CHAPTER SIX
I wake to the sound of birdsong, reach out to call the bird to me, and then realize that I can't, thanks to the dampener around my wrist. It's a painful way to come back into wakefulness, reminded of my own helplessness and how cut off from my powers I am.
I lie there in the early morning light, a part of me afraid to wake, to stand, because then I’ll have to find out what my fate is here in Marcus’ home.
So far, he’s treated me well, but he’s been happy to go along with this arrangement that sees me utterly in his power.
He knows Selene has effectively given me to him, and I don’t know yet whether he intends to act on that.
I don't know what I am to him now. Am I a lover, a friend, a slave?
But I'm used to facing uncertainty. In Ironhold and then the colosseum, I did so every day.
I was in a similarly helpless position there too, because my noble patrons could have taken advantage of me any way they wished. I won't let fear stop me now.
I stand and dress, taking clothes from the trunk at the foot of the bed.
The outfits there are ones I recognize, ones Marcus gave to me while I was his fiancée.
It's a surprise he kept them, and even more of a surprise that they're there now, rather than the simple clothes of a servant.
I dress carefully, in a grey dress with silver embroidery.
There are pieces of jewelry set out along with it, a couple of bracelets and rings that seem at odds with my status as a prisoner.
I hesitate before putting them on, feeling as though doing so is to somehow accept my situation.
But they don’t seem like the kind of thing Marcus would give to someone he regards merely as a prisoner, or worse yet, a slave. Or maybe he would. Maybe Marcus merely wants to decorate me, to adorn me so he can show me off to others.
I still don’t know what he intends for me here, whether he plans to keep me as a prisoner indefinitely while barely talking to me, or help me, or hurt me.
I bind up my hair in a simple braid, something far removed from the elaborate styles servants would arrange my hair into as a senator, but I want to do something with it that's different from the unkempt mess it was in prison.
I want to remind myself that I'm not there anymore and that, no matter what my situation is here, it's better than what could be happening to me there, right now.
It's better than what happened to Domitian, too.
I can still see the moment when he died, screaming as he burned in the middle of the colosseum, still smell the scent of burned flesh.
The horror of it is still running through me.
Domitian was my enemy, but I got the feeling in prison that he'd changed.
He'd come to realize how destructive his attempted coup was. And Selene killed him anyway.
She had him killed simply because it wasn't convenient to leave him alive, and because it helped to push through the idea of people being killed in the arena. It was another step towards the return to full games in just a few weeks.
I don’t know how many. I still don’t have a sense of exactly how long I spent underground, the days passing in a blur of pain and despair. How long before Selene enacts her plan to make herself he empress of a version of Aetheria where those with the most magical power rule over everyone else?
I’m still trying to work it out when a knock comes at my bedroom door. I open it, expecting to see one of Marcus’ many servants, but instead, Marcus himself is standing there, dressed in a grey and silver tunic that matches my dress. Is that deliberate? I still can’t tell what Marcus is planning.
“I hope you slept well,” Marcus says. “The servants have prepared breakfast.”
“Am I not one of your servants now?” I ask.
Marcus shakes his head. “Just come down and eat, Lyra. We can talk. Please.”
That last word catches me by surprise. This is a man who has almost total power over me now, who doesn't need to ask me when he can just command me.
The fact that he asks me is enough to make me go with him, heading down to where a pair of couches are set opposite one another, with a table between piled high with bread and olives, cheese, and fine slices of meat.
Marcus sits, gesturing for me to take the other couch. I do so, feeling a little awkward as I pick at the food. There’s a veil of tension between us, so I don’t know quite how to start talking to him.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me, Lyra,” Marcus says.
"Don't I?" I ask. "You have total power over me, Marcus. You could kill me if you wanted and say I was trying to escape. You could punish me any way you chose and I would have no recourse. You know, Selene arranged this because she wants you to keep me as some plaything."
“You think I care about what Selene wants?” Marcus counters. He gestures to me. “You must see that isn’t what I intend.”
“Because you’ve dressed me in a fine dress and you’re feeding me good food?” I ask.
“I wanted to treat you well,” Marcus says. “I wanted to show you that you’re an honored guest here. We used to be engaged, Lyra.”
I hesitate. “That’s part of what worries me. Is this an attempt to make things the way they were? Are you trying to seduce me, Marcus?”
“By just treating you well?” Marcus asks.
I gesture to the dress. “By dressing me the way I looked when I was with you. By giving me jewelry to wear.”
"Don't wear it if you don't want to," Marcus says. He sounds almost as frustrated as I feel. We're both tiptoeing around one another, because how can I trust that Marcus doesn't have some cruel plan for me?
“Marcus, you’re working with Selene,” I point out. “I had to kneel beside you yesterday while she sat next to you and we watched Domitian die. If you’re standing beside her, working beside her, then all I can ever be to you is your prisoner. I’m just the gift she gave you for being on her side.”
Marcus looks exasperated. “You really think I’m on Selene’s side? You think I want her to win in all of this?”
“I think you’re setting yourself up to profit no matter who wins,” I guess, because that’s what Marcus does.
He arranges for himself to be on the winning side.
He joined the Republic when it rose, because that let him rise to a position of power as a senator.
He sided with Domitian but then betrayed him, and maybe that was because he wanted to stop the return of the empire or maybe it was just because he thought it was obvious Domitian wouldn’t win.
Then he started to run death matches below the city streets, fueling the corruption of the city even as he took control of more of it.
“Is that really what you think of me?” Marcus says.
“You’ve supported the violence of the games,” I reply. “You’ve built up the corruption of the city. You voted for my guilt in my trial!”
Marcus hesitates and then stands with a sigh. "Come with me, Lyra."
I frown, "Why. Where are-"
“Just come with me. Trust me for once, Lyra.”
I don't really have a choice, even after all the times Marcus has betrayed me. I'm his prisoner, after all. I stand and follow Marcus through his villa, as he leads the way down into a basement, to a door that's both solid-looking and securely locked.
He takes out a key, unlocking it with a sharp click. My worries are only growing as he does it, because I don’t know what this is. For all I know, it could be a cell he’s had built to keep me in if I don’t cooperate. It could be a space for him to punish me until I’m broken and compliant.
Instead, though, it’s a space where papers are piled high on a marble table, and where scrolls are set in niches around the walls.
Marcus carefully shuts the door behind us. “I’m fitting in with Selene’s schemes because it’s the best way I can think of to stop her.”
He’s used that argument with me before.
“You’re only involved in the corruption of the city so you can bring it down in the future?” I say, because that’s what Marcus has told me, again and again. But after being told it so many times, how can I believe it.
“I’m working to take power away from Selene now,” Marcus counters.
He gestures to the papers. “Read them. See it for yourself. In the last few months, I’ve taken control of gangs that would otherwise have gone over to Selene.
I’ve bribed officials who would otherwise have been corrupted by her.
Selene has been trying to take absolute power in Aetheria.
I’ve made sure that at least some of the others here will be on my side. Our side.”
I start to read, seeing Marcus’ careful records of bribes and secrets. They’re the kind of thing I’ve seen before, but now I can read his notes as well, marginalia that show more of his thought process.
Threatening to reveal Alvis’s secrets will stop him from supplying Selene’s guards with armor.
This makes three units of guards we can trust.
Which gladiators will fight on our side?
The notes reveal Marcus’ thinking in a way that was clearly never intended for anyone else to read. These seem to be his private thoughts, something I can trust far more than words that might just be intended to convince me.
I stare at Marcus, barely able to believe the confusing mix of emotions running through me.
I’m still hurt by some of the things he’s done, but I feel a wave of relief, a hint of shame that I’ve mistrusted Marcus so thoroughly, a lingering sense that this might still be a trick and a deep pain that things ever got so bad between us.
“You’re really on the same side as me?” I ask. That’s the one thing I need to know, need to be able to trust. “But you let them throw me into the prison!”
“I couldn’t stop it,” Marcus says. “If I’d stood up to argue for you, you would still have lost, and I would have forfeited my position close to Selene.”
He moves around the table, putting his arms around me in a gesture of comfort that feels as though it has so much more emotion lurking within it. There has been so much between us in the past, and things are still so complicated.
“Do you know what it’s like, trying to fool a psychomancer?
” Marcus says. “I have protections against her powers, but she can pick up the thoughts of anyone around me. Just by telling you all of this, I’m taking the risk that she’ll read my intentions from you.
She’ll know now that I’m not her ally after all. ”
I understand some of Marcus’ secrecy now. He’s been a double agent, all this time, so convincingly that he was prepared to see me imprisoned rather than let his deception slip.
“So all this time you’ve been preparing for the moment when she decides to declare herself empress?” I say.
Marcus nods. “And when she does, I’ll have everything we need in place to stop her, once and for all. Selene Ravenscroft is not going to steal Aetheria.”