29. Rorax
Radashan dumped a new set of books in front of Rorax and Jia. Dust billowed up to the ceiling, and he wiped some from his oversized glasses as he gave Jia and Rorax a wide, toothy grin.
Rorax tried to smile back as she bit back a groan. Several of those books were thicker than her forearm.
“Some ancient tomes that talk about the old Guardians,” Radashan beamed, nearly glowing with pride. “The gnomes and I found these in the deep, deep stacks just for you!”
Jia, who sat at the table across from Rorax, gaped wide-eyed with dread at the giant stack.
Rorax and Jia had adopted a table along the far wall of the left side of the library. A huge stalactite the width of a giant pine tree hung from the ceiling and connected into the ground through an equally large stalagmite next to the table. The configuration looked slightly like an hourglass-shaped pillar and the table was tucked behind the formation, giving them a little bit of privacy in case someone came strolling through the stacks of books.
Rorax swallowed down a big gulp of water from the pint she’d brought with her and eyed the books. She wiped her mouth and felt a grimace tug at the corner of her mouth, but she forced herself to smile brightly at the little librarian before she told him the truth. “Radashan, you are a blessing. Truly. I would be completely lost without you.”
Pink covered the tops of the small man’s wrinkly cheeks, and he looked at his feet bashfully. “I”m here to help, and it’s nice having so much company down here for once.”
Jia said her thanks to the librarian, too, before Radashan disappeared back into the stacks with a newly determined slant to his shoulders. Little gnomes with bright-colored hats scurried behind him.
“That man is going to kill me, Rorax.” Jia let out a low groan and slumped in her chair. “I don’t mind reading, but the only useful thing I’ve learned today is that trolls store fat in their caves and if their hoard is big enough, you can blow it up with a little fire.”
Rorax smirked as she flipped the page of her own book sitting in front of her. It was titled The History of the World’s Guardians.
She was only a third of the way in and would never admit it to Jia, but she was bored to tears, too. “Kiniera has all the House of Ice librarians throughout the country researching a way to free the Contestars, but this library is the oldest resource on the continent. There has to be something here.”
Jia slumped down further and gave Rorax a pitiful, pained stare.
Guilt dug into Rorax’s heart as she stared back at her friend. There were still deep, dark circles under Jia’s stunning purple phoenix-like eyes, and she had lost weight since they’d arrived at the castle. Her face was a little tighter and more gaunt than usual.
Reading and researching were good for Jia, almost as good as her workouts in the mornings and evenings with Rorax. It got her mind off Volla, off Isgra as well, and ensured Jia didn’t waste away.
Jia squinted at Rorax. “Would it really be so bad if you did become the Guardian, Ror?”
“Yes,” Rorax asserted, not even having to think about her answer. She stiffened in her chair and thought of the best way to make sure she nipped that thought in the bud. “Yes, it sure as fuck would.”
Jia tilted her head to the side to take Rorax in and squinted her eyes. “Why? You would have a seat on the Trigonal Throne. You would be one of the three most powerful people in the world.”
“I do not want to hold the responsibility of the Realms—of the country—in my hands. I want to find Darras. He’s been in a Lyondrean prison for one hundred and fifty-eight years, Jia.”
“But as the Guardian, you would have the resources to build a team to get him back, you could do both—”
“Jia,” Rorax snapped, and Jia narrowed her eyes. “Stop. It doesn’t make sense for me to be here. I led a siege against my own people. My own country, and the gods choose me to be an option to lead it?”
Rorax suddenly felt sick. She dropped her gaze down to her hands as she ran her finger over the bird skull ring. “I can’t. I . . . I just can’t do it, Jia. I let myself be corrupted once. I don’t trust myself not to be corrupted again.”
“Rorax, that situation . . .” Rorax looked up to see Jia shaking her head, a different kind of sadness filling her eyes other than the loss of her wife. “That wasn’t your fault, Rorax.”
“That doesn’t make me any less responsible.” Rorax remembered the man with the ten-pointed star etched on his neck, and her words had never felt truer.
“You would be given the tools to help defend your House,” Jia pressed.
“The House of Ice is the most powerful Realm in the most powerful country in the world. It doesn’t need my protection.”
“What about everyone else that lives in the Realms?” Jia asked, purple eyes narrowing.
“What about them?”
Jia huffed disbelievingly. “Gods above, Ror, you can’t be serious.”
They sat in a heavy silence for a few minutes until Jia made a thinly veiled attempt to change the subject. She picked up a book from the stack. “History of the Breach, A Guide to the Choosing . . .” She picked up another book. “This one, Ancient Felidra Clan Guide; I don’t care how sweet Radashan is, I’m not reading this.” Jia’s nose scrunched. “Why would you even need that one?”
A sudden rush of need to be alone hit Rorax so hard she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping something she would regret.
Jia had just lost her mate and was here to help her, spending hours of her time searching for a way to survive. But right now, in this moment, Rorax just wanted to be alone to lick the old wounds that suddenly felt so raw.
“I don’t know, Jia,” Rorax sighed and scrubbed her hands over her face. “I’m going to go get dinner and bring it back here to read some more before the next Contestar Training. Do you want anything?”
“No, you stay here. I’ll go.” Jia gave Rorax a knowing little frown but pushed herself up from the table. “I’ll be back.”
As soon as she was out of sight, Rorax released a long breath, the tension in her shoulders relaxing.
Would being the Guardian be so bad?
Shame burned in her heart. She couldn”t think about protecting anyone else until she’d protected her brother and had atoned for her actions against the House of Death. Even after that, would she even want to be the Guardian? Did she care enough about the Realms to come to their defense?
Rorax sat, lost in thought, for several minutes before she took another sip of water and forced herself to focus on the book in front of her.
“What the fuck are you doing down here?”
Rorax jerked so hard her knee hit the tabletop, the pint of water tipping over and spilling precariously close to the ancient tome she was reading.
“Gods above.” She sopped up the excess water off the table with her arm, flinging it onto the ground before it could touch the pages of the book, and glared up to find Lieutenant Jackass standing over her table glaring at her.
She hadn’t seen the lieutenant for the last few days, and gauging from the anger flooding her veins, it hadn’t been nearly enough time to diffuse her fury.
“I’m reading, Lieutenant. It may be a difficult concept for someone with the intelligence of an acorn to grasp.” Rorax gritted her teeth, her heart beating furiously as she glared up at him. “But people usually come to libraries to study.”
The lieutenant had dark circles under his eyes, but the black eye she’d spotted on him a few days ago at the Contestar training session was long gone. His posture was just as tall and imposing as it had been that night he knocked her out of that tree, and he became even more imposing as he crossed his muscular arms over his chest.
“You’re just as sweet as I remember,” the lieutenant said darkly. He was wearing a black, long-sleeved, tall necked shirt. Though not as tall necked as the ones he’d worn before. The dark fabric left some of the skin under his jaw exposed and before she could stop herself, her eyes dipped down to the column of his throat, tracing over the intricate skull and what looked like wings tattooed on the front of his neck.
What are you hiding, Lieutenant?
She pointedly kept her eyes away from his forearms that were exposed, muscled, and also covered in tattoos because the dark fabric was pushed to his elbows. If Lieutenant Jackass wasn’t Lieutenant Jackass, Rorax would have thought the man an absolute specimen.
“What happened to your arms?” Ayres asked, looking down at her forearms, and the burns that even after a week still stood out red and angry against her skin.
Rorax bit her lip. She didn’t want to talk about Isgra, now or ever. Gods, she just wanted to be alone for five godsdamned minutes. “They were presents from Isgra Torvik.”
“What does the Match have against your friend?”
“Hmm, seems like people have been talking.”
“It’s our job to talk about the Contestars, if we are going to stick our necks out for them.”
“The Match and I don’t get along. That’s all there is to know.”
“Is it?” Ayres cocked his head, studying her intently.
Rorax returned his stare with a deceptively lazy one. “Why are you here, Lieutenant? One humiliation wasn’t enough?”
A muscle in his cheek jumped, and he took two loaded steps forward. He slapped his palms on the tabletop in front of her and leaned down, looking like he wanted to reach across the table and drag her across the surface by her throat. “If I remember correctly, I was the one leading you back to the castle by knife point.”
At his proximity, Rorax’s survival instincts prickled, urging her to flee or fight, but she forced herself to stay unmoving in her chair.
The bond she had with her knife strained, reminding her that she could slaughter him if he got too close. House of Death or not, she would punch Glimr through his neck and face the consequences after.
Slowly, she allowed herself to stand until they were nose to nose. “If you want a rematch, just say so. Right here, right now.”
“Stop!” Radashan appeared from between the stacks, bookless and without his helper gnomes for once, waving both tan wrinkled hands in the air. “Stop, both of you!”
Radashan pushed the lieutenant away from the table with one wrinkled hand, something Rorax knew the lieutenant was allowing as Radashan only came up to the bottom of the lieutenant”s sternum and all Radashan’s limbs combined were probably the same width as the lieutenant’s bicep. Despite the differences, Radashan stepped between them, raising his arms above his head. They shook so hard Rorax could see them trembling from five feet away.
“Move out of my way,” the lieutenant snarled down at the small librarian, his eyes pinned on Rorax with lethal intent.
“The library is a neutral zone! No blood shall be spilled here. It is my job to protect it!” Radashan’s voice was barely more than a pleading squeak.
Rorax sneered at the lieutenant. “You heard him, craven. Shoo.”
The lieutenant pointed one tattooed finger at her and snarled, “If you don’t fucking shut your mouth I promise you, Rorax, I’ll shut it for you.”
Rorax gave him a wicked smile. “I’ll cut you into ribbons. Right here, right now.”
“No!” Radashan squeaked, turning his head over his shoulder with giant, pleading eyes. “No, not here Ms. Greywood. Please, take this outside!”
“Don’t worry Bookkeeper, I have better things to do,” Rorax snarled.
The lieutenant looked her up and down slowly with obvious disdain before he turned on his heel and strode away, his angry footsteps echoing off the chalky stalagmites hanging from the ceiling and walls of the library.
When the door slammed behind him Radashan turned to Rorax, his cheeks pink with distress. “Ms. Greywood! I would have thought you of all people would respect the library!”
Shame curled in her stomach as she took in the panic and disappointment on the little man’s face, and she bowed her head. “I do and I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. The next time I threaten to kick his balls up his throat will be strictly out of the library.”
Radashan’s pink cheeks deepened in color, and he pushed his glasses up his nose. “Very . . . very well.”
He took two steps away before hesitating and turning halfway back to her. “A word to the wise, Ms. Greywood. Many Death Magick wielders were killed in the massacre brought on by your people fifty years ago, but not all of them. Maybe you cannot sense magick yet in others, but I can. That man? He reeks of Death Magick, and it would be unwise to provoke him.”
Radashan turned away and disappeared without another word, leaving Rorax with a foreboding feeling in her gut that intensified with every one of his quiet, retreating steps.