Chapter 7: The Ice Wall Massacre
The ice wall shattered with a sound like a thousand mirrors breaking at once.
Fox felt the shockwave punch through his chest, knocking the air from his lungs. He stumbled back, boots sliding on the blood-slicked stone, and watched the crystalline sheet explode outward in a spray of glittering shards. The proxies—what was left of them—came through the gap in a wave of rotting flesh and salt-crusted bone.
He reached for an arrow.
His quiver was empty.
"Fuck." The word came out flat, stripped of panic. He'd known this moment would come. Had counted every shaft as he loosed it, watched his stock dwindle from thirty to twenty to ten to none. The last arrow had punched through a drowned sailor's eye socket and lodged in the brain behind it. The thing had kept walking for three more steps before it collapsed.
These weren't men anymore. They were meat puppets. Hollow shells. The Codex had scooped out whatever souls they'd once had and filled the empty spaces with its own echo.
A proxy lurched toward him. It had been a woman once—he could tell from the tattered dress clinging to its skeletal frame, the locket still hanging from its neck. Her jaw hung loose, seawater dripping from her mouth in a steady stream. Her eyes were gone. Just empty sockets filled with that same green-black glow that pulsed from the sky.
Fox dropped his bow and drew his knife.
It wasn't much. A blade no longer than his forearm, sharpened to a razor's edge. But it was what he had.
The proxy lunged.
He sidestepped, grabbed her by the hair, and drove the knife up under her jaw. The blade punched through the soft tissue of her throat and into the base of her skull. She jerked once, twice, then went limp.
He threw her body aside and turned to find three more shambling toward him.
"Fox!" Arielle's voice cut through the chaos. "Get down!"
He dropped.
The clay sphere detonated behind him.
The world went white.
Heat washed over his back—not the gentle warmth of a campfire, but the searing, all-consuming blaze of a forge. The air itself seemed to ignite, oxygen turning to fire, stone turning to glass. The proxies caught in the blast didn't scream. They didn't have time. They simply... ceased. One moment they were there, reaching for him with clawed hands. The next, they were ash, drifting upward on a column of superheated air.
The fire lasted three seconds.
When it died, the ravine was silent.
Fox pushed himself to his feet. His ears rang. His vision swam. He could taste copper on his tongue, feel the grit of ash coating his teeth.
The ravine was gone.
Where the narrow passage had been, there was now a smoking crater. The cliffs on either side had partially collapsed, sending tons of black rock tumbling into the void. The snow that had capped the ridge above had melted entirely, revealing the bare stone beneath. Steam rose in lazy curls from the crater's floor.
And scattered across the ground, still twitching, were the remains of the proxies who hadn't made it into the blast radius.
Fox walked among them. He drove his knife into skull after skull, methodical, unthinking. A mercy. A necessity. He didn't know which. Didn't care.
When he was done, he wiped the blade on his thigh and sheathed it.
Arielle emerged from behind a spur of rock, her face smudged with soot, her hair singed at the ends. She was breathing hard. Her hands were covered in blood—not hers.
She looked at him. He looked at her.
Neither of them spoke.
Everly came last. She'd been standing on the ridge above, directing the ice wall, pulling moisture from the air with gestures that looked almost casual. Now she descended the slope with the unhurried grace of someone who hadn't just participated in a massacre.
Her shift was torn in three places. Her hair was wild. There was a cut on her cheek that she didn't seem to notice.
She walked straight to Fox.
Her hand closed around his collar.
"What—" he started.
She slammed him against the ravine wall.
The rock bit into his back. The air left his lungs. Before he could recover, before he could even process what was happening, her hand was inside his trousers.
"You owe me," she snarled.
Her fingers found him. Closed around him. Pulled him free of his clothes with a rough, practiced motion that left him gasping.
He was already hard. He didn't know when it had happened—sometime during the fight, maybe, the adrenaline and the blood and the proximity of death doing what such things always did to a body. Or maybe it was her. The way she'd looked at him in the cottage. The hunger in her eyes. The promise of later.
"Everly—"
"Shut up." She stroked him once, root to tip, her grip firm enough to hurt. "Not a word."
He shut up.
Her hand moved faster. A brutal rhythm, no tenderness, no pretense. She jerked him like she was trying to pull something out of him, something she'd been denied and was now taking by force. Her thumb swept across the head of his cock, smearing the pre-cum that had gathered there, spreading it down his shaft until he was slick in her fist.
Fox's head fell back against the rock. His hips jerked forward, involuntary, meeting her strokes. He was close—dangerously close—and she knew it. She could feel it in the way his cock twitched against her palm, in the way his breath came in short, ragged gasps.
"That's it," she breathed. "That's it, Foxy. Give it to me."
Her voice was low and rough, stripped of the sardonic edge it usually carried. This was something real. Something raw.
Arielle watched from ten paces away.
She didn't move. Didn't speak. Her hand was on her dagger, her knuckles white, her jaw clenched so tight Fox could see the muscles jumping beneath her skin. Her eyes were fixed on Everly's hand, on the way it moved over him, on the way his body responded.
She didn't look away.
Fox saw her. Saw the fury in her eyes, the hurt beneath it, the jealousy that she couldn't quite hide. He wanted to stop. Wanted to push Everly away, to explain, to fix whatever was breaking between them.
But Everly's hand was relentless. And he was only human.
"Come," Everly commanded. "Now."
He came.
The orgasm tore through him like a second explosion, white-hot and devastating. His vision went dark at the edges. His knees buckled. He would have fallen if Everly hadn't pinned him to the wall, her body pressed against his, her hand still working him through the aftershocks.
When it was over, he was shaking.
Everly pulled her hand back. His release coated her fingers, thick and glistening in the dull red light. She looked at it for a moment, then raised her hand to her mouth.
She licked him clean.
Slow. Deliberate. Her tongue tracing the lines of her knuckles, catching every drop. Her eyes never left his.
"That's just the interest," she said. "The principal comes later."
She stepped back. Adjusted her torn shift. Smiled at him with lips still wet.
Fox couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Couldn't do anything but stand there, his cock still hanging out of his trousers, his heart hammering against his ribs, and wonder what the fuck he'd just done.
Arielle turned and walked away.
She didn't say a word. Didn't look back. Just disappeared around the curve of the ravine, heading back toward the ruined cottage, her shoulders rigid, her steps quick and measured.
Fox watched her go.
"Better go after her," Everly said. She was already walking in the opposite direction, toward the crater, toward the smoking remains of the proxies. "She's got that look. The one that says she's about to do something stupid."
"What about you?"
Everly glanced back over her shoulder. The cut on her cheek had stopped bleeding. The runes on her skin—the ones he'd noticed earlier, faint and barely visible—were glowing now, pulsing with the same rhythm as the ones on her cottage walls.
"I need to see what the Codex left behind," she said. "There's always something. A trace. A clue. And then..."
She paused.
"And then we go find your farm girl."
She disappeared into the smoke.
Fox stood alone in the ravine, surrounded by ash and death and the lingering heat of the explosion. His trousers were still open. His cock was still wet with Everly's spit.
He tucked himself away. Fixed his belt. Picked up his bow from where he'd dropped it.
And then he went after Arielle.
He found her at the cottage.
She was standing in the doorway, staring at the wreckage inside. The tremor had done more damage than he'd realized—the roof had partially collapsed, and the shelves had all come down. Vials and jars littered the floor, their contents mixing into a noxious sludge that ate into the stone.
Arielle didn't seem to notice. She was looking at something in her hand.
The locket.
The one he'd seen on the drowned proxy. The one he'd cut from her neck before she could kill him. He must have dropped it during the fight. Arielle must have picked it up.
"Her name was Margaret," Arielle said. Her voice was flat. "It's engraved on the inside. 'Margaret, beloved wife and mother.'"
Fox stopped a few paces behind her.
"She was already dead," he said. "The Codex—"
"I know." Arielle closed her hand around the locket. "That's not what I'm thinking about."
She turned. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but her face was dry. She looked at him—really looked at him—for the first time since he'd come after her.
"When you were with Everly," she said. "Just now. Did you want to?"
He didn't answer.
"Did you want to?" she repeated.
"I didn't stop her."
"That's not an answer."
He exhaled. Ran a hand through his hair. Looked at the ground, at the ruin of the cottage, at anything but her face.
"No," he said finally. "I didn't want to."
"But you let her."
"I didn't... I couldn't..." He struggled for words. "It's complicated."
"It's not." Arielle stepped closer, closing the distance between them. "You either want someone or you don't. You either choose them or you don't. Everything else is just excuses."
"You don't understand."
"Then explain it to me." Her voice cracked. "Explain why I watched you come in her hand ten minutes after I killed a dozen people to save your life. Explain why I felt like I was being torn in half while she was touching you."
Fox's throat tightened. "Arielle—"
"I'm not Leliana." The words came out sharp, jagged. "I'm not the girl you left behind. I'm not the one you're trying to save. I'm just the one who's here. Who's been here. Who followed you into a cave and let you fuck her because I thought—" She stopped. Swallowed. "Because I thought maybe you felt something too."
The silence stretched.
Then Fox reached out and took her hand.
She flinched. But she didn't pull away.
"I don't know what I feel," he said. "I don't know if I'm capable of feeling anything anymore. The things I've seen, the things I've done—they've scraped me hollow. There's nothing left inside but revenge and habit."
He looked at her. Really looked at her. At the dirt smudged on her cheek, the singed ends of her hair, the stubborn set of her jaw.
"But I know I didn't want to hurt you."
"You did."
"I know."
Arielle's eyes searched his. For what, he didn't know. Answers. Reassurance. Something solid to hold onto.
Then she leaned forward and kissed him.
It wasn't gentle. Wasn't sweet. It was desperate—a collision of mouths and teeth, her hands fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer, demanding something he wasn't sure he could give.
He kissed her back.
Her lips parted. Her tongue found his. She tasted like ash and salt and something underneath, something warm and alive. He slid his hands to her waist, pulled her against him, felt the heat of her body through the torn fabric of her tunic.
She moaned into his mouth.
The sound went straight to his cock.
"What are we doing?" he breathed against her lips.
"I don't know." She kissed him again, harder. "I don't care."
They stumbled through the doorway, into the wreckage of the cottage. Glass crunched underfoot. A shelf collapsed as Arielle's shoulder slammed into it. She didn't seem to notice. Her hands were at his belt again, and this time he let her.
She shoved his trousers down. Fell to her knees.
"Arielle—"
"Shut up." She looked up at him, her eyes dark, her lips parted. "Just shut up and let me."
She took him in her mouth.
Fox's head fell back. A groan tore out of him, raw and involuntary. Her tongue was hot and wet, moving along the underside of his cock, tracing the vein that ran from root to tip. Her hand wrapped around the base, squeezing, stroking, working him in tandem with her mouth.
She was good at this. Better than he'd expected. Her lips sealed around him, sliding down until he hit the back of her throat. She gagged once, twice, then relaxed, taking him deeper. Her eyes watered, but she didn't pull back.
"Fuck," he gasped. "Arielle, fuck..."
She hummed around him. The vibration shot through his entire body, lighting up nerve endings he'd forgotten he had. He tangled his fingers in her hair, not pushing, just holding on—anchoring himself to something real, something present.
She pulled back. Let him fall from her lips with a wet, obscene sound.
"I'm not her," she said again. "I'm not going to be some convenient hole you use when you're lonely."
"I know."
"Do you?" She kissed the head of his cock, lapped at the pre-cum pooling at the tip. "Because I'm tired of being second choice. I've been second choice my whole life. My father's court, my mother's attention, every person I've ever met who looked at me and saw a bargaining chip instead of a person."
She took him in her mouth again, deeper this time, her hand moving faster on the part of him she couldn't reach.
"The next time you come," she said when she surfaced, "I want it to be because of me. Not her. Not Leliana. Me."
Fox pulled her to her feet.
She stood before him, breathing hard, her lips swollen, her chin slick with her own saliva. She looked wild. Untamed. Nothing like the sweet, gullible girl he'd first met on the road.
He kissed her.
This time, he led. His hands found the hem of her tunic and pulled it over her head. She was naked underneath—no smallclothes, just skin. Her breasts were small and firm, her nipples already hard.
He bent his head and took one in his mouth.
Arielle gasped. Her fingers laced through his hair, holding him there as his tongue circled her nipple, teeth grazing just enough to make her shudder.
"Fox..."
He walked her backward, guiding her to the collapsed remains of a table. It wasn't much—splintered wood, a clear space just wide enough for two bodies—but it would do.
He laid her back on it.
She looked up at him, her hair spread around her head like a halo, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Her thighs fell open instinctively, and he could see everything—the golden curls, the slickness already gathering between her lips.
He knelt between her legs.
"What are you—"
He dragged his tongue through her folds.
Arielle screamed.
Not a scream of pain. A scream of pleasure, raw and unfiltered, her back arching off the table, her hands flying to his head, holding him there as his tongue worked her clit.
He licked her slow at first. A long, flat stroke that started at her entrance and ended at the sensitive bundle of nerves that made her thighs tremble. Then faster. Harder. His tongue circling, flicking, lapping at her like she was the last meal he'd ever eat.
"Fuck, Fox, fuck—" Her hips bucked against his mouth. Her fingers tightened in his hair. "Don't stop. Please don't stop."
He slid a finger inside her.
She was tight. Hot. Her muscles clenched around him immediately, pulling him deeper. He added a second finger, curling them upward, finding that spot inside her that made her back arch off the table.
"Oh gods, oh fuck, oh gods—"
He sucked her clit into his mouth and pressed hard on that spot at the same time.
The sounds she made after that weren't words.
Just noise. Raw and animal. Her thighs clamped around his head, her hips grinding against his face, her entire body trembling on the edge of something enormous.
"Come for me," he muttered against her. "Let me taste it."
She came.
Her orgasm hit her hard, stolen, sharp, her walls contracting around his fingers, her cry echoing off the ruined walls of the cottage. He kept licking her through it, drawing it out, tasting the sweetness that flooded his tongue.
When she finally pushed him away, gasping, shaking, he stood.
His cock was aching. Dripping. He'd never been harder in his life.
"Do you want—" he started.
"Fuck me." She grabbed his hips and pulled him toward her. "I don't care about anything else. Just put it inside me. Now. Please."
He didn't need to be told twice.
He lined himself up and pushed inside.
They both groaned. Her nails dug into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood. Her legs locked around his waist, pulling him deeper, taking him to the hilt.
"Fuck," he breathes. "Fuck, you're tight."
"Move," she demanded. "Move, damn you."
He moved.
The first thrust was slow, deliberate, pulling almost all the way out before pushing back in. Arielle's head fell back, her mouth open, a moan spilling out like a prayer. The second thrust was faster. The third faster still.
Soon he was pounding into her.
The table creaked beneath them. Splinters rained down. Arielle's breasts bounced with every thrust, her hands scrabbling for purchase on the broken wood, her cries rising in pitch and volume until they weren't cries anymore—just one long, continuous moan of pleasure.
"Yes, yes, yes, fuck, Fox, right there, right there, don't stop—"
He didn't stop.
He grabbed her legs and pushed them up over his shoulders, changing the angle, driving deeper than before. He watched his cock slide in and out of her, slick with her wetness, gleaming in the firelight.
"You feel that?" he grunted. "You feel how deep I am?"
"Yes—ah—gods, yes—"
"This is what you wanted." He thrust harder, faster. "This is what you were begging for."
Her hand snaked down between her legs, fingers finding her clit, rubbing in frantic circles as he fucked her. He could feel her getting close again. Could feel her walls starting to clench around him.
"Come with me," he said. "I want to feel you come on my cock."
"Don't stop," she gasped. "Don't you dare stop—"
"I won't. I'm going to fuck you until you can't walk. Until you forget your own name. Until the only thing you remember is how it felt to have me inside you."
Arielle screamed.
Her orgasm ripped through her like a storm, her entire body convulsing, her fingers raking bloody lines down his back. The feel of her—the tightness, the fluttering, the wet heat—pushed him over the edge.
He came with a roar.
His release pumped into her in hot, thick pulses, filling her, claiming her. His hips jerked with every wave, out of control, lost to anything but the sensation of her body milking him dry.
When it was over, he collapsed on top of her.
They lay there for a long moment, tangled together, breathing hard, heedless of the splinters or the ash or the ruined remnants of the cottage around them.
Then Arielle spoke.
"I meant what I said," she whispered. "I'm not going to be second choice."
Fox pressed his forehead to hers.
"I know," he said.
And then, from somewhere outside, from the direction of the ravine, Everly's voice rang out.
"Fox! Get out here! You're going to want to see this!"
He pulled out of Arielle. They both scrambled to dress—clothes torn, buttons missing, nothing to be done about the marks they'd left on each other.
When they emerged from the cottage, Everly was standing at the edge of the cliff.