Page 22 of Ironhold, Trial One

The knives come at me again, and now I’m reduced to using my net more like the fishing implement it is than like a weapon. I whirl it around, trying to snag the darting knives that come at me, the way I might haul a load of fish out of the water. I manage to bring down a couple, but there are more coming, and I must keep dodging.

“Close in and use your trident!” Zara shouts. “You need to kill him before he kills you.”

I can't do it, though. I can't even imagine thrusting at the points of the trident home in Vex, seeing the light fade from his eyes. I will not be what this place wants me to be. I will not become a killer just because Ironhold demands it of me.

I throw my trident in Vex’s direction instead, although I know it has no chance of hitting him. The weapon is too cumbersome to carry with me if I don't intend to use it. It clatters to the floor of the fighting pit, then seems to stand on end, coming up to join the knives as they float in a threatening formation.

I concentrate on using my net, trying to snag more of the weapons, bringing them to the ground. My hope is that Vex cannot keep this up for long. Maybe if he loses the strength to keep the weapons in the air, I might be able to tangle him in the net, wrapping up so that he is helpless. It's the only hope I have of coming through this alive, because as it stands, I'm not prepared to draw my own blade and stab him.

“She should be bleeding by now!” A voice from the stands calls. “Make her bleed, Vex!”

It seems to be all the encouragement he needs. Now, he doesn't send just one or two knives at me. Now they dart at me in a great mass, seeming to cut at me from every angle at once. I'm forced to dive and roll and twist, dodging in every direction I can to avoid them, while I try to use my net to tangle them.

It is not enough. One knife comes through to score a cut across my thigh. Another classes off my vambrace. A third traces a line of blood down my cheek. Pain flares in me, anger at what is happening following quickly. I hate this. I hate the fact that Vex can stand there and cut me to pieces, and while this is happening people are cheering, baying for more blood.

My anger at that flares up, even as I cry out in pain. That cry seems to echo around the fighting pit and beyond. It is not just something physical, but seems to reach out in ways I don't quite understand.

An instant later, something moves up above, appearing from the shadows. I see the moment when the shadow cat stalks along the chains above the fighting pit. It is healthy now, and it is deadly.

It roars, the sound echoing my cry of pain. It's enough to make Vex look up, obviously wondering what is happening. That is when the shadow cat pounces, leaping down onto him from above, in a whirlwind of claws and teeth that mean Vex is the one screaming now.

He falls back, trying to stab at the shadow cat, but the ferocity of its attack is too great. Vex loses control of his blades, and the cat is still on top of him, still attacking. I call it back, and it looks my way then pads to my side, letting me run my hands through its fur briefly, before running over to a patch of shadow and stepping through it as easily as if it were a doorway.

“That is enough!” Lord Dorian calls out, standing. “Someone get Vex to the infirmary.”

Figures rush into the fighting pit, grabbing Vex and lifting him to carry him out of there. I’m left staring up at Lord Darius, wondering what will happen next. Will he decide that the shadow cat invalidates the contest? Will he make me fight someone else? Worse, will he decide that, since I was not even trying to attack, I have failed? Maybe he will simply have me killed.

Even as I think it, he nods to me.

“It seems that you have power after all, and even if you lack skill with blades, a beast can be a powerful weapon. A beast whisperer. I never thought we would have a beast whisperer here.”

It takes me a moment to catch his meaning. He thinks that I’ve somehow done all of this deliberately, that I set the shadow cat on Vex, that I was in control of it the whole time.

He gestures to me. “I declare the gladiator Lyra to be the winner.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“They think I did it deliberately,” I say to Naia as she heals the wounds Vex has inflicted on me,back in the space past the iron gates.

“Didn’t you?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I wouldn't even know how to do something like that. I can talk to animals, but I can't force them to do anything. No one can, as far as I know.”

“There are stories about people who can,” Naia says. “Beast whisperers. But they… they’re forbidden.”

“I’m not one of them,” I insist. “When a bear came to my village, I had to distract it with fish. I couldn't just tell it to go. The shadow cat simply decided to help me.”

“Well, I'm glad it did,” Naia says, as she finishes her work. She helps me out of my armor. “But you're going to have to work on your skills with weapons. All this means is that you're going to have to fight in the colosseum.”

That's a terrifying thought because I doubt there will be a shadow cat there to save me. I know the others will want me to improve my skills with weapons, but I'm not sure that physical skill is the problem. The problem is that even with someone like Vex, who chose to be a gladiator and who was clearly being as cruel as possible, I couldn't bring myself to kill him.

If I don't have that in me, how long will I really last in the games?

“Come on,” Naia says. “The others will want to see that you're all right. Let's go back to the barracks.”

I nod, trying not to think of the way some of those in the stands were baying for my blood. It doesn't matter that I'm training alongside them, or even that many of them are my friends. What matters is that this is a place of blood and death.There is every chance that I might be pitted against someone I like in the colosseum. Will someone like Rowan be able to kill me? Will he be given a choice?

We start to head back to the barracks, through the twists and turns of Ironhold. We are most of the way back when a woman steps into our path. She is in her early twenties, her dark hair falling in waves like a midnight sky, and it is a sky lit by stars, because silver ornaments glitter in her hair. Her eyes are so dark that they almost match her hair, while her features are angular and striking. She wears a long, crimson dress, which falls loose from one shoulder to display the mark of a fellow gladiator. Although it is obvious from the richness of her belongings and the lack of an iron collar around her neck that she is one of the group of free gladiators, there for honor and glory.

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