15. Saige
Saige
“He took my damn drink,” Yevna complains, staring after the Azkari warrior mournfully.
“You’d be dead if you drank it all yourself.” Raven helps herself to a bottle. “And to be fair… he looked like he could use it.”
The flash of discomfort across Archer’s face as he retrieved the gin with long, ringed fingers bothers me. Why hasn’t he healed yet?
Yevna moves to smack the back of my head, but I duck. She’s slower than usual at the moment, but just as outspoken. “You may as well have made a deal with Caedrith himself, Saige. He’s leading you straight into the fiery pits of the underworld, along with all the other lost, moronic souls.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” I roll my eyes. “And I’ve always liked to think of Caedrith as a woman.”
“Same,” Raven says around a mouthful of bread. “But aren’t you worried he’s using his magic on you?”
I scoff. “I think I’d know if I was on fire, Rave.”
She rolls her eyes. “His other magic. His Azkari magic… You know, veils, mind games, his wiley Azkari charms…”
“Wiley Azkari charms?” I actually laugh. “Do I look starry eyed to you? Is there anything about that man that alludes to charm?”
Raven raises a brow in my direction. “There’s a… certain appeal.”
“Don’t start.”
“Just don’t get too close,” Yevna warns, startling Grim awake. “War hero or not, you can never trust a Azkari… Don’t let a handsome face and a big cock fool you, girl.”
“Who said anything about a cock, Yev?” Raven snorts. “You’ll offend our delicate sensibilities.”
“You two haven’t had a delicate sensibility between the pair of you for at least fifteen years. You’ve got about as much of that as I have youth,” Yevna quips. “And I’ll talk about whatever I like, thank you very much. Including cocks.”
“Well, by all means, Yev, enlighten us,” I say, sharing a smile with Raven.
“Just because I’m old, doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the sight of a decent bulge,” she replies grumpily.
“You’re the only one calling yourself old,” Raven tells her. “I’m still convinced you’ll outlive us all.”
Yevna grunts and lifts her bottle of liquor. “It’s the gin. Keeps me spritely.”
“That’s one word for it,” I laugh.
“I don’t like him,” Yevna declares.
Grim lets out a soft bark.
“Grim doesn’t like him either,” Yevna says unhelpfully. “He seems unstable.”
“Aren’t we all?” I try to make it sound light, but it comes out a little defensive.
There’s a little too much knowledge in Yevna’s answering look. “You must be, to make a deal with the Azkari. Why haven’t you tried to break the bargain?”
My words catch on my tongue before I answer. “Well, to start with, I needed his help to rescue you and Yev…”
“But after?” Raven insists. “We’re rescued now. What if you tried to cut and run?”
At the thought, heat encircles my wrists, black flames flaring to life around them. They’re warm on my skin, nothing close to pain. But I wave them at Raven. “This is just a taste of what would happen.”
Her eyes are wide. “So you are his prisoner.”
“Told you,” Yevna adds.
“No,” I object, shaking my head, irritation prickling as the note of warning stirs something uncomfortable inside me. “I made a deal. I’ve never been one for breaking my word, why would I start now? He held up his end; I need to hold up mine.”
I watch as the black flames around my wrists snuff out, leaving a thin trail of smoke in their wake, my skin returning to the same temperature as the rest of my body as I look to the window.
I’m hit with a wave of homesickness then.
To be by the wood burner, tea in hand, with my notebooks and tools, to listen to the crackle of the fire, and the creak of the binding press.
“I miss Leo,” I say instead of answering Yevna.
“Me too,” Raven sighs. “It’s hard to believe it’s been six months without him.”
“Time always ambles on.” Yevna looks at me, her eyes brimming with sadness. “He’d be proud of you, Saige, carrying on his work, his business. His legacy…”
I anticipate there’s more she wants to say. “But?”
She smiles. “But nothing. What did Leo used to say? You learn by doing things wrong. You’re only thirty-five, Saige. You’ve still got lots of learning ahead.”
“Gee,” I say dryly. “Thanks…?”
Raven snorts at my side. “Don’t take it personally. Last week she told me I’m smarter than I look.”
I nudge her with my shoulder. “Well, she’s not wrong there.”
“Oh piss off,” she mutters before she turns somber. The look she gives me is full of understanding, full of love. She reaches across and squeezes my hand. “Just be careful, Saige. The most dangerous traps are the ones we walk into willingly.”
The three of us pass the gin between us, taking swigs straight from the neck, and Yevna and Raven chat as though there isn’t a celebrated Azkari general on the thatching overhead, but I can’t shake his presence, my skin prickling with awareness.
It isn’t long before my friends have fallen asleep, with Grim curled up beside Yevna, snoring softly.
They look peaceful, despite everything, and I’m so grateful they weren’t more seriously hurt.
Guilt twists in my stomach. Raven’s work at the metal shop, Yevna's tavern, my bindery… All of it abandoned because of my carelessness with Ivor Thorne and now, the deal I’ve made with the Black Flame.
I put the corks back in the bottles and stow them away beneath the loose floorboard, thinking about what I’ll be leaving behind as I set off with Archer into the Azkari lands.
The Awl and Cradle will be dark and locked, my clients showing up to find nothing but closed doors and unanswered questions.
Years of building my reputation, of taking on Leo’s legacy, gone in a night.
I shake off the thought. There’s nothing to be done about it now.
Yevna and Raven are safe, and that’s what matters.
I glance across at them, bruised and battered, but whole, sleeping soundly.
Ever since I’ve known them, they’ve been able to sleep practically wherever and whenever, whereas I…
Sleep has never come easily to me. It’s more like a battle of wills in my mind.
Part of me stays alert in case of danger, another part rifles through old memories laced with regret, and another imagines multiple futures, each one darker than the last. Sleep usually comes in broken, gasping fragments, where I wake with my hair damp from sweat, my heart beating erratically, with a deep lingering sense of unease.
Which means I’m awake to hear the lone window rattling in its frame in the night breeze, awake to feel the faint pulse of magic on my skin.
Archer is moody, closed off and intense, but the glimpses I see beneath the surface, behind his ever-present scowl make me want to know him. I suspect we’re not all that different, two broken things gluing the pieces back together as best we can, hoping something doesn’t shatter the cracks anew.
Careful not to stir the others, I pad across the floor to the window, sliding it up as quietly as I can.
The night air is brisk on my skin, and I pull myself up through the open window and scan the rooftop.
A near full moon illuminates the gabled ridgeline, and that same ripple of magic leads me right to him…
Our bargain, I presume. He’s got his back against the chimney base, legs stretched out, a dark shape in his lap that resolves into—a sketchbook, of all things.
There’s a stick of charcoal between his fingers, but it’s what perches on the bridge of his nose that stops me cold. Glasses. Reading glasses.
Oh.
Those are... unexpected. And unfairly attractive. The wire frames catch the moonlight, and something about seeing the fearsome Black Flame wearing reading glasses while sketching makes my pulse quicken in a way that has nothing to do with our bargain.
“Are you going to stand there gawking at me all night?” He doesn’t even look up as his rich voice vibrates through me.
It’s as much of an invitation as I’m going to get, so I approach him, unable to help the smile that breaks across my face. I’m assuming the unusual items were in the pack he’d picked up in the woods, but I ask anyway, “Triad save me, General… Where did you find those utterly indecent glasses?”
At that, he does look up.
So far I have seen a handful of facets to the Azkari warrior—the furious prisoner, the cantankerous war hero, the Black Flame in the flesh… But I haven’t seen him blush.
Until now.
A delicate pink stains the tips of his cheeks in the moonlight. “What are you on about Grayson?” he all but growls, setting his piece of charcoal down.
I’m grinning now, the urge to chip away at that stoney exterior and learn what pulses beneath is overwhelming. “Just wondering how all the Azkari females manage to control themselves around you when you’re looking so serious and scholarly.”
He sighs. “Is there a reason you’re here disturbing the peace?”
“Perhaps I craved the pleasure of your company,” I offer with a smirk, trying to peer over his shoulder at his drawing.
He pulls the sketchbook to his chest, hiding it from view. “That must be it,” he says dryly, removing the glasses from his face much to my disappointment. “Can I help you?”
I position myself next to him, ignoring the twinge of pain in my side with a silent prayer that it doesn’t morph into a full-blown episode. “Stars are out tonight,” I say, nodding to the glimmering cluster against the inky night.
Archer doesn’t bother looking up, he just stares out across the expanse of rooftops. “Too much smoke in mortal cities.”
“Fair enough.” I sneak another glance at him. “Hanniel isn’t ideal for star gazing… But it’s got one thing going for it…”
He gives a long-suffering sigh. “I suppose you’re going to tell me.”
“My bindery. The Awl and Cradle. It’s a special place. It has a kind of magic that’s different to those flames that spark at your fingertips.”
Archer grunts in response. He doesn’t want me here, that much is clear.
Perhaps poking the bear known as the Black Flame isn’t my brightest idea.
I have half a mind to leave. There’s no real reason for me to be conversing with an Azkari warrior on a rooftop in the middle of the night, and yet…
his grip on his sketchbook tightens when I go to stand.
“Thank you,” I hear myself say instead, heat staining my cheeks as Archer glances at me with a bewildered expression. “For saving me at the compound. I know you took those arrows for me.”
I don’t know for sure if he heard the exchange between me and Reid, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say his Azkari hearing wasn’t immune to that prick’s ugly words. My shame intensifies at the thought.
“You have a deal to uphold,” Archer grunts in response. “And like you said, us Azkari heal quickly.”
“Are you?” I ask, searching his face for any grimaces of pain. “Healed, I mean?
“Yes.”
I’m not sure I believe him. “Should I take a look?”
“No.”
“Alright then…” I get to my feet, the memory of his kiss coming back to me in a dizzying rush.
“I’m healed,” he says, watching me cautiously. “Just takes me a little longer than most. You can stop worrying.”
“About you?” I press a hand to my chest in mock surprise. “Never.”
“Your friends are safe now. If I did happen to drop dead, it’d save you a lot of trouble holding up your end of our bargain.”
“I haven’t fully tested the limits of our deal, so the concern is entirely based on self-interest, I assure you.”
“Thank the Triad for that, then.” He slides his glasses back on and makes a point of turning to a new page in his sketchbook, intent on paying me no more heed.
So naturally, I can’t help myself. “I made it clear how I felt about those scandalous spectacles, General… This is practically foreplay.”
He ignores me, but… is he holding back a smile? I want to believe it. That of all the beautiful, incredible things in this realm that could warrant such a reaction, it’s me.