Page 3 of Ironhold: Trial Five

Even with me, those are hispriorities; he cares more about his creatures than he does about the gladiatorswho come and go within Ironhold. He makes it sound like a simple thing that I'mallowed to train down here, but in truth it makes a huge difference to me.

I have almost no one else to trainwith.

I leave the beast pens heading tothe bathhouse. Some of the other female gladiators are in there, but they allstay away from me. Many of them look afraid, and a couple of them look at mewith jealousy, as if I have some kind of status beyond that of a mere slavegladiator, with an iron ring around my neck marking me as less than those whohave entered the games voluntarily.

I see the gladiator Cesca in one ofthe pools. She is relatively new to the games. Each of us has a brand on ourleft shoulder: a perfect circle burned into our flesh, with lines across itmarking the number of seasons we have survived in the colosseum. Her brand hasa single line across it, while mine has four. One more and I will be free,while she must survive four more seasons in the colosseum.

Not just free. If I survive fiveseasons, I will be a champion of the games. I will be a noble of Aetheria andaccorded every honor. Any children I have will be noble, and I will no doubtget offers of positions within noble households, maybe even offers of marriage.There is a reason that some of the free citizens of the city choose to comeinto the games, even the nobles. They see it as a path to advancement withinAetheria, as a way to prove themselves worthy of positions of power andinfluence. In a city built on the twin pillars of magic and military might, thearena is the way to prove that they embody its virtues.

Cesca looks over as I enter thepool. She briefly looks afraid, and I find it hard to believe that someone Iknow should feel that way about me. But somewhere in my time within the arena Ihave acquired a reputation for ruthlessness, even as I have tried to be asmerciful as I can.

She backs away from me, making toleave the pool.

“Cesca, where are you going?” I askher.

She can barely bring herself tolook at me. “You're a dangerous person to be around. You know they say youkilled your last patron? And Isawthe way you killed Ravenna. Beingyour friend… it didn't do Naia or Zara a lot of good, did it?”

I want to snap at her, but I knowshe has a reason to feel pain about at least Zara’s death. Cesca has a habit ofattaching herself to stronger gladiators for protection within the prisonfortress of Ironhold. She picked out Ravenna, and then Zara, as protectors atdifferent points, and I’m pretty sure Cesca and Zara were lovers for a time. Itmeans I've taken people from her and also taken away some of her protection.

“I didn't mean for either of themto die,” I say.

She gestures to me. “This is whatyou do. You pretend to be so innocent. Like you would never do anything to hurtsomeone. But then you're happy enough to kill them when you have a reason to.And it doesn’tmatterif you mean it. People keep dying around you. Itisn't safe to be near you.”

She collects her things and headsfor the door. The others in the baths don't leave immediately, but they don'tcome near me either. They don't want anything to do with me. They don't seem towant to risk it. I don't think any of them hate me, but I'm almost certain mostof them are afraid of me now. That isn't something I want, but it's also notsomething I can give my attention to correcting.

I finish up in the bathhouse andhead to the dining hall of the fortress. Mostly it is filled with the slavegladiators and the poorest among the free ones, because the nobles have theirfood brought to them in their rooms. Again, I can feel eyes on me as I walk in,looking at me warily, as if wondering what I will do next.

There is only one welcoming face inthe room. Rowan sits at one of the tables, broad-shouldered and heavily muscledwith auburn hair and green eyes. He waves me over to him. I grab a bowl of stewand join him. Rowan is one of the few comforting presences at Ironhold for menow. He's also one of the only people prepared to train with me outside of theformal training every morning.

“Have you been down in the beastpits again?” he asks.

I nod. “It's good training.”

“It's dangerous when your powersare bound,” he replies.

I haven't even been able to tellhimthat I have my powers back. Anyone who knows would be in danger. As far as theworld is concerned, I am effectively a null, one of the few in Aetheria withouteven a hint of magic. Rowan has only a little magic but he makes the most ofhis control over earth and stone, either to make the ground unsteady under hisopponents’ feet, or to sense what they are doing through the vibrations of theearth.

“I'm just working with the shadowcat,” I say.

“Even with that, you don't have thecontrol that you should,” Rowan insists. “What if it turns on you?”

“It won't,” I assure him.

“You can't know that,” he insists.

I need a way to distract him beforehe pushes me to say too much, and I can only think of one.

“Has Lady Tyra been in contact withyou again?” I ask.

Lady Tyra is Rowan’s former owner,before she sold him into the colosseum. Rowan has a thin, silvery scar on hischeek, which she inflicted on him when she tired of him, trying to make surethat no one would find him handsome again. It hasn't worked. If anything, itonly adds to the character of his face. The noblewoman has started trying toreassert her control over Rowan, using the fact that she still has his sistersas her property.

“She wants me to spend time withher during the next games,” Rowan says. “I won't have much choice about it.”

His tone is bitter. He has threesuccessful seasons in the Colosseum, with two more to go before his freedom.Once he's free he hopes to be able to buy his sisters out of servitude. Butnone of that counts for anything right now.

I wish I could help him with it,but there is only one thing I can focus on at the moment, and that is Alaric.

Alaric, beautiful Alaric, with hisfeatures too fine to ever be called merely handsome, and his waves of darkhair, his lean body and his caustic self-regard. He currently languishes in acell somewhere within Aetheria.

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