CHAPTER SIX
I'm washing the dye from my hair with an ewer of water when I hear the shouting in the streets, far below the level of the palace.
It's a sign of how much violence the city has been through that my first reaction is to tense with fear, assuming that someone else is attempting rebellion or at least fomenting riots in the streets.
It takes me a few more seconds to realize the sounds are more like those of one of the parades before the games, people calling out in joy and adulation mixed in with some booing and insults.
It's a strange mix when there aren't meant to be any games going on today.
I don't think anyone would dare to put them on in the colosseum without at least consulting me, now. Something else must be happening.
It's enough to drag me from thoughts of how I'm going to find out more about the death matches in the city and the strange symbol the employees of the gambling den were wearing. Quickly drying my hair and tying it up, I head for the door to my room.
Even as I open it, a messenger is standing there, looking flustered.
“Senator Marcus says to come to the prison tower quickly,” the messenger says. “He says… he says that Selene Ravenscroft has returned.”
Those words fill me with dread. The former arch-magistrate fled the city after the fall of the emperor.
She stood back to allow Tiberius to die and then disappeared, quite literally, using her magic to escape.
I now know she fled to Arboria, and there it seems she started to abduct and kill beast whisperers, like me.
She was in contact with Domitian prior to his uprising, and there were signs that she had come back into the Aetherian Republic.
But for her to be here in the city is a very different thing.
She doesn't act without reason, and that means that whatever plans she has put in place must be coming to fruition.
Given that she's one of the most dangerous magic users Aetheria has ever seen, her arrival might presage a fresh moment of violence for the Republic.
I hope that Domitian is still contained as I hurry from the palace, heading through the streets, and now it seems that there are more people outside than usual, milling around in the open air, trying to catch the news of what's going on.
The rumors sing through streets, carried from person to person.
“Selene Ravenscroft is back!”
“She's come to restore the empire.”
“She's come to join the Republic and become a senator.”
“She's come to fight Lyra Thornwind.”
There's no way of knowing if any of those rumors are true, other than to get to the prison tower.
I push through the crowds, and when that still isn't fast enough, I reach out with my powers to borrow agility from a lizard clinging to a wall.
I climb up that wall and rush across the rooftops for the space of several streets, avoiding the worst of the crowds below.
As I get closer to the prison tower, though, I need to return to ground level, and the crowds aren't any better.
If anything, they're twice as thick here, people pressed in tightly as they seek answers about what's going on.
There are guards around the prison tower, spears leveled as if expecting that the crowd will try to break Selene out.
I push through the crowd, slowly making my way to the front. People start to recognize me and they step back but they also shout questions my way.
“Has the arch magistrate returned to run the games again?”
“Is she here to help the Republic or to destroy it?”
I don't have any answers for them. The truth is, Selene shouldn't be here in the city. After she fled, she was formally exiled. Just returning to Aetheria is technically enough to warrant a death sentence for her.
I reach the front of the crowd, and one of the guards blocks my way before he realizes who I am and puts up his spear.
“None of you should be threatening people right now,” I say. “These people aren't here to riot or to attack the prison tower. They just want to know what's going on.”
The guards look nervous, but that's precisely why they should try to de-escalate the situation. The last thing the city needs is one of them lashing out and hurting an innocent person. Thankfully, they do what I say and stop threatening the group of citizens gathered around the tower.
“Is Senator Marcus inside?” I ask.
One of the guards nods. “And the first senator as well.”
Of course, Rowan will be here. He’ll want to see what kind of threat Selene poses to the city.
“Let me in,” I say. “I want to talk to them, and I want to hear what she has to say.”
They open the doors to the prison tower, letting me inside.
The last time I was here, it was to break Alaric and his followers out of their cells so they could help fight against Domitian’s uprising.
He's still here somewhere because the senate hasn't been able to agree over whether to execute him or what fate to impose on him if not that.
But he isn't the reason I'm here, standing at the base of the vast circular tower which is ringed by cells and has stairs leading both up to higher rooms and down to the darkest dungeons beneath.
“Where’s Selene?” I ask one of the guards on the inside.
He points upwards. “In the topmost cells.”
I head up there as quickly as I can, my feet resounding against the stone of the stairs.
There are a couple of guards outside the door, but they don't move to stop me.
I hesitate outside the room, though, because I don't know how Selene will react to my presence.
It may be that she's just waiting for me to arrive before she attacks.
I shift my attention forward instead, finding the mind of a gull wheeling around the tower and bringing it to the window of the room. It means I can observe what's going on inside without having to set foot within.
I can see Selene there, sitting calmly on a chair even though she's shackled and behind a set of bars. Her seemingly eternal youth and almost unblinking violet eyes are disconcerting to see again after she's been gone for so long.
Rowan and Marcus are both there in front of her, questioning her, trying to work out what they should do next with her.
“What are you doing back here, Selene?” Rowan asks.
She smiles. “There was a time when you wouldn't have been able to address me by my first name, Rowan. You've risen in the world since then.”
It's a not very subtle reminder that Rowan was once a slave gladiator, while she was one of the most important people in the city.
“It's First Senator Rowan now,” Marcus snaps, with surprising force given that he and Rowan are often at odds in the senate.
“And Marcus Larius,” Selene says, again, perfectly calmly. “You're a senator as well, of course. I'm so sorry about what happened to your family.”
Marcus snarls and takes a step forward, his anger obvious.
But then, he has every right to be angry.
He comes from a merchant family that initially prospered under the empire.
At least until they got on Emperor Tiberius’s bad side.
Marcus's father was killed, while his mother fell under the influence of a servant with mind magic who slowly persuaded her to sign away most of the family’s holdings.
The servant drove her mad and was responsible for her death.
Marcus might have grown up surrounded by wealth, but he has as much reason to hate the empire as any of us.
“You don't get to talk about my family,” Marcus says.
“If that is more comfortable for you,” Selene replies. “Although I hope you understand I played no part in it. It was just one of the things that convinced me that Tiberius had spilled over the line between power and madness.”
“And where are you when it comes to that line?” Rowan asks her.
Should I go in? What questions would I add to this? Would she answer any of them?
“The difficulty, of course, is that none of us knows for sure,” Selene says.
She's as poised as if she were simply having a philosophical discussion in some salon in the city, not answering questions in a cell.
“Although my intentions are peaceful here.
I think that should be obvious from the way I gave myself up to your guards.
I've seen the new symbols of the Republic on their uniforms. Just a burst of magic?
Even I know Aetheria can't exist without the sword at its heart as well.”
Selene is an archon, a magic user with considerable power over multiple disciplines. She's as committed to magic as anyone in Aetheria. But it seems she wants martial power as well.
“What are you doing here?” Rowan demands. “Why did you come back? You were exiled.”
"I chose to leave for the good of the city. Now I've returned for the same reasons."
“And what do you mean by that?” Marcus demands. “The only reason you chose to leave was to save yourself. And you were declared an exile. It was decided that if you returned, you would be executed.”
“Is that what you plan to do with me?” Selene asks. “With no trial? No chance to plead my case? Have you changed so many of the laws of the city?”
Rowan and Marcus are on tricky ground now, because the truth is that many of the laws are the same. The Republic chose to adopt the laws of the empire and then adjust them as it went, rather than risk having chaos if they simply tore down all of the rules that went before.
“The senate made the decision,” Marcus says. “Your fate has already been decreed.”
“And I say the laws of the city allow me to speak,” Selene says, with a faint smile that doesn't betray any fear.
Is she really so confident that they won't just have her beheaded or impaled?
“As I say, I came here to try to help the city. The very least you can do is hear me out in front of the senate. As the former arch magistrate, I believe I’m owed at least that much. Don't you agree?”
She looks straight at the gull through whose eyes I'm looking as she says it, clearly knowing I'm watching.
Rowan takes a step back. “We’ll consider it,” he says. “In the meantime, you'll remain here. You're too dangerous to just allow to walk free.”
“Of course,” Selene says as if this is something that they're deciding between the two of them, something she has a say in.
Rowan and Marcus head for the door and I pull my attention back into myself as they open it, Selene’s eyes are locked on to me through the bars of her cell. She smiles faintly, as if thinking about something only she will understand.
“I want an emergency session of the senate,” Rowan says. “We need to decide what to do with her.”
“What we need,” Marcus says, “is to execute her.”
“Either way, it's a matter for the senate,” Rowan replies. “Which means we need to get back there. With news this big, something tells me the others will already be arriving.”