22. Archer #2
My mind calculates angles, distances, speed—I can’t dodge this.
Can’t shield. Can’t burn him before his finger twitches.
Fifteen feet between us. Might as well be a mile.
I’ll never close it in time. Two hundred years of imprisonment has left me rusty, my observation skills and my agility not as sharp.
One false move and that bolt is heading straight for my heart.
And with the way my body is healing lately, it’ll be the end of me.
Silver eyes and golden hair fill me with regret.
I hope she got away. I hope Grim protects her.
I should have apologized. Should have told her everything.
The ninth man keeps the crossbow trained on me. “Drop him,” he orders, sneering at me.
Of all the ways I thought I’d die over the last five centuries, at the grubby hands of some mortal mercenary wasn’t one of them. I inhale deeply, bracing myself for impact, determined to take them both down with me when I go—
Warm blood sprays, hitting me in the neck like a slap.
Only… it’s not my blood.
She moves like smoke—I never see her coming. Neither does he.
The blade punches through his throat with a wet thunk that I feel in my teeth.
His eyes go wide, confused. He doesn't understand what just happened. Then he’s choking, the silver point of a knife protruding from the base of his throat.
The crossbow tumbles from his grip. The bolt fires wide, burying itself in the dirt at my feet.
That close. The man crumples, limp body hitting the ground. Dead.
And behind him, stands Saige.
My heart is pounding against my ribs. I roughly cast the man I’m holding aside, his head cracking against a tree trunk before he slides down into the fallen leaves.
I lock eyes with Saige across the carnage. Blood streaks her face like war paint. Her hair is matted with it. She’s never looked more fierce.
“Thank you,” it comes out hoarse, and a little bewildered as I watch her crouch beside the man she slayed.
There, she yanks a small blade from the back of his neck.
It’s not a dagger or any weapon made for ending lives.
She killed a man with a bookbinder’s knife.
Something meant for trimming paper edges, now dripping with blood.
The intimacy of that choice—a tool from her craft, from her old life—makes my chest tight.
“Don’t make me regret it,” she replies, wiping the steel on the leaves at her feet.
My knees threaten to buckle. I lock them. Won't let her see how close I came to breaking. “Have you… Have you ever killed a man before?”
“No.” Saige strides to where her satchel lays strewn in the leaves and quietly picks up her things before she adds in a wry tone, “But I’ve always wanted to.”
I gape at her, completely thunderstruck as her words take a moment to land. Then, I see that she’s grinning.
And then I throw my head back and howl with laughter. Tears stream down my grimy face as the sound rumbles through me from deep within and I have to clutch my aching stomach.
It’s only later, when we’re cleaning ourselves up at the stream and Grim has returned to us with a severed arm clamped in his maw, that I summon the courage to speak again.
“I was trying to tell you something before… before we were interrupted,” I manage, running a wet rag across my blood-spattered neck, my injured shoulder throbbing.
She gives me a pointed look. “Oh, so I’m allowed to talk to you now?”
I hang my head. “I deserve that.”
“Undoubtedly.”
Clearing my throat, I try again. “What I meant to say before all this… What I want to say… is that… I’m sorry. Again.”
She stares me down, and I’ll be damned if I’m not fucking intimidated by this unpredictable storm of chaos. “That it?”
“Uh…” I dip my rag back into the cool water, rubbing the fabric together so the blood seeps from its fibers like spilt ink. “You’re not terrible company.”
She presses a hand to her chest in a show of mock amazement. “Was that a compliment?”
“No.”
“But I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Is that what the Azkari do? Flatter us helpless mortals before bending us to your will—”
“Believe me, Grayson. If I was ‘bending you to my will’, there’d be a lot less talking for starters.” I shake my head in disbelief.
“Finally!” she declares, as if I haven’t spoke. “There’s that wiley Azkari charm Raven was talking about.”
I blink. “You think I’m charming.”
For some reason, I expect her to blush, to back off for once in her damn life. I reach for my canteen and take a long drink of water.
“I don’t know, General,” the infuriating bookbinder muses, flashing me a grin. “Why don’t you pop on those sultry little glasses again, and I’ll see if I can keep my knickers on.”
I spray water all over myself.
“Nothing to say?” Her expression is triumphant. “No witty remarks poised on that sharp tongue of yours?”
“You seemed to like my tongue just fine when we were sealing our bargain.”
And her gaze instantly drops to my mouth, her denial seemingly stuck in her throat, pink flushing the tops of her cheeks. Apparently, she remembers that kiss as vividly as I do.
“It’s alright, Grayson,” I tell her, getting to my feet and dusting myself off, determined to find the horses. “Just blame it on my wiley Azkari charms.”
Saige stays at the stream, but calls out after me, “That I would, General. If you had any.”
I don’t look over my shoulder, as much as I want to. If an immortal Azkari warrior ever needed their ego checked, Saige Grayson was the woman for the job.