57. Archer
Archer
Standing beneath one of the many floor-to-ceiling windows in my chambers, I am greeted by a canvas of black, and a sky bursting with silver stars.
Saige isn’t here to ask me about them.
And for the first time, I want to tell her what I see.
“Have you talked to Eryx alone since you’ve been back?” Daemos asks, pouring himself a drink from the cart in the corner of my room. “He was rather vocal in the atrium today.”
“No,” I grunt. “I haven’t had the chance to speak with him. He doesn’t seem thrilled by my return.”
“We grieved you, Archie. For all this time, we believed you dead. There’s a lot to unpack with you back on the throne.”
“A lot to unpack?” I gape at him. “How do you think it is for me? I’ve been locked up and tortured for all this time. If anyone needs time to unpack things, it’s me.”
Daemos puts his hands up in mock surrender. “Easy, brother. All I’m saying is that I’ve had a few weeks to get used to the idea, to come to terms with what was done to you. Eryx hasn’t. And you know he’s always had a chip on his shoulder about Caelyth.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to reassure him that Caelyth’s choices were his own. It’s not Eryx’s fault our parents split the territories.”
“No,” Daemos allows. “But you can see why he might blame himself. The youngest son who had something to prove, who was always starting fights with the rest… Without him, they would never have done such a thing.”
I spear my fingers through my hair. “We can’t undo what was done by those who came before. We need to think of the here and now. Malevron—”
“Intends to wipe the board clean with his monsters, I know,” Daemos interrupts. “One way or another, he wants one unified house under his rule.”
“It’s what he wanted two hundred and fifty years ago, it’s what he wants now.
” I abandon my spot under the window and stars, and brace myself above the mantle, staring into the orange flames I used to wield.
“We underestimated his bitterness back then, his rage at his birthright being taken from him. But now we know—he will stop at nothing.”
My brother makes a noise of agreement as he sips from his goblet. “I’ve started to wonder about something… Do you think it’s possible that with every piece of the Confluence restored, it becomes more detectable to Malevron?”
As I stare into the fire, it comes back to me.
“Sometimes I hear it murmuring,” Saige tells me, dazed.
I tense. “What do you mean? What can you hear?”
“Whispers between worlds—”
“Archeron?” Daemos interrupts my thoughts. “Are you with me?”
Shaking the memory from my head, I find my brother watching me warily. “It’s possible. Why?”
“I was just thinking aloud and trying to outline the plan. Though it seems, your mind is elsewhere. Perhaps with a certain mortal bookbinder?”
There’s no point in denying it, I know it’s written all over my face.
“You’ve fallen for her,” Daemos says slowly, as though he’s confirming something he already knew.
I hang my head and rub the back of my neck as disappointment settles like a stone in my stomach. Between the ridges of Ignizar below, lava flows in rivers, some turning silver as it hits the cooler air, the same shade as Saige’s eyes.
“Yes,” I hear myself say. “I have.”
“Then why didn’t you tell her who you were? You set yourself up for failure,” Daemos replies, exasperated.
“You weren’t exactly supportive to begin with,” I counter before a heavy sigh escapes me.
“At first, it didn’t matter who I was. She was just a means to an end, a bookbinder whose skillset I needed to get what I wanted.
When she started to weasel her way under my skin, I told myself it still didn’t matter.
Nothing could happen between us; I’d been clear about that.
At the end of our bargain, we’d go our separate ways, and she’d be none the wiser—where was the harm in that? ”
Daemos snorts. “But she stayed under your skin. So why didn’t you tell her then?”
“Because I didn’t want her to think differently of me. She was the first person who saw me for who I truly am. And after centuries of being a no more than a ghost, I couldn’t give that up.”
“She would have understood, don’t you think?” my brother says gently.
“Yes,” I allow. “But by then, she had become someone I cared for, someone I loved. And those I love become a target to Malevron. I wanted to protect her from this place, from our world. Don’t you remember what Malevron did with Isindrel?
How she was used against me? If Malevron learns about Saige… about who she is to me…”
“She’s your weakness.”
“Yes. Just seeing Uncle Rhendorn’s eyes on her in the atrium was enough to get my back up.
The second anyone knows she’s important, the second she’s in danger.
Though, I should have known it would come to this the moment I found out her name.
As soon as I heard it, I knew in my bones how much she would mean to me. ”
“What does her name have to do with anything?”
I take a trembling breath and reach for the collar of my shirt, dragging it over my head and baring my back to my brother for the first time since my capture. “Everything.”
I’ve never felt more naked, more exposed than in this moment, with my scars and ink completely bared. I stand by the fire, so that the flames illuminate every inch of ragged flesh, and every delicate floral detail between the larger expanses of tattooed skin.
I hear the gasp of horror on Daemos’ lips. “Caelyth did this to you? He must have…”
“Ordered salt rubbed in open wounds? Yes, he did. And regularly,” I feel disconnected from the words spilling out of me. As though this happened to a stranger.
“That fucking bastard. I’m sorry, Archeron. I’m so fucking sorry,” Daemos’ voice cracks. “I had no idea. Even when you told me.”
“Seeing it is different,” I allow. I can still feel the lash of the whip opening my back, I can still feel the blood filling my boots. “Do you know the one thing that grew in those dungeons?” I hear myself ask, my own voice shaking. “The only thing that thrived in that wretched, evil place?”
Daemos doesn’t speak, but I can feel his gaze raking over my brutalized back, tracing the evidence of lashings and blades and poison, and then the art I had inked there long ago, before I even met the mortal bookbinder: the pieces that link everything together, the one piece of hope I carried with me all this time.
“It grew in the cracks of the stone,” I say quietly. “Somehow blossoming in the darkest corners, in the most desolate of places. Wild and unruly, determined to live no matter how hopeless the circumstances. It was the one thing that told me there was life after the darkest hour.”
There is an intake of breath, soft and feminine. “Sage.”
I turn to find Saige Grayson standing in the doorway, her lips parted in shock, her hand still on the door handle.
Daemos is already moving towards the door as he looks between us. “I’ll leave you two to talk…”
The door to my chambers clicks shut and my brother is gone, and suddenly, it’s Saige who stands behind me, the single word a flutter of warmth on my icy spine. “Sage.”
With gentle fingers, she maps the patterns across my back, the intricate illustrations I designed in the depths of that nightmare.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I nod slowly.
I push off from the mantle, staring at her reflection in the mirror, letting her see every raw emotion churning within.
“For decades, all I could do was look around, and take in the horror and the pain of the realms, asking myself if it was worth it,” I say roughly.
“Gods, I did that every day. Every fucking day. But when I saw the sage for the first time, it gave me hope. If it could thrive in the dark, so could I. If it could find the cracks in my prison, so could I.”
Her hand twitches at her side, as though she wants to reach out and touch me, but decides against it. Instead, she studies my face.
I take a trembling breath. “I did find those cracks in the prison. I waited. Gathering what little strength and power I had left in that cell… and then I started my hunt. I tracked Malevron’s surviving followers, destroying them where I could, rooting them out of hiding and burning them to ash.
I started searching for the Confluence. My sole focus was his destruction, his fiery demise. Until you.”
Gently, Saige turns me to face her, the glow of the hearth illuminating every facet of her wild beauty. Her touch is careful, reverent as her hands drop from the nape of my neck where my tattoos disappear into my hairline, to my bare chest, resting over my heart.
I drop my forehead to hers. “Daemos’ whispers hid your name from the world, but as soon as I heard it uttered on that bastard Reid’s tongue, I knew it for the answer it was—the answer to a question I didn’t even know I’d been asking for all that time.”
“What was the question?” she whispers.
I take a breath, savoring the lilac and parchment scent of her, realizing there’s something else there now too—me. She smells like me.
“After five hundred years of existence, after years of torment and pain, it was: What are you waiting for, Archeron? And it was you. I was waiting for you.”
A soft cry escapes her, and at last, I wrap my arms around her.
“I finished it.” Her words are muffled against my chest, and I almost don’t hear her.
“What?”
“I finished the restoration. It’s done. It’s over.”
The news doesn’t fill me with the relief I expected. Unease swirls in my stomach, and my grip around Saige tightens. I’m not entirely sure what I feel, but it reminds me of loss. “It’s complete?” I ask slowly.
“Yes.” She takes a deep breath. “There are things I will never know about this book, but I have taken it as far as I can. It won’t ever be exactly as it was—”
“I don’t care,” I manage. “I don’t care about the Confluence, or Malevron, or the war,” I confess. “Not now. Now I… I only care about you. The fate of the realm be damned.”
“Archer,” she murmurs, and the name I gave her in that other cell rings truer than any that came before. I gave it to her on a whim, in a careless breath, not knowing that it would be who I became here and now. It’s who I am, who I want to be, for her.
“I was always meant to find you,” I say into her hair.
“And when I finally did… I couldn’t withstand you.
” I pull back, just enough to stare into her eyes and brush my thumb over her trembling lower lip.
“Please forgive me, Grayson. I’m so sorry for the lies, for the hurt I caused.
But I can’t fight this anymore. You mean everything to me. ”
“Everything?” she whispers, tears lining her eyes.
“Everything,” I tell her, a thick lump forming in my throat.
“Will you finally let me in?” Saige asks. “I need to know all of you.”
I want to pull her into my arms, I want to kiss the top of her head and tell her that it will all be alright, that we’ll figure it out. But I can’t lie to her again, so instead, I say, “I don’t have all the answers…”
“I don’t expect you to.” Saige cups my face, the tears spilling down her cheeks. “But I forgive you, Archer.”
Relief surges through me like a flood of water over a raging fire. For the first time in days, I feel a calmness settle over me, stilling the inferno within. I rest my brow against Saige’s, drinking in her closeness, her warmth. “Thank you.”
She blinks up at me. “So, what now, General?”
“Now there’s something important I need to tell you.” I’m suddenly unable to contain the words bursting from my lips. “I’m in love you,” I tell her like it’s a vow, an oath I am making just for her. “I’m so fucking in love with you.”
And then, I kiss her.