21. Saige
Saige
As the second dusk on our journey settles around us, Archer is muttering something on the other side of our camp. “I’ve never met a more stubborn, stupid creature…”
I glance across to see him offering a piece of dried meat to Grim, who sniffs it and looks up, waiting for a better offer.
With a foreign curse, Archer drops the treat on the ground. “Eat, or don’t, it’s no concern of mine, you great mutt.”
Unimpressed, Grim huffs and trots away, leaving the food untouched in the dirt.
“He can’t be bought, General,” I call out. Then, as Grim approaches me, I scratch him behind the ears and whisper, “I think you hurt his feelings.”
My gaze flicks back to the Azkari. It’s hard not to be mesmerized by the authority in his movements as he finishes setting up our camp, a rhythm fostered by military barracks no doubt.
He works quickly, his long, ringed fingers handling the horses’ tack with expert precision before retrieving a coil of wire and some fabric from his saddlebag.
Sensing me watching, he looks across the camp. “I’m going to set a few snares.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“That wasn’t an invitation,” he mutters.
“Then you should have been more specific.”
Archer folds his muscled arms over his broad chest. “Fine. But you have to be quiet. Actually quiet. Or you’ll scare off the hares and there’ll be no hot supper for you.”
“If there’s a decent meal on the line, then I’ll happily accept your terms.”
The general sighs. “There were tracks a few yards back. They might lead us to a burrow.”
I mime locking my lips with a key and am rewarded with an eye roll for my efforts. The gesture feels strangely intimate, like something shared between people who know each other. I wonder how well someone like the General lets people know him.
Silently, I follow the Azkari into the thicket beyond the camp, where he crouches and studies the forest floor. Without looking at me, he continues on, leading us deeper into the undergrowth.
I want to ask him who taught him to track game and make traps, if it was a rite of passage among the Azkari or on a bonding trip with a father figure. But I say nothing as he locates the burrow and ties a strip of linen around the tree above it.
“The forest will change quickly in the dark,” Archer explains softly. “You need to mark your snare placement, or you won’t find it again.”
I nod, watching his deft fingers form a noose with the coil of wire, tying the other end to a sapling.
His whisper is melodic as he works, positioning the loop near the burrow, placing a piece of dried apple as bait.
“This is a restraining snare—it draws up around the foot of the game and tightens so it doesn’t escape.
Used them all the time during the war, better than a killing snare.
Last thing you want is a hare alerting the enemy to your whereabouts with its screaming as it slowly dies in the night. ”
I could have done without the imagery.
Archer sets a few more traps, glancing up at me every now and then, as though he’s surprised I still haven’t said a word. He ties off the final snare, his expression suddenly far away. “We used them in Gravereach too,” he says, but offers no more than that.
A few hours later, my belly is full with the best supper I’ve ever eaten: roasted hare with sautéed wild mushrooms. The Black Flame is full of surprises, it seems.
The General now sits with his legs crossed at the ankle before him, his sketchbook open in his lap, his stick of charcoal between his fingers and those damn glasses on his nose.
He looks to be the epitome of artistic leisure, not the irritable warrior I’ve grown used to over the last few days of travel. It’s a contrary image to behold.
Unlike when we were on the rooftop in Hanniel, Archer doesn’t draw his sketchbook to his chest, he leaves it in his lap, where I can see the skillful lines of charcoal and the beginnings of an illustration.
I lower myself to the ground beside him and peer over his shoulder at the detailed line work.
It’s an elegant study of a bloom I don’t recognize by name, but the drawing features several large, open flowers with five petals each, the centers visible with clustered stamens.
Archer’s intricate cross-hatching and shading shape toothed leaves and long, slender stems that connect the flowers.
“You’re no novice, are you?” I admire his work. “Where did you learn to draw?”
I expect him to grunt or growl that it’s none of my business, so I’m surprised when his fingers still above the sketchbook and his gaze lifts to mine.
“When I was younger, I took an art class for a few years. My mother liked the idea of a healthy outlet to express my emotions. She thought painting would do the trick.”
“And did it?”
Archer shakes his head and speaks softly. “I was always more taken with the nuance of charcoal, how it can be a medley of softness and severity, delicate and bold. And it’s simple. Just you, the parchment and your stick.”
“Have you always drawn flowers?” I ask.
“No.”
I’m convinced he’s ending the conversation there, that I’ve pried too much, but the General flicks the stick of charcoal between his fingers, staring hard at the page before he reluctantly continues.
“I didn’t draw for a long time. After those lessons as a child, I moved on to what I thought were bigger and better pursuits.
It was only at Gravereach that I started again.
Of all the things that Malevron did, he did give me that.
The flowers were… something else. In the fleeting periods of freedom from the prison before I was wrenched back, I made a study of flowers that thrived in poor conditions.
I don’t know what started it, perhaps seeing a bloom in the middle of a frost, or a seedling breaking through scorched earth. It became an obsession.”
“And the tattoos?”
“All my design. All blooms that flourish in almost hopeless conditions.” He motions to the current drawing. “Woodland hellebore. It grows even when the ground turns to ice and the winds are savage enough to tear branches from the trees above.”
I smile warmly. “You’re a canvas of contradictions, aren’t you, General?”
“You don’t know me at all, Grayson.”
“I’m starting to.” I don’t want to send him running for the hills after he laid his rules out so clearly, but I can’t help myself, adding, “And I’d like to know more.”
“What exactly do you wish to learn?”
“Just the usual stuff. What your childhood was like. Who your friends are. Your first kiss. Who your first love was.” I rattle through the items, checking them off on my fingers.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Ladies first, Grayson.”
“I’m many things, General, but a lady isn’t one of them.”
Archer simply raises a brow, as if to say, well?
“Fine, have it your way. First love…” I pretend to think, but it’s quite simple when I’ve only been with a handful of people. The Azkari warrior doesn’t need to know that though. “I suppose I’d have to say Reid.”
“Reid?” Archer balks. “You mean that piece of shit back at the compound?”
“The very one,” I say sadly. “Though it doesn’t feel right, calling it love.”
Archer scoffs in disgust, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose in a deliciously oblivious way. “Grayson, that boychild wasn’t love, he was a lesson, nothing more.”
I sigh. “I know, I know. What about your first love then?”
“Roast chicken,” he replies without hesitating.
I stare at him. “Was that… Was that a joke, General?”
“Deadly serious.” But his mouth tips up at the corner again.
“Your first joke. And no one else was here to hear it.”
“Perhaps it was just for you.” He turns back to his drawing.
“You were hurt once, weren’t you?” I ask quietly, knowing deflection when I see it.
“A long time ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
He huffs a dark laugh. “You live long enough, Grayson, and you’re bound to be hurt by someone.”
I let his words hang between us, before I refuse to let the melancholy settle. “Archer?”
“Mmm?”
“Are the stars out tonight?” I ask quietly.
Archer’s sketching hand stills again, but he doesn’t look up. “Who knows. The canopy’s too dense.”
I don’t know what comes over me, but before I know it, I’m reaching for him, my fingertips grazing the hard line of his jaw, his stubble rough beneath my touch.
I intend to turn his gaze skyward, but instead, his eyes lock on mine.
For a moment, I’m transported back to our kiss in that gods-forsaken prison, the way his mouth claimed mine, the desire that had burned through me like a molten current.
Archer pushes his glasses to rest atop his head in the dark waves of his hair.
His pupils dilate, as though he’s re-living the exact same thing, his gaze dropping to my lips all but confirms it.
“Grayson…” he warns hoarsely.
My breath hitches, and I’m ready to throw caution to the wind and close the gap between us, to press my body to his and—
He leaps up, scrambling back as though burned.
I’m on my feet a second later, reaching for him. “It’s alright—”
“Alright?” A dark, ugly laugh bursts from him as he continues to back away from me, disbelief etched on his face, his chest rising and falling with every breath. “Nothing about this is alright.”
“Archer.”
It’s as though his name unlocks something in him, and he whirls around, grabbing the front of my vest and pinning me to a tree trunk. Suddenly, he’s almost as close as when we kissed, his eyes so bright with fury they take on a viridian hue. “What do you want from me, Grayson?”
We’re both breathing hard and fast, his thigh wedged between my legs where arousal gathers wet and heady.
We’re not lovers. We’re not friends… His words come back to me in a rush, but they do nothing to dispel the heat coursing through my body.
I know this is a bad idea. I know it will only complicate our bargain, our quest, and yet…
I don’t fucking care. I want him. I want to scrape my nails down his broad chest; I want to lick the strong column of his throat. Is that what I tell him?
For decades I have hidden the dark facets of myself, those pieces that threaten to poison and pollute the light around me, but the General…
He is all darkness, like he was born in it.
He looks at me like despite all my efforts, he sees into those hidden depths and recognizes what he finds within.
The scent of him bleeds through the smoke from the campfire, rich and earthy: agarwood, amber and orange blossom, setting fire to my senses.
“I…”
“Don’t tell me I’ve finally rendered you speechless?
” He stares at me, long and hard, the intensity of his gaze nearly has me shaking.
“At last,” he sighs, turning his back on me.
“I told you before my sole purpose is defeating Malevron. That kiss meant nothing but a means to that end. Whatever this is, I don’t want it. I don’t want you. And I never will.”
The general starts towards the river.
“You’re such an asshole,” I mutter after him.
He calls out over his shoulder, “Now you’re getting it, bookbinder.”