“We met to discuss a number of things, one of which was plans for an Interworld Games. The three worlds shall meet every twelve months in a fighting tournament and compete for top place, starting next year. We have a Master of Ceremonies already.”
Rhone was still processing what he’d heard, but asked, “Who?”
The leader’s nose wrinkled. “A man named Sin. Actually, he came up with the idea. I don’t understand the particulars, but I believe there was a woman involved. He wouldn’t shut up about the games on his last journey from Glacium to Osolis, fortunate for me—as it turns out. I was able to begin my own preparations before meeting with the other leaders.”
With Sin, there was always a woman involved. “Who in their right mind would give that idiot a serious job?”
Yarik’s lips twitched. “I want you to train a team of my people to compete.”
Rhone was certain he’d misheard. “What?”
“You took out six of my men. Not all at once, perhaps, but even three is a feat, and you were injured. You must be an excellent fighter when you’re at full capacity. I have heard tell you’re one of the best.”
Hamish. Rhone was definitely going to break his other leg. Wait, the Ire leader wanted him to train Ire folk to compete in the games?
“I have long thought we should be learning to protect ourselves. With the recent attacks on Ire folk traveling to and from the other worlds, learning to fight is more important than ever. You would not only be helping us to save face when pitted against Glacium and Osolis in the Interworld Games, you’d be helping to break down the barriers between the tri-world races.”
With just one problem. “Glacium is my world. If I fight, I will fight for them.”
“The same Glacium you were running from?”
Rhone had always liked people who could read between the lines, probably because he didn’t like to vocalize everything. Which was why he generally liked the occupants of Osolis. Being a mixture of the races, the Ire folk possessed hints of this trait, too. But right now, he didn’t appreciate the leader’s insight whatsoever. “I wasn’t running,” he said.
The leader stood. “Rhone, every single person in the Ire had to run away from somewhere to get here. You think we don’t recognize a lost soul?”
Rhone’s breath echoed in his ears. Lost soul. “My answer to you is the same as when you first asked why I was here,” he answered, smoothing his face.
Yarik held up a hand. “Yes, yes, I gathered. But think of what you could achieve here. You are a fighter, but you are also someone who appreciates the reward of putting time in to achieve something. I have heard of your dogsledding. Training them to race must take months.”
Maybe Rhone would break one of Hamish’s arms, too. “It does.”
“My people are a clean slate, waiting to be molded into fighters. Doesn’t that entice you? To wonder what you could do with such people? To beat Osolis and even your own rulers with a team you built.”
His eyes narrowed. Just how much did this man see? It was like Yarik was reading him like a book. But in Rhone’s experience, if something looked too good to be true, it was. There had to be a trick or a downside he couldn’t yet see. “My answer is no. Staying in the Ire has never been my plan.” Rhone didn’t belong here. He couldn’t be like these people. Maybe if life had been different for him, but not now.
Yarik nodded and turned away, hands clasped behind his back. “I wish I was able to change your mind,” he said. “If you do change your mind during the rest of your stay here, please let me know. The position will be open for quite some time, I imagine.” He grimaced.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Rhone blurted. “I have a race to get back for.” This place—these people—were doing something to his head. He had to get back to Glacium and his dogs, and regain some clarity.
“Monikah is coming with me,” he added, then hesitated. Maybe she didn’t want to come anymore after their argument.
“Is she, indeed?”
Rhone tried to interpret the leader’s sudden stillness.
Yarik’s eyes brightened. “Do you know why I use temporary exile as a punishment for Monikah?”
Rhone didn’t care.
“Because it is the most effective consequence for her. The Ire is where her heart lies. The Ire is, as you may have gathered, her muse.”
Her muse. That actually made perfect sense. The leader understood Monikah more than Rhone had thought. “What’s your point?” Rhone asked, watching the slender man.
Yarik smiled again, wolfishly. “No point. Just small talk.”
Somehow, Rhone doubted that. “Right.”
“Remember, though. If you change your mind, the job is here.”
“Not likely,” Rhone replied.
“Ah, yes. You must have had other plans when you were walking through the Oscala. . . . What were they again?”
The two men held each other’s gazes, and Rhone was the first to look away. He strode to the tent exit, and before he ducked out, said, “Good luck in the games.” He meant it; he hoped the Ire did well. No one deserved to be looked down upon, no matter their race or status.
Yarik’s mild voice floated out after him. “Good luck with your race.”
Once out of the tent, Rhone shook his head. Whatever he’d expected from the man, it wasn’t that, but he’d made the right choice. The Ire wasn’t for the likes of him.
He retrieved his Soar, strapped up, and decided to check that Monikah wasn’t back at her island before heading to Sheep Rock, or whatever it was called. Rhone tipped over the edge and weaved between two islands, climbing higher to clear another.
“Rhone! Jovan, look, it’s Rhone.”
He pulled hard on the bar, glanced down, and spotted the shining head of blue-black hair that had always served as some kind of tortuous beacon to him.
Fuck.
Chapter Thirteen
Shit, fuck, shit. She’d seen him. He had to go down there now.
“Rhone!” Olina waved to him from the island below.
Rhone cursed again under his breath and pulled on the bar beneath him to begin a gentle, looping descent. He scanned the island, hoping the king wasn’t there. Seeing as the queen had called Jovan’s name, he highly doubted that. Sure enough, the king came to stand directly beside Olina, arms folded. Rhone groaned inwardly, recalling the last warning Roscoe had given him.
He landed, bending his knees slightly. He didn’t bother taking off his Soar—hopefully the visit wouldn’t be that long. “King Jovan, Queen . . . Lina,” he said, bowing slightly.
Looking at her face hurt. Seeing the evidence of her pregnancy hurt. But Rhone also felt unaccountably furious at the sight of her because she hadn’t cared for him when he could’ve given her everything he had.
“Rhone,” she said, opening her arms.
He remained ramrod still as she hugged him, doing his utmost to ignore the soft, warm curve of her. Actually, she wasn’t soft at all. Even pregnant, Olina’s body was toned and firm.
“What on Solis are you doing here?” she asked.
Rhone glanced at Jovan and the king narrowed his eyes. “Went for a walk.”
Olina gave him an odd look and glanced around. “You went walking and ended up here?”
He nodded and shrugged at the same time.
The queen looked at Jovan and then back at Rhone. “Okay,” she drew out.
“Rhone,” a voice called from above.
He nearly died with relief at the sound of Monikah’s call. He felt so much relief, he couldn’t even access the burning rage he should feel at her sudden appearance after three days. Taking the opportunity to turn away from his king and queen, Rhone tilted his head. “Yes?”
Monikah landed beside him.
“What is it?” he grunted. Anger sparked in his chest; maybe he could summon some forth after all.
She shrugged. “Just came to find you for dinner.”
For dinner? Was she serious? It had been three days. Where had she
been? He became uncomfortably aware of the two rulers behind him. Monikah walked up to Olina, sticking out her hand. “Hey, I’m Monikah. Well met.”
“I’m Lina.”
They couldn’t be more different from each other. One focused and the other all over the place. One hard, one soft. One dark-featured, and one light.
“Queen Lina,” Monikah corrected the ruler, probably unaware she’d done so.
“I am King Jovan.” The giant man stepped forward.
But Monikah’s attention was stolen by a pile of dirt on the ground. She ignored the king’s outstretched hand and dropped to her knees beside them. “Rhone, look. This is perfect for my Time Teller. It’s so hard to find good dirt these days.”
Rhone would be lying if he said Monikah blatantly ignoring Jovan didn’t satisfy some part of his ego. He stood beside the urchin. “It is?” he asked. What the hell was a Time Teller?
“You’ve been working on something new?” he asked her in an undertone.
“Yes, for the last few days,” she replied, studying the dirt.
He stared as Monikah began picking up the dirt in her hands. That was where she’d been? She’d disappeared without warning because she’d been struck by an idea. The spark in his chest grew—the urchin would be hearing about this later.
“I need your boot,” she said, dropping the dirt to peer up at him.
A choked noise came from Jovan’s direction, and Rhone looked toward him. The king’s face was smooth—which could mean anything, the bastard.
“Are you making something?” Olina asked the Ire woman.
Rhone loosened the ties on one of his boots, ignoring another choked sound from the king. He passed the boot to Monikah.
“I’m working on a way to accurately tell time,” she answered the queen. “A quantity of dirt pours through a narrow space, and by the time it’s all poured through, a certain length of time has passed.”
Rhone’s eyes widened. “That’s a brilliant idea.” To the rulers he said, “Monikah is an inventor.”
The queen was staring at him. “Rhone, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak so much at once in my life.”
Not like she ever made the effort, was it? He saw the thought was filled with bitterness and anger even as he had it. Still, he’d take resentment over stabbing hurt any day. He’d left Glacium because he couldn’t bear to look at her, and though seeing her still made him uncomfortable, now it was because he didn’t want to be around her—and possibly because of the murderous glint in Jovan’s eye.
“I’ll probably need your other boot.”
Rhone sighed and glared at Jovan, who had turned away. “What’s wrong with using your boots?” Rhone asked Monikah.
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t want dirt in mine.”
The comment startled a laugh out of him. He tossed her the boot, shaking his head.
Olina was staring at him. He smoothed his face and watched as the queen shifted her eyes to Monikah slowly.
“You went for a walk?” Olina asked him, tilting her head.
He studied the queen of Glacium, thinking of what could have been between them, suddenly unsure if that was the life he would have wanted. “That’s what I said.”
“She is really pretty,” Monikah said, staring at her stew.
The question “who” balanced on the tip of his tongue, but Rhone couldn’t quite insult her intelligence like that. He watched as she moved her dull stare from the stew across the flat expanse of her island.
“Yes, she is beautiful,” he replied.
“Beautiful,” she echoed.
Rhone frowned across the fire as the woman jabbed at a carrot. “Are you all right, urchin?”
“Yeah, I think the lack of sleep is catching up with me.”
A closer look at her face showed him purple smudges under her eyes. He glared at her. “Have you slept or eaten since we last spoke?”
“I slept a little?”
“You sound really sure about that.” He swallowed the last mouthful of his own stew and set aside the bowl. “About that. If you’re struck by an idea again, please let me know so I’m not searching the Great Stairway for three days. I thought you’d run off after our argument or been injured.”
Monikah looked up. Her eyes were wide and fixed on his face.
“You were worried about me?” she asked.
Was that the only part she’d heard?
Her gaze fell. “I was upset at first. I went to stay with Crystal’s parents to give you some space, and then I was thinking I should wait another hour, and then I was like, we always just guess time around here—what if there was a way to tell time accurately? And then I invented the Time Teller.”
“That’s fine,” he said. And amazing. “Just please let me know.”
“But why would you need to know? You’re going back to Glacium?”
Rhone didn’t reply, and he watched as she resumed the staring contest with her stew.
Why did he need to know?
“Are you still coming with me?” he asked gruffly.
She nodded, her face drawn.
“We can put off leaving another day so you can catch up on sleep.” Rhone wasn’t eager to get caught traveling back with the king and queen. And truthfully, he wouldn’t mind spending another day on Monikah’s island, either. Especially when her various neighbors weren’t shouting to each other for a change.
Monikah sighed, shifting slightly on the rock she sat upon. “I’d like that.”
Was she just tired? Or was there something more the matter? “You’ll have time to test your Time Teller.”
“Yeah. So . . . how was it seeing her again?”
Would the urchin feel better if he talked about emotions? Maybe it would distract her from her troubles. “Seeing her made me angry.”
“Angry, huh? I always get a bit angry with exes after.”
Rhone nearly gave himself whiplash turning to gape across the two-meter space between them. “What?”
“You know, you’re all lovey at the start, and then like the world will never be happy again after you part ways, and then you get angry at them because you’re hurt, and then you just forget you ever felt something for them after a bit.”
Something churned deep in his chest. “You’ve had past relationships?”
Monikah snorted. “Of course.” She jerked her head toward the island next door. “I went out with Hamish for a while. Though he’s been with just about everyone. He was the town Soar.”
Hamish was cropping up far too often of late. Had he stayed on Monikah’s island too? “You loved him?”
“I thought I did. Mostly those are the kinds of relationships I’ve been in. The ones where you think you’re in love, but you’re not really and it shows after the first couple of weeks.”
Rhone gritted his teeth. “How many?”
Monikah waved a hand, and took to staring at her stew again. “Seeing Queen Lina made you angry then, huh? Or were you jealous angry?”
Rhone put down his bowl. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
He studied her. “Something is the matter. Why won’t you tell me?”
“Because I don’t want to. Don’t worry about it; it’s nothing.”
“Sure sounds like it.”
Monikah shoved her full bowl aside with a thud. Her green eyes sparked. “You hate it when people ask you a bunch of questions. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“When I tell you I don’t want to talk, you just keep on talking,” he countered.
She rushed to her feet, and Rhone was on his a second later. He thwarted her attempts to dodge him and escape to her tent. He gripped her shoulders and studied her sudden pallor. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. Instead of leaving her alone, as he always preferred to be treated, Rhone found himself pulling her close.
“What’s the matter, Monikah?” he asked her again.
His arms felt stiff around her, but as their embrace continued, Rhone began to relax
. Her head rested in the dip of his chest. She molded against his body.
She sniffed and pulled away. “Nothing, I told you.”
Should he force her to talk? As he stood wondering, Monikah made it halfway to her tent.
“Are we leaving tomorrow or the day after?” he called after her.
“The day after,” she threw over her shoulder.
Why did he get the feeling she was really saying, ‘You’re a moron’?
Chapter Fourteen
Rhone trailed behind Monikah as she wove between the islands of the Great Stairway on the way to Glacium. He had no idea where they were but the Ire woman didn’t have any problem recognizing one bit of razor-sharp rock from the next. To him, distinguishing each island would be the same as separating identical twins—times several thousand at least.
Whatever had bothered her two nights ago still bothered her now if the distance she’d put between them was any indication. Monikah’s shoulders were sagging, her face shadowed and grim, and Rhone found it unsettling that she wasn’t her usual bounding self.
“Nearly there,” she called back.
“All right,” he replied.
She was right and soon they were soaring high above the First Sector of Glacium, back to the castle.
He took the lead, eyes scanning the ground for any company. Yarik had mentioned attacks on the Ire folk. The ground seemed empty, but Rhone kept them high above arrow range just in case. They landed on the roof of the castle in the First Sector not long after. Ire folk were meant to land in the courtyard now, but Rhone wasn’t taking the risk of flying lower with Monikah in tow.
“This is the castle?” Monikah asked.
Rhone nodded. “One of them.”
They unstrapped their Soars and folded them. Rhone kicked open the trap door in the roof and gestured Monikah through, pulling the heavy wooden door closed behind them.
“It’s very closed in, isn’t it?” she said.
He didn’t miss the nervousness in her voice. “Here it is. The levels below are much larger. The food hall has high ceilings.” Rhone listened to her shaking breath. “You’ve never been inside walls?”
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