27. Ayres
“Heeey there, brother. Can ya hear me?” There was a nudge on his cheek, and while Ayres could tell that it was meant to be gentle, his head throbbed.
Ayres groaned as stars popped up on the backs of his eyelids. He swiped a hand at whatever nudged his cheek, but the movement just made everything hurt more. “Fuck.”
There was soft male laughter above him. “Ayres, you’d best be gettin up. If Piers sees ya down here, he’ll never le’ ya hear the end of it. Heaven forbid Kaiya sees.”
Gods, it was like he was hung over on Piers’s homemade moonshine, which he wasn’t. Ayres tried to remember the last time he drank enough to feel like this. It had been . . .
He shoved the thought away and let out a pitiful groan. “Marras kill me, I feel like death.”
The man above him chuckled again. “Ya look like death, too. That girl sure did ge’ you good.”
Ayres’s body went as tight as a string, his fury making his muscles ache.
That girl.
The girl from the ball, the one who almost fainted in his arms when she saw Cannon. He was going to wring that girl’s neck with his bare fucking hands.
His head throbbed violently, but he ignored it, sitting up to glare at a familiar dark brown face above him.
Captain Lamonte had come to fetch him.
Embarrassment made the tops of Ayres’s ears heat up, but he pushed that away and focused on his anger.
“Where is she?” Ayres snarled.
“There, there now.” Lamonte waved his hands placatingly. “No one has seen ya excep’ me. No reason to get riled up . . . excep” for maybe this.”
Lamonte held out a calloused palm. Two halves of Ayres belt draped over it.
His dragon leather belt—the belt he had used to tie Rorax’s hands up with—was sliced clean in two. He seethed, grabbing the belt pieces from Lamonte. “That was my favorite belt.”
“A tragedy,” Lamonte agreed, as Ayres tucked the belt into a pocket.
Ayres glared at him as he tried to push himself up. His head started spinning again, so he slowly sat back down, sucking in deep breaths.
Lamonte hummed as his gaze moved back over Ayres’s eyes. “She was right, she did give ya a small concussion. Yeh should be right as rain ‘n ‘bout a day or two, less if you stop by the Healers Hall.”
Ayres gritted his teeth. “Where is she?”
“She’s inside the keep somewhere. I saw her on the stairs. She said she knocked you unconscious out here, and ifIwas ‘feeling so inclined to help out the biggest asshole in the Realms,’ I could find ya here.” Lamonte’s face lit up like he thought this was funny, like he thought she was funny. It made Ayres want to throw something.
“Lamonte,” Ayres grunted, throwing a hand up to him, and Lamonte helped him up.
The world tilted slightly, but thankfully it didn”t spin this time.
Lamonte walked beside Ayres as he took slow steps toward the castle, his blood boiling. He was going to find her, and then he was going to bury her so far underground that not even House Alloy would be able to sense her.
Lamonte laughed next to him, and Ayres scowled. “I haven’t ever met anyone that didn’t have that look on their face the first time they meet Rorax.”
“Rorax,” Ayres repeated. “Rorax is the name of the woman? The one with long black hair?”
Lamonte nodded. “That’s the one. She’s from the House of Ice. A high-level soldier, assistant to the general or somethin’. I’ve never officially met her . . . besides durin’ trainin’ and that one time when we were trainsportin’ her here. She and her companions would come n’ knock heads together durin’ the Solstices and summits at Valitlinn. Gods help us, they were a riot.”
Lamonte’s eyes glazed over as he walked slowly next to Ayres, smiling faintly like he was remembering the good old days with Rorax and her friends.
He was so deep in his revelry he missed Ayres’s scowl. Lamonte patted him on the shoulder and left to find a replacement for Ayres’s last few hours of guard duty.
Ayres slowly climbed the tower to his room. He was in the hallway at his door when the door straight across the narrow hallway opened.
“I thought I heard someone coming down the hall. Why are you back so early?” Milla stepped out of her room, pushing a lock of red hair out of her eyes as she squinted at him.
Her eyes went wide with horror. She pressed her hand to her mouth as she took in the blood that was still sticky and damp on the side of his face. “Ayres, oh my gods, are you okay? What happened?”
The memory of that woman, of Rorax, made the muscle in his jaw tighten.
Ayres threw his door open and motioned for Milla to follow.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind them, he took off his pants and Milla shrieked.
Ayres turned to her; an eyebrow raised.
He was still in the tight shorts he wore under his leather armor.
Milla was basically a second little sister to him. After spending so much time with her, she sometimes felt like more of a sister than his own did.
Not only were they distantly related, but they’d shared locker rooms in the Military Academy for almost ten years. They’d also gone to battle together countless times. She’d seen him in far, far less. One time, while a Healer had been working with some torn tissue in his groin area, she’d seen it all. Nudity between them had never been an issue. But she had also never stared at him the way she was right then. She looked spooked . . . and pissed off.
“What?” Ayres asked.
She pointed to his thigh, and he looked down at the open wound. “What in the Hell happened out there?”
“Oh, that.” Ayres examined the wounds Rorax had given him. They were just barely starting to scab over. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing, Ayres?” Milla asked, her voice climbing. “Nothing? You look like you came from war, not basic guard duty.”
“It’s not a big deal, Milla.” Ayres gritted his teeth against a shot of pain through his temple as he gently ran his fingertips over the bump Rorax had given him.
Milla blew out a breath. “At least tell me you handled it. Any more incidents during guard duty, and you have to consider pulling yourself out of Lamonte’s rotation, Ayres. You shouldn’t be taking risks like this as it is.”
Ayres bit the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping at her. They must have had this discussion at least once a day since arriving at this gods-forsaken castle. “Lamonte needs the help, Milla. That’s why he asked in the first place, and he wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t have to. You know that.”
“So?”
Ayres didn’t bother answering, and just gave her a flat look.
Lamonte was their friend. He’d been one of the first volunteers in Surmalinn to help them rebuild after the Siege, and Lamonte would hold Ayres’s secrets until his last breath.
“Fine, Ayr,” she huffed, starting to turn toward the door. “I’m leaving. Just make sure you’re in the Contestars’ Courtyard tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. They’re having one-on-ones with Lamonte. It’ll be a good time to see what we have to work with.”
Ayres grunted his agreement as she pressed the door closed behind her.