10. Archer
Archer
“The portals aren’t designed for mortals,” I tell Grayson with my arms crossed over my chest, waiting as she vomits into a bush. She took it well, all things considered.
With a noise of disgust, she spits and wipes her mouth with her sleeve, her cheeks flushed. “‘Close your eyes’ was hardly a warning for that appalling form of travel.”
I shift against the bark of the tree trunk, where I’m more bracing than I am leaning, catching my breath.
I don’t tell her that I also hate the sensation of being pulled through a vortex of sights, sounds and smells.
That I can’t stand the way my ears threaten to pop with the pressure, that it makes me feel light-headed and weightless and out of control.
The eerie, melodic chime of the portals are a reminder of what it was to be without a body, where everything ripples and bends in my mind.
Now that we’re in a safer location, taking a steadying breath, I push my boots off at the heel and peel my socks away, wringing them out, still soaked from Malevron’s games in Gravereach.
I look down at my bare feet sinking onto the soft moss of the forest floor, wriggling my toes and I’m taken back to the last time I felt this sense of freedom.
My friend Bryn and I… before the war. We’d been camping in the foothills of Ignizar and had eaten too many wild mushrooms. We sat in the grass and staring at the shimmering green blades between our toes, laughing until tears ran down our faces.
I inhale the fresh, earthy air and push the loose hair from my brow. But there is no time to savor the taste of freedom. Malevron appearing to Grayson in her cell means he’s regaining his power more quickly than I realized. I need to locate the Confluence and stop him, I need—
“Must feel nice after all this time…” Grayson ventures as she stands barefoot beside me and wrings out her own socks. She’s watching me, assessing my reaction to the dappled light, and the gentle breeze. “Do you… want to talk about it?”
“We’re not friends,” I remind her. “Do mortals have such short memories that we’ll the same conversation every hour?”
“We don’t need to be friends for me to listen. Do you want—"
“No.” I tie my boots together at the laces and hang them around the back of my neck.
“Suit yourself.” The bookbinder shrugs and waits to follow my lead. “In that case, we’re in a hurry, General.”
“You’re the one throwing your guts up. I was waiting on you.”
“Consider me ready.” She surveys the arched branches of the tree we’ve stepped through and the clearing we’re now in. “Though I don’t see Thorne’s compound anywhere…?”
“Did you expect we’d appear right on his doorstep?” I sound harsher than I intended. “Perhaps we should have brought a gift basket?”
She ignores this. “Where are we then?”
I start through the underbrush, glad to have solid ground beneath me again, trying to disguise how I’m still reveling in the simple comfort of the autumn leaves crunching under the soles of my feet.
“These woods are part of the farmlands just beyond the city. We can be there by sundown if you shut up and get moving.”
Grayson chuckles as she makes to follow, and I can feel the subtle hum of the bargain between us. When I glance at her, she’s pressing her fingertips to her lips, as though she can feel it too, as though she’s remembering exactly how we sealed the deal.
That kiss…
It nearly destroyed me.
Even now my body vibrates with the memory.
Grayson flicks her honey-hued braid over her shoulder as we weave through the woods and I’m left to my thoughts as we walk. What is it about her that disrupted the curse on me? How was she able to see me? To shatter the mirror magic trapping me in that godsforsaken place?
I don’t have answers, so I set these thoughts aside and focus on our surroundings.
Leaves crunch beneath us and a light breeze ripples through the foliage, nature’s melody filling the silence between us.
I watch as Grayson walks with confidence, her physique clearly molded by necessity and circumstance, a body that tells the story of a life lived hard.
Her shoulders, though narrow, are well-defined, her torso slim and compact.
The fitted leather vest hugs her form and accentuates not only her athletic build but the subtle curves beneath her layers of clothing.
Her appearance is a study in contrasts—beauty and grit, femininity and a tradeswoman’s hardened facade.
She catches me looking and a smile tugs at her lips. “Something on your mind, General?”
“No,” I snap as I am hit with the onslaught of guilt.
While I’m out here kissing mortals, feeling alive for the first time in centuries, Cahir, Rook and all the rest are trapped back in Gravereach enduring the horrors of Malevron’s making that I know all too well.
They will be the ones to face his wrath at my escape with the bookbinder.
I made a vow to them in our parting moments.
But they know as well as I do that a lot can happen between the words of an oath and the outcome.
The unfairness of it all is like a physical weight on my shoulders—that I got out and they remain behind bars. Me, the least deserving of them all.
“Do you know what happened to Leo?” Grayson asks, oblivious to the maelstrom of regret turning me inside out.
“I was under the impression that he died.”
“He did.” A shadow passes over her face before she smiles sadly. “Leo passed away six months ago. I thought it was of old age, natural causes, but now I wonder if it was something more nefarious. Azkari were looking for him. Malevron wanted him… Do you think it’s just a coincidence?”
I don’t tell her I’m sorry, because I know it doesn’t fucking matter, not when the grief is thick in your throat and you can barely breathe. “No, I don’t.”
Her throat bobs as she swallows. “Then it’s because of me… If I didn’t exist, if my skills weren’t equal to Leo’s, then Malevron wouldn’t have killed him. I… I made him disposable.”
I am saddled with her discomfort, the twinge of it more poignant that I would like.
This mortal is no friend, I remind myself.
It is not up to me to offer comfort or reassurance.
My sole responsibility is freeing her friends so she can uphold her end of the bargain.
But apparently my speech about entanglements had little impact, because she keeps rambling.
“I miss him,” she admits, the words tumbling from her lips.
“Before I met him, I thought all men were cruel. But on my first day as his apprentice, he saw how badly my hands were shaking and he closed the shop for the morning. It’s our busiest time for trade, but he flipped that sign and made me a cup of tea.
Hibiscus. That’s what we drank together every morning from that day forward.
He took the time to show me around, to teach me the basics without putting any pressure on me to get it right straight away…
Leo loved taking his time. He was obsessed with slow made things…
Said there was a special beauty to them…
” Grayson looks confused for a moment, as though she hadn’t expected to say all of that.
“I didn’t ask for your life story,” I mutter.
There’s a beat of silence.
And then the damn woman laughs again. “You’re wound tight, aren’t you? What’s the problem, General?”
“You, mortal,” I round on her as my irrational irritation flares. “You’re my problem. Your incessant chatter, your questions, your damn smiling. It’s driving me to distraction.”
She only smiles more broadly. “So you’re saying I distract you? Don’t make me blush.”
“Don’t make me drown myself in the river.”
“Something tells me you’d look good soaking wet.” Grayson fucking winks at me. She’s riling me up on purpose. “There are few codes I live by, but this is one: steal your joy when you can. The world is on fire, and we are not long for it, may as well have fun along the way.”
“How poetic. And your idea of ‘fun’, is what? Grating on my nerves?”
She grins. “One of the many small pleasures in life, I’m finding.”
I clench my jaw, my teeth grinding. “I’m thinking we should strike another deal… One where you talk significantly less, and I have some semblance of peace.”
“I’m not in the habit of making the same mistake twice.”
“All you mortals are in that habit. Your history does nothing if not repeat itself.” After the way she reacted to my rules, I was hoping she’d sulk in silence.
But Grayson hums thoughtfully. “I can’t argue with you there.”
“And why is it that you’re so cheerful?” I shoot back at her, my magic prickling under my skin in irritation. “If you’ve seen the state of Lorevael and you know the outlook is so glib, what’s there to enjoy?”
Another shadow darkens her expression for a second before it’s gone and she launches into her next tirade. I suppose I only have myself to blame as her face lights up.
“What’s there to enjoy?” she asks, her eagerness is stifling.
“The smell of leather and parchment, the scratch of a quill, the creak of the binding press, that first sip of hibiscus tea in the morning—even though it makes me miss Leo—the look of triumph on Raven’s face when she manages to open a bottle of wine without breaking the cork, the thought that there might be a woman out there writing her world-changing ideas in a notebook I created, Yevna’s overbearing love for Grim, the way the robins flit around the shop window when I’m opening each morning, how the women in my union ask for my advice like I know something, like I have something to offer, the lavender soap Gia makes, slow mornings and slow made things… ”
“I’m sorry I asked,” I mutter.
“Your turn. What do you enjoy?”
“Silence.”
“I don’t believe you,” she quips.
“I don’t care.”
“We’ll work on that then, shall we?”
I shake my head, an ache blooming behind my eyes. “There’s no we, Grayson, just this bargain and a finish line.”
“I’d say there are a few finish lines, given we have to rescue Yev and Raven first.”
“Kill me now,” I mutter.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“You’re right, perhaps I should kill you.”
She laughs, the light, melodic sound grating on my last nerve. “A handful of walnuts would do it.”
I balk. “What?”
“Allergy.” Grayson dismisses me with a wave of her hand before threading it through her tresses and pushing her hair back from her brow. “Had it since childhood.”
I hope she’s going to stop there, but of course, she carries on.
“Yevna found me on the street when I was five.” She offers the information freely, perhaps lighter now that we’re on the way to save her friends, apparently determined to share.
I hope she doesn’t expect me to do the same.
“She’s Raven’s aunt by blood, but she took me in around the same time.
I owe her my life. Several times over. When I was younger, I used to wonder who they were, my parents.
I’d make up these grand stories about them being descendants of war heroes, or adventures who travelled across all the realms… ”
I’m hoping my silence will shut her up, but it does no such thing.
“But in truth I can’t remember them at all.
I have hazy recollections of life on the street as a child…
being thrown from a market for stealing, a boot finding my already aching belly when I tried to sleep in someone’s courtyard…
I can’t imagine abandoning a child at that age, but that’s what we suspect happened.
There were a few hard years where I thought Yevna loved Raven more than me because they shared blood.
But Yev’s good at knocking sense into people.
You’ll see,” she speaks fondly, smiling softly.
“I don’t remember what life was like before them—Yevna and Raven, but Yev says that’s normal enough given how young I was.
I’m just grateful to have them. Which is why I must get them back, why I need to free them from Thorne. ”
I don’t care. Not about this. Not about anything, I remind myself. Increasingly uncomfortable with the one-sided heart-to-nothing, I jump on the change of subject. “What do I need to know about where they’re being held?”
“Thorne’s compound, it’s a fortress of solid stone,” she tells me.
“It’s got multiple levels and there are dungeons beneath the ground floor, but I’ll wager he’s got Yevna and Raven in the central courtyard, for all to see.
Yevna holds a lot of sway with the townsfolk, always has.
He’ll want word to travel that he’s holding her prisoner, that she’s at his mercy. Many have tried and failed before.”
“So he’s a prideful bastard.”
There’s a rare bitter note to her words. “He’s an everything bastard.”
“I know the type,” I grunt, hoping that’ll be the end of it.
“Do you have a family?” Grayson asks as we walk.
“No.”
“Everyone has a family,” she pushes.
“Then why’d you ask?”
To my irritation, she doesn’t give up. Perhaps it’s her way of punishing me for my harsh words earlier. “Brothers? Sisters? Cousins? Adopted animals? A mother? A father?”
“Brothers,” I snap. “Two. Or a hundred if you count those I left behind in Gravereach. A thousand if you count those I fought with during the Reckoning. Now will you shut up?”
“One more question,” Grayson replies sweetly, as though she’s not driving me fucking insane. “Do you have a plan for when—” Grayson interrupts her own sentence with a shriek. Suddenly, she drops to the ground, wrapping her arms around something massive and shaggy.
“Grim!” she cries softly. “How did you get here? How did you find me?”
I eye the enormous beast currently leaving a trail of slobber on the woman’s breeches. “What is that thing?”
It growls at me.
“I’m not exactly overjoyed to meet you either.” I take in the sight of its mangy coat, no doubt flea-ridden.
“This is Grim,” Grayson says, as though that explains the giant mutt’s presence.
“And will it be joining us on our mission? Perhaps it’d like some treats before we storm your nemesis’ compound?”
“He,” she corrects me. The behemoth creature nuzzles her, and she rewards him with more affectionate ear scratches. “Grim belongs to Yevna,” she tells me. “He was there when she and Raven were taken, he must have managed to escape and follow. You don’t like dogs?”
“No.”
“Figures.” She gives the canine a kiss on the head before she stands upright. But Grayson doesn’t shoo the mutt away, instead, she scratches under his chin, and they both turn to me expectantly. “Well?”
Grim barks once, as though putting in his two cents as well.
I’ll be damned if I pay any attention to a fucking canine. “Just don’t let the great lump get in the way.”
“I wouldn’t let Yevna hear you talking like that,” she tells me.
“I’m quaking in my boots, Grayson. He’s just a dog, and she’s just a mortal.”
The amusement on her face almost gives me pause. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”
I glower at her. “Let’s get this over with.”