They march through the streets, blocking the way, and now I can see why the resistance weren’t in the forum.They’re too busy trying to break up the crowd.It isn’t working, though, and I can’t see any way through.If I try to push my way through the middle of the crowd, I’ll only get stuck there.It’s yet another way to delay me.
I curse again and reach out for the animals I can feel nearby.A lizard is sunning itself near the top of a wall and I steal its ability to climb, scrambling up the nearest wall and then sprinting across the flat rooves of the city.I leap across the gaps between them, feeling the air rushing by as I run.I make it past the chanting crowds, scramble back down to ground level, and keep running.
The palace is ahead now, but as I close in, the guards on the gates cross their spears, barring the way.
“Let me in,” I snap at them.“I’m Senator Lyra Thornwind.”
They shake their heads.“You’re not wanted in here.”
“I said-”
“You’re not wanted in here.”
The repetition is a clue, one of the signs I’ve seen too many times of people influenced by psychomancy.I reach out with my powers, feeling the emotions of the guards.There’s no time to carefully unpick Selene’s influence, so I make fear rise up in the guards instead, terrifying them.It’s a dangerous tactic, because fear can easily make people lash out.In this case, though, it makes the guards turn and run.
I run the other way, heading into the palace and making for the senate chamber.I can hear voices within it and almost rush in to add my voice to the debate, but just in time, I remember I'm not wearing my toga.The Senate has rules.Senators must be dressed in the formal white toga of their office to speak, which is designed as a way of leveling differences between us, erasing obvious markers of our status outside the Senate.
It means I must rush back to my rooms, casting off my dress and throwing on my toga as quickly as I can.I curse Selene as I hurry back through the palace, hoping I’m not too late.Her plan has been simple and cunning, knowing how I’ll react at each stage, doing just enough to slow me down without ever attacking me in ways I can prove.It’s a reminder that the former arch-magistrate is intelligent and dangerous in ways that don’t simply rely on her magic.
When I burst into the chamber, most of the other senators are already there.Still, I spot gaps on the stone benches here and there, suggesting I’m not the only one to be slowed down because of the way I might vote.The viewing galleries are full, though, people staring down at the senators below with a sense of tension that feels like a dangerous animal poised on the edge of attacking.I have no doubt Selene has packed the gallery with her supporters to apply pressure to the Senate.
Senator Olivia is speaking, and she shoots me a hostile look as I take my place beside Marcus.
“What did I miss?”I whisper to him.
“Olivia is in the middle of making a proposal to bring back what she terms the ‘true games’,” Marcus replies.
“A proposal that comes from Selene,” I whisper to him.“She said as much to the crowd in the forum.Then she tried to slow me down when I-”
“Were you planning to let me finish?”Olivia snaps in my direction.“Or did you come into the senate chamber just to chatter to your fiancé?”
“Make up your mind, Olivia,” I reply.“Before, you were accusing me of siding with Alaric because he’s my lover.”
“I’m sure you juggle both with the expertise of the commonest whores of the slums,” Olivia shoots back.There’s no love lost between us now.If there was ever a thawing in our opposition, Selene’s influence has put paid to it.
“That’s enough,” Rowan said.“Lyra, Senator Olivia is introducing a proposal.We must hear her out.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for the rest of the senators?”I ask.“Especially when several people tried to slow me down on my way here?”
Senator Octavio stands.“As I pointed out before, First Senator, the senate is quorate, and so we must proceed.”
“Even when there’s been deliberate interference to keep senators away?”I counter.
Olivia shrugs.“Butyoumade it here, didn’t you?And even if this fiction of people trying to hinder you proves true, there’s no reason to suspect it’s the case for other senators.Lyra has plenty of enemies, but the other missing senators are well liked by the people of the city.”
She smiles like a cat as she says it, and I hear Rowan sigh.
“They’re right, Lyra.We can’t just put off a proposal like this.We must abide by our rules, or we become no different than the empire.”
That’s one of Rowan’s biggest fears.As First Senator, he has more power than anyone else within the Republic, but he won’t use that power in ways that are too close to the ways Emperor Tiberius would have.He won’t risk becoming a tyrant.
It means I’m forced to sit in silence beside Marcus as Olivia resumes speaking.
“As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted, I wish to propose that the games in the colosseum return to their true form.It is what the people are demanding, and as representatives of those people, we cannot deny them.I propose that the games return to having fights without the blunted weapons and magical safeguards we’ve put in place previously.”
“People will die!”Rowan says.Above him, the crowd in the gallery boos, as if he’s a gladiator they’ve come to hate in the colosseum.Selene must have paid them well to be here.
Or maybe the people of Aetheria really do want this.That’s the most terrifying thought of all.
