Page 29 of Ironhold, Trial Four

“My emperor,” I say hurriedly. “Please don't do that, I beg you. If he cannot get to me, he will kill everyone I care about.”

The emperor pauses. Perhaps he is about to point out just how little he cares about my loved ones compared to his prize gladiator. But he must know how much that would hurt me.

“What would you have me do with him instead, Lyra?” he asks. “I suppose I could have him killed, if you asked. If you begged.”

He sounds amused by the prospect, and the worst part isthat I actually consider it for several seconds. I know that callus will keep trying to kill me if he stays. I know he will kill people I care about if he is forced away from me. Perhaps he will even join the ones attacking my village and turn it into a slaughter. So what else is there?

I shake my head anyway.

“Leave him in Ironhold,” I say. “He has signed up to be a gladiator, so make him fight.”

“Ah, you hope that the arena will solve the problem,” the emperor says. “Yes, very well. He will stay, and I will see to it that he gets fights more suited to his obvious talents. And in the meantime you will have to try to keep yourself alive. Are you prepared to do that, Lyra? To spare the life of one of your enemies?”

I nod. “I am.”

And, since this is my fourth season, I hope that I will get to leave the colosseum well before Callus does.

“As you say, then. Callus will remain at Ironhold. I wish you luck in trying to survive him.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I return to Ironhold with the others at the end of the day. The atmosphere is tense as we head back. Callus is still staring at me like I am prey for him to snatch up. Zara and Cesca are walking apart from one another. It is obvious that the bout today has driven a kind of wedge between them. Alaric is there, but he isn't close to me. It's obvious he's still not gotten over our argument.

How did everything get to this point? I ask myself that question but the answer is obvious: it is the nature of the colosseum. It is a place designed to set us against one another and to force us to be the killers the city wants.

And it's hard to deny that I'm vulnerable at the moment. I have been told by several people that I am powerful even by the standards of beast whisperers but with my dampener in place I am almost helpless. I haven't thought of Cesca as a serious threat, but she came close to killing me today. Just thought that makes me shake a little in fear.

Another thought is worse: that I have courted danger by insisting that Callus stays. If I had been as ruthless as the emperor wants me to be, I could have had him killed. He could have been executed, and I wouldn't have to worry about him. But I couldn't do something like that and still be myself.

I can't help thinking that Alaric would have done it in an instant.

We make it back to Ironhold, remember the dead, and start to prepare for the final day of the games. The pairings for the final bouts are up on the board in the dining hall. At this point people are not crowded around with excitementso much as with the tension of people who have been fighting for days now, and who are starting to wonder if they have one more fight in them. Many of the gladiators are done. They have had three bouts, andthey will not need to prove themselves further. But I am to have four, that means I will fight tomorrow.

I make my way to the board, wanting to know what I will face. Ordinarily I would hope for a beast butI do not have the power left to deal with such a thing. I must hope for a human opponent I can beat, even in my weakened state.

What I see on the board instead makes me stare in disbelief. There is to be only one bout tomorrow, and it is to be a three-way fight between teams of two. Rowan and I form one team, and if I'm to be paired with anyone, Rowan is a good choice. He is someone I can trust and I would not want to have to fight against him.

But the other pairs are… I can't quite deal with what I see. Because Alaric is up there, paired with Zara. A friend I have fought beside today will be my enemy tomorrow, alongside the man I have been sleeping beside, and who means more to me almost than anyone.

Beside that third pairing almost doesn't matter, Except that it doesn't matter because it means that this has to be a real fight. If it were just me and Rowan against Zara and Alaric, maybe the four of us could arrange it so that the crowd got a show but no one was seriously hurt. The third pairing ensures that this is going to be a real fight and a dangerous one.

Vex will be in there as one partner, while Callus will be the other.

I realize that the emperor must have commanded this, that in a way this is my punishment for not being ruthless enough earlier. That he is showing me that there is a price for leaving my enemies alive. I am the one who begged for Callus to stay in the colosseum, and now I must fight him.

Almost no one looks pleased by this.

“They're throwing all of us in together?" Zara exclaims with a note of exasperation. “Why when we're the best gladiators they have?”

“It is because we are the best they have,” Vex says, approaching through the crowd. “That is the nature of the games, to truly test the worthy.”

“Don't you ever get tired of saying that kind of thing?” Alaric asks him.

Vex looks over to him. “No, because I believe in the real purpose of these games. You're just in it for the glory, but I remember that they are a holy thing.”

“I wonder if you'll be so happy about it all tomorrow,” Alaric says.

I'm certainly not happy about it, about being forced to fight people I like, and about being forced into an incredibly dangerous match up when I don't have my powers. Around me everyone seems to be talking about the match up. Many of the other gladiators are drinking and dancing, partying now that they know they don't have to fight on the final day. Cesca is off dancing with a young man, pointedly ignoring Zara.

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