CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
I can’t move. Selene is advancing on me, a blade in her hand, and I can only stand perfectly still, waiting for the moment when she’ll kill me.
“Control is everything,” Selene says, her voice carrying around the colosseum. “It’s vital to have power as well, but without control, it’s nothing. Take Lyra here.”
She moves to me casually, knocking the spear from my hand.
“She has as much power as any beast whisperer who’s lived, but she’s still little better than a wild animal. She can’t even control herself now. Drop your shield, Lyra.”
As Selene commands it, I unbuckle my shield and let it fall to the ground. Selene moves to me, tracing the point of her sword over my skin almost casually.
“I want those of you watching to remember what happens here today,” Selene says. “Whenever you’re thinking of disobeying, whenever you think of rebellion, I want you to remember how easy this was for me.”
She increases the pressure on her blade just slightly, making agony flare through me. I can’t even cry out as she does it.
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen next, Lyra,” Selene says, holding up her sword so that a bead of blood can drip down from it.
“I’m going to crown myself empress. At the same time, my people will take control of the city to prevent any meddling by the resistance.
They’re already out in the streets. Oh, there will be violence, but that violence will merely be the excuse to restore order.
The guards will be on my side by then, and we’ll sweep through Aetheria, rounding up all those who might cause trouble.
Some of them, we’ll execute. Others, I’ll allow to live, so long as they learn to do it in chains. ”
I struggle against the magic holding me. Selene smiles, obviously knowing the effect her words are having on me.
“Don’t worry,” Selene says. “You won’t be around to see Marcus or Alaric on their knees.”
Selene pulls back her sword, ready to inflict the killing blow. As she does so, a single voice rings out over the colosseum. Alaric’s voice.
“Fight back, Lyra. For Aetheria. For me!”
His words are enough to spark something in me.
Selene is controlling me with psychomancy, but I'm not someone like Olivia, who's easily controlled.
I'm a beast whisperer, with control over the animal instincts that drive people, even as Selene can control a mind.
I have plenty of reasons to fight back, too, and Alaric is foremost among them.
I take everything I feel for him, all the desire, all the joy, all the times he’s hurt me. All the love. I throw it at Selene’s magic. I can’t break her grip on my mind directly, but I can bring up something far more primal to overwhelm her magic.
I snarl like an animal as I duck under the swing of her sword.
I slam a fist into Selene's stomach, fueled by rage even as the crowd roars its approval at the renewal of the fight.
I've dropped my weapons, but there are still at least a few animals left among the buildings that punctuate the arena floor.
My fingers lengthen into claws as I borrow from them, and I slash at Selene, opening up lines of blood that match the one she inflicted on me.
Selene cries out and tries to blast me with magic, but I’m already twisting aside. Her burst of power slams into a miniature building, reducing it to rubble, and she swings her sword at me again. I dodge once more, diving to the side and into the buildings as she continues to attack.
“You can’t beat me!” Selene says, although to me, it sounds as though she’s trying to convince herself as much as me. “Yield now and I’ll at least make it quick.”
“You yield,” I snarl back, and it is a snarl. I leap at her, slashing Selene as I go by, but her armor deflects the worst of the attack and she throws more of her deadly, violet magic at me. It crumbles another of the buildings as I run to safety once again.
“There’s only so long you can last with the borrowed power of rats and birds,” Selene says. She punctuates her words by blasting another bird from the sky.
She's right. By making sure there were no dangerous beasts in the colosseum, Selene has deprived me of their abilities and made it so that I can't summon them from below to aid me.
But am I really limited to what I can feel in and around the colosseum?
This situation is desperate, and that means I'm willing to try more than I normally ever would.
I spread my magical awareness beyond the colosseum, stretching it out over the city, feeling every animal within it.
I can feel beetles down in the lowest depths of the catacombs beneath Aetheria and birds flying high above it.
I can feel every creature being kept in noble homes or waiting to be sold at market.
I can feel the emperor’s old menagerie, bursting now with animals, because Selene’s supporters had to put the creatures from beneath the colosseum somewhere.
I can feel them as surely as if they’re an extension of my own flesh, and I can take what I need now.
Selene comes into view, lining up another blast of her magic, and I borrow the gift of a shadow cat to disappear as I step from one shadow to another.
I appear just long enough to slash my clawed hands across her shoulder, then disappear again as Selene blasts the spot where I’m standing.
I reappear halfway across the colosseum as Selene reduces another of the buildings to rubble.
I borrow the powers of the thunderhooves next, those horse-like creatures that can generate thunderclaps with each stride.
I run past Selene, the impact of my feet on the ground enough to send her reeling.
I reinforce myself with the armor of an ironhide rhinoceros as Selene sends a blast of magic at my back, absorbing enough of it that I’m only sent tumbling, not killed.
I take and discard powers from animals at a speed I couldn’t have imagined just a short while ago.
I’m sure the power stones around the colosseum are helping, but more of it is just that I’m not holding back, not being careful to preserve myself when I know that the fate of the whole city is on the line.
I take illusions from the peacocks in the palace gardens to throw blinding colors into Selene’s face, then strength from a gorilla to grab a chunk of wall and throw it at her.
Around us, Selene’s idealized image of Aetheria is slowly being destroyed, reduced to rubble by her magic and my strength.
Our conflict takes us down the streets, from one end of the colosseum to the other, destruction coming with us as we go.
I borrow the slow, creeping power of a crocodile, the grace of a gazelle.
I leap from one spot to another, then summon the gift of a storm leopard to throw a bolt of lightning at Selene that she barely deflects.
The destructive force of our battle seems to be rising by the moment, damaging everything around us.
I spit poison like a snake, then slam my fist down to create a shockwave that has Selene dancing aside.
She continues to target me with precise beams of power, slicing through everything around me as I dodge with the speed of a spider.
I blend in with the walls using the gift of a chameleon to change its color, then.
“This fight doesn’t matter,” Selene says, her voice carrying. “I was going to do this neatly, but if you’re going to force me to take power more directly, I will. Have you seen what’s happening in the city, Lyra?”
I can split my attention easily now, looking out over Aetheria through the eyes of every animal there, so that I get thousands of points of view at once.
I can see the purple clad people marching in the streets, the violence whenever they meet members of the resistance. I can see the fires as houses burn, and the chaos as Selene’s people drag people out of their homes to murder them.
Selene is seizing power in a bloody coup, even as she tries to legitimize her rule in the arena.
Selene smiles cruelly. “You’re doing well against me, Lyra, but let’s see how you do when the whole crowd is fighting.”
She looks around at the crowd, and I can feel her psychomancy pulsing out.
“Lyra Thornwind is a traitor. She deserves to die, and so does anyone who supports her. You all want to fight. Kill your enemies. Settle your scores.”
Her magic pulses out to her supporters, and to mine. In an instant, I can see fighting breaking out in the colosseum’s stands. Worse, people are climbing down into the arena, and they’re coming straight for me.