CHAPTER NINE
I search the depths of the Colosseum, heading to the beast pits but there's no sign of anyone who might have released the lizard.
The only animals around are tame things kept in cages.
There are a couple of trainers, but I don't recognize them.
Stefano, the beast trainer who was a friend, doesn't seem to have come back to the Colosseum.
“Who released the lizard?” I demand. “Who gave the order?”
One of them shrugs. “Some guards came down with it. They had written orders with them with the senate seal on them.”
Meaning that someone was careful to keep their identity out of this. If this is Domitian, he's making sure that nothing can be traced back to him.
Beyond the beast pits, I can hear the crowd roaring in the arena, the clash of weapons signaling the next fight.
Even with how close the lizard came to killing members of the crowd, the contests are continuing.
The ease with which everyone can forget the violence and move on to the next fight sickens me.
For now, I stay down in the beast pits, not wanting to have to play the game of being seen up in the stands. More and more, I’m convinced that my involvement in the games is purely symbolic. I don't have real control. My attempts to keep people safe are being undermined at every turn.
Even the gladiator, Sorrel, ignored my command to stop. I feel certain that he heard me, but he obviously knew that the crowd didn't want a peaceful resolution. They wanted to see the creature slain, and he gave them what they wanted.
Whoever sent it in was clever, in that regard, even if they didn't realize the lizard had a good chance of simply climbing the walls.
They knew that either the beast would kill the gladiator it was sent against or the gladiator would slay it.
They created a deathmatch that I couldn't simply stop the way I might have been able to with two gladiators.
I hate that, not just because of the killing but because of the way it paves the way for violence to come.
I can't bear the sounds coming from the arena anymore. I don't want to head back to the box that was once the emperor’s. I don't want to go to the receiving rooms to see and be seen, there to be looked at as much now as I was when I was a gladiator owned for the entertainment of the masses.
I slip out of the arena instead, heading back to the palace.
It's getting into evening, which means the contests for the day won't last much longer.
I'm sure Marcus will be upset I didn't stay to the end, but he must understand how difficult feeling the life drain from a creature was for me, and how little I want to see more violence today.
I head back to my rooms and there's a fresh stack of letters waiting for me. Some are requests from nobles or merchants to meet with me. A few are from people in the slums, the people who supposedly elected me even if the Senate had the final say on my appointment. One man has lost everything. Another is from a woman whose husband has been arrested. They’re reminders that my duties aren't just about the games.
There's an invitation from Lady Cassandra to meet at some point in the coming days.
And there's another letter from Alaric.
Meet me in the marketplace at midnight.
A.
The note is sealed, but so was the previous one, so I have no way of knowing if anyone has read it before me, and that worries me.
If they have, then Alaric might be in danger, and just the prospect of that makes my heart tighten in my chest. It seems clear that someone's prepared to use the guards to try to arrest him.
Should I go to speak with him? I’m a senator of Aetheria.
Should I really be seen with someone who's having secret meetings and rousing people against Aetheria?
Except that he isn't creating a rebellion against the city, just trying to resist the way the games are going and stop the slide of the city into corruption.
Besides, it’s Alaric, and even if he's been distant for the past six months, a part of me needs to see him. I still feel longing at the thought of him, and I still remember hidden moments when it was just the two of us. I wish things were better between us. At the very least, I need to make sure guards won’t be waiting for him, there in the marketplace.
So I wait until it grows late and the moon is high above before leaving the palace, wrapped in a dark cloak. I slipped silently through the gardens surrounding the palace. A sleeping peacock starts to wake, but I soothe it with a thread of power.
I make my way out into the city unobserved, not wanting to risk the guards seeing me. It's still around an hour before midnight, plenty of time to get down to the marketplace and make sure that the spot Alaric picked out for the meeting safe for us.
Even this late, the streets of Aetheria aren’t empty.
The soft glow of magical lamps lights the cobbles below, occasionally augmented by flickering oil lamps in the windows of houses.
Figures hurry this way and that on late-night errands.
Taverns and inns, theaters and eating places are still doing a brisk trade in the entertainment district.
My guess is that after the day’s games, people are still awash with adrenaline they need to burn off.
Even the market has people in it, although the nature of the stalls seems to have changed.
Some sell food, but others promise curatives, or strange objects from foreign lands.
The market feels more dangerous than in the daylight, even the magical lamps not fully illuminating the business transacted there.
There are a couple of guards patrolling the marketplace with regular steps, but they don't seem like anything out of the ordinary. They certainly don't seem as though they're there specifically to interrupt my meeting with Alaric.
Even so, I keep watching, looking through the eyes of a passing bat, seeing the world as much in terms of reflected sound as shape and form. I watch for any signs of danger, which means I spot the figure creeping up on me.
I spin, ready to fight, but then recognize his features.
“Alaric!”
It's so good to see him, even here like this, dark hair spilling over his eyes, features so beautiful and sharp that they’re almost feminine. His dark eyes lock onto mine.
“I knew you'd come, and I guessed you'd come early. Were you followed?”
I shake my head. “I don't think so.”
“Let's keep moving anyway,” Alaric says, taking my arm as if we're two lovers out for a late night stroll.
It feels so easy and natural to be next to him like this, a reminder of what we once had.
At the same time, it feels almost like a betrayal of Marcus.
In every sense, given his stance on the games.
“I heard what happened in the games today,” Alaric says. “I heard you saved lives.”
“There was never meant to be a creature involved in the fight,” I say. “Someone released it. Someone who wanted a deadly outcome.”
“That's what they all want the games to be,” Alaric says. “I know you're trying to hold them back, but it's never going to stop them.”
“And gathering people in secret is?” I say.
Alaric looks pained. “I'm just trying to help as many people as I can. Thank you for helping us get away.”
“I hope I'm not supporting some kind of uprising by doing that,” I reply.
Alaric hesitates. “Not yet.”
“That isn't reassuring,” I say. “There are people on the Senate who are starting to paint you as a rebel leader who wants to overthrow the Republic we all fought so hard for.”
“We fought to overthrow the emperor,” Alaric says. “But what's replaced him… it's slowly sliding back to be the same thing. There's corruption everywhere. I'm trying to gather evidence of it among the senators. Do you know some of them are connected to the pit fights in the city?”
“Those are just fist fights,” I point out. “I wouldn't have thought you'd have a problem with them.”
“They're not just that, not anymore. If you go to the right places, you can find death matches.”
“Do you know who's involved?” I ask.
Alaric shakes his head. “Not yet, but that's just a part of it.
It's all one big web of corruption and influence.
Different senators want to run the city for their own ends.
Some of them are little more than criminals in their own right.
The escalation in the games is a part of it.
If the contests in the Colosseum aren't stopped, how long will it be before they say ‘let's put criminals in there to get rid of them’?
How long will it be before they insist on bringing people in from around the former empire, whether they want to come or not?
Slowly, they'll recreate every part of the empire, even if there isn't an emperor named at first.”
I can’t deny some of it. Domitian has already talked about throwing criminals into the games.
“You think all of that will come from the games?” I say.
“They were always the heart of the empire,” Alaric replies. “They were an expression of everything it was. It's not a coincidence that the uprising that overthrew the emperor came from within them, Lyra. I will do anything I must to stop things from going back to the way they were.”
“That's what I'm worried about,” I say.
Alaric turns me to face him, taking me in his arms. He's just inches away from me now, and I can see the drive and passion in his eyes.
“They'll call me a traitor to the Republic before this is done,” he says.
“I hope you don't believe them. I'm trying…
I'm trying to do the right thing for the first time in a long time.
I'd ask you to come with me and help build up our resistance to the corruption in Aetheria, but I know you can't. Not as a senator.”
Would I go with him if he asked? Would I close the distance between us and kiss him if he asked? Those are two completely separate questions but they feel intrinsically bound up in one another.
Before I can think of my reply, the call of a bird comes through the night air. Alaric looks around, sudden worry on his face.
“They're coming for me,” he says.
I borrow the eyes of the bat again, and now we can see guards converging on the marketplace as it gets closer to midnight.
“I need to go,” Alaric says. His face shimmers and shifts, his illusion magic making him into someone else entirely. Someone who slips into the crowd of the nighttime marketplace and disappears.
Alaric has made his choice to be a revolutionary. The question is what I'm going to do.