Ironhold, Trial Ten

CHAPTER ONE

“Senator Lyra Thornwind, you wish to speak?”

I stand in the middle of the Senate of Aetheria, the great and magical city that was once the heart of an empire, and I look around at my fellow senators, wondering which of them I can trust. When each of them looks at me, will they see a friend or an enemy, someone to support, or someone to be destroyed, either politically or more directly?

Do they even see me as the senator I’ve become?

I stand here in my white senatorial toga, my golden hair tied up in an elaborate series of braids by the servants of the former imperial palace that now serves as the seat of power in the new Republic.

My blue eyes have hints of golden eyeshadow around them in the fashion of the wealthiest nobles.

I even have a few pieces of jewelry, mostly given to me by my fiancé and fellow senator, Marcus Larius.

But I know many of them will only see the slender athleticism of my body and the circular brand on my left shoulder, crossed by five lines to represent the seasons I survived in the colosseum.

I know how many of them will be thinking about my powers as a beast whisperer, one of those with the magical gift to control animals and borrow strength from them.

Some, at least, see me as not truly one of them. It doesn't matter that I'm engaged to Marcus, doesn't matter that I was there at the foundation of the Republic. For far too many, beast whisperers are still something to be treated with suspicion and even hatred.

“Six weeks since Selene Ravenscroft announced her intentions for the city, and still nothing has been done with her. Nothing has changed. Aetheria still walks blindly towards its doom!” I say, my voice carrying across the chamber, up into the public viewing gallery, which is packed today with people eager to watch the proceedings.

There’s instant uproar.

“We all know you attacked her in Ironhold. Attacked us!” Senator Olivia calls out.

She’s a blonde-haired noblewoman who practically drips with jewelry and who likes to throw extravagant parties where she can manipulate others with pleasure, favors and seduction.

She’s invited me before, but I haven’t attended.

“She was controlling you with psychomancy!” I shoot back.

Aetheria is home to many forms of magic.

The priests who seem to worship the city as much as the gods claim magic flows from the very stones beneath it, pouring out into the world in a constant stream.

Mind magic is one of the most insidious forms of it.

“You keep spouting those lies!” Olivia says, anger in her voice.

One of the biggest problems with psychomancy is that it’s hard to prove, and those affected by it often don’t want to believe they’ve been controlled.

Thanks to lessons from a more experienced beast whisperer, I’ve learned to access people’s animal instincts, using their emotions to free them from Selene’s control.

Convincing them of what she’s done is proving harder.

“None of this is lies,” I say. “Selene Ravenscroft wants to create a new empire, with herself as the empress. Those of you who went to Ironhold heard her talking about overthrowing the Republic, to create a place where those with the most magic hold power. When Senator Domitian sought to overthrow the Republic, he was imprisoned, and rightly so.”

There’s a fresh round of uproar as I say it, with people shouting over me until I can’t work out what any of them are saying. The senators aren’t the only ones shouting. The public galleries seem to hold far too many of Selene Ravenscroft’s supporters.

The comparison to Domitian probably doesn’t help, even if he and Selene were probably working together. Domitian tried for a coup against the Republic, but failed quickly, while Selene has been more insidious, gaining support slowly.

“Selene! Selene!” they chant her name as if she were stepping out onto the sands of the arena, ready for one of her bouts.

I look around for support, to where First Senator Rowan is seated in the only separate chair of the Senate.

Every other senator makes do with stone benches, in a circle around the floor.

His auburn hair falls over a square jawed face, hiding the scar inflicted upon him by his former owner, back in the days when Aetheria allowed slaves to be kept.

Like me, he's a former gladiator, with muscles like boulders beneath his toga.

His magical control over stone and earth makes the seats rumble beneath us, demanding the attention of the Senate.

“Enough!” he bellows, and that’s enough to bring silence flowing out over the chamber. “Lyra, I know what you’ve been saying about Selene, but without proof, you also know the senate can’t act.”

There should be plenty of proof. Several of the senators were in the room when Selene announced her intentions for the city.

She offered me a place in her new order, then attacked me when I refused.

As far as I can tell, the only reason she hasn’t taken over the city completely is because I defeated her there, forcing her to flee from the fortress of Ironhold, at least temporarily.

But people either don’t remember, or they aren’t prepared to say anything. Perhaps they believe in the vision of the future she’s shown them. Perhaps she was able to influence them again after I broke them free from her control. Perhaps they just want to wait and see what will happen.

“My concern is that we’re letting things slide,” I say. “The games become more dangerous with every event we put on, when we’ve tried so hard to avoid going back to the days of the empire. The gangs still control the slums, and there’s still far too much corruption in the city.”

“You sound like your lover, Alaric,” Senator Yarrow calls out.

She’s a dark-haired woman in her forties, who controls a section of the slums beyond the city walls when she’s not serving as a senator.

It’s common knowledge that half the gangs there answer to her, and she would lose out on much of her income if the corruption of the city were to be rooted out.

“Where is the leader of the so-called resistance?”

Several others around the chamber jeer me, and I can’t help wincing.

Alaric is… I’m not sure what he is to me anymore.

We were once together, and there are still plenty of romantic feelings between us.

He is indeed the leader of the resistance movement that fights against the corruption of the city, and which hates the games, in particular.

I don’t always agree with their methods but, increasingly, I can see how necessary they are.

Bringing up Alaric is an attempt to embarrass me, but it’s more than that, too.

I’m formally engaged to Senator Marcus Larius, who sits with a block of his supporters at one side of the chamber.

He’s blond haired and blue-eyed, muscular and handsome, although without the hard edge that Rowan and I have as former gladiators.

He’s from a family of wealthy merchants, wearing the ship symbol of his family on a pendant over his toga.

Our engagement is as much a political move as a romantic one, when Marcus is still trying to win back my trust following his involvement with death matches beneath the streets of the city.

To imply that Alaric is still my lover when we’re engaged is a deliberate insult.

“I’m more interested in where Selene is,” I reply, trying to hide my anger at her using Alaric against me. “The last I heard, she was still meant to be a prisoner of the city, committed to Ironhold until she completes her five seasons in the colosseum.”

Selene avoided execution when she returned to Aetheria by using the city’s old laws against it, putting herself into the colosseum the way criminals used to be forced to.

If she can survive five sets of games, gain the five stripes across the circular brand on her shoulder I possess, then she’ll be a free citizen, cleared of all crimes.

Until then, though, to try to flee is to invite a death sentence.

If she can’t be held in Ironhold, then she should be held in whatever prison contains Domitian and those like him who’ve fought against the city.

"She's hardly fled," a senator named Octavio says. He's the oldest of the Senate, and the keeper of many of our laws. "She appears throughout the city. And, if she no longer feels safe in Ironhold, she does have the freedom to move through the city as she wishes.”

A freedom she gained by manipulating senators and controlling their minds, but that doesn’t make a difference now.

“So she just gets to disappear?” I say.

“She’s required to show up for each set of games until she has completed the five required of her,” Senator Octavio says. “Beyond that, she’s free to be where she wishes in the city.”

Free to try to influence and manipulate people. Free to continue to undermine the Republic at a point where it's increasingly fragile. I sigh and cede the floor, because it's clear I'm not going to convince anyone here. Increasingly, the Senate feels like a place where I'm simply ignored.

Thankfully, there isn't much more business in the Senate today.

A couple of small motions on rebuilding efforts in the slums. One on a potential trade agreement with a city state far across the ocean, brokered by Marcus.

Routine business, and a reminder that not everything in Aetheria is about Selene, however much it might seem like it.

Eventually, I get to leave the chamber, heading through to one of the ante-chambers beyond.

It’s a space set with food and drink, couches and spaces for people to talk.

It’s designed so that the people from the viewing galleries can meet with the senators, making sure their voices are heard.

In practice, that makes it a place of bribery, influence and corruption.

Naturally, Marcus is completely at home there, already standing at the heart of a small crowd of nobles and merchants.

He smiles and clasps hands, exchanges compliments and makes promises.

Almost as soon as he spots me, he comes over to me, taking me in his arms and kissing me briefly.

There’s an electric charge to his touch, and I can never tell with him whether it’s down to the attraction between us or the lightning Marcus can summon with the magic that gives him control over the weather.

The kiss is at least partly for the benefit of everyone watching, of course.

He wants them to see we're together, the golden couple of the city, holding together a coalition of different strands within the city thanks to our connection.

And maybe it's to show people that I continue to have his support, even though we have different views on many things in the Senate.

“It wasn’t wise to speak up against Selene again,” he whispers to me.

“You think I should just ignore her? You hate her as much as I do,” I say.

"I think she's dangerous, but speaking out isn't changing anything," Marcus says. "We must work in the ways we can, not spend political capital on things we can't do. We don't have the Senate yet."

Marcus is cautious in so many ways, understanding the politics of the city far better than me. It makes him frustrating, sometimes.

“It’s been six weeks, Marcus. Six weeks since the fight in Ironhold, and nothing’s changed. How much longer before we have the support we need?”

“It’s hard to say,” Marcus says. “I’m building all the support I can, both in the senate and… other places.”

Which is his way of saying he’s exploiting the corruption he’s embroiled in. He keeps telling me it’s just so he can lance the boil of that corruption, bringing it all down at once. But it’s obvious he enjoys the power and influence it gives him.

“And in the meantime, Selene’s building her own support,” I say.

Marcus nods. “That’s the struggle between us, for now.

A race to see who can build power the quickest. People aren’t going to Ironhold to see her, but she’s holding her salons and gatherings throughout the city.

” He hands me a piece of parchment. It’s a poster, proclaiming that Selene will be speaking today, in one of the public forums of the city.

I stare at it, barely able to believe the brazenness of it. Selene's making public appearances now, spreading her message so openly? I need to see this, and I need to try to find a way to limit the damage she does, even as I'm not sure I can do anything to truly stop her.