Page 33 of Ironhold, Trial Three

She walks with me, supporting me all the way to a private box overlooking the arena. I can tell when we're getting closer to it because the noise of the crowd intensifies. This is a cool place, sheltered beneath a silk awning, but still with perfect views out over the colosseum.

I have never seen it from this angle, and even though my vision is still swimming, it is spectacular. I can see everything here, not just the action, but also the crowds. I can see all the people of Aetheria spread out below me.

And I can see Alaric.

He is fighting against Malira, his curved sword and dagger against her one giant blade. He is bleeding from half a dozen wounds, when normally he avoids most damage. He seems to be tiring, every swing of his blades labored. Malira moves forward, ready to take advantage of his weakness. She swings her great blade in a wide arc aimed at Alaric's throat, obviously meaning to decapitate him as I hold my breath in fear.

Chapter Twenty Two

“No!” I cry out as Malira tries to kill Alaric. My heart hammers in my chest. Fear fills me.

Thatis when Alaric falls to both knees, letting her blade pass over his head. Malira's power lets her arrest the swing in mid-movement, but she is too late. Alaric's sword goes over his head to parry the sudden downstroke, while his dagger thrusts upward, into Malira’s heart.

She stands there staring at him, as if she can’t believe what is happening. Her blade clatters from her hands to the stones of the temple structure. Then she topples from it, already dead before she hits the ground.

Alaric lifts his blades, and the crowd erupts. Relief floods through me that he has survived, and I go to shout his name, but I don’t have the strength. Instead, I collapse back onto a couch in Lady Elara’s private box, darkness claiming me.

***

When I wake, it is night and I am in Alaric’s rooms, back in Ironhold, with him looking down at me. For a moment, I can’t remember what I’m doing there. I think that perhaps we have simply spent the night together in the wake of the trials yesterday.

Then memory comes flooding back in. The receiving area, the nobles, the goblet of wine.

“They drugged me,” I say, unable to keep the horror out of my voice. “They poisoned me, and they were going to…”

“You’re safe,” Alaric says. He wraps his arms around me. “Nothing happened to you, Lyra. Did it?”

He must have heard what happened from Lady Elara, but now he wants to hear it from me. I shake my head.

“Nothing happened. Lady Elara intervened before they could get me into one of the rooms. If they’d managed to do that…”

I don’t want to think about the possibility, about what would have happened to me if Lady Elara hadn’t been there to save me from the two nobles. The cruelty in their eyes had been undeniable. They didn’t see me as their equal. They barely saw me as anything human at all. I might have been a victorious gladiator in the games, but to them, I was just a slave for them to toy with as they wished.

No, not astheywished.

“Ravenna did this,” I say. “She set me up. She was the one who had me summoned to the receiving rooms during your bout. She was talking with the men before she left me alone with them. She arranged all of this.”

Alaric’s face contorts with anger. “I wish I could kill her for you.”

I shake my head. I know it isn’t possible. Killing her outside of the arena would mean execution, and for all our powers, the guards and soldiers of Aetheria have more than enough magic of their own to fight us with.

“If I ever face her,I’llkill her,” I say, and I’m surprised to find that I mean it. I have spent so long trying to be a good person, trying to hold myself above the violence of the games, but I'm done with that, at least when it comes to Ravenna. She has gone too far.

“What I don't get is why she's done this,” Alaric says.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Do you think she needs an excuse now to humiliate me? I'm sure she's the one who made me fight Rowan, and she has been finding small ways to hurt me ever since I said I wouldn't be her ally.”

Ever since she messed with Naia’s mind and indirectly got her killed.

“It must be more than that,” Alaric says. “Ravenna always has a plan, a scheme of some sort. There must be some bigger picture to this. How do you feel this morning?”

I groan as I try to get out of bed. I currently feel as though I have the worst hangover I've ever experienced. My body feels weak, my head feels woolly, and I can barely concentrate.

“Not great,” I say.

“Maybe that's it,” Alaric says. “Maybe she wants to weaken you for this round. Do you think you will be able to fight properly, Lyra?”

He sounds concerned. Perhaps he knows that I will be made to compete regardless of how I feel. If Ravenna has successfully arranged for me to be poisoned, that won't make a difference. I will still need to fight, and if I'm weak enough, I won't be able to do so effectively.

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