CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Today’s the day that it ends,” Marcus assures me as we take our seats in the senatorial box, high above the floor of the arena.
We sit closer to each other than we have in weeks, and he seems more relaxed in my presence, as if he feels certain that the scroll he's given me will have changed my mind about him by now.
Has it? There's some part of me that responds instinctively to his closeness, to the moment when his arm brushes against mine as we sit next to one another. There are other senators in the box with us, and I'm worried that Olivia is one of them, when I know that she's under Selene’s control.
“You're that certain that the person you picked can beat her?” I ask him.
Marcus nods. “Rael is a kineticist, able to control objects at a distance. In some respects, he's similar to Vex.”
Vex, who was one of the champions of the arena, earning his freedom a season before me.
Vex, who could make knives float in the air, ready to slice into his foes.
Vex, who died at my hands during the revolution, because he was busy fighting for a chance to make himself the emperor rather than to free us all.
“I'm not sure Vex could have taken on Selene,” I point out.
Marcus shrugs. “Rael is stronger, and the dampener will limit Selene.”
“Even now that she's tampered with it?” I say.
Marcus looks over to me. “She might have allowed herself to use psychomancy, but that's not the same as having her full powers.”
I try to relax and tell myself that he's right.
The officials who tested the dampener told me that he had been modified to allow the use of psychomancy.
They didn't say anything about it being rendered inoperative.
In theory, Selene should still be restricted in plenty of ways.
So why do I worry that won't be the case?
There are preliminary bouts, of course. Currently, gladiators are spreading out across platforms on the sand, waiting for the signal to begin.
Marcus stands and moves to the front of the box, making himself the focal point of attention once again.
The crowd is already noisy, clearly looking forward to seeing the violence and the skills on show.
“My friends, fellow citizens of Aetheria, welcome to another day of the games. Let the contests begin!”
As he says it, Marcus chops his hand down through the air and the gladiators begin to fight.
The game is simple: they must knock one another from the platforms to win.
They batter at one another with partly blunted weapons, and one gladiator seems to be using blasts of air to destabilize his opponents.
The crowd roar their approval as one of the gladiators falls, but it's a long way from the kind of cheer they give when they see actual violence. Selene has whetted their appetite for blood and death, and so it seems they aren’t prepared to cheer for anything else.
Maybe that's why, when only one gladiator remains standing on the platforms, the cheer from the crowd is not enough to shake him loose.
He looks disappointed, but also slightly resigned as if he knows that this kind of contest is not enough to entertain the crowd anymore.
It's something that worries me. I've seen the appetite for greater violence among some of those in the city.
Is there a chance that Marcus is right? That people will always seek those more deadly kinds of contests, and the most we can hope to do is control them?
I hope not, but I fear what seems to be a constant undercurrent of additional violence trying to push its way into the games.
Marcus seems to sense what the crowd wants, because he stands and moves to the front of the box once again.
“My friends, the warm up bouts are done. I know what you've come to see. You want to see a bout where a life hangs in the balance, where a traitor to the city is fighting for her very life!”
There are cheers in response, although Olivia doesn't seem happy about it.
“He needs to stop calling her a traitor. She's an adviser to the senate now. I tell you, when she wins this fight, I’m going to petition for her to be able to move freely through the city when she isn’t fighting.”
Marcus ignores her and keeps going.
“Entering the colosseum from this side, we have the former arch magistrate of Aetheria, the woman who helped to prop up the empire, Selene Ravenscroft!”
The cheers as Selene enters the arena are almost overwhelming.
Stamping feet make the stands shake and people wave pennants in the purple and gold of the old empire.
They must have smuggled them in because I'm sure the guards would have snatched them from people if they'd seen them.
Or maybe not. Perhaps someone has been bribed to allow them to be sold.
Perhaps Selene has arranged for them to be distributed. She understands the power of symbolism.
She walks forward onto the sandy floor of the colosseum, dressed in brief armor that's designed to allow the appearance of protection without actually helping her, holding a slender, curved blade with which she salutes the crowd.
Selene is surrounded by a faint corona of purple power, hinting at the magic barely held in check by the dampener around her left wrist. She pointedly doesn't salute the senate box.
I can see Marcus swallowing back his annoyance at that. Perhaps he's telling himself that this will all be over soon, and we won't have to worry about Selene anymore. There's a kind of ruthless narrowing to his eyes as he stares out at the sands.
“Her opponent entering from the other side of the arena, is a gladiator who will give even her a run for her money, a gladiator who fights for the honor of the city. I give you Rael!”
A gladiator emerges onto the sands. He's perhaps in his early twenties, thickly muscled, armored in scraps of what appears to be mirror polished steel.
His dark hair is tied back in a braid, and he flashes a handsome smile towards the members of the crowd closest to him.
As he walks forward, those scraps of mirrored steel rise into the air around him catching the light and sending a dizzying set of reflections spiraling across the surface of the crowd.
He holds two larger daggers in his hands, but I instantly know they're not the main threat. Rael is someone who’ll stand off and attack his foes at a distance.
The crowd cheers as he enters the arena, but it's a much less enthusiastic welcome than Selene received.
Some of the crowd even boo him, clearly determined to show their displeasure at anyone sent against their favorite.
Once again, I'm reminded of the way my own career in the colosseum unfolded, slowly bringing around the crowds until I was one of the favorites.
“Selene’s fights have made the people love her,” I tell Marcus.
“They'll forget her soon enough when she falls,” Marcus assures me, and then calls out to the fighters. “Begin!”
They start to circle one another, each cautious in this first phase of the fight.
Selene throws tightly focused beams of power, lancing towards Rael in a way that would probably disable him if they struck him.
His cloud of mirror shards moves to intercept each ray, deflecting and diffusing them, protecting him from the worst of the attacks.
He dodges aside from another, moving forward with obvious confidence.
“Selene! Selene!”
The chant is taken up in the crowd until the whole colosseum seems to ring with her name.
That seems to anger Rael, who sends shards of metal flying towards Selene in response.
She's forced to dodge aside from them, cutting one from the air with her sword, barely stopping it from connecting with her skin.
Rael continues to circle her, looking for any weakness he can exploit.
He sends more of the mirror shards towards Selene, and she picks them off with her powers, disintegrating them in midair.
“He's working out her pattern,” Marcus says, clenching his fist. It sounds more like hope than reality, because Selene is busy picking off more of the mirror shards as they come for her.
She's so controlled and precise, not rushing into the attack, not throwing all the powers at her opponent at once.
She circles Rael calmly and defensively, making him come to her.
When the mirror shards get too close, she cuts them from the air with her blade, but mostly they don't get that close to her, because she picks them off with beams of power the moment they fly away from the larger swarm.
Rael seems to sense that his strategy isn't working, and he tries to advance on Selene, but she gives ground, slashing at him with her blade to keep him at bay. Rael throws more mirror shards as she retreats, perhaps trying to catch Selene off guard, but she destroys them as well.
I can feel the tension in the arena. Clearly, the spectators realize that Selene is playing a dangerous game in which one slip might mean her death. If just one of those shards gets through it might open her throat and leave her bleeding on the sand.
But none of them do. Selene picks them off one by one and I can see her strategy now.
Rael is dangerous when he's surrounded by a whole buzzing deadly swarm of mirror shards, but they're a finite resource, which serve as both his main weapon and his armor.
Selene is being patient, picking away at those weapons with controlled darts of her magic.
Rael seems to sense what she's trying to do now, and switches tactics again, charging straight at Selene.
She meets him with a blast of power into the sand that sends it up into his face.
Rael coughs, taking control of the sand and flinging it at Selene in a cloud of dust that she barely dodges aside from.
Several shards of mirror, hidden by the sand, embed themselves in the wall of the colosseum.
Selene picks off another of his shards and another, so that there are barely half a dozen of them now, circling Rael, staying tight to him and serving as armor. He moves in with his daggers, using the mirror shards to block Selene’s magical attacks even as he tries to finish the fight up close.
Selene gives ground but then stumbles, her foot catching on one of the shards embedded in the ground. Rael rushes in, perhaps sensing his chance to finish the fight.
It's a trap.
As soon as Rael charges forward with his weapons raised, Selene recovers her balance, lunging for him with her body low, under the level of the daggers.
She sweeps past Rael, her blade flicking out as she does so, in a move that's almost contemptuous in its speed and grace.
Committed to his attack as he is, Rael has no time to defend as the curved sword slices across his throat.
He looks shocked as his hands go to the wound, as though they might be able to hold the blood in.
His mirror shards fall to the ground a moment before he does.
He topples forward, hitting the sand with a thud that is audible around the arena in a brief moment of silence.
The crowd erupts, screaming their support for Selene. Marcus stands, looking furious, and stalks from the senate box.
Olivia moves forward to take his place, announcing the result he cannot bring himself to.
“People of Aetheria, your winner is Selene Ravenscroft!”
She stands there saluting them, and this time she does salute the senate box. I stare at the scene on the sands in horror. She's managed to kill her opponent, ended another life when with every other bout we've worked so hard to prevent such tragedies.
Selena holds her blade aloft, the blood red on the otherwise shining weapon. She's given the crowd what they want, given them the blood and death they seem to desire above everything else.
She’s their favorite, and there’s nothing we can do to stop her.