CHAPTER EIGHT
I can feel the tension between us for most of the walk back to Marcus’ villa. People wave to us on the streets, treating us as if we’re one more piece of entertainment in a city filled with the wonders of magic. I try to remember to wave back, but it’s obvious that Marcus isn’t happy.
I can sense the frustration in him, the way I can feel the emotions of the people around me. My magic lets me manipulate those emotions when I need to, tapping into the animal instincts of people to make them afraid or calm, eager to chase a foe, or too angry to think clearly.
I don't use those powers with Marcus, though.
He isn't some enemy to be manipulated, and even trying to do it would be a vast breach of the trust between us.
It means I must sit with the feeling of his frustration and anger all the way back to his villa, until he, Alaric, and I are safely behind its walls and Alaric lets his disguise fall.
“Were you behind all this?” Marcus asks Alaric.
“Behind what?” Alaric retorts.
"Behind Lyra confronting Olivia," Marcus says. "Behind her going into the middle of a crowd of people and effectively denouncing Selene. Behind her, placing all of us in danger."
“We’re already in danger,” I point out. Marcus shouldn’t need reminding of that when assassins have already come to his home once, and when Selene will probably destroy us all if she comes to power.
“But talking to Olivia like that?” Marcus says. “You know, she’s demanding that I punish you publicly for confronting her?”
I shudder at the thought of that. “What are you going to do, Marcus? Shock me again?”
He did it once, when Selene required it, to prove his loyalty to her and save me from a worse punishment.
As someone who is technically Marcus' prisoner, I have no rights, no recourse if he chooses to do it.
I can still remember the feeling of the lightning dancing through my body, leaving me in agony.
“Of course not,” Marcus says, sounding exasperated. “You know I only did that to protect you.”
“And to protect yourself,” I point out. “You wanted to make sure Selene thought you were loyal to her.”
“Exactly!” Marcus says. “And now you’ve made it pretty clear that I’m not.”
“I was the one speaking out, not you,” I say.
“And I didn’t do anything to stop you,” Marcus replies. “Olivia will start asking questions about the people I was talking to, and she’ll find out that I was trying to pull them away from Selene. I won’t be able to pretend that I’m on her side any longer.”
“You say that as though it’s a bad thing,” Alaric says.
Marcus rounds on him. "Of course, you would think that the best thing to do is stand up openly and wait for the enemy to come at you. Your resistance has always been a thing of protests in the arena or shouting in the street. Some of us focus on the things that work."
“The things that maintain your position,” Alaric says.
“Why are you so bothered about Lyra being so obvious in her efforts to argue against Selene? Is it because you’re afraid of what might happen to her, or is it because a part of you still hopes you’ll be able to maintain your position as a senator if we fail and Selene takes power? ”
“I’m risking just as much as you,” Marcus says.
“Really?” Alaric shoots back. “Because, as far as I can tell, I’m the one who has to travel the city in disguise.
Lyra’s the one who was imprisoned in the worst hellhole the city had to offer.
You’ve always been waited on by servants, with senators happy to have gentle conversations and Selene offering you whatever you want. ”
“In case you’ve forgotten,” Marcus snaps. “Assassins came to my home.”
But they didn’t do that because Marcus was speaking out against Selene; quite the opposite. Olivia sent them because she was scared Marcus was usurping her position as Selene’s closest ally.
“Stop this, both of you,” I say. “We can’t afford to fight, not now. Selene is getting ready to take the city, and we need to work together if we’re going to stop her.”
That’s easier said than done, though. Selene Ravenscroft isn’t trying to capture the city with an army, like Domitian, or overthrow the government in riots and sudden violence, the way the Republic did with the emperor.
She’s trying to take it over with a combination of corruption, magical power, and the simple force of the idea she’s presenting to people: that Aetheria will be great only if those with magical power are in charge.
Alaric and Marcus both hesitate, and I can guess how hard this is for both of them when they don’t like each other at all. They’re working together because the situation requires it, and for no other reason.
Well, perhaps one other reason. They're working together for me, because I'm asking it. Rowan is working hard in the senate, Alaric is providing his resistance fighters, and Marcus is navigating the corrupt politics of the city, all because I'm asking them. I'm the core holding the rest together.
What will happen if I die in the colosseum?
That question hits me out of nowhere. I'm well aware of the possibility of dying in the arena, and have been since the first time I was forced to fight in it, so long ago.
But then, I was the only one who suffered if I died.
I might lose everything personally, and Aetehria would keep going forward, just as it always had.
Now, if I fall, Marcus and Alaric will pull in different directions.
Rowan might be able to coordinate with them, but he certainly won’t be able to get them to work together.
The people who want to stop Selene will fight her individually, and they’ll lose.
The resistance will be crushed. Marcus will either be sidelined or will find himself pretending to be Selene’s friend so hard that he forgets that it’s an act.
Rowan will be ousted from his position in the senate.
So much is riding on what we do in the coming days, and at the heart of it, I need to succeed in the colosseum.
“I’ll play my part,” Alaric says.
“Me too,” Marcus adds, quickly, as though afraid of Alaric outdoing him in this, or anything else.
“Just don’t expect me to skulk around, pretending to be on Selene’s side, like Marcus,” Alaric says.
“It’s because of that we know the details of her plans,” Marcus points out. I get the feeling they’re building up to another argument.
“We do,” I say, “and now we need to work to stop those plans. Even if it means working openly against Selene. We gained a lot from you pretending to be on her side, Marcus, but now’s the time to start pulling away from her. Her proposal is in the senate, right?”
Marcus nods. “She wants whoever is victorious in the games to be proclaimed First Senator.”
And from there, it would only be a short hop to proclaim herself empress.
“Well, we need to do what we can to stop that proposal passing,” I say. If we can do that, then Selene’s plans to simply be given power at the end of the games will hit a roadblock. “Remind them of the power of the Republic.”
“That might be difficult, when she’s already undermined it so effectively,” Marcus says. “But I can try.”
“Alaric,” I say. “You need to get the people on our side. Selene is relying on being carried along by a wave of popular support. If we can take that from her, her power grab will seem like a hollow thing.”
“I have the resistance working on it,” Alaric assures me.
Selene has built an alliance between so many factions in Aetheria, from the gangs of the slums all the way to the army and the nobles. The more fragments of those alliances we can start to peel away from her, the more we can undermine her power.
“We need to do more than just rally the people,” Marcus says. “We need to get the gangs on our side, and the bodyguards of the nobles.”
“People who spend their time hurting the ordinary citizens,” Alaric says. “We need to plan a strike from the shadows as Selene approaches the games.”
“That will just see us branded as criminals and traitors,” Marcus says. “No senator will side with us if we do that. We’ll need them to rebuild when this is done.”
Alaric snorts. “Their vested interests are part of the reason the city has been so easy for Selene to take control of. We should tear apart the current system and rebuild it from the ground up.”
“It’s easy to talk about destroying a thing,” Marcus says. “Until you realize just how woven into the fabric of the city it is. Aetheria is a place of a thousand moving parts, and taking away even one could lead to its collapse.”
The two of them won’t get anywhere arguing about the politics of the city like this. I suspect that, even if we succeed in beating Selene, that will only trigger a larger conflict between Alaric and Marcus for control of the city. If that comes, I don’t know which side I’ll pick.
Do I have to pick a side? Are their visions for Aetheria the only possibilities? Continuing with all the corruption of the city or tearing down every system within it in the hope of building something better? What do I want for the city?
It's a question I don't seem to have asked myself enough times in the past. I've been carried along by others' visions for Aetheria.
Marcus's, Rowan's, Alaric's. Before them, there was Lady Elara of the beast whisperers and Vex, representing the nobles.
I've been caught up in plots by Domitian and Selene, who both had their own views on how the city should run.
Even when I was first brought to Aetheria as a slave gladiator, it was because of the way Emperor Tiberius IV believed the world should be.
What do I want? Peace? An end to the violence of the games? Prosperity for the ordinary people? Those seem like obvious things to desire, but I’m sure if I mentioned them to the others, they would talk about the complexities involved in getting to any of those things.
I still can’t help feeling that at some point soon, I’m going to be forced to choose between Alaric and Marcus. Each of them is keeping a careful distance, but each of them is obviously interested in me romantically. I can’t spend my life caught between the two of them.
For now, though, I can put that choice off a little longer. I still have to fight my way through the games, or none of this will matter.
“What do we know about my next opponent in the games?” I ask them.
“Karubas,” Marcus says. “He’s a warrior who mixes illusion magic with psychomancy. He shows you your greatest fears, and if you get caught up in them, then his illusions can hurt or kill as surely as if they were real.”
I met him at Ironhold before the games, along with the other gladiators. He was a creepy, intimidating presence. Clearly, he's been brought in because he'll be a formidable opponent.
Now, I just need to find a way to beat him.