19. Archer
Archer
The bookbinder is true to her word. She doesn’t speak for several hours as we lie in the dark, trying to sleep.
But her teeth chatter so damn loudly that I don’t get a moment of peace regardless.
In the early hours, I dump my saddle blanket over her, hoping to salvage what’s left of the dusk, but her shivering doesn’t abate.
I know what it’s like to have the cold set into your bones so deep that you can’t get warm.
However, my sympathies end there. A better man might have offered more—the shirt off his back, his own body heat, but I’m not a better man.
I leave her and get dressed, my mood completely soured by the time the sun breaches the sky.
Infuriatingly, she’s more chipper than anyone has any right to be before breakfast. “I slept like a log,” she declares, stretching her arms overhead so her shirt rides up her abdomen, revealing a sliver of smooth skin. “How about you?”
I tear my eyes away from her bare skin with a noise of disbelief and say no more than that. The audacity of her, I curse again, slipping into my native language in the heat of the moment.
She stares at me blankly. “What did you say?”
“It’s too early for your pestering.”
A crease forms between her brows. “That wasn’t the common tongue.”
“Your observation skills are second to none.”
She ignores this, pulling on her breeches under her mound of blankets. I see another glimpse of creamy skin and look away, only for her to ask another fucking question. “Is there some sort of magic here that makes you more pensive?”
“It’s the House of Reveries,” I say dryly. That should be explanation enough.
“Shouldn’t that be a pleasant thing then?”
“One would think. Its official domain is in the realm of creation, art, and inspiration.”
“Sounds nice.”
“There is a dark side to everything, Grayson.”
She stares at me for a moment, blinking. And then, she bursts out laughing. “There’s the positive spirit we need to start our day, General.”
I’ll have no molars by the end of this journey. I’ll have grinded them all to dust. I’m already packed up and ready to go, and the bookbinder doesn’t even have her damn boots on. “‘Start’ being the operative word.”
But of course, she pays me no mind, digging through her pack. She retrieves two apples, tossing me one. “You’ll feel better once you eat something.”
I catch it, glowering at her as I swing myself up into my saddle. “I’ll feel better once we’re on the road.”
She huffs a sound of amusement. “Here I was thinking men couldn’t multi-task.”
I’ve already saddled her horse, so all I can do is wait as she packs up her things and fusses over the dog. At least he seems as eager as me to get moving.
I devour the apple in three bites, watching her move about the camp. I’ve notice she favors her right side, not so much that she limps, but there’s trepidation in her steps, as though her body holds the memory of an old injury, and she’s worried she’ll aggravate it.
When at last we’re guiding our horses through the forest, I glance across at Saige.
Her blonde hair has been re-braided; her linen shirt changed for a fresh one.
Her silver eyes are bright, and she looks annoyingly content to be travelling through the House of Reveries with the notorious Black Flame at her side.
Not to mention, she’s still eating. This time, she’s munching away on a sandwich. Where the fuck did she get a sandwich?
Only a second later, the aforementioned sandwich is waved in my face and she’s leaning out of her saddle. “Have the rest of this, will you? I’m stuffed.”
She’s only taken one damn bite of the thing. “Then why’d you start it? Save it for later.”
“Won’t keep,” she says with a shrug.
How can she be so cavalier about good food? Wasn’t she a street urchin at one point? Doesn’t she know there are people out there starving? Prisoners locked up eating nothing but fucking slop for centuries on end.
But she just looks at me expectantly. “You’d better eat it or I’ll give it to Grim.”
Hearing his name, the dog halts up ahead, peering back at us, his ragged tail wagging madly. I’ve spent two hundred years eating worse rations than this mutt’s ever had. No way is he getting that sandwich.
“Give it here then,” I grunt, taking it from her outstretched hand. I bite back a moan as I bite into it. It’s got everything. Meat, cheese, some sort of fresh greenery, and the bread… the bread is to die for. I would die for this bread.
“Told you you’d feel better,” Saige says smugly.
I brush the crumbs from my chest. “Did you just trick me into eating your food?”
“No idea what you mean,” she replies. “Now, shall we get to this morning’s questions?”
“I’m not falling for that again. It’s already going to be a week-long journey from here, though with your riding,” I glance at her awkward position in the saddle, “who knows. Could take us a decade.”
“Perhaps you should have checked my equine experience before making a bargain with me.”
My teeth creak as I clench jaw and say nothing, determined not to encourage her chatter.
I didn’t realize how tightly wound I’ve been.
Usually unleashing the black flames, letting them drink their fill, offers some semblance of relief, but…
that pitiful display at the compound barely scratched the surface.
For a time, it seems the bookbinder takes pity on me.
She doesn’t ask me any of her irritating questions, she doesn’t force-feed me anything else.
For a while, it’s almost peaceful. I savor the fresh air of the House of Reveries.
Last time I was here it smelt like smoke and death.
I sigh. What I would love more than anything is a steaming cup of hot cocoa and some time with my sketchbook.
But the gods must be laughing at me because it’s not yet midday when Saige breaks the lovely silence.
“Someone’s following us,” she says, the damn dog sniffing through the wet soil around us.
I inhale deeply, counting my breaths as I ignore her.
“I said, someone’s following us,” Saige snaps, wrenching me back to her.
“I know,” I tell the bookbinder. “Since we left the city.”
“You don’t want to deal with it?” she asks.
“Not really.”
“You’re not concerned it’s Thorne sending a militia after you for destroying his compound?” she pushes.
“Hardly.” I’d like to see him try. I’ve got power to burn and no outlet.
“He thinks he owns me,” she says, more quietly this time. “He’ll hunt me to the ends of the realms, whether I paid off my debt or not.” Her words are sharp enough to slice a person open, but I am well versed in all layers of guilt. I see the pain that bleeds through the cracks in her armor.
“It’s not Thorne.” My senses prickling with awareness. It’s Azkari magic trailing us, probing for whispered secrets and weaknesses, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Saige’s silver eyes are wide. “Then who?”
Grim senses the accusation in his young master’s tone and growls at me, hackles raised.
I ignore the beast. “We’ll find out soon enough, I’m sure.”
It’s past noon and I’m still in my saddle, but stopped before the sprawling, charred remains of the rest of the forest. It’s a sea of blackened trees—a graveyard of gnarled timber skeletons, reaching up into the sky.
Twisted limbs create a maze of shadow and pale light filtering through the desolate gaps above.
Beneath us, the forest floor is carpeted in accumulated ash and charred debris…
There is no new growth, not from the trees themselves or in the underbrush, just the haunting presence of the dead trunks, standing watch over the nightmare that once unfolded here.
The forest is cold, and the ghost of ancient smoke seems to be embedded in the very soil, making the absence of rich earth, moss, and green growing things abundantly clear.
A brittle snap sounds as Saige draws to a halt alongside me and surveys the ruined landscape.
The stark silence around us but for the wind whistling through the empty branches only makes the feeling more poignant.
There’s no birdsong, no rustle of wildlife, just us…
and suddenly, I’m overcome. I brace myself against the saddle horn as I remember what happened here and a thick, palpable wave of grief washes over me.
Saige didn’t even walk the realm when my flames ripped through this place.
None of them know what it was like fighting for decades on end…
I can remember the taste of ash on my tongue, the acrid scent of burning flesh in the air, and the screams…
a symphony of them, just waiting for mercy, waiting for it all to end.
I narrow my eyes at the bookbinder, my voice low. “You know nothing of what happened here.”
Feeling raw and exposed, delicate in a way that I’m not so familiar with, I spur my stallion into a canter, desperate to put a little distance between me and the others.
The expanse of dead trees is endless, or so it seems. I don’t know how many hours pass as I weave through the blackened bones of what once was.
Only the charred trunks remain, there is no other sign of life from before—no scorched frameworks of building, no remnants of stone or brick.
I keep my eyes off the burnt forest in our wake, trying to contain the fragments of memory that swarm to the surface—broken cries for mercy, the roar of black flames, the kiss of ash upon my skin.
Sometimes, I can still smell it—the burning flesh and bone, the putrid smoke drifting from the bodies.
When did it happen? Time is a broken line to me, and I cannot put the pieces back in place.
I feel Saige’s gaze on me, as though the anguish within me is screaming out to her and drawing her in. There’s pity there, and I can’t stand it. I tear my eyes away from her and focus on the path ahead, increasing my pace so I can leave her and the wolfhound behind. I need space.
Finally, the trees begin to thin, and I hear the tell-tale sound of the river splashing nearby.
Only when we reach its banks do I bring us to a stop.
On the other side, a haven of greenery awaits.
It’s a strange dichotomy—the side of the river we’re on, and the life that beckons on the opposite banks.
I can taste the freshness of the water on my tongue, the earthy scent of the flourishing trees beyond drifting across with the current.
Fragile fragments of the forest crunch beneath my boots as I dismount and lead my stallion to the water’s edge.
There, I leave the beast to drink deeply and I walk away, stepping across the moss-slicked rocks, the river roaring beside me.
I crouch by the riverbank and wash my hands, though no amount of water will make them clean.
Still, it gives me something to do rather than look back at all that I have destroyed.
Don’t follow, don’t follow, don’t follow, I chant in my head. I’m too exposed, too on edge to deal with her antics now—
Despite the raging sounds of the rapids, Saige’s voice cuts through the white noise, crystal clear. “What happened back there?”
“Now’s not the time, Grayson.” But the eerie symphony of the burnt woodlands still echoes beside us.
I don’t know what she wants from me, and I can say confidently that this is the first time that’s happened.
Usually, people’s desires are inherently obvious to me—Azkari or human.
I can peer straight through them and pick apart what they crave most.
But not with Saige.
Saige is an enigma, one that infuriates and fascinates me in equal measure. Hot and cold, fire and ice, a tempest that I cannot predict, and I’m not sure I want to.
She nudges me with her elbow, as though we’re old friends, familiar, her voice suddenly gentle. “You said I know nothing, so tell me. I want to know. I want to listen.”
I don’t look at her, I don’t want to see what I’ve become reflected back at me.
“Archer.” It’s the name I gave her… Archer. There’s a quiet melody to how she says it that gives me pause, that makes me want to tell her. Beneath the tattoos on my back, my scars tingle and the brand on my neck burns.
Saige’s hand is on my forearm now, her touch and her words gentle, comforting. “Tell me what happened.” My gaze dips to where she strokes the muscle of my forearm with her thumb.
I haven’t spoken of this, not ever, and suddenly I find myself choking on the words, unable to stand the sound of my broken self, of the half-truths spilling from me. “I… I can’t.”
“Can’t what, General?”
General. That is who I am, who I have been for two hundred and fifty fucking years. I’ll never be anyone else. “Can’t talk about this,” I bite out. “Can you go?”
“It’s alright. I can—”
“Grayson. I made myself clear. We’re not friends.
We’re not anything. No more than two parts of a bargain.
Just leave me alone,” I mutter, tipping my face to the dappled light filtering through the canopy, my magic surging through me, fire filling my veins.
I can’t take it anymore. I will never be the same, never be whole.
I deserve this, I deserve what happened, deserve to be punished—
“Archer—”
“Leave me alone!” I roar, wrenching my arm away from her with enough force that she stumbles back.
The guilt blooms within me before my voice stops echoing through the forest and the bookbinder’s silver gaze drops away from mine. She’s gone before I can form an apology, leaving me standing there like an idiot, wondering when exactly I lost control of this situation.
The flash of hurt on her face is seared in my mind. And I see it—the moment the clouds swallow the sun.