Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 605 of 619

The freed men rested in the grass while the hour ran down. Elara knelt over the worst of them, her hands faint with light. She had spent herself all morning and would spend more before they went below again. Ajax watched her arm shake and let her work. She would not stop for him or for anyone. Then the light changed. It came soft over the ridge, silver where the dawn had been gray. A woman stood in it. Her gown ran deep blue and held small sparks, like stars caught in cloth. A band of pale stones circled her wrist. Ajax had seen her before. She came to Elara, and only to Elara, on nights the moon was full. His men called her the Emissary of the moonlit order. Rowan's hand went to his bow. Kael's went to his knife. Ajax raised one hand and both men stopped. "Hold," he said. "She's not for us." Elara looked up. Her face went still. She got to her feet, slow, one hand pressed to her ribs. "You shouldn't be here," she said. "There's no seal to hold. Just this." She looked at the captives, then back. "A god below. And too much rot in these men to fix." The Emissary crossed the grass without sound. She looked down at the man Elara had been tending, the one near gone. "You have poured yourself out again," she said. Her voice was low and even. "You cannot climb into that dark on a body this thin." "I'll manage," Elara said. "You will not." Elara's jaw set. She did not like being told, and the Emissary knew it. But the woman did not soften. She lifted Elara's wrist and touched the band there, the one that drank moonlight. The stones on her own arm brightened. The band on Elara's wrist filled until it hummed. "Full," the Emissary said. "More than full. Enough to blind what waits below and hold your feet under you when you do it." She let the wrist go. "Do not empty it on these men. Save it for the thing that made them cages." Elara breathed out. The tremor left her arm. She flexed her fingers and light came clean and steady, no shake in it. Chalam pressed his staff to the grass, reading. "The god stirs," he said. "It knows the woman came. It knows the moon touched this ground." He looked up. "It will send the next hand sooner now." The Emissary turned to Ajax. "I do not fight your fights," she said. "But she is mine to keep. Now she can keep herself." She stepped back into the silver light and was gone. Ajax looked at Elara. Her band shone bright at her wrist. Her hands were sure. "Now," he said. "Down. For the god."