by Amanda Daul
“Loud and clear, love. Unlike you, I don’t need much persuasion when it comes to telling the truth. I may not hold much respect for many people, but I do respect you, as much as you don’t deserve it.”
Arissa pushed him away from her and left. She had to leave before he could see any of the inevitable tears brim her darkened eyes. She wasn’t worried that he would turn on her and tell her secret, it was the after effect of how sick she had felt, thinking for even a second that Janelle might be in danger.
The last thing she was worried about was her stealth as she stalked into the dark edge of the forest around them, lit only enough to see a short distance away. Arissa needed a moment to breathe, clear her mind and hide her rage and emotions again. She was quickly learning how important it was to keep them all hidden away.
Her vision became increasingly blurry as tears filled her eyes, and despite her best efforts, they spilled over onto her cheeks, soundlessly. Quickly brushing them off, Arissa inhaled deeply, reminding herself to stay calm. Being around Trax always brought out the feelings that she didn’t want to deal with, she would have to do a much better job of keeping them locked away.
Underneath his impossible personality and irritatingly immense charm, Trax was a decent person. He was far from perfect, and it was obvious even to Arissa that the man had more issues than he knew what to do with. In the short time she had known him, she had witnessed so many different sides and layers to him, it was difficult to decide which was most dominant. He always seemed somewhere between a selfish, detached individual, a supporting team player and the internally broken man who somewhere had a heart to care. It all seemed to blend together, impossible to know who he really was, especially with an ulterior motive behind everything he said or did.
If they weren’t in the situation they were, Arissa may look at him differently, but because of the way things had turned out, she knew she could never fully trust him. She was grateful that he had had the courage and the sense to form the gathering of soldiers, but beyond that, a man that she couldn’t trust was worthless to her. And since he was the only person who could get under her skin and disarm her the way he was so capable of, there was only one logical, safe choice left.
Trax had to die.
* * *
“Are you planning on ever speaking to me again?”
All he received was a deathly glare from Arissa as they both reached up to grab hold of anything stable enough to continue the climb on. She didn’t bother answering him, but of course, he continued.
“I’m only curious so that I know how to spend the rest of my time with you. I could get quite used to the silence. It’s rather nice not being yelled at all the time. It can be quite draining. On the other hand, if I can’t expect to converse to you, I’ll have all that free time to just ponder my musings to myself and we don’t want that. Who knows what I’ll come up with...”
“Is that a threat?” Arissa shot back, the first words she had uttered in hours. She sounded breathless as she reached for another branch or vine. Scaling a steep mountainside with nothing but tree roots and thick vegetation for traction had sounded a lot more inviting when she thought Trax would be staying behind with the horses.
“Think of it more as an invitation. Ah, wait, no...” he decided, thinking he was amusing. Arissa only glared and rolled her eyes. “I take that back. Don’t think of it as an invitation. I know how much you like to decline those. Instead...I want you to consider it a challenge. I may not know much about you, Arissa, but I do know that you never back down from a challenge. Especially if I think you can’t do something, you’re going to do everything you can to prove me wrong, just out of spite.”
“Your smugness is going to get you killed one day, you know that, right?”
With fake enthusiasm, he suddenly gasped, “Actually, I didn’t know that. Please enlighten me!”
Why do I even bother talking to him...she thought to herself, muttering a few curse words under her breath.
Rolling her eyes again, Arissa turned her attention back to the side hill she was desperately trying to cling to, ignoring everything else Trax said. It’s all she had been doing for the last three days. The only words she had uttered since their last feud over Janelle were strictly about their expedition through the forest.
It had been suspiciously quiet, only meeting six soldiers since leaving the camp, all of which were unaware of their presence just off the path. Frequently checking the map, Arissa never went into but checked all of her known hiding places from a safe distance. With each inspection, she felt her discouragement growing, finding each one as empty and deserted as the last. However, it meant that there were fewer places that he could be using and Arissa grew more anxious as the hours went on.
Right now all she could hope for was that she was lucky enough to find where the General or Lieutenant were holed up, she didn’t exactly have a plan past that. There would no doubt be guards with them, but taking them on alone was out of the question. She knew how the General’s mind worked, he will be expecting her to show up any time, because he knew better than anyone that she wouldn’t give up. It was the whole point of sending her through the hell and misery that she went through while trying to find Cayl for the past months. He wanted her to suffer before he killed her.
Though Arissa had spent perhaps too much time fantasizing about it, she was startled to realize that she had no idea what to do when she finally had him in her grasp. The obvious solution was to kill him and she will, but after everything that he had put her through after so many years, her vengeance and the hunger for revenge had grown severely in that time. A simple blade through the heart in a hidden camp wouldn’t satisfy her. It had to be grand, as public as he had meant her execution to be only weeks before. A violent shiver rattled through her when she remembered the awful realization of being on display for her own townspeople, seconds away from being murdered.
Thanks to her depressing meander through her darkest thoughts, thinking of her near murder only reminded her of what really happened. Someone had shot her, and she had almost died. Convinced that she knew exactly who had shot her, it only added to her list of tasks to accomplish – find the man who had cornered her in the Governor’s office, barely an hour before attempting to kill her. She doubted he was anything more than a hired assassin, but after sinking a bullet into her chest, it was only fair that she return the favour to him.
It felt like forever ago since Arissa had realized what exactly had triggered the manhunt for her. She had first thought it was because of her position with the General’s military and the plots she had executed to free as many people as she could from being imprisoned in his lying grip. Eventually, she realized that it hadn’t been because of what she did, it wasn’t about her at all. Time and place had been the key. After all, someone had to be framed for the Governor’s murder and the Lieutenant apparently thought that she fit the description, in hopes of gaining his position in the military ranks.
Thinking about it so deeply only made the anger and tension knot together in her stomach, nearly blinding her. Her foot slipped off a root while she hadn’t been paying attention, her concentration immediately snapping back to the present as she snatched another branch to hold herself. One more hard struggle to pull herself up and she was at the top, breathing deeply as she gazed back down the hill. The embankment was nearly vertical, but to go around would have taken extra time and risk of being seen on the main trail. Besides, from where she stood on top of the valley’s edge, she had a perfect view into the small cave that rested on the bottom, sheltered by thick greenery around it.
Arissa felt completely breathless and it wasn’t from the treacherous climb. It was because at the bottom of the knoll they were on, just beside the entrance to the cave, were several bay horses, all identical in size and color. Army horses. Before Arissa could even react, she saw a figure emerge beside them, but the distance kept her from clearly seeing the man’s face. Another silent moment of watching him and she didn’t
need to, she recognized him immediately by the way he moved, so alert and attentive, but nervous.
A slow smile spread across her mouth for a moment as she revelled in the satisfaction. Her mind was already planning terrible things, but she made herself pause a moment to fully enjoy the fact that after weeks of oblivion, she had finally outsmarted him.
“He’s here.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Hey! Arissa, stop!” Trax shouted to her, trying desperately to keep his voice hushed. His hands were gripped tightly around Arissa’s forearms, forcing her to lower the bow that she had instantly retrieved from her shoulder and strung in under a second.
“What are you doing? He needs to die, Trax. Get out of my way!”
“Not here! Not like this,” he spoke quickly, it was hard to catch the words in his lilting voice. “We found him, okay? You found him. Now we can go back and get a team together to end this.”
The moment that she had seen the General emerge into her sight, something in her had completely snapped. She no longer cared about the big, flashy execution that she had previously dreamed about for him, or feeling the satisfaction of taunting him endlessly, dragging out his death as long and painfully as she could. Suddenly, all she wanted was him dead, and nothing else.
Arissa’s eyes were burning with hatred, wild as they shifted frantically between Trax’s intense, blue stare and the General far below. His grip on her tightened as she struggled to take aim with her bow again, but he somehow managed to wrestle it away from her.
“Let go of me!” she yelled, enraged, before she realized what she had done. They were close enough to the General that he would be able to hear her shout.
In the moment that it took for her to ponder the mistake, Trax effortlessly shoved her so that she turned around and suddenly she was trapped in the strong embrace of his arms. He had one hand clapped over her mouth, the other wrapped securely around her torso. The length of her cloak tangled in her feet as he pulled them both behind a tree, large enough to conceal them both from the view of the small camp below.
A strangled moan escaped her throat in the effort to catch her breath. Trax immediately hissed in her ear, snapping at her to be quiet. Arissa rolled her eyes, her hatred for the man increasing a tiny bit more. As if she needed to be told to be quiet. The only reason she had accidently drawn the attention to themselves in the first place was because he had interfered with her.
The campsite was behind Arissa, she couldn’t see what they were doing, but she could feel Trax carefully leaning enough to peer around the edge of the tree. She was very aware of how close he was holding her, necessary to keep his restraint tight enough to ensure she couldn’t break free. Even through her thick, unyielding attire, she could feel the contoured muscles of his chest and arms on her, and his warm breath that tickled the side of her neck sent shivers through her. It took everything in her to resist the urge to shrug him off, but she couldn’t take another stupid chance that they would be seen.
The next minute seemed to drag out forever. The one time she tried to mutter against his palm, asking what was happening, he hushed her again, harshly. It wasn’t until he slowly released his hand from her mouth that she understood they were safe.
“Are they gone?” she asked, breathing deeply in attempt to fill her lungs with air again. Feeling the motion of his slight nod, Arissa took a moment to compose her expression. She felt winded, almost shaken. Without even thinking, she tilted her head back for a moment, leaning into his arm, eyes closed. Allowing anger to blind her, she had almost cost them their advantage, maybe even their lives.
For a second, she had actually forgotten the fact that Trax still held her protectively. Regaining her balance, she righted herself, trying to step out of his grasp, but he pulled her back in for a second.
His hot breath and accented voice was soft in her ear. “They’ve been gone for several minutes now. I just didn’t expect you to enjoy my embrace so much that you would be hesitant to break it.” As he spoke, he gingerly lifted his face so that his cheek brushed against her jaw bone.
Without bothering to reply or even snap at him, Arissa jerked free of his grasp, sending a hateful glare at him. He was amused by his own antics and more so by her reactions, as usual.
Carefully glancing down to the site once more, she saw that the General had disappeared, but now two guards stood outside the dark entrance to the cavern. The Lieutenant must still be inside, as well. Arissa had hoped to see him, given that she had never met him before, she had no idea what he looked like. As much as she would have liked, she couldn’t stay and wait for him to emerge, not with precious time wasting.
Trax already had her bow, handing it to her with a snarky grin in place, as if expecting her to be grateful. She only snatched it from his hand, slung it over her shoulder and took hold of a solid tree root to begin lowering herself down the same hillside she had just climbed up.
Her mind was already scattered with plans and thoughts and preparations for when she arrived back at her own camp. Her lip twitched when she decided that the most important thing was to first confront Trax about what he had done moment before.
“The only reason I’m talking to you right now is to yell at you, so don’t get too excited,” she breathed, her muscled clenching tightly as she held her own weight, reaching for another firm handle. “Why did you stop me from killing the General just now?”
“There are only three horses, Arissa.”
She paused, her brows furrowing in confusion. “What...what does that have to do with anything?”
Trax sighed. “There were only three horses...Arissa. The General and the two guards. The Lieutenant wasn’t with them.”
Immediately cursing herself, she didn’t reply for a moment, only focusing on quickly lowering herself to the ground again. She had been so fixated on finding the General, it was as if everything else had completely vanished from her mind the moment she had seen him. She hadn’t even cared about anything else, she just wanted to see him dead. Every fibre of hatred had taken over her body to the point she couldn’t control it. As much as she hated to admit it, she owed Trax for stopping her. He had saved her from making a huge mistake that would cost everyone dearly. Killing the General wouldn’t end the war, Arissa knew that she needed him yet. Of course, there was no way she would ever admit her appreciation to Trax.
Unaware of what she was thinking, Trax continued. “Believe me, I know how you felt. I want to see him dead as soon as possible, too. But we need him yet. I assumed the Lieutenant would be with him, but we should have known that was too good to be true. However, now that we’ve found one, we should be able to find the other. We just need to be careful about how we proceed with this.”
“There is no ‘we’, Trax. Stop pretending like there is. You’re not even supposed to be here, remember?”
“Honestly? Didn’t we just go through this a couple days ago? Lighten up, darling. You really ought to be enjoying what very well could be the last days of your life.”
His words startled her. He was just being his snarky, enraging self, but he didn’t realize what the meaning behind his words meant to her. She was reminded of what had happened the night she had left her home in Daer, what she had told Cayl about not coming back. It wasn’t a surprise to her that her life was endangered, able to end at any moment. She accepted that long ago, but it wasn’t what was bothering her now.
Trax had no idea that while they were travelling together, working together, and trying to at least co-exist together, that Arissa was secretly plotting his death. Killing an innocent man was no problem for her. She had more than enough experience, she knew how to turn off her humanity and live without the guilt of her actions. She hated everything about Trax, from the way he was able to talk her into his plans and ideas to the lingering, aching feeling she had around him that she still hadn’t been able to identify. He was one of the best soldiers she had ever gotten to fight with, but he knew too much about her. If she couldn’t fully tr
ust him, the information he knew was deadly. She would go along with him as long as he was useful, but then he had to die.
It was much faster and less exhausting descending the hill and within a few minutes, Arissa was standing on the flat ground again, sighing in exasperation as she searched for the horses that were grazing a few paces away.
“Oh, and Trax? One more thing...” Arissa mused, innocently as he came up to stand behind her. Before he could reply, she sent her bent elbow flying in his direction, catching him precisely in the solar plexus so hard that it even stung her for a moment. The satisfying gasp from him as he quickly doubled over, struggling to breathe made her smile, victoriously. Just before she walked away, she looked down at him from the corner of her eye, adding on in a husky voice, “You know exactly what that was for.”
* * *
Enough time passed for the small triangle of firewood to burn down, reducing itself to only a small pile of glowing embers. It was just enough light to cascade across Arissa’s bronzed skin, lighting her tense and heavy expression. Her fingers were clenched into fists, flexing and relaxing in a distracting rhythm as she stared into the low cinders of the fire. Exhaustion was threatening to overwhelm her, but her mind was still racing and made it impossible to even consider resting.
She hadn’t spoken to Trax since leaving the bluff overlooking the General’s camp hours ago. She was doing her best to virtually ignore his presence now, but even in the dead silence, he was evident in her mind. It annoyed her that she couldn’t stop thinking about him, hated that he had become so infuriatingly difficult to push out of her thoughts. Even when he wasn’t talking, trying to get a reaction of any kind from her, he was still interrupting every thought she had and it was driving her mad. She needed to focus, and put together a plan by the time they arrived back at their camp the next day and it was becoming increasingly harder to do as the hours wore on.
