83. Ayres
Ayres scowled at the back of Rorax’s head as he leaned over and braced his sweaty palms on his knees.
The twenty thousand steps to the Mountain of the Oracle where the third trial would take place had been long, grueling, and hot. The hike hadn’t been made any more pleasant by Cannon and Milla shooting glares over their shoulders at him every twenty seconds. Even Piers gave him a few dirty looks.
Rorax had already climbed these steps. She had hiked out of camp almost immediately after the transfer dragons had dropped them off. She’d come up hours before them apparently, wanting to scout it out.
Even though he was as pissed as all hell at her, he couldn’t ignore the sense of relief at seeing her in front of him, alive and whole.
Rorax had avoided him for the last five days, ever since Mo had been killed and Mairi died, and they fucked through her influx.
When Rorax slipped out of her room that evening, she’d apparently been crying.
Milla and Cannon were coming up to her room to check on them and make sure they had both survived the influx and had seen her tears.
Rorax gave Milla and Cannon a long look, her tears falling even faster down her cheeks at the sight of them, before turning and walking away without so much as a nod.
Milla had stormed into Rorax’s room where Ayres was still getting dressed, demanding to know what the hell had happened. He hadn’t even finished the story completely when Milla let out a long, pained groan.
“Marras save us.” She had thrown her palms up in exasperation at Cannon and started signing, before pointing a finger at Ayres, spitting mad. “Our Death Harbinger’s got a brain the size of a walnut.”
Ayres folded his arms over his chest, trying to keep a lid on his already frayed temper. But Milla wasn’t done.
“How do you ever expect her to prove to us that she’s changed if you won’t let her,” Milla hissed. “Did you forget, Ayres, how she saved your sister from getting raped? How she single-handedly called off House of Ice’s entire fuckingarmy and sent them packing? How she donated enough money back to Surmalinn to rebuild not only a hospital, but a whole city block? How she saved you from Lyondrean soldiers? How she saved Kaiya and Cannon from a troll?”
Ayres rolled his jaw but said nothing, his chest still swimming in indecision and regret.
“Let me just get this straight.” Milla jabbed a finger into his chest. “You said to a woman who has feelings for you, ‘Well obviously I don’t hate you enough not to fuck you, even if you’re a monster’ In your mean voice, and expected her not to be hurt?”
Cannon snapped his fingers, and they both turned to him. Tell me what you said again, he demanded.
Milla repeated the parts of the conversation when she had been facing Ayres, and the crease in Cannon’s eyebrows furrowed deeper and deeper with every motion until it was a full-out glower. When Milla was done, Cannon started signing more furiously than Ayres had ever seen.
You called her a monster? Do you really feel that way? Are you ashamed by what you feel for her?
No. Sometimes. Ayres blew out his breath and raked a hand through his hair before starting again. I care more . . . that my people will care.
Understanding flashed through Cannon’s eyes, but his posture didn’t relax.
“If you aren’t going to help nurture her, Ayres, then stay the fuck away from her. We have an opportunity to solidify a powerful ally here. Did you know the House of Ice King basically considers Rorax to be his little sister? Don’t offer her a friendship, or more, if all you’ll ever be is her enemy and her judge. Don’t fuck this up for us.” Milla’s eyes were sharp as knives on him as she moved her red tipped fingers in the words for Cannon.
Ayres recalled their conversation that night as Rorax turned to look at them when they approached her.
Rorax’s face was blank and cold. Every plane of her face empty of any of the warmth that had been slowly growing there for him, for them, the last few months.
Gods, Ayres wanted that warmth from her every singleday, but . . . What would his people say? What would his parents think if they were still alive? Marras’s love, she is part of the reason they were killed in the first place.
He gritted his teeth and pushed those thoughts to the back of his head, but the way Rorax’s eyes grew fractionally colder told him that the same indecision and resentment was written right there on his face for her to see. Again.
Fuck.
“Hello, Rorax! What have you found out?” Milla asked too brightly, pushing a sweaty lock of red hair out of her face with a big smile.
Rorax turned to the emissary but did not smile back. “There are five different entrances on this side of the mountain. According to what I’ve read, the job of the Oracle during the trial is to burn out any corruption and weakness. If any of us have any negative intentions for the Realms that are inspired from an outside country or force, it is the Oracle’s job to weed that out.” Rorax paused and looked out over the mountain range. “The Oracle also looks for mental weakness. I fully expect at least one of the Contestars to die here.”
No fear, no excitement, no emotion of any kind flickered on her face as she gave her report. Rorax looked just the same as she had when they’d all first met her. Icy. Locked up. Determined. Driven to one thing and one thing only, like the world could burn to hell but she wouldn’t even flinch if she accomplished her goal.
Ayres’s chest burned again, and his hands squeezed his hips so hard he’d likely give himself bruises.
The thought sparked a reminder in him of all the bruises he had marked into her skin with his mouth. Ayres flitted his eyes over Rorax’s neck to inspect her tanned skin, but there was nothing to mark the slender column of her throat.
No bruises. No whisker burns. No bite marks. Nothing. She had either covered them up or gotten a healer to wipe them away, to wipe him away. Either option made his jaw tight.
Footsteps approached behind him, and Ayres turned to see Lamonte and his men trudging up the hill.
“Ah, glad to see you’re already up here, Contestar,” Lamonte called out, smiling brightly at Rorax. She just nodded once to him, no emotion showing behind her impenetrable wall.
Marras save him, Ayres hated it. Hated her emptiness.
If Lamonte noticed their tension, it didn”t show. He didn’t miss a beat as he walked past and motioned for them to follow.
A wide stone staircase rose, then stopped on a wide platform. Snaking out from the platform, five trails disappeared in each direction up the mountain, and Lamonte picked the one in the very center. The trail went straight up for a while before it started to wind back and forth, but it wasn’t long before the forest gave way to a large stone tunnel that led directly into the side of the mountain.
Ayres’s stomach churned. The tunnel appeared so dark he couldn’t see inside it for more than ten feet.
Lamonte turned to Rorax. “This is your entrance, Ror. When the other Contestars arrive they will use different entrances. Your Protectorates will be waiting here. No one is allowed to enter the Oracle”s Mountain unsanctified.” Lamonte’s dark eyes focused directly on Ayres while he said this. “Any who tries will die.”
Ayres bit back a snarl and turned to Rorax. She had all her knives except Glimr.He wished she would have brought it today, even with the danger of killing another Contestar.
Rorax nodded and handed her cloak to Milla, who took it without question. She didn’t bother glancing back at Ayres as she turned and took one step toward her tunnel and into the dark.
Ayres’s hand snapped out and latched onto her arm, dragging her back a step. “Be careful in there, Ror. Sometimes it’s not the Oracle who kills things that wander too far into the dark. There could be creatures who still live there.”
She looked up at him with those blank, white eyes and gave him the same empty nod she had given Lamonte earlier. His jaw tightened slightly, but before he could say anything else she shook his hand off her arm, turned, and disappeared into the dark.