Page 18 of Ironhold, Trial Two
They make me wait in a locked room somewhere beneath the Colosseum, iron barred doors preventing me from leaving. They have taken my weapons. There is nothing in here, and the only light comes in through a grate high up on the wall. Another grate is located in the middle of the floor.
It is the kind of room where they might kill me and leave no trace.
That thought fills me with fear, and that fear brings back all the images the creature I have just fought threw into my head. They were illusions, they must have been, but they felt real. I saw my friends, my family, being killed over and over, all my deepest fears being brought back to life.
But now I have a new fear: that I will be executed for what I just did. I know that the Aetherian Empire has no love of beast whisperers, and my actions back in the Colosseum resulted in the wraith-like creature being let loose on the crowd, lashing out at the citizens of the city.
I'm not sure how long I have to wait in there. Outside I can hear the sounds of the matches continuing, in an attempt to return events in the arena to normal. The crowd has been terrified, some of them have even been trampled and attacked, but the organizers seem to think that enough bloodshed on the sand will wash that away.
In a lot of ways, that's the point of the games. You have enough people enough violence and enough entertainment and they will ignore everything else.
I pace my prison, looking for a way out, but there is none. If Lady Selene decides to have me killed, then my only hope will be to try to fight through whatever guards are there. Without my weapons I doubt I will have a chance. I feel like one of the animals trapped in the beast pens, not knowing what will happen next, caged and contained in spite of my power.
It seems like forever before the door opens, and two figures enter the room. One is Lady Selene. Up close, she is shorter than me, but she gives off such a sense of power that it's easy to forget that. Her eyes have violet irises that seem to carry the promise of her magic. Where most people in the city are skilled in one or two minor talents, it is clear she is a true mistress of magic.
Lord Darius is the other figure to enter. He looks angry, his face set. It is the expression he has when he's about to order a punishment with as little mercy as a rock.
“So,” Lady Selene says. “This is the beast whisperer. Your name is… Lyra, correct?”
Of course, she knows my name. It has been announced to the whole Colosseum.
“Yes, my lady,” I reply.
“You are the reason that a mind-mist wraith was set loose on the spectators of the colosseum.”
“That wasn't meant to be any kind of wraith,” I insist. “I was meant to be fighting another gladiator.”
Lady Selene looks over to Lord Darius, who shrugs. “The instruction came down from the emperor. He wanted a more interesting bout. Said that if we were going to have beast whisperers in Ironhold, people should see everything they are.”
“Tiberius commanded it, but didn’t stay to see any of it?” Lady Selene says. I’m not sure which is more shocking, the use of the emperor’s name so familiarly or the note of disapproval in her tone.
“The emperor does as he wishes,” Lord Darius says.
“Yes, I suppose he does,” Lady Selene replies. “And we’re not talking about Tiberius. We’re talking about what to do with Lyra here.”
Lord Darius raises an eyebrow. “I would have thought that was obvious. She's too dangerous to keep in the arena. We should kill her now.”
“Convention dictates that we do not merely murder gladiators,” Lady Selene points out. “I'm sure that if it didn't, Tiberius would have had this young woman killed already. I assume that's why he's had such dangerous creatures thrown at her?”
Lord Darius looks troubled. “It's not my place to question my emperor, or yours.”
“I am the arch magistrate. I'm fairly sure I'm meant to question everything, Darius,” Lady Selene says.
“In this case, you wouldn't be killing her for nothing. She set that thing on the crowd,” Lord Darius says.
“Her actions resulted in it fleeing into the crowd,” Lady Selene corrects him. “And you know as well as I do with beast bouts that there is always a chance that the creature gets out of control.”
“And I'm saying she was controlling it the whole time,” Lord Darius says.
Lady Selene looks my way. “Were you controlling it?”
I feel the brush of something against my mind and realize that Ravenna might not be the only one with the power to touch it. It's clear she's looking for the truth. I do not dare to lie.
“I don't think so,” I say. “I went to try to control it, to try to beat it without hurting it. Then it ran from me. It's as if it was afraid of what I could do to it.”
Lord Darius looks from me to Lady Selene in disbelief. “You're going to just accept that?”
“Darius, you know as well as I do that I can see the truth of things,” she says. “And in this case, I believe her. Lyra did not deliberately set a dangerous creature on the citizens of Aetheria. I don't think we can see her set on a spike for that.”
I breathe a sigh of relief, but the arch magistrate goes on.
“However, intentional or not her actions did result in several citizens being trampled in the rush. There must be some punishment for that. A conscripted gladiator who is not even a citizen cannot bring about such deaths with impunity.”
Lord Darius thinks for several seconds. “Let her be cast out of Ironhold, then. We will declare her the loser of the bout, since you were the one who had to slay her foe for her. She will no longer fight as a gladiator. Instead, she will be taken and sold on. I'm sure there are plenty who might buy her. Maybe even the emperor himself.”
I gasp in horror at the thought of what he is proposing. As much as I hate the violence of the games, surviving my seasons in the Colosseum is my only route to freedom. If I make it through here I can be a citizen of Aetheria. What Lord Darius is proposing would rob me of that chance. As a former gladiator, he knows better than anyone just what he would be taking from me.
And what would happen to me then? Is he right? Would the emperor himself buy me? If he did, it would only be to kill me, probably slowly. And even if it were someone else… I don't want to have to live out my life that way, serving at the whims of whatever noble can afford me. It's all too easy to think of the ones back in the receiving area, who made me promises but really just wanted me.
Worse, Lady Selene seems to be considering it. Perhaps she sees it as a lesser fate than the alternatives. If so, she doesn't know what it means to be forced to serve. She doesn't know what it means to fight here, hoping for freedom. I know the way Rowan speaks of his days as a slave to a noble woman. I know I would rather die than be stuck like that.
“Please-” I begin, but Lord Darius cuts me off.
“Silence!”
It is not my choice. The arch magistrate will decide, and nothing I can say or do will change her decision.
Then another figure comes into the room. Lady Elara slips inside as elegantly as if she were joining a party.
“I do hope I'm not too late,” she says. “I had to fetch something.”
“Elara?” Lady Selene says. “What are you doing here? You can't be here while I’m rendering judgement.”
“Actually, I think I'm obliged to be,” Lady Elara replies. “After all, I am Lyra’s patron.”
The arch magistrate pauses. “Ah, that changes things. You're here to speak for her?”
Lady Elara nods. “What happened today was about a loss of control, not about malice. Look into her mind, Selene. You will see that there is no one who means less harm than Lyra here. Darius, isn't it true that you punished her in the past for refusing to fight?”
“That's hardly a good thing,” Lord Darius says. “Martial strength is vital. Her cowardice is not a defense.”
“You say cowardice, I say a peaceful nature,” Lady Elara says. She looks to the arch magistrate again. “As I was saying, the issue is control.”
She takes out a single leather bracelet, worked with runes, designed to fit tightly around the wrist of the wearer.
“Your solution is to mute her power?” Lady Selene says.
“Mute my power?” I say.
“This cuff will place limits on your talent,” Lady Elara says. “It will… prevent any further accidents.”
It will also render me far less powerful, and my powers have been the only things keeping me alive so far. Is Lady Elara trying to kill me now?
“Such a solution is more demeaning than simply selling her,” Lady Selene says. “Magic is the greatest gift of the city. For it to be muted like that would be… almost unthinkable.”
Lady Elara shrugs. “It would give Lyra a chance to learn some control. Once she demonstrates that, maybe it can come off. And it is a better option than dismissing her from the games. Some of us have already placed quite large bets on her, Selene.”
She makes it sound as if the only reason she's doing this is the money I can make for her. The money I can make for plenty of people, given the amount of money changing hands around the arena.
Lord Darius nods. “It would be a suitable punishment.”
I realize he is thinking of the emperor’s desire to see me dead. Without my full powers I will be vulnerable.
The arch magistrate looks thoughtful. “Very well. Place it on her.”
Lady Elara fastens the cuff around my wrist. It seems to join itself, becoming a single seamless band around my forearm. In an instant the world seems… less, somehow, as if noises I had been hearing are suddenly gone. I realize that I can no longer sense the presence of every animal around the Colosseum. They are still there, but it's as if there are layers between me and them.
“You may go,” Lady Selene says to me, as casually as if she were dismissing a servant after bringing her wine.
I hurry from the room, my mind reeling. My hand is on the bracelet but it seems firm, with no obvious way to remove it. They have taken my powers from me. I still have to fight, and I no longer have the tools to do it.
Lady Elara has just sealed my doom.