CHAPTER ONE
“Senator Lyra Thornwind, you wish to speak?”
I stand in the middle of the Senate of Aetheria, the great and magical city that was once the heart of an empire, and I look around at my fellow senators, wondering which of them I can trust.When each of them looks at me, will they see a friend or an enemy, someone to support, or someone to be destroyed, either politically or more directly?
Do they even see me as the senator I’ve become?I stand here in my white senatorial toga, my golden hair tied up in an elaborate series of braids by the servants of the former imperial palace that now serves as the seat of power in the new Republic.My blue eyes have hints of golden eyeshadow around them in the fashion of the wealthiest nobles.I even have a few pieces of jewelry, mostly given to me by my fiancé and fellow senator, Marcus Larius.
But I know many of them will only see the slender athleticism of my body and the circular brand on my left shoulder, crossed by five lines to represent the seasons I survived in the colosseum.I know how many of them will be thinking about my powers as a beast whisperer, one of those with the magical gift to control animals and borrow strength from them.
Some, at least, see me as not truly one of them.It doesn't matter that I'm engaged to Marcus, doesn't matter that I was there at the foundation of the Republic.For far too many, beast whisperers are still something to be treated with suspicion and even hatred.
“Six weeks since Selene Ravenscroft announced her intentions for the city, and still nothing has been done with her.Nothing has changed.Aetheria still walks blindly towards its doom!”I say, my voice carrying across the chamber, up into the public viewing gallery, which is packed today with people eager to watch the proceedings.
There’s instant uproar.
“We all know you attacked her in Ironhold.Attackedus!”Senator Olivia calls out.She’s a blonde-haired noblewoman who practically drips with jewelry and who likes to throw extravagant parties where she can manipulate others with pleasure, favors and seduction.She’s invited me before, but I haven’t attended.
“She was controlling you with psychomancy!”I shoot back.Aetheria is home to many forms of magic.The priests who seem to worship the city as much as the gods claim magic flows from the very stones beneath it, pouring out into the world in a constant stream.Mind magic is one of the most insidious forms of it.
“You keep spouting those lies!”Olivia says, anger in her voice.
One of the biggest problems with psychomancy is that it’s hard to prove, and those affected by it often don’t want to believe they’ve been controlled.Thanks to lessons from a more experienced beast whisperer, I’ve learned to access people’s animal instincts, using their emotions to free them from Selene’s control.Convincing them of what she’s done is proving harder.
“None of this is lies,” I say.“Selene Ravenscroft wants to create a new empire, with herself as the empress.Those of you who went to Ironhold heard her talking about overthrowing the Republic, to create a place where those with the most magic hold power.When Senator Domitian sought to overthrow the Republic, he was imprisoned, and rightly so.”
There’s a fresh round of uproar as I say it, with people shouting over me until I can’t work out what any of them are saying.The senators aren’t the only ones shouting.The public galleries seem to hold far too many of Selene Ravenscroft’s supporters.
The comparison to Domitian probably doesn’t help, even if he and Selene were probably working together.Domitian tried for a coup against the Republic, but failed quickly, while Selene has been more insidious, gaining support slowly.
“Selene!Selene!”they chant her name as if she were stepping out onto the sands of the arena, ready for one of her bouts.
I look around for support, to where First Senator Rowan is seated in the only separate chair of the Senate.Every other senator makes do with stone benches, in a circle around the floor.His auburn hair falls over a square jawed face, hiding the scar inflicted upon him by his former owner, back in the days when Aetheria allowed slaves to be kept.Like me, he's a former gladiator, with muscles like boulders beneath his toga.His magical control over stone and earth makes the seats rumble beneath us, demanding the attention of the Senate.
“Enough!”he bellows, and that’s enough to bring silence flowing out over the chamber.“Lyra, I know what you’ve been saying about Selene, but without proof, you also know the senate can’t act.”
Thereshouldbe plenty of proof.Several of the senators were in the room when Selene announced her intentions for the city.She offered me a place in her new order, then attacked me when I refused.As far as I can tell, the only reason she hasn’t taken over the city completely is because I defeated her there, forcing her to flee from the fortress of Ironhold, at least temporarily.
But people either don’t remember, or they aren’t prepared to say anything.Perhaps they believe in the vision of the future she’s shown them.Perhaps she was able to influence them again after I broke them free from her control.Perhaps they just want to wait and see what will happen.
“My concern is that we’re letting things slide,” I say.“The games become more dangerous with every event we put on, when we’ve tried so hard to avoid going back to the days of the empire.The gangs still control the slums, and there’s still far too much corruption in the city.”
“You sound like your lover, Alaric,” Senator Yarrow calls out.She’s a dark-haired woman in her forties, who controls a section of the slums beyond the city walls when she’s not serving as a senator.It’s common knowledge that half the gangs there answer to her, and she would lose out on much of her income if the corruption of the city were to be rooted out.“Whereisthe leader of the so-called resistance?”
Several others around the chamber jeer me, and I can’t help wincing.Alaric is… I’m not sure what he is to me anymore.We were once together, and there are still plenty of romantic feelings between us.He is indeed the leader of the resistance movement that fights against the corruption of the city, and which hates the games, in particular.
I don’t always agree with their methods but, increasingly, I can see how necessary they are.Bringing up Alaric is an attempt to embarrass me, but it’s more than that, too.I’m formally engaged to Senator Marcus Larius, who sits with a block of his supporters at one side of the chamber.He’s blond haired and blue-eyed, muscular and handsome, although without the hard edge that Rowan and I have as former gladiators.He’s from a family of wealthy merchants, wearing the ship symbol of his family on a pendant over his toga.Our engagement is as much a political move as a romantic one, when Marcus is still trying to win back my trust following his involvement with death matches beneath the streets of the city.To imply that Alaric is still my lover when we’re engaged is a deliberate insult.
“I’m more interested in where Selene is,” I reply, trying to hide my anger at her using Alaric against me.“The last I heard, she was still meant to be a prisoner of the city, committed to Ironhold until she completes her five seasons in the colosseum.”
Selene avoided execution when she returned to Aetheria by using the city’s old laws against it, putting herself into the colosseum the way criminals used to be forced to.If she can survive five sets of games, gain the five stripes across the circular brand on her shoulder I possess, then she’ll be a free citizen, cleared of all crimes.Until then, though, to try to flee is to invite a death sentence.
If she can’t be held in Ironhold, then she should be held in whatever prison contains Domitian and those like him who’ve fought against the city.
"She's hardly fled," a senator named Octavio says.He's the oldest of the Senate, and the keeper of many of our laws."She appears throughout the city.And, if she no longer feels safe in Ironhold, shedoeshave the freedom to move through the city as she wishes.”
A freedom she gained by manipulating senators and controlling their minds, but that doesn’t make a difference now.
“So she just gets to disappear?”I say.
