by Amanda Daul
The look in his eyes flashed from cold anger to wounded shock in under a second, precisely the same time that the door slammed open and two armed guards appeared, decked in the stolen protective armour.
Arissa raised her head high, hoping to appear stronger and more confident than she felt as she took a step away from Cayl, who seemed to be frozen in shock. Her words were clear. “Arrest this man.”
The two guards each gripped him by a shoulder, instantly forcing his arms behind his back to secure his wrists in an iron shackle. His face was utterly confused and speechless. Eyes filled with desperation stared back at her. “Arissa! What are you doing? I’m sorry, I’m trying to help you! I need you back! Arissa!”
“The borstal is already holding the prisoner from earlier. What is it you wish-” one of the guards began questioning.
“No, not the borstal,” Arissa cut him off. Her cold, unfeeling eyes never left Cayl’s as she spoke. “Exile.”
It felt as if a pulsating wave rocked through the room, considering the shocked aura that seemed to fall upon them.
From out of her line of sight, Trax cleared his throat and spoke up, pausing slightly, “Arissa, are you sure this is what you want?”
“Exile,” Arissa confirmed, definitively. “He is to be banned from our grounds, never to return. If he does, you are to arrest him and detain him indefinitely. Get him out of here.”
With her last, quiet words, she turned and walked away, intent on ignoring his desperate calls and pleas from behind her as he was forced to the door. Arissa wanted to disappear into the corner room of her quarters and hide for the rest of the night, but at the last moment, she paused.
“Cayl?” she called out, her voice sounding flat. When she turned, she saw he was about to be led through the door, but they paused for her sake. Everybody waited for her to speak.
“Don’t come back,” she called out, emotionlessly. “Don’t try to find me. Ever.”
With that, she turned away, but didn’t progress. She waited until she heard his last shouts to her and then the slam of the door.
Silence.
She felt cold. So cold, it was hard to not shiver as she stood, clad in her leather attire that she had not been able to change out since the day before. It suddenly felt much heavier and suffocating than it had several moments before.
“Love?”
Arissa didn’t answer, only shook her head slightly, her long black hair waving down her back with the movement. Her body was so exhausted, screaming defeat to the point that she didn’t even have the energy to summon a distant sob. She wanted to feel an empty ache, a feeling of longing, of regret for what she had just done to Cayl. But she didn’t. She didn’t feel anything, besides relief that he couldn’t bother her anymore. He would care for Janelle and she could go on fighting the war she was destined for.
“Love,” Trax repeated, more meaningful and purposefully this time. His voice was closer to her, she realized, but it didn’t bother her the way it had before. In fact, when she thought back to the moment he had attempted to step between her and Cayl, she hadn’t felt annoyed by his interference. It wasn’t until this very moment that she realized she had actually been worried for him, rather than herself or Cayl. Why?
Because he was the innocent bystander of an argument that never should have happened, she demanded to herself, hoping that if she thought the words hard enough and believed them, they would be true.
“I’m alright,” she lied, apathetically. “I need to rest.”
“Of course,” he replied, gently, but Arissa could almost hear the words that were close to following. Words he wanted to speak but was unsure of whether he should.
She decided to make the decision for him by asking him to leave. Still facing the wall by the door leading to her personal quarters, she waited for him to oblige, but he didn’t right away.
After a moment of hesitant pause, he finally spoke his quiet words, his softly accented voice gentler than she had ever heard him speak before. “I don’t want what’s just happened to deter your decision at all, but I feel I still need to be clear about something. I heard what you said just now, about us wanting the same thing. I wasn’t completely sure I was aware of that until you said it, but I suppose you’re right. Just so that there is no confusion at all, I want you to know that my offer still stands. I feel you’ve been hesitant about trusting me and I don’t blame you. Arissa...listen to me. I swear my allegiance to you here and now. You needn’t worry about that.”
Arissa’s expression fell, her brows deepening as she heard his slow words. She still couldn’t face him, just focused on breathing evenly. Suddenly, though, she was extremely aware of him, knowing how the lamplight would be reflecting from his darkened skin, his blue eyes would probably match his tone, soft and concerned. She was conflicted enough, she didn’t need to start questioning anything else.
“I’m always here. If you need some company...you know where I’ll be.”
Stop it, she wanted to snap aloud. She didn’t want to be hearing these things from him. It was so much easier to keep him distanced from her when he was his usual, obnoxious self, but this new side of him was oddly magnetizing and she couldn’t have that drifting around in her head with everything else.
“Trax...” His name even felt awkward on her tongue now, as if it was suddenly too personal. “Please leave.”
Her evident reservation didn’t need clarification. Arissa could nearly hear his silent acceptance before he cast her one last comment before leaving her alone, nearly shaking from the strength that it had taken to push away everyone in her life in the last five minutes. She needed to be alone, to reject herself, to mourn. She would have been able to do that, too, if not for Trax’s departing words.
“As you wish. Goodnight to you, love.”
Chapter Nine
Whether it was because of the exhausting events of the previous day or the surprising amount of alcohol she had consumed, she didn’t know, but the night slipped by peacefully. Arissa had been expecting to be awoken by nightmares and the haunting memories that her mind wouldn’t let her put aside, but she slept dreamlessly. When she awoke to the beginning of the sunrise, she actually felt refreshed, more alert and confident that she could handle whatever was destined to happen in the next hours. She had accepted that not a day could go by anymore without some kind of tragedy or malfunction of plans.
There was only a distant, dull ache in the back of her head from the drink the night before, but she willed herself to ignore it. Instead of letting herself feel guilty or depressed as a result of the previous night, Arissa convinced herself to feel motivated instead. Today she was certain she would follow out on her plans to send a group of their soldiers back to the fields to regroup with the official military. They would all be prepared with their cover stories to fill in their timelines. Trax assured her long ago that their prolonged disappearances wouldn’t be questioned. Not only was it normal for a group of soldiers to be out of camp longer than expected, but even if they were late to report or failed in returning at all, the General rarely cared. To him, soldiers were just replaceable objects, knowing full well that Arissa would sort out another group of immigrants for him to ruin the lives of.
The thought brought a shadow down over Arissa. Nobody besides herself, and now Cayl, knew about what she did when she had worked for the General. She didn’t know how long she would be able to keep it a secret, but she did her best to forget that part of her life even existed, hoping it would eventually block away the memories.
Arissa turned begrudgingly to where she had stripped off her leather attire the night before, gazing down at the pile of black clothing. She wanted to go back to sleep, knowing she couldn’t. Putting the heavy apparel back on would make the day real, forcing her back out into the world that she had to take control of. Sighing, she slowly began discarding her sleeping attire in exchange for the fabric that was cool and smooth against her skin. For a moment, she was standing in her black pants that hugged
every curve comfortably and her thin, black bra, one of the few she had saved before leaving Daer.
On the side of the room that the bed was pushed against, there was a medium sized window, a single pane of glass secured between the smooth, brown boards of the inside wall. It overlooked a gap in the tree line, lining up perfectly to the place in the sky where the sun rose from every morning, shining brightly into the dark corner room for a few precious minutes a day.
Before she finished dressing, Arissa took a moment and stepped to the window, her hands splayed on the back of her hips. She leaned her head back, absorbing the warmth of the sun, extremely grateful that the weather had decided to take a drastic turn and stay so warm, even through the night. Her lengths of dark hair touched her waist, tickling her skin lightly as she closed her eyes, rocking her head back and forth slowly to stretch her aching neck muscles, a slight moan escaping her lips before sighing contently.
“That is quite a breathtaking view.”
By now, she was used to Trax’s impulsive visits, almost to the point so that she expected them. He had either really poor or insanely accurate timing, depending on who was judging it, because he always seemed to end up with her in the most inappropriate of times.
Arissa swivelled her torso to shoot a dark look over her shoulder at him. He was making an extreme effort to look past her, out the window at the lighted world. She wasn’t buying it for a second.
“What do you want?”
Trax hesitated in replying and when Arissa turned to face him, she saw why. He was flustered. It was the first time she had ever seen him hesitant to speak, actually at a loss for words. Given, it wasn’t for the reason she might have once imagined where she could finally get him to shut up, but regardless. Strangely, she felt a snap of confidence kick up in her spirit, enjoying the fact that she had caught him off guard, the same way he had hoped to with her. At least she won this round.
His eyes were on her own most of the time, but she still saw them slipping down, skimming over the exposed skin of her arms, stomach and collarbone, intrigued. She flicked up one eyebrow, crossing her arms and cocking her hip.
“Seriously? You’re completely fine just sitting there while I’m standing here looking like this?” She was hardly surprised, but still, his reaction was one she would not have expected. He seemed much more reserved than normal. It never occurred to her that taunting him this way pleased her, hoping to inflict a bit of power over him.
“I don’t see you trying to stop me,” he muttered, his voice challenging while his blue eyes shot back up to meet hers.
Rolling her eyes, Arissa turned away, reaching back for a thin shirt that she wore under her tightly cinched apparel. It made it more comfortable against her skin, but knowing how warm the temperature was, she decided to leave behind her cloak. It took a moment to convince herself to do so, feeling a sudden surge of insecurity at the thought of leaving her most cherished possession. Finally, she turned away from the rack it hung on, flipping her hair out of her collar as she began working on buckling the straps of her leather top.
She ignored Trax as he continued to linger in the doorway, expecting to hear a snarky innuendo at any moment, but he didn’t speak.
“What, you finally have nothing to say?” she sniped as she struggled to align a buckle in her annoyed haste.
“I am simply waiting for you to finish...dressing. Wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he answered casually, letting his eyes wander up the door and the boards of the wall, trailing along the ceiling. It was too obvious that he was trying to distract himself.
Arissa secured the last buckle into place, then sat on the edge of her narrow bed to begin her boots. “Yeah, because that’s the part that would make me uncomfortable. Do I look like the shy type to you?”
“On the contrary, love, you are everything but shy. When I found you were in such a compromising situation, I expected a screamed order to vacate or at least a slap in the face. Instead, you stood your ground.”
“It’s what I do,” Arissa mumbled under her breath as she jerked on her boot roughly. “What do you want?”
Trax coughed under his breath once, before stepping further into the room, his head bowed as if unsure what to say. It almost made Arissa suspicious. He always had a snappy response just waiting for any remark she threw at him.
It wasn’t until Arissa finished lacing her boot and she sat up straight, watching him, impatiently encouraging him to speak. “I needed to know you were alright.”
“What? Of course, I’m alright. Why wouldn’t I be?” As the words were leaving her mouth, she had to duck her head quickly, letting her loose hair fall in a concealing curtain as she bent to secure her other boot. Why would Trax care about how she was feeling? They never showed any interest in each other besides camp matters. In fact, Arissa doubted that ever since they met, they had never talked as much all together as they had in the last three days. It wasn’t normal, and to Arissa, it was unsettling. Perhaps it had something to do with the tension and now separation between her and Cayl.
That had to be it, she wanted to convince herself. For whatever reason, whenever something had happened with her husband lately, Trax has somehow been caught in it and that’s why she couldn’t clear her mind of either of them. Even if she had spent the last month loathing the man, this sudden change of character for him had her questioning her first evaluation of him. She liked to think that she could read people well, but Trax had always been particularly hard to decipher. Perhaps, through his arrogance and smug, yet annoyingly charming personality, was a real person who was struggling.
Arissa’s eyes snapped up in alarm, realizing that she had just described herself.
While she had been lost in her thoughts, she had heard Trax’s voice speak but gathered no words. From the blank, distracted look in her eyes, he understood and repeated what he had just said. “I was worried. You had a hard day yesterday and last night was...straining, I’m sure. I know that I was probably no help and I feel somewhat responsible.”
“Don’t. It wasn’t your fault that Cayl...never mind. You don’t have to be worried about me, I’ve been taking care of myself all my life, this is no different,” Arissa retorted, refusing to look at him.
“Still...you know, it couldn’t have been easy to order a ban on your husband.”
“Are you trying to make me feel worse about this?”
He frowned, shifting slightly to the side of the room, so he was more in her line of sight, though she still held her gaze on the floor ahead of her. “Quite the opposite, love. We may not be the most cordial of acquaintances, but I do not wish for you to feel forlorn and sorrowful.”
“Well, thank you for all your concern.” The words tasted just as bitter and sarcastic as she meant for them to be as she rose to her feet and stalked past Trax, into the larger room where she had confronted Cayl the previous night. Just looking at the room made her stomach clench.
Trax’s heavy boot steps followed closely behind her. “You don’t have to accept my concern, Arissa. Forgive me for daring to care about you for a moment. I thought perhaps it would be nice to attempt to get along. We are, after all, stuck with each other.”
“I am not stuck with you. By the way, I do not need you to be looking out for me and I certainly don’t need your sympathy!” This was not the way Arissa had wanted to start her day. What she had wanted to do was spend a few quiet moments by herself and then start organizing the group to send out. She felt her spirit sink when she realized that would have involved working with Trax and this conversation would have been unavoidable anyway. She could not be free of him, lately.
“That is not what this was about. I’m not here out of sympathy for you, Arissa. Do you need me to list off every tragic thing that has happened to you in the last three days? The end of day two was enough already to merit a mental break for any normal person. I know you’re not normal and that’s what makes you the best at what you do, at who you are. The reason for my visit this
morning was that I simply wanted you to know that you are not alone here, as much as you try to make yourself believe that. We may not be friends, may never even be friends. Hell, sometimes I can hardly stand your torment myself, at times. But that doesn’t mean I wish you to suffer. Believe it or not, I’ve experienced my own allotment of pain and there is only one person I wish that sort of torture on. Arissa, that person is not you.”
Neither of them moved while he spoke, his lilting voice slipping easily over every accented word, making their impact in Arissa’s chest even more powerful. Her eyes flickered up to meet his a few times, but she couldn’t hold herself long enough to see what true emotion lay in his eyes.
Swallowing hard a few times before replying, she suddenly felt vulnerable as the shocking words rang from her voice. “I’ve never had anyone make the effort to care about me. No matter who I had around me, I’ve always been alone. Inside, I’m empty. I don’t know how to accept help or even emotion from another person. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but that’s why I can’t give you a more appreciative response.”
He hardly waited a moment before bowing slightly to her, before turning to leave. “I understand.”
Arissa wanted to scream, sigh and cry all at the same time. Three things she would not do. Why did she feel more guilty about what she had just said to Trax than banning Cayl from her life? Perhaps it was because she had caught the flicker of hurt in Trax’s eyes just now, and last night during their confrontation, she had forced herself to block away any inkling of emotion. She hadn’t even allowed herself to explore his ocean blue eyes, searching for his unspoken words that she could always find. Whatever he was feeling or wanted her to know, none of it changed what had to be done, and now that it was, she felt lighter and more free to move on with her plans. With Trax, it was more difficult. She had to see him every day, watch his ever-shifting emotions as they spoke and argued and occasionally agreed with each other. Perhaps the concerning thoughts in her head about feeling intrigued and worried by Trax was simply the effect of getting to know him.