CHAPTER NINETEEN
I return to Ironhold with the others at the end of the day. The atmosphere is tense as we head back. Callus is still staring at me like I am prey for him to snatch up. Zara and Cesca are walking apart from one another. It is obvious that the bout today has driven a kind of wedge between them. Alaric is there, but he isn't close to me. It's obvious he's still not gotten over our argument.
How did everything get to this point? I ask myself that question but the answer is obvious: it is the nature of the colosseum. It is a place designed to set us against one another and to force us to be the killers the city wants.
And it's hard to deny that I'm vulnerable at the moment. I have been told by several people that I am powerful even by the standards of beast whisperers but with my dampener in place I am almost helpless. I haven't thought of Cesca as a serious threat, but she came close to killing me today. Just thought that makes me shake a little in fear.
Another thought is worse: that I have courted danger by insisting that Callus stays. If I had been as ruthless as the emperor wants me to be, I could have had him killed. He could have been executed, and I wouldn't have to worry about him. But I couldn't do something like that and still be myself.
I can't help thinking that Alaric would have done it in an instant.
We make it back to Ironhold, remember the dead, and start to prepare for the final day of the games. The pairings for the final bouts are up on the board in the dining hall. At this point people are not crowded around with excitementso much as with the tension of people who have been fighting for days now, and who are starting to wonder if they have one more fight in them. Many of the gladiators are done. They have had three bouts, and they will not need to prove themselves further. But I am to have four, that means I will fight tomorrow.
I make my way to the board, wanting to know what I will face. Ordinarily I would hope for a beast butI do not have the power left to deal with such a thing. I must hope for a human opponent I can beat, even in my weakened state.
What I see on the board instead makes me stare in disbelief. There is to be only one bout tomorrow, and it is to be a three-way fight between teams of two. Rowan and I form one team, and if I'm to be paired with anyone, Rowan is a good choice. He is someone I can trust and I would not want to have to fight against him.
But the other pairs are… I can't quite deal with what I see. Because Alaric is up there, paired with Zara. A friend I have fought beside today will be my enemy tomorrow, alongside the man I have been sleeping beside, and who means more to me almost than anyone.
Beside that third pairing almost doesn't matter, Except that it doesn't matter because it means that this has to be a real fight. If it were just me and Rowan against Zara and Alaric, maybe the four of us could arrange it so that the crowd got a show but no one was seriously hurt. The third pairing ensures that this is going to be a real fight and a dangerous one.
Vex will be in there as one partner, while Callus will be the other.
I realize that the emperor must have commanded this, that in a way this is my punishment for not being ruthless enough earlier. That he is showing me that there is a price for leaving my enemies alive. I am the one who begged for Callus to stay in the colosseum, and now I must fight him.
Almost no one looks pleased by this.
“They're throwing all of us in together?" Zara exclaims with a note of exasperation. “Why when we're the best gladiators they have?”
“It is because we are the best they have,” Vex says, approaching through the crowd. “That is the nature of the games, to truly test the worthy.”
“Don't you ever get tired of saying that kind of thing?” Alaric asks him.
Vex looks over to him. “No, because I believe in the real purpose of these games. You're just in it for the glory, but I remember that they are a holy thing.”
“I wonder if you'll be so happy about it all tomorrow,” Alaric says.
I'm certainly not happy about it, about being forced to fight people I like, and about being forced into an incredibly dangerous match up when I don't have my powers. Around me everyone seems to be talking about the match up. Many of the other gladiators are drinking and dancing, partying now that they know they don't have to fight on the final day. Cesca is off dancing with a young man, pointedly ignoring Zara.
The six of us who are due to fight are like still points among the whirling, chaotic joy of the celebrations. Callus has his usual space around him even now. Vex heads over, but they don't talk for long. I get the feeling that they won't be coordinating much in the way of sophisticated tactics. They will simply both fight and try to defeat the others.
I make my way through the room, pushing aside the offer of drinkssince I must be fresh for the fight. I go to Rowan first since he's my partner in this, standing with him in the middle of the celebrations.
“This is all too much,” I say. “Making us all fight each other like this? It’s obviously a deliberate ploy to cause as much pain as possible.”
“Or just to create as much drama as they can,” Rowan says. He puts his hands on my shoulders and from a distance it must look as though we’re dancing together. “Lord Darius and Lady Selene hardly hold back from throwing people together in the arena who have connections outside. They made us fight in the Champions Trials after all.”
And that was bad enough, butnow I must fight Alaric.
“I don't want to kill Alaric or Zara,” I say. A thought comes to me. “I know this is meant to be three separate teams, butis there a way that our team and their team could work together against Vex and Callus?”
Rowan frowns. He obviously doesn't like the idea of fighting alongside Alaric, but Zara is a friend to both of us.
“It's possible,” he says. “I can try talking to Zara about it, but you will need to be the one to approach Alaric.”
I know that, and it's hard. Things are anything but simple between us at the moment, and I don't know how he'll reply if I suggest to him that we work together.
“And even if we beat Callus and Vex by working together, they will still expect our teams to fight,” Rowan says.
“And at that point we fight but we can do it in a way where we don't kill each other,” I say. “We can try to fight to incapacitate one another. We can put on a good enough show for the crowd thatthey want to see us alllive to fight again.”
“It's a dangerous strategy,” Rowan says. “What if the emperor commands us to kill one another?”
“I've ignored that command before,” I point out. Although if I do it again I suspect I will be punished severely for it. But if it saves the lives of my friends, maybe it will be worth it. “We need to at least talk to them, Rowan.”
Rowan nods. “We can try. Just remember, Lyra, whatever happens, it isn't your fault. You don't have a choice about being here.”
I know that, but it doesn't make anything easier. If anything, Rowan’s words just drive home my helplessness here. I hate being unable to affect things. But maybe by talking to the others, we can at least avoid having to kill everyone.
I go looking for Alaric. I find him towards the back of the room, sitting quietly at the heart of what seems like a particularly raucous area ofnobles drinking and laughing. I move up close to him. He turns to me acknowledging my presence but doesn't smile. He looks as though he's hiding his emotions as best he can.
“We need to talk about the fight tomorrow,” I say.
He nods. “You need to be careful in it. If you don't have your usual powers, you'll be vulnerable.”
He's giving me tactical advice? That isn't what I wanted to talk about.
“I asked you before if you could bring yourself to kill me,” I say. “I guess tomorrow we put that to the test.”
His eyes widen slightly, but he nods. “This is what's so difficult about having a relationship here. I'm not going to set out to kill you, Lyra, just as I know you're not going to try to kill me if you can avoid it. But if it comes to it? If one of us defeats the other and the emperor says that we must either kill or be executed alongside one another?”
That's a horrifying possibility, and it's not an outlandish one. The emperor made exactly that threat during theChampions Trial. In it, Rowan was able to avoid killing me by pretending to die. It cost him the whole season. I doubt that something like that will work in this match up, though.
“He probably won't do that,” I say.
“Probably,” Alaric agrees. “What do you want to bet your life on ‘probably’? We will fight, and I'm guessing you would like me and Zara to help you take down Callus and Vex, but after that we're going to have to fight, Lyra. We're going to have to fight and hope that we are not the ones needing the emperor’s mercy.”
“Could you do it?” I ask. “If he commands you, could you kill me?”
“I…”
It's the same hesitation as before. I should have known better than to ask.