever let them go if it means that she has power over you? Has she commanded you to her bed yet?”

“She…”

Rowan looks almost sick. “She wants me to go to her at the end of these games, to ‘celebrate’. She says it will go badly for my sisters if I don’t.”

“Then you understand the position I'm in,” I say.

Rowan shakes his head. “It's still not the same. Alaric chose to enter the games, and he chose to kill Callus, knowing what it might mean for him. And… Lady Tyra is not a fate that leads to my death.”

“You really believe that I can't survive, don't you?” I say.

Rowan steps back from me, setting aside his weapons, and gestures for me to follow him. I leave my weapons and do so, heading with him through to the dining hall. There, I see some of my fellow gladiators gathered around the chalkboard at one end. I realize that, while I have been with the emperor, the pairings for the next set of games have gone up. There are matches marked up there for me although the names are absent as usual because Lord Darius and Lady Selene don't know who will be alive from round to round.

But my first matchup is there. I frown at the sight of Aya’s name. The large gladiator is new, and so shouldn't be as much of a threat as Rowan is implying. Then I see the markings beside the match. This is to be a blindfolded match, the same as those that Rowan has taken part in previously. Only I don't have his knack for feeling the vibrations of the earth to know where my opponent is.

“You see,”

Rowan says in a low voice. “They are giving you dangerous matchups. Aya has some of the same talent I do. She can feel the vibrations of the earth the same way. She will know where you are.”

“And I can see her,”

I reply. “I can look through the eyes of birds.”

“And that will make it obvious that you still have your powers,”

Rowan counters.

This is a difficult, dangerous situation. Worse, it proves that I am to be pushed to my limits now. And if I stay in the games, it will simply happen again and again until I cannot handle it and I'm killed.

What other options do I have, though? I can think of at least one.

“There are… forces building against the empire,”

I whisper to Rowan. “Maybe I'm exactly where I need to be. Maybe I can use this to my advantage by giving them information about the emperor and the games. Maybe I can persuade the other gladiators to join them.”

That's what Lady Elara wants me to do, and if I succeed, maybe the uprising against the emperor will have enough fighters to succeed.

“You're talking about treason,”

Rowan points out.

“I'm talking about maybe being free,”

I counter. “A wave of rebellion rising up to free us all.”

Rowan shakes his head, though. “You can't do this, Lyra. You can't be this selfish.”

“What's selfish about trying to change everything for the better?” I demand.

“The moment there's any kind of uprising, Lady Tyra will take my sisters away as far as she can. I will never see them again. And that’s without the chaos such a thing will bring. How many people will die?”

“If the uprising succeeds-”

“Who's running it?”

Rowan demands.

I shake my head. “I can't tell you that.”

It would put Lady Elara in too much danger. It would endanger Rowan, too. Just having the information would leave him vulnerable. I'm sure the emperor would kill to get that knowledge.

“But it's someone noble right?”

Rowan guesses. “My guess is that it’s that noblewoman who was your patron, Lady Elara.”

I don't reply, but he goes on as if I've confirmed it.

“Which means that this isn't a revolution, Lyra, it's just a coup. Someone else is setting themselves up to become emperor, or maybe empress.”

The way he says that suggests that he's guessed that Lady Elara might have a part in it.

“Even if they're a better person than Emperor Tiberius, that doesn't mean they have any incentive to change everything about the empire. It doesn't mean that all the slaves will suddenly be free. I can't risk that when my sisters are still in Lady Tyra’s hands.”

“But-”

“No,”

Rowan says, not giving me a chance to say anything else. “I don't want any part in this, and if you have any sense, you won't, either.”