Page 31 of Ironhold, Trial One

“The gladiator Lyra is victorious.”

The gate swings open to admit the Ironhide. Around me, the colosseum erupts in a mixture of cheering and booing, as if people aren't sure whether to celebrate my victory or to condemn the manner of it. They haven't seen the blood they were looking for, but right now I don't care. I collect my weapons and head back to my side of the arena, stepping back into the darkness beneath it. The guards there take my weapons, and I head to the healers. One of them closes the wound in my side with a hint of magic.

Almost as soon as he's done, one of the trainers is there.

“What are you still doing in here?” he demands.

“I was-”

“There’s no time. You're wanted upstairs. The nobles want to see you.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

After they try to have us killed, it seems that the nobles of Aetheria celebrate us. I am taken from the space beneath the colosseum to a grand space higher up within its walls, held up by marble columns and lined with statues that seemed to depict gods and goddesses, along with creatures from myth.

The space has a mosaic floor, depicting a stone at the heart of Aetheria, pulsing light out into the rest of the world, while a man who looks similar to Emperor Tiberius VI, only with much broader shoulders, stands with his hand on it. I know enough of Aetheria’s history to know that this must be the first of the emperors, the one who found the stone that is the reason that so much magic resides within the city.

There are couches set out around the chamber, on which a number of nobles are relaxing, while servants stand nearby with jugs of wine and plates of food. Some of the gladiators who have fought so far are in there, most still covered in the blood and dirt of the arena. The nobles don't seem to mind that. Indeed, several seemed to be staring at the gladiators with a kind of longing.

Not just staring. Even as I watch, Ravenna stands up from a couch holding a nobleman and his wife, leading both away in the direction of a side room. Is that what this is? The place where they get to decide they want more from us than just to watch us fight? Is this just one more way to get entertainment from us?

I can see some of my friends there, although most will still be in the depths of the colosseum, preparing for their bouts. Naia is sipping a goblet of wine while listening to an older nobleman. I can see the eyes of others on me, and their looks make me uncomfortable. It is worse than when I was in the arena. Not all of them seem to be happy with me.

“You!” one snarls, standing and moving forward, a finger jabbing towards me. “Do you have any idea how much money you just cost me?”

He's a few years older than me, heavily built, wearing an expensive toga and gold bracelets. He has dark hair and blue eyes, which stare into mine, the anger there palpable.

“I asked you a question. Do you know how much money you just cost everyone through that display? The bookmakers are saying that the bets stand in spite of it what you did. As if you slew the beast, rather than leading it meekly from the arena floor.”

So he's complaining to me because I haven't died? That would seem ludicrous if it weren’t clear that he's serious.

I know that I should stand there and say nothing. I should let him vent his frustration. This is obviously an important noble while I… I am nobody, even among the gladiators. I know that's what I should do, but I'm not sure that I can.

“Should I apologize to you for surviving, my lord?” I ask instead.

“Don't be smart with me,” he snaps back. “Do you know who I am?”

“Oh, Marus, I'm sureeveryoneknows who you are,” a woman’s voice says. “How could they not? Marus Incantor, inheritor of a fortune, poet, gambler, current possessor of a slightly lesser fortune, friend to the mighty.”

None of those things sound like achievements. If anything, it sounds as though the speaker is accusing him of wasting his life and his money, calling him a man on the fringes of power rather than someone with power themselves.

The woman who approaches is tall and elegant, dressed in a sweeping blue gown, edged with gold. Her dark hair is piled high on her head, a golden comb stuck through it. She wears anumber of golden rings and bangles, and carries a short piece of wood, inscribed with my name.

“Wait, you bet on her?” the drunken nobleman insists.

She smiles. “I thought there was a possibility of victory, and the odds were very generous.”

“Have you arranged this, Elara?” Marus demands.

The noblewoman averts her eyes demurely. “Me, Marus? You do me too much honor to suggest that I might be able to determine the outcome of a bout.”

“This is still cheating,” Marus says. “This is meant to be a fight to the death.”

I can't help saying more, even though I know I should keep quiet. “My task was survival. I achieved that. And if I did it in a way that didn't spill the creature’s blood, I'm not going to apologize for that.”

“Nor should you,” the woman says. “Marus is just a sore loser when his bets don't come off. Now, if you will excuse us, Marus, I would like to spend some time with the young woman who has just won me so much money.”

The nobleman looks at her, then at me. He raises an eyebrow. “Well, I suspect you could do much worse, Elara.”

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