52. Saige
Saige
“He’s expecting you.” Daemos pushes the door inward and ushers me inside.
It’s been hours since we arrived in Ignizar, the House of Desires, and I’m still in shock.
I step into the room, dazed. Only the door clicking closed behind me tells me Daemos has left and I’m entering the room alone, a gasp on my lips.
The man I thought I knew doesn’t suit this court, with its fiery floors and intimidating throne, with its formalities and grandeur.
But the chambers before me are all Archer.
The foyer opens onto a sumptuous private sanctuary where ornate architecture frames a sweeping view of distant spires and rivers of silver and golden lava.
Warm amber light from gilded wall sconces and candelabras casts intimate shadows across the luxurious space, illuminating a grand bed draped in midnight-blue silks.
Beyond the bedroom with its dark, lush furnishings, is a beautiful sitting room that opens out onto yet another balcony that sits on the very peak of a soaring, near-vertical mountain spire.
It rises dramatically from the surrounding landscape, lava flowing gently through the ridges and valleys below.
Entire sections of the mountain glow from within as night falls, with veins of magma visible through natural fissures that pulse like heartbeats.
As I explore more of the royal quarters, barefoot on the marble floor, I pass more arched windows and open terraces, the light catching and framing the breathtaking views.
And leaning against a beautifully carved stone pillar and looking out onto the rugged landscape, is the Prince of Desires himself. It’s an incredible spot to see the stars from, but I don’t ask him about it, not this time.
“Your Highness,” I say, announcing my presence.
“Don’t call me that, Grayson.” He doesn’t turn around. “Not you.”
“That’s who you are,” I tell him, trying and failing to keep the edge from my voice.
“Is it?” he replies.
The anger that threatened to spill over earlier bubbles back to life inside me, and I’m closing the distance between us in a matter of steps. “You tell me,” I demand. “You’re the one who hasn’t told the truth.”
“I am one of four sons to the High King and Queen of the Azkari, yes. Though I haven’t been a prince in a long time.”
The sadness in his voice nearly breaks me, but I shake my head, ignoring the sting of tears as they blur my vision.
“Every time you let me think you were just a soldier, that was a choice. You told me you were a lot of things, but that you weren’t a liar.
Yet here we are. Hundreds of lies later.
Not a general, but a ruler. You even told me you only had two brothers. ”
“I do not see my eldest brother as family anymore. He is dead to me. The one I loved the most, became the person I hate most in the entire realm. I will never call him brother again. But I know I’ve fucked up,” he breathes, his head bowing. “I’m sorry, Grayson.”
“You’re sorry?”
“More than you can imagine.”
I’m struggling to keep my composure, the lump in my throat is almost blocking my airway. And yet I manage to say, “That’s why you were engaged. You have to marry a pure-blooded Azkari.”
“I don’t have to do anything. Not anymore.”
“Then what was your plan for when I found out? You couldn’t have kept this hidden forever. Was I just to be your pet? Your silly little mortal piece on the side?”
Archer looks horrified and he takes a step towards me. “Grayson, no.”
I step back. I’m not sure I can handle his touch right now, not when I don’t know what to believe. “All this time, you knew we couldn’t be together. An Azkari prince and a mortal bookbinder? Is anything you’ve said true? I feel like I don’t even know you.”
He doesn’t touch me, but his expression belies all the anguish roiling beneath the surface.
“I never wanted to be a prince. And I wasn’t meant to be.
My parents—the High King and Queen of the Azkari, they made choices.
They believed there was less chance for war if things were fair between all of us, if power was shared not monopolized by one.
So they split the territory into four houses rather than pass it down to my eldest brother, as was tradition. ”
“Malevron,” I surmise, nausea swirling in my abdomen.
“His name was Caelyth, before. When it happened, I told him I’d give my land to him, that it was his by right.
But the damage had already been done. He’d been slighted by our parents, at least in his eyes.
He didn’t see it as the good intentions they meant it as; he saw it as a declaration of war.
It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Archer hangs his head and takes a shuddering breath.
I bite the inside of my cheek as the pieces slowly come together in my mind. Caelyth became Malevron, the House of Mirrors became Morzanmyre, and Archer… the Prince of Desires, became the Black Flame.
“I loved my brother,” he tells me. “And he wielded that unquestioning loyalty against me like a blade. So badly that I’m still bleeding…
My own brother did what he did to me, to countless others.
For centuries. I tell myself that it wasn’t him, that Caelyth was long gone, his own mind distorted by mirror magic.
But there were moments in that dungeon where I saw glimmers of Malevron as he watched these unspeakable things being done to me and…
there was a glint in his eyes. Caelyth was in there somewhere.
And a part of him rejoiced at my suffering.
I don’t know what I ever did to him to make him feel like that.
I don’t think I ever will. I tried to tell him I never wanted it, that I was never meant to rule.
It’s not who I am. With you… With you I got to be exactly who I am. ”
A tear tracks down my cheek, but I don’t move to brush it away. “You didn’t even tell me your real name. All this time, every time I told you that I see you… I didn’t even know you.”
“By not knowing me as Archeron, you've known me better than anyone.” Archer’s hands twitch at his sides, as though he’s stopping himself from reaching for me.
Part of me wishes he would, wishes that he would wrap his arms around me and offer the sturdy comfort of his body. I picture it—him pressing a kiss to the top of my head, me inhaling the scent of him and my body unfurling as I relax into him.
But it can’t be like that, can it? Not now. “We made a bargain—I needed something, you needed something, so we agreed. But what about the rest, Prince? Was any of it real? How do I know if you’ve been using magic on me? Manipulating me? Your territory is the House of Desires for Triad’s sake.”
Archer closes his eyes for a moment, as though bracing himself against my words before he speaks. “I can feel and control the desires of everyone else—everyone but those I desire most… And I have only ever experienced that once. With you.”
“I don’t know what to believe.” My voice almost cracks. “Why should I believe you now?”
Archer’s throat bobs, and then he straightens, pushing his shoulders back, a mask sliding into place over his pained expression. “You make a fair point, Grayson. Perhaps this is for the best.”
“What do you mean?” I gape at him.
“I mean that I think we’ve reached a natural end point for our… dealings. I’m glad we reached this conclusion before it went any further.”
“Any further?” I echo.
“We didn’t…” he makes an awkward gesture.
“But everything else we did means nothing?”
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I don’t know!” he half-shouts. “That I’m no good for you?
That I never will be? I should never have let it get this far.
” He runs his fingers through his hair and implores me.
“I can’t let you waste what precious life you have with me, Grayson.
I’m not worth it. You’ll find some mortal man to make you happy. ”
“I don’t want a mortal man,” I fire back.
“But you will. One who can care for you, who doesn’t bring monsters to your doorstep.”
“I’m done with men telling me what I want.” I stand tall and defiant. “And the monsters were knocking on my door long before you came along, General.”
“Be that as it may, I will not have you waste your youth on me.”
“You don’t get to decide.” I watch him closely, and as I see the black rings of fire flare in his green eyes, as I feel the heat of the room intensify, I understand exactly what’s happening, what he’s trying to do.
“Why are you self-sabotaging, General?” I ask quietly, noting the crease form between his brows, the way he twists the silver rings on his fingers.
“The longer you deny whatever this is between us, is simply more time wasted. Time we could have had together. How many years might I have left? Should I not spend them doing exactly what I want?”
“You could have a hundred years left and it still wouldn’t be enough. It will never be enough. Which is why we shouldn’t do this.”
“You don’t want me?”
“I didn’t say that, Grayson.”
“Then what?”
“Every moment of happiness is one moment closer to the end,” he says. “We only get so many firsts. First kiss, first time, first fight, first make-up... then what? Then it's just... lasts.”
“So that’s it? You just won’t experience any of it? For fear of the hurt?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“No? I think it’s the simplest thing in the world. Admitting our feelings will be painful, but so will suppressing them. There is no good option here, General. So why not throw caution to the wind and for once, just live?”
“I think we’ve said all we need to say,” he mutters, looking anywhere but at me.
Sometimes it strikes me how lost the general looks—a sad boy amidst the carnage of the world, or what it became in his absence. And who can blame him? Locked away for an unimaginable stretch of time, while all those he knew lived on.
It’s me who takes a step forward this time, closing the gap between us. “I don’t think we have. Where does this self-loathing come from?”
“Leave it alone, Grayson.”
“No.” He may be the Black Flame, but I have just as much fire. “No, I will not leave it alone. Your lies aside, you don’t deserve to suffer. You’re a fucking war hero.”
He starts to move away from me, towards the balcony, where the molten lava calls beyond. “No, I’m not.”
I follow. “Two hundred years of peace says otherwise.”
“It doesn’t. Just drop it.”
“I won’t.”
“Please, Grayson. You don’t need to do this. You’ll only hate me more—”
I grab the front of his shirt and haul him towards me, forcing his gaze to mine. “You do that enough for both of us, General. Tell me why.”
“Because I failed,” he roars, tipping his head to the ceiling in utter anguish. “I fucking failed to destroy him.”
I blink up at him, trying to wrap my head around his words, his pain, his guilt. “Malevron?” I ask quietly. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“But it was, Grayson,” he says hoarsely, his cracking. “When it mattered most, when the realm depended on me, I faltered.”
I’m staring at him, wondering how he has survived two hundred years of blaming himself for this madness. “I saw what happened,” I argue. “I saw it in one of your dreams—the explosion, the crater. It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing else you could have done.”
“You don’t believe me,” he says roughly, putting a hand to my elbow and leading me into another room.
At that simple touch, I gasp. The threads that connect us to the Weave flutter into being before my eyes, the essence of us and our bargain dancing together and pulling me into the past along with Archer.
He takes me to a familiar looking mirror. “Then let me show you.”