PROLOGUE
“Lyra Thornwind.Of all the people to share a cell with, I wasn’t expecting to seeyouhere.”
I tense, ready to fight, as the former usurper Domitian steps out of the shadows in the corner of our shared cell, far beneath the streets of Aetheria.
He looks different from how I remember him.His dark hair is shaggy, and he's long-bearded now, his one powerful frame rendered gaunt by the privations of imprisonment.His clothes are little more than rags by this point, while his formerly steely dark eyes no longer have the strength and determination in them they once did.There are bruises and welts all over his body, presumably from beatings by the guards.He has chains around his wrists, connected to the wall by another chain that I hope isn't long enough for him to reach my side of the room.
What do I look like to him?I'm chained the same way, to the other side of the cell.My golden hair is tangled, my athletic frame clad in a simple tunic rather than the white toga of a senator or the kind of noble dress I might have worn between sessions of the senate just a week or two ago.My own face bears bruises, although they're less than they were when I was first captured, because my captors didn't want me to look too much like a victim when I was dragged before the senate for judgment.
“What are you doing down here?”Domitian asks, still staying on the other side of the cell.I’m convinced he’ll lunge for me at any moment.I’m the main reason he’s down here, after all, one of those who overthrew his attempted coup in the Republic of Aetheria, making sure he was imprisoned for the attempt.
“Not going to talk to me?”he asks, raising an eyebrow in the half-light of the dungeon.“That’s understandable, I guess.After the things I did.”
That catches me by surprise.The note of contrition in Domitian's voice is the last thing I expected.Domitian never struck me as a man capable of self-reflection, guilt, or change.He always reflected the worst impulses of a certain strand of nobility in Aetheria, ultimately pushing to try to make himself emperor.
“Just stay back,” I say.
Domitian raises his hands.“Trust me, I’m not the one you have to worry about down here.The guards, on the other hand…”
As if to illustrate his voice, a cry of pain sounds somewhere further out in the dungeon.Someone starts to beg, but the sound is cut off in a whimper.This prison started life as a place for the former emperor, Tiberius, to make his enemies disappear when he didn’t want to kill them, or when he wanted them to suffer before he finally got around to having them killed.
It’s the kind of place that should have been closed the moment the Republic of Aetheria came to power, but it hasn’t been a place to execute its criminals as readily as the Empire of Aetheria did, and one of our first acts was to abolish the slavery or the fights to the death in the games that criminals would often have been condemned to otherwise.Rowan, the First Senator of Aetheria, clearly decided it was necessary to have somewhere to put criminals who couldn’t be contained elsewhere.
Like me.
The cell Domitian and I are in is largely bare, aside from some straw in the corner to sleep on, a bucket of water for washing and drinking, and a grate to wash away our filth through.There are magical runes and sigils around the walls, designed to contain magical energies.
Aetheria is a place filled with magic.Indeed, its people see it as the heart of all magic, its priests claiming magic flows from the very stones beneath the city out into the world.It’s filled with people who have magical talents of varying degrees, so it’s rarer for a citizen of Aetheria to be a null with no magic than to have some kind of minor gift.
My own magic is far more powerful.I'm a beast whisperer, perhaps the strongest for several generations.My magic lets me communicate with and control animals, but also look through their eyes and borrow aspects from them to increase my speed and strength.In the last few months, I've also learned how to tap into the animal instincts and emotions of people around me.Add that to my training as a former gladiator in Aetheria's colosseum, and it should give me enough power to simply fight my way free of imprisonment.
But I can’t, when the cell clamps down on all magical power, making me feel as though a blanket has been thrown over my whole being.
“You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” Domitian says.“I haven’t heard anything about the Republic falling yet, so what is it?A falling out with your senator lover?Too much time spent with the resistance?”
I shoot him an angry look because those comments hit far too close to home.Ihaveargued with Senator Marcus Larius, the man to whom I was engaged to be married, because he’s been far too ready to go along with attempts to return the Republic to the old ways of the empire.And Iwasworking with Alaric and the resistance when I was captured.
“Selene Ravenscroft tricked me,” I say, still watching Domitian carefully.“She made the resistance think she was planning to break you out of this prison.We came in here to intercept her efforts, and that’s when the guards came for us.Alaric got away, but I… I was caught and accused of treason.”
Domitian laughs.It’s the first laugh I’ve heard down in this place of screams and sounds of despair.But there’s no joy in that laugh, only bitterness.
"You really think Selene would have me released?"Domitian says."I was a useful tool in her plans, but no more than that.I see that now.But surely your friends in the Senate would protect you?"
I shake my head.It's still painful to think about the moment when I had to stand there, vote after vote, proclaiming my guilt.Even Marcus'.
"Selene controls too much of the senate for that, now," I reply.It feels strange to be discussing what happened to me so calmly with a man who's tried to kill me in the past.I continue to keep my distance from him, keeping far enough away that the chains around his wrists will stop him from reaching me.
“You don’t need to worry about me, Lyra,” Domitian assures me, although he’s lied to me often enough before.He gives me a grim smile.“Trust me, if you’reherewithout the protection of important people, you have far worse things to be afraid of.You should get some rest.You’re going to need your strength for the days to come.”
I try not to think about what will happen to me in those days.It feels as though I’ve been abandoned here, left to rot, without any hope.And I know it will get worse.The thought of just how bad it might be terrifies me.
CHAPTER ONE
"Where is the resistance?"
“I don’t know!”I lie.
I cry out as the whip falls on my back one last time in a welt of stinging agony.I hang in my bonds, not having the strength to stand on tiptoes anymore as the guards finish their brutal work.One of them laughs at my plight.This hidden place has attracted men who enjoy this kind of cruelty to their prisoners, and given them the freedom to do what they want.Rowan might have kept this place going, but I doubt he knows much about what goes on down here.
