50. Glacio

glaciō ~āre ~āuī ~ātum, tr.

1. to freeze

Flowers wait for me in the shower room—little white puffs nestled among big red blossoms and clustered in a delicate vase, set carefully on the bench. House Hauteclare again? No—the vase seems more like the hospital flowers. I look the blooms up on the vis; baby’s breath for purity, poinsettia for success. Is it the boy in the hoverchair? Why would he wish for my success? As far as I know, Dravik and I are the only ones who want us to succeed. I don’t touch them just in case they’re poisoned like the roses were.

I turn the shower on and strip my rider’s suit off. From the steaming stall, I watch the flowers dew up—is there a camera in the vase? Anything’s possible after Talize and her drugging—there are still four swords left striking out at me, after all.

Correction: three.

“—clare?”

I freeze and turn the water off, listening.

“Hauteclare?”

I throw on one of the plain silk robes the arena provides and walk toward the voice until I find the barrel-chested source and it finds me—his wide redwood eyes promptly darting away from the robe’s translucency against my body.

“Shit,” Rax hisses. “Don’t just sneak up on me like that.”

My brow arches. “I believe you were doing the majority of the sneaking.”

He clears his throat, gaze firmly riveted above my head. “Are you feeling okay? From last night, I mean. You seemed pretty fucked up.”

Brush it off. I know now—friend/enemy. Fire/fuel. I will live before I die. There’s only one thing I can have from Rax Istra-Velrayd in this lifetime, and it’s not genuine concern or care. It’s a fleeting night at most.

“What could I have done better?” I ignore him. “In my match with Talize? She went quite wide.”

His broad lips set. “Are you okay or not?”

I watch a bead of sweat drip down his neck and into his open breast coat. “I’ve changed my mind, Velrayd—I have one use for you, and that is riding. Everything else is pointless.”

“You sure do like that word, huh? Pointless.” There’s a moment of quiet, the steam curling around us. His high cheek has a cut on it, the bandage thin. The bandage on his arm is far thicker—first the glass in his back, and now a bite. I’ve done nothing but hurt him, and the fool still comes around. “People aren’t pointless.”

“Not all of them,” I counter. “But you certainly are.”

I can’t look at his face, but I see him wince, and part of me likes having any effect on him. He won’t look away from the ceiling, and the urge to test him rises up. I walk too near him—my dripping body in the thin robe mere inches from his gold buttons and embroidery, my tangled scar starkly white beside his red cloth. Shame left me long ago—this body belongs to a dead girl.

“Hauteclare—you said it can’t happen a second time,” he reminds me hoarsely.

“This never happened a first time,” I lilt, flitting my fingers along his beltline. “What could I have done better against Talize?”

A tendon flexes in his jaw. My effect on him is clear below my fingers, the taut V of his navel leading into an obvious rise of his breeches.

“Come on, Velrayd.” I lean closer. “Tell me what it means to ride. Tell me how you do it.”

In a blink, he grabs both my wandering hands by the wrists, pinning them above my head to the wall behind me. Nothing hard or cruel, just inevitable—a consequence of my own action. I dare to look at his face, his brows drawn fierce and the redwood of his eyes filled not with light but shadow.

“Don’t play with me, Hauteclare. Whatever you give me, I’ll give you back.”

“I’m not giving you anything. I’m letting you take it.”

“That’s not how this works.”

I cock my head. “Isn’t it?”

He exhales softly. “Let me make this very clear: from the day we met in the practice arena, I’ve wanted to fight you.” He leans into the crook of my neck, and a flame-tongue thrill runs through me at the feeling of his breath beneath my ear. “But the problem with my stubborn ass is that I’m a rider first and a human second. Sex makes it easier to ride against someone, and I don’t want it to be easy against you. So we’re not going to. Not until I face you in the arena. You have to stay alive until then—promise me.”

“I can’t.”

Like cinders, he kisses my neck inch by slow inch. “Are you sure about that?”

His hand slides between my thighs, and my breath catches at the same moment his fingers do on all the tenderest, wildest places. “I c-can’t promise you anything.”

He chuckles, the sound deep and close and mind-melting. “Shame. You seem pretty bent on winning the entire Cup.”

“Wh-Why is that a shame?”

“Because. You’ll have to get through me.”

“I will.”

“No, you won’t.” Pity I can swallow, but dismissal I can’t—not after everything I’ve suffered for. I rip from his grip and back away. His smile turns wry on the edges.

“I’m not being argumentative for the hell of it; it’s the truth. You’re good, Hauteclare. Novel, even. But you’re not me. There’s only one Rax Istra-Velrayd, and you’re looking at him.”

“I’m looking at a fool—”

“You’re sloppy on your descents.” His gravel voice goes gravel-sharp. “You hold back on impact, looking for last-minute openings, which means you never dedicate full inertia. You don’t know how to keep the g-force in your limbs, so you put it all in your shoulders. Your left side jets have to compensate for the lack of strength in your thrusts, so your guard is easily breached from any low right angle.”

Every lion bone in his face seems different, unsmiling, and each word of his points out like spikes against my throat. Every word is a weakness I didn’t know, and I’m suddenly naked in more ways than one. Dripping water trills. A saint carved in the marble ceiling watches us silently, his body riddled with arrows.

“It’s been fun,” Rax says. “But when the time comes, you’ll lose again.”

The rider in me bristles at the rider in him. Every hair on my body stands, understands that he understands how I ride, what it means to ride. He’s given me the truth. So I give it back. “I’m not the same girl you defeated before.”

“No,” he agrees with a turn of his heel. “But you’re not the girl who will beat me, either.”

No pride, only winning.

No feelings, only facts.

Fact: When swords were still made of metal, a whetstone was used to keep them sharp. It was a porous, otherwise unremarkable stone against which iron and steel found their deadliest edges.

Fact: My next three opponents will be whetstones.

Fact: I will show Rax Istra-Velrayd a girl made like sword, like lance, like dagger.