CHAPTER FIFTEEN LYRA
I wake beside Alaric, his arm around me, but the moment feels anything but comfortable.
We slept beside one another last night, but that’s all we did.
We didn’t even talk really about him showing up so suddenly, or about Marcus being there in my rooms. Alaric seems to have gone straight to the arrogance and sullenness that he uses when he’s not listening to me.
I rise and dress in a simple tunic and sandals, going from the room without waking Alaric and heading to one of the courtyards of the palace. There, I start to work out, practicing punches and kicks, the movements drilled into me for so long in Ironhold.
I think about the fight I had against the men sent to attack me, about the way violence seemed to come back naturally to me. I’m not sure if I like that, but I can’t deny the smoothness with which I move around the courtyard, training in the morning sun.
I think about Kai, too, the young man I met at the pit fight.
About his desire to fight in the colosseum, even having seen everything it was.
He seems determined that he’ll find a way to fight, regardless of what we do to try to stop him.
I wonder if, by standing in the way, I’m not just forcing him to fight in worse places.
And I think about Alaric, who first refused to come to Aetheria with me because he didn’t want to get drawn into the politics of this situation, then showed up at exactly the worst time. What’s going on between us? Why can’t things ever just be easy?
I know in some senses, they could be. I could go back to my room, pretend that everything is normal, throw myself at him.
We could lose ourselves in one another for a while and forget about all the arguments that have gradually driven a wedge between us.
In Aetheria, that might even last. I’m almost tempted to do it, when I see guards running across the courtyard, heading for the gates to the palace.
“What’s going on?” I demand, stopping one of them.
“There are riots down in the slums,” he replies. “Every guard we can spare is being called in to contain them.”
“I want to help,” I say.
He shakes his head. “You should stay here, Senator. It won’t be safe.”
“I was a champion of the colosseum,” I point out. “And I want to help. At the very least, I want to see what’s going on.”
It seems clear he doesn’t want me there, but he also can’t stop me.
The guard rushes towards the gates with the others, and I follow in his wake, heading down into the city.
More guards are stationed on Aetheria’s walls, with the gates to the slums beyond carefully closed, the way they might be against an invading force.
Only this isn’t an invading force, it’s the poorest people of the city.
I go up to the walls and see them moving in groups through the streets of the slums beyond.
Some are breaking into houses and looting, while others have formed a great mass beyond the gates, chanting and shouting.
I can see weapons in many of their hands, and the colors of the gangs there among them.
“Give us the games!” they cry out. “Give us the games!”
“I lost my job as a beast trainer when the games finished!” a man calls out.
“Criminals stalk the streets,” another shouts. “They don’t have anything to fear when there’s no threat of throwing them into the colosseum!”
“Give us the games!” the crowd chants again.
Marcus is there on the walls then, along with a couple of the others. He looks horrified by the sight of the riots below, and his voice rings out over the walls.
“My friends, stop this. You are destroying the areas where you live. You’re hurting yourselves.”
“Give us the games!” the crowd keeps chanting.
“You know me,” Marcus calls back. “I’m working to restore a version of the games, but this isn’t the way to do it.”
“You’re just a senator!” someone calls out. “You don’t care about any of us.”
“I care,” Marcus says. “Everything I do is for the people of this city. I will do anything I must to keep you safe and happy. Including this.”
He raises his hands, and clouds start to roll in.
Back in the bathhouse, I saw him send a flicker of lightning out to force people back.
Now, I see that he has control over all kinds of weather, as rain starts to lash down in a sudden storm, powerful enough to make people run for cover in the shelter of the buildings around them.
The rain takes away a lot of the enthusiasm of the people protesting, making them start to break up, heading back in the direction of their homes.
Marcus almost collapses when he’s done, and I catch him, helping to hold him up.
“I’m all right,” he says. “It’s just an effort to do so much at once. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”
“We should get you to somewhere you can rest,” I say.
Marcus shakes his head, though. "I want to go to the Senate chambers. The Senate needs to discuss this and how we can stop it from happening again."
***
I sit in the Senate chamber, while around me the senators file in.
The viewing galleries are filling up too, the people of the city clearly wanting to see what the response to the riots will be.
Alaric is among the watching group. Rowan is there in his seat, looking worried and whispering with a couple of guards, obviously getting reports on the riots, but it's Marcus who strides out to the middle of the floor.
“My friends, fellow senators,” he says. “Today, there have been riots in the slums of the city.”
“We know this,” Rowan replies. “The guards are moving into them to round up the most violent of the people involved, and to tally the damage.”
“And what will be done with the perpetrators?” Marcus asks. “Execution? Public punishment? Our new republic struggles to find ways to deal with those who transgress its laws.”
There’s a murmur of agreement from some of the senators.
“We no longer feel safe,” Olivia says. “Some of us have to employ guards to keep the rabble at bay.”
“We should make an example of the worst of them,” Octavio says. “Impale the leaders where the rest can see.”
Rowan looks angry. “You want to take the republic back to the worst excesses of the empire.”
“I agree with the first senator,” Marcus says. “We cannot just resort to brutality to quell this kind of riot. Doing it would only fuel more violence. We would make ourselves into a ruling class, keeping the citizens in their places by force.”
“And what do you want to do instead?” Senator Yarrow asks. “Several of my businesses were attacked today. One of my girls was killed by the gangs.”
I feel a pang of sympathy at that. I don’t like Yarrow much, because I suspect she’s little more than another gang leader in her own right, but I hate that people have died because of what’s happened today.
“The people out there were calling for the return of the games,” Marcus says.
There’s an instant response from several of the senators.
“This again?”
“Why do you bring everything back to the games?”
Rowan doesn’t look happy. “We’re discussing the riots, Marcus, not your plans to bring back the games.”
“But the two are bound up with one another,” Marcus insists. “The rioters were calling for their return, like I said.”
“So we should just give them what they want?” Octavio says, sounding doubtful.
“It might help to quell them,” Marcus insists. He gestures to me. “Lyra, you heard it too. You heard the things they were shouting. Tell the others, please.”
I stand, feeling the eyes of the others on me. “Some were shouting that they lost their jobs because the colosseum no longer runs the games. Others were saying that the streets were safer when criminals were thrown into the arena.”
“Exactly,” Marcus says. “We’ve taken something essential from Aetheria by ceasing to hold the games.
They were crucial to our system of justice, to our economy, to the whole of life in the city.
They provided a distraction for the people, but not just that.
They fit into life in a thousand different ways.
Stopping their cruelty was necessary, but stopping them entirely has left the city with an open wound. ”
“So what are you asking for?” Rowan asks.
Marcus spreads his hands. “I’m simply asking to put a proposal before you in the morning.
Something that will show how the games could be put on in a safe way, without death or serious injury.
Lyra, I know you have concerns about the games.
Will you help me work on that proposal? Will you look at ways the games could be made safe with me? ”
I hesitate, put on the spot again.
“Yes,” I say, because I don’t know what else I can do. If there’s a chance to make sure the games are safer, I can’t just reject that opportunity.
“Very well,” Rowan says. “Come up with your proposal. Put it to us tomorrow. Then we’ll vote on this once and for all.”
“That’s all I ask,” Marcus says, and the meeting of the senate starts to break apart. I head through to the rooms beyond where the senators talk with the public and each other.
Aleric is waiting for me there, his face tight with anger.
“How could you agree to help put together a proposal to bring back the games?” he asks.
“To have some control over this,” I say. “If I’m not involved, I can’t make sure it’s safe.”
“It will never be safe,” Alaric says. “You’re just… you’re just being deceived by Marcus. You’ve let him get too close to you. You need to stay away from him, Lyra.”
“I can’t,” I say. “Not when I need to work with him on this.”
“Work with him, or is it more?” Alaric demands. “I see the way he looks at you.”
“You need to trust me,” I say. “With Marcus, and when it comes to the games.”
“How can I, when you’re working to put them back on?” Alaric says. “I wish… I wish I’d never come here. I thought I’d come to Aetheria to help you, but instead, you’ve just found ways to hurt me.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” I insist.
“That doesn’t matter,” Alaric replies. “I can’t… I can’t be around you right now, Lyra. I’ll go to stay with my family. Please, just promise me you won’t work with Marcus.”
It’s a promise I can’t make, not when it’s the only way to stop the most dangerous versions of the games from coming into being. I hesitate, and I do so just a second too long, because Alaric’s face flashes with pain, and he turns from me.
“I guess you’ve made your choice,” he says, and walks away.