CHAPTER TWO
The imperial palace is a place of grandeur beyond anything I might be able to dream. For me, it is also a place of fear. I walk along halls that are lined with painted and gilded statues, my sandals clicking on the tiles of mosaic floors that shift with magic to show scenes of the past. Guards flank me at all times, looking ready for any attempt to break away on my part.
The emperor does not have me collected in a luxurious palanquin, carried by servants the way Lady Elara used to when she was my patron. Instead, he has me marched up to the palace instead between his guards like a prisoner, showing me off to the city while also showing his power over me. One day, I fear he will tireof me and simply have my dead body brought to him instead.
What does he even want from me? In the times I have come to the palace so far he has not answered that question, not really. He has spoken about his ability to see the future in flashes and fragments, seeing possibilities without fully understanding what will happen. He has spoken about knowing that I'm importantto great events that are about to come, but he doesn't seem to be able to make up his mind whether I'm there to help the city or to hurt him.
If he ever decides that it's the latter, he will have me killed. Every time I think of that, it sends a shiver down my spine.
Today, he has me meet him in a receiving room with views out over the imperial gardens. The room is partly open to the elements, although a shimmer of magic at one end suggests that it is not entirely unprotected. Great pillars hold up a ceiling decorated with scenes of the gods seducing mortals. Every time I come to the palace I fear that he will want that , too. If the emperor commands me to give myself to him, I will not be able to refuse unless I want to take on his guards. It is a thought that makes me nauseous.
The room has several gilded marble couchescarved with scenes of satyrs and nymphs. A banner displays the imperial symbol of a sword piercing a purple ball of magic. The same symbol is repeated endlessly, carved into stones, painted in gold on doors. The gardens beyond are spectacular, tended with a mixture of care and magicthat makes flowers bloom impossibly, and strange creatures wander the grounds. A butterfly larger than my head flits from bloom to bloom.
The emperor waits for me in the receiving room, lounging on one of the couches. Emperor Tiberius VI is a lean man in his forties, taller than me, his dark hair thinningand his eyes glowing with purple hints of power that match the imperial robes he wears. He tries to cultivate a sense of cool calculation, but I know that there is a propensity for sudden cruelty and violence in him too.
I have learned what he expects from me in these situations. I fall to my knees before him, the way a slave is supposed to before the emperor. He smiles at that.
“There was a time when I would have had to remind you of your place, Lyra,” he says, sounding happy about my progress. “Tell me how things are going at Ironhold.”
“Everyone is training hard preparing for the next games,” I say, not quite understanding what he wants.
Now he looks a little displeased. “That is not what I mean. I can get that much from Darius.”
Lord Darius is themaster of the games and the most important trainer of Ironhold. He is utterly loyal to the emperor and seems to see the games as a holy thing. He has come to dislike me because of the way my talents disrupt the colosseum.
“What is it you want to know?” I ask.
“Tell me about the alliances there and the schemes. Tell me who is trying to influence things from the inside now that Ravenna is gone.”
“I… don’t know,” I admit. It isn’t something I pay attention to if I can avoid it.
“Then you should find out,” the emperor says. “Why do you think I've decided to become your patron?”
“I thought you wanted to see what kind of person I was before you decided whether I lived or died,” I reply.
The emperor shrugs. “Do you really think this is about whether you're a good person? Do you think that matters in the least in Aetheria? This is a place that is built on power, but also on intrigue. There are always plots, always schemes.”
He sounds faintly paranoid, assuming that everyone is plotting behind his back. But then… who’s to say that they aren’t?
He keeps going. “My ancestors did something very useful in centering society around the games. It means the schemers try to influence the games when they could be putting their efforts into assassinating me. That is useful but, it is also a world where, for all my power, I do not have perfect informationabout what is happening. Since I have you now, you're going to provide me with that information.”
“You want me to spy for you within the arena?” I ask.
“Not just spy. I intend to influence things,” the emperor says.
“You're the emperor, can't you just command things to happen?”
He cocks his head to one sideas if trying to decide whether I'm making fun of him. “Power is never so simple. Yes, I could order you taken from here and impaled, or sold on, never to be free. I can take those who displease me and throw them into the arenaor have them tortured and executed. But that doesn't always change things.”
Is there a threat in that or does he really just believe that's the way the world works?
“When there are those who work in the shadows against me, those who try to manipulate the games, I must engage in manipulations of my own. My intention is to use you as the tool of those manipulations, Lyra.”
My breath catches slightly as he says that. I get the feeling I'm being pushed into something more dangerous even than fighting against foes in the arena.
“Are you really so surprised?” the emperor asks. “My understanding is that Elara sought to use you for such things.”
Again, I'm caught off guard. I had thought thatLady Elara, a beast whisperer like myself, had disguised what she wanted from me perfectly. All of the rumors about us suggested that she had taken me as a lover, not that she was using me to further her ends in the arena.
“She…”
“Oh, I'm sure she got plenty of use out of you in every way,” Emperor Tiberius says. “But I know her well enough to know that she was trying to further her petty schemesto advance herself and put down other nobles too.”
I feel a wash of relief at those words because it means he doesn't know everything about Lady Elara’s plans. He knows that Lady Elara became my patron to try to gain an advantage, but not about the spectral covenant or their attempts to change the city and eventually overthrow the emperor.
The emperor gestures for me to rise, and I do so, following him out into the gardens as he leads the way. He points to the butterfly.
“Can you control that?” he asks me.
I raise my left wrist pointedly. “There are limits to what I can do, my emperor.”
“And do those limits include influencing the butterfly?” he asks.
“Perhaps. What do you require of it?”
“Simply bring it closer. I wish to observe it up close. They flit away so quickly, normally.”
It is a surprisingly gentle, almost whimsical request for him. I reach out to the butterfly with my power. The dampener around my wrist makes it difficult so that I must concentrate to do even that much. But I manage to connect to the butterfly, manage to call to it and persuade it to come close to us. It's strange that the emperor should wish me to do this, but then, he is a man who surrounds himself with finery and beauty. Is it any wonder that he might want to look at one of the creatures that lives in his gardens?
The butterfly flies close to us, and it is beautiful, with purple wings shot through with gold, as if it has been created specifically in the colors of the empire. The emperor stands there, looking at it with something close to joy.
Then the butterfly freezes in midair, caught in place, unable to move. I know what this is because I've experienced it myself. The emperor's power is over time. He has slowed the butterfly in time so much that it cannot react.
He goes to it, but he's looking at me as he draws a golden hilted dagger. Almost casually, he drives it into the butterflythe way a pin might hold it fast against a page.
“You are beautiful, Lyra, but don't think for a moment I have a problem killing beautiful things.”
I try to swallow back my fear, and fail.
I start to shrink away, but he grabs me, holding me in place.
“Remember that I hold your life in my hands, Lyra. Remember what you are.”
As if I could ever forget that.
"You will live exactly as long as you prove useful to me and to the empire. Should you cease to be useful, I will kill you. Is that clear?"
“Yes, my emperor.” It takes an effort to get the words out.
“Now go.”
I flee at his dismissal, eager to be away from him, my terror guiding my footsteps.