39. Rorax
The morning after the Tournament of Houses, everyone in the Mess Hall but Jia was still drunk or looked a little green from their lingering hangovers.
Jia eyed Rorax from over a piece of bacon she had pressed between her fingers. “You look like shit, Ror,” she said softly.
Rorax cut her a glance but said nothing.
Rorax knew she looked like shit because she felt like shit. She felt wrung out and jumpy.
After leaving Ayres’s room the night before, she’d all but sprinted down to the library to find a book on the history of Sumavari’s monsters.
She needed to know what kind of horrors she could potentially be responsible for releasing into the world. She also wanted to know what she could be facing.
Radashan had already gone to bed for the evening, and the library doors were locked tight. So instead, she’d spent the evening pacing endlessly in her room, spiraling deeper and deeper into a well of shame, anger, and anxiety.
When the sun finally peaked over the horizon, Rorax decided if she was going to pace, she was going to do it outside of the library. Radashan had given her a worried look when he finally arrived to open the doors. “Good morning, Rorax,” he said hesitantly, opening the door and stepping inside.
Rorax followed, tight on the librarian’s heels. “Show me your section on Sumavari’s monsters.”
Radashan looked up at her, his already disproportionately large eyes opening even wider. “Why do you need those, Ms. Greywood?”
Rorax didn’t have the mental capacity to eventry to lie. “I heard someone tried to summon them. I need to know if I should care, and I need to know what I’m up against in case they’re successful.”
“Good Gods.” Radashan blinked and pushed his wide round glasses up his nose. Once, twice, three times he blinked before he gave a short shaky nod. “Follow me.”
He turned, and with swift, short little legs he showed her to a small section of books, pointing to one. “This one was written by an old friend. He was alive at the time and survived when Sumavari’s creatures were on the loose.”
The title read Surviving Sumavari’s Creatures; the Truth Behind the Legends.
“Thank you.” Rorax plucked the book from the bookcase, turned on her heel and left without another word. She took it back to her room, and immediately began to read. Everything she’d read made her more and more anxious.
Jia knocked on Rorax’s door a few hours later for their morning workout.
Rorax went only because she needed to do something with all her energy. She’d been so distracted in the arena though that as soon as they returned to Rorax’s room, Jia placed her hands on her hips. “Rorax Greywood, tell me what the fuck is going on with you.”
So Rorax told her. She told Jia what she’d found out from a drunk Ayres. About the books and Sumavari’s pets, and by the end Jia looked just as pale and jittery as Rorax. And just as angry.
Rorax rubbed a thumb over her ring, sucking a deep breath in to help calm herself down. The Wolf. The Wolf had caused this. But Rorax had helped her.
But did Rorax care enough about the people in the world to split her focus? She should be spending her attention and energy on finding her brother, on freeing him from Lyondrea. That was her priority. She owed him her life.
But Sumavari’s pets were a horror story that even generations later people still remembered. They had killed thousands of Gifted and Ungifted alike when they had been unleashed the first time. If Lyondrea was trying to unleash them again . . . at the same time the Pits were opened . . . fuck.
“I have to help them get the books back,” Rorax said numbly, the truth settling on her shoulders like a weight as she stared out of her window at nothing.
“They seem to be handling it just fine,” Jia said, sitting in one of Rorax’s chairs looking up at Rorax with exhaustion creasing the corners of her eyes. “We have to tell Kiniera, Ror.”
So they did.
Kiniera had looked from Jia to Rorax and then slammed her hands on the table violently. “Fuck,” she exploded so loudly it made Rorax and Jia flinch back.
“Fuck!” Kiniera pushed up and went to the window, her hands on her hips.
“What does this mean? What’s in those books?” Jia asked.
“Creatures that were designed by a madman to help him become the supreme leader of all of Illus.” Kiniera growled. “They were designed to be able to kill as many soldiers and civilians as he needed to do it. Warlords, shadow griffons, draugr, hell I even think the fucking Death Harbinger was one of his fucking pets.”
“I thought the Death Harbinger was one of the Sumavaris?” Rorax raised an eyebrow. Rorax had read about the Harbinger in one of her books not too long ago. The Harbinger was only a myth, but the Death Harbinger was supposed to be of royal blood with a direct link to Marras herself. One of the most powerful beings in the Realms, if it was true, which the book had seemed to think it wasn’t.
“I don’t fucking know.” Kiniera turned around and stared Rorax down. “What do you want to do about this, Greywood?”
“What exactly is in those books? What could they summon if they were successful?” Rorax asked.
“I don’t know everything,” Kiniera said, rubbing her fingers into her temples, “But for starters I know there are books that summon Sumavari’s Warlords, monsters made of shadows and fear; one of them can raise the dead, the Death Harbinger, a snake the size of a sea dragon, it makes Pit monsters look like children’s pets you can pet at a farm.”
Rorax rubbed her thumb over her ring. “There is only one thing we can do. We need to find them. Sumavari’s Books are the new priority.”
Kiniera nodded. “You were planning on freeing yourself from the Choosing. What about Darras?”
Rorax felt like her tongue was made of lead. “I will keep looking for a way to get out. But he will have to wait, for now.”
“The Pits, the Books, Lyondrea . . .” Kiniera”s shoulders hunched slightly, and ice began to crawl up Kiniera’s fingertips. “Eshaal is going to step in for Sahana as the new Unit One Heilstorm leader, but I feel Sahana’s absence right now like a hole the size of Raengar’s bloody dragon. She would know what to do.”
Kiniera sighed heavily, and turned back to face them, her hands still on her hips. “Go, eat breakfast, and figure out a way to force Milla’s hand, Spine Cleaver. I want you in-the-know regarding where those bloody books are at all times.”
For the next three hours after she finished her breakfast, Rorax asked around the castle looking for the Death Emissary, but no one had seen her.
On Rorax’s sixth visit to the House of Death tower, she finally saw the emissary walking down the end of the hall with a handful of guards on her heels.
Rorax jogged after her and came around the corner too fast to evade Milla, as she grabbed Rorax’s wrist and the front of her Contestar leathers and shoved her back against the wall.
Rorax blinked once in surprise before giving Milla—who stood in front of Rorax holding a knife at her throat—an impressed grin. “Emissary, I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Why have you been looking for me, Greywood?” Milla asked, getting closer and more threatening with every millimeter.
Rorax put her hands up in surrender. “Easy. I just want to talk. Alone.” Rorax’s eyes flickered up over the redhead’s shoulder to the men who watched closely.
Milla’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, the knife getting so tight against her skin Rorax knew it would split soon.
“Fine.” Milla released her and took a step away. “Follow me,” she snapped before turning on her heel and disappearing down the corridor.
Rorax followed, feeling Milla’s men glare holes into her back as they turned and headed to Milla’s room.
Milla unlocked the door and pushed it open for Rorax. “Stay out here,” Milla told the guards.
Rorax moved farther inside the room and Milla closed the door behind her, leaning back against it. She folded her arms over her chest and gave Rorax a cold glare. “You have ten minutes, I have somewhere to be.”
“How generous of you,” Rorax drawled. It didn’t escape Rorax that Milla stayed next to the door, mere inches from her escape—and potential rescuers—so Rorax moved all the way around and took a seat at the table on the opposite side from Milla, putting the table between them.
She lounged back in her chair and spread her empty hands out on the tabletop, willing the emissary to relax. Rorax wasn’t a threat to her.
“If you think that we will choose you as our Contestar because of what you did for Ayres last night, you’re wrong,” Milla said, her eyes narrowing. “We don’t even know if you really saved him, or if you were the one who orchestrated the whole thing. Seems like something Ice would do.”
Rorax snorted. “That’s not why I’m here. Not exactly.”
Milla narrowed her eyes.
“Actually, I’m here because as I was hauling Ayres’s ass back to the castle last night—after I killed those men to save him—Ayres told me that the Sumavari’s Books of Summoning were stolen during the siege,” Rorax said, ignoring how Milla’s whole body jerked straight with surprise. “He told me Lyondreans are crossing the border into House of Death lands, trying to use the magick in your realm to summon Sumavari’s beasts, and killing innocent Death civilians to do it. So, I came here to offer my . . . talents to you.”
Milla said nothing, did nothing—she barely even breathed. So Rorax pressed on, taking the opportunity to make her case.
“I am one hundred and sixty-six years old,” Rorax started, her voice low and lethal. “I have been a part of House of Ice’s army since I was seven.”
The memory of the Wolf, bending down in the middle of a snowstorm to her, using soft, warm fingers to caress Rorax’s seven-year-old face—to brush the frozen hair out of Rorax’s young eyes—burned through Rorax’s memories like a comet.
“Come with me, little Pup. I will keep you safe,” she had said, and just like that Rorax didn’t live on the streets of Koppar anymore. She moved into the orphan barracks with nothing, but Glimr and the bird skull ring her brother had given her on a chain around her neck.
Emotion flickered across Milla’s face, but Rorax didn’t stop; didn’t let her speak.
“I know how to hunt and kill better than almost anyone in the Realms, and Ayres told me you need help doing just that.” Rorax leaned forward, keeping her empty and still unarmed hands pinned flat on the tabletop. “So, I will help you with your hunts, help you find all Sumavari’s Books of Summoning, and help you crown the Guardian of your choice. If the House of Death agrees to be my Protectorate, and if you try to help me find a way to release myself from the Choosing.”
Milla stared at her for so long, Rorax shifted in her chair uncomfortably.
“Have . . .” The word came out so hoarse that Milla had to clear her throat. “Have you told Kiniera about this?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t want her to know. I don’t want any of the House of Ice knowing that the Sumavari’s Books are out there on the loose.” Milla sliced her hand in the air between them.
“Why? Are you worried they might try to use them?” The thought threatened to tug a sardonic smile from Rorax’s lips. House of Ice was not only the most powerful realm in the country but it was the largest realm geographically. During the War of the Aqueducts, one of King Raengar’s ancestors had conquered the Horns of Stromwell and the Azaele’s Islands and claimed the land as their own.
They often didn’t have enough priests to comb through the magick on the Horns, so monsters and creatures roamed freely. Out of all the Houses, Ice might be the least likely to use the books. They couldn’t rise any farther up the food chain and they had their own issues and more than their fair share of their own monsters to deal with.
“Yes,” Milla snapped. “I am afraid. I am afraid they will try and use them. I’m afraid that someone would leak the information to the House of Alloy that we lost them. I’m afraid of what the Queen of Wymera would do if she found out. I don’t want to give any of them tools that could help them.”
“Everyone that was responsible for the attack on House of Death is either dead or in prison on the Ribs,” Rorax ground out, thinking of the Realms’ most dangerous and secure prison on the southern islands. She pulled her hands from the top of the table so she could fist them in her lap. “House of Ice has the resources to help you. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“The House of Ice is the reason we are in this predicament in the first place.” Milla shook her head, finally coming forward and bracing her hands on the back of the chair directly in front of Rorax. “Why are you even offering to help? I don’t understand.”
Rorax looked down at her hands, rubbing the pad of her thumb over the symbol engraved on the top of her bird ring so hard she knew the symbol would be imprinted on her skin there. She wouldn’t lie and she wouldn’t run, not when she had the opportunity to help them. To help him, the one with the ten-pointed star. To set her biggest regret to rights. “I have to tell you something, Milla, and I need you to promise that you will stay for the whole story. That you won”t try and kill me until I’m finished.”
Rorax finally looked up into Milla’s flashing blue eyes. “It’s important.”
Milla opened her mouth but was cut off by a loud knocking on the door.
“Milla, open the door. I know she’s in there with you,” a male rumbled from the other side.
Milla snapped her mouth shut and turned to swing open the door for the lieutenant. He stalked into the room, and the look on his face made something like fear wash through the insides of Rorax’s stomach. Her heart started thumping in her throat.
He looked miles better than last night, but one of his eyebrows was still swollen; the left side of his face and the corner of his mouth were beginning to bruise.
The lieutenant shut the door behind him, his lip curling over his teeth. “What are you doing here?”
“Rorax was just about to tell me something. She’s here to volunteer to help us hunt for the books, Ayres,” Milla snapped. “The Books she said you told her about.”
The lieutenant’s eyes went as wide as they could under the swelling, and he turned his head to Rorax, swallowing hard. “I did, didn’t I, Little Crow?”
Rorax huffed a short, nervous laugh. The lieutenant had told her yesterday, I’m going to call you that . . . from now on . . . little crow.
The lieutenant rubbed his hand over his short, cropped hair. “Fuck, it’s all coming back to me.”
“So, is it true?” Milla asked, raising an eyebrow.
There was a short pause. “Yes, all of it.”
“Where was Kaiya?”
“I don’t remember.”
Milla sighed defeatedly, turned back to Rorax and frowned. “What were you about to tell me?”
Rorax’s eyes flickered back and forth from Milla to the lieutenant.
She couldn’t tell Milla that she was the Pup now. She could handle Milla, but the lieutenant . . . she wouldn’t kill him now, not after what he had revealed last night, and the likelihood she would survive hand-to-hand combat with Ayres without lobbing his head off was slim. She glanced uneasily between the two of them.
There was probably a window in Milla’s bedroom that she could escape from if she needed. Hopefully.
Decision made, she dragged in a slow breath, and the words of the Wolf dripped through her mind.
Who are you, little one?
I am Rorax Greywood.
What does that mean?
It means I am not afraid.
Rorax straightened her spine even more and sucked in a steadying breath. She let it out and started her story.
“I was raised by the Wolf in Koppar.” Ayres and Milla both stopped breathing. “The Wolf, someone whom I very much considered to be my mother, convinced me to help her by leading an army to lay siege to Surmalinn . . . about fifty years ago.”
Ayres was across the room, faster than Rorax could blink. He yanked her out of her chair by her throat and slammed her against the wall so hard she saw stars. “Who are you? Tell me the truth, or I’ll snap this pretty neck. Right here. Right now. Everything.”
“My name is Rorax Greywood,” Rorax gasped through his grip. “I am also known as the Spine Cleaver—” The lieutenant’s head jerked back an inch, his fingers flexing tighter around her throat. “I am also . . .” K??n help her, she was going to die. Right here, right in this shitty, windowless room. He was going to snap her neck; ironic really that the Spine Cleaver would die this way.
The lieutenant stared down at her, his eyes fluctuating between bright red and silver. She had been wrong before. Ayres’s eyes turning to silver was a warning, but when they turned red? That was when there was danger, and she was toeing the line. “You’re the Wolf’s Pup.” Not a question.
Rorax tried not to snarl at the name, her ties to Glimr going tight as the lieutenant’s fingers flexed even tighter around her throat. “I was. I ripped that title from myself the night of the Siege. The night I decided not to kill everyone in Surmalinn.” The night she killed the Wolf.
“And you’re the Spine Cleaver?” The lieutenant’s glare bounced back and forth from her blue irises. “But your eyes? The Spine Cleaver has white eyes.”
“I have a witch rune that changes the color.”
“Where?” the lieutenant snapped, and Rorax slowly lifted a hand to point behind her ear.
The lieutenant’s hand slid up her neck to cup her jaw so he could jerk her head to the side. He used his other hand to brush her hair up and push her ear to the side, just enough to expose the sensitive skin behind it.
He brought her face forward again. “Show me,” he snapped.
“No. Witches are banned from the Choosing. I don’t have anyone here to replace it.”
“Show me. Now,” he snarled, “I want to see.”
“Everyone will recognize me, and I went a long way out of my way to make sure that didn’t happen.”
“You’ll die here anyway if I don’t get confirmation,” the lieutenant growled, his fingers flexing.
Rorax sighed in exasperation and lifted her hand with her bird ring to her ear. Using the tip of the beak to slice open the skin, Rorax broke through the skin that the rune that had been tattooed on, just under the tip of her ear.
She didn’t feel anything different besides a small trickle of blood down the side of her ear and neck, but the lieutenant’s scowl deepened, telling her that her eyes had indeed shifted back from the rune’s pale blue coloring to her own natural shade of white.
The part of her eyes where the color should be, her irises, were completely bleached of color. The outer ring of her eye was black, as was her pupil, but where most people had strands of color, Rorax only had strands of various and glittering shades of white.
Eyes of snow for my Ice Born Pup, theWolf had always told her.
Her eyes had become famous after the Siege of Surmalinn. Rumors of a white-eyed conqueror made her too easily recognizable, and some missions became more difficult than necessary. So, one day she had gone to the House of Fauna and hired Merosa, self-proclaimed Queen of the Witches, to create a shifter rune to change her eye color. The rune had cost her 2,000 gold marks and days of travel, all of which was down the drain now.
The lieutenant stared at her for several long seconds, looking from one of her eyes to the other. His face betrayed his inner turmoil, like he didn’t know what to do. He wanted to kill her, but she had saved his life and was here now begging to help him and his people.
“Lieutenant—Ayres—I want to help, I . . .” She swallowed; her throat suddenly achingly tight. “I’m partially responsible for the fact that Sumavari’s Books are in the hands of people who plan to use them. I helped do that. I’m part of the reason that House of Death civilians are being hunted. I’m part of the reason that you . . . that you had to kill that little girl.”
Ayres’s face went completely void. He didn”t say anything to her, he barely even breathed as the grip on her neck slackened.
“Ayres, leading that army into Surmalinn that night is my life’s biggest regret.” Rorax clamped her hand around his wrist at her throat, pulling him tight against her again as she tried to will him to see her, to see into her as tears escaped from the corner of her eyes. “I’m so sorry. But I can help you now. I have all the necessary tools and skills to help you find those books. I can help you save just as many people as I . . . as I . . .” Rorax’s throat worked, and she watched his expression change. His eyes went from far away to searing into her soul, like they were burning right through her.
“Why haven’t you told anyone who you are? You would have all eleven of the other Protectorate’s lining up for you, Highborn or not.” Milla came to stand by the lieutenant’s side, folding her arms across her chest.
“I wanted control over my choice. There are only a few Houses that will be able to truly assist me when my influx hits. I wanted to see and experience for myself who would be the best house for my circumstances, and which houses were under the influence of House of Alloy.” Rorax paused and thought for a moment. “Also . . . I’ve been hiding or hunting almost every minute of my life, and . . . I didn’t want that here. I wanted something different,” she told them, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes moved to Milla who was giving her a cold stare. “Until I found out about the Books.”
Ayres snarled from above her, and he squeezed her neck so hard she started to choke. “Get out. Get out and stay away from me and my House, or I will kill you.”
Ayres turned and threw Rorax so hard she flew across the table, skidding across the surface and crashing to the floor on the other side, knocking two chairs over with her.
Rorax achingly pushed herself to her feet, her throat stinging. “Think about it,” she rasped, looking from one stony face to the next. “Please.”
Then she turned and strode out of the room.