34. Archer
Archer
Idrop to a crouch in front of Saige, not taking my eyes off her battered legs. I can see the bruises even as she tries to cover them with her wet shirt. “How?” I say again. “How did this happen?”
Her silver eyes are wide and panicked, and she looks lost. “I did it,” she whispers, her chin dropping to her chest. “I did it, alright?” She reaches for her leg, and pinches her own skin between her thumb and forefinger—
I close my hand over hers and gently prise her grip loose. “Grayson…”
“It helps with the pain when I have episodes,” she murmurs.
“I used to have a band around my wrist that I could snap when the pain got bad, but it just wasn’t enough…
Not enough to take me away from the worst of it.
I tried so many things, some of them far darker methods…
But I stopped, I knew it wasn’t good for me. ”
My chest aches for her. “So you do this instead?”
She nods wordlessly.
It breaks me, seeing her mottled flesh, seeing her shame. I want to tell her that she’s a survivor, a fucking warrior to be reckoned with. But her quiet demeanor tells me it’s not the time, that she doesn’t want to share more than she already has.
“Come on,” I say gently, helping her to her feet and fetching the clothes and boots she’d left discarded on the opposite bank of the river.
Her hands are shaking as I help her into her breeches, drawing the braces up over her shoulders.
I sink to my knees in the dirt and slip one sock on after the other, followed by her boots.
I take care with the laces, double knotting them so they don’t come undone.
“Archer?” she says quietly, her voice raw, on the verge of breaking. “How do you wear your pain? Do you wear it like a shield? Like a badge of honor? Or like a secret, burrowed deep?”
I stare at her for a moment; the note of sadness is like a knife to my gut.
This isn’t just about her pain. There’s something else that’s wrong and of course there is.
I kissed her and then left her there in the woods.
I should apologize and try to explain. But what is there to say?
That it was a mistake? That I don’t have anything to give her?
So I keep my mouth shut, deciding I need to save my strength for whatever awaits us in the temple.
I finish with her laces and pat the top of her boot before I stand.
“Come on. We’re not far now. We leave the horse behind. ”
Saige looks like she wants to argue with me, but the fight leaves her eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”
It hurts to see her disappointed, but there’s nothing I can do in this moment. Heart sinking, I part the wisteria with my arm, the cut from the previous day scabbed over and ugly on my skin. “This way.”
As the sky lightens, the morning mist lies low in the forest, seeming to lead us straight to the heart of the Eldergrove, where we are greeted by a stone stairway, leading up into the greenery of the forest, a step mountainside.
“This is the entrance?” Saige takes in the steps, overgrown with ferns and bushes, moss-slicked and treacherous.
“It is.”
She hesitates at the foot of the stairs. “Are there any guards? Any obstacles I should be aware of?”
“If there are, I’m sure we can manage.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“Perhaps with my wiley Azkari charms,” I say, straight-faced.
“We’re dead then.” Some of her old spark reluctantly returns.
“Ye of little faith.” I place my boot on the first step, upon the threshold to the sacred. “The temple is protected by Azkari magic of the houses that remained after the Reckoning… Anything we face will be magic of the land and air.”
“What about Malevron?”
“What about him?” I ask.
“Would he have put traps inside? Or have his hunters hiding within?” She’s thinking about the mirror shards back at camp, glassy pieces that sent Daemos running for the hills.
“Malevron’s far more likely to have his minions lying in wait on the other side,” I tell her. “Why do the dirty work yourself when you can sweep in and snatch the prize at the last moment when all the battles have been fought?”
“Is that what he’ll do?”
“He can fucking try.”
Saige eyes the almost-vertical climb ahead. “But Daemos told you what to do? With the other magic?”
“With his magic, yes.” I take the first few steps, the stone groaning beneath my weight. “I’ll guess we’ll see what my brother’s word is worth soon enough, bookbinder… Are you coming?”
We start the ascent of the horrifically narrow stone steps that have been reclaimed by the Eldergrove, the ancient ladder already crumbling at its edges.
The higher we climb, the more uneasy I become.
The stones loosen beneath our feet, crumbling away at the edges as if the earth itself wants to shake us loose.
The wind is equally unforgiving, with sudden gusts assaulting us, threatening to blow us off balance at the worst possible moments—
“Take it slow,” I call over my shoulder. “And cover your nose and mouth with your shirt.”
Behind me, Saige doesn’t reply, which tells me she’s focused on her feet as we ascend into a layer of mist. Here, spores cloud the air, designed to tickle the throat and force passing travelers into a choking coughing fit that disorients them enough to fall right off the side of the stairs.
A design of the House of Whispers. Before we left, I debated tying Saige to me with a rope, but I decided against it in the end.
Right now, I wish I’d done it because the fear of her falling is almost making me dizzy.
Thankfully, the level of mist doesn’t last long, and we remain unscathed as we climb. The air turns cool my skin, and we’re high enough that I can no longer see the ground below, we’re swallowed by the growth of the canopy.
“I’m not loving this,” Saige mutters from behind me, a waver in her voice.
“Don’t like heights?”
“Not right now.”
“We’re almost there—”
A gnarled vine shoots out from a nearby branch, wrapping around my wrist and tipping me off balance. My head feels like it’s about to pop off. I’m flailing and choking all at once as the vine squeezes my windpipe—
“Archer!” Saige shouts from behind me.
I didn’t survive Gravereach only to be killed by a fucking plant.
I reach for the sword strapped to my back, nearly losing my footing on the moss-covered stone.
Heart hammering, I try to rip the vine apart with my bare hands, but the damn thing has the power of the House within it.
Tears stream down my face as my air supply is thoroughly cut off—
A soft hiss sounds.
I almost go tumbling anyway as the vine is severed by the snick of a small blade. What remains around my neck falls away and I’m left panting on the steps.
“Fucking Eryx,” I mutter, eyeing the recoiling greenery. “That’s the first of many Reveries defense mechanisms. We need to keep moving.”
Somehow, Saige squeezes past me on the narrow stairs. “You’re welcome.”
More gnarled vines snake across the stairs as we continue on, but we climb quickly, this time, with Saige in the lead.
If her leg troubles her, she doesn’t show it.
She takes the steps two at a time, clearly ready to be done with this part of the trek.
Or perhaps, to be done with me. Something still isn’t adding up.
The steps themselves seem to shift and slide, the ancient stone grinding as if trying to throw us off, roots burst through the cracks in the stairs, forcing us to jump across increasingly wide gaps and navigate around the unstable sections.
At last, the ladder of stairs finally ends, welcoming us to a plateau in the forested mountain side, where the ancient stone ruins greet us. The roof has long since fallen away to expose the structure to the elements, the walls breached and fractured by time and Triad knows what else.
Still catching her breath, Saige frowns. “Is this it?”
“Not quite.” I make a start for the building, crossing the foundation which is half-sunken into the hungry earth.
Nature has swept in here, a patient dismantling of Azkari architecture and ambition with tree roots cracking the foundation, ferns unfurling from the rubble, and moss claiming the territory inch by inch.
We duck beneath arches framing successive doorways like nested bones, vines thread through mortar gaps like veins, constricting, the archways narrowing as we pass through, forcing us to squeeze between gaps that weren’t there moments before.
A low rumble sounds, as if the building itself is breathing, and with each inhale, the walls seem to close in.
I eye them warily as we pass while silence pools in corners, broken only by the occasional drip echoing through vaulted spaces.
Saige looks to the shafts of light piercing the tiered roof crowned with more rich foliage, thick with suspended motes that swirl in phantom breeze. My own gaze catches on the empty stone archways, and I find myself veering off the path towards them, running my fingers across the roughened surface.
“Portals?” Saige studies them at my side.
“Mirrors,” I tell her, trying to imagine what they looked like when they were whole. “At least they were. Custom made in the House of Mirrors itself, imported here at great expense, no doubt. Only to be destroyed at the height of the Reckoning.”
“Good riddance,” Saige mutters, adjusting her satchel over her shoulder and returning to the path.
We pass stone plinths intricately carved with designs of the Eternal Triad support enormous pillars that reach up into the high ceiling—what’s left of it.
The air is thick with incense, though there is no sign of whoever lit the sticks.
There are statues of the gods—beautiful and all-knowing, while the High King and Queen of the Azkari serve the realm from beneath them.
As we duck under another archway, Saige halts so abruptly I bump into her. But she doesn’t notice. Her attention is locked on the structure ahead…