CHAPTER TWO
I swap my toga for a grey dress, edged with silvery embroidery.
I strap a knife to my belt, because there are plenty of people out there who might try to hurt me, either at Selene's behest or for other reasons.
I've acquired many enemies in my time in the Senate, both in my opposition to Selene and my stand against the corruption of the city, embodied in the gladiatorial games here.
I head out of the palace, through the gardens beyond.
They’re spectacular, enhanced by magic, the way so many things in Aetheria are.
The gardeners have talents that let them make the plants bigger and more beautiful than they have any right to be.
They’re able to work them into arches and spirals, imposing order on them in a way that’s strangely reminiscent of the days of the empire.
It was a place that wanted to control everything and was happy to use magic to do it.
There’s a menagerie within the grounds of the palace, as well.
The former emperor collected magical creatures from around the empire, on the basis that all things of magic belonged to the city.
There are peacocks whose tails shimmered with illusions, butterflies the size of my head, a leopard whose fur crackles with lightning in its cage.
I can feel the primal emotions of the creatures, and it’s easy to reach out to look through the eyes of the birds above, using them to watch for enemies around me as I start to head through the city.
The birds show me the city laid out below like a map.
Aetheria forms a great wheel of different districts within its walls, from the elegance of the noble district to the practical warehouses of the docks.
Towers rise in a district given over to scholars and artists, while an entertainment district sprawls not far from the noble quarter, filled with gambling dens, drinking establishments and other, more illicit, places.
The slums lie beyond the walls, sprawling and chaotic, as large again as the interior of the city.
They’re slowly being rebuilt in the same white marble as the rest of Aetheria, but most of the buildings are still ramshackle things, thrown together without a clear plan.
Aetheria is a place of many spectacular buildings.
Through the borrowed sight of the birds, I see grand temples and expensive villas, bathhouses and public buildings.
None of them is on the scale of the colosseum located at the heart of the city, festooned with statues and with a broad promenade leading up to it.
That isn’t the space I’m heading to, though.
Instead, I make my way to the fringes of the market district, where there’s an open forum space, surrounded by grand columns to delineate it, and with a fountain at its center that depicts a gladiator standing over a fallen foe.
There are plinths set around it, and during the days of the empire, it was one of the few places where people could speak freely, without fear of being dragged from those plinths and thrown into a dungeon.
Of course, there was nothing to stop the emperor from sending killers after those who spoke there later, when it wouldn’t attract attention, which meant that in practice, it was priests and philosophers loyal to the emperor who mostly spoke here.
After the founding of the Republic, things became a little freer, with these spaces open to anyone who wanted to speak.
I have no doubt that’s why Selene has chosen this space.
She stands on the plinth closest to the fountain, the purple aura of her magic flowing out from her, attracting attention and making her seem larger than she is.
She’s slender, with jet black hair and a frame that has become more toned thanks to her training to fight in the colosseum.
Her eyes glow with violet power, and she’s wearing a dress that mingles purple with white and gold, the traditional color of the old empire mingling with those of the Republic.
Her left shoulder is bare, to show the branded circle there, with two clear lines across it.
Selene is claiming respect as a popular gladiator, as much as because she’s an archon, probably the most powerful magic user in a generation.
There are far more people than usual in the forum. Normally, it’s a place people pass through to meet with a few friends, or to listen to the more entertaining philosophers until they start to drown one another out. It attracts small groups of people, not large crowds.
Today, it’s packed, to a degree that has attracted the attention of the city guards.
I briefly wonder if I can call to them and demand they break up this gathering, but I suspect that will only add to Selene’s popularity.
Besides, she has influence over many guards in the city, so I don’t know for sure if they would even help if I asked it.
I linger on the fringes of the crowd, instead, watching Selene as she addresses the crowd.
“Citizens of Aetheria,” she says, and her voice carries effortlessly over them, aided by a hint of magic.
More than a hint, because I can feel her psychomancy spreading out in a wave of influence, designed to change people’s minds and sway them to her cause.
“Thank you for coming here today. I have much to say to you.”
I can see people leaning in eagerly, the forum silent in a way it never normally is. Usually, people would heckle the speakers or challenge them, leading to lively philosophical debates and, occasionally, brawls.
“The city of Aetheria is a great city,” Selene says. “The greatest in the world, the source of all magic!”
She’s saying nothing the crowd won’t already know.
“Its greatness is founded on two principles: martial might and magical prowess,” Selene says. “And traditionally, there has been one place that embodies both.”
She points to the colosseum as she says it, and I can feel the way she’s pushing the crowd with her magic again, building their excitement.
I push back. Selene has the magic to influence people’s minds, but I can influence their emotions.
I reach out, feeling the primal instincts of the crowd the way I might feel the fury of a wolf or the hunger of a bear.
I try to counter Selene’s efforts to rile up the crowd, but that just means they’re calmer and more ready to listen.
Maybe it’s more dangerous that they’re thoughtful and attentive, in the long run.
“Think of all the great warriors you’ve seen fight in the colosseum,” Selene says.
“The champions who rose through it, slaying the foes put in front of them. They were sharpened by those experiences, the way a blade may be honed, ready for battle. Think of the great names from history. Aetheria built a glorious past, and that past can inform an equally glorious future.”
Selene hasn’t proposed the overthrow of the Republic, here.
Perhaps she’s worried about inciting open treason in such a public place.
But it’s obvious she wants to hark back to the glories of the empire with her audience, wants them to think about how much better things would be if only there were an empress in charge.
“The games gave people a chance to rise through the ranks of Aetheria,” Selene says, “rather than being stuck in the station they were born into. Those with enough skill with magic or a blade could rise to new positions. My own upbringing was far from wealthy, and yet I rose to be the arch-magistrate of the whole city.”
Of the empire, but Selene clearly doesn’t want people reminded too much of the worst aspects of it, the people she wound have condemned to torture or death.
Instead, she’s selling them the dream of a city in which any of them might rise.
Of course, I know she actually wants a place in which those with the most magic rule over all others, and nulls, those without magic at all, are little better than slaves.
I fight harder against her efforts to influence the crowd with her psychomancy. She wears a leather dampener on her left wrist, designed to limit her magical powers, but Selene tampered with that even before the fight in Ironhold, and I know she has the skill to remove it any time she wishes.
I must be careful as I push back against Selene’s magic. We’re working in two different ways, so our powers aren’t interacting directly, and I don’t know what the effects will be when I’m pushing someone’s emotions in one direction even as she forces their mind in another.
“The games did more than that, though,” Selene said.
“They let us deal with some of our most heinous criminals, rather than having to lock them away forever. They gave us a space in which to be proud of being Aetherian. Today, the Republic claims the same territories the empire held, but does it really control any of them? Aetheria used to be powerful.”
I find myself wondering why the resistance aren’t here. Alaric’s people make a point of breaking up speeches that praise Selene, trying to target her attempts to gain influence in the city. Don’t they dare to try it, here in the forum, with so many guards around?
Selene comes to the climax of her speech. "Thankfully, I have friends in the Senate who agree with me. Don't I, Senator Lyra?"
She smiles my way, but all that means is that she’s good at masking her hatred.
The crowd parts slightly, so that we stand before one another with clear space between.
It would be so easy to throw myself at Selene across that space, to try to kill her, matching whatever powers I can draw from nearby animals against her magic.
I can’t just cut someone down in broad daylight because I don’t like their arguments, though. Besides, I’m not sure I’d win. Not here, not like this.
“I certainly don’t agree with you,” I say. “All you want is a return to the empire and its cruelty, Selene.”
She laughs, pointedly. "Hardly. I merely wish our city to be the best possible version of itself. I want to take the best elements from the past and use them to make this city stronger. Which is why my friends in the Senate are going to say that the time has come for a return to the true games! No more foolish ‘exhibition bouts’. Men and women will fight with blood and death as the stakes. Criminals will die on the sands as they should. It will be a true spectacle. Is that what you all want?”
The crowd roars back its support with such vehemence I wonder if I’ve failed to contain Selene’s mind control after all. But no, the answer is simpler than that: she’s telling them what they want to hear. Her words are enough, without the additional push of magic.
“And Lyra,” Selene says. “Shouldn’t you be back in the senate chamber? I wouldn’t want you to miss the vote.”
I realize to my horror that this is a trap.
Selene's speech in the forum is designed to influence the people and gain support for her proposal, but it's also designed to lure me and others opposed to her out of the palace to listen.
If I don't hurry, Selene's supporters will be able to sneak through an emergency vote in the Senate without anyone there to stop it.
I curse to myself and start to sprint back towards the palace.