60. Saige
Saige
“Archer,” I breathe, and his lips are on mine.
He kisses me fiercely, as though he has thought of nothing else despite the world falling apart around us. His fingers thread through my hair, tilting my face to his as he devours me, wedging a muscular thigh between my legs, coaxing a soft cry from me.
“Gods, you are scored upon my heart, Saige,” he murmurs against my lips. “Scored upon my very soul.”
I open for him, allowing his tongue to sweep in, stroking mine. “Archer…” I moan.
“Triad save me, when you say my name…” He palms my breasts through his shirt, teasing my nipples. “I want you to be mine.”
“I am yours.” I yank him back down to me, claiming him with my mouth.
A whirlwind of heat surrounds us, and for a second, it feels like we’re flying—airbound through time and space.
Suddenly, we’re in another room in his residence.
A parlor. There is a piano forte in the corner, its lid lifted, its seat pushed back as though someone paused mid-song.
There are sheets of music sitting atop it, and books, piles of books.
Sweeping landscapes in oil paint adorn the walls, some of the Spine of Lorevael, others of distant lands I have no knowledge of.
It’s just a scratch of the surface, I realize.
Archer has five hundred years of experience, and the things in this room are a drop in the ocean.
He gently cups my jaw and turns my head to look ahead.
An arched, floor length mirror stands before us in a simple gilded frame. Archer towers behind me, a wicked smile curving his lips.
“You like to watch,” I murmur, letting his shirt drop from my shoulders, so he can see every inch of skin on display.
“I like watching you,” he corrects, his hands following my bare curves, his lips lowering to the sensitive spot between my neck and shoulder. “I like watching us.”
His reflection is beyond beautiful, his dark hair falling over his face as he continues to kiss my body, his broad shoulders curved over me, muscles shifting as he strokes me.
My body comes alive under his touch, my heartbeat quickening as he surrounds me, pinning me with his dark stare.
The words are on the tip of my tongue, as they have been since the confession first spilled from his lips.
“Archer, I—”
“Tell me tomorrow,” he says, teeth grazing my throat. “Better yet, tell me when it brings me back from the brink.”
I moan, pushing back against him, thoroughly convinced that this man will be the death of me. I can’t get enough, the need for him is insatiable—
Something unnatural shifts inside the mirror, and my heart stutters.
The glass ripples and I stagger forward, held upright only by Archer’s grip.
“Saige—” His voice is panicked, and that, more than anything, scares me.
Archer never panics. I cling to him as the atmosphere shifts, my heart pounding.
A spell of dizziness washes over me, my limbs shaking, my knees buckling.
I wait for the onslaught of pain down my side, for that’s the only thing this can be, isn’t it?
I’m wheezing, struggling to gulp down air, suddenly increasingly sensitive to Archer’s touch, to the sounds that are escaping me.
There is a surge of energy, and another ripple across the surface of the mirror. The parlor shimmers around me, and I’m gone.
It feels like weavewalking with Archer, but instinct tells me that’s not what this is. I know I am falling through time and space and deception. As I plummet, it’s as though layers of myself are peeling away, a skin I didn’t even know was there, a lie I don’t quite understand.
I open my eyes to find I’m in a burning building.
I don’t feel the dark flames as they consume the wooden framework or the drapes, I simply stand amidst the inferno as my gaze catches on a much smaller form. In a trance, I go towards the shape writhing in the smoke.
A child.
A young girl, desperately trying to unlock a window.
She looks familiar.
Light gold hair, light colored eyes.
I recognize the slant of her jaw, the shape of her nose. So familiar.
A ragged gasp escapes me.
The little girl is me.
No more than five years old, I’m crying, screaming, calling out for my Mama and Papa.
The fire races towards me, searing my young skin, filling the air with the scent of burning flesh, burning hair. I can taste it on my tongue as the younger me chokes on thick black smoke.
The glass in the window explodes, shards blasting outwards, swallowed by flame, embedding into the body of my younger self.
The building itself groans as the blaze devours what remains of its structure, and the small girl, despite all her injuries, clambers up to the jagged windowsill.
She looks over her shoulder and hesitates, just for a moment, staring at the savage flames and the agonizing death that awaits her—and then she leaps—
I’m there, outside the burning building as she lands with a sickening thud, her skin still flame, her bones broken.
I’m there as she lifts her head weakly, her young face a canvas of pain and suffering, only for the slow realization to dawn…
Ash-covered black boots are inches from her face.
She looks up through blood and tears to see a figure towering over her broken body… and even so young, the cruel irony isn’t lost. Her features crumple with defeat. For she escaped the flames only to fall directly into the hands of their creator.
For a long moment, the figure stands motionless.
And the young girl—the young me—tries to crawl away but she can’t move. Much of her small body is burned raw, glass is embedded in her skin, and bones are fractured from the fall.
She is at his mercy.
The figure reaches down towards her—and she whimpers—the end is near. He will finish what the fire started.
My vision blacks out just as his hand touches the girl’s shoulder, and a familiar voice murmurs through time and memory, “You weren’t supposed to be here.”
An unstoppable force is pulling me out of the memory.
Inevitable.
I choke on a broken sob at what I see.
It’s me.
I’m back before the mirror in Archer’s parlor, naked.
And all down my left side, are horrific scars.
My skin is suddenly not my own. Starting from my neck, the web of scarring maps over my shoulder and down my arm, some are raised like twisted rope, others sunken like valleys in my flesh.
Tendrils of black shift through them, something alive under my skin.
Smaller scars litter my ribs, silvery white in color while other areas are darker, the skin pulled tight and shiny.
The expanse of my left hip and outer thigh is covered in marred flesh.
Some parts seem to have patterns, ribbons of dancing onyx threads.
I can’t get enough air in my lungs. It feels like fire burning down my throat.
I stare at the naked body I don’t recognize, and the old pain comes back to me, my legs buckling beneath the force of it.
The pain I’ve had for as long as I can remember, that searing agony that flares down my side, in exactly the same place as these scars.
With trembling hands I claw at my skin, the shaking so bad I can barely touch my own flesh.
This isn’t me.
It can’t be.
I dry retch.
It’s as though a veil has been lifted. For what maps my body, is what the mirror showed me.
Scars—worse than those on Archer’s back—wrapping around almost half of me.
I’m gasping for air now. More scarring. More roughly textured skin.
And strange black markings interspersed throughout them all.
I scrub at it with my hands, as though I can somehow wash it away.
The scars remain.
I come back to myself on the floor of the parlor, gasping for air on all fours, my face streaked with tears.
I rest my brow on the plush rug and sob, the sound ragged and desperate as it claws out of my throat.
I see spots as all my senses narrow to the pounding of my heart, and the terrifying sensation of being squeezed too tight.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I claw at my throat, I claw at the scars on my naked body, as the memory becomes sharper and sharper in my mind.
“Saige.” His voice cuts through it all, panicked, full of concern.
Warm, gentle hands pull me to my feet, press me to the hard planes of his body I’ve come to know as a sanctuary, a safe haven. A silk robe is draped over my shoulders, and I fight to get the air into my lungs, one ragged inhalation at a time, until I have the strength to look up at Archer.
His green eyes flare as they take in the un-veiled truth of my scarred, broken body—the brutal canvas of pain. Fury blazes in his emerald gaze as he cups my face. “Who?” he demands. “Who did this to you?
Still trembling, I step back from his embrace, allowing him to see every inch of ruined skin and the rage in my own eyes. “You,” I tell him. “You did this to me.”