Page 1 of Ironhold, Trial Two

Prologue

Lady Elara Moonshadow moved smoothly to her accustomed spot on the dais of the chamber, a single shaft of light from a long forgotten window far above illuminating her as she stood there in her dark robes.

People always forgot about the crypts beneath the capital. Aetheria was a vast and ancient city, built on layers of the past, on sewers, crypts and old mines. It was a place of ancient buildings, long forgotten. It meant that there were plenty of places to meet in secret.

This place had once been a temple to Diera, goddess of beasts, although it had been abandoned and desecrated long ago. Elara and the others had cleaned it and prepared it, reclaiming its rooms and its places for beasts. It seemed like an appropriate meeting place for what was to happen today.

She pushed back the cowl of her robes, letting the others there see her face, her dark hair, her deep, almost black eyes. She was the only one who did, for now. It was safer if the others did not show their faces. There was always a risk that a spy might be here among them.

Elara had no illusions about what would happen then. The emperor would have them arrested, tortured, executed, simply for what they were, and what they could do.Ever since his particular talent had given him a prophecy about beast whisperers, they had been repressed. He had foreseen that a beast whisperer would bring him down, or bring down Aetheria. It wasn't clear which and Elara doubted that there was much of a distinction between the two in his mind.

Elara maintained her position in polite society because she also had a talent for illusions, and that allowed her to hide and pretend to be a very different kind of talent among Aetheria’snobles. Some of the others pretended they had no more than a hint of beast speech, which was enough to see them looked down on but not attacked. A few hid in the shadows, never coming out where they could be spotted and killed.

“Why have you summoned us here today, Elara?” a man’s voice asked. Even Elara didn’t know his name.

“I wish to discuss our role as the Spectral Covenant,” Elara said. “And what more we can do within Aetheria.”

“I thought our role was clear?” a woman near the back said. “We protect our fellow beast whisperers. We teach them what they need to know to hide and survive. We act where we can to prevent the worst excesses. What else is there?”

“Perhaps we can change things so we do notneedto hide,” Elara suggested. She paused for a moment to let the implications of that sink in. She had planned what she would say carefully. How many there wished that they could be open about their skills? Wished that they could play a full part in the society of the Aetherian Empire? “I want to change the city, to change the whole way it is run. I want us to be able to stand in the light, but you know we cannot do this while the emperor persecutes us.”

“And do you have a plan to do this?” another man demanded. His voice was almost a growl, as if he had spent too much time around beasts. Sometimes, too much of their nature flowed back along the connection. It was one of the dangers for their kind, one of the reasons people thought they were dangerous.

“What is at the heart of Aetheria?” Elara asked. She had planned all that she would say here, planned for every question they might have. She hoped that it would be enough. She could see the way things were going. If they did not act now, it would only get more difficult.

“Talent and iron,” a woman supplied. “Martial virtue and magical prowess. We know this, Elara.”

It was something every child of the city was taught: that Aetheria was special because of the stone at its heart, granted by the gods and pushing magic out into the world. It meant that almost every citizen of the city had some hint of magic, even if it was just a talent for keeping blades sharp, or a knack for silencing their footsteps as they moved. Those talents, combined with the martial strength of the army, had allowed the city to build an empire that stretched for hundreds of leagues.

“And what is the place that embodies those virtues most?” Elara asked. She knew she had to build them up to this, to lead them to understanding step by step, but it seemed some of them weren't going to give her the chance.

“If you have something to say, say it,” a man at the back said. “Stop dancing around the point. You're not in an audience with your friend the emperor now.”

Some of them mistrusted her because she had managed to maintain a position at the top of Aetherian society. Because she could get close to Tiberius VI without him realizing what she was. She was the leader here, but that didn't mean people would follow her without thinking. Almost by definition these beast whisperers were people who would go their own way, would do what they believed to be right.

“I believe that there are ways to use the games to push for change,” Elara said. “Is that simple enough for you? That it currently gives us a chance to build popularity for one of our own. That it may even allow us to get someone with more power than me close to the emperor, when the time is right.”

“You're talking about assassination?” a woman asked. In that moment, Elara was all too aware that she was the only one with her face uncovered. She was the only one who could be accused of treason now with any certainty if there was a spy in the room.

But anyone coming forward to accuse her would be damning themselves, showing themselves as a beast whisperer.

“Possibly, if we cannot change things any other way,” Elara said. “We have seen that we cannot simply persuade him.”

“So you're planning to make that prophecy of his true after all?” the man with the growling voice asked. He sounded worried. “That’s the whole reason he persecutes us!”

“Do you object to that? We must be prepared to act. Every day, our kind are pushed further into the shadows. We are attacked. We are treated as criminals. Even the weakest of us are viewed as untrustworthy.”

Elara hoped that she would be able to convince them to do more than hide.

“You’re focusing on the games because of your new pet?” a new voice asked. The woman who asked it was happy to throw back her hood, revealing brilliant blonde hair and deep blue eyes, set in a rounded face. She apparently knew as well as Elara that taking that risk could be persuasive.

“Lyra is hardly apet, Methisa,” Elara said. The other woman was an official in the imperial administration, well placed to gain information or influence nobles. Like Elara, she was good at hiding what she was.

“That’s not what the rumors say,” Mathias replied.

“Then I have produced a cover story that people will focus on, while ignoring the rest,” Elara pointed out. The insinuations could be useful, but here, she needed to show her kind that Lyra wasn’t just some gladiator picked out on a whim. “Lyra has the potential to be powerful, and she can help us to achieve our ends.”

Methisa did not look convinced. "She is not one of us yet and she draws too much attention. Already, almost the whole city knows what she is. How could they not, when she tamed an ironhide, and summoned a shadow cat to bring down her opponents? We have spent so long trying to be discreet, tryingnot to be spotted as we help one another. She is the very opposite of that.”

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