65. Rorax
Bafta was nothing more than a dust bowl.
On average, the House of Death was green and full of lush forest and grassy plains. Bafta seemed to have missed the message to grow any kind of foliage whatsoever.
Rorax sneezed before she could cover her nose, and dark brown snot shot out all over the arm of her brand-new dress.
“That’s fucking disgusting, Ror,” Jia grimaced in disgust.
“There is just so much dust in this gods-forsaken town,” Rorax grumbled, wiping her arm off the best she could. “Jesus, Hella is going to murder me when she sees this.”
Hella had whacked her in the shoulder with her little painted silk fan the last time Rorax visited the seamstress’s shop with a smudge of dirt on the sleeve of her new dress, warning her to be careful with her precious creations.
The roads were all made up of bone-dry dirt, until it rained, and as carts and carriages went through the streets plumes of dust kicked up into the dry air. Not even the sporadically placed flowerpots throughout the city could make the buildings look any less dusty.
Jia glanced up at the small clock tower in the center of the village. “We have ten more minutes to get there on time.”
“We’ll make it,” Rorax said, as they continued. She used her hand to wipe the sweat away from her neck. It was summer, and the heat in the middle of the days had moved from hot to sweltering. She spent her afternoons over the past few weeks in the library, hiding away from the sun as she searched for ways to get around the Choosing.
Rorax was picking up a yellow, sparkly dress Hella had designed for her, and Rorax was excited about it. Today for their trip into town she wore a different dress, a long pale blue gown with a medium length slit up her thigh. She had ample pockets for all her knives and could move freely in the dress. It was currently her favorite article of clothing she owned.
They crossed the road and started along the mostly deserted, long and narrow alleyway situated between buildings so close they provided some shade.
A dark figure turned the corner and familiarity made Rorax’s heart lurched in her chest. She froze, and Jia, who had been walking closely behind Rorax, knocked into her.
“Ror, what’re you . . . holy shit,” Jia whispered.
Karan Thorash—mate to one of the most influential Heilstorms in House of Ice history—was heading right towards them.
Nothing but cold, determined fury lived in the hard lines of his face; his eyes—gods his eyes—were so dark they were nearly black. They held nothing of the familiar warmth Rorax was so used to seeing.
A warning screamed in the back of her head.
“Karan,” Jia croaked, and Rorax knew if she looked back at her comrade, she would see tears in her eyes. “Karan, oh my gods.”
Karan didn’t seem to hear Jia as he grabbed Rorax by her shoulder, turned her, and slammed her against the nearest wall. The back of her skull cracked on the hard wood logs of the building.
Rorax hissed as a sharp pain shot from the back of her skull. She had her hair blade tucked into her hair as she always did, and the force of his actions made one of the blades nick painfully into her scalp. She felt a cool press of a blade to her throat and had to fight to keep her temper under control.
“Where is Sahana? Where the fuck is she, Ror?” Karan hissed down into Rorax’s face. “What did you do to her?”
Jia tried to reach up and grab Karan’s hand away from Rorax’s shoulder, but he shoved Jia away before gripping Rorax’s shoulder even tighter. “Karan, stop! Rorax didn’t do—”
He snarled, pressing closer. “Sahana lived for almost 6oo years, and yet just a few years after she gives you a chance, after she saves you, she’s gone?”
“Karan, I’m so sorry.” The anguish in Jia’s voice twisted something hot and painful in Rorax’s heart.
Karan still ignored Jia, his fingers wrapping around Rorax’s shoulder and collarbone so tightly she knew she would have bruises. His hair was longer and in worse shape than Rorax had ever seen it; the greasy black strands trailed all the way past his unshaven jaw.
Sorrow and guilt burrowed deeper into her chest and Rorax sagged a little. “I don’t know, Karan. I don’t know where they took her body. Crax was working with a Lyondrean General; we think they . . .” Rorax had to swallow hard, her throat achingly tight. “We think they probably burned it.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Rorax,” Karan hissed, pressing the knife tighter against her throat.
Rorax felt blood from her cut scalp trickle down her back at the same time she felt the knife bite deeper into the skin at her neck. She had to press her eyes together and take two deep breaths in through her nose to keep from knocking Karan on his ass.
Jia took a tiny step forward, her hands out placatingly. “Karan. Calm down and we will tell you everything we know. There was nothing we could have done. Rorax saved my life.”
Karan didn’t so much as glance Jia’s way. His eyes remained fixed on Rorax, glittering with fury.
“Do not play with me, Pup.” He spit the words at her, and Rorax’s hold on her temper slipped another inch at the nickname. “Where is she?”
Despite being a hair away from knocking Karan into the next week, Rorax tried her best to soften the truth. “Sahana is dead, Karan. She died in Lyondrea.”
“No, she isn’t,” he hissed, almost nose-to-nose with her again. “I can still feel her. She’s alive.”
Gods above.
Rorax’s eyebrows furrowed and something dangerous—something like hope—sprouted in her chest. “You can . . . still feel her?”
Karan’s fingers tightened around Rorax’s shoulder even more and he leaned until they were nose to nose. “Yes, you vicious bitch—I can still feel her. I know she’s alive. So, I’ll ask you again, where the fuck is she?”
Jia made a strangling noise, and a weight lifted in Rorax’s chest.
Rorax grabbed Karan’s wrist, wretched it and the knife he held away from her neck and sideswiped his feet from under him.
He landed on the ground with a loud solid thud. Jia already had her sword out and pointed at Karan’s chest.
“What do we do?” she asked Ror, keeping her eyes on the seething man at her feet.
Rorax rubbed gently at her shoulder where Karan’s fingers had been, her thoughts going a mile a minute. “We need to find Kiniera, and we need to send a letter to the King.”
“Should we reach out to Eshaal?” Jia asked. Eshaal was the leader of the second Heilstorm unit, and was overseeing the rest of the Heilstorms currently.
“Yes, definitely.” Rorax moved her fingers to the back of her neck, touching over where the silver tattoos of the Contestars were slick with blood from where her hair knives had cut the back of her head. “And we need to find out where the Hunter is. We have a job for that bastard.”
Rorax looked down at the small splatters of blood now spotting the front of her dress and sighed. Hella really was going to kill her.