Chapter 30 – His Crown of Bones #3
"You are both rather preoccupied with each other.
Wind Petal and I have spoken about this at some length.
It is good to have a colleague who understands the particular difficulties we have each endured.
" She turned and led me down a broad hallway, lit with what looked like replica sconces which mimicked the flickering of flames.
So we'd arrived at the 'historical set dressing' part of the arena.
"Wind Petal?"
This time, she looked at me with disapproval.
"Araxis's handler," I supplied belatedly. "Well, she –" I paused, waited for correction, and then forged onward, "She didn't tell me and it's rude to ask. And I didn't think I was supposed to talk to anyone besides you. That's what you told me!"
Silver Sea shook her head, looking up toward the ceiling.
"May the spirits continue to gift me with their patience.
Here we are, Sashen Solar." She reached with one hand and nudged me toward a door that was shut, a hum of activity buzzing behind it.
"I will leave you here. Expect to hear from me once your judicial hearing concludes.
We have much to discuss. I have been looking into merchandizing… "
I wanted to ask her about the hearing – when was that happening? what did it mean? – but she wasn't my handler now, not really. She was just someone I knew, and she wasn't responsible for me. Besides, I had more pressing concerns.
That was my life now, I guessed: more pressing concerns than a massive judicial hearing. And to think a few weeks ago I'd been worried about whether I should choose one of Ofesa Siol's instrumental or vocal songs to choreograph my next pole dance routine to.
I pushed open the door, the bright light from within spilling out into the dim hallway.
The large room was absolutely buzzing with activity.
To one side, a marn was working on some sort of ceremonial robe that looked abayan in design, black and threaded with gold beads, while a cluster of ketaari stood by a series of screens tapping furiously on inputs – it looked like they were reviewing planned camera angles and cutting together some footage for the ceremony.
And then, a cluster of attendants arrayed around him, I saw Araxis.
He was seated on a medical table, a doctor working away on his shoulder while other attendants used portable sonic cleaners to pulse the dirt, grime, and blood from his skin.
His stare was directed downward and I could tell from the line of his body – how he curved forward, the stillness of his features, the tick of tension in his jaw – that he was in pain and exhausted.
Of course he was. He'd nearly died. Was he replaying it like I had been in the shuttle down?
Wondering about what the ripple effects would have been?
How quickly Creche Thiel would have been eliminated?
The moment I stepped into the room, his black eyes flicked up and the stillness and weariness of his features were replaced by star-bright joy. "Sashen –" he started, shifting as if to get up.
I closed the distance between us, shouldering at least two attendants out of the way so I could step in close, my heart shivering with pleasure deep in my chest despite the frisson of hurt threading through it all.
I didn't think I'd ever feel one without the other now.
But I could ignore the pain for now because here he was, alive and victorious.
I took his face in my hands and kissed Araxis on his lying mouth, hard and certain, and when I pulled back, he was beaming.
"The third sequence," I muttered, staring deep into his eyes. "You absolute idiot."
He trilled, bright and amused. "Yes, I know."
"You almost killed me, you know? My heart nearly gave out."
"Hm, the day before had been so dull. I worried that you would be bored."
I laughed, then, despite myself. Next to me, the doctor said, in a tone that was as flat as piss on a plate, "If you have finished, I am still working on his shoulder."
"Whoops." I took a step back, and the other attendants crowded in again as well. I looked at him, at the brightness of his eyes, his pleased smile, the way he'd lit up when he saw me, and I didn't know how to reconcile that person with what I knew he'd done.
It was a problem for another moment. Right now, I figured my role was to be a doting…
spouse? So instead I started chatting idly about the messages I'd received from Khrelen about the new plays he was hoping for parts in – he'd like being mentioned on broadcast if any of this made the cut – and a little bit about my life on Yellow Fin, as if Araxis didn't already know.
He listened, his eyes heavy-lidded and a pleased smile curving his lips as I talked just to fill the air with something.
I paused only when his lids drifted all the way shut, and he blinked them open immediately.
"Please continue," he murmured. "I like the sound of your voice. "
From a nearby wall, Wind Petal pulled her head up from her wristband. "They are nearly done cleaning you up, Araxis. We'll have you dressed shortly, and then the ceremony can begin."
"I was thinking," I said then, "that I'd like to learn how to cook.
" And it was as I talked about that, and all the other things I was hoping to learn to do (piloting; how to use a blast rifle; I wanted to learn abayan; maybe I could take up a new form of dance), that Araxis was dressed in his ceremonial robes as the crew in the back corner put the finishing touches on the video sequence they were chattering about.
We moved to stand in front of two large double doors facing the inside of the arena.
I fell into place at Araxis's side, and he reached and brushed a finger along the edge of one ear, where the charms made soft clinking sounds.
"I like these," he murmured, leaning his mouth close.
"Do you?" I shot him a sly look. "Well, I might have to take them out. Apparently they imply something in ketaari culture that isn't true about me these days."
He beamed, practically glowing, and took my hand, tucking it in the crook of his arm, his fingers resting gently against my skin. "I have missed you a great deal," he said then, quiet as the room around us buzzed.
And that was the kicker, wasn't it? He really had missed me.
I believed him. He liked me, even if he was a fucking liar who'd set me up and used me for his own ends.
I believed he did care, despite what he'd done.
And I couldn't figure out how to make any of that make sense.
It was an equation that wouldn't balance, and Adelaithe had been right about one thing at least: I'd never been strong in math.
So I just squeezed his arm. "I am so proud of you," I said, and I was, all while I was also aching with hurt.
But it was the right thing to say: his skin silvered, just a bit, and then the doors opened and we stepped on to the platform beyond while the remaining crowd – probably less than half its original numbers, the more bloodthirsty fuckers already headed out to go watch whatever spectacle of violence was next in their calendars – roared in pleasure.
I don't know what to say about the ceremony itself.
I stood at his side as the platform detached from the balcony.
Overhead on massive screens, the story of Araxis's time within the Tournament spooled out, and so of course it was my story as well.
I let my features fall into a familiar mask – one of distant amusement, detached enjoyment – and ignored the replay as best as I could.
The platform settled eventually on a ceremonial dais that had apparently risen from the centre of the arena, spilling sand and gravel outward in a fantastic spray.
I was pretty sure the plinth rose from the ground where Araxis had nearly been killed, and where he had instead murdered two other competitors. Good. I hoped their ghosts got a face full of gravel and had to watch the whole thing unfold.
My fingers tightened on his arm, a reflex. Araxis tilted his head toward me, just slightly. "Thank you for being here with me. It is awful, is it not?"
And it was: the spectacle, the clamour, the valorization of violence and the giddy delight in watching slow motion replays of death and dismemberment.
And it was awful that we had all been driven to this for our own reasons, the promise of an impossible dream dangling just out of reach and worth that fatal, final gamble.
It was also awful because here I was, side-by-side with someone I loved who was at the root of my own desperation.
I should never have been here. I should never had had to come.
Even Araxis had said as much to me. Only I hadn't realized that he really meant it: I should never have been on these sands, and it was only because of his choice, his decision, that I'd stumbled into this awful place.
His was the hand that had shoved me into this arena.
Maybe it was a price I would have paid willingly – if he'd asked for help, would I have offered it?
– but the choice had been taken from me and I could never know now if I would have acted with honour, if I would have made the decision selflessly.
I thought I probably would have. But knowing he had decided for me, that he had put me here and then promised to protect me, was enough to make the whole thing feel grotesque, an absolute mockery of the misery of existence and the real suffering these sands had seen.
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and squeezed my fingers around his arm again, full of love and loathing all at once. "Almost through, at least."