CHAPTER TWENTY
I worry as I return to the palace about whether I’ll be able to balance Marcus and Alaric. The two don’t like one another, and it’s obvious now they’re both jealous of one another when it comes to me. Those are both factors that could potentially explode if I don’t handle them carefully.
Marcus isn’t with me as I head back. He heads off into the city, presumably to contact his people and start to get them to work more closely with the resistance.
I hope Alaric will stop his people from targeting Marcus’ dealings in turn.
This alliance between the two feels like a soap bubble floating on the breeze, far too easy to burst when Alaric hates the games and Marcus is still the one behind underground matches in the city.
I need to keep them focused, need to make sure they remember Selene is the bigger threat. And maybe, once we stop her, they’ll have spent so much time working together that I’ll be able to broker a more permanent peace between them.
How, though, when they both want me as much as power within the city?
I could feel how much each of them cares about me, and choosing one over the other is likely to create more tension.
Alaric clearly hates my engagement to Marcus, even if he now knows it’s a convenient fallacy to rally support.
Marcus clearly hates that a part of my heart is still Alaric’s.
What am I meant to do when this is over?
Keep them both as lovers? Somehow, I doubt they’d stand for it, or that it would make any of this simpler.
Still, it’s a distracting thought as I make my way back to the palace and my rooms. I’m surprised to find a servant waiting for me when I get there, looking as though he’s been waiting for a while.
“Senator, you have a visitor,” the servant says.
I look around my quarters. “They didn’t want to wait here?”
“She said she would meet you in one of the receiving rooms. I can show you to her, if you’d like.”
“She?” I say, with a slight frown.
“Selene Ravenscroft,” the servant replies.
Shock runs through me, both at the thought that Selene might want to speak with me, and that she might have come here to do it.
She has the freedom to move through the city now, but to come to me here in the palace is a bold move.
It suggests she feels her position is too strong for me to do anything about her, even here.
That boldness catches me off guard, but not as much as the thought that she would want to speak to me.
When I tried to attend one of her gatherings, she addressed me only to mock me and force me to leave.
Should I turn her away in the same way? No, that’s a petty thought, an attempt to demonstrate power over her when the truth is that I’m intrigued now.
I follow the servant through the palace, and he leads me to a grand receiving room with guards on the doors.
It takes me a second to realize that they’re guards from Ironhold, rather than palace guards.
They’re the ones who have supposedly escorted Selene as she’s come down into the city, although they look more like they’re there to protect her from any intrusion now.
They open the doors to the receiving room as I approach, revealing Selene sitting within, reading what appears to be a collection of the statutes of the new Republic.
She’s dressed in the same elegant white and gold dress she was wearing at her gathering.
She looks up at me and smiles as I approach her couch.
“Ah, Lyra, there you are. Were you busy training with the beast whisperers?”
It shouldn’t come as a shock that she knows about my training, or about my movements, but it is. It’s a reminder that she isn’t just dangerous because of her powers. She has support throughout the city, and people who are clearly feeding her information.
“Does that worry you?” I counter. “You’ve been killing enough of them. Is it so I can’t learn from them?”
Selene’s smile broadens. “You understand I’m not going to admit to something like that. Although I suppose I could. I have so many friends on the senate now that I’m sure they would protect me even if I were to kill your kind here.”
“Because you’re using psychomancy to control people,” I snap.
Selene doesn’t reply at first, but carefully replaces the book of statutes she’s been reading.
“This place used to be one of my offices,” Selene says, with a gesture to the room around her. “When Tiberius wanted me close by to deal with legal matters, I would meet with people here.”
“It isn’t your office now,” I point out. “You aren’t the arch magistrate anymore.”
“Oh, I think I can achieve rather better than that. And you could help me, Lyra. You could be by my side, and serve me.”
I feel the push of magic and quickly put in place the shields Elanar has been teaching me to use.
“You’re trying to control me the way you control the others?” I say, trying to hold my anger in check.
Selene shakes her head. “I mostly just wanted to see how strong you’d become. Strong enough that you have shields against psychomancy. It seems we’ve both learned a great deal.”
“But you still haven’t learned that the empire is over,” I shoot back.
“Is it?” Selene counters, with another smile. “Oh, the version Tiberius believed in is gone, but can you say that your Republic has truly done anything to help the people?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Are you trying to convince me that you’re some kind of better option?”
“Do you think I wouldn’t be?” Selene says. “I want to create a city, an empire, where there is order and peace.”
“Created by pushing down all those who resist,” I snap.
Selene pauses. “Why would you want to resist, Lyra? This wouldn’t be the old empire, based on blood and death. It would be something new. Did you know that I wasn’t born into a wealthy family?”
That catches me by surprise, and I shake my head.
“I grew up poor,” Selene says. “If I had been born beyond the city, no doubt, I would have ended up as you did, forced into the colosseum after being taken as a slave by soldiers. As it was, a magus spotted my talents and took me on as an apprentice. I still had to fight to rise through the city, and I made it all the way to the right hand of the emperor.”
“Are you trying to make me feel sorry for you?” I ask.
Selene shakes her head. “I’m telling you that I don’t think the same way the emperor did.
I don’t care about nobility, or family or wealth.
Those aren’t the things that made Aetheria powerful.
This is a city where magic counts for more than anything, or it should.
Magical talent, not birth, should determine people’s place in our society. ”
“Why are you telling me that?” I say. “I could go to the senate.”
“Which would do nothing,” Selene reminds me.
“And I’m telling you because I don’t think we need to be enemies, Lyra.
You’re fighting against me because you think I represent an old way of doing things, because you think I’ll hurt or kill those you care about.
Neither of those things needs to be true. ”
I shake my head. “It’s how many people you’ll hurt throughout the city.”
“It won’t be so many,” Selene says. She sighs. “You know, I see a lot of similarities between us. We both came from nothing. We’ve both built our success on magical power. We both care about Aetheria a great deal. Which is why I’d like you to work with me.”
“Your attempt to influence me failed,” I say.
“Which is a part of why I know you’re strong enough to work alongside me.
I could show you so much more about magic, Lyra.
I could help you to become stronger, and to help the city more.
Can you imagine what it would be like? You’re worried about the damage I might do?
Well, you can help to stop that damage. You can help persuade people. ”
“Standing beside you the way I do with Marcus?”
“Well, I won’t be asking you to marry me,” Selene says, with a faint laugh. “That’s a clever political move, but Marcus is all about politics. He sees Aetheria being run by wealth and political influence. As I said, that isn’t what Aetheria is about. It’s about magic.”
She heads for the door, pausing on the threshold.
“I’m holding another gathering at Ironhold in three days. Take that time to think about it. See what I intend and give me an answer then. We can bring a peaceful end to this, and bring Aetheria back to its true power.”
The offer shocks me, as does the assumption that I will think seriously about it, and maybe accept. After all I’ve seen of Selene, does she really think I’ll side with her? Is she even sincere?
I have no doubt that she is. If I take Selene’s offer, she’ll still to its terms. I will have a place within her coming empire.
So will the people I care about. It’s a huge offer, and one I can’t dismiss out of hand, no matter how much that’s my first instinct.
I have three days to muse on it, three days in which to decide what to do.
Or three days to find a way to stop her.