by Ruby Dixon
I pause, looking around. I think I see the tent in the distanc—
A man with a thick beard and bushy gray hair grabs my arm. He eyeballs me. “Who are you, sweet?”
80
Ugh. Trapped.
I play with a lock of my hair and try to look as vapid as possible. “Hey, sugar. I’m looking for the whore tent but all these tents look the same.” I manage to choke out a high pitched giggle. “You know where it is?”
He squints at me. “You new?”
I nod eagerly. “I’m to serve Lord Aron tonight.”
“Sure you are.” He reaches forward and puts his hands on me. Stunned, I wait in silence…and realize he’s patting me down, looking for weapons. “Not just any tart can show up here, you know. You have to be invited.”
“Oh, I was invited,” I reassure him, doing my best not to kick him in the balls when he feels my ass and then moves down my thighs. “I don’t have any blades.”
Just the vial of Godsfire in my pocket, that’s all.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He turns me around roughly and then continues to pat me down, and I try to act like it’s normal. Like it’s what I expected to happen and I’m not out of my mind with terror right now.
I squeak in surprise when he grabs my tits, and shove them off. “Unless you’re Lord Aron, that’ll cost you some coin.”
He barks a laugh and then slaps me on the ass. “Maybe I’ll see you later then, tart. Whore tent’s that way.” He gives me a little shove in that direction and then leaves.
Oh thank fuck. I fight back the dizzying relief that threatens to choke me, blinking hard, and then continue on toward an entirely different tent.
The one with the spider.
I’m shocked I’m able to get there without being stopped again, but I make it. There are men in the front, so I carefully circle around the back. Here, it’s sludgy and muddy, but one end of the tent is loose, the stake losing purchase in the muck. I glance around, then get down on hands and knees, crawling underneath the side on my belly. I’m covered in mud from chin to toe, but I didn’t come this far just to get stopped now.
I have the Godsfire and I have my purpose. It’s now or never.
When I come in on the other side, I’m hidden behind a bunch of trunks. I get to my feet as quietly as I can and peer out from behind them. The inside of the tent is pretty nice. There’s a bunch of trunks, but there’s also a large assortment of food on a table, a mirror, and a loom for weaving. A woman sits on the edge of a cot, a book in her hands. She’s rather average looking, with brown hair and a young face. I kind of thought Hedonism Aron would pick someone more like Yulenna, but this is just a girl. Just an ordinary woman a few years younger than me, who can apparently read.
As I watch, she gets to her feet and moves to a trunk across the room, setting her book down and rummaging through the trunk. She pulls out a pouch and leans over it, and then I hear her snort deep.
Nose spices. She’s getting high. That works for me, though. Now’s my chance. I can’t wait any longer.
I close my eyes, think of my beloved Aron’s face. I think of the arrogant jerk and when he first held his hand out to me. Tadekha’s Citadel. Picking glass out of his back. Curling in bed with him. Touching him. Loving him. How he smiled down at me this morning as I lay in bed and I felt so protected and loved and…happy.
I’m doing this because I want that Aron to live on forever.
I open my eyes, ready to move out, when the tent opens. The flap rustles and a big man walks in, scanning the room. Outside, I hear the distant crackle of thunder. “Where are you, Naeri?”
The girl rubs her nose, sniffing again. “Here.”
The man steps forward, and as he moves out of the sunlight and into the interior of the tent, I bite down on my lip to keep from shouting in surprise. It’s Aron.
Sort of.
If I didn’t see the mismatched eyes, I wouldn’t have recognized him. This Aron is covered in glittering armor that’s been encrusted with gems. A long cloak sweeps over his shoulder, and it’s encrusted with embroidery and trimmed with thick fur. Everything about him is gaudy, from the jeweled beads braided into his hair to the pierced ring in his nose and the trio of gold chains that stretches over his cheek. He doesn’t wear simple clothing like my Aron.
As I stare from my hiding space, he snatches the bag from his anchor and lifts it to his nose. “Did you finish the nose spices again?”
She quivers. “I’m sorry. I just needed a little.” Her voice turns whining.
“You didn’t leave any for me.” He flings the bag at her, smacking her on the cheek. “Where’s my wine? And my sweets?”
“Here,” she says eagerly, scrambling to the nearest table. “Shall I feed you?”
“I want you to eat them,” he says, petting her hair. His hand goes to his belt and as I watch, he unfastens what has to be the most jewel-encrusted codpiece ever. I’d laugh at this guy if it wasn’t Aron’s face underneath all that crap.
The anchor – Naeri – shoves a few sweets into her mouth, chewing loudly, and then tilts her face up to his. Aron – Skank Aron – leans down and covers her mouth, slicking his tongue against hers even as she eats.
Okay, gross. I get that he doesn’t need to eat, but damn, that’s nasty.
“Now wine,” he tells her, and she grabs a goblet and starts to slurp it down, her gaze locked on his as he pets her cheek. His hand keeps moving over his waist, and then his armor jingles as his pants go down.
Oh shit. I do not want to see this.
I drop down to the floor, squeezing my eyes shut. I hate that being near this is affecting me, just like it was in Tadekha’s palace. I recognize how it feels. There’s an intense, needy yearning deep in my belly that’s growing by the moment. I don’t want to be turned on by this. I don’t. But my body’s responding anyhow. I can feel my pussy flooding with heat even as they make loud, sloppy noises on the other side of the wall of crates.
“Take me in your mouth,” he tells her, and I flinch.
He’s Hedonism. Of course he’s going to want her to blow him. I hate that she’s doing it, though, and for a moment, I hate him too. I hate all of this, and it makes me want to throw the vial of Godsfire at both of them. Thing is, my Aron is impossibly fast and strong. I don’t know if I can take him out, even if he is distracted. I have to wait…and endure.
It’s the longest five minutes of my life. It might be less. It might be more. I have no way of knowing, only that the smacks and moans and groans seem to go on for far too long. Aron’s armor jingles faster and faster, and then he gives a low groan that breaks my heart, because I’ve heard that groan before. That’s his orgasm groan.
I dig my fingernails into my palms so hard that I draw blood. I don’t know if I want to shove my hand down my pants or burst into tears. Both sound good right about now.
The girl gives a throaty giggle, and I hear the light slap of skin. “That’s for finishing off my nose spices,” Aron murmurs. “You’d better find me more before I return from the battlefield.”
“I will,” she promises breathlessly.
“Good. Today will be a glorious day.” His armor jingles again, and when I dare to peek over, I see he’s putting his codpiece back on with her help as she kneels in front of him. “We’ll break them today. I can feel it. And tonight, we celebrate.”
Naeri giggles again, gazing up at him with a sly look. “We celebrate every night, my lord of storms.”
He grunts, taps her cheek with a jewel-crusted glove, and then heads for the entrance to the tent, the beads in his hair swaying. He pauses before he leaves. “Find those red-haired twins and tell them to be in our tent tonight.”
“Of course,” she says breathlessly, and then he’s gone.
I want to vomit. So much vomit. I stare with hatred as the girl moves to the table and drinks more wine, then saunters back to the trunk and digs through it. She pulls out a new pouch from behind something, and as she turns her back to
me, I hear her sniff deeply again.
Bitch is holding out on him.
I hate her. He’s not even my Aron and I hate her.
It’s now or never. I kick off my muddy shoes and move, barefooted, over the thick rug on the ground. I creep up behind the woman as she rummages through the trunk, the vial clutched in my hand.
She’s twenty feet away from me.
Then ten.
All I have to do is cross the distance between us, break the vial over her head, and run like the wind.
I can do this.
Five feet.
The woman tenses in her crouch, then whips around and looks at me, her eyes wide. I stand over her in my wench clothing, the vial clutched in my hand, and she stares up at me in shock. She looks so young, no more than eighteen or nineteen.
Her lower lip wobbles. “Please don’t kill me.”
Oh fuck. Every time I played this scenario in my head, the anchor never had a face. Staring down at this girl as she begs me to live? I hesitate. “I—”
She surges forward and in the next moment, plunges a knife into my belly.
I stagger. Pain rockets through me, overwhelming in its awfulness. Somewhere outside, I hear a distant unearthly scream as thunder crashes overhead. That would be Aron. Blood fills my mouth, and I clutch the dagger in my stomach even as the girl gets to her feet.
The look on her face is no longer helpless. It’s feral and cunning. My fingers curl around the cool handle of the metal knife and I realize the mirror off to the side let her know my every movement. I was so focused on getting to her, so distracted from Hedonism’s visit that I didn’t pay attention to it.
Fucking dumb, Faith.
The woman grins and approaches me as blood dribbles down my chin. She reaches for the knife, her hand covering mine. “Fuck you, cunt.” Her voice is low and cold.
I lift my hand—the one with the fragile vial—and smash it against the side of her face.
“That’s tart to you,” I choke out.
Flames erupt. It’s like she explodes into flame, and her shrieks fill the tent even as I stagger backward and collapse on the rug. She screams, high pitched and wailing, as she pours water on her face and the flames lick across her clothing and ignite. The smell of burned hair fills the room and people rush in.
They take one look at her, burning like a pillar, and me collapsed on the ground with a knife in my gut, blood pouring from my mouth—
And they run.
Blackness creeps in and out of my vision. Pain makes it hard to concentrate.
The girl’s still screaming, but it ebbs back and forth. Or maybe I’m the one screaming. It’s hard to tell.
Time passes.
I think.
Spots dance in front of my vision. My hand hurts. I squint to look at it, and even that’s difficult. My palm faces the ceiling of the tent, and I see that it’s entirely blackened, the last of the flames licking the charred remains of where the Godsfire touched me.
I lost a hand. Oh well.
My belly feels cold. I can’t even feel the knife in my gut. Not anymore. I can’t feel the pain, either. Everything just feels…really cold. And distant. I try to move my good hand, but it’s like trying to communicate with a block of ice. It doesn’t respond.
I fade in and out again. Right now, it’s not a question of which of us is going to die. We’re both going to die—the only question is which anchor will outlast the other in her death-throes. Will I bleed out before she burns to death? Who knows.
Who…cares. It suddenly seems to matter very little.
My heart throbs slowly. Painfully. My gut does, too. Belly wounds are bullshit.
I want to vomit, but I don’t have the energy. Oh god, everything hurts. I moan, and I can feel sweat on my skin. This is a horrible way to die. I think of the man with his throat cut. I think of the woman, burning alive under Godsfire. I think of poor Vitar. And Solat.
Fuck, there are no good ways to die, it seems. Just a lot of awful.
The woman. I turn my head, trying to look around the tent. One of the rugs is on fire, I notice belatedly, and her charred, unmoving corpse is atop it. She’s not screaming anymore. She’s utterly silent. The Godsfire keeps going, though, and as I watch, the bed lights up, the silks zooming with fire and crackling like they’re covered in gasoline.
Huh.
Won’t be long now, at least. If the gut wound doesn’t take me out, the fire will.
I close my eyes and think of Aron, and I’m…content.
I did it. I saved him.
I hope he remembers how much I love his arrogant ass.
Because I do.
I shouldn’t. There’s nothing normal about the guy, nothing humble, or easygoing. He thinks the world belongs to him, he’s bloodthirsty, and he can be a jerk. But he’s also protective and tender and good to me and I’m going to miss waking up in his arms and seeing that smile of his. I can’t imagine a day without him, without his laugh, his arrogance, his self-assurance.
That’s what I’ll miss the most about this place. It’s not that I’m dying in a strange land. It’s that I’m dying after I just found the man who makes me want to live.
To me, he’s always been more than a god. He’s Aron. My Aron.
And he’s going to win.
I clutch my burning, wounded stomach and I’m strangely at peace.
81
“FAITH.”
The heart-rending bellow of my name jars me from my peaceful sleep. I wake up and moan with pain, at the agony in my hand and the ice in my gut. Why am I not dead yet?
Someone grabs the front of my dress and hauls me in their arms.
“Faith,” a familiar voice pants, and then a big hand strokes my hair back from my face. “No, Faith. You can’t die on me now. I won’t allow it.”
Aron. My Aron.
I’m no longer mad at him because of Hedonism Aron’s actions. It’s all okay. He’s so upset at me dying that I know he loves me and only me. I smile. Or try to. It feels like my face won’t behave. “Hey…there.”
“Faith,” he growls, clutching me close against him in a way that hurts really bad, but I don’t mind. I just like that he’s holding me. He’s covered in blood and soot, and his mismatched eyes stare down at me with a wild expression. “You are not doing this. You are not. I will not allow it—”
“I was always going to die, Aron,” I manage. Man, it’s hard to talk. My lungs feel heavy, and my tongue slow. “Knew it. Spidae…knew it, too.” My vision grows fuzzy and I struggle to focus on his face, because he’s so beautiful, so perfect. Even if he’s the god of war, he’s just…lovely. I smile. “Had to make sure you were the last.”
Fuck that other Aron and his anchor.
“We’re getting you out of here,” he says, and the big, wonderful hand strokes my hair again. “You will live. I command it.”
I cry out as he touches the knife in my belly and everything hurts. “Don’t,” I manage, panting. “Hurts too much.”
I expect him to ignore me, to ignore it. Instead, his cool fingers touch my face again. “Very well.” He sounds…defeated.
That terrifies me. “Aron…dead? Bad Aron?”
“Dead,” he says. “Rest, Faith. I have you.” His voice is so tender, and he presses a kiss to my brow that makes me so, so happy. Oh, I love his kiss.
I saved him. I’m smiling inside, even if my lips are slow to respond. The ice in my belly feels like it’s creeping up my neck, so I watch Aron closely. I want to get one last good look at him before everything fades out. Already the black is creeping around my vision. It won’t be long now. I’ll die, and he’ll return to his fortress in the Aether, to rule as the just, firm, newly compassionate god of storms that he is. Maybe a little arrogant, but that’s ok. It’s just part of his charm.
“You…won’t forget me, will you?” The black fades a little more and all I can see is his mouth. His pretty, pretty mouth.
“Never forget you,” he rasps, and I barely feel h
im brush his lips over mine again. “Never, Faith. I love you.”
I know he’s saying that to me because he wants to make me feel better, but in this last moment, he needs to realize I’m okay with everything. It’s good. He doesn’t have to pretend. I love him enough for both of us. “Gods don’t love,” I remind him. “It’s…okay.”
And I’m smiling as I die.
82
Death is…strange.
I thought there would be a light. You know, a go-towards-the-light sort of light. Instead, everything’s just kind of gray. Foggy, and gray. I sit on a stone bench, and even though there are others around me, I feel alone.
Rudderless. Like I said, strange.
I sit with my hands on my knees, trying to figure out how much time has passed. The wound in my stomach is gone and nothing hurts, but I’m positive I’m dead. Others pass by me, stranger after stranger, men and women, and they wander past with the same bewildered look on their faces that echoes how I feel. Muted, and confused. Like emotions are very, very distant things that belong to others.
I can see through the other people, too, so that’s how I know we’re all dead. We’re gray, and we’re spirits, and if that’s not a big honking clue, I don’t know what is.
I think of Aron, my Aron, and find myself smiling. He’s probably mad at me right now, if he remembers me. I have no regrets, though. I’d do it a hundred times again, because I love him and that’s what you to do help those you love. Even now, the sad ache of losing him is distant. This must be what death does. It makes you not care about…anything.
“Faith?” A hollow voice calls out my name. It sounds vaguely familiar.
I get to my feet, looking around at the sea of drifting, non-corporeal strangers. One steps forward, wearing armor and carrying a sword.
It’s Vitar. “Oh wow, hi.”
He smiles at me, and I go to hug him—and our arms pass through one another. Figures. “I am sad to see you here.”
“It was inevitable. I’m sorry you got eaten by a giant lake-worm.” I want to touch him, to squeeze his hand, but my fingers just pass through him. Another person steps forward and it’s Solat. “Hello friend. I’m so sorry.”