CHAPTER TEN ALARIC
What am I doing here?
I ask myself that question over and over as I sit in Seatide’s tavern, drinking bad wine and listening to worse music. The people of this village have a fondness for sea shanties that verges on the mind numbing.
What am I doing here?
The village doesn't seem charming or quaint without Lyra here, and I'm not sure I ever really thought it was. I'm here because of her, for the chance to be with her, and now she's gone. So why am I staying?
A couple of the women in the bar look me up and down, making no secret of it.
One in particular is quite brazen, a red haired young woman who sits by the bar of the tavern and glances over in my direction while sipping a drink.
She looks at me as if I'm the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, and I must admit she's good looking in her own right.
I could forget so much in her arms, the same way I forget it in wine.
There is so much people want me to remember that I don't care to. Fighting in the colosseum, being a prisoner of the emperor. Almost seeing Lyra die, again and again.
Things were meant to be so simple between us. We’d helped to overthrow the emperor, done our part in the violence of the revolution. Somehow, Lyra even managed to keep it from turning into a bloodbath the way it so easily could have.
Possibly even should have. There were plenty within Aetheria I would have been glad to see the end of.
Instead, there was only limited fighting in the streets, a relatively peaceful transition to a republic ruled by a senate of which Rowan is somehow the head.
How is common born Rowan the first senator of Aetheria?
The world is enough to make me laugh bitterly sometimes.
And now Lyra has gone running back to him the moment he asks.
That's part of why I didn't want her to go: knowing that Rowan merely wanted her close to him.
But the rest… what I said to her was true: it's impossible for her to go to Aetheria without getting tangled up in its politics and schemes.
I thought we were trying to be free of all that, free from the machinations found around the arena.
I told her all that and she still left. It's enough to make me sit silently and sullenly, rolling a cup of wine between my hands without ever quite drinking it. I look over to the bar again and the young woman is glancing back at me once more. I know with one tilt of my head I'll be able to summon her over to me. We’ll sit and drink, and almost inevitably we’ll stumble home together to one of our beds.
I've spent enough time with noble women looking at me lasciviously in the receiving rooms of the colosseum to know what that expression means, and what she wants from me.
Why don't I give in? I’ve been faithful the past year, but Lyra has made her choice.
She's abandoned me here in her home village, with no sign that she's coming back.
Whatever promises there were between us have been worn down by time, by living together in this place that feels too small to ever contain either of us.
I’m free to do whatever I want. I could head over to this young woman, could take her to my bed, and in the morning, I could keep traveling around the former empire, seek some adventure rather than the simplicity of village life.
“You realize that Ella is promised to Juro the hunter?”
I sigh as Lyra's mother, Arla, approaches.
She looks like an older version of her daughter, with the same spill of golden hair and the same fine features that look almost fragile.
She's the healer here in the village, although she uses herbs rather than magic, the way some of the healers of the arena might have.
“And yet she keeps looking my way,” I say. “Maybe she isn’t happy with him.”
“Or maybe you’re the one who’s unhappy,” Arla says. “Maybe you’re just looking for a fight now.”
Because that’s what it will mean if I sleep with this young woman.
Her hunter boyfriend will come looking for me, and we’ll fight.
I have no doubt that I’ll win. I’m a trained gladiator of the arena rather than some village hunter.
But I’ll have to hurt him, and there will be bad blood all around, especially without Lyra there to smooth it over.
Maybe Ella wants me, or maybe she just thinks it will be romantic to see her lover fighting for her honor. Maybe she doesn’t know what that will mean for him, or maybe she likes the idea of having to care for him while he recovers from fighting me.
A part of me wants to do it, even now. I want to go to Ella, take her from this place, and simply forget myself in her, and in the violence to follow.
Arla puts her hand on my arm. “Don’t do it, Alaric. It won’t make you happier.”
“Who says I’m not happy?” I counter. With anyone else, I wouldn’t even have this conversation, but I’m surprised to find that I’ve grown to respect Lyra’s mother in the time since I’ve been here.
She’s kind and good, and clearly loves Lyra in a way far less complicated than my relationship with much of my family.
My mother loves me; she became my patron when I volunteered to be a gladiator just so she could see me, but my father…
he’s the reason I volunteered in the first place, trying to get some kind of respect from him.
“I say you aren’t,” Arla says. “You’ve been miserable for months now, Alaric, and you’ve only gotten worse in the time since my daughter went to the capital.”
I don’t answer for several seconds, and she puts her hand over mine in a gentle touch that’s comforting in a way that I shouldn’t care about. There was a time when I didn’t care about anybody. Lyra changed that.
“That isn’t your business,” I say.
“You’re the man my daughter loves,” Arla says. “That makes you my business.”
I shake my head. “If she loves me so much, why did she leave?”
Arla cocks her head to one side. “Are you really asking me that, Alaric? You know Lyra. You know she’s someone who can’t stop herself from doing the right thing, however hard it is. Did you think she was going to stay here if the capital needed her help?”
“If Rowan needed her help,” I reply.
“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, dear,” Arla says.
“Really?” I counter. “I think I’m pretty good at it.”
“Tell me, why did you stay?”
“Because I didn’t want to be dragged back into it all,” I reply. “Because I know that if I go, I’ll end up sucked into a world of violence and scheming. I got out. We got out, me and Lyra.”
“And it hurt you that she decided to go back, even without you?” Arla says.
That hits too close to home, and I can’t bring myself to answer. I’ve always retreated into arrogance and dark humor when things are difficult, but I suspect neither will truly work with Lyra’s mother.
“You know,” she says, “I thought that if either of you was going to leave for the city without the other, it would be you, Alaric.”
“Well, maybe you don’t know me,” I shoot back.
She smiles. “I suspect I know you better than you know yourself. You could have built a life for yourself here. You could have used those illusions of yours to tell stories, or helped with fishing and hunting. You didn’t, because you didn’t want to put down roots.
You’d rather be in Aetheria; you’re just worried about what you’ll be drawn into if you’re there.
You love the city life, the action, the people, all of it.
If you could go back there and live the life of a noble with no schemes or violence or problems, I’m sure you would.
Are you that determined to leave my daughter to deal with things there alone? ”
I sigh, standing. Again, everything she’s saying hits too close to home. I can’t be here, because it will hurt too much. “You’re going to lecture me as long as I sit here, aren’t you?”
“And now you’re trying to push me away because it’s hard to deal with the truth,” Arla says. “Just think about it, Alaric.”
I walk out of the tavern without replying. I ignore Ella’s look as I go, because that isn’t the solution I need tonight. I’m just not sure what I do need. I walk back to the small house I share, shared, with Lyra, but I don’t go inside.
Instead, I sit on the beach, staring at the waves, trying to think.
Arla was right about so much. I don’t belong here. I’m not made for small villages, for peace, for the simple life. Even Lyra only made it just bearable. Trying to live this life with her drove a wedge between us, and I’m not sure if we’re even a couple anymore.
I sit, staring at the stars, trying to work out what I should do.
As I do so, I hear a bird calling, a raven’s croak coming to me through the dark.
It catches me by surprise, especially when the bird flutters out of the night to land before me.
It stands on the sand, staring at me through eyes that glitter black in the light of the moon.
It takes me several seconds to realize that there’s nothing natural about the way it’s standing there, staring at me. I know one person who can make a bird fly straight to me, stand before me, stare at me like this:
Lyra.
I look closer at the bird, and that’s when I spot a folded scrap of parchment tied to its leg. Lyra has sent me a message, and I pluck it from the bird’s leg without hesitation. The bird flutters its wings and then flies away, presumably freed from Lyra’s control.
I unroll the scrap of parchment, reading it by the light of the moon.
Alaric,
I hope you're well, and that everything is good in Seatide.
I wish you'd come with me, but I get why you didn't. I might be in Aetheria longer than I thought.
There are so many things wrong with the city, and I have been offered a position on Aetheria's Senate to try to make a difference.
I think that I have to accept. It's my best chance to help people here.
I care about you, but I must do this. I must stay.
I screw up the message into a ball, tossing it out into the ocean in my anger. Lyra says that she cares for me, but in the next breath tells me that she won’t be returning to me? It’s as good as saying that things are done between us.
What should I do now? Should I just get on with my life here in Seatide? Should I go and find Ella after all, even if it means having to beat her hunter boyfriend senseless later? I laugh at the thought, but it's short-lived.
Well then, I could head off and wander the world, going from place to place without ever settling, trading on my fame and my skills. It’s tempting, but instinctively, it feels wrong.
I can’t just abandon Lyra like that. She says she’s taking a position as a senator, which means she’ll be plunged into all the worst of the scheming, against enemies who won’t stand opposite her on the sands for her to kill.
I might have argued with her, but I want her to be safe. I need to protect Lyra, and I can’t do it from here, in Seatide. As much as I’m worried about going back, I have no other choice. I need to return to Aetheria.