Chapter 26 – On the Line #3
I'd have preferred to throw a drink over her, but you know. Beggars can't be choosers. "Fuck off," I screamed, and she hissed and snarled, jerking backwards as the dirt and stones pelted her eyes. My leg kicked out, hard, and caught her ankle, and Andiri came crashing to the ground.
This was my chance. I leapt up and took off, but she was after me a second later.
Her body slammed into mine as she tackled me to the ground, her claws catching my skin and tearing at me – vicious.
I rolled, furious, and slammed my anatomically impressive elbow into her face.
Something crunched, and an arc of silver blood spurted across my chin.
Her club rolled off to the side as her hand jerked from the sudden burst of pain, and then she scrambled on top of me, pinning me down.
One of Andiri's clawed hands snapped hard around my throat, squeezing, and I gasped a startled breath in, jerking under her to try and writhe out of her grasp.
She was bleeding from her nose and mouth, her sharp teeth bared in fury or pleasure, and she wheezed out a thin breath, thighs squeezing me hard.
I struck at her furiously with my hands, but she had me pinned so that it was hard to use any range of movement at all.
I tried to jab one fist into her gut, but her hand clenched so hard around my throat that patches of black began to eat at the sides of my vision.
"Stop fighting, virra," Andiri snarled, leaning close enough that her blood dripped against the hot skin of my face. "I've trapped you, and I will watch the life drain from your rotten eyes." Her fingers tightened and I fought for a breath – but I couldn't get any air.
I thrashed again beneath her, vision blurring. My pulse hammered, frantic, panicked. Her claws pierced my skin, the wet of my own blood slipping down my neck.
"He will be so sad, your sinnenthi." Her smile was teeth and blood and malice, and her eyes were as black as the worst parts of space.
Black like the edges of my vision, like the tide pulling me somewhere I didn't want to go.
"You should have declared, and you would not be here.
But what good is an untamed virra? What good is an ivriitan who cannot – Control!
Herself!" The last two words were a shout, a scream only inches from my face.
My eyes were fluttering shut, and then a gasp of air rushed into my lungs.
I wheezed suddenly, feeling like something was broken in my larynx.
The pressure on top of me eased, and I rolled, sputtering into the dirt, gasping for air as my forehead tipped against the ground.
Distantly, I realized Andiri had almost choked me to death.
She still could, or she could beat my skull in.
My hand twitched, wanting to reach for my swords – as if I had a chance of defending myself.
Instead, the hard pressure as Andiri's clawed foot came to rest on my wrist, grinding it into the packed dirt beneath me.
"I can control myself," she said quietly.
I turned my head to look up at her out of the corner of my eye.
She was out of focus, a gray shape above me except for the black of her stare.
My eyes burned with tears. "I can choose not to kill you.
I can see the mark he's put on you and decide it is not right to harm a virra who is being courted. I can."
I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my vision. "I don't even want to be here," I rasped out. "I'm not going to hurt you." Anything to get her to let me go.
Her features came into sharper focus, a slice of shadow making her face look half-formed, as silver blood still dripped down over her chin.
"I can control myself," she repeated, not even looking at me.
Her foot ground down harder, and I was certain something was going to crack inside of my wrist any second now.
"I am going to kill you now, virra. It is because I choose to. I am in control."
I groaned. Her weight shifted slightly as she reached for her club.
All the strength I'd had was gone, drained away to nothing.
My head was throbbing. My heartbeat was so loud in my ears; it was the only thing I could hear, a chorus that would carry me away.
"Please," I said, hoarse. It tasted like blood in my mouth, but I wasn't too proud to beg. "Please."
My heartbeat throbbed, a fast and endless rhythm. I could feel it in the ground beneath me, a vibration.
And then I blinked, and I realized it wasn't my heartbeat I was feeling. It was footfalls.
In a flash of motion, Andiri flew backwards, knocked across the ground in a hard tumble. I saw a flash of white and black, the surge of graceful movement, followed by a dull thud.
I sucked in a breath, cheek pressed against the dusty ground, and then rolled, pushing myself up even as the world spun around me. I could see Andiri's head, three feet from the crumpled shape of her gray body.
My stare jittered across the clearing and landed on the heaving shoulders of the upright figure standing over Andiri's corpse.
Araxis half-turned, silver blood dripping from one of his iridescent swords, surveying the area around us; his profile was as sharp as the edge of his blades, predatory.
And then he raced to my side, dropping to his knees, his swords tossed to the side.
He pressed a hard kiss to my blood-spattered forehead, hissing as he looked at the cuts arrayed across my skin, snarling when he found what I assumed were bruises and claw marks around my neck.
His fingers were cool and gentle, his touch like a chilled glass of water when I felt feverish and unwell.
"I'm okay," I murmured.
Araxis knelt beside me, pulling me into his arms so that he held my body against his chest, his hands stroking my hair. He didn't seem able to speak yet; I could only hear the whine in his throat, his chest heaving against me.
I let myself be held, head tipped against his shoulder.
"I yield," I said, barely breathing the words.
My throat was raw, each swallow like drinking down glass, but those words unlocked something deep inside of me.
Something that had been locked up so tight that it was at risk of breaking.
"I yield," I repeated, relief settling over me like a heavy blanket, like the moment before you fall asleep. We'd done it. We'd made it.
"I accept," Araxis said against my forehead, and he sounded ruined. "The hour is nearly through."
"We have a timing problem," I admitted to his chest.
He trilled, the tiniest little rumble. "Yes, we do.
Sashen." He sat back a little, assuring I could sit on my own and positioning himself so that he could look at me, his black eyes shimmering.
He reached and took my bloodied hands in his own.
"Declare yourself for me. I will bring you into Creche Thiel.
You will be mine. You will be ours, but you will be mine first and foremost. You will be mine always.
I know – I know you wish for your freedom, and this is not that.
You will be mine, always. Do you understand? "
"I think so," I said distantly, lost in the depths of his eyes. He looked at me with a yearning the likes of which I'd never seen before, the kind of thing you read about and never expect to see in real life. And that want, that tender ache, was for me. "Like getting married?"
He huffed, squeezing my hands. "In some ways, perhaps.
Declare yourself for me, and your debts will not matter: a virra who declares for a head of house is valued beyond any treasure.
Your debts will not be able to touch you, Sashen, because you are so precious.
You will be cherished. And…" His skin flushed just a little, the softest, rosiest pink. "You have said that you love me. Yes?"
I felt myself grow hot. I wanted to squirm away. God, it was easier to admit that to a camera but –
His hand tightened around my own, and it was like an anchor keeping me moored. Safe in port.
"Yes," I said from my broken throat. "Yes, I love you." And then I laughed and swiped at my stinging eyes with my torn and bloodied sleeve. "Alright. I'll declare for you. What do I say?"
The softest, most surprised smile caught Araxis's perfect face, and it was like dawn breaking after an impossibly dark night.
He was suffused with joy, and he leaned forward and kissed my bloodied mouth and said something to me in abayan, stroking my face tenderly.
Overhead, I heard the echoing chime indicating the imminent end of the day, and a spike of panic jolted through me, but Araxis only smiled, beatific.
"These are the words to say." And then he said a quiet series of melodic abayan words, which I repeated carefully as he beamed at me.
"Good," Araxis said. "I accept your declaration.
" He added something else in abayan and then stood, offering his hand to help me up, like he had back on the set when we'd filmed that ridiculous promo.
He slipped his arm around my shoulder and drew me in close, kissing my temple and touching me all over, so gently and carefully.
Overhead, I heard the whine of one of the retrieval shuttles sent to pick up participants, living and dead, and take them back to their drop zones.
"You will not have to continue in the Tournament, Sashen," he said, firm.
"Your job is done. Creche Athal will take you in, and you will be able to watch the remaining days.
I will win for all of us." The shuttle landed off a little ways, just a tiny hopper big enough for one passenger, all piloted by drone.
"You go first, and I will see you at the victory ceremony.
I will see you, Sashen of Creche Thiel."
My heart throbbed, a delicious ache inside of my chest. Why would I have ever said no?
What he gave me was a gift. So I stepped in again and kissed him, hard and certain on the mouth, even though pain sparked bright from where I'd been scratched and scraped.
And then I walked to the shuttle and got whisked away, stepping back on to my platform and dropping down below the arena.
He had such little time to explain to me, then, what that decision meant.
That's how I would justify it when I thought about this declaration in the days that followed.
Now I know he could have told me weeks beforehand.
He could have invited me in. We could have done this as equals, as partners, and then none of what I felt when I finally made my declaration, when I told him I loved him, none of it would have been tainted by what I know now.
Like a drop of poison sinking into honey.
He took what should have been sweetest, and he made sure it would, all of it, hurt.