Chapter Sixteen
“She cheated.”
There are whispers when I return to Ironhold. Seemingly down every corridor, there is someone relaying the news. So few of the gladiators are involved in the Champions Trials that they are eager for any information related to them. And right now, there's only one piece of information people are talking about.
“She had Alaric help her.”
I try not to react to those whispers. I know there's nothing I can do, not without starting a fight. Am I to become like Alaric, challenging anyone who insults my honor? And in any case, the rumors are correct, more or less. I didn't say anything to Ravenna that wasn't the truth. My hope is that, if she got anything from me it was simply the sense that I was being accurate with what I said. I did not ask for Alaric’s help.
But I am grateful for it. A part of me wants to go to his room tonight, just to be with him, but I know that will only fuel the rumors. We need to stay apart for now, to give the whispering time to die down.
So I head to the bathhouse, washing off the dirt and the blood of the day. I go over my fights so far in my head, trying to work out what I can learn from them. It's obvious I still have some power even with the dampener that is on my arm even now. It's just as obvious that I must lean more on physical abilities than on my magic in the bouts to come.
Lady Elara’s words go around and around in my head. She wants me to be more ruthless, to embody the goddess as huntress more. I know it will play into whatever she’s doing within the city. It will help to make me more popular with the crowds. It will show the emperor that I am willing to embrace the bloody ethos of Aetheria. It will help to keep me alive.
But I also know that tomorrow, when I fight someone in a straight-ahead bout, I have no wish to kill anyone. I would normally try to simply incapacitate a foe if I can. But if the emperor's the one who decides mercy, I might not even be able to avoid their deaths then.
What if I’m made to face Alaric? That prospect is almost too horrifying to contemplate. Just the thought of it is as if my heart is being torn out of my chest.
I leave the bathhouse and go to the main dining hall of the fortress. The other gladiators have mostly eaten, but there is enough bread and stew left over for me. I'm still eating it when Lord Darius walks in. He does not look happy.
"The bouts today were marred by cheating and interference," he says. He looks straight at me as he says it, and fear starts to rise up in me. Has he decided to punish me anyway for what happened, even though Lady Elara assured me that she had interceded on my behalf? "In the old days, anyone doing that would have quickly found themselves sacrificed to appease the gods for their transgression. Now, though, it seems the emperor is inclined to be lenient."
He looks as though he thinks that is a mistake.
"But let us be clear: the emperor's lenience does not mean that such things are suddenly allowed, merely that it is impossible to say for sure who the perpetrator in this case was. Greater precautions will be taken going forward."
I breathe a sigh of relief because it seems they aren't going to do anything to me.
“Now for the part that matters,” Lord Darius says. “The matchups for tomorrow.”
He goes to the great chalkboard at the front of the room.
"In these bouts you will be fighting one-on-one, although the arena will have been altered to make things more interesting. The bout will continue until one of you falls. At that point, the emperor will decide whether to be merciful. The emperor will decide, not you."
He looks at me again. Lord Darius's belief in the traditions of the games presumably does not sit well with the fact that I showed mercy to Vex in my first season, against the commands of the emperor.
“And if someone refuses to finish their opponent?” Ravenna asks. It's strange that it's coming from her, but it is a question I want an answer to.
“Then executioners will be sent in to finish the opponent for them. Slowly. And they will die alongside their foe.” Lord Darius seems to relish those words, still looking at me, knowing the situation he has just put me in.
He knows I don't want to have to kill if I can avoid it. Now he has created a situation in which I cannot avoid it.
He goes to the board, writing the matchups. I watch the names written up there with trepidation. I see Alaric paired against Malira. Will she even be recovered enough to fight? Her name is up there, so she must believe that she can keep going. I stare, waiting to see who I will be paired against.
When I see the name, it is worse than I could have imagined. Rowan’s name is there, opposite mine. I am to fight him, when he has been so close to me, when he has helped me so much. When we have meant so much to each other.
I feel sick at the sight of it. I can't believe someone has done this. I have no doubt that it's deliberate. There are still enough of us in the Champions Trials that I could easily have been paired against someone else. More than that, it wouldn't normally seem like an interesting bout to the organizers of the games. Rowan is much larger and stronger than me, and he has tended to get the better of me in our training bouts in the past. With my full abilities, maybe I could summon a creature to help bring him down, but as I am at the moment?
Perhaps the organizers have decided that they do not need to execute me. They can simply give me about I cannot, will not , win. Because how am I meant to bring myself to hurt or kill Rowan? Such a thing is unthinkable, except that where we are demands I think about it.
This is what the games are, what they have been from the start. We are pitted against one another, and death is always a possibility. This bout merely makes it much more likely. Almost a certainty.
With other bouts, I'm sure the emperor will show mercy. The noble gladiators will almost certainly get it, although my first fight against Vex shows that it is not guaranteed even for them. Those gladiators who put on a good show will probably survive because the crowd will want to see them again.
But in my bout?
I know the emperor wants to see the limits of what I can do. More than that, he wants to see what I will do. He wants me to be the kind of killer he can make use of in the service of the empire, or maybe he just wants to be proved right about beast whisperers being vicious and deadly.
I look around for Rowan in the dining hall. He is standing there, staring at the board. I cannot read the expression on his face because it seems that he's keeping it carefully blank. He doesn't even look my way, although I get the feeling he knows exactly where I am. He turns and leaves the dining hall, heading deeper into the complex of Ironhold, is it not wanting to face the reality of this.
I set off after him, moving quickly along the corridors, trying to follow. He is out of sight, but I'm able to use my powers to pick up his presence using the sense of smell of a rat, the eyes of a bird. I must use them carefully, leaving them without taking anything from them. Rowan is heading deeper into the noble sections of the fortress.
I follow, but instead of Rowan, I find Ravenna blocking my path.
"Now, what are you doing up here? This isn't where you belong. Unless you're going to see dear Alaric."
“Get out of my way, Ravenna,” I say.
She smiles cruelly. “How do you like having to fight Rowan? I thought about making it Alaric, but I think he might actually refuse to kill you, he loves you that much. Whereas you set Rowan aside. Besides, this brings in some additional layers of pain for you. Because you're feeling so much about the man you used to care about, but can you admit that pain to Alaric? It will make him so deliciously jealous. I wonder which of you will kill the other tomorrow?”
“You're saying that you made this happen?” I say.
“Me?” Ravenna says, with a look of mock innocence. “How could I make anything like this happen? Lord Darius and Lady Selene decide this sort of thing, not me. At least, that's what everyone thinks. Now go away, Lyra. Go tell Alaric everything. I'm sure you'll just break your heart and his in the most beautiful way.”
I move past her, but it's an effort of will not to strike her as I do so. I'm still looking for Rowan, but it seems he's disappeared deeper into the fortress now, and the determination with which he's doing it suggests that he really doesn't want to talk about any of this. Maybe he can't. Maybe he knows that, since he will have to kill me tomorrow, he needs to keep his mind clear of all thoughts of caring about me.
The full horror of what I'm being forced to do hasn't hit me yet, but I know it will. I'm already feeling waves of pain and anger at being forced to fight like this, are being put in a position where I may have to kill someone close to me.
And Ravenna seems to have arranged it somehow. At least, that's what she's hinting at. How could she have done it? Some favor called in? No, I doubt that. Lord Darius is clear that the games matter to him. He wouldn't be so corrupt as to change the bouts at someone's request.
Unless Ravenna was able to use her powers on him. Could that be it? Her mastery of mind magic is undeniable. Could she be using it to arrange the bouts? Could she be the reason I must fight Rowan?
I don’t know, but I do know I need help thinking all of this through. Ravenna is right about one thing: I need to talk to Alaric.