Page 21 of Ironhold, Trial Two
It is getting late by the time Lady Elara has her palanquin return me to Ironhold. Late enough that the other gladiators have already processed back up to the stronghold. Late enough that the guards look at me with surprise as I arrive.
“ We were starting to take bets on whether we would have to hunt you down,” one of them says, as if it's the most natural thing in the world that they would hunt and kill me if I were not to return.
“Your patron decided to take their time with you?” the other says with a leer, his eyes roving over me. It’s easy to hate the guards sometimes. They seem to enjoy that we gladiators are not free to do as we wish, seem to relish our pain.
But at the same time, they are not the ones involved in running Ironhold. They merely guard the limits of the fortress, letting us do what we will within.
I head inside. It is late enough that the practice sessions after the day’s fights have finished. Late enough that plenty of the others will be sleeping. I wonder if anyone will still be awake as I head into the barracks section of the fortress, making my way past the large central dining room to start to head for my room.
I stop when I see that Rowan is in there.
“You’re still awake?” I say.
“I wanted to make sure that you came back safely,” he replies. “I was worried for a while that you might not come back at all.”
“Did you think I would run?” I ask.
He looks troubled. “I wasn't sure what to think. I didn't know if they'd decided to kill you after all, or punish you in some way, or if you had run and they were hunting you down even while I waited.” He stands, moving to me, briefly wrapping his arms around me. “I’m glad you’re back safely.”
“I’m not sure about safely,” I say. I hold my wrist up for him to see. “They’ve restricted my magic, Rowan.”
“Lyra…” he sounds even more worried now. “Something like that… how do they expect you to fight?”
“Maybe they just expect me to die,” I reply.
He takes hold of my shoulders. “Don't talk like that. Don't just give in. You can still fight. You're getting better.”
But we both know that my victory so far has come because my powers have come flowing out of me. I have one because I have managed to control the beasts set against me. Even when I have Fought human opponents, it has been my ability to summon beasts to my side or my capacity to look through their eyes that has let me win.
“I'm not sure how much I can do now,” I say.
Rowan continues to hold on to me. “You can do more than you think. You have survived because you have learned. Do you know how to fight with that trident of yours? You just have to be ready to use it.”
“Even if it means killing someone else,” I say.
“You have already killed,” Rowan points out. “And I'd rather you did what you needed to do than see you fall. I… don't want to lose you, Lyra.”
He looks me in the eyes. Our gazes meet, and it's as if we're drawn to one another. We kiss, deeply, Rowan pulling me tight against his chest. I know that if we keep going, it won't be long before he takes me back to my room and doesn't leave. And I would be completely okay with that. For once, the fact that we're doing this just because the situation is so desperate, just because we might die tomorrow, doesn't get in the way.
“Promise me,” Rowan says, as he pulls back briefly. “Promise me that you'll do what's necessary. You can't afford to hold back. You can't let feelings or friendship get in the way.”
“You sound like Alaric,” I say, with a faint smile at the memory of Alaric down in the beast pens.
Instantly I feel a change in the atmosphere between us. Rowan steps further back, his eyes narrowing slightly.
“I am nothing like him,” Rowan replies, his voice sharper than I expected it to be. “He represents everything that's wrong with the games. He doesn't kill people to survive or so he can be free. He does it because he likes it.”
I shake my head, slightly jarred by the suddenness of the change in things between us. How have we gone from nearly falling on one another in need and desire to arguing about Alaric?
And still, I can't stop myself from replying. “He's not that bad,” I insist. “You only see the side of him he shows you. If you take the time-”
“What? I'd see as much of him as you have?” Rowan replies. “I don't think he's interested in me the same way, Lyra.”
“You think that’s all it’s about?” I reply. He sounds jealous, but does he really get to be jealous?
“I know it is, and the only question is whether you're too blind to see it,” Rowan shoots back.
“Rowan, there is nothing going on between me and Alaric.”
He doesn't look as though he believes me. “Really? Because you keep finding him everywhere you go. You keep spending time around him, don't you? Don't tell me you're not flattered by the attention. I get it. The handsome nobleman, not the scarred ex-slave.”
“Why are you so jealous?” I demand. “It isn't as if you've done anything since the last games. You haven't made any kind of move on me except as some kind of casual thing.”
“Maybe casual is all I can manage,” Rowan counters. “Maybe I haven't wanted to get too close because I've known that if I do and you get killed…”
“I thought you said I was getting better, that I had a good chance of surviving?” I snap back at him.
“I'm telling you what you need to hear,” Rowan replies.
“So you're lying to me?”
“For your own good.”
Now it's my turn to be angry because it seems a lot of people have been doing things for my own good recently. The leather bracelet on my wrist is there for that reason. I've been dragged into the spectral covenant the same way. No one seems to trust me to make a choice with all the information. No one seems to want to tell me the truth.
“You don't decide what's good for me and not,” I say. “Just like you don't decide who I talk to, who I spend time around.”
“That's just as well, isn't it?” Rowan says. “Because it seems you're determined to ‘spend time’ with as many people as possible. You get invites up to Ravenna’s rooms to hang out with the nobility. You spend time with this patron of yours. You go off with Alaric.”
Jealousy is not a good look on him, especially when he's insinuating things that haven't happened. He's acting as though I'm sleeping with everyone I meet, when the truth is I haven't even done so with him.
“Why are you so jealous?” I ask him. “I haven’t done anything. I’m just… I’m not even anyone important.”
"Of course, you're someone important," Rowan replies. "Even if you're not sleeping with any of them, you're still the one getting all the attention from the nobles.”
“Is that what this is about?” I ask. “You want the attention? I thought you were only goal was to get through your seasons and get out of here?”
“It is,” Rowan replies.
“So why do you care if someone else is getting the attention in the arena?” That doesn't fit with what he's saying. If his only goal is to survive why does it matter if I'm the one the nobles are paying attention to?
“It isn't good for you,” Rowan replies. “You don't know what nobles are like, not really.”
“I've met a few by now,” I point out. Is he really going to treat me as if I don't know how the world works? As if I haven't learned about the schemes and the machinations of the nobles?
“You've met them, but I lived in one of their households for years,” Rowan says.
“Is that what this is about really?” I ask. “About the time you spent with Lady Tyra?”
“It's about the ways they're all the same,” Rowan counters, but I see him wince, and I know that some of my words have hit home. I realize that I’ve gone too far, but it’s already too late to take the words back. “And it's about the fact you can't see that. I had to spend some of today in that receiving room while they ogled me, and I hated every moment of it. But you… when you go off into the city, it's like there's a spring in your step, just because you're getting their attention.”
I can't tell him what's happening when I go into the city. I can't tell him about the spectral covenant, or about the lessons I have been learning. Besides, I shouldn't have to justify myself like that to him. I shouldn't feel guilty about feeling good for getting out of Ironhold for an hour or two.
“I don't care about their attention,” I say.
“Of course you do,” Rowan snaps back. “I see it when we're in the parades and when you've won a fight. You love their adulation. Be honest with me; you don't really want to leave once you’ve survived your seasons, if you survive them, do you?”
“I…” I hesitate. A part of me wants to go straight back home, but there is another part that wants more, that is excited by the possibility of becoming a full citizen of Aetheria. And then there's the things the spectral covenant are doing.
Thinking about it means I hesitate too long.
“That's what I thought,” Rowan says. “And I guess that's why you've been holding back from me. You've been saving yourself for someone better.”
It's a cruel thing to say, and I step back from him. “I used to think there wasn't anyone better. Now… now I'm not so sure.”
I move away, heading for my room. A part of me wants Rowan to grab me as I go, to pull me back into a kiss. To tell me that he cares about me and he doesn’t mean all of this. More of me is grateful that he doesn’t.