CHAPTER TWO
“Selene! Selene!”
I sit in the senate box of the colosseum, trying to ignore the way the growing crowd is chanting the former arch magistrate’s name. I try to tell myself that it’s just the normal way a crowd would react to any gladiator, but it isn’t, and I know it.
She isn’t even in the colosseum yet, and people are already calling for Selene to fight.
“Selene! Selene!”
The crowd is growing within the colosseum.
My guess is that it will be another record attendance as the day progresses, the stadium packed with as many people as it can hold and more.
I could lie to myself and say it has something to do with the popularity of the reformed games, where people can enjoy the thrill of violence without the prospect of gladiators dying, but I know it’s about something else entirely.
They care about Selene because she’s the first gladiator to fight with her life on the line in a long time.
The first one who, should she lose, will be finished by her opponents.
Someone who’s surviving despite the best efforts of some on the senate to make sure she dies here.
The crowd love her for that, so that when they stamp their feet and chant her name, it’s like an earthquake running through the stands.
It's far too reminiscent of the way things were when I fought.
I send my mind out into a bird, using its eyes to watch the procession into the city from Ironhold.
I wasn't invited to be a part of it this time, and I didn't insist. I didn't want to have to watch Selene soaking in every scrap of attention.
I also didn't want to have to walk down beside Marcus, who's smiling and waving even now, reveling in his role as one of the organizers of the games.
He's tall, blond-haired and muscular, wearing the toga of a senator, but with a ship-shaped pendant around his neck to remind the world that he comes from a merchant family.
A few dark clouds are closing in on the procession, but he waves his hand to dissipate them, his magic giving him control of the weather.
Behind him there are jugglers and entertainers, there to catch the attention of the crowd.
There are guards too, although these days, they spend their time looking outwards to make sure Alaric’s followers aren’t about to attack, rather than worrying about containing slave gladiators who might run.
They don’t even guard Selene closely, even though she’s the one member of the procession who might have a reason to run.
She’s too busy talking to her adoring fans on the way.
Selene walks at the head of the gladiators due to fight in this round of games, stopping to speak with people as she goes.
Several of the others look on jealously, as if wishing that they got even half the adulation she receives.
I can barely stand to watch it, and I can see the tightness in Marcus’ face too, his blue eyes narrowing every time he looks Selene’s way.
He’s argued for her execution, rather than her continued presence in the games more than anyone.
I can’t help but feel that’s at least partly down to jealousy too.
Marcus wants to make himself the most important figure within the Republic, maybe even become First Senator one day, and Selene is an obvious rival for the public’s affections.
Maybe I’m not being fair to him with that.
At least part of his hatred is because she’s a symbol of the empire that took Marcus’ family from him when his father crossed the emperor, but I’m not in the mood to be fair with him right now, not when he’s probably still running illegal death bouts beneath the city’s streets, even as he pushes for the return of such bouts to the normal games.
I pull my attention back to the colosseum, looking out over it from the senate’s box, the one that used to belong to the emperor.
I’m the only one in it for now, so that it makes me look like an empress surveying her people.
It’s not an image I enjoy, but I do love the spectacle of the games even now.
I love the way they’re able to bring so many people together, gathered around the sandy surface below, joined in a common purpose.
I just wish that purpose wasn’t to watch people fight, and bleed, and maybe even die.
The colosseum fills, the procession winding its way inside.
The entertainers pull away, while Marcus hurries up through the arena, leaving Selene and the other gladiators standing there in their brief armor, carrying weapons designed for spectacle more than efficient violence.
Marcus arrives in the senate’s box, looking over at me with an expression of longing and pain for a moment before approaching the front of the box.
“My friends,” he says, and the magic woven into the box makes his voice carry to all those within the colosseum. “Fellow citizens of Aetheria, welcome to another set of holy days, and the games that come with them!”
The crowd roars in response.
“We have a grand spectacle for you today,” Marcus assures them.
“There will be fights against terrifying beasts. There will be a grand naval battle right here in the colosseum. And at its culmination, we will see the vicious traitor, Selene Ravenscroft, take on one of the darlings of the arena: Cesca!”
Cesca steps forward. She's a short, dark-haired gladiator with a lithe figure that she shows off in almost scandalously brief armor. She twirls a slender blade, sending sparks of lightning dancing along it. Ordinarily, she's a fan favorite, but now it isn't her name the crowd chants.
“Selene! Selene!”
I expect to see anger on Cesca’s face, but instead she seems resigned, as if she knew this would happen.
She and the other gladiators retreat to the preparation areas beneath the arena to get ready for their fights.
Already, hawkers are calling out in the stands, selling food or wine, while the bookmakers are shouting odds on each bout.
The first bout is, as Marcus promised, a bout featuring animals.
A gladiator faces off against a bear with razor-sharp claws, dodging aside from the swipes, never letting it get close as he stabs it with a slender blade again and again.
But he's too slow with one of his attempts and the bear's paw slams into him, sending him tumbling to the ground.
Huge claw marks form parallel slashes across his chest. The bear rises over him, and Marcus looks at me.
I’m already reaching out for the bear, wrapping my mind around its and pulling it back from the gladiator before the beast can finish him. I send it back towards the gates leading below, and trainers rush out to contain it, even as healers run onto the sands to carry the gladiator from them.
The crowd boos. It’s obvious they don’t like the fight being cut short like this, but I’m not about to allow there to be a death down there.
“Citizens of Aetheria,” Marcus calls out. “Show your appreciation for Tersus and his bravery!”
They continue to boo, though, as Tersus is carried off.
The next bout requires a major change to the arena. Mages who specialize in water manipulation step in even as valves are opened in the sides of the arena. They flood it, a whole lake’s worth of water flowing into the colosseum in a way that quickly provides the setting for the next bout.
Gladiators come out on small boats, maneuvering for position, swiping at one another when they get close enough.
The crowd cheers their efforts, seeming more enthused by this than by the fight against the bear.
But as the gladiators start to knock one another off the boats, the crowd’s reaction seems to be more amusement than excitement.
The gladiators exchange blows, throw blasts of magic at one another, but the water isn’t running red with their blood.
Still, they cheer loudly enough when the last gladiator stands atop his boat, then flips into the water with a splash.
That water drains away, leaving them there to receive the applause of the crowd.
But now, as they leave the sands, it’s time for the main event.
“It’s time for our final bout of the day,” Marcus says. “On this side of the sands, we have the beauty of the arena, a woman who can send sparks through all of you: Cesca!”
She comes out to cheers, bowing and twirling, making a show of her presence.
“And on this side, we have a traitor who is here to pay for her crimes: Selene Ravenscroft!”
Marcus says it as if he expects boos, but there are cheers from every side instead as Selene walks out.
Her armor is almost as brief as Cesca’s, her blade similarly slender, leaving her rear arm free to throw magic.
The dampener around her wrist limits how strong that magic is, but even so, I’m surprised Cesca took this contest. The last gladiator to face Selene died.
They square off and start to circle one another.
Selene sends out darts of magic, which Cesca dodges, or which are absorbed by her armor.
She lashes out with her blade, the weapon crackling with electricity.
Selene must dodge in turn, because parrying would only send that lightning arcing along her weapon, into her hand.
Their fight resembles a dance, both forced to rely on movement and grace to avoid each other’s attacks.
The crowd responds to every near miss with gasps and cheers, caught up in the knowledge that one slip for either fighter might mean disaster.
Cesca sends out sparks of lightning, trying to catch Selene off guard.
Selene alternates between focused beams of purple power and dexterous swings of her blade.
Cesca parries one of those swings, sending lightning darting out along the blades in a way she’s done so many times before. She might not have huge power, but it’s more than enough to stun someone and leave them twitching on the ground.
For a moment, my heart is in my mouth. Is it possible Cesca will be the one to kill Selene?
But Selene spots the move. She drops her weapon and reaches out for Cesca, hands glowing with purple power. Cesca is thrown back, flying to land in a spray of wet sand that clings to her like mud. Her blade has fallen from her grip, while Selene advances on her with power glowing in her hands.
Cesca has her own hands up as if she can ward off that power.
“Please,” she calls out. “I yield! I yield!”
She crawls back across the sand, defeated and humiliated.
Selene advances on her, picking up Cesca’s weapon in place of her own, moving forward with the slow grace of a cat that’s cornered its prey.
She sends bursts of power to strike the sand on either side of Cesca, sending sprays of sand up into the air.
She puts her foot on Cesca’s chest, pushing her back down onto the sand and setting her blade to the other woman’s throat.
“Selene! Selene!” the crowd is chanting, even as Cesca looks up with pleading eyes to the senate box.
“I yield!” she calls out again, as her own blade draws a single bead of blood from her flesh.
I rush to the front of the box. “This fight is over,” I call out. “Selene Ravenscroft is the winner.”
Selene smiles, and just for a moment I think she might send some deadly burst of magic into Cesca, just to prove I can’t control her. My heart tightens in my chest at the thought of that. Cesca and I aren’t friends, but I don’t want to see her hurt.
Selene steps away, raising the sword as the crowd cheers. To my surprise, she reaches down and helps Cesca up, too, and the crowd cheers that as well. Right now, I suspect they would cheer anything she chooses to do.
Selene is a symbol to the people now, a point of certainty and clarity, even if she stands for something contrary to everything the Republic represents. It only makes her more dangerous.
I frown as I watch her there with Cesca.
There’s something very strange about all this.
Selene doesn’t seem like the kind of person to share the limelight, and yet she is.
There’s also the moment when she set a blade to Cesca’s skin.
Cesca might not be the most powerful magic user, but her powers are clear.
She could have sent lightning arcing along that blade, could have stunned Selene, maybe even killed her.
So why didn’t she? The more I look at this moment, the two of them walking from the sands together to cheers, the more I’m convinced there’s something else going on here.
Selene is playing some deeper game. It’s something that makes me worried, especially when Selene’s last game saw her show mercy to a gladiator, only to kill him after the bout.
I turn and run from the council box, determined to find out what’s happening.