CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lady Cassandra is waiting for me at dawn at the gates to the city, along with the rest of her party. As a noble, I was expecting her to ride in some luxurious carriage, but instead, she has a chariot ready for war, drawn by a quartet of large, black horses.
She gestures for me to step up beside her.
Her other companions are all riding horses and I look around, seeing if there might be a spare one I could take.
But I realize that’s probably a mistake.
This is a challenge and a test. Lady Cassandra is seeing how I will react, perhaps if I will trust her enough to do this.
I step up beside her, and she nods.
“Good, it would be an insult to refuse me, and it’s important for a leader to have a strong spear wielder on her chariot.”
She cracks a whip and her horses burst into a gallop, thundering along the road out of Aetheria with the rest of her diplomatic party riding hard to try to keep up with us.
There’s something wild about the Arborian diplomat, this woman who was sent to provoke the nobles of Aetheria and to see how strong our city is.
The chariot bumps and jolts as we head across the countryside of the Republic, forcing me to cling tightly to the chariot. Lady Cassandra stands as still as a rock, or perhaps as rooted as one of the trees her kingdom is known for.
"It's a position of honor to stand as the spear holder for a charioteer," she says as the landscape flashes past around us. "Often, it was reserved for a favored servant or a lover."
She grins, her smile catching the sunlight. I get the feeling that this is another kind of challenge.
“I’m with Marcus,” I point out.
"And before that, it was the noble gladiator, Alaric," she says. "And before that, it was Lady Elara, yes?"
I shake my head. “That was always just a rumor she put out.”
“Words have power,” Lady Cassandra said. “Your land is a place of rumors and lies. It’s another thing that makes it weak.”
“Are you really going to invade us?” I ask.
She shrugs as she drives the chariot. “That’s a decision for my queen. But if we do come, it’s only because you can’t protect what’s yours. Those you rule should obey you, but you must also protect them. That’s how the world works.”
“And you protect the people with you?” I say.
“Those who owe me fealty,” she replies. She smiles again. “If there’s a war, kneel to me, Lyra Thornwind. I promise I will keep you quite safe. Or are you trusting in the strength of Senator Marcus?”
“Maybe I trust in my own strength,” I counter.
“Good,” Lady Cassandra replies, and it feels as though I’ve passed another test with her.
Around us, the rest of her party thunders along, horses eating up the leagues between us and the border. I can feel their strength the way I might feel my own body. They aren’t tired. If anything, they want to run more, run faster, where most horses would have to pace themselves for a long journey.
“Your horses are impressive,” I say.
“We breed them to be the finest mounts in the world,” Lady Cassandra says. “For us, chariot racing is a far more beautiful sport than your petty gladiatorial contests.”
I wonder how Domitian or Marcus would react to the contests being called petty when they’ve put so much effort into them and seem to think of them as the soul of Aetheria.
We keep riding, the sun rising above us, then starting to dip again. Finally, in the distance, I can see a vast swathe of trees, a forest that seems to stretch out forever. Even more distantly, I think I can see structures rising from those trees, woven into their fabric in living cities.
“Behold, Arboria,” Lady Cassandra says. “One day, you must come to see its beauty.”
“But for now, we’re heading to the village where Selene Ravenscroft was sighted,” I say.
She nods. “Although it occurs to me that I could simply carry you into the forest. You could leave the cares of Aetheria behind, Lyra.”
I decide to make a point and reach out for the minds of her horses. I slow them, then bring them to a halt.
“Enough,” I say. “The village is what matters, and the people in it.”
“As you wish,” Cassandra says.
We head to the village of Tree Edge. It lives up to its name, on the very edge of the forest, clearly a place for trappers and hunters, lumberjacks, and foragers.
People start to rush into their houses as we approach, obviously afraid of any strangers, but they start to come out from their houses now that we've stopped.
Perhaps some of them recognize the Arborians.
“People of Tree Edge,” Cassandra says, “I am Lady Cassandra of Arboria. I have with me Lyra Thornwind.”
“The gladiator?” a woman says. She’s maybe twenty, with short dark hair and wideset eyes. She looks as though she’s been crying.
"And now a senator of Aetheria," Lady Cassandra says. "She's here to learn about the young man who was taken from you and about the woman who took him."
The young woman speaks again. “My Gar… they’re saying he went with this woman willingly, but he wouldn’t do that.”
Selene Ravenscroft has many talents as one of the most powerful mages Aetheria has ever produced. I’m sure she has more than enough power to force some young man to do what she wants.
“Can you show us where this happened?” I ask.
The young woman nods. “It’s this way.”
She leads the way through the village to a spot near its edge, where there's a small meadow filled with wildflowers.
“What’s your name?” I ask her.
“Marianne. I feel so guilty.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Gar was up here to meet me,” she says. “We were… we were planning to be married later this year, but until then, we had to sneak out to see one another.”
“This isn’t your fault,” I say, trying to reassure her.
“I wish I’d been closer,” Marianne says. “I could have tried to stop her. I could have-”
"There's nothing you could have done," I say. I'm grateful that she wasn't close enough to try to interfere. Selene Ravenscroft has more than enough power to kill her with little more than a flicker of effort.
Would she, though? The Arch-Magistrate was always a woman who respected the law, who hated the worst excesses of the emperor, but still worked for him because she couldn’t imagine standing against him.
Even at the end, the extent of her betrayal was simply not killing the rebels, rather than actively joining them.
It’s hard to imagine her engaging in a campaign of murder and destruction.
But it's also impossible to know what exile will have done to her, or what game she's playing.
There's no doubt Selene is highly intelligent, as well as immensely powerful magically.
It's possible that, even from the moment she allowed the emperor to be slain, she was planning her next moves in the political game.
Selene may have a return to a version of the empire in her mind and may see herself as a potential empress rising from the ashes.
Or she may just be lashing out at beast whisperers in some blind revenge for my role in the emperor's death.
“Which way did he go after that?” I ask Marianne.
She points. “I followed them for a little way, but then they disappeared into the forest.”
She leads the way into the trees, and I follow, with Lady Cassandra beside me. She moves silently through the trees, and the foliage seems to move aside to let her pass.
“Your magic gives you control over plants?” I say.
She nods. “And yours gives you the same with beasts. Marianne, you can return to the village.”
“But I haven’t shown you the spot yet,” the young woman says.
“I can feel where it is,” Cassandra says. “The trees have shown me.”
She starts to lead the way deeper into the woods, along a trail, then simply moves between the trees. I follow in her wake, impressed by her power. We come to a small clearing with a fallen tree in the middle.
I can see blood on it, and several spots around the clearing that have been blasted away, disintegrated into almost nothingness. It’s a very familiar sign of power. I’ve seen Selene destroy whole creatures with this power.
“It’s her,” I say. “This is definitely Selene Ravenscroft’s work.”
“And it’s obvious that things didn’t stay peaceful with this young man,” Cassandra says. “My guess is that Gar is dead, or wishing he was.”
She says it in a grim tone that doesn’t allow for any argument or hope. I try to believe that this young beast whisperer might still be alive out in the forest, but in the face of that tone, it’s hard to do so.
“I can’t feel Selene out in the forest,” Cassandra says. “Either she’s hiding from me, or she’s too far to see.”
I try to find her my way, reaching out with my magic for the minds of the creatures all around.
I see through the eyes of birds, looking down at the forest, trying to see any signs of people moving through the trees.
I can see myself and Cassandra can see Marianne and can see Cassandra's people moving through the trees, leading their horses back in the direction of Arboria.
“It’s time for you to head back,” Cassandra says. She inclines her head to me briefly. “Your powers are very impressive, Lyra. I hope we meet again. If you ever wish to come and serve me in Arboria, there will be a place for you.”
“Thank you, I think,” I reply. “Will you really tell your queen that we’re weak?”
She shrugs. "I must speak the truth to her. What she decides to do with that information… I suspect some of it will depend on how events in Aetheria turn out. Good luck with them, Lyra. I suspect you'll need it if Selene Ravenscroft is violently abducting beast whisperers."
She slips into the trees, quickly disappearing. I find myself thinking about Selene Ravenscroft and what she intends. It seems clear that she’s killed this young man, Gar. Why do that? Why target those like me? Is it just a petty act of revenge against all those like me, or is there more to it?
Is Selene trying to make sure that beast whisperers can’t rise again? Is she trying to bring an end to the talent I possess? I don’t know what game she’s playing, but when I get back to Aetheria, I’ll need to convince others that she’s a threat.
If I don’t, it could mean disaster for the whole city.