“Isn't Alaric with you?”Rowan asks.
I shake my head.“He didn't want to come back.He didn't wantmeto return.He says you're trying to drag me back into the middle of politics and violence.”
That got another sigh from Rowan.“I wish he were wrong.Come on, walk with me.”
His toga swishes as he turns.
“I hate this thing,” he says.“But apparently, it's what’s expected from anyone serving on the senate.And as the first senator, I can't exactly ignore it.”
He's walking quickly, so I must hurry to keep up with him.I can see immediately that we're heading back in the direction of the old palace.
“Seriously, Rowan,” I say.“What's going on?What's so important that you had to call me back?What canIpossibly help with?”
“I don't know if you can help,” Rowan says.“But you were the only person I could think of who I could trust.You haven't been in the city, which means you haven't been caught up in the politics.Everything is so difficult now, Lyra.So complicated.”
“It wasn't meant to be,” I say.“We overthrew the emperor.We worked to undo the worst excesses of the empire.”
“Sadly, that's the easy part,” Rowan says.“I did some big things early on.I closed the games, I ended slave holding in the empire.I made Aetheria a republic.And we had enough momentum when the emperor was freshly dead to do all those things and more.But now everything is complicated.There are as many factions as ever, as many competing interests.The senate voted to repair the colosseum after several senators offered the funds for it.I’m just trying to make sure that people aren’t killed in the work.”
Which explains why he’s using his magic on the stones of the place.
“So the whole city is complicated?”I say.
“Not just the city,” Rowan replies.“Aetheria might not be an empire anymore, but the city is still the heart of a vast nation, and magic still flows outwards from it.Our neighbors and the former provinces are waiting to see how we fare as a republic before deciding on their responses.”
“So what's wrong, and what do you want me to do?”I ask.
He smiles at that.“I'd forgotten how direct you can be.I've had to learn how to be indirect, how to play politics.For now, I want you to come with me to the Senate chambers.I want you to meet the others.”
The thought of meeting a bunch of senators doesn’t exactly fill me with happiness, but I’m here to help Rowan, and if this will let me see what I need to do, then I’m happy to go along with it.
CHAPTER SIX: LYRA
“I don’t like being back here,” I say, as Rowan and I make our way along the corridors of the former imperial palace.It's still located at the heart of the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen, filled with creatures taken from around the former empire.There are great cats in cages and giraffes walking by, beautiful birds and butterflies as large as my head.
“I understand,” Rowan says, reaching out to touch my arm.“Even now, I still have moments when I think I don't belong in this place.”
It's more than that for me.The palace was where the emperor summoned me whenever he was displeased with me.It was the place where he terrified me, using his power over time to freeze me so that he could have done anything he wanted.It’s the place where Alaric and I almost died at the emperor’s hands.
And where I killed him.Those memories aren’t pleasant ones either.
So much of it looks the same.There aren't quite the vast riches that there were before.I guess those have gone in the rebuilding efforts, unless they were looted in the wake of the revolt.But there are still statues of some of the former emperors and of figures from legend lining the halls.The palace might not be staffed by slaves taken by the empire, but there are still servants running here and there, trying to keep up with whatever requests have been made of them.
“It will be all right,” Rowan assures me.“We could have picked somewhere else for the senate after the fall of the emperor but this… it was empty, and to the people it's a symbol of authority.It made sense if we were going to claim authority that we should put our senate chambers here.”
On one level, I understand that.Viscerally though, I hate having to be here.It feels too much like it did in the days of the emperor.My body is reacting as if I'm about to be dragged through to his throne room and thrown down on the floor before him.By the time we reach a large pair of double doors, my heart is beating far too fast in my chest.
“I wish there were time to get you settled before I brought you before the senate but I think it's important that you meet them and see what's going on,” Rowan says.He pushes open the doors, revealing a large chamber that has been reworked to be a circle of stone benches rising up around a central mosaic depicting a burst of magic.There are viewing galleries further up, presumably for the ordinary people of the city.
There are people waiting within.Those on the stone benches all wear the white togas of the senate.There are men and women there of all ages and backgrounds, and I guess the point of the togas is to prevent the differences from being too obvious by forcing them to all wear the same thing.
They're in the middle of what sounds like a heated discussion.
“And I'm telling you that our former colonies won't do business with us until we can prove that we are the true successors to the empire,” one man says.
“What more do they want?”a woman shoots back.“We've held the city for a year.We have its treasury and its army.”
“With respect, we don't have all of either of those things,” a third senator says.“The treasury is depleted, and many of the army went into exile with Selene Ravenscroft.”
