I'm sitting close to the imperial menagerie, the collection of creatures from across the empire the emperor kept close to him, both as an expression of his power and because some of them proved to be useful foes for some of the gladiators in the games.
An Ironhide shifts behind the bars of its cage, the great rhinoceros-like creature scratching its iron-infused skin as best it can with its mighty horn. A storm leopard paces in its enclosure, lightning crackling from its skin. Birds flit to and fro between the branches of trees, and a tortoise that seems to absorb the morning light to glow like a hot stone walks across the grass. The creatures the emperor collected were always expressions of magic as much as natural beauty. He laid claim to them just as he claimed all the magical practitioners his soldiers could find.
I sit among the creatures, feeling their presence around me thanks to my abilities as a beast whisperer. I can feel the power in each of them, the strength each could lend me if I needed it, but I don't need that strength now. It won't help me to plan, and it certainly won't help me to make sense of my situation. It won't tell me what the right thing to do is with Selene, or Marcus, or Alaric.
Thoughts of Alaric make me send a bird out over the city, towards the tower his followers have claimed. Through its eyes, I can see the early morning activity of the city, the people hurrying to start work, the bakers delivering their goods, the messengers starting to carry urgent missives. Some of the towers in thelearned quarter are already starting to glow with flickers of magic as those within test the limits of what power and ingenuity can achieve.
I send the bird to the tower. I spot Thalia there, but can’t see any sign of Alaric. Not that I would necessarily know if he were there. He shifts his illusory disguise from day to day, so that I have no way of knowing which, if any, of the people below might be him. As much as I long to see his face, he remains elusive, able to speak with me only in snatched moments.
Besides, I already know the kinds of things Alaric will suggest: the disruption of Selene’s activities using his followers to break up meetings, shout down rabble rousers, steal from those bringing bribes. Alaric will want a war in the shadows to sap Selene’s support and disrupt her base.
How many people will be hurt in such a war? Alaric’s followers are always in danger of being snatched by the guards, and now, we have no way of knowing which guards might serve Selene.
I’m not sure it makes much of a difference. Even the guards who serve the city are quick to lock away members of the resistance. Rowan might be relaxing that policy, since he’s hoping Alaric can help to combat the threat Selene poses, but he can’t simply command the guards to leave the resistance alone. It would call his whole position as First Senator into question.
I feel so tense as I sit here in the middle of the menagerie. It feels as though weights are pushing down on me, with so many things I need to deal with at once. On a personal level, I still don’t know how much I can trust Marcus, or what I feel about him anymore. There was a point, just a few weeks ago, when I was seriously considering his proposal of marriage. Now, I don’t know if we can ever truly be anything to one another.
Alaric and I seem to be starting to reconnect, and that only confuses me further. I had thought I’d moved past what I feltfor him, but it’s clear that isn’t the case. My feelings shift and roil within me. In his way, Alaric is as dangerous as Marcus, as committed to methods I’m not sure I can agree with. He’s the leader of the resistance, while I’m a senator, sworn to uphold the laws.
But most of my attention is on the problem of Selene again. Her new powers of psychomancy have made her dangerous in the extreme. I can’t get the senate to deal with her, because I doubt I’ll get the support I need. I can’t go after her with guards, because I don’t know whether those guards will side with me, or her. Even the most extreme option, of going after her myself, trying to kill her, is far too dangerous. If I try to take her on in Ironhold, I might find myself surrounded by guards loyal to Selene.
I need to find another option. I can’t just sit and rely on Marcus’ carefully selected gladiator to kill Selene in her next bout. Do I really believe that there’s a gladiator in the city who can keep up with the powers of an Archon, especially when Selene has been tampering with her dampener, and has been training hard with a blade in Ironhold?
I’m not sure we can rely on it, and I’m even less certain that weshouldbe relying on it. If I can think of another option, maybe I can come up with something that won’t involve so much violence and death.
Or maybe it will come to that anyway. So much in my life seems to have done so, despite my efforts to avoid it. I stand, starting to move around, imagining what it would be like to fight Selene. I try to keep in shape, but now I feel all the ways my body has grown softer than it was back in the days when I had to fight for my life regularly. I haven’t brought a weapon out here with which to train, but I can still practice the unarmed portions of my training. I throw kicks and punches, imagining the anglesfrom which Selene might through bursts of magic, judging the ways in which she might attack me.
I reach out for the animals around me with my beast whisperer powers, borrowing a little speed from a crystal-horned gazelle, a little strength from a blade-clawed ape. I feel my hands start to shift into something more claw-like, and I let go of the power, letting them return to what they should be.
I practice with my powers, seeing how far I can reach with them, seeing how subtly I can influence the animals. I can feel their feelings, needs and emotions, can enter their minds. In its way, it’s close to the kinds of things a psychomancer might be able to achieve, only with animals rather than people. It makes me wonder just how close the two powers are.
I focus on the animals in the menagerie, wanting to feel everything they feel, wanting to understand the world in the ways they do. I feel the slumbering boredom of the ironhide, the coiled aggression of the storm leopard. I stretch and strain my powers, focusing on smaller creatures, the strange hive minds of the bees buzzing around the flowers. I stretch out my awareness beyond the gardens, feeling the small animals of the city.
Some part of me wonders if I could bring them to bear against Selene if I needed to. Could I send a whole wave of beasts against her and those supporting her? Could I use the small creatures of the city to simply overwhelm her? Maybe she’s worried about that possibility, and that’s why she’s killed or scared away so many of the creatures from Ironhold.
I keep delving deeper into my powers. I don’t understand their full extent even now. Lady Elara trained me in some aspects of my powers, but I’m sure I didn’t master all of them before the revolution against the empire began, and before I found myself facing her, trying to stop her from unleashing a wave of creatures that would have killed people throughout the city.
Thoughts of that worry me, because it’s a memory that reminds me too much of what I was contemplating doing to counter Selene’s threat. I push deeper into my powers anyway, finding comfort in my connection with the creatures. I’m never alone when there are animals around me. Feeling their emotions running through me makes me feel a deep sense of calm.
I feel something else, too. I feel all of the emotions of the creatures, but I start to feel farmoreemotions, with echoes of minds thataren’tanimals. I can feel minds inside the palace, feel people there. I recognize Marcus’ presence in his rooms, and Rowan’s solid, stony presence in his office already. I can feel the servants moving around the palace, getting ready for a busy day ahead. I can sense echoes of excitement and worry, desire and duty.
I can’t hear their thoughts. I seem to be tapping into some deeper, animal instinct that all people possess.
It’s something that shocks me enough to snap my awareness back to myself. I sit there, staring, unable to believe that I can feel all this, echoes of the feelings within the palace still resonating within me. It’s a power Lady Elara never hinted at, and one I never thought I would possess. It’s something that seems far removed from my usual control over beasts, crossing some vast divide between them and humans.
But is that divide really so great? Is it possible that there are deeper layers to the powers of beast whisperers that might allow me some measure of connection with, or even control over, people? It’s both an exciting and frightening thought, one I know I need to explore further if I’m going to counter her psychomancy.
I think about what Alaric said, about his resistance hiding away beast whisperers so that Selene cannot get to them. I wonder if part of the reason she's killing so many is because she's worried they might teach me something more about my powers.
If so, I think I need to speak with them. I resolve to send a message to Alaric as soon as I can. For now, though, I need to go back to my rooms and change into my toga. Today is a day of games within the colosseum, and that means I must be seen there.
Maybe it will even be the day Selene dies on the sands.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Today’s the day that it ends,” Marcus assures me as we take our seats in the senatorial box, high above the floor of the arena. We sit closer to each other than we have in weeks, and he seems more relaxed in my presence, as if he feels certain that the scroll he's given me will have changed my mind about him by now.
Has it? There's some part of me that responds instinctively to his closeness, to the moment when his arm brushes against mine as we sit next to one another. There are other senators in the box with us, and I'm worried that Olivia is one of them, when I know that she's under Selene’s control.
