4. Saige
Saige
The pain has dulled, my left side is at a four, maybe a five.
I decide it’s a four. Noting it the way one notes the weather.
There, persistent, but not worth mentioning.
I don’t know if I passed out from the pain or from the drugs lacing the cloth put over my face, but when I blink my surroundings back into focus, I recognize the blurry interior of the Copper Kettle.
For a moment, I wonder if it was just a nightmare, a result of my compounding guilt—the outstanding debts, keeping secrets, risking those I love…
Shame prickles hot in my cheeks, on my neck; it’s been a long while since my friends have seen me like this—weak and useless.
I wait for the warmth of the crackling hearth to soothe my aching bones; I tell myself it’s going to be alright.
This was just a scare brought on by my own shame.
I’ll tell Yevna and Raven the truth about my medical expenses, about the coin I owe…
They’ll be angry and hurt, but they’ll help me figure it out.
I should have trusted them with it all sooner.
But as I come back to myself and my surroundings, I hear Grim snarling savagely and my blood runs cold.
The embers in the hearth are spluttering.
Chairs lie upturned on the floorboards. Spilt mead drips from the tables.
There’s a smear of blood on the floor, shards of broken glass gleaming in the dim light.
The place reeks of fear—or perhaps it’s me.
Realization dawns and panic sets in as I take in the destruction.
Yevna’s business—her baby—is in pieces… And of course, there are no royal guards running from the streets to investigate the disorder.
They’re either too drunk from celebrating the Reclaiming or paid to look the other way.
Bitter bile hits the back of my throat. My hands—bound with thick rope—are clammy, my nails digging into my palms.
And then, I see her. Yevna. Bound and gagged, held between two massive men. One of her eyes is swollen shut, but the other locks on me, wide and full of questions. She tries to speak but the gag muffles her words, and one of Thorne’s men delivers a brutal backhanded blow across her face.
A strangled noise breaks from my lips, my lungs constricting as her body is knocked sideways by the force of the hit.
I jolt as a desperate scream sounds beside me—Raven falls to her knees, and tries to crawl towards Yevna, who is bleeding on the floor.
But like me, Raven is held in place by binds and thick meaty hands.
I hear her intake of breath beside me; I can feel her trembling as she tilts her head towards me.
“What did you do?” she murmurs, her complexion pallid, her eyes red-rimmed. “What did you do, Saige?”
And that’s when I understand. This is happening.
Thorne’s men are here. They’ve hurt Yevna. They’re going to hurt Raven too.
I’m shaking too, but it’s fury swallowing my fear, coursing through me like a flood of fire. I lash out at the man restraining me, kicking, scratching, biting, and I’m not the only one—Grim loses it. He darts forward, snarling viciously, his teeth bared, his hackles raised as he readies to attack—
Yevna’s shouts are still muffled by the gag, but I know she’ll fight to the death for her dog. Her good eye goes wide as someone yanks on a rope around his neck—
“Enough.” The familiar voice carries the rasp of someone who’s inhaled too much opium and drink over the decades past and my gaze sweeps across the tavern, my knees buckling.
Ivor Thorne is braced over the mantle of the unlit fireplace.
His short silver-streaked black hair is receding slightly at his temples, but is kept perfectly groomed, contrasting with his full salt-and-pepper beard.
A prominent nose that’s been broken at least twice, gives his profile a hawkish quality, while the creases around his eyes and mouth deepen as he looks at me pinned between his lackeys.
“Saige.” My name is coated in disappointment.
My heart is hammering painfully, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.
I’ve been punished by Thorne before, at his hands and the hands of others on his orders, but this is different.
I must fix this. I can’t let anything else happen to Yevna—or to Raven and Grim.
They’re my family. The only family I’ve got.
“Ivor, I—”
“No,” he says darkly. “I’ll listen to no more of your horseshit. Do you know how much you owe me? How much in interest alone?”
I feel Raven’s eyes on me, her disbelief palpable. Fear curdles in my gut, but I say nothing. Thorne taught me long ago that some questions warranted no answers from me.
Grim barks savagely as he thrashes, desperate to get to Yevna.
“Someone get the beast out of here,” Thorne snaps, looking from the tangled wolfhound back to me, but his men hesitate, wary of Grim’s gnashing fangs. His lingering stare on my body makes me want to hurl as one of his men attempts to drag Grim outside. “I’ve had enough Saige. It’s time to pay up.”
“Ivor, please.” Yevna may not beg, but I sure as fuck will when her and Raven’s lives are on the line. When it comes to survival, there’s no room for pride. I’ve learnt that lesson well enough. “Ivor. I’ll find a way to pay you back—”
His answering laugh is coarse and sadistic. “I’ve found it for you.”
I blink at him, skin crawling as I recall a time I cleared another debt with him. Sour breath. Roaming hands. Days of scrubbing my skin raw afterwards. Suppressing the urge to shudder, I meet his gaze. “What?”
“People were looking for Leo, did you know that? And now, they’re looking for you. I can’t say I see the value, but someone out there was willing to pay double what you owe me, interest included, and all I had to do was hand you over. So, you are paying me back, Saige. And I thank you.”
Suspicion claws at my insides as my mind drags me through the countless visitors to the bindery asking after the master bookbinder, and then, his successor.
It hadn’t seemed so strange at the time, wealthy clients wanting the best in the business, but…
I remember the flutter of uneasiness, the double take at metallic flecked eyes and—
“What are you talking about, Ivor?” I croak, dread blooming in my gut like a rotten flower. “Who?”
Suddenly, the temperature drops, an icy breath of winter unfurling across the tavern, dancing with the candlelight, creating unnatural shadows.
Raven screams as two towering Azkari warriors materialize in front of us. In another place, their ethereal beauty would be staggering, but here, matched with the coldness in their eyes, it only makes them more terrifying.
I try to back away, but am held captive by Thorne’s men, shaking my head in disbelief and at the man who has lorded his wealth and power over me my entire life. “What have you done?”
It’s not lost on me that only moments before, Raven asked me the exact same thing and the reality of it comes crashing down around me. I did this. Whatever comes next is what I deserve, but Raven and Yevna? They had no part in this.
“What I should have done a long time ago,” Thorne replies, nodding to the Azkari. “They never quite managed to bring Leo to heel, the stubborn old fool. But you’re the next best thing.”
The sound that escapes me is almost primal, a broken scream that rattles the windows. “Ivor. What did you do?”
The Azkari say nothing, but they snatch both my arms in a bone-crushing grip, taking me into their custody. Their strength is tenfold that of my human captors and I’m utterly powerless. What do they want with me?
The Azkari don’t acknowledge me, indifferent to my thrashing against them. But as I flail in their grip, one of their collars shifts, revealing a sliver of skin on the neck and I gasp.
The mark of an eye stares back at me. My heart leaps into my throat, tremors wracking my body, my shirt growing damp with sweat. I’ve never seen one in the flesh before.
The brand of the Silver-Tongued Deceiver.
Tiny silvery fissures shift around the eye, almost as though the skin is barely containing something powerful trying to break through, as though the eye is watching… Malevron may be gone, but his followers apparently live on. And they want me for something.
“Where are you taking her?” Yevna shouts, her gag hanging loose around her chin now. “Take me instead.”
“We don’t want you, crone. We want the bookbinder girl,” one of the Azkari rasps as he tosses a coin purse across the room.
Thorne catches it, and nods to his lackey who holds a knife to Yevna’s throat—
“Thorne! You can’t!” I scream, but the two people I care most for in this rotten world are being dragged away, and I can do nothing as Thorne threatens to open their throats across the Kettle’s floor and two Azkari pin me in place.
“Goodbye, Saige,” Thorne says.
“Let Yevna and Raven go,” I beg, fighting against the vise-like grip on me, feeling my skin bruise beneath their hold. “You have your money. You have no use for them. They didn’t do anything—”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he replies darkly, his lip curling into a sneer. “They’ll remain with me, to ensure your cooperation with your new captor. I will have them on hand in my compound, should you need any… motivation for what is asked of you.”
I choke on a sob. To be in Thorne’s possession, at his mercy… it’s not a fate I’d wish on anyone, let alone my family. “Ivor, please—”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t know who I am, Saige. You didn’t honor the terms of your loan, and now you must face the consequences.”
Of all the ways I thought I’d die, I’d never considered this.
Obliterated by servants of the Silver-Tongued Deceiver.
Nothing will save me now. Even all this time after the Reckoning mortals know that when bearers of that mark are involved, it ends badly.
I’ve heard the stories of what they did to us.
Of what they did to each other. Monsters.
All of them. For those who wear the brand are servants to the tyrant Malevron, the Silver-Tongued Deceiver—
“No—” Panic seizes my heart, and otherworldly ice-cold chains appear, tightening around my body.
Fierce wind whips at me, and pressure builds all around while the metal chains dig into my flesh.
I am ripped away from the Copper Kettle, away from Raven and Yevna and Grim.
I plummet through clouds of darkness—pain licking along my left side as something is whispered in the shell of my ear—a name I can’t quite catch.
Everything is spinning, disorienting, until a gasp rips from my throat as at last, I land on something hard and unforgiving.
My whole body jars upon impact and I’m winded, wheezing, struggling to get enough musty air into my lungs.
On my hands and knees, I cough and splutter until I manage to regulate my rasping breath by focusing on my surroundings, mentally distancing myself from the pain.
I’m on a stone floor, the feel of it beneath my palms is rough and ancient.
There is no natural light, but from the guttering flames of a torch in the near distance, I can see the bars of a cell—my cell.
Small and dank, thick with centuries of accumulated dust and something else, something I recognize easily—pain—history, settled deep into the bones of this place.
Then, my heart quickens as I feel it…
Something strangely familiar.
A ripple of magic.