28. Ayres
Cannon made his way across the Contestars’ Courtyard toward Ayres and Milla. He took a bite of his berry tart as he looked at the bruising around Ayres’s eye with a smirk. Milla told him he’d gotten the black eye during guard duty. The purple and black bruise underneath his eye was indicative of his dark mood.
You’ll think it’s funny until I give you one to match, Ayres signed to his friend, growling slightly even though Cannon couldn’t hear him.
Ayres was grumpy. Even more on edge than usual. He’d woken up not only with a black eye, but with a headache to go with it. His morning workout session with Kaiya and Piers had reminded him that all his other injuries that Rorax had given him—his thigh, calf, and palm—were still achy and sore as well. He’d gone to the Healer’s Hall, but there had only been a young girl working there this morning, and she only held enough magick to help stabilize him, not completely take care of the injuries. He’d have to go back later and see if Tressa was working.
Ayres kept his eyes trained on the keep, waiting for Rorax to emerge. But so far, she hadn’t appeared.
When she finally did show up, however, she didn’t come from the keep. She and her purple-haired friend who’d been with her at the Welcome Ball came jogging from the direction of the front gates.
Gone was both the beautiful girl from the ball and the wild girl fighting desperately in the dark last night.
Those versions were nowhere to be found in the woman before him now.
This version of Rorax was a predator.
Rorax moved almost completely in sync with her companion, lithe and agile, and in total control of her body. It was almost eerie how well they moved together. The two small hilts of her hair knives poked out from where her hair was bound at her scalp, and her long braid was decorated with a sharp metal tip at the end. She’d wrapped leather around her hands to protect her knuckles, and her fighting leathers . . . Ayres recognized that leather armor.
Every Contestar in the square wore a matching set—the distinctive set of armor with dark brown and gold trim.
“Fuck,” Ayres snapped out, turning his head to Milla. “Did you know that Rorax, the girl who knows the Language of Hands from the ball last night, is a Contestar?”
“Yes . . .” Milla looked up at him, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “She told me before you found me during the last song.”
“She’s the one who gave me this fucking black eye,” Ayres growled, jabbing a finger at his throbbing, blue and black browbone.
Milla”s eyebrows shot up and her mouth formed a small “o” of surprise. “Rorax Greywood, is the one who attacked you in the woods?”
Ayres nodded down at her, and Milla gave him a horrified look.
Milla’s shoulders tensed up. “She’s from House of Ice, Ayres. She wasn’t hunting you, was she?”
“No . . . I started it,” he grudgingly admitted. “She was asleep in a tree when I found her.”
Milla’s eyebrows bunched together in confusion. She turned back to look at the Contestar and gasped in horror. Milla pointed at Rorax with one red painted nail. “Marras help me, Ayres, tell me you didn’t give those to her!”
Ayres turned his head and stared at Rorax, then stared some more until Milla burrowed her elbow into his side.
“Ayres, answer me.”
Rorax had pulled off her shirt and was standing in only a fighting bra and pants exposing two red, angry burns that stood out as clear as day against the tan skin of her biceps. Burns that had large, angry blisters over the damaged flesh in the perfect shape of someone’s hands. Gods above.
Rorax turned her back to him, and his eyes narrowed in on a blue tattoo that started in between her shoulder blades. He couldn’t be sure from here, but he thought it was a dragon.
She bent down and plucked what looked like a tub of salve out of a small leather knapsack at her feet. She stood up straight, unscrewed the top, and started to apply it to the burns on her arms.
Milla nudged Ayres again, breaking him out of his thoughts.
“No,” he finally snapped, looking down at his Emissary. “I did not fucking burn her.”
“She got those fighting Isgra Torvik!”
Ayres and Milla both turned to look over their shoulder to find Piers jogging up to the group.
He gave Cannon a nod of hello before turning to Ayres and Milla. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Good morning, sunshine. Where is Kaiya?” Milla asked. “She’s even later than you.”
Piers shrugged. “Last I saw she was kicking some random Air-Born out of her bed.”
“How do you know Isgra gave those to her?” Ayres asked, his eyes still on the Contestar.
“Lamonte told me. Isgra Torvik has some sort of issue with that girl Rorax is always with, the purple-haired one. Lamonte doesn’t know for sure what Isgra’s issue is, exactly but Isgra called Rorax’s friend some names, tried to push her around, and apparently Rorax wasn’t having it.”
Ayres looked over to find Isgra, and she indeed sported two dark purple black eyes that matched his own. Marras, soon everyone in the castle was going to have a black eye courtesy of Rorax. They should start a club or maybe a support group.
Ayres’s gaze shifted back to Rorax’s burns. They looked painful, but not exactly fresh. They must have been a week old unless she had visited the Healers Hall. “When was that?”
“Three days ago?” Piers rubbed his chin. “I think that’s what he said.”
“Interesting, I didn’t know anyone Ice-Born was capable of such loyalty,” Milla mused. “And I’m sure you weren’t distracted at all when Lamonte gave this report to you,” Milla teased, rolling her eyes.
Piers just gave her a roguish grin. “Lamonte’s the one who has the wicked mouth, Mills. Not me.”
Milla laughed, but Ayres kept his eyes pinned to Rorax.
The girl who had almost killed him in the woods, and then left him unconscious by the gate was a Contestar? Not just any Contestar, but the Contestar that they’d been waiting on for nearly six months. The Contestar that had tried to fight her way free and broke Lamonte’s nose on her first day here.
The gods and the magick decided who would be the next Contestars, and they usually had very good reasons for whom they chose. Isgra Torvik had an even stronger gift than her sister, the Torch, did. Some of the other Highborns had exceptional magickal gifts already as well. Rorax felt like a wild card. A wild card he didn’t know the first thing about.
Ayres’s mouth tugged down at the corners.
“What’re you thinking?” Milla asked, nudging him with her elbow.
“I’m thinking that the magick chooses Contestars for a reason, and they have the potential to be the most dangerous beings in the Realms.” He watched as Rorax pulled her shirt back on gingerly. “We need to be careful not to choose a Contestar who will kill us the minute she’s given the Guardian’s full power.”