Page 24 of Ironhold, Trial Three

“He called me interesting,” I say. “He said he didn't know whether to kill me or whether I was going to save people. He froze me in place without even trying.”

“He is very dangerous,” Lady Elara agrees. “But you have your own power.”

“Power I’m cut off from,” I remind her.

Lady Elara nods. “You will have it when you need it, though. For now, concentrate on getting through this. Do whatever you have to do, especially tomorrow.”

I know what she means. Tomorrow is a straight-ahead bout against one of the others. The emperor will decide whether there is mercy in the bout, and with me… he will make me kill if he can.

Chapter Sixteen

“She cheated.”

There are whispers when I return to Ironhold. Seemingly down every corridor, there is someone relaying the news. So few of the gladiators are involved in the Champions Trials that they are eager for any information related to them. And right now, there's only one piece of information people are talking about.

“She had Alaric help her.”

I try not to react to those whispers. I know there's nothing I can do, not without starting a fight. Am I to become like Alaric, challenging anyone who insults my honor? And in any case, the rumors are correct, more or less. I didn't say anything to Ravenna that wasn't the truth. My hope is that, if she got anything from me it was simply the sense that I was being accurate with what I said. I did not ask for Alaric’s help.

But I am grateful for it. A part of me wants to go to his room tonight, just tobewith him, but I know that will only fuel the rumors. We need to stay apart for now, to give the whispering time to die down.

So I head to the bathhouse, washing off the dirt and the blood of the day. I go over my fights so far in my head, trying to work out what I can learn from them. It's obvious I still have some power even with the dampener that is on my arm even now. It's just as obvious that I must lean more on physical abilities than on my magic in the bouts to come.

Lady Elara’s words go around and around in my head. She wants me to be more ruthless, to embody the goddess as huntress more. I know it will play into whatever she’s doing within the city. It will help to make me more popular with the crowds. It will show the emperor that I am willing to embrace the bloody ethos of Aetheria. It will help to keep me alive.

But I also know that tomorrow, when I fight someone in a straight-ahead bout, I have no wish to kill anyone. I would normally try to simply incapacitate a foe if I can. But if the emperor's the one who decides mercy, I might not even be able to avoid their deaths then.

What if I’m made to face Alaric? That prospect is almost too horrifying to contemplate. Just the thought of it is as if my heart is being torn out of my chest.

I leave the bathhouse and go to the main dining hall of the fortress. The other gladiators have mostly eaten, but there is enough bread and stew left over for me. I'm still eating it when Lord Darius walks in. He does not look happy.

"The bouts today were marred by cheating and interference," he says. He looks straight at me as he says it, and fear starts to rise up in me. Has he decided to punish me anyway for what happened, even though Lady Elara assured me that she had interceded on my behalf? "In the old days, anyone doing that would have quickly found themselves sacrificed to appease the gods for their transgression. Now, though, it seems the emperor is inclined to be lenient."

He looks as though he thinks that is a mistake.

"But let us be clear: the emperor's lenience does not mean that such things are suddenly allowed, merely that it is impossible to say for sure who the perpetrator in this case was. Greater precautions will be taken going forward."

I breathe a sigh of relief because it seems they aren't going to do anything to me.

“Now for the part that matters,” Lord Darius says. “The matchups for tomorrow.”

He goes to the great chalkboard at the front of the room.

"In these bouts you will be fighting one-on-one, although the arena will have been altered to make things more interesting. The bout will continue until one of you falls. At that point, theemperor will decide whether to be merciful. The emperor will decide, not you."

He looks at me again. Lord Darius's belief in the traditions of the games presumably does not sit well with the fact that I showed mercy to Vex in my first season, against the commands of the emperor.

“And if someone refuses to finish their opponent?” Ravenna asks. It's strange that it's coming from her, but it is a question I want an answer to.

“Then executioners will be sent in to finish the opponent for them. Slowly. And they will die alongside their foe.” Lord Darius seems to relish those words, still looking at me, knowing the situation he has just put me in.

He knows I don't want to have to kill if I can avoid it. Now he has created a situation in which I cannot avoid it.

He goes to the board, writing the matchups. I watch the names written up there with trepidation. I see Alaric paired against Malira. Will she even be recovered enough to fight? Her name is up there, so she must believe that she can keep going. I stare, waiting to see who I will be paired against.

When I see the name, it is worse than I could have imagined. Rowan’s name is there, opposite mine. I am to fight him, when he has been so close to me, when he has helped me so much. When we have meant so much to each other.

I feel sick at the sight of it. I can't believe someone has done this. I have no doubt that it's deliberate. There are still enough of us in the Champions Trials that I could easily have been paired against someone else. More than that, it wouldn't normally seem like an interesting bout to the organizers of the games. Rowan is much larger and stronger than me, and he has tended to get the better of me in our training bouts in the past. With my full abilities, maybe I could summon a creature to help bring him down, but as I am at the moment?

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