48. Saige #2
“By doing what?” I stall, eyeing the sharp steel in Reid’s hand. “By cutting off bits of me and leaving them out for the crows?”
“To start with,” Reid sneers, advancing.
Right, the idea of handling things on my own has gone to shit. “General?” I call.
At my invitation, Archer emerges from the back, his enormous frame blocking out the sunlight. “Touch her, and it will be the last fucking thing you do.”
Reid startles, all the blood draining from his face. “You—”
“Remember me, do you?” Archer muses, his tone falsely light as he places himself between me and Reid.
He moves with that same predatory grace as always.
Even with no weapon in sight, he’s still the most formidable force I’ve ever seen.
He looks to Thorne next. “You, I didn't have the displeasure of meeting last time. Which is lucky, for you.”
There is no veil muting his power today. He stands before the mortal men like a war god, ready to rip them apart limb from limb with his bare hands.
Thorne stands and sizes Archer up. “So you’re the Azkari who set my compound ablaze and killed my men. That could be perceived as an act of war, you know.”
“I was made for war,” Archer says calmly. “And my actions could also be perceived as justice being served against Hanniel’s biggest criminal organization.”
“Could be,” Thorne replies, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he addresses me. “So you’ve got an Azkari doing your dirty work for you now?”
“You’re one to talk,” I murmur.
Archer laughs, the sound full of more menace than amusement. “It’s alright, Grayson. I’ll do your dirty work any day, any time.” He glances at Reid, who’s still brandishing the knife. “I’d put that down before you hurt yourself.”
“I—”
Archer looks to me for permission, and I dip my head in subtle confirmation.
“Grayson here asked me not to break anything, but I think we can make an exception for you.” His hand blurs as it shoots out. There’s a loud crack and Reid cries out in pain, the knife clattering to the ground.
“You…” he whimpers, clutching his hand to his chest. “I think you broke my wrist—”
“I warned you,” Archer replies coldly, taking a menacing step forward.
Thorne advances and Archer’s hands shoot out again. He moves lightning fast despite his size, and I’m left gaping as he has both Thorne and Reid each pinned to the wall by their throats.
A garbled threat dies on Thorne’s lips.
Archer’s answering smile is deadly. “I was made to kill gods, boy. You are but an ant beneath my boot.” His large hands encircle the columns of their necks, squeezing until their faces redden and their eyes bulge.
A dark part of me relishes their terror.
How many decent people of Hanniel have they tormented and disposed of over the years?
How much suffering in this city has been by their hands?
For a moment, I can see Yevna and Raven bound and bloodied in the Copper Kettle, struck by these two bastards.
The rage almost blinds me, and I imagine Archer snapping their necks, their heads rolling lifelessly before he drops them to the floor.
But as I envision their deaths, something that has been nagging at me since this all started, comes to the forefront of my mind. It’s Thorne’s words from the night at the Copper Kettle coming back to me: They never quite managed to bring Leo to heel, the stubborn old fool…
“What do you know about Leo’s death?” I ask, staring at Thorne as the acrid scent of searing flesh fills my nose.
A gurgling noise escapes him as Archer loosens his grip enough for him to answer.
“The old man refused to work with Malevron,” Thorne rasps. “The True King wanted to make sure Bergmunn repaired it correctly, that he wasn’t motivated to damage it, so he was gracious at first, sending gifts and emissaries. But Bergmunn was a headstrong son of a bitch.”
Archer squeezes his throat again in warning.
I’m sweating, my heart hammering wildly against my sternum. “What happened?”
“If you can’t catch your flies with honey, the alternative is far less palatable…” Thorne wheezes. “The branded pursued Bergmunn, and after countless threats, Malevron grew impatient, and sent his men to abduct him. Your master was killed in the struggle.”
I’m not sure I can breathe. All this time, we thought Leo’s heart had given out… but all this time, he’d been fighting Malevron himself. Thorne and Reid knew.
The rage I usually work so hard to keep under control rises to the surface and for once, I don’t try to stamp it out.
I don’t try to see the bright side or fake a smile.
Instead, I let a lifetime of injustices and pain come to a head, and I lean into that darkness, nodding to Archer to continue.
I watch them suffer. They’re kicking their legs, their eyes streaming with tears, unable to form sentences as Archer burns them with his hands.
Ribbons of black smoke drifts from his grip, while his expression is one of boredom.
Their lives mean nothing to him but for the pain they’ve caused me.
I may not have known Archer for long, but I do know that if he had it his way, they’d be nothing but piles of ash on my floor.
It’s only as I picture it, that I think of it as the place I found Leo.
What would he think of this? What would he make of me now?
Would he have ever imagined his protégé ordering the murders of two men in his beloved shop?
A lump forms in my throat. This isn’t what he would have wanted for me.
“Archer,” I say gently, as not to startle him.
“Problem, Grayson?”
“You’re making a mess in my shop,” I tell him. “Or you’re about to.”
Reid looks on the verge of passing out, his screams trapped in his crushed windpipe, while Thorne’s face is purple and sweat pours from his brow as he kicks his feet weakly.
Archer considers them lazily, the weight of a fully grown man in each hand is nothing to him as he burns their necks at a steady pace. “Can’t have them thinking I don’t follow through on my threats…”
“I think they get the message.”
The Azkari general raises a brow and asks casually, “Do they?”
“Please—” Reid manages to rasp, his eyes bloodred.
“If it’s the mess you’re worried about, I’m more than happy to sweep up,” Archer tells me.
“Is it wrong that I find that romantic?” I reply, watching the pair of thugs panic.
“Nothing more romantic than laying the enemies of my lover to waste.”
“Is that what we are?”
Archer’s eyes spark with deviousness. “Do you need me to prove it, Grayson?”
An ear-piercing whimper breaks the tension between us, and I return my attention to the men who now smell like burnt pork. “You can stop now, Archer.”
At last, he drops them with a look of disgust.
They land on the floor in writhing heaps, a twin print of Archer’s hand around each of their throats in a blistered burn. Dry retching, wheezing, with tears streaming down their faces, they crawl towards the door.
“Approach Saige, Raven, Yevna, or even the damn dog, again, and I’ll finish the job, more slowly and painfully than you can ever imagine,” Archer tells them calmly.
With bloodshot eyes, Thorne pins me with a look that vows this is far from over.
The feeling’s mutual, I glare back at him.
But when they’ve left and the door clicks closed behind them at last, my shoulders cave in and I taste bile on my tongue.
Leo. He died in the struggle against an abductor and was left on the floor of his shop for me to find. I’ll never forget how I froze in that moment, how my heart clenched in my chest and my body was no longer my own.
“Grayson?”
“He died because he stood up to Malevron.” I swallow the rock in my throat, staring at the spot where I found his body.
Archer reaches for me. “A hero’s death.”
“But no one knows… I didn’t even know.”
“How could you?” he asks gently, drawing me in towards him, offering comfort with his body.
“For so long I couldn’t believe he was gone.
Not even as we cleaned out his house and sold his things.
Because when I went into his bedroom, the quilts were turned down from when he last got out of bed.
Like he was there a moment ago. He got up that morning, only to be killed in his own bindery, and we mourned him, not realizing he had died fighting the will of a tyrant. ”
“All the more reason to defeat Malevron for good,” Archer says.
“All the more reason,” I agree.
He considers me for a moment, his gaze mapping my expression, my tense stance, the way my hands are clenched at my sides. He steps forward, closing the distance between us, and he tucks my hair behind my ear. “He’d be proud, Grayson.”
“You think so?” I ask, my breath hitching beneath his touch. How much death clings to the tips of those fingers? Fingers that now traced a path of fire up my ribs. The hands of the Black Flame have ended lives, decimated cities… and yet, they feel like the most beautiful magic.
“I know,” he says.
His hand drops away, and he returns to the workshop.
As I’m about to follow him, my gaze falls to one of Leo’s old, withered plants, where a verdant shoot is protruding from the soil.
How? Everything has been dead for six months, not a single sign of life in any of the pots and now…
I move from one potted plant to the next, dazed to find more greenery peeking from the clumps of dirt.
Archer… he’s brought them back to life.