Chapter Nineteen
My victory tastes like ashes in my mouth. Rowan is dead. I cannot see his body, but he is buried under so much rock that no one could have survived it. Even the fall was far enough that it might have proved deadly. A part of me hopes that it did, because at least that would have been quick.
Anguish balls up in me like a fist clenched around my heart. I reach inside for power, pain making me want to lash out, but the dampener around my wrist prevents me from doing anything.
I cannot breathe. I cannot think. I can barely see through the tears that cloud my eyes. I have already saluted the crowd, but I stand there, spear raised, for so long that it feels that someone must come and make me leave. And if they do maybe I will strike at them with that spear, because the guards and the trainers and the rest are all part of the system that has brought about Rowan's death. If I hated all of this before I loathe it now.
Somehow, I bring myself to stagger down from the temple ruins that they have crafted in mockery of the actual structures of the gods. I head for the iron gates, and they open for me to let me back into the depths beneath the arena. Alaric is there waiting for me, and for once, he does not play the part of the aloof and arrogant noble in public. He simply takes me by the arm, leading me back inside.
“I know it hurts, Lyra, having to kill a friend,” he says.
“But I didn't kill him,” I say. “Rowan did that deliberately. He could have shoved me onto the deadfall. I could have been the one buried under all that rock. I should have been.”
Alaric grabs me by the shoulders then, holding me there and giving me a serious look. "Do not talk like that. Don't even think like that. The whole point of this was that one of you had to die so the other could survive. If it's you who has survived… I'm grateful for that. You should be, too."
I know what he's saying, but I don't feel glad to be alive right now. Instead, I just feel guilty that Rowan has died so that I might live.
“He chose this,” Alaric says. “You said it yourself, he pushed himself into position for this to happen. Rowan allowed himself to be killed so that you can live.”
That doesn't make me feel any better. If anything, it makes me feel worse, because if it had been someone other than Rowan, they would not have done this. Only the fact that he cared enough about me led him to do this, and that is a fresh pain because it proves just how much he felt for me, even if he pulled back from me after he found out the extent of my powers.
“Lyra, listen to me,” Alaric says. His hands touch my face, so gentle and so sure. “You can grieve. You can do what you need to do but only for today. Tomorrow you will have to fight again, and if you're so weighed down with grief that you can't do anything, then Rowan’s sacrifice will be for nothing.”
"How can you be so cold about this?" I demand. "I know you hated him, but you can't just tell me not to feel anything!"
“It's not about what you feel,” Alaric insists. “It's about survival. Rowan has given you a chance. You owe it to him to take it, and you owe it to me to live through these trials. Everything you're feeling now, I will feel ten times worse if you do not make it. Please, Lyra.”
My emotions roil inside me. I don't know what to think or to feel, and even as I'm trying to decide, a sound comes from the arena. There is a kind of gasp from the crowd, followed by sounds of disapproval, and a cry of pain that is in a voice that I recognize only too well.
“Rowan!” I exclaim.
Confusion reigns in me, and I rush to the iron gates, wanting to see what is going on. It takes me a few seconds to make sense of it all. Rowan is being pulled from the rubble of the deadfall. Healers are dragging him onto a crude stretcher to carry him.
I gasp at the impossibility of it all. Somehow, Rowan has managed to survive. I'm still crying, but now the tears are tears of joy. All of the grief that was in me releases all at once and I feel as though I might collapse. Rowan makes another sound of pain, and even though I can't stand to hear that, it is proof that he is alive.
My hand goes to the gates. I want to rush out there to him. I want to go to him.
Alaric grabs me, holding me back.
“Let me go!” I insist. “I must go to him.”
There is hurt on Alaric’s face, but also determination. I guess it was easy for him to forgive my feelings for Rowan when he thought that Rowan was gone. Now, the fact that I care enough about Rowan to want to run to him must be like a slap in the face. Still, he holds on to me.
“Think about it, Lyra,” he snaps. “You can't go out there.”
“What do you mean?” I demand. “I need to. And they can’t stop me. I was involved in that fight too!”
"That's my point," Alaric says. "You have been declared the victor of this fight. At the moment, that still stands. You haven't done anything wrong. But if you go out there, what's to stop the emperor from demanding that you finish Rowan?"
It takes a second for the full horror of that thought to hit me.
“He wouldn't,” I begin, but I know it's false even as I say it.
“Of course he would,” Alaric retorts. His eyes narrow. “We both know the emperor has been targeting you. Well, someone has, and he's the best placed to do it. The whole point of his little speech at the start was that he was going to get to make you kill someone, or watch you be killed. He still hasn't forgiven your refusal to kill Vex. If you go back out there, he will make you kill Rowan.”
And he's already set out the penalty for failing to do it. I could go out there and refuse, but that would just mean that we both get executed.
“Rowan has tried to cheat the system here,” Alaric says. “That, or he just got incredibly lucky. Either way, if the emperor sees a way to force things to end the way he intended, he'll take it. You can't go out there. I won't lose you like that.”
He holds on to me, making sure that I can't leave, but he has already convinced me. As hard as it is to stand here and wait, I must do it. I stand, not moving a muscle, waiting and hoping as the healers drag Rowan back into the space beneath the arena.
The moment he is through the gates, out of the emperor's view, then I run to him.
“Why did you do that?” I demand, looking down at him as he lies on the stretcher. “How did you even survive?”
“I knew it was the only chance we had to both survive,” Rowan says. “Your idea of putting on a good enough show wasn't going to work. There was no way the emperor wasn't going to see someone die in your fight. So I gave him what he wanted, or at least the impression of it.”
“How?” I say. “I saw you fall. I saw you crushed.”
“By stone,” Rowan says, then winces in pain. “I have control over stone. I was willing to bet that I could have enough to keep myself alive. I was able to keep it from crushing me and maintain enough space to be able to breathe.”
“But you're injured,” I say.
Rowan’s face shows his pain again, and the sight of that makes my heart ache in sympathy.
“This wasn't the stone. This was the fall.”
“And that fall has broken your leg,” one of the healers says. “A bad break. We need to get you onto our slab to start to work on it. Even then, I doubt you'll be able to take part in the rest of the games.”
Rowan’s wince then has nothing to do with pain. He has ruled himself out from the rest of the games to save me. To stop me from having to kill him. He has kept us both alive, but at what cost?
In previous games, it would have been simple. Our friend Naia had more skill with healing than anyone I have seen. But she is dead now, killed by Vex. It won't be so simple to undo the damage that Rowan has done to himself here.
I am grateful to him, and more than that. In the moments when I thought he was dead, the pain I felt for him wasn't just that of a friend. It is confusing and difficult, and one look at Alaric’s expression says that he sees all of it.