CHAPTER FOUR
I have only a few minutes left before my next fight in the tournament.
I’m due to face Jor, the mountain warrior who has been lured to the city specifically for this contest. I have no doubt Selene made sure he came here just so she can show just how superior the people of the city are to their supposedly barbarous neighbors.
Perhaps this is even a precursor to an invasion, in due course, or at least to some dominant treaty between Aetheria and the people of the mountains. It’s an assertion of Aetheria’s magical power, and Selene is using me to do it.
A part of me instantly doesn't want to fight on her terms, but I push aside that reaction. I know I must fight if I'm going to get through the tournament to face Selene. She's creating a spectacle to show her own superiority, and that of Aetheria. I need to turn that same spectacle against her.
“Your next opponent is strong,” Alaric says, helping me to prepare, down in the depths of the colosseum, “but it would be a mistake to think that’s all he is.
I’ve heard plenty of stories about the mountain folk.
The stories say they can call the spirits of their ancestors, or of beasts, into themselves. ”
The second part of that sounds uncomfortably close to what I can do, borrowing attributes from the animals close to me to make myself faster and stronger. Has Selene found another beast whisperer to fight me?
No, I don’t believe that. Where Selene has found beast whisperers out in the world, she’s killed them. Jor is something else, something different.
I’m still trying to work out what when Marcus arrives in the preparation room.
“How are you doing, Lyra?” he asks. There’s a tension in his voice that wasn’t there before. I know he’s afraid for me every time I fight. “Are you ready for your next bout?”
“I’m prepared,” I say. “Shouldn’t you be up in the senate box?”
Marcus shrugs. “Selene’s back up there, with half a dozen other senators. She doesn’t mind me coming down here to wish you luck.”
He puts his hands on my arms. "You know, we could pull you out of the tournament at any time?"
That catches me by surprise. Why would he suggest something like this right before one of my fights? Is he trying to sap my confidence?
“You know I need to be here,” I say.
“We could find another way to beat Selene,” Marcus insists. He gestures to the walls and the city beyond them. “She needs to win over the whole city. We can stop her there.”
“But the way she wins over the people is in the colosseum,” I say.
“This is the place where Selene will agree to face me one on one. This is the place where I can change the minds of the people. I need to do this. I don’t need you suggesting that I should pull out, as if you’re scared my next opponent will defeat me. ”
“You’re right,” Marcus says, in an apologetic tone. “I shouldn’t be so worried. You’re more powerful than anyone I’ve seen fighting in the colosseum. You’re... you’re amazing."
Marcus starts to lean in towards me, and I realize he intends to kiss me.
Maybe it isn't even something deliberate or conscious.
Maybe it's just a natural reaction to the tension of the situation, or maybe it's coming from a desire to make things right between us once more.
We used to mean so much to one another. We used to be lovers. We used to be engaged to be married.
I’m not sure how I’ll react if Marcus kisses me.
Will I just melt into his touch? Will I forget about the times he’s lied to me before, holding back his involvement in the city’s corruption, even if it was to try to undermine that corruption?
Will I push back from him and risk souring things between us when he still has power over me as my nominal jailer?
Thankfully, I don’t have to decide, because Alaric reacts first.
“Are you going to force yourself on her, Marcus?” he demands. “Going to take advantage of Lyra being given to you by Selene?”
Marcus jerks back as if he’s been burned, giving Alaric an angry look.
“You can’t stand the idea that Lyra might just want me,” he says. “After you blew your chances by going off to run the resistance, rather than staying with her.”
“I did what was necessary for the city,” Alaric says. “I didn’t just stay behind to work within Selene’s regime.”
“Which is why you haven’t achieved anything,” Marcus snaps back.
It's an old argument between them. They stand for very different things within the city.
Marcus believes the structures of the city are vital, even if they've been corrupted by Selene's influence.
He seeks influence and power, trying to manipulate the laws and rules of Aetheria or to circumvent them through bribes.
In a lot of ways, that makes Marcus everything Alaric seeks to fight against, even if Marcus’ intentions are to make life better for the citizens of Aetheria.
Alaric, meanwhile, seeks to work outside of the law because he sees it as far too restrictive. He wants to tear down what he sees as an inherently corrupt system.
And I... what do I believe? I stepped away from my role as a senator because I no longer believed I could effectively stop Selene from within the system.
“At least I haven’t helped to prop up a would be tyrant,” Alaric says.
“At least I didn’t abandon Lyra in a prison!” Marcus shoots back.
This is getting out of hand. The two of them are fighting one another when they should be working together to fight against Selene. The tension between the two of them is obvious, and getting to the point where I can no longer ignore it.
I know I’m at least partly the source of conflict between them. They have very different views about the city, but I’m the reason they’re forced together, into a space where those arguments become obvious.
Each of them cares about me, in his own way.
Alaric was my lover back when I was first a gladiator, and after the fall of the empire, when we both ran away to my home village of Seatide.
I was engaged to marry Marcus during my time as a senator, ready to stand beside him as he pushed himself towards the highest political office in the land: that of First Senator.
It seems that neither of them has given up on me, and that risks driving a wedge between them. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to be the reason why Marcus and Alaric fight and aren’t able to work together to defeat Selene.
“Stop this,” I say. Marcus looks as though he might speak, but I cut him off.
“No, both of you, stop. We can’t fight with one another.
I know you have your differences, I know you believe in different things, but you have to remember what we’re doing here.
We’re here because, if we don’t do something, Selene Ravenscroft will make herself empress at the conclusion of these games. ”
I shouldn’t have to remind them of that, but they both look angry enough that I’m worried they might forget it if I don’t step in.
They’ve fought one another before, and I’m worried they might do so again.
Even now, I’m not sure how that fight would go.
Alaric has the superior physical skills as a trained gladiator, and his illusions make him hard to target.
Marcus is larger and stronger, though, and his magic gives him the ability to summon lightning into his hands and throw it at his enemies.
It would be a brutal conflict, one that might leave all three of us injured.
I can’t allow that to happen, even as I know that the tension between the two of them isn’t going to go away.
“We need to focus on the fight,” I say. “Marcus, do you know anything about Jor?”
Marcus nods. “I’ve been talking to the bookmakers. You know they like to gather as much information as they can on the fighters so they can offer accurate odds on the bouts.”
“So they can profit from death and misery,” Alaric says. He doesn’t like the games, and certainly doesn’t like those who make their money because of gladiators dying. Marcus, meanwhile, is happy to make some of his vast fortune through running underground fights and betting venues.
"It means they know about Jor," Marcus says, seeming to pointedly ignore Alaric. "He has the ability to summon spirits into himself. He's supposedly skilled with an axe, and he won't feel much pain. It will be a long, drawn-out fight."
Alaric is already shaking his head. “You can’t afford that, Lyra,” he argues. "You need to finish this quickly. You have more fights to come, and you can’t afford to get injured in this one.”
“Lyra needs the crowd on her side,” Marcus says. “The way to do that is by giving them the contest they’re looking for. You need to wound Jor and wear him down, the way you might with a charging bear.”
“With a bear, I’d use my powers to persuade it to leave me alone," I point out.
“I doubt that will work with a gladiator who wants to kill you,” Alaric says. “Trick him, persuade him that you’re weak, and then strike decisively.”
“If Lyra looks as though she’s running, the crowd will hate her,” Marcus snaps back. “Besides, they’re reconfiguring the arena as we speak to create an environment filled with hazards and traps. That’s part of what I came down here to tell you, Lyra.”
Even in this, the two of them have very different ideas.
They’re both here to support me, but they’re pulling me in opposite directions.
Do I go with Alaric’s strategy, because he’s the one who’s spent time fighting in the arena before?
Or do I go with Marcus’ greater knowledge of my opponent and the arena as one of the organizers of the tournament?
It’s a difficult choice for me to make, and one I know I’ll have to make soon in other ways.
Alaric and Marcus won’t be content with this constant tension between the three of us.
Sooner or later, I’ll have to choose between them romantically.
Even if it’s after I’ve defeated Selene, there will be implications to that choice beyond my own happiness.
Both men have their own visions for the future of Aetheria, and by choosing one over the other, I’ll be helping him to advance that vision and bring it into reality.
I could still become the glorious, noble wife Marcus wants, standing beside him as he becomes First Senator. I could still help Alaric to tear down everything about Aetheria, seeking to rebuild it from the ground up in the name of the ordinary people.
I'm grateful that I don't have to choose now, but I know that choice is coming, and it worries me. I don't know yet what I’ll choose, because my only focus for now is on trying to survive the games. It’s almost enough to make me happy that my bout is coming up quickly. Fighting in the arena, I don’t have to focus on the different demands of the men who care about me, just on surviving an opponent who has no doubt been selected specifically to slay me as spectacularly as possible.