Page 4 of Ironhold, Trial Four

He cocks his head to one sideas if trying to decide whether I'm making fun of him. “Power is never so simple. Yes, I could order you taken from here and impaled, or sold on, never to be free. I can take those who displease me and throw them into the arenaor have them tortured and executed. But that doesn't always change things.”

Is there a threat in that or does he really just believe that's the way the world works?

“When there are those who work in the shadows against me, those who try to manipulate the games, I must engage in manipulations of my own. My intention is to use you as the tool of those manipulations, Lyra.”

My breath catches slightly as he says that. I get the feeling I'm being pushed into something more dangerous even than fighting against foes in the arena.

“Are you really so surprised?” the emperor asks. “My understanding is that Elara sought to use you for such things.”

Again, I'm caught off guard. I had thought thatLady Elara, a beast whisperer like myself, had disguised what she wanted from me perfectly. All of the rumors about us suggested that she had taken me as a lover, not that she was using me to further her ends in the arena.

“She…”

“Oh, I'm sure she got plenty of use out of you in every way,” Emperor Tiberius says. “But I know her well enough to know that she was trying to further her petty schemesto advance herself and put down other nobles too.”

I feel a wash of relief at those words because it means he doesn't knoweverythingabout Lady Elara’s plans. He knows that Lady Elara became my patron to try to gain an advantage, but not about the spectral covenant or their attempts to change the city and eventually overthrow the emperor.

The emperor gestures for me to rise, and I do so, following him out into the gardens as he leads the way. He points to the butterfly.

“Can you control that?” he asks me.

I raise my left wrist pointedly. “There are limits to what I can do, my emperor.”

“And do those limits include influencing the butterfly?” he asks.

“Perhaps. What do you require of it?”

“Simply bring it closer. I wish to observe it up close. They flit away so quickly, normally.”

It is a surprisingly gentle, almost whimsical request for him. I reach out to the butterfly with my power. The dampener around my wrist makes it difficult so that I must concentrate to do even that much. But I manage to connect to the butterfly, manage to call to it and persuade it to come close to us. It's strange that the emperor should wish me to do this, but then, he is a man who surrounds himself with finery and beauty. Is it any wonder that he might want to look at one of the creatures that lives in his gardens?

The butterfly flies close to us, and itisbeautiful, with purple wings shot through with gold, as if it has been created specifically in the colors of the empire. The emperor stands there, looking at it with something close to joy.

Then the butterfly freezes in midair, caught in place, unable to move. I know what this is because I've experienced it myself. The emperor's power is over time. He has slowed the butterfly in time so much that it cannot react.

He goes to it, but he's looking at me as he draws a golden hilted dagger. Almost casually, he drives it into the butterflythe way a pin might hold it fast against a page.

“You are beautiful, Lyra, but don't think for a moment I have a problem killing beautiful things.”

I try to swallow back my fear, and fail.

I start to shrink away, but he grabs me, holding me in place.

“Remember that I hold your life in my hands, Lyra. Remember what you are.”

As if I could ever forget that.

"You will live exactly as long as you prove useful to me and to the empire. Should you cease to be useful, I will kill you. Is that clear?"

“Yes, my emperor.” It takes an effort to get the words out.

“Now go.”

I flee at his dismissal, eager to be away from him, my terror guiding my footsteps.

CHAPTER THREE

“The emperor is terrifying,” I say, standing across from Alaric in a roomfilled with iron bars that cross it at odd angles. It is just one of the practice spaces of Ironhold, this one designed to force gladiators to fight while clambering among the obstructions. We must be prepared for anything in the colosseum.

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