Page 9 of Ironhold, Trial Two

I train with Lady Elara to the point of exhaustion before heading back to Ironhold. Rowan is waiting for me, looking worried for me.

“Is everything all right, Lyra?” he asks. “When I heard that some noble had summoned you, I was worried that…”

He tails off, but I know what he means. Rowan was the slave of the noblewoman Tyra before she sent him to fight in the Colosseum. She kept him as her personal servant, and probably more, although Rowan does not talk about it. He, more than anyone, knows what nobles expect from those who serve them.

“It was Lady Elara,” I say. “The same noble from the games. She has been kind to me.”

“You can't always trust the kindness of nobles,” Rowan insists. “They are interested in using people to get what they want and… what happened to your arm, Lyra?”

“It’s nothing,” I say. “A scratch from the beast pens.”

I can't tell him the truth because I know that would involve revealing Lady Elara’s secrets, and they are not mine to tell. Rowan knows that I am a beast whisperer, but it seems to me that Lady Elara’s survival depends on her secrecy. I cannot tell even Rowan that she is the same as me.

Rowan looks as though he doesn’t entirely believe me, but he lets it go. He puts an arm around me instead. “As long as you're sure you're all right?”

“I'm fine,” I assure him.

I’m so close to him now, so wrapped up in his strength and his scent. I can feel my heart beating faster. I move to start to kiss him, but he’s the one who pulls back.

“You don’t want me?” I ask.

“I… it’s not like that, Lyra.”

“Then what is it like?” I ask, not understanding.

He keeps me at arm's length. "It's… we should head to one of the practice rooms. I'll spar with you.”

I wince at the prospect, and at him holding back like that, but I know Rowan is doing the right thing, trying to help me prepare and make up for whatever I've missed. In the build up to the new season at the Colosseum, every day of training is vital.

I go with Rowan to a practice room, where we work on close fighting, using wooden knives. It's hard work and soon we're both sweating. I'm all too aware of every time a practice knife touches one of us, because I know that in real life that would be a wound, would mean blood on the sand.

Practicing this close, we are practically grappling with one another, each of us trying to stop the other from doing anything with their weapon. Soon we are panting for breath, our sweat mingling as we wrestle for advantage. Of course, Rowan's greater size means that he is able to overpower me, bringing me to the ground.

I surprise him by kissing him, sudden and sharp. When he is so close, it's impossible not to.

“I'm not sure that's a tactic that's going to do much for you in a fight,” Rowan says as he pulls away. He still looks uncomfortable.

“No?” I looked down pointedly to where my wooden knife is now pressed against his heart. “It seems to have won this exchange comfortably.”

“True,” Rowan says, pulling me to my feet easily. “But we should practice more. That trick will work on me, but I guess you don’t want to have to try it on whoever you’re put up against next?”

I shake my head. Kissing him is one thing, but with anyone else, I will need to earn my victory. I still feel that there’s something he’s not saying about why he’s holding back. And I don’t want him to hold back.

We keep working. There's something easy about training with Rowan. He makes me feel comfortable in a way that I do not normally feel when I am working with weapons. He makes me feel as though everything is all right, and he is a patient tutor. I can feel myself getting better. My time at Ironhold has made my body harder and leaner, but it is the work I have put in with Rowan that has made me a better fighter.

I still don't know for sure if that's a good thing or not. I have killed, and the weight of that is a heavy one on my heart. I hate that this place makes us do such things, but I also know I will not stand by and let myself be killed.

“We haven't talked about what Arctus did to you,” Rowan says, as we finish our session.

We haven’t talked about a lot of things.

“That was Vex, not him. He only attacked me because Vex suggested it, and he knew that I would be punished for fighting in front of Lord Darius.”

“I hate that he can do that to you,” Rowan says. “If I thought it would do any good, I would-”

I put a hand on his chest to stop him before he commits to any violence on my behalf. I can feel the solidity of his muscles under my hand. It's all I can do to keep from tracing the outlines of those muscles with my fingers.

“I don't want you lashing out for me,” I say. “For all I know that's what Vex wants. I think this is all part of some bigger game. Maybe a part of it is to manipulate you since you're one of the best fighters here. He knows that we're… close, so maybe he's using that against you.”

“You think he would?” Rowan asks.

I nod. “I have been warned that there are political games and tricks involved in everything here. Ravenna has showed me that, and Alaric has warned me against getting too close to anyone, because people will use it against me.”

Rowan looks a little surprised, and possibly a little upset too. “You're going to listen to them? To the nobles? They only see what they want to see, and they're playing their own games. Ravenna… she uses people. Alaric isn't much better. He's so arrogant, so focused on his own glory he doesn't care about anyone else.”

That's certainly the impression that Alaric gives, although I'm not entirely certain it's true. I get the feeling that there are things Alaric cares about more than he lets on. He's just careful to make sure that nobody finds out what they are so that they can't use them against him.

“Whether you agree with them or not as people,” I say. “You can't deny that this is a place full of games behind the scenes. And there’s the question of what I am.”

“You mean a beast whisperer,” Rowan says. He winces slightly at the term.

“You don’t like that I can do that, do you?” I say. “Is that why you’re holding back from me?”

“It’s… they tell stories, of how all beast whisperers become corrupted, of how eventually, they’re little more than animals,” Rowan says.

“And you believe that? About me ?”

“I… I don’t think you would become like that deliberately,” he says. “But I’m not sure you can deal with it, Lyra.”

“You’ll just have to trust that I know what I’m doing,” I reply. “Do you believe that I can’t control it?”

“I think you believe you can control lots of things,” Rowan says. “Like what the nobles do.”

“That’s necessary,” I reply. “It seems there's always someone trying to manipulate something here. There's the constant pushing for position, which nobles you attract the attention of at the games, which groups of gladiators you consider friends, even what your powers are and what you can do for people.”

“You're making this more complicated than it has to be,” Rowan argues. He moves out onto the sand, taking up a longer sword and tossing me a wooden trident. “This is what matters.”

He takes up a guard position, urging me forward. I know he can read every movement I make through the ground. I try for my own brand of advantage, reaching out to the eyes of small creatures around the practice room.

I see myself from so many angles and so many strange eyes that for a second I am unbalanced. This is not like looking through the eyes of birds. I realize a second too late that there is an ants nest somewhere here, and now there are thousands of sets of eyes on me, a whole swarm of them. Enough to make me dizzy and sick trying to hold all those points of view in my head at once.

I stumble and Rowan is there to catch me, his strong arms wrapping around me, holding me up.

“It looks as though whatever you were doing today has taken it out of you,” he says.

I shake my head. “I’ll be fine. I just overreached myself with my talent.”

Rowan frowns, leaning close to me, but still seeming to hold back from crossing those last few inches. “You need to be careful. I've heard the things people are saying about you. Everyone knows that you're a beast whisperer. You need to be careful not to overstretch and hurt yourself.”

“You're telling me not to use my powers?” I ask. “They're the only reason I'm still here, Rowan.”

“I'm not saying that,” he says. “But the stories… those things are dangerous.”

“I can handle it,” I insist.

“I just want you to be careful, and not get caught up in all the stuff around the colosseum,” Rowan says. “To not get distracted by people talking about politics and intrigue, or developing your talents more than you need to survive. The point is to get through five seasons. That’s it. Five seasons on the sands, and then we can leave. Think about what you’ll do then. What we’ll do then.”

He talks as if he assumes that whatever we do, we’ll do it together.

“I could go home with you. We could go anywhere in the world.”

That's true, but I also have other options if I succeed.

“Or I could stay in Aetheria,” I suggest. “There are so many things happening here; there are conflicts brewing in the city and the empire. Maybe I could make a difference.”

Rowan crushes me to him. “The empire chews people up and spits them out. You need to focus on yourself and on me, on the here and now. We'll get through this together, and then… I’ll free my sisters, and we’ll get as far away from here as we can.”

He makes it sound as though that's the only dream worth following. The problem is that it's his dream, not mine. Rowan is so focused on his freedom that he can't see the bigger picture. There is more happening in Aetheria than I thought when I was brought here. Things are changing and there's a good chance that we're all going to be a part of that change.

We must be ready for it when it comes.