Chapter 20 – Alone on a Platform #4
"You are virra; I am sinnenthi. It would be my utmost pleasure to care for you and protect you.
Declare for me, and you will not need to compete.
You will have status within the abayan empire, and I will have you removed from the Tournament so that you might be safe.
You could leave today, Sashen. Allow me to care for you in this way. "
Have me removed? A frown flickered across my mouth. That wasn't the plan. My role was to help him. It was clear he'd been rattled even worse than I had by what Grigor had done to me. "Araxis –"
"Please." His fingers dug hard into the skin above my knee. His eyes were wide, desperate – and my first instinct was to agree. Whatever he wanted, I would do.
But this wasn't what we had planned, and he was asking me like he wanted me to say yes, while every line of his body radiated tension and misery.
The juxtaposition didn't make any sense.
It was as if he was at war with himself.
I wanted then, more than anything, to ask him to explain – but clearly he couldn't, not on camera.
So I had to try and read something between all of his tangled and slant-written lines.
"Araxis, I can't," I said shakily, feeling a flutter of panic in my chest. "I have to be here. I can't just leave." Did he hear what I was saying, that my role was to be by his side? That we had to sell this story together? That I wanted to protect him too?
The bright gleam faded from his eyes. Araxis turned his head away and released my knee, leaning away. "I understand."
"You don't," I insisted. And I certainly didn't.
But he didn't look at me, instead picking up his tea and staring into the middle distance somewhere near the tray.
"We should be allies in the arena," he said, frowning.
"I will be your ally, whether you are declared or not.
Yield on the first day, and you will be safe.
I will find you in that first hour upon the sands; you will yield; all will be well. "
"I can't," I repeated, irritation starting to build in my chest. He knew this.
We hadn't talked about why I was here on camera; I'd been open in the interviews, but we were saving our conversation for later.
That's what we'd planned. Unsteady, I tried to bring us back to our script.
"I have a debt, and if I don't pay it, I might as well forfeit my life right now.
It would be a more honourable end than if my debt was collected. It would cost me more than credits."
He fluted out a sound, frustrated. His stare cut back to me for a second, lines of tension cording his forearms where his sleeves were folded up. "I will pay it," he said, flat. "So you must yield, and when I win, I will pay it. You will be free, Sashen. Is your freedom important to you?"
Why the fuck did he sound bitter? I sat the tea down and reached for him, some impulse telling me that if we were touching, we'd be able to understand one another.
Surely we'd understand. Our connection had felt real and palpable, something I could hold on to when the world was spinning out of control. But as I reached, he shifted away.
I let my hand fall down to the fabric between us, my brow pinched. "Yes, it's important," I said distantly. "I want to be able to chart my own path." He knew that; he'd seen it in me, back on the ship, and had made me feel perfectly understood. Held and valued. Now, though…
"You should yield because you are soft and vulnerable, and you will die in the arena.
I do not wish to see you harmed again." He stood, then, and paced away, and each step felt like there was something between us that was being pulled tighter and tighter, closer to snapping with each passing breath.
"So yield, and I will address your debt and you will be free to make your own way. "
"I thought I could help." It sounded weak, even to my own ears. Tremulous.
He didn't even look back, drawing near to a window and staring out at the fading light beyond, his arms crossed hard against his body.
"You are a liability. You should not be here, Sashen.
I wish to help you, but you must yield. You cannot jeopardize my path to victory – not when the lives of my creche-mates depend upon my success, as does your own. "
A thousand questions clamoured for space in my mouth, but I swallowed them all down, even as they cut and scraped against my throat. "Okay," I said, mind reeling. "If you think it will be better."
"It is not what I think, Sashen. It is what I know."
He had called me soft and vulnerable. A liability. Where had I gone wrong? Where had I stumbled, here with Araxis who had been the only part of this whole thing that made any sense? He was suddenly a stranger to me.
I cleared my throat and stood, heart thudding against my ribs. I was out of breath, as if I'd been running laps. "I guess I'll go then."
"Hm." He still didn't turn, so I just stared at the line of his back, the white and black of his crest, the hard angles of his elbows and arms, silhouetted against the window to the world beyond. "Do as you must."
So I went, and even though I'd been asleep for ages, I crawled back into bed and willed myself into unconsciousness. I didn't want to think, and the blackness came when I called.