29. Saige
Saige
“Archer!” I’m not letting him go that easily. I charge after him, determined not to leave him in pain alone. The forest is nearly pitch-black and I’m an inelegant mess as I stagger after him in the dark, my feet still bare and muddy, a blanket clutched around my shoulders like a damn cape.
“You’re going to trip and crack your head open on a rock,” his deep voice vibrates in my ear, causing another shiver.
“It’d be your fault.” I find him at my left side, poised to catch me should I fall. “Are you going to make me chase you through the rest of the forest half-naked?”
“As much as it appeals to me, I had nothing to do with you being half naked,” he argues, and though it’s hard to tell in the dark, I swear the tips of his cheeks are flushing pink.
Instead of giving him more grief though, I tug on his sleeve gently. “Sit with me, General, just for a little while?”
“You’ll catch your death.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’ve got the Black Flame to keep me warm, isn’t it?”
“Stubborn woman,” he mutters with a shake of his head.
Smiling to myself, I find us a little clearing.
The greenery is as lush as ever in the moonlight with vibrant shining leaves, moss carpeting the surrounding trunks and rich shrubbery.
There are several rings of tiny delicate toadstools that I stay well away from as I move a few branches aside to create room to sit.
The roar of the river has softened to a distant hum and it’s almost tranquil.
I lower myself to the ground and Archer follows suit, sitting close enough that his shirt sleeve brushes against mine and I can feel the heat of his body radiating outward. I lean in, just a little.
“Why’d you come after me?” he asks hoarsely.
“I didn’t like the thought of leaving you to face those nightmares alone,” I tell him honestly. “I know what it’s like… to live in phases, constantly anticipating an onslaught of an attack, pain that rises and falls like the tide… though with less predictability.”
“You seem like you’ve got it figured out,” he murmurs.
At that I laugh. “That’s what it looked like to you when you found me during one of my episodes, when my own fingernails nearly drew blood from my palms?”
“Everyone slips up,” he counters dryly. “Though you do a remarkable job of finding the light in the dark. You’re always smiling, always joking and… How? How do you do it?”
I don’t tell him that I know I’m a burden, and that knowledge sometimes makes me wonder if life is worth living, makes me question what the world would be like without me.
And that is why I go above and beyond to mask it all.
Instead, I say, “Because if I don’t, it’s easy to lose myself to the undertow of grief.
The present fades away and all I can do is dread what happens next.
Smiling for the people I love helps anchor me to the moment I’m in here and now—the moments that make up the broader tapestry of life.
I don’t want to miss out, and I don’t want to take that away from others. So I keep trying.”
His expression is unreadable, and self-consciousness starts to creep in.
“You think it’s stupid…” I venture slowly.
“No,” he tells me. “I think it’s courageous.”
“There’s one I haven’t heard before,” I joke, nudging him with my shoulder.
He nudges me back. “I have a feeling you’ll be hearing it more often as time goes on.”
I don’t know what he means by that, so I steer the conversation elsewhere, wanting to ground him—ground us—in a safer space to keep the tendrils of those nightmares at bay.
“Where’s your favorite place?” I ask him. “Before the war, before anything bad happened… Where did you like to go?”
He raises a brow as if to say, I know what you’re doing.
But he humors me anyway. “I had a cabin once. It overlooked the seas to the south. The sun would soak the pavers there, and it was the perfect spot for a few dozen potted plants. It wasn’t a garden as such, but it was mine—a place of my own.
The wind could get icy up there, but I loved sitting in my armchair with a cup of hot cocoa and my sketchbook.
There was no greater sense of peace than up on that balcony. ”
“Who would have thought… the Black Flame is a homebody,” I muse. “It sounds lovely.”
“And you, Grayson? Where do you find peace when you’re not making deals with Azkari generals and breaking hostages free? And don’t tell me it’s that tavern Yevna was on about. I can practically smell the spilt mead and pipe smoke.”
“I have a lot of fond memories from the Copper Kettle,” I admit with a sigh. “But my happy place is the bindery, where you first saw me all those years ago. Leo left it to me—and there’s no space I love more.”
“It reminds you of him,” Archer surmises.
“It does, but that’s not the only reason.
I suppose in a lot of ways it’s where I grew up, it’s where I first learned what it felt like to be safe and cared for.
It’s where I discovered my passion for books, whether it was by working my way through Leo’s library, or by watching him bind pieces of history back together.
He was a true master, and it shows in every nook and cranny of that place.
It’s not just a tribute to him, but his life’s work, and the skills he passed down to me, like he would his own child. ”
“It sounds like a special place.”
“It is. I know it sounds silly to say to a Azkari, but there’s magic there.”
“It’s not silly,” he tells me.
“Sometimes it feels as though it’s alive, full of its own mysteries and quirks.
One beautiful thing about binding and restoration is what you find tucked between old pages, long forgotten.
On one of my first solo jobs, a pressed flower fell from the book I was fixing.
It looked rare, like someone had taken great care to preserve it and I was desperate to return it to its owner.
Leo told me to keep it, to be the keeper of lost secrets. I started a collection after that.”
“So you’re a thief.” Archer chuckles.
“Finders keepers and all that.” I pick up a leaf, twirling it between my fingers, noting how the jagged edges remind me of Archer’s tattoos.
Beyond the treetops, the sky is lightening, but I don’t want to head back to camp just yet.
For whatever reason, I want the Azkari general to myself for just a little longer.
“I like working with my hands,” I tell him softly.
“When they’re busy stitching and pressing, the world around me mutes, everything else falls away.
People come and go, tools wear down, machinery breaks, but… the hands remember.”
He doesn’t say anything, but simply listens, waiting for me to continue.
“Perhaps it started out as a way to distract myself from the pain, or the anticipation of it. Book binding is such intricate work, especially when you’re dealing with older texts—manuscripts that are falling apart.
But at some point, my enjoyment of it went beyond that.
I learned that every book I make is its own art, its own expression.
The parchment you choose for the signatures, the thread, the style of stitching.
It’s all so personal. So I started to make notebooks, not too dissimilar to your sketchpad, only smaller…
I create them in all sorts of designs, linen and leather covers, carved embellishments, different stitching techniques. ”
“I’m sure they’re beautiful,” Archer says gently.
“I make each one slowly, because that’s how Leo taught me.
Slow made things feel best. It’s not about hurrying to the finish line, it’s about story and memory, and care.
And I like the idea that people—women in particular—might buy them to record their thoughts and ideas when no one else will listen.
That I can make something to give them that.
” I don’t know why I’m still talking really, spilling my guts to an immortal who until recently seemed to merely tolerate my presence.
And I don’t know why but I lay my hand upturned on my knee, gazing at the calluses and roughness there.
Workers’ hands, Yevna calls them. With labor intensive jobs, all three of us have long since given up the idea of manicured nails and soft palms—it’s practicality over beauty—
I startle as Archer places his hand in mine.
His skin is rough as well, his fingertips dark with smudges of charcoal, his touch warm but for the cool bands of his silver rings. “Thank you,” he says.
Warmth blooms in my chest as I blink at him. “For what?”
“For keeping me company in the dark.”
Beyond the canopy, the sky is awash with rose gold and burnished hues. Somehow a new day is upon us—the final day before we reach the temple where the Confluence is being guarded.
“You’re welcome, General.” Exhaling slowly and ignoring my racing heart, I squeeze his hand and get to my feet. “We survive the nightmares to fight another day, right?”
“Right.”
As I walk back towards the camp, he calls out after me. “Grayson?”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t—don’t tell Daemos, alright?”
I look back, my eyes locking with his. “Tell Daemos what?”
The corner of his mouth twitches, but he says nothing more. He simply dips his chin in silent thanks.