20. Saige
Saige
Itry to reconcile the rage-filled Azkari with the prisoner whose hand I held in Gravereach, whose fingers laced through mine and squeezed my hand back.
As I walk away from the general, I feel myself shrink inward.
It’s a lingering instinct, to make myself small when I’m faced with conflict, to diffuse the situation so no one gets hurt—a habit I’ve tried to quash over the years.
I struggled with it as I helped Leo run the bindery, and even more so since he passed, the urge to placate, to please feels so often like a matter of survival.
But it—like me—is a work in progress, and it’s easy to slip back into old behaviors that are so deeply ingrained.
The world taught us how to stay in that place.
In silence. In fear. To endure, not to live.
Don’t be difficult. Don’t ask for too much.
Don’t be too loud. Don’t ask too many questions.
Don’t be too assertive. So we make ourselves smaller, less bright, careful not to take up too much space or air with our bodies and our words.
Silently fuming, I lead my mare to a nearby stream, Grim darting between the trees around us.
As I put distance between myself and Archer, the Saige who is older and wiser wants to shake me by the shoulders.
I know better now. I will not hide to accommodate someone else’s issues.
Whatever Archer is going through, it’s not my responsibility, and it’s certainly not my job to shape myself for his comfort.
In the wake of these thoughts, comes a gnawing, nagging feeling.
When things are less volatile, it’s easy enough to forget that I am trapped by magic.
But the reality is that I am bound to the Azkari general.
I cannot walk away from this. I am not free.
There is nothing I can do with the knowledge except lock it away in my mind and hope it doesn’t escape me.
Grim jumps into the crystal blue stream with a happy bark, pulling me from my thoughts. Smiling to myself, I’m grateful that Yevna had the foresight to send him with me, though I know she must be missing him like mad.
As I watch him play, the hair on the nape of my neck stands on end, and for a moment, I feel as though I’m being watched again. I scan the forest, eyes lingering on the branches that seem to arch and curve in impossible angles, trying to imagine what this place had been long ago.
Archer is somewhere nearby, I can feel him through the strange, tenuous tether of our bargain, connecting us through the Weave.
I massage my left leg through my breeches, aware that the muscles there feel tight, though I hope it’s simply from all the riding.
One of the worst parts about my conditions is the unpredictability of it.
It’s one of the reasons I never travelled more.
Just the thought of having an episode away from the safety of the bindery nearly has me breaking out in hives.
After a moment, the pain lessens. I’ll never know if the massage technique actually prevents a flare up, but I’ll take whatever hope I can get—
“You alright?” a familiar gruff voice says from behind me.
I turn to find Archer’s brows knitted together, his eyes tracking my fingers digging into the muscles of my thigh.
“Perfect.” I drop my hand and get up, dusting off the seat of my breeches. “Shall we?”
The General towers over me, but he shifts from one booted foot to the other, the crease between his brows deepening. “I owe you an apology.”
It takes all my willpower to mask my shock. I don’t move, worried it might scare him off.
He mutters something in that language I don’t understand; it’s the same musical tongue I’ve heard him slip into a handful of times.
“Was that it?” I ask, waiting.
“I’m not good at this,” he mumbles, his gaze not meeting mine.
“No, you’re not,” I agree, holding back a snort.
Archer takes a deep breath and straightens, making himself impossibly taller, as though preparing for battle. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”
For a moment, I’m shocked. The last thing I expected after that outburst was an acknowledgement. This relationship is strictly business. There will be no distractions, no emotional entanglements…
“No, you shouldn’t have,” I say, taking my horse’s reins and leading it away from the stream, back to where Archer’s stallion is waiting. “Though I think you’re missing the key ingredient of said apology.”
The general grunts. “I’m sorry.”
I glance at him, find those emerald-green eyes utterly earnest. “Apology accepted.”
He frowns. “Just like that?”
“This time,” I warn, biting back a smile.
When we reach his horse, he pauses. He’s scanning my face, as though my forgiveness may be a trap. “I do mean it you know.”
I dip my head. “I know.”
We both mount our horses, and Archer takes the lead, guiding us through the undergrowth, his hands restless around the reins. “I’ll answer your questions.”
I nearly fall off my mare. “What?”
“I said, I’ll answer your damn questions.” He gives a frustrated sigh. “If I can. My memory can be… inconsistent.”
From my saddle, I can see how tense he is, his shoulders bunched, his back ramrod straight. I recall the glimpse of memory I saw in the threads of the Weave, the dark cloud of guilt and grief hanging overhead.
“I’m fresh out of questions.” I swear he sags a little with relief. “But if you want to chat, I’m here.”
“I don’t chat.”
Despite his scowl, I offer a smile. “I know.”
A few minutes of quiet pass, and I lean into the rhythm of the ride.
My ass is still sore from yesterday, and my body aches from all the shivering last night, but…
there is something about it that soothes all the same.
Like bookbinding, I am forced to slow down, to connect with the task at hand.
It’s unexpected. Usually, I’d happily stay in the bindery for weeks on end.
It’s a comfort, a home, my safe space. Being on the road with an Azkari is something else entirely.
The rough life of a warrior is one I generally have little interest in living at the ripe age of thirty-five.
Some would call it precious, or difficult, but I’ve worked myself to the bone to have the creature comforts I crave.
My own bed, a cup of tea from my favorite mug, the simple pleasure of pulling on a pair of cozy socks when the evening turned chilly.
It’s these thoughts I’m completely lost in when to my surprise, Archer speaks.
“I keep wondering, why you?” he says, quietly enough that at first, I think he’s talking to himself.
I don’t respond for that reason. Which makes me even more thrilled when he continues.
“Malevron doesn’t make mistakes. He meant to put you in the cell beside me, to torment me. But then, because of you, my magic returned. Because of you, I was able to escape. That wasn’t part of his plan.”
“Maybe we have a connection because I’d seen you before?” I offer. “In the alleyway?”
“You shouldn’t have been able to see me then either. You’re not branded.”
“An anomaly then? Maybe our threads in the Weave were all knotted together before our bargain… or something?”
Archer raises a skeptical brow.
I put my hands up in mock surrender. “What would I know? I’m only a mere mortal.”
To my great surprise, Archer laughs softly. “Something tells me you’re far more than that, bookbinder.”
After Archer’s apology and olive branch, the day’s ride goes smoothly.
We fall into a comfortable silence, and I allow myself to sink into my thoughts.
As we walk, I think about the bargain, mentally experimenting with my intentions for breaking it.
My wrists warm beneath the flicker of flame, but nothing happens beyond that, and I know it’s because my heart isn’t truly in it.
I want to help Archer. I want to retrieve the Confluence for him, bargain or not.
Whatever thread the gods wove him into being with, they used the same for me.
There is a kinship between us. A sameness.
I recognize myself in him, and him in me.
The wind ripples across the grass fronds like a shiver down a spine, as though responding to the ever-shifting sands of my mood—
“You’re incredibly distracting, did you know?” Archer’s rich voice skates along my skin, flushing my chest and neck as the heat of him radiates at my side. I don’t know how he got there so stealthily. A mere moment before he was several yards ahead with Grim at his heels.
“What?” I stammer, adjusting my clammy grip on the lead rope. “What are you talking about?”
“Playing with the bargain like that. Our threads linking us to the Weave are entwined. You may as well be yanking on my arm. It’s distracting.”
“I’m not doing anything,” I tell him adamantly.
The Black Flame scoffs. “You’re thinking about it.”
It’s only when daylight is fading and I’ve yawned for the twentieth time in my saddle that Archer declares that it’s time to make camp.
“You’ll singe your bedroll if you sleep that close to the fire,” Archer says gruffly, watching as I unpack my belongings.
“I wasn’t expecting it to get so cold at night.”
He shakes his head, muttering something in his native tongue, and walks away.
“Where are you off to?” I ask, starting after him. If he plans on hunting some sort of game, I’d like to know how—
“To wash,” he says roughly, already striding away towards the river. “By all means watch if you must. I know how it fascinates you.”
Before I can muster up a response, he’s off, weaving through the trees as the water roars, and then he’s out of sight.
With a frustrated sigh, I rest my head against the tree, looking up at the gray sky beyond the spindly branches reaching into the clouds like bony fingers.
I close my eyes, listening to the thundering torrent of the river.
For a few minutes, the sound drowns out my thoughts, leaving everything blissfully blank.
Until it’s not.