8. Saige
Saige
“Never bargain with the Azkari”, the warning sounds like Leo, and Yevna, with the cautionary note that accompanies old wives’ tales. It echoes in my mind to the point where I feel like they’re standing next to me.
Don’t do it, Leo chastises me from beyond the grave. You’ll end up in all manner of trouble.
“Too late for that, old man,” I mutter, before meeting the gleaming gaze behind the bars, unable to make out the hue against the mesmerizing metallic rings. “What are the terms?”
“I will free you and save your friends,” Archer tells me. “In exchange, you will retrieve a book for me. You will restore it to its original form and deliver it to my home.”
The screams from beyond our cells intensify, and I feel queasy at the thought of those distant chambers and the blood being spilt within them.
Is that what’s happening to Yev and Raven in Thorne’s compound?
Are their screams echoing across Hanniel as I’m here debating with the mysterious Azkari?
Despite my bravado, we both know I need to accept this deal…
But Yevna didn’t raise a feckless fool, as much as she might try to object.
In the past when I’ve needed help, I’ve accepted it from the wrong people and that assistance has come with strings attached or a high price to pay, too high a price.
As though responding to the memory, pain wraps around my body, seeping into my bones, and sinks into the very marrow.
“Why do you want this book?” I ask through clenched teeth, my eyes narrowing as Archer’s silhouette moves and I try to hide my discomfort.
“To remove a stain upon this realm,” he answers easily.
“I can think of several,” I manage.
“Of that I have no doubt.” Archer’s voice is deep, rough around the edges, and closer than it was before.
“We need to retrieve it before Malevron finds a way. We need to keep it out of his hands and then use it to destroy him. History got it wrong, Grayson. He’s very much on the precipice of regaining his power. ”
I know better than to accept a deal with the Azkari at face value, but it’s Raven and Yevna who hang in the balance, and Grim.
Thorne will have taken them to his compound, he may even have spies here to report back to him.
The longer he has them as leverage, the more danger they are in, the more likely it is he’ll hurt them.
All the while I debate with Archer, the sand in their hour glasses runs thin.
Don’t do it. I wish I could really hear Leo’s voice for real, but he’s not here. He’ll never be here again. But Yevna and Raven are, and I need to make sure they stay that way.
“Where is this book?” I press the Azkari prisoner beside me.
Archer answers easily. “Your friends will lead us to the person who might be able to confirm its whereabouts.”
“What?”
“Whoever has your friends knows where the Confluence is, they were hired by lackeys who work for Malevron. When we rescue them, I’ll get the answers I need.”
The pain has dulled and I shift uneasily from foot to foot, wondering if there’s some double meaning there I’m not understanding as I mull over each word in his proposition. “Where do you live then?”
“You mean when I’m not in this humble abode?” Irritation laces his words before he pauses for me to take in what little sight of the prison I can. “In the mountains—the Spine of Lorevael.”
“The biggest mountain range of the realm?” I reply flatly. “What—”
Archer cuts me off. “You are running out of time, Grayson.”
The looming discomfort in my side dulls, simmering just beneath the surface. “I can’t promise to restore a manuscript to its original form. I can attempt to do so to the best of my ability, but it will never be exactly as it was. Can you live with that caveat?”
A beat of silence follows, before the question is met with a grunt of acceptance.
“What will happen if I break the bargain?” I’m hoping that one of my many questions will illuminate whatever catch I’m not seeing.
But he has me backed into a corner. A twinge of pain shoots down my left side and I flinch.
Gods, not now. Fear, true fear, threatens my resolve.
If I don’t take this deal, Yevna will die.
Raven will die. Reid will hunt down Grim and use his pelt as a rug for Thorne’s compound.
I will leave this world how I remember entering it—alone and terrified, just as I was when Yev and Rave found me.
My life will have meant nothing but for the ruin of everyone I care about, and I won’t stand for it.
“Pain,” he says simply.
“Pain I can handle,” I say at last.
“Don’t break it and you won’t have to handle it—”
“Ke-Vor…” Rook’s voice cuts through our bartering. “Something is coming. Something—”
That’s when I notice the sound of trickling water running over cobbles is eerie in this place… A noise usually associated with peace and tranquility seems off here, there’s a wrongness to it I can’t pinpoint.
The sudden stream intensifies, cascading down the stone steps of the prison.
“Is it flooding?” My voice pitches higher as my blood runs cold.
“No,” Archer murmurs, clutching the iron bars. “This is no flood.”
“What?”
“He’s here…”
Water flows from somewhere above. It seeps into our cells, lapping across the cobbles, no more than an inch at first, but rising with every swell.
“Is this real?” I whisper, wondering if it’s one of the illusions the souldren conjure.
My heart hammers against my ribs as the water creeps higher.
Each breath comes shorter than the last, and my fingers ache from digging into the stone wall behind me.
Cold sweat mingles with the dampness already coating my skin.
“It’s real,” Archer says, taking in the cells around us before he calls, “Brothers…”
“Ke-Vor!” comes the reply.
Archer stands to his full height, his deep voice projecting to the far reaches of Gravereach as he speaks in a tongue I have never heard. The language is melodic and brutal all at once, and though I don’t understand the words, I can feel the weight of them, laced with promise.
He’s still speaking to his fellow Azkari when I look down at the water that covers the entire stone floor of my cell.
The water stops rising. Just… stops. The surface becomes perfectly flat, like dark glass.
At first, it’s my own bewildered expression I see, my features stretched and wrong in ways that make my stomach turn.
When I shift my weight, expecting ripples, the water barely moves.
Slowly, someone else’s likeness bleeds through beneath my face, like a second image swallowing the first.
The silence after the water stills is suffocating—worse than the rushing, worse than the fear of drowning. It’s the kind of quiet that presses against your eardrums, that makes you certain something is watching, waiting.
My stomach bottoms out and a strangled noise of shock escapes me, the rest of the prison fading into obscurity as my focus narrows in on the mirror-like surface of the water at my feet.
A tremor runs through the stone beneath my feet, subtle but unmistakable.
The air pressure shifts, and makes my ears pop.
Under the glassy water, something dark unfurls, spreading like ink through clear water.
His face appears is like porcelain with cracks where features should be solid.
Where his legendary armor once shone, now only faint silver tracings shimmer across his translucent form.
Parts of him fade in and out, strongest where the water is deepest and darkest, appearing almost oily, while the rest remains clear. “Malevron.”
“Leofric Bergmunnn’s apprentice.” It’s a whisper, muted by a barrier of water, but I hear it loud and clear. “The bookbinder of Hanniel.”
All my words get lodged in my throat with my panic.
The water around me is so cold it burns, like touching metal in winter.
How is this happening? He’s supposed to be dead.
No matter what Archer said, I know him to be dead.
I have heard all the tales of the war, and in every one of them, the Black Flame sacrificed himself to kill him.
And yet… Malevron is here.
I am frozen in place, rooted to the ground, every instinct within screaming at me to run, but my feet won’t move and there’s nowhere to go. I’m trapped in this cell, tethered to the monster staring back at me. His smile looks like pieces of broken glass—
“Grayson!” Archer’s voice cuts through whatever magic the Silver-Tongued Deceiver is wielding. “Believe me now?”
His words wrench me from my trance. “This is hardly the time and place for an I told you so,” I snap.
I don’t want to believe him, gods, I don’t want to. What I want is to close my eyes and unsee the face from the water, for someone to tell me it was a result of my overactive imagination, that this whole ordeal has been one big bad dream.
“Malevron was from the House of Mirrors, where the ruling power was water magic,” Archer’s voice calls.
“It was a place of reflection, of truth, people went there to contemplate, to understand their true selves. Malevron poisoned all of that. He became the Silver-Tongued Deceiver, incapable of truth, mastering manipulated perceptions, controlling what others were able to see in the mirror.”
Everything is happening too quickly, and if I remain here at the mercy of monsters and a resurrected overlord, Yevna and Raven will stay Thorne’s hostages, they will be tortured if I don’t comply—
In the water at my ankles, Malevron’s face shimmers menacingly and I realize he’s laughing. Finally, my boots become unstuck, and I shrink back, dread plummeting through me like a stone.
He will break you, bookbinder. He speaks into my mind smoothly, like a serpent slithering towards its prey, preparing to strike. I jolt at the intrusion; my heart is racing so fast that I can hear it pounding in my ears.