Page 29 of Ironhold, Trial Two

The end of another season of the games means the survivors trooping out into the Colosseum to receive the adulation of the crowd. I look around, taking in the faces of the survivors, but seeing the gaps where others should be as well. The crowds cheer us, but it wasn't so long ago they were cheering with each death. Their love is fickle and dangerous.

I wish I could ignore this part and just head back to Ironhold, but the formal closing ceremony of the season of games is not something we can avoid. I must stand there on the sand with the others, while priests chant and holy fires burn at points around it.

And the emperor waits, standing on his balcony, looking out over the scene with a grandeur and intensity that would be hard for anyone else to match. Lord Darius stands near him, his loyal servant, as committed to the games as anyone. The crowd is still calling out to us but the emperor holds up a hand for silence and to my surprise everyone is quiet.

“We have seen much in the last few days. These have been holy days in which the virtues of the city have been demonstrated admirably by these gladiators. Each of them has risked their lives for the honor of Aetheria.”

He does not mention the entertainment of the crowd or the way in which it helps to keep the citizenry from rebelling. He does not mention that most of us did not choose to do this at all.

“Many have died during these games. They are sacrifices to the gods, and I believe the gods will judge them worthy, will take them a hold them close in death. Their fall has been necessary so that these heroes may rise. Honor them with your voices now!”

The crowds cheer at the emperor’s investigation. I can see him looking out over them, obviously enjoying the control he has over the masses.

“These gladiators will fight again on our next set of holy days. They will honor the city, and there will be fresh matches, fresh faces. Some of those here will face new challenges too. They will be pushed further than they have ever been pushed.”

Here, I’m sure that he is looking straight at me. I stare back at him. I am sure now that he has been behind so much of what has happened to me during these games. Who else would have the power to command that I be made to fight a wraith? Who else could make it known to Ravenna that she would be rewarded for making me lose control in the arena?

I don't know if the emperor is trying to destroy me or if he is simply testing me. What I do know is that I am determined to stand up to anything he puts in my way.

That is easier said than done, though, especially when each challenge I conquer only seems to bring a bigger threat rising behind it. And when each one seems to cost me a piece of myself. If the version of me from the day I was captured looked at me now, would she recognize me? If she knew all that I had suffered, would she have tried so hard to get through Ironhold’s grueling selection process, to avoid being sold on at the block?

The truth is that I don’t know. How much of myself can I give to trying to survive? How many times can I kill before I don’t feel it anymore? Before I change into someone who is not me at all?

The emperor starts to speak again, and now it seems that he is no longer looking my way at all.

“All of you have survived the trials of this season. That means you have moved another season closer to freedom, and becoming full citizens of Aetheria. Lord Darius, let their marks show their progress!”

I see Lord Darius concentrating, and even though I’m expecting what comes next, I still cry out as burning pain shoots through the circular brand on my left shoulder, a second line across it appearing to join the one that is already there.

Three more and I will have fulfilled the requirements of the Colosseum. Three more, and I will be free. But to make it through those three, I will need to keep fighting, and I have no doubt that more people will die around me. Perhaps, as with Koda, I will be the one to kill them.

The crowd cheer once more. I see some within it put their hands to their own shoulders, perhaps signaling where their own marks lie. Aetheria has been doing this for a long time. How many of its citizens have fought here in the past? How many of them have stood where I stand now?

Once the emperor is done, we march back to Ironhold. The crowds are there to watch on this last procession of the holy days, there to see us make our way back to the fortress, to be shut inside once more until the next time we are brought out to fight to the death. The crowds are quieter on the way back, although I know they're not mourning the fallen the way we are. They are simply ruing the conclusion of the games, and the time it will take before the next round of them.

When we return, those of us who have survived stand in remembrance of the fallen. I stand there thinking of Naia, but I also look around at some of the newer gladiators, like Cesca. I regret how much the games will harden and change them as much as the deaths that are a seemingly endless part of it all.

Once we are done honoring the fallen, Ironhold becomes raucous for the first time since the start of the games. Music plays, either made by those gladiators who learned instruments in their old lives or produced by illusion. The gladiators dance, and feast, and drink. I take a single cup of wine, standing too still at the heart of it all, alone in all those expressions of joy.

It isn’t long before I drift off from the partying, and I see another figure doing the same thing: Alaric. He is slipping quietly away, although his skill with illusions is such that he’s left a version of himself behind to draw people’s attention while he makes his escape from the celebrations.

I follow him without thinking, up through Ironhold, to the rooms reserved for the noble gladiators. Alaric feels as though he is the one person who might understand me right now.

He hears me coming, of course. He turns as I approach, wariness at the sound of someone following him giving way to a smile.

“Lyra? I wasn’t expecting you to follow me back from the party. Unable to resist my charms?”

I move close to him. “Drop the pretense? Here, with me, just let it go?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m all pretense, Lyra,” he says.

I kiss him then. I can’t help myself. I’ve wanted this since our first snatched brush of lips the previous season. Rowan is solid and strong, but Alaric… he feels as if he understands the damaged parts of me. He is the one who has been there when I’ve needed him.

And yes, it helps that he’s almost improbably handsome, too.

I kiss him, our mouths dancing against each other for the long seconds before I pull back. He’s good at this, of course, but then, Alaric seems to be effortlessly good at everything .

“Just for tonight, be yourself with me,” I whisper.

“Tonight?” Alaric says.

I push him back into his room. "Tonight."