50. Saige
Saige
“You’re in my seat,” Archer’s voice echoes through the palace of fire and I freeze.
This can’t be right. I must have misheard.
I’m in shock from the attack on the bindery.
My heart is still hammering wildly; my eyes wet with tears for the fate that might await my beloved home in the wake of that creature.
The shattering of Leo’s mug hitting the ground is still echoing in my ears.
It makes sense that my mind is playing tricks on me. The war-torn Azkari general I’ve come to know over the last few weeks can’t be the same male confidently striding to the foot of a throne.
Only…
“Nephew,” the Azkari at the helm says with a ripple of shock. “Praise the Eternal Triad, you’re alive.”
I can feel Raven and Yevna’s eyes burning holes in me, but all I can do is stare as Archer stalks up the steps of the dais like a predator and towers over the apparent regent.
The latter stands, with a gracious bow of his head, his hand pressed to his chest. Words flow from his lips, that same lyrical language that cascades like a song—
“Use the common tongue, Rhendorn,” Archer snaps, eyes narrowing.
It strikes me that he’s not using it already because they are far from common.
“Thaelindor,” he told me at the temple of truth. “Spoken by select Azkari—usually royalty or noble courtiers.”
Heart hammering, I watch as Rhendorn switches languages seamlessly. “Your Highness, how glad we are to see your return. You must have much to tell us...”
The air leaves my lungs in a wild rush, and I must gasp because Raven’s hand slides into mine and squeezes.
Your Highness. It hits me like a blow to my chest. My knees buckle with each revelation, with each lie.
I’m going to be sick. Archer is both the Black Flame—the revered Azkari general from the Reckoning—and a Prince? A ruler of an entire Azkari territory…?
Whispers break out across the throne room like a plague of insects, buzzing all around. Some are spoken in Thaelindor, which leaves me feeling more vulnerable, like being shoved into a dark room where I’m unable to see. But others murmur in my own native tongue, though their words offer no comfort.
“Is that a brand on his neck?”
“Where has he been all this time? Leaving us to pick up the pieces after the war—”
“He’s an agent of Malevron, he’s got the mark to prove it—"
It’s only when Grim sits on my feet do I realize I’m shaking. The tremors wrack my body as I try and fail to understand what’s unfolding around me. I’m lost, so completely and utterly lost. The Azkari I’ve come to… care for… to know deeply… I do not know him at all.
The war mongering tyrant is Archer’s brother, the eldest of the four princes, sons to the High King and Queen of the Azkari.
“What the fuck?” Raven hisses in my direction, jaw slack as she watches on.
“I didn’t know,” I manage. “I didn’t—”
“Now is not the time or place,” Yevna whispers, her gaze darting around the elaborate atrium. “They can hear us.”
Clenching my fists at my sides, I remind myself to breathe, that every spiraling thought in my mind needs to wait, if not for me, then for the safety of Raven, Yevna and Grim. We are mortals in an Azkari house. We are lambs in a wolf’s den.
Though Archer hasn’t changed his ragged clothes or anything else tangible about his appearance, he is transformed. He draws himself to full height over his uncle, every bit the commanding ruler. “Move,” he says simply.
The male bows and descends the stairs of the dais with that predatory grace that only immortals can muster, but his gaze is accusatory as it meets Daemos’ across the throne room. Daemos—who is by deduction—also a prince.
I’m reeling, unable to reconcile the man whose lips tasted mine, who shared his fears, his dreams, his body with me—with the cold, calculating Azkari royal who now lowers himself onto the throne of fire.
The stranger up there is beautiful, wicked and cruel, honed by decades of war not only on the battlefield, but in the arena of Azkari politics.
He is power incarnate, crafted by the sharpest edges and darkest corners of his house and kind.
And I am bound to him, my freedom out of reach while our threads to the Weave remain tangled with one another.
Archer doesn’t acknowledge me, instead, his piercing emerald eyes sweep over the courtiers on the edges of the hall, more of them gathering by the second as no doubt word of his return spreads through the volcanic mountain.
He sits back in the elaborate throne as though it’s a lounge chair, looking just as at home up there as he does in the saddle or wielding a flaming sword.
He crosses a muddied boot over his knee and leans an elbow against the embellished armrest, running his fingers along the stubble of his sharp jaw.
He doesn’t raise his voice to speak; he doesn’t need to.
The atrium falls silent for him. “Mere hours ago, a wave of magic was felt across Lorevael. This occurrence was not power unknown to us, it was the awakening of an old foe and it must be addressed.” He looks at someone out of my line of sight.
“Call a meeting of minds. Rulers of the remaining houses. Advisors of Anwyn. Anyone with a private army. Mortal rulers too. They are to convene at the House of Desires in three days’ time.
I invoke the old oaths of Lorevael. To ignore this order is to be on the wrong side of the next war.
To leave this call-to-arms unanswered is to face my wrath. ”
At those words, the atrium erupts into chaos, and its prince watches on, unaffected, unmoving. “Oh,” he adds, addressing no one in particular. “And someone should tell Prince Eryx that there are mirudytes in his Eldergrove.”
Who are you? I want to scream across the pandemonium, and for a second, I wonder if I do, because those emerald green eyes meet mine over the madness. I do not recognize the man behind them. There is no emotion, no outward expression, only a cool disinterest.
You make me want to be everything to you.
What happened to that Azkari? The one who braided my hair when I was sick? The one who brought me cups of hibiscus tea while I worked? The one who asked me to keep his secrets?
“Who are you to give orders here?” someone calls out from the crowd. “Two hundred years of absence. And you return to us marked by the Silver-Tongued Deceiver! How are we to trust anything you say—”
Screams pierce the air as black flames erupt from the polished ground, cutting a line across the atrium, shooting straight for the Azkari whose protest dies on his lips. Fire encircles the whimpering male, nipping at his heels, singing the hair on his arms.
“I do not answer to the likes of you.” In contrast to the rage roaring in his flames, Archer’s voice is pure ice.
“I shall explain during the meeting of minds, once and only once. I won’t repeat myself.
For now, you will praise the Eternal Triad for my return, and you shall bow before me as your prince. ”
I expect the Azkari to object, to cry out about their two hundred years of supposed abandonment, to keep pointing at the brutalized flesh on the side of his neck and call him a monster. But they don’t. Not with the ribbons of onyx fire still rippling through the court.
Instead, a new revelation dawns on the House of Desires.
“You’re the Black Flame?” someone shouts. “Prince Archeron Dawnstrider is the hero who ended the war!”
Archeron Dawnstrider. Not Archer. Not General.
My stomach lurches as all around us, the Azkari nobility bend the knee. It happens in one unified wave of reverence, a hundred or more bowing before their ruler, placing their hands over their hearts.
From where Archer sits on the throne, his green eyes glimmer with flecks of gold. “The war’s not over.” He rises to his feet, his hand moving to rest on the pommel of his sword. “It’s only just begun.”