12. Saige
Saige
The air leaves my lungs and won’t come back; I’m choking on relief and terror in equal measure. Yevna and Raven… They’re alive. They’re hurt, but they’re alive. My hands ache to reach them, to obsessively check pulses, to assess damage, but the distance between us is too great.
Beside me, Archer surveys the compound one last time with a cold, calculating gaze.
His broad shoulders are rigid, and his knuckles look ready to split as he clenches them around his sword.
He’s coiled tight, like a viper ready to strike, but I don’t know if it has anything to do with being on the cusp of our rescue mission, or if it’s just what he’s normally like.
He’s volatile, that much is clear. Despite his woven veil of illusion, I can feel the ripples of power radiating off him, and some dark part of me is eager to see what he unleashes upon Thorne.
For years I’ve fantasized about ending the prick myself…
Crushing his head in the binding press was always top of the list…
but seeing his face right before the Black Flame swallows him whole?
That might be the next best thing. Relief and rage war inside me so violently I might shatter from it.
“Wait here,” Archer says, and then he’s moving. Like a shadow in the night, he follows the perimeter of the wall, alerting no guards, making no sound. I’ll admit—it’s impressive for someone so… large.
To my surprise, Grim darts after him, which of course means I follow as well.
Only seconds have passed but when I round the curve of the giant stone wall, the wicket gate is already open, and three guards lie lifeless on the cobbles.
Silent screams are frozen on their faces, mouths wide, eyes bulging.
Whatever fate befell them… I see no trace of blood, no sign of broken necks or otherwise.
But as I move to step over the bodies, the toe of my boot brushes against one of their cloaks—
I clap my hand over my mouth to suppress my gasp of horror.
For at the slightest touch, the man’s cloak, and his body, cave inward, disintegrating into ash before my eyes.
Flakes of soft gray drift into the air around me and set off a chain reaction with the next body, and the next.
Suddenly, I’m in a whirlpool of ash that gets swept up in the night’s gentle breeze.
A chill rakes down my spine, and I numbly brush the remnants of the guards off my shoulder.
The Black Flame didn’t just kill them.
He burnt them from the inside out.
I’m shaking, I realize distantly, and my heart is pounding so hard it feels like it might burst. Was it only moments ago I was wishing this fate upon Thorne himself? I force down my questions, my horror and peer into the courtyard.
There’s no sign of Archer.
Or Grim.
Wait here, he’d said. But for how long? My stomach bottoms out, dread filling the chasm there.
Yevna was right. I am a feckless fool. I was so busy trying to find the trick within the wording of the bargain Archer offered, that I never thought to ask what happens if he breaks it.
Is that what’s happening now? Has he decided that working with me isn’t worth the hassle?
Has he left me as a sitting duck at the gates of Thorne’s compound?
He told me not to trust him. He practically foretold his own betrayal right to my face.
I’m still trembling, but it’s no longer from fear.
It’s white-hot rage simmering beneath the surface now.
Taking a steadying breath, I peer across the compound.
There are heavy stone walls rising on all sides, weathered and stained with age, with iron rings set into them for tethering horses.
Iron-bound doors and archways lead into various chambers off the main open space, while above, wooden shutters cover the windows looking out onto the courtyard.
It’s just as I remember it, with timber walkways and battlements visible along the upper ramparts and narrow arrow slits cut into the stone higher up.
Unsure of where to go, I turn back to where Reid is still pacing around Yevna and Raven. He’s avoiding their gazes, like the coward he is, but keeps glancing up, as though he’s waiting for a signal from the levels above.
Where the fuck is Archer? I don’t want to believe that he brought us here only to change his fickle Azkari mind, but I’m not in the business of denial. He’s not here. Which means, I’m on my own.
Yevna must say something around her gag to Reid that sets him off, because his head snaps to her and he strikes her in the head with the pommel of his sword.
Raven’s scream is muffled as Yevna buckles beneath the blow—
“Fuck this.” I’m already charging forward, my paring knife gripped tight in my hand, ready to shed blood.
Both women have dropped to their knees, doubled over as Reid looms over them, raising his sword again.
All I see is red as I dart across the courtyard.
I’ll split him from navel to nose for this. Reid and Thorne both.
Impulsive. Reckless, Yevna throws those words at me often enough, and I know she’s right. The thing is, I can’t bring myself to care. Not when I’m about to lose her and Raven. Not when the only family I’ve ever known is at stake—
“Stop.” Reid puts his blade to Yevna’s neck.
I skid across the packed earth of the courtyard ground. “Reid—”
“I see things haven’t improved much for you, Saige,” he says, scrutinizing me from my faded white shirt and the leather vest that hangs open over the top, to my stained breeches and scuffed boots.
“I’d say they’ve improved markedly with you now gone from my life.” Trying to calm my racing heart, I lower my weapon, not chancing so much as a glance at my friends.
Reid shakes his head. “You made life so difficult for yourself. Things could have turned out so differently. We could have been working together; we could have been—”
“Where’s Ivor?” I cut him off, my gaze drifting to the ramparts above. I can’t see him or any of his men, but that doesn’t mean anything where Thorne’s concerned.
“Why? You already gave him the one thing he was willing to trade for.” Reid’s words are bitter and jealous, causing a sour taste to spread across my tongue.
I force myself to swallow, to hide the humiliation that threatens to flush my cheeks. “He told you.”
“Laughed about it more like. Compared notes with me and everything. Face it, you’re worthless to him now, little thing.”
I can feel Yevna and Raven’s eyes on me, I can practically hear their burning questions and feel their hurt. I don’t want them to find out this way. I never wanted them to find out at all—
Tears sting my eyes and I make a strangled noise as the sudden pain rips through me; a spear of blinding agony down my left side, white-hot torture twisting my skin, muscle and bone.
It’s all-consuming. What could be brief seconds feels like an eternity trapped in the cage of barbed wire that is this body.
I’m not lucid enough to chastise myself for letting this happen in front of Thorne’s errand boy in the middle of a rescue.
In this moment, I have no control, I have no command over my own faculties.
I can do nothing but hold on to my distant sense of self as the torment threatens to swallow me whole.
It’s Reid’s words that pierce the fog of pain. “You’re still playing the victim? After all this time?” he laughs. “Give it up, Saige. I’m well familiar with what lies beneath those shitty garments. There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing there.”
The terrible truth of it is… he’s right. I’m not injured. I never have been. There isn’t—nor has there ever been—so much as a scratch on my left side. And yet the pain… the pain threatens to annihilate me.
When my vision comes back into focus, I catch Raven’s eye first. She looks distraught, but her gaze flicks down. She’s barely moving a muscle, but I see it. She’s loosening the binds around her hands, and by the look of them, she’s been working on it this whole time.
Keep him distracted, her eyes tell me.
I can do that. The prick always loved to hear himself talk.
“What has he promised you now, Reid?” I ask, taking a slow step towards him, my blade still lowered. “You do realize he can’t give you back the fingers he took…”
“He can’t give back a lot of things…” he taunts, gracing me with a condescending scan of my body, a note of disgust in his voice. “Probably wishes he could though.”
Gods I can’t stand him, but it’s me I hate the most as I fall for his bullshit and glancing down.
I don’t know when I started hiding my body—even from myself.
Fuller, wider hips, bigger curves. I used to share Raven’s love of fashion, but after a certain point, it was easier to conceal myself beneath loose fitting fabrics than look in the mirror.
I see a flicker of movement in Raven’s direction, and I risk a glance at Yevna. She gives a near imperceptible nod and I lift my knife.
“Ivor already took three of your fingers off himself,” I say slowly. “I doubt he cares much for what happens to the rest of you, Reid. I’m not sure anyone does.”
Yevna inches her chin away from the edge of Reid’s sword, and Raven’s binds unravel from her wrists—
Reid’s lip curls into an ugly sneer. “You’re a whore, Saige. That’s all you’ve ever been—”
I don’t hear the creak of the bowstrings above.
Not until the arrows are whistling through the air.
But something much larger, much harder collides with me.
A solid wall of muscle encompasses my body, shielding me.
I hear the wet shuck of an arrow piercing flesh, and another. I feel the impact through the flinching torso wrapped around me.
There’s a grunt of pain, low in my ear.
“I told you to wait.” His deep voice is angry and strained, and familiar. “Saige.”