Ironhold, Trial One (Ironhold #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

I'm left thinking about that troubling pronouncement throughout the rest of the day. Many people have more than one fight. Ravenna returns to the arena, and I watch as she wraps a much larger foe in her spiked chain, bringing him down.

The crowd are calling for blood, on the emperor stands, raising a fist, thumb down. Ravenna rips her bladed fan across her foe’s throat.

After that, I do not watch the fighting. I wait instead until it is time for us to return to Ironhold. We process back through the city, but we are accompanied by carts this time, carrying those too wounded to walk.

I'm shocked to see that Rowan is on one of them. He is clutching a wound in his side, every jolt of the cart forcing sounds of pain from him.

“Naia,” I call out. “Over here!”

She hurries over. “Oh, Rowan, what happened to you?”

“A spear. They had me fight blindfolded. I felt most of it through the earth, but then they threw their spear. I was too slow. I… I lost the bout, but I was entertaining enough that they want to see me fight again.”

He sounds bitter, and it is a frightening thought that even Rowan might be able to lose a fight. Yes, he was blindfolded, but in some ways that is the point. The colosseum is not about fair fights. It is about spectacle and violence. And if it costs our lives to produce that, the organizers do not care.

“Can you help him?” I ask Naia.

She nods, but she is already looking around at the others there on the carts. “There are so many injured. I don't know if I can fully heal them all.”

“Then do what you can for as many as you can,” Rowan says. “Don’t focus on me.”

“Rowan!” I say. I don’t want to see him in pain. “You can’t do this. If you’re injured for your fight tomorrow, you could die!”

“Do you care so much?” he asks.

“Of course I care!” I insist. How can he think anything else? We have been close in the time since I got here. He has helped me more than anyone, and… and it has been more than that, too. I can’t deny the attraction I feel every time I look his way.

“But I have to care about more than just myself,” Rowan says. “Do what you can for everyone, Naia.”

She frowns, then nods. “But I’m starting with a little for you.”

Rowan shakes his head. "Me last. That way, I know you're not giving me too much."

“Damn it, Rowan,” I say. “Do you want to die?”

He shakes his head. “But I also don’t want to live just because everyone else around me died.”

I can't argue with that sentiment when it is something I have felt all too often.

“I thought you were the one who told me that you had to be ruthless and cruel to survive the colosseum?” I say.

“I'll do what I need to do in it,” Rowan replies, “but I won't hurt people out here.”

It's clear his mind is made up, and Naia is already moving to the others, employing her skills. All I can do while she moves around the injured is to hold Rowan's hand, trying to reassure him as the cart continues to jolt its way back to Ironhold.

I see Alaric glance back towards us. He is uninjured. He looks at me, then at Rowan. I swear a brief look of jealousy crosses his face, and I don't know why because he has no right to be jealous of anything to do with us. Alaric and I aren't anything to one another, are we?

It seems like forever before Naia comes back to Rowan. We are almost at the gates of Ironhold. Naia looks exhausted, but even so she lays her hands on Rowan’s wound, a look of concentration crossing her face as she works her magic.

The wound does not close, but I hear Rowan sigh. Naia keeps working, until eventually she stumbles. I must catch her, helping her to stand.

“I can't do anymore,” she says. “Not now, not like this.”

“But Rowan is still-”

“She has done all she can,” Rowan says. “It’s a lot better than being left like this, or just hoping the healers at the arena will do something tomorrow."

I know he's right, and I'm grateful to Naia for being able to do anything, but I also want to curse Rowan’s stubbornness. If he hadn’t insisted on her healing everyone else first…

Why does it matter to me that Rowan should be healed? It isn’t just friendship, however much I try to tell myself that. It’s more than that, but a part of me doesn’t seem to want to admit that it’s more, because I’m not sure if there is any space for feelings in Ironhold. It is a place where we could find ourselves pitted against anyone else we know, where Rowan and I might be forced to fight to the death tomorrow. How can I risk feeling anything for him under those circumstances?

Still, I stay by his side as we rumble into Ironhold. Lord Darius is waiting there, ready to give the same salute as yesterday.

“The fallen!” he calls out, raising a fist.

“The fallen!” we all repeat, but my eyes are on Rowan.

I help him to the infirmary of the fortress, along with the others, but the healers are attending to them first, and in any case, they are using little magic to do it, only the kind of knowledge that I have picked up from my mother.

So I grab a needle and thread, dipping the thread in honey to try to limit the chances of infection.

“Hold still,” I say to Rowan, examining his wound. Thankfully, it seems that Naia has healed much of the damage within, but there is still a gaping wound that must be sealed and stitched.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Rowan asks.

“My mother taught me herbs and more,” I say. “No one near my village has healing magic, so we focused on other ways of helping.”

“Which is why you don’t like hurting people?” Rowan guesses.

I nod. “I’ve patched up fisherfolk who cut themselves and got hit by masts. Even a shark bite once.”

“It seems there's no end to your talents,” Rowan says. He still winces as I start to stitch his wound. “And now I need to show no signs of pain or you will think I'm not the big tough gladiator you like so much.”

“You think that's why I like you?” I counter, continuing to work. “Rowan, it's not about you being tough. It's about the fact that you've helped me and so many other people. You didn't have to train with me. You could have just left me and gotten on with your own training.”

“I couldn't just do that,” he says. “And anyway…”

He trails off.

“Anyway?”

“I wanted an excuse to be near you,” he admits, with a sheepish look at odds with his usual toughness.

That catches me a little by surprise, but I still finish my work, making sure the stitches are neat, then bandaging the wound.

“That will hold until Naia has more strength,” I say.

Rowan starts to swing his legs off the healer’s slab.

“What are you doing?” I ask. “You should rest.”

“I’ll rest back in my room,” Rowan says. “After I go through today’s bout.”

He pushes his way to his feet, but he's obviously unsteady. I end up having to support him.

“You can't go out and train like this,” I say. “What would you learn in any case? Beware of flying spears while you're blindfolded? It was an unfair match.”

“I can't accept that,” Rowan says.

“Why not?”

“Because then, there's nothing I can do to save myself or anyone else.” It's obvious that he hates the thought of that, that he hates the idea of his fate being out of his control. I must remember that this is someone who gave himself over to the arena to escape his life as a slave. Rowan probably hates not being able to change things.

“Well, even if you can learn to dodge spears blindfolded, you can’t do it now,” I say. I start to guide him back towards his room in the barracks, along the maze of Ironhold’s corridors.

We eventually reach the door, and I hesitate there with him.

“Thank you, Lyra,” he says.

“Are the stitches holding?”

“I didn’t just mean for the stitches,” he says. “I mean just for being there, for caring.”

“Of course I care,” I say. “I-”

He kisses me. It takes me by surprise, but it’s a surprise I quickly adjust to. I kiss him back breathlessly, leaning into him. In that moment, I want nothing other than him. I want Rowan to make me forget everything today, the pain of killing someone, the shock of seeing him hurt, my incredulity at finding out about the existence of the spectral covenant. I want to lose myself in him completely.

I kiss him, pushing him back into his room, and it’s then that he stops, with a small sound of pain.

“Too much?” I ask.

Rowan nods, ruefully. “I’m sorry. I wanted to be… more than this for you.”

“You know you don’t have to be?” I say. “We don’t have to do anything.”

Rowan looks briefly surprised. “I’m not used to that. I’m used to people wanting things from me. Lady Tyra.”

“I’m not her,” I point out.

I sit beside him. I stay with him. It’s enough.