CHAPTER SEVEN
As Rowan has predicted, the senate chamber is full almost to the bursting point by the time we get changed into our togas and step inside.
Almost every senator is there, most looking around with fear and worry, but the crowds swarming into the viewing gallery are even more impressive.
It's clear people want to know what's going on.
I've heard the rumors, and I guess most of them have, too.
Now, it's a question of giving them the truth.
I take my place on the benches not far from Marcus. There's a tension in him that's hard to ignore. Clearly, Selene’s return has bothered him.
Rowan stands in the middle of the chamber and speaks.
“I guess most of you will have heard some of what's going on by now,” he says.
“Selene Ravenscroft has returned to Aetheria. She approached one of the gates earlier on foot and alone. She surrendered herself to the guards there and is currently being held in the prison tower until we can decide what to do with her. Senator Marcus and I just went to speak with her, and Senator Lyra also heard the conversation.”
He doesn't say how I heard because the strangeness of the things I can do still bothers people.
Even in Aetheria, a place used to magical talents, people are worried by beast whisperers, thinking that we might turn feral at any moment.
I hope my role in helping the Republic has done something to undo that image, but I'm not foolish enough to believe that I’ve achieved perfect tolerance for my kind.
There will always be people who hate me just for what I can do.
Is Selene one of them? The news we had from Arboria was that she was hunting beast whisperers.
That suggests a deep level of hatred I didn't know she possessed before.
Of those involved with the games, she was always one of the fairest towards me, keeping to the law but not going out of her way to be cruel to me the way the emperor did.
Perhaps exile from the city has changed her mind about me.
“And what were the details of the conversation?” Senator Octavio asks.
“She assured us that she came in peace,” Rowan says. “She says she’s returned for the good of the city.”
Marcus scoffs. “And does anyone here believe that? She was exiled on pain of death. Her return is automatically grounds to execute her.”
“That's what we're here to discuss,” Rowan says, looking over at him. He returns his attention to the other senators. “She has demanded the right to speak in front of the senate and plead her case.”
“What case?” Marcus demands. “She needs to die. There isn’t anything to discuss.”
“Perhaps that's hasty,” Octavio says. “I assume Selene is invoking her rights as a citizen of Aetheria?”
“She is,” Rowan says. “She pointed out to us that we haven't changed the laws, so she has the right to make her case before a judge or, in this case, before the senate.”
Senator Octavio nods solemnly, always one to focus on the legalities. “Those are our laws.”
“Are you sure we want to do that?” Senator Olivia asks. She looks nervous. “Selene Ravenscroft was the emperor’s confidante and lieutenant. She has reasons to hate everyone here. Let her into the senate, and she might take the opportunity to try to slaughter us.”
“Not confident in your magic?” Senator Yarrow asks.
“Could you take on an archon and win?”
I can feel the fear among some of the senators, and I share some of their concerns.
I don’t know why Selene has returned, but I don’t believe it’s just because she wants to peacefully reenter Aetherian society and throw herself on our mercy.
Her talk about saving the city doesn’t ring true either.
Is there a chance she would try to kill the whole senate at once?
“I don’t believe she could take us all,” Rowan says. “Most of us have magic, and Selene Ravenscroft is just one woman. No, I think she genuinely means to stand before us and ask the senate for clemency. I think the laws leave us with no choice.”
“And I still say she’s too great a danger to risk that,” Marcus says. “We were lucky she chose to stand back during the rebellion. If she hadn’t… the Republic might not be here.”
Rowan knows that, probably better than Marcus.
So do I. I was just paces away from Selene when she chose not to act to save Tiberius when she chose to walk away afterward.
I know how easily events could have gone another way.
She could have chosen to kill as many people as she could before she died.
"We should kill her," Marcus says again. I'm surprised he's so determined about this. The public in the viewing galleries seems surprised and disappointed, too. Some of them boo as he says it.
“It seems the people don’t agree with you,” Senator Yarrow says, with a faint smile. “And I, for one, don’t want to stand against their will.”
"You spend your life pandering to the mob," Marcus accuses her. "Of course, you'll do whatever's most popular, rather than what's right."
Rowan looks to me. “What do you think, Lyra? You’ve met her before, and you saw her in the prison tower. Do you think she’s genuine about anything she says? Do you think we should go through with the sentence of execution without giving her a hearing before the senate?”
I take a deep breath as I stand, trying to get my thoughts in order. “It’s a complicated question,” I say. “It’s not just about the sentence hanging over Selene, it’s about the danger she might still represent to the city. We know she was contacting Domitian during his uprising-”
“You suspect it,” Yarrow says. She doesn’t like me at the best of times, and I suspect she was only one step away from siding with Domitian.
“We found letters between them,” I point out.
“Probably forged.”
“By whom?” Marcus demands, standing. “I hope you’re not accusing anyone in this room.”
Yarrow smiles an insincere smile. "Of course not, but if I were, I'm sure they'd want the chance to defend themselves here rather than being killed out of hand."
Rowan holds up his hands for silence. “Senator Lyra was speaking. I, for one, want to hear what she has to say. Please, Lyra, go on.”
“She worked with Domitian,” I say. “I’m worried even now about her being held in the same place as him.
She stood side by side with the former emperor.
She did his bidding for years, and she ran the games when they were at their cruelest. She’s even been killing beast whisperers out in Arboria, and caused so much disruption that the Arborians sent a delegation to us. ”
I can see Marcus looking pleased. He’s obviously sure I’ll side with him, and maybe he thinks my support will help sway the rest of the senate to his side. Sometimes he sees me as a political liability, but sometimes, my fame and the things I’ve done to save the city can persuade people as well.
Sadly, I’m going to have to disappoint him.
“But she did hold back when it came to the rebellion,” I say. “And she helped me when I was a gladiator. She undid the dampener she’d put on me on the emperor’s orders, letting me use my powers when I fought. I always got the feeling she was more interested in the law than in the emperor’s aims.”
I pause again, looking around at the people in the viewing gallery.
“But those aren’t the reasons I think Selene should get to plead her case.
The truth is, I don’t think we should be killing people out of hand.
I don’t want our Republic to be as soaked in blood as the empire was, and I certainly don't want us to ignore our own laws.
If this is a place where justice becomes about our whims, then it isn't justice at all.
That's why, if there's to be a vote on this, I vote that Selene should be allowed to make her case.”
Marcus looks surprised by that and disappointed, but I can see some of the other senators nodding. Octavio looks pleased.
Rowan sighs. “I think this has come to the point where we need to vote on it. Lyra has already declared she's in favor of letting Selene speak. So am I.”
“Against,” Marcus says. “I think allowing this puts us all in danger.”
The votes start to come in for and against. It's hard to keep track of the count, even though the viewing galleries above are silent and tense, people obviously waiting to see what the result will be. Rowan is keeping a careful tally. At last he stands.
“It's decided by two votes. Selene Ravenscroft will have the opportunity to address this chamber, and we'll decide her fate.”
Marcus stands and moves to leave the senate chamber.
I can see the anger on his face at losing the vote, but it feels like more than that.
I go after him as he goes through to the antechamber beyond the senate.
I catch up to him and put a hand on his arm.
I can see him getting himself under control, pushing down his emotions.
“Why is this affecting you so much?” I ask.
“I just think she's dangerous,” he replies.
I shake my head. “It's more than that.”
“She was an official of the empire right at the point where my family's holdings were seized, signed over to the emperor.
Forget what she said about not being involved.
Do you think she didn't know about that?” Marcus demands.
“Do you think that, when I went to protest to officials, it didn't reach her ears?”
I realize how personal this is for him, but then, it is for me too. I don't know the former arch magistrate well, but I've met her. She's stood in judgment over me, contained my powers, run games in which I've been hurt.
“I have every reason to hate her as well,” I say. I put my hand over Marcus's heart now. “But if you hold all that hate inside you, it will only hurt you, not her.”
“I plan on it hurting her,” Marcus says. “When I went to the prison, and she talked about my family… her very denial just proved how much she knew.”
“She was trying to get you to react,” I point out. “It's all part of her game.”
“But that's the point,” Marcus replies. “She has some kind of game going on and we're letting her play it.”
“We’ll work out what she's doing and stop it,” I say. “We'll stop her as well, but the right way.”
“I hope so,” Marcus says.
“Let me take you back to your villa?” I suggest.
He shakes his head. “Not this evening. If Selene plans to argue her case tomorrow, I want to prepare to counter those plans.”
I can't help feeling that he's cutting me out of those preparations because I voted in favor of letting her speak, and that hurts, but I don't argue.
Things will be better after Selene has argued her case in the senate, and in any case, I still need to find the death bouts that are meant to be taking place in the city.
I let Marcus go, then head back to my rooms and change, ready to go out and look for them.
The sign I saw on the uniforms of the servants at the gambling parlor is the only clue I have, but maybe I can do something with it.
There's a message waiting in my room.
Meet me an hour after dark on the edges of the slums, near the Inn of Seven Eyes. T.
It seems Thalia has the means to get messages to me just as Alaric did. I only hope these aren't being intercepted the same way by one of the servants.
I'm curious about what has led her to send me a message. Does she have some new information? Is Alaric in some kind of danger? That thought sends a thrill of fear through me.
It's still early, so I wait in my rooms, killing time before the meeting. As I do so, though, a knock comes at the door. It’s Rowan.
“Can we talk?”