Page 37 of Ironhold, Trial Three

“Petty rivalries between gladiators have always played out,” the emperor responds.

“And I believe she is manipulating Lord Darius and Lady Selene as they organize the games so that the trials are set up the way she wishes. She's the reason I had to fight Rowan yesterday.”

“Be careful what you say,” Emperor Tiberius warns me. “After all, you and he are the ones who got away with no one dying.”

“But Ravenna is the reason we had to fight each other at all,” I insist.

“Or Lord Darius simply decided it would be an interesting match,” the emperor says. “I have him and Lady Selene organize the bouts for a reason. Do you think Ravenna is really able to influence them?”

“She's a powerful psychomancer,” I say.

The emperor laughs now. "Powerful enough to overcome Darius's defenses? Powerful enough that Selene didn't notice? Or do you think that Ravenna bewitched her too? She might be strong, but she's not powerful enough to take on an archon."

It's the same thing I heard from Lady Elara. It's clear the emperor doesn't believe me.

“Why would she even do such a thing?” the emperor demands.

“I don’t know,” I say. “To make money betting? To give herself easier bouts? To make sure that I get the most difficult bouts she can give me?”

“You think too much of yourself, Lyra,” the emperor says.

Out on the sands, the fight is coming towards its end. Only two of the prisoners are still standing, a man and a woman. Both are bloodied, their clothing torn and scorched. The woman has created a kind of shield from the air in front of her. The manis the one who seems to be able to move faster than he should. It is making for a drawn-out fight, with both of them suffering injuries at every turn.

The crowd is responding to the violence, cheering for every drop of blood spilled. The man cuts a gash along the woman's thigh. She punches him in the face with her shield. The man lunges in… and meets a second barrier of air, which holds his sword just for a moment.

A moment is all the woman needs. She runs her sword through the man’s heart, and he falls back to the sand. She stands there, staring up at the emperor's box, even as the crowd erupts in praise of her.

“There!” she snarls. “I've done what you wanted.”

The emperor looks amused. “You asked before who they were, Lyra. A small group of plotters, who were trying to keep grain shipments from the city. They thought it would stoke the unrest. My understanding is that the woman down there was the lover of one of the dead men. Maybe even the one she just killed.”

“That’s…”

The emperor cuts me off before I can finish the thought. "That is the reality of ruling. I do what I must for the benefit of Aetheria. In this case, a group of traitors has died entertaining the crowd, and their pitiful talents were flowed back into the stones. No, don't say anything. If you speak, I will have the woman there broken on a wheel to finish the entertainment."

I want to protest that he has promised her mercy, but one look in his eyes tells me that he is serious. A single word from me will cost this woman her life. Maybe my actions have already been responsible for the others’ deaths, although I suspect they would have been thrown into the arena in another set of games anyway. I cast my eyes down instead.

“Good,” the emperor says. “You’re learning.” He raises his voice. “This woman has survived and shown her strength. As a result, she will not be executed, but will instead be taken to Ironhold to be tested as a new prospect.”

I feel a twinge of sympathy for her. I know exactly how difficult that process is, and I don’t want to think about the fate that might wait for her if she fails.

The emperor looks back to me. "You have so much potential, Lyra. You could be everything the game needs. You have one more trial to show me that you can live up to that potential, or I will be very disappointed in you. And you wouldn't want that, Lyra."

Not when this is a man who still seems to be deciding whether to have me killed. I understand what he wants. I need to give him blood in the last trial, and if I don’t… then it is going to be my blood spilled on the sand instead.

Chapter Twenty Five

“It will be a battle royale,” Zara insists, back in the dining hall of Ironhold. “They will throw all of you into the arena and insist that you fight until only one is left.”

I sincerely hope that isn't the case. It would mean fighting close to ten people at once. The chaos of it would be impossible to contain… and I would have to fight Alaric. After my bout with Rowan earlier, I know I can't dismiss the possibility. There is always a chance I will be forced to fight him, even now. In spite of what the emperor has said, I remain convinced that someone is manipulating these games, and they are doing so in a way that affects me specifically.

Not that it makes sense, the last trial was too easy for me, when the others seem to have been set up to be difficult, or to force me into situations I do not want. I'm still not sure what to make of it all.

“They wouldn't do that,” Alaric says. He is down with the rest of us for once. “It would mean they lose all their best gladiators at once. Even the emperor wouldn't sacrifice all of us.”

I'm not so sure of that. Not after the way he threw the criminals into the arena so casually. He will do anything for the entertainment of the crowd and to feed the magic that underpins Aetheria.

The new gladiator has arrived. Her name is Alicia, and she sits in a corner of the dining hall, looking around warily, her dark hair pulled in front of her eyes as if she might hide behind it. There is still something soft about her body, where all the rest of us have hardened through training. Will she make it into this place? I don't know, and for the moment I can't focus on her. My attention must be on the final challenge tomorrow.

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