31. Rorax
The emissary rooms were all built the same. They were much larger than normal lodgings and technically had three rooms. The entry room had a large window, a fireplace, and a long rectangular table with six chairs around it. The other two rooms consisted of a bathroom and a small bedroom for the emissaries to sleep. Elios’s room was no different.
He motioned to the table. “Sit anywhere, I’ll be back.”
Rorax took a seat on one of the long sides of the table. When Elios came back, he slid in across from her and handed her a folder. It was thin and when she opened it she found only a few loose pieces of paper inside.
Time to see if Elios pieced together Kiniera’s clues,Rorax thought.
“This is all the information I could find about you.” Rorax felt his eyes on her as she thumbed through the pages slowly. There were fifteen pages in all, most of them reports written by his spies. She could see his scribbles everywhere on them.
“Roraxiva Greywood. Parents deceased with one living sibling. Trained in House of Ice war camps for nearly fifty years before being recruited as the youngest member in Heilstorm history,” she read, jerking her eyes from the page to look up into Elios’s face, feigning surprise.
“Eventually became third in command of the Heilstorms’ First Unit, under Sahana Thorash.Founder of the Special Forces unit responsible for the assassinations of six Lyondrea generals, countless monsters who crossed the border, a few prominent members of Court, and—” Rorax looked up from the page to study Elios’s face, “—the Wolf during the Siege of Surmalinn.”
The energy in the room shifted from friendly and amicable, to dangerous and sharp.
Rorax’s eyes drilled into Elios, a faint buzzing sound in her ears.
As he studied her, the hint of a triumphant smile built at the corners of his beautiful mouth before she returned to reading. “It was believed that Sahana Thorash made the killing blow against the Wolf, but the most recent autopsy report indicates that the Wolf’s injuries are more consistent with some of Greywood’s other confirmed kills.”
She wanted to get Kiniera to destroy the autopsy file, find out how many other people knew about it, and question the man involved. Hopefully Elios hadn’t made any copies of the report.
“Everything sounding correct so far?” Elios folded his hands in front of him, his gaze moving up to her again.
Rorax forced her face into a neutral mask and shrugged. “Surprisingly accurate, Emissary. You’re the only one all day to have picked up my occupation. Everyone else assumes I know how to fight because I’m an army grunt.” She shrugged again, before asking the only thing that mattered. “How did you get your hands on the autopsy?”
Elios smirked, straightening the papers in front of them. “Don’t worry, Contestar. I already had the information destroyed for you.”
“Thank you.” A little frown forced its way onto Rorax’s unwilling mouth. “But that wasn’t the question.”
“No, it wasn’t.” His blue eyes glittered in triumph. “My cousin twice removed is the House of Ice mortician in Koppar, and last week I sent him a raven asking him if he’d seen any unclaimed knife wounds that blasted all the way through a body.”
The smile faded from his beautiful face and his eyes got serious. “I won’t ever use him as a source again. I won’t endanger his life like that by asking him to go between. I ask that you let his life remain . . . untouched. He didn’t even understand what he was looking for when I asked him.”
Elios’s cousin was a dead man walking. Even if the information was nearly irrelevant to anyone besides Rorax, it was a leak that would need to be swiftly plugged.
Rorax snorted, and folded her arms across her chest as feeling slowly started to seep back into her limbs. “Send a raven out today and start finding him a new job. As your House’s ice cube maker or something. Anything. When the spymasters of House of Ice find out any private information was leaked to another House, they’ll come for blood.”
Elios tilted his head and gave her a grim nod. “I was afraid of that after what I found. I’ll have him on the first ship out tomorrow.”
Like that would save his cousin if Kiniera or Rorax wanted him dead.
Elios must have sensed the direction of her thoughts and tried to redirect them. “Your information was by far the hardest to obtain. There isn’t anything anywhere else about you. Why is that? Is that because there isn’t really anything? Or that House of Ice just destroys it?”
She smiled, but it was far from friendly. “A little of both. I’ve been training and fighting since I was a child; as an orphan that was all there was to life.” She shrugged, ignoring the flash of pity in Elios’s eyes. “Ice also wants to make sure we are as unconnected and as untouchable as possible.”
Elios nodded and leaned closer to her. “Even if only half the rumors about you and the Heilstorms are true . . . you have an impressive resume.”
She tried not to make a face at the word resume. That word made it seem like the Choosing was a job, not a death sentence or something they were being forced to participate in to the death.
Rorax gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Most of the rumors are true.”
“Is that why you didn’t report right away to the Choosing? Were you in the middle of an assignment when the Hunter found you?”
“Yes, I was. I can’t tell you anything about it, however. It was a highly confidential assignment and is probably still ongoing.”
Elios’s eyes flashed with disappointment, but it was gone a second later. “I’ve been trying to see you spar with the other Contestars, but you never do. Why not?”
“There are some members of the House of Alloy’s special forces here. I want to keep my identity a secret for as long as possible.” Rorax shrugged and looked down at her hands, remembering how the cartilage in Isgra’s nose felt as she had crunched it under her fist. “I . . . uh . . . also have a ban where I can’t spar with anyone until the next moon. I’m sure you heard that I was recently in a fight with the highborn Isgra Torvik.”
Rorax monitored his face, watching carefully to see if there were any sparks of recognition regarding her connection with Isgra, but there was nothing.
Most of Rorax’s personal information was still tightly under wraps, and Elios only knew the things Kiniera had been feeding him. Except whom really killed the Wolf.He didn’t seem to know of her personal connection to the Wolf or anything about the Siege of Surmalinn, thank K??n.
“To put it mildly, this Choosing’s Highborn selection has been disappointing.” He rubbed a hand over his clean-shaven face. “My queen urged me to select a Highborn but gave me the authority to choose whomever I deemed fit.”
“Mildly disappointing?” Rorax couldn’t hold back a snort. “Highborns are usually the strongest of the Contestars, the smartest, the fittest, and the easiest to control. I’m undoubtedly biased, but there aren’t many of us here who would be able to keep the country safe, let alone rule it. And none of those are Highborns.”
“House of Ice is arguably going to be the best Protectorate here. Why not fight for them?”
Rorax rubbed her thumb over her ring. “No one wants to see a House of Ice sponsored Guardian.”
Elios hummed in agreement and tilted his golden head to the side, taking her in. “Do you think you have what it takes to become the Guardian?”
Rorax didn’t tell him that she had no intention of staying here once she freed herself from the Choosing’s hold on her soul.
Instead, the corner of her mouth curled up as she leaned back in her chair and draped her arms across the back. “I have more than enough of what it takes to keep this hellhole safe.”
Rorax knocked on the wooden door with the House of Life’s Insignia on it.
After talking to Elios, she felt more in control. Rorax wanted him to be her Protectorate, and he wanted her to be his Contestar. House of Fire had the manpower to protect her from herself during influxes. It would be a perfect setup.
The door jerked open, and a tall man—a behemoth of a man—stood in the doorway. Rorax gazed up at him, her neck craning.
K??n save her, the man must have been close to the same size as Lieutenant Asshole. Why did all the men that wanted her dead have to be mammoth sized?
The tall, ginger haired man with a neatly trimmed beard glowered down at her with so much anger and aggression, she was surprised she didn’t take a punch to the face right there and then.
Rorax recognized him. He was the House of Life’s princess’s lover. The healer whose sister had been killed and sacrificed to find Rorax.
Unease coiled in the bottom of Rorax’s chest, and she tightened the bond with her knife.
The giant of a man crossed two thick arms over his chest. His voice was as cold as House of Ice. “You here for your interview?”
Rorax nodded slowly, looking for any immediate weapons or threats on his person. She didn’t find any, and when he turned his back on her and led the way into his room, she hesitantly followed, shutting the door behind her, and moving slowly into his room.
The bedroom door was currently open, revealing heaping piles of clothes and armor that looked like it had been carelessly dumped on the still made-up bed. If Rorax had to guess, the emissary only used this room as a glorified locker and spent most of his time in the Princess’s bed.
The emissary moved to the opposite side of the table from her, placing it between them, and leaned over as he put his massive hands on the polished wooden tabletop.
His lip curled over his teeth as he looked her over with disgust. “Let’s make this fast. The Guardian’s Law says I am not allowed to kill you today but know that I want to. That I would. Roo was like a little sister to me, would have been my little sister if you had just—”
The emissary’s Adam’s apple bobbed as his throat worked, the sight barely visible from under his copper-colored beard.
Rorax rubbed her thumb over her ring, something an awful lot like regret tasting in her mouth. “I came here hoping I could clear the air. The looks you and the princess give me make me want to start shopping for a headstone.”
The corner of the man’s lips twitched, but a shadow passed over his caramel-colored eyes. “Maybe you should.”
Rorax shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe I should. I want to make sure it’s a headstone I like if I’m going to be stuck underneath it for all of eternity.”
The emissary didn’t so much as smirk, so Rorax got to the point.
“I only came here because I want you to deliver a message to the princess for me.” And because the Guardian had threatened Jia if she didn’t.
The emissary’s nostrils flared, and he stood up straight. “Tell me the message, and I will decide if it’s worthy to be given or not.”
Rorax nodded once, fighting a smile that threatened to cross her mouth. She couldn’t help but to like men like him, men who protected the people they loved. “I understand why she hates me. If I was in her position, I would feel the same way.”
His eyebrows furrowed deeper as he crossed his arms across his chest.
“It’s true. But the reason I didn’t answer the Court’s summons was because I was looking for my brother. He’s currently imprisoned. If the roles were reversed, and she was looking under every god’s damned pebble in this god’s forsaken land for her lost sibling, the last remaining shred of family she’s ever had, would she really would have stopped everything to report to the Choosing?”
The emissary’s eyes went wide for a split second before he gritted his teeth and looked down. It was quiet for a beat, and when his eyes continued to focus on the bland wooden floor instead of her face, Rorax knew she was right.
“I have another reason for not reporting, but the princess would need to take a blood oath of secrecy to hear that reason.”
The emissary’s head jerked up and he took a step towards Ror, his eyes blazing.
“I would never let her taint her blood with the blood of a coward.” He sliced the air in front of her face with his palm. “I don’t care what your reasons are, they will never be good enough.”
“Me not answering the summons gave that girl five extra months to live her life.”
The emissary barked out a laugh, “How’d you reckon you didn’t cost her hundreds of years?”
Because Rorax had the resources to end this fucking competition tomorrow.
Because she was a Heilstorm.
Because she had the most powerful realm at her back.
Rorax stood. “Tell the princess my offer. If she wants answers from me that’s the price. Good luck with the Choosing, Emissary.”
The extra knives Rorax hid in her cloak clinked together softly as she made her way up the steps to the House of Alloy’s Emissary room.
If there was going to be trouble during an interview, it was going to be this one.
Rorax had stopped by her own room to gather some equipment, since she didn’t trust the House of Alloy with any fiber of her being.
She knocked on the door and a man answered.
He stood taller than her by several inches, with dark brown hair slicked back and matching dark brown eyes. The arrogance and entitlement in his eyes were expected as his gaze crawled over Rorax, inspecting her from head to toe. Rorax bit her cheek to not react to his offensive gaze, or to open her mouth and threaten to pluck out his eyes as his gaze lingered on her breasts.
“Hello, Emissary,” Rorax ground out, and finally his line of vision lifted to hers.
He smiled an oily smile that only served to put her more on edge as he stepped back and invited her into the room. “Contestar, make yourself at home.”
Rorax fought a shiver of revulsion and stepped inside.
Rorax’s attention was immediately pulled to a tall, ebony-skinned woman who leaned against the wall, her muscular limbs deceptively loose as she twirled a throwing knife around her finger. The woman’s bald head had been carefully shaved to show off the green tattoos marking her scalp. She cocked her head at Rorax as Rorax moved farther into the room and the torch light reflected off her tattoos like they were made of a shiny green metal. The woman had a silver septum piercing, and her brown eyes had a thick line of bright green eyeliner painted sharply on her top eyelids, making her look feline and dangerous.
She stood behind a man seated at the table with auburn hair and tan skin. Rorax’s eyes moved to him, taking in his thick arms that were crossed over his chest and the hard set of his jaw. He was watching her, his deep blue eyes looked vaguely familiar.
“Take a seat, Contestar.” The woman against the wall smiled, pointing the knife in her hand to the empty chairs at the table. Her smile was far from friendly.
Rorax did as she was told, feeling the man who met her at the door following closely behind, breathing down her neck.
“My name is Niels Wormwood. I am the Emissary of House of Alloy. That is Narlaroca, and in front of you is Callum. They’re my assistants during our time in the Choosing,” the emissary stated, as he crossed over and sat in his chair beside Callum. He leaned over the table towards her.
The emissary, Niels, beamed at her for a second longer than was proper. “You are an interesting specimen,” he crooned, looking her over as if she was not in fact, a person, but an object. An inanimate soldier. “An interesting House of Ice project.”
Rorax did her best not to shuffle in her seat. “It looks like we have three interesting House of Alloy projects here, too,” she returned flatly, looking each of them in the eyes.
Niels smiled in delight. “My king has ordered me to select a Highborn, given our small timeframe. He wants someone who already knows how to use her power and is a friend of the House of Alloy.” Niels gave her a tightlipped smile. “You are not a Highborn, but you certainly do know how to fight.”
“You beating Isgra’s ass was the highlight of my week,” the woman, Narlaroca, chimed in from behind the emissary. She smiled wide again to show off slightly sharpened canines. Narlaroca reminded Rorax of a snake, a viper in Alloy colors.
Rorax gave her a tight smile back, before turning back to Niels.
“Unfortunately, orders are orders.” Niels looked crestfallen, as he looked over Rorax again. The slow inspection of his beady, black eyes made the hair on Rorax’s neck rise. “But if something were to happen in the Tournament tomorrow . . . If we do not place favorably enough to claim a Highborn, House of Alloy has a special interest in you.”
Rorax pushed herself up, eager to leave. “I won’t waste any more of your time then.”
Niels nodded. “That would be best. Until next time, Contestar.”
Rorax looked at each of them one last time, before turning and disappearing from the room, her skin crawling over her bones.
Rorax had shown up to the House Death Emissary’s door to find a tiny little note wedged in the door frame.
Meet me outside.
-M
That suited her just fine. She craved some fresh air and had taken the opportunity to grab a few coins from her room, with the intention that she would be able to find some food from one of the merchants or vendors that had made camp on the castle grounds.
Rorax had decided that she would go see the emissary before she focused on food, but as she approached a line of tall, black tents she wished that she would have sorted her priorities better.
Unlike most of the other houses who had set up their tents to be in rows, designed to make it easy to socialize and shop with customers from the other realms, Death had set their tents up to resemble a colony, each black tent situated edge to edge facing inward with only one tent that led in and out of their section.
Rorax dragged her feet, dreading this interview. She was tired, hungry, and wanted to be alone. She didn’t have any energy left for another altercation with the lieutenant today. Rorax couldn’t see past the wall of tents the Death Court had erected, but she heard the cheering of a crowd.
She approached the House of Death guards standing tall at the entrance. “Excuse me, I have an appointment with the Emissary.”
The guard looked down his nose at her. “You’re early.”
“I didn’t exactly click with my last appointment.”
He sneered down at Rorax but turned to the tent and pushed through an opening she hadn’t noticed. “Go through there, turn to your left and you’ll see her tent. It’s the only tent here with the red flags in the front.”
Rorax stepped inside, turned to ask the guard a question, but he had already shut the opening of the tent back up. She scrunched her nose and continued.
When she pushed through the other side of the tent, she saw what the commotion was. A group of soldiers were standing in a circle, taking bets, and cheering on a sparring match.
It wasn’t just any sparring match.
The Prince of Death and the lieutenant were in the center of the humming crowd, swinging swords at each other.
She instantly forgot her exhaustion and her appetite.
Both men were sweaty. Both men were shirtless. And both wore only black leather pants. They exuded confident aggression and testosterone—something that Rorax had always found irresistible—in palpable amounts.
Heat rose in her core, and Rorax swallowed to get some moisture on her tongue as the prince landed an elbow into the lieutenant’s rib cage. The lieutenant grunted in pain but swiped a foot under the prince.
The prince hit the ground and rolled away, came up in a crouch, and pounced back into the fray.
The lieutenant’s personality might have resembled a stinking pile of wild goat dung, but his body . . .
Gods above.
His tattoos were beautiful.
The same image that was on the House of Death sigil—Marras, Goddess of Death, donned in a white robe—was in the middle of his pecks. A skull with an intricately drawn snake running down her sides and covered the bottom of his pecks and abdomen. More skulls, snakes, roses, fire, and various weapon designs covered the rest of his darkly tanned skin and the deep V at the base of his other abdominal muscles. When his back turned to her, she saw thin vertical lines tracing down over his spine, starting from the top of his neck and disappearing below his low riding pants. Images of men fighting bloomed on either side of those lines. Whoever had done the tattoo work for him was a master, skilled beyond reason. She would need to find out who the artist was in case she ever had the time to get another tattoo.
The lieutenant was built thicker than the prince, and he had more muscle packed onto his tall frame. She’d never seen a stronger looking man.
The prince was leaner and tattoo-less, and as he twisted and turned, she could see almost every muscle and sinew in his upper body. His abdominals, pecs, and laterals strained with the effort of keeping the lieutenant at bay, and it was absolutely delicious.
The lethal dance only became more intense as the men started to tire out. Lieutenant Jackass used a long broadsword he rotated back and forth to catch the dual bladed blows the prince dealt out.
All around, House of Death soldiers placed bets on who would win. Even Rorax threw in some of the coins she had brought for food to bet on the prince, pointing to the man without any tattoos as she handed the coins to the little man taking bets. Rorax studied the crowd for the man with the ten-pointed star on his neck, but she couldn’t find him in the throng. She also didn’t see the tall woman with the long white braids.
A flash of red swept into Rorax’s peripheral vision as the Death Emissary, Milla, stepped next to her, brushing Rorax’s shoulder. “They’re incredible, aren’t they?”
Rorax smirked as the prince landed an elbow to the lieutenant’s jaw. “I’ll let you know how incredible I think they are after I know just how much money I’ve lost.”
Milla chuckled, pushing a long lock of wine-red hair over her shoulder.
“Am I late, Emissary?” Rorax asked, not taking her gaze off the fight.
“No, not at all. I saw you standing over here and I thought I would come say hello. And tell you that you might want to wipe the drool off your chin before the prince slips in it and falls.”
Rorax shot Milla a glare.
Milla took one look at Rorax’s face and threw her head back to laugh.
The sound distracted the lieutenant, and he glanced up to look at Milla before his gaze flickered over to Rorax. Recognition flashed in his eyes.
The distraction made the lieutenant falter, just for a split second, but it was all the Death Prince needed to swipe the lieutenant’s legs out from under him.
He landed on his back, the air pushed out of his lungs with a grunt, and the crowd erupted. Everyone around Rorax went wild and cheered loudly. Men and women started rushing toward the bet taker or pushing to clap the prince on the back. Some went to help the lieutenant up off the ground, giving him conciliatory pats on the back.
Rorax happily made her way to the man who had been taking bets, he returned her money with an additional two coins.
Milla laughed when she saw the smug look on Rorax’s face as she made her way back and reached out to nudged Rorax’s arm with an elbow. “Follow me, Contestar.”
They weaved through the crowd until they came to the emissary’s tent. The enormous tent was black with gold and red trim.
One solitary guard was posted outside, and Milla paused to speak with him. “Fetch the prince and the lieutenant, please. Tell them the next Contestar meeting has just begun.”
The inside was surprisingly well lit because the back of the tent was opened to the forest. It also felt like they had commissioned the House of Light to enchant the space to let in light through the dark fabric. Inside, the space was sparse, completely empty with only a large mahogany table and a few chairs in the middle.
Milla motioned towards the chairs in front of the table as she folded herself into one behind it. “Please, take a seat.”
Rorax did as the emissary asked, and for a tense moment they just stared at each other.
The moment was broken when the prince swaggered into the tent, his arms raised as he pulled his hair into a knot on top of his head. “Sorry I’m late, Rubes. Ayres is cleaning the cut on his eyebrow, then he said he’d be right in.”
Rorax took in the shirt he’d donned somewhere after the sparring match with regret.
“That’s not a problem, we were just getting started.” Milla offered the prince a smile as he plopped down in the chair next to Milla and lounged back.
The prince gave Rorax a short nod, his longish black hair wet with sweat, and his golden eyes gleamed as he took her in. “Hello, Contestar.”
“Hello, Prince,” Rorax all but purred, tilting her head at him. “Quite a show you put on. Congratulations on your win. You won me a few gold coins today you know.”
The prince’s icy expression warmed, and he leaned forward in his chair to rest his elbows on the tabletop. “You were there?”
“She’s the reason I lost,” came a growling response over Rorax’s shoulder.
Rorax’s jaw locked up as the lieutenant brushed past her, scowling down at the prince before sitting on the opposite side of Milla. He folded his arms over his chest and glowered at Rorax. The lieutenant had not donned a shirt on the way to the tent, which she was secretly grateful for.
“So, you’re a Contestar,” he all but snarled across the table at her.
“What an astute observation, Lieutenant,” Rorax deadpanned, trying not to roll her eyes. “I’m impressed.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw, and her eyes locked onto it. K??n save her, even his jaw muscles were impressive.
“You’re not fit to lead the Realms, and we’re not interested.” His usually dark eyes were streaked with a line of silver. “In fact, I should just kill you right here.”
The change of color in his eyes must have been connected to his mood, connected to how much magick is in his blood,thought Rorax. Plenty of magick wielders’ eyes shifted colors as they used the magick they held. With the lieutenant, charcoal was safe, silver meant danger.
Rorax tucked away that piece of information for later.
Rorax’s smirk stretched into a smile, and she leaned in closer to him. “I’d like to see you try.” She would ram her knife through his heart in less than a second.
“Ayres,” Milla warned. “I want to ask her a few questions.”
The muscle in the lieutenant’s jaw twitched again, but he leaned back in his seat.
“The question I want answered the most is probably predictable . . . where have you been for the last six months?” Milla asked.
“I work for the army in the House of Ice,” Rorax said flatly. “And I’ve been on assignment.”
The three of them went deathly still, probably thinking about the Siege. If they only knew, Rorax probably wouldn’t get out of there alive.
“What area of the army are you in?” the prince asked.
Rorax slowly slid her eyes from one of them to the next. “I work under General Frostguard.”
The prince visibly relaxed, but Milla narrowed her eyes. “Which area are you in?”
Rorax rubbed her thumb over her ring and told Milla the truth. “I’m one of General Frostguard’s personal assistants.”
All three of them looked at her with renewed suspicion.
“Okay, then.” Milla placed her palms flat on the big desk. “Tell us, why should we choose you to be our Contestar?”
Rorax sighed heavily, the exhaustion of the day weighing heavily on her shoulders. “You shouldn’t. Not if you expect me to win this.”
Milla’s eyebrows went up, and she shook her head. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I think the Choosing is barbaric. We are sacrificing eleven of the Realms’ most formidable women. For what? There must be a way out of this. There’s the world’s oldest library below our feet. There must be something down there that can tell us how to release Contestars from the Choosing, and I want to find it. I want out.”
The three of them looked at each other in confusion.
“I have something . . . something I need to do. Something important that’s waiting for me,” Rorax said. “So, I don’t have the time or the patience to be a bodyguard. Especially a bodyguard to a whole country.”
“That’s what you said to me when I first met you. That you didn’t want the job.” Milla’s hands curled into fists on the tabletop. “But why not? If you took Ayres on and managed to land a few blows, you’re obviously more than capable of handling your own here. Maybe the magick chose you because you would be the best.”
Rorax resisted the urge to grind her teeth. “I’m looking for my brother. He was kidnapped by Lyondrea over a hundred and fifty years ago, and I have evidence that they are still holding him there. I want to be able to focus on finding him and getting him out. It could take me months, years to extract him and I don’t have time to do both jobs well. Especially not now, on the cusp of war.”
Piers lets out a low whistle, and as Ayres and Milla shared a look something hard softened in Milla’s eyes. Ayres’s face remained the same though as he stood up and stalked towards the front of the tent to the exit. “You know my vote, Milla,” he said over his shoulder before disappearing through the flaps.
The prince and Milla shared a long look before she turned back to Rorax. “If Ayres isn’t on board with you then we can’t be either. If you can’t convince him then we’ll have to choose someone else.”
Rorax clicked her ring on the wooden arm of her chair, contemplating them. “If I get him to say yes, then I’m in?”
“Well . . . you would be closer. We still aren”t convinced, and I’d still need to write a letter to our queen to confirm our decision.”
Rorax turned to ice in her chair. What would the queen do if she knew Rorax was a Contestar? Would she come to kill her?
Rorax hummed to herself, forcing herself out of her chair. “Thank you for your time. We will see you in the tournament tomorrow,” Milla said as Rorax exited the tent.