CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I wake on one of the slabs in the healers’ room, down beneath the colosseum. Everything hurts, and I feel so weak that it’s tempting to simply close my eyes and fall back into unconsciousness.
“Don’t sleep again, Lyra.” It’s Alaric’s voice. “You might not wake up if you do.”
I fight to keep conscious, looking over at him and trying to focus. Alaric is still wearing a disguise, looking like one of the trainers, but I can feel the waves of worry pouring out from him as he looks my way.
Healers are working on me, bandaging my wounds and starting to close them with magic.
Others are working on Shard, trying to heal the wound I caused with my spear.
I’m glad I didn’t kill him. It’s necessary for me to fight my way through the brackets of the arena to get to Selene, but I don’t want to have to kill the people I face along the way.
He’s groaning as the healers work on him, but maybe that’s a good sign.
“How do you feel?” Alaric asks me.
How do I feel? I hurt, the pain of my wounds hitting me now that the adrenaline rush of the fight has left my system.
Moving makes me wince with pain, but I force myself to sit up anyway.
One of the healers starts to push me back down, but in that moment, I see a couple of the bodies laid out on other slabs, the dead left there until they can be taken from the colosseum or thrown to the beasts below.
“I don’t want to be here,” I say, and that’s enough for Alaric.
He helps me from the slab, supporting me as I stand.
I feel drained in a way that I never normally do after a fight or using my magic.
Some of it might be down to my wounds, but instinctively, I know that a part of it is because I borrowed the shadow cats' ability to walk from one shadow to the next.
Even with my skills as a beast whisperer, trying to hold an ability like that within me took almost more power than I have.
“Are you sure you’re okay to stand?” Alaric asks.
I nod. “I just want to get out of here.”
Alaric doesn’t argue, but helps me from the healers’ chambers, heading out through the preparation areas and up through the colosseum. Marcus is hurrying up.
“Lyra, are you all right?” he asks. “You shouldn’t be on your feet. You should still be with the healers.”
“She doesn’t want to be,” Alaric says.
“It’s about what’s best for her, not what she wants,” Marcus says.
Alaric shakes his head. “If Lyra wants to leave, I’m going to help her to leave. Do you want to be the one to stop her?”
Marcus hesitates. “No, of course not. But Lyra, if you leave now, you might not heal properly. You know what your win today means: you’re going to get through to the final of the games. You’re going to have to face Selene. You can’t do that if you’re hurt.”
“Is that all you can think of?” Alaric asks. “If Lyra wants to go, I’m going to help her.”
Marcus looks as though he wants to argue.
“I don’t want to be in the preparation areas,” I say. It isn’t just that I don’t want to be around the dead, it’s also because I don't feel safe down here. “As you say, I’m through to the final. People have already tried to sabotage me earlier in the games. Do you think they won’t try again now?”
Someone tried to poison me, right at the start of the Grand Tournament. People have tried to attack me, to injure or kill me, so I can't fight. Selene wants to face me, but some of her supporters seem determined to make sure I can't fight her. They seem afraid of me in a way Selene isn't.
There’s a real risk that one of them will take advantage of my weakness to make sure I can’t compete in that final bout. It wouldn’t take much. Bribing a healer to make sure they do a poor job. Poisoning me while I’m in the healers’ chambers. Having me killed quietly while I can’t fight back.
“All right,” Marcus says. “I’ll need to stay here to make sure people don’t write you off as dead. I’m not going to let them simply declare Selene the winner. And there are going to be emergency sessions of the senate, later. You can guess what’s on the agenda.”
“Trying to force Selene’s proposal through,” I guess.
Marcus nods. “I need to be there to try to stop them.”
“I’ll take care of Lyra,” Alaric promises. He’s already guiding me to the front of the colosseum. People stare at us as I pass until Alaric wraps a cloak around me, shifting his own appearance with illusions again and again so no one can follow us easily.
Alaric doesn't take me back to Marcus' villa.
Instead, he leads me to a quiet house in the scholars' district, which doubles as an herbalists' store.
He takes me inside, and instantly, I can see why Alaric has brought me here.
His lieutenant, Thalia, is the one behind the counter.
She has spiky hair that's half white, half black, and she's shrouded in the brown robes of a healer.
Her talent has always been for vitomancy, helping those who need it.
She takes one look at me and hurries over. “What happened? How badly is she hurt?”
“Lyra was wounded in her last fight,” Alaric says.
Thalia frowns, looking me over. “Take her upstairs, where no one will walk in. I’ll come up and help her in a minute, once I’ve grabbed some herbs. You’re going to be fine, Lyra.”
Alaric helps me up a set of stairs, leading me to a bedroom that’s sparsely furnished.
I guess this spare room is one of the many used by the resistance as part of their network of safehouses.
Alaric lets his disguise fall as we walk, then scoops me up in his arms and sets me down on the bed gently.
He stares at me as if afraid that, if he should look away, my condition will worsen.
Thalia comes up, looking me over. She applies foul smelling herbs to my wounds, but I also feel the touch of her healing magic, drawing together the flesh, making sure the wounds close properly.
It seems to take her forever to work on me, and I don’t know if that’s because she’s deliberately going slowly so she can be careful with my wounds, or if I’m so injured she can’t go any faster.
At last, she steps back. "There," she says. "Your wounds are closed, but you've still lost a lot of blood and used a lot of energy. You need to rest, Lyra. Alaric, we should talk about coordinating the resistance. The fighting in the streets is getting out of control."
“I trust you to deal with it,” Alaric says. “I’m staying here.”
“But-”
“I’m staying with Lyra,” Alaric insists.
Thalia sighs, obviously realizing she isn’t going to persuade him otherwise. “At least make sure she gets some sleep.”
Thalia leaves us, and Alaric continues to stare at me as if I'm something fragile that might break at any moment.
“I’m all right,” I tell him.
“You aren’t,” Alaric insists. “You could have been killed in that fight.”
“But I wasn’t,” I say. I know how close the fight was, but that doesn't matter now. What matters is that I got through it. There’s nothing between me and Selene Ravenscroft now.
“You weren’t, but it almost broke my heart, having to watch it,” Alaric says. He takes my hand. “I... I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you, Lyra.”
I want to tell him that nothing will happen to me, but we both know that isn’t a promise I can make. Not when I’m due to fight Selene.
“Let me take you away from all this,” Alaric says, out of nowhere.
“What?” I can’t keep the surprise from my voice.
“We could leave Aetheria, the way we did before. Maybe not go to Seatide, but we could go somewhere.”
I shake my head. “You don’t mean that, Alaric. You have the resistance, and I... I need to help here. Besides, being away from the city all but drove you insane, last time.”
“I’m absolutely serious,” Alaric insists. “Yes, I have responsibilities here, but none of them matter compared to you. We could set off for somewhere else in the world and just... be together. If that’s what you want.”
He sounds uncertain about that last part.
“No,” I say, and Alaric looks almost heartbroken.
“Is it... is it Marcus?” he asks.
I realize that I haven’t been clear enough. I lean up and kiss him, softly, tenderly.
“I’m not saying no to us, Alaric. I want you. I think it’s always been you. Marcus is... well, he’s a lot of things. And maybe once I thought I could be happy with him, but he isn’t you.”
Marcus is handsome and intelligent, kind and powerful, but with him, I've never been able to shake the feeling that his ambitions come first. I've never been certain whether he loves me or whether he just wants me and loves the idea of us as a couple that could rule the city together.
He isn't as corrupt or venal as I once thought, but he's still far too ready to work in the shadowy parts of the city.
He still accepts parts of it that I never will.
Even now, Marcus is off playing politics. For all the right reasons, admittedly, but he isn’t here when I need him.
And he isn't Alaric. Beautiful, sharp edged Alaric, who spent so long hiding behind a mask of arrogance, only to turn around and try to save the city.
Who is somehow one of the people who cares about it most, willing to risk everything as the leader of the resistance.
This is a man who must hide his face whenever he goes out in public, and yet somehow, I feel as though I always see the real him.
I kiss him again, just because I can, and he kisses me back, only pulling back from me when I wince.
“If it’s not that,” he says, “then-”
“I’m not abandoning Aetheria again,” I say. “And I don’t believe you really want to either. You’ve fought too long and too hard to give up on it now.”
“I’d walk away in a heartbeat if I thought it would keep you safe,” Alaric says.
“And I’d always feel guilty for letting you do it,” I reply. “Besides, I have a role to play here, too.”
“Fighting Selene Ravenscroft,” Alaric says.
I can hear the worry in his voice. He isn’t certain I can win. He’s worried that Selene’s skills will overcome anything I can throw at her.
But that’s the enemy I need to face. And when I do it, I want to know that Alaric is out there somewhere, fighting for Aetheria in his own way.
I lie there and rest, with Alaric lying beside me. We don’t need to do anything; it’s enough that he’s here, next to me.
But, even as we lie there, Thalia bursts in.
“You need to come quickly,” she says. “One of our people is reporting news from the senate. The situation there is worse than we thought.”