Page 18 of Ironhold, Trial One

“Beast speech?” he says. He looks me over with the new interest. “A rare enough talent, although hardly useful for fighting. Pity you're destined for the colosseum. Someone like you could do well down here, in the beast pits. In there, the talent is useless, though.”

He makes it sound like a certainty that I'm going to die. Everyone seems so certain of it, although I guess since I am currently refusing to pick up a blade, it's not a hard bet to make.

“What's this one saying then?” he asks.

I concentrate. I can feel the shadow cat in front of me. “It's afraid. It wants its mother.”

“Well, there's not much chance of that. The cat that whelped this one is dead.”

“It knows,” I say, and the pain of that makes a tear run from my eye.

“What's your name, girl?”

“Lyra,” I say.

He nods. “I'm Stefano. I'll tell you what, if you want to come down to the beast pits and help out, or just visit, you're welcome to do so. I can always do with another pair of hands around here, and someone with your talent might be useful, whatever they say about the more powerful of your kind.”

I'm grateful for that, if only because it gives me a place of respite. I reach out towards the shadow cat.

“Careful,” Stefano says. “Even a young one like that can still have your arm off if you're too casual with it. When they hunt, they lie in wait, then jump from one shadow to the next.”

I can feel that the cat doesn't mean me any harm though, so I continue to stretch my arm out, running my fingers against its side, feeling the silkiness of the midnight black fur.

“I need to go,” I say softly to it. “But I’ll be back.”

Stefano looks surprised that I’m able to do it, but he lets me go. I head back towards the barracks, and I'm a little surprised to find that Rowan is waiting for me, looking concerned as I approach.

“Lyra,” he says, moving forward to catch me by the shoulders. “What were you thinking?”

I make a small sound of pain as his hands brush some of the remaining welts from my beating. He pulls back quickly.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. But what happened in the training pit… they could have killed you.”

“It seemed better than being made to kill someone else,” I say.

Rowan’s eyes widen slightly as if he can't quite believe what he's just heard. “Do you really value your own life that little?”

“There's nothing that special about me,” I say.

He shakes his head. “You're wrong. You are precious. Everyone is.”

“Meaning that my life is not worth any more than theirs,” I say.

“If you don't fight, you'll die,” he insists. “Or worse. I've been a slave to a rich Aetherian. I know how bad it can get.”

He isn't going to change my mind that easily. Maybe I will pick up a blade next time around, but a part of me really doesn't want to. If I do, it will only be because of a sense of self-preservation, not because I want to.

“Where have you been?” he asks.

“I needed to think,” I say. “And I found… I found the space where they keep the animals for the games.”

“What kind of animals?” Rowan asks. I guess that if he knows what there is, he can prepare for the possibility of facing them.

“Too many to tell you all of them,” I say. “But there was a shadow cat that had been wounded. I could feel everything it wanted. It let me touch it. It was beautiful.”

I can’t help smiling as I say that.

“You know, I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile,” Rowan says. “It’s a beautiful smile.”

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