13. Archer
Archer
Saige. For ten years that name has been shrouded in whispers, always just beyond my reach. As it leaves my lips now, I understand it for what it is: the answer to a question I didn’t know I was asking.
The pain is searing. Two arrows, buried into my flesh—grinding against bone, one just below and another just above my shoulder blade. I can feel the warm trickle of blood down my back. Just like old times.
Saige curls in on herself as I shield her with my body, bracing myself for more arrows before I blast this place into the abyss with my flames.
But instead, there’s a scream from the ramparts, followed by a sickening crack.
A skull lies broken on the courtyard ground, and a savage bark sounds from above. Maybe the mutt isn’t so bad after all. Another body falls, a bow and quiver of arrows clattering down the stone in its wake.
Saige squirms in my arms. “I thought you’d left,” she breathes. “I thought you broke our bargain.”
With a backward glance at the now empty ramparts, I release her, gritting my teeth as the arrows pull at my ravaged muscle and skin. “I’m a lot of things. None of them good. But I’m not a fucking liar.”
Her eyes grow wide as she takes in the arrow shafts protruding from my back. “You’re—”
“Saige!” the younger of the two women shouts, throwing herself between us.
I let her knock me back, wincing but grateful for the reprieve from the scent of her hair, and her body pressed to mine.
Instead, my gaze falls to the man she called Reid. He’s already retreating, his startled expression transforming as he watches me reach for the first arrow in my back. Without taking my eyes off him, I close my fingers around the fletching and wrench it free.
The pain momentarily blinds me, and I taste copper on my tongue from biting the inside of my cheek, but I don’t flinch, I don’t grimace.
I simply cast the gory arrow aside and reach for the next one, my back already slick with blood.
The fabric of my shirt is sodden, heavy with it, and each movement sends a fresh wave seeping down to soak into my waistband.
It’s a morbidly familiar sensation, and I can picture the streaks of claret running down my spine.
For a second, I’m somewhere else. Cold settles in my bones, a constant ache that refuses to shift.
I blink into the dark, seeing nothing but inky black.
My lungs constrict—the air here is wrong, thick and stale, tasting of despair.
I can hear my own heartbeat, too loud, too fast, echoing off invisible walls.
When I close my eyes, I see myself. Or someone who used to be me, mirrored back.
Mirrors. It’s all mirrors.
And it’s not me staring back.
It’s a monster.
A sound cuts through—a voice, feminine and worried. Saige. The name pulls me back like a lifeline I didn’t know I needed, and suddenly I can breathe again.
With a trained, measured inhale I come back to myself, and Reid’s face slackens in horror as I rip the second arrow free, this time, hissing at the sharp flare of agony. A whore, he’d called her.
The insult is ringing in my head, echoing through the valleys of my mind in a way that sets my teeth on edge. I step towards him, and with the bloody shaft still in hand, I point at him and remove the threaded veil cloaking my power.
I usually make a point of never doing more than I’ve promised.
Whatever you’re willing to give, people will take.
They’ll take and take until there’s nothing left.
Killing this sorry excuse for a man isn’t part of the bargain, but in this case…
in this case I’m willing to make an exception.
Flames flicker to life within me, the fire humming in my veins, begging to be unleashed.
But then… it would be over too quickly. From what I heard earlier, he doesn’t deserve an easy death.
I promised her I’d burn him last. That could mean today, it could mean tomorrow, it could mean after he’s watched all his friends and family die around him—
“Archer.” Saige’s voice cuts through the noise.
I turn to find her supporting Yevna, with Raven on the other side.
The older woman looks worse for wear to say the least, one of her eyes swollen shut, her hair matted with blood.
She sags between them, each step a coordinated effort to keep her upright—Saige is taking most of the weight despite being the smaller of the two, the beast of a dog whining at her feet.
“Go,” I tell her, letting the arrow fall from my grasp. “I have questions for this bastard.”
I don’t watch her leave. Instead, I relish the sheer terror etched on Reid’s face as he scrambles away, the front of his trousers darkening as he wets himself.
I drop to a crouch, resting my fingers on the hard packed earth either side of me. And then, I call to it; the dark within, the magic that made and unmade me. Power erupts at my command, flames racing across the ground, unfurling beneath my touch like a blazing blossom.
“You’re working with Malevron,” I say calmly. “You sold the bookbinder to him.”
“She owed us coin, she—”
“I don’t care.”
“Please,” cries Reid, trying to block the scorching wind with his hands as it whips around him.
“You knew about the search for the bookbinder. What do you know about the book itself?” I ask, letting the flames kiss the toes of his boots. “Where is it?”
“How would I know?” he pants, eyes watering. “I’m just a—”
“You’re the leader’s right-hand man; you’ve been at the meetings. You’ve seen the missives. Don’t make me ask again.”
The man is a cowering, whimpering mess, and I won’t deny that some sick part of me finds pleasure in his fear.
“There was talk of a temple,” he stammers, his eyes feverish, overly bright. “In the Azkari lands.”
The boy-child is desperate for his life, but not as desperate as I am for the answer. I will burn him to ash piece by piece if he doesn’t give me what I need. “We have many temples. Do better, Reid.”
“They sent men there to try to retrieve it, they said something about no lying, no deceptions. That falsehoods will lead to death. None returned. That’s all I know, I swear.”
“I believe you.”
Flames erupt. Thorne’s compound is alight, the shutters collapsing in on themselves with a groan, the iron work melting down into silvery puddles.
Ignoring the throbbing arrow wounds in my back, I let my fire devour everything in its path, blackening the stone and timber before reducing it to no more than smoldering ash.
The searing heat kisses my skin in gratitude, and I ignore the sharp prickling sensation at the side of my neck, as it follows the lines of my brand.
Reid runs. They always do.
But for the first time in my life, I allow it.
I decide it’s a death I want to savor another day.