Ironhold, Trial One (Ironhold #1)

CHAPTER SIX

In the days that follow, we train, and we train hard .

Every night, my body aches with exhaustion, my muscles rebelling at everything we’re put through. Each morning, we are set compulsory exercises, lifting more rocks, running, tumbling. We are taught the basic movements of each weapon we might use, in long lines, Lord Darius shouting out the movements as he walks among us, occasionally lashing those who are in the wrong positions with a cane until they correct their postures.

After that, we split up, to work ourselves and with others.

One of the most surprising things about Ironhold is how much freedom we have to roam within it. Soldiers guard the walls and the gates, but they do not try to control every minute of our lives within. We are contained, and that seems to be enough.

We can wander as we wish, and so I do, starting to explore its confines. Sometimes I do so with Naia, sometimes I do it alone. We quickly find the great dining hall, the kitchens, the bath houses, but there are more spaces still: training rooms and store rooms, quarters for those who are wealthier or more successful, places to punish those who rebel or fail.

I can see people watching me in the dining halls, watching all the newcomers, as if trying to work out which will live and which will die, which are strong and which can be bullied.

The female gladiator from before seems to have decided that I am one of the latter. I learn that her name is Gyra, and the two lines through the circular brand on her shoulder suggest that she has already survived two seasons. She watches me as I practice at one of the posts.

“Useless! You can’t even hold the sword properly. You’ll die in your first match!”

“Why don't you leave her alone?” Naia says, from where she’s practicing near me.

“Ah, the healer. You want to watch that pretty mouth, healer, before I give you something to heal.”

“She said to leave her alone.” This voice is a man's, and the man who moves into view is at least as large as Gyra, his body corded with lean muscle. He has auburn hair curling to his shoulders and bright green eyes. His features are square-jawed and surprisingly handsome. A single silvery scar traces across his left cheek, even though the brand on his shoulder says that he is part of the new intake, along with us.

Gyra stands, reaching out for him, but he catches her arm. There is a moment when it seems that she is testing his strength, trying to force him to let go, but then she gives up.

“All right,” she says. “This is over. For now.”

He lets her go.

“Thank you for that,” I say.

“It doesn't matter how tough the situation is,” he says. “There always seems to be someone determined to make it worse for people. I'm Rowan.”

“Lyra,” I reply, “and this is Naia. You’re from the north? Did they take you from your village, too?”

Rowan looks bitter. “They bought me from my… former owner.”

“You were a slave before this?” I ask.

He nods. “My sisters and I were all taken. When my mistress became angry with me, she lashed out. This was the result.”

He touches the scar on his face.

“She decided after that I was only fit for the arena.”

It’s a painful story. There are so many of those in a place like this.

“Gyra is right about one thing,” Rowan says. “You’re holding the sword wrong. Let me show you.”

His hand wraps around mine, adjusting my grip. That brief moment of contact catches me by surprise, making me look up into his eyes.

“Is everyone here conscripted or enslaved?” I ask him.

Rowan shakes his head. "There are some free gladiators. Some of the nobles in Aetheria see it as a duty or a chance to show off their magic. They think that they will get better positions and marriages if they do well."

Magic seems to be at the heart of the games. Naia and I were taken because of our magic, however unsuited to combat.

“Do you have magic?” I ask Rowan.

He nods.

“What can you do?” Naia asks. It seems to be the key question around here. Size and strength matter, but magical abilities might be enough to make up for that. Although, in Rowan’s case, he already has more than enough in the way of size and strength. It is hard not to stare at the muscles of his back and shoulders, so much stronger than mine.

“I have some connection to the earth,” he explains. “Not much, I’m only a little more than a glimmer, really, but apparently more than enough for Ironhold to want me. I heard Gyra call you a healer, Naia. What about you, Lyra?”

“I can communicate with animals,” I say. Rowan looks worried.

“Beast speech? I had assumed that if they brought you here, it would be because you had some dangerous magical ability that would let you fight.”

It echoes the things Gyra said far too closely.

“You don’t think I can survive here, do you?”

"I… hope you will," Rowan says. "But the colosseum is brutal. Before I was sold to Ironhold, I was taken there to stand beside my old mistress and serve her. The fights there… the crowds bay for blood, and they get it. It is a place of death and cruelty.”

That is the part of this that I find the hardest to deal with: that I will be forced to fight against other human beings, other people who have been given no choice in the situation either. I'm not sure I can do that. I have spent my life learning the basics of healing people with powders and potions. Now, this place wants me to take lives.

“I'm not sure if I can be cruel or deadly,” I say.

Rowan gives me a sympathetic look, as if he understands the dilemma. “I hope that you are able to learn Lyra. Because the alternative… I would not want to see you dead.”

Are those my only choices? To become cruel or to die? I'm not sure that I like either option.

“And this is what they use for entertainment in the capital?” I say.

Rowan sighs. “You know what Aetherians are like. The city dwellers, at least.”

I shake my head because I don't know. I have never been here before. For most of my life, my village being subsumed into the empire was just a kind of story, a background piece of information rather than something that affected any of our lives. Now, it has changed my life completely.

Rowan starts to explain. “The emperor rules over everything, but the city is filled with people with magical powers, however minor. That's hard to contain, even when his army has the same powers. He has to give them entertainment to make sure that there are no rebellions.”

“And killing people in an arena is the only way to do it?” I ask.

Rowan shrugs. “They see it as something holy. The emperor is seen as halfway to being a god in their pantheon. This is an empire that was built on a combination of magical power and martial virtue. They see the colosseum as the embodiment of that. That is why, if we survive five seasons, we don’t just get to be free; we get to be full citizens, even nobles. And our families… if I get through this, I might be able to buy my family back. I might be able to free them.”

I hope he's able to do so. But I see another side to it, too. This is a way of co-opting the powerful, making them a part of a bigger system.

“If you want freedom that badly, why help me?” I ask. “Why put yourself at risk by standing up to Gyra?”

Rowan looks surprised. “It wasn't much of a risk. And why not help? To get our freedom, all we need to do is survive five seasons in the colosseum. I don't need you to fail for that to happen.”

“Unless we're pitted against one another,” I point out.

Rowan smiles. “Thankfully, I doubt that's likely to happen.”

I know what he means. It wouldn't be much of a match. I am smaller and weaker, and it isn't as though my magic makes up for it. The more I think about it, the more afraid I am of what is likely to happen to me here. That thought is enough to make me lose the desire to continue the conversation.

“It was good meeting you, Rowan,” I say.

I leave the practice grounds, heading for the bathhouses. I assume that they will be empty with everyone else still training, and I'm right. I bathe in the warm waters of the main pool, then plunge into the freezing waters that follow. As I do so, I find myself thinking of Rowan and his past.

It seems to me he has something bigger to fight for, something that will carry him through all of this. I do not. I have nothing but the desire for my own freedom. Will that be enough? It carried me through the first test, but will it be enough when I am forced to fight? Will I be able to kill someone else so that I can survive and be free?

I'm not sure that I can. I'm not sure that I want to, and in a place like this, any hesitation might result in my death.

I pull myself from the baths, drying myself and dressing in the clothes that Ironhold has allowed me. I start to leave, and that is when I almost run into the slender, lean young man coming the other way, wrapped in just a towel.