Page 9

Because I am one of the most popular gladiators, I must wait for my first bout, sitting in the depths of the arena. I have my weapons now, and the trainers have surprised me by taking away my weighted chain, replacing it with a net, the weapon I used to wield. They have let me keep the spear, though, rather than giving me back a trident. They also pass me a small, curved dagger.

It is a combination I haven't been training with. It is similar to the weapons I have worked with, but even such a small difference can have an impact. It can take a small edge away from me, forcing me to think rather than simply react, and that might be the difference between life and death.

“I wasn't told I'd be fighting with different weapons,” I say.

“You don't need to be told,”

the trainer snaps back. “This is what I was instructed to give you, so this is what you fight with.”

I wonder if he was instructed by Lord Darius or by someone else. Officially, interference in the bouts is not just forbidden but considered almost heresy, since the games are considered to be for the glory of the gods. Unofficially, bribery and corruption are rife. It is not unknown for gladiators to be poisoned or deliberately injured in training, to be given substandard equipment or in this case simply to be given weapons that I have not been training with. Anyone who has bet against me might wish to do this to increase their chances of getting a payout.

And the trainer is right: I cannot argue with it. I must fight with what I'm given in the way I'm told to fight. The trainer leads me to the iron gate leading out to the arena, past the rooms reserved for the healers, with the stone slabs on which they work, and where the bodies of the slain are already lying.

I stand in front of the gates, and now the trainer produces the last piece of my equipment: a helmet with no holes for my eyes. They are determined to make sure I cannot see.

They settle it in place on my head and then lock it into position so that there is no chance that I will be able to remove it during the fight. Instantly the world around me is dark, without so much as a scrap of vision to guide myself. It is no consolation to know that Aya will be having a similar helmet fastened into place on her head right now.

I can hear the calls of the announcer for the games. The emperor does not generally do this part himself.

“Citizens of Aetheria. This is the moment you've been waiting for: the first bout in these games of the mistress of beasts herself: Lyra. But this is to be no ordinary bout. Today we will challenge her to fight in a way she has not fought before, without the benefit of sight!”

The trainers push me forward and I can feel the sun on my skin as I head out from the space beneath the colosseum. I stumble forward, feeling my way with my spear. The roar of the crowd hits me, but it's mixed in with laughter. Some of the crowd are enjoying the fact that I cannot tell what's going on. There are jeers and catcalls from different points around me.

I try to picture the interior of the colosseum, navigating my way forward from memory. I think I know where the emperor’s box is in relation to the gate, so I turn and salute him. Judging by some of the cheers and laughter, I don't get the direction quite right.

The worst part is that I could see everything if I tried. I could reach out with my power and steal the sight of every bird around the colosseum. I know there are always crows and other scavengers waiting both for any food that's thrown away and for the potential to feast on the bodies of the slain. I have used them in my fights before to give myself a better view and I have borrowed their reflexes too, allowing myself to dodge faster than I would otherwise be able to.

But if I do that now, will it be too obvious? If I move as though I can see everything, it will not take the emperor long to realize that I can, and then he will know that I have my powers again. He will realize that I did not have the help of others to kill Lady Emin, that I did not need it. He will know that his own arch magistrate has lied to him and given me back the magic he believed had been taken from me.

So, for now at least, I stand in darkness, holding back from reaching out. I need this to be convincing.

“Her opponent today is new to the colosseum!”

the announcer says.

“Fresh meat!”

someone calls out.

“No challenge!”

another yells. The crowd seems restless. They don't want to see me have easy fights, even if I am one of their favorites now. Perhaps because of it. They want to see the gladiators they like challenged. They might know a brief moment of grief if I fall, but it will be brief. They care more for the blood and the pain than for me.

“Friends!”

the announcer says. “Do not be so hasty to judge. Because our opponent is a mistress of the earth, able to feel the slightest tremor of movement through it. I give you Aya!”

There is a brief pause, presumably as the crowd gets its first view of my opponent. I know they will be drinking in her size and her strength. I don't know what weapons she'll be carrying, and that's another disadvantage for me because it's important to fight in different ways against different weapons. My guess is that she'll favor something that lets her fight at close range, maybe a sword or an axe, but I don't know for sure.

“In this bout, you, the audience, will see everything, but your gladiators must rely on other senses,”

the announcer says. “Will the mistress of beasts be able to hear her foe coming? Or will Aya sense the spot where Lyra is standing and cut her down?”

There is another pause. In it, the emperor's voice sounds.

“Begin!”

I move, holding my weapons ready, straining my senses to try to pick up any sound around me, but the cheering of the crowd makes that much harder.

I do not need to listen much though because it seems that Aya wants me to come to her.

“This way!”

she calls out. “Come to me and die, Lyra!”

I move towards the sound of her voice, trying to leave it as long as possible before I start to use my powers. I know I will need to at some point, but it is better in these early phases if everything looks as natural as possible, if it truly looks as though I don't know where she is. I must pick my moment carefully.

I move towards the sound of her voice, trying to circle around slightly. I hear the sound of feet moving on the sand, someone coming at me and I swing my net. It deflects part of the blow coming my way but pain still blossoms through my side and I have to throw myself from my feet to avoid any follow up attacks. I can feel the wetness of blood on me as I throw myself to the sand.

I roll, and something thrusts down in the spot where I was just lying. I manage to scramble back to my feet as the crowd roars its approval of first blood going to the new gladiator.

I know I've left it too late, but I still reach out with my powers, grabbing for the sight of every bird I can find around the colosseum, I limp away from Aya as I do it, determined not to be too close until I can see her properly.

Vision flows into me, letting me see what's happening from dozens of different viewpoints, although all of them are above the sands. I do not get to see the combat through my own eyes as well, just through those of the birds.

It means that I get to see Aya for the first time in this fight. She has spiked shoulder plates and belts crossing her torso that are covered in scales of metal, but she is otherwise unarmored. She has a long, curved sword in either hand, giving her twice the capacity to attack. I can see her hunting a smaller figure across the sand, and I must remind myself that it's me.

That reminder is enough to make me throw myself aside as she comes at me again, rolling, trying to ignore the pain in my side. The crowd seems happy with the move, perhaps thinking that I heard her coming.

I had thought that I would have to act the part of not knowing what's going on, but without my own eyes to orient me, this is anything but easy. Yes, I can see the fight now, but I can only see it the way spectators in the topmost rows of the stands would. I do not get the advantage of being able to pick out individual attacks and judge the distance the way I normally would. Instead, I only get a general sense of when Aya is coming at me, giving me just enough time to throw myself aside.

I cannot hear anything over the noise of the crowd. Without my powers, I would be dead by now, and that makes me wonder if I have been thrown into this to die. I manage to raise my spear between myself and an incoming sword blow, but another one scrapes along my chest, opening a fresh line of agony there.

I back away, swinging my net in a circular motion that I hope the crowd will believe is designed just to catch anything that comes my way. I adjust the movement slightly as a sword blow comes at me, and feel the weapon wrap around Aya’s sword, tangling it.

But she uses it to pull me in, her strength far greater than my own. I see her raising her other sword through the eyes of the birds, and I manage to duck inside the swing, slamming into her.

“We both know you can't wrestle,”

she snarls, even as she slams her helmet into mine in a vicious headbutt that makes my ears ring. Through the eyes of the birds, I see her drop her tangled sword, and I feel the impact as she swings a punch into my ribs.

I try to pull back from her, but she's holding me tight, so I must copy her idea and drop my spear. It is too long to use at such close quarters. I go to draw my knife, and her hand closes over my wrist. I can see her pulling back her other arm, still holding a sword, ready to finish me.

I drop, falling to the ground and swinging my net around her ankles. Even though her sword is still tangled in it, that does not stop the movement. If anything, the additional weight means that I can wrap her legs up more easily. I yank them from under her, and she tumbles to the ground.

I crawl searching for my spear and even with the eyes of the birds I must grope for it. I see Aya working to disentangle her legs. She is getting up now, her sword rising, obviously knowing exactly where I am.

I lift my spear and thrust. I feel the impact as it plunges deep into her torso, impaling her as she throws herself forward at me. Her sword skitters from my vambraces, opening another wound on my arm, but it is the last strike she has the strength to throw. Her sword falls from her fingers, and she collapses to the sand.

“Kill, kill, kill!”

the crowd chants.

“Finish her,”

the emperor commands.

In another fight, at another time, I would refuse to do it, but I can still see Alaric through the eyes of the birds. I can see him, and I know what is at stake here.

“Finish her or he pays the price!”

The crowd probably doesn’t know what’s going on, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the emperor is proving he has power over me. He’s proving that he can make me do whatever he wants. I go to Aya, pulling my spear from her chest as she lies there, hands still groping for her sword.

“I’m sorry,”

I murmur, and I slam the point of the spear down again, through her heart.