“This was more than that,” I insist.
“Are you sure?” Rowan asks. “Maybe Cesca held back because she didn’t want to give Selene a reason to kill her, or because she’s been offered something. Maybe Octavio’s been bribed, or Olivia sees a chance for more power by backing her.”
I shake my head. “You didn’t see what they were like, Rowan. It’s the small hesitations, the way they repeat the same things.”
Rowan sighs again. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” he says. “It’s just, if we’re to do anything about it, we need proof.”
Which we don’t have, and probably can’t get. I reluctantly nod, starting to back out of his office.
“I’m just worried about how bad this could get,” I say.
“Me too,” Rowan assures me. “And I’ll watch for any strangeness, but until we have something more concrete, we can’t do anything.”
The problem is, by then, it could be too late.
*
I toss and turn that night, barely able to sleep. Even when I do manage to close my eyes, it seems dreams are waiting for me, none of them comforting.
I’m in a dark forest, walking through it, trying to find my way out. I reach out for the minds of animals around me, trying to see through the eyes of an owl, or experience the world in the strange, echoing way a bat does. But I can’t seem to connect to any of them, can’t find anything that will help me get to safety.
I’m left stumbling blind through the forest, and now some part of me knows it’s one of the forests of Arboria, where Selene spent her exile hunting beast whisperers, training herself to become stronger.
I know without being told that she’s out there in the forest somewhere with me. Am I hunting her, trying to bring her to justice? Or is she hunting me? I don’t know, and not knowing terrifies me. I keep stumbling through the dark forest, feeling clumsy and weak, without the strength of animals flowing through my veins, without even the grace and power I built up as a trained gladiator of Aetheria. Somehow, I’m back to being the girl I was when the soldiers of the empire first took me from my village, scared and barely able to fight back, without any of the powers I now possess.
I see eyes in the darkness, glowing with the reflection of a full moon above. It cuts through the trees now, but only shines in a single shaft of moonlight, barely illuminating the space in front of me.
An owl flits through that moonlight, landing on a branch near me.
“Danger,” it says, in a voice that’s all too human, before flying off again on silent wings.
A rabbit is next, coming out of the dark near my feet and staring up at me with wide eyes.
“Danger,” it says, and an instant later, it’s snatched away, caught up in the claws of the owl. I keep walking, determined to find a way through this forest, determined to find Selene, or perhaps just to escape her while I can.
“Danger,” a wolf says, padding out of the darkness, before slinking away once more.
“What danger?” I demand, looking around, but I’m alone again. There isn’t even the moonlight, just a growing, terrifying feeling that something is coming for me that I can’t hope to defeat. I spin every way I can, trying to find the threat, but then it’s the forest spinning, and I’m spiraling down into it, down and down, into the earth, and there’s nothing to save me…
I wake with a gasp, covered in sweat, unsure of where I am for a moment or two. I try to look, and find myself staring through dozens of pairs of eyes as my powers connect with the minds of every animal even close to the palace. I see through the eyes of the peacocks and the night moths in the gardens, through the eyes of a cat prowling down one of the corridors. I feel split apart in a hundred different directions, so that it’s an effort of will to pull myself back together once again.
I take long, calming breaths, telling myself over and over that I’m Lyra Thornwind. I’m not a giraffe kept in a cage in the menagerie, I’m Lyra Thornwind. I’m not a pet snake, slithering in a jar, I’m Lyra Thornwind.
I snap back to myself, breathing hard and looking out over the moonlit expanse of the palace grounds. It feels as though my powers reacted automatically to the sense of danger in my dream, reaching out so that I might see any threats. It’sa terrifying feeling, though, when I might so easily have lost myself.
And yet I need to reach out again. I know that, because I won’t be able to sleep until I do it. I need to see Selene Ravenscroft is in her cell within Ironhold. I need to know she’s contained, at least that much.
I lie back on the bed as I did before, reaching out for a bird and sending it out over Aetheria. The city is different by night, but it is anything but still or silent. Magic lights, candles, and lamps bathe the streets in a constant glow, providing enough illumination for the revelers in the entertainment district, the thieves working in the slums. I force the bird to head for Ironhold, but, as it gets closer, it banks and wheels away, refusing to get close. I try to push it back towards the fortress, but it veers away once again. There's something there that terrifies the creature so much it overrides even my control over it.
I snap back to myself and sit up, trying to make sense of what has just happened. The bird wouldn’t go close to Ironhold, and that only adds to the unease I feel. I can’t leave this now. I sit there and I reach for the full range of my powers, stretching out my awareness as far as it will go.
No other beast whisperer could do what I’m doing now, simply reaching out and feeling the presence of every animal within Aetheria. No one else would have the power, but I’ve been told several times that I’m the most powerful beast whisperer in at least a generation, probably longer. I can do things that most others of my kind would think of as impossible.
So I reach out, feeling the animals of the menagerie, then the pets and guard animals of the noble quarter. I feel rats in the grain stores of the ports, dogs in the merchant district. I feel the strange things that live in the catacombs beneath the city. I stretch my awareness further and further, shaking with theeffort as I reach out past the limits of the city. I can feel sheep in the fields and goats in the hills, as well as the wolves that stalk both.
But I cannot feel a single animal free in Ironhold now. Not a rat, not a spider, not a bird. I would think that my powers have reached their limits, but Icanfeel the stranger beasts kept in the beast pits there, ready to be used in the games. I can feel their fear, as if something is terrifying every animal within the fortress.
Scaring them enough that those creatures that can flee have done so. It feels as though they’ve abandoned a sinking ship, running ahead of the same danger I felt in my dreams. Whatever Selene is doing in Ironhold, it’s terrified them, and has left me blind to everything she intends.
