“Begin!”Marcus says.
The prisoners look nervous, hanging back.At least one of them is looking around as if he might find a way out of the colosseum.But there is no way out.There’s only the implacable figure of Selene Ravenscroft standing there, waiting for them.
“All you have to do to live is kill me,” Selene calls out to the prisoners.“You were quick enough to kill people out in the slums, weren’t you?”
She’s painting herself as the hero here, rather than someone condemned to fight to the death on the sands for her own crimes.It’s one more way she’s building her popularity, and it’s enough to bring the prisoners towards her.They fan out, moving together, seeming to realize their only chance is to fight as a unit.
They spread out around Selene, surrounding her.She still doesn’t move from her ready position, just turns smoothly in place and waits.Finally, one of the prisoners rushes at her back, braver than the rest.
It means he’s the first to die.
Selene spins back towards him, ducking under his slashing sword and lashing out with her own blade.It moves across the prisoner’s throat so fast it’s almost impossible to follow the arc of her blade, but the spray of blood that follows is easy to see as the condemned man collapses.
The others charge at Selene at once, hoping to take advantage of their friend’s death to finish her.Selene parries the sweep of an axe, leaps over a low swinging sword, and then fires a dart of purple power that pierces the skull of a woman coming at her like an arrow.The woman takes another step and then collapses onto the sands, legs twitching.
Another man roars, swinging at Selene again and again with his sword.Selene parries the blows almost contemptuously, then flings the axe man from her with power as he comes in from the side.He lands and comes up to his feet, dazed, but Selene is already running at him, thrusting her blade through his heart and dragging it clear, just in time to parry another sword blow.
Selene moves through the convicts with deadly grace, none of their attacks coming close to touching her thanks to both her powers and the skills she’s built up in her training as a gladiator.I feel sick watching it, because this isn’t a genuine contest, just an execution.These prisoners never really had a chance.Selene slips aside from another sword blow, slicing her blade across a man’s stomach, then launches a spear of power that pierces another through the heart.
That leaves just one woman, who backs away, holding a dagger.
“Please,” she begs.“Please.”
If she’s hoping for mercy, she isn’t going to get it from Selene.The former arch-magistrate sends out a dart of power, hitting her foe in the leg.When she tries to limp away, Selene takes out her other leg with another blast of energy.The woman collapses, dropping her knife and crawling away now.
Selene stands over her.
“Kill!Kill!”one section of the crowd chants, even as I can feel another part of it holding its breath, waiting for what must come next.
Selene looks up at the senate box, as if waiting for the bout to be stopped, but I know it’s just for show.The terms of this combat have already been set.She waits a moment longer, standing over her foe with her blade ready.
The killing blow comes without warning, her blade sweeping around to take the woman’s head from her shoulders and send it rolling across the sands.Selene stands there in the wake of her blow, lifting her sword in a salute to the crowd.
For a moment, everything is silent in the colosseum, and I wonder if perhaps Selene has misjudged the people of Aetheria.Maybe they're horrified by this.Maybe they hate this return to the way things were under the empire.
Then a cheer goes up that almost deafens me.It’s not all the people in the crowd, but it’s more than enough.The crowd feels charged with excitement, even as I feel sick.I don’t want to watch this anymore, and I start to push through the crowd, but I’m not heading for the exit.
Instead, I head for the spaces beneath the colosseum, using my knowledge of this space to slip in unseen.Selene has brought death back to the colosseum, but she and Marcus have also done something else today.They’ve hurt someone who was previously close to them, someone who I suspect is lying in the healers’ chambers even now.Someone who might be looking for a way out of her life in the colosseum.
Moving on silent feet, I go to see Cesca.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I'm used to moving freely through the colosseum, either as a gladiator or a member of the Senate.It's very different doing it as a wanted fugitive, having to press myself into an alcove while a guard passes.My heart beats faster with the prospect of being caught, and I hold my breath, not daring to make a sound.
I send a rat scurrying through the shadows, distracting the attention of the next guard so I can slip past.I move silently through the familiar depths of the colosseum, relying on my knowledge of its twists and turns to avoid attention.
I head for the healers’ chambers, moving to a spot where I can see its stone slabs, equally useful as places for gladiators to lie while they’re healed or spots to leave the corpses of the slain until they can be dealt with.For the first time since the fall of the empire, there are multiple dead bodies laid out there.Not that they’ll be taken back to Ironhold to be buried.As criminals, the dead will probably be thrown in a pit and burned, or displayed as a warning on the edge of the city if Aetheria truly wishes to follow the old ways of the empire.
“Must I sit here while the scent of death surrounds me?”
Cesca’s voice is clear and sharp, her displeasure at the situation obvious.
“You’re almost healed,” one of the healers replies.
The presence of the healers means I can’t just walk in to speak with Cesca.Doing it at all is a risk, so that I wonder if I should just turn around and leave, rather than standing and waiting in the shadows.What’s to stop her calling out for the guards and trying to betray me?
But I sense there’s an opportunity for the resistance here, because Cesca has clearly been involved with Selene’s efforts.The former arch-magistrate used psychomancy against her when they fought in one of the earlier sets of games, controlling Cesca so she hesitated, throwing the fight.And Cesca’s always been one to seek to get close to those more powerful than she is.But now, it feels as though there may be a way to get her to break away from Selene, for her own safety.
