62. Saige
Saige
Clutching my satchel to my chest, I flee his residences, wincing at the tightness of my skin where scars map my body.
For thirty years I’ve had them, have felt the lingering pain of them, and yet…
I didn’t know. I didn’t know how broken I truly was, how ruined.
My scars pulse with phantom heat, as though they’re waking up after thirty years of sleep.
The skin feels too tight, stretched over bones that don’t quite fit anymore.
It’s like wearing a stranger’s flesh, like discovering I’ve been living in a body I never truly knew.
With each step, I feel the network of damaged tissue pulling, reminding me it was always there—I just couldn’t see it.
Choking back a sob, I run. I’m desperate to hide, to find somewhere cool and dark where I can gather my composure, or simply pretend that all this isn’t happening—
I slam right into Raven, who surveys me with a panicked expression. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Where have you been? The meeting—” She cuts herself off, her eyes dropping to a patch of scarred skin that peeks out from my collar. “What the fuck, Saige? What happened?”
I grip my satchel like it’s a lifeline, forgetting entirely that there’s a volatile and fragile magical book inside. I stare at my friend, opening and closing my mouth several times as I try to find the words and fail. Triad save me, I can’t do this here. I must keep it together.
“Come with me,” she says, taking my elbow and gently leading me down a corridor. Soon, Grim is trotting at our ankles and Raven lets us into a room I haven’t seen before. “We couldn’t find you.”
“I was with—”
“Archer, we figured,” she finishes for me, closing the door behind us and turning to me, waiting for an explanation.
“Do you…” I force myself to take a steadying breath. “Do you have any cosmetics? Creams or powders I can use to…”
“No.” Raven’s gaze drops back to the hint of scarring. “Why do you need it?”
“It’s a long story,” I manage, tugging my collar up. “We need to be at that meeting—”
“What did he do?” Fury flashes across her face as she reaches for my shirt. “Saige. You tell me now and I’ll end him; I’ll find a way. I don’t care if he’s an Azkari, a prince or a damn—”
“Please.” I bat her hand away. “I promise I’ll tell you, but not now. Right now, I need you to help me cover up these damn scars. I don’t want people staring at them. I don’t want to see them myself. Not when I have to deliver this thing to the Azkari in order to get the fuck out of this place.”
People used to say Raven and I had a wordless language that was solely our own.
We used to scare boys off by communicating in front of them with a lift of a brow, or a pointed stare, we could have whole conversations like that.
It’s that bond I tap into now, trying to convey with my eyes how much I need her to follow my lead, to let me do what I need to do without interference.
If she won’t listen to my words, she will hear me this way.
Raven looks like she wants to protest, like she’s ready to cut a man limb from limb. But her expression softens when she takes in my desperation and Grim nuzzles my side with his wet nose.
“Fine,” she says eventually, heading to her pack.
With her help, I change into a fresh pair of breeches and a new breast band and shirt that aren’t torn to shreds.
I button the sleeves at the wrists instead of rolling them up to my elbow, and Raven fastens a collared cloak around my shoulders.
She positions the hood to drape to one side of my neck, covering the sliver of scar that peeks out.
“Whatever you’re going through, I’m here,” she says firmly, pinning the hood in place with a brooch so it doesn’t slip away.
How can I say what I need to without breaking?
I loved him. I loved him like no one else.
And now this? To find out he is the source of all my pain.
The agony that’s had its claws in me for three decades.
It’s him. It’s always been him. Was it so long ago that my pain episode in the bindery had me questioning if I’d finally reached the peak of all pain?
A ten out of ten on the scale? I thought I had.
But I was wrong. This is the height of pain.
In fact, there is no metric for this kind of agony.
“Thank you,” I tell her stiffly.
“You’re shaking.”
I shove my hands in my pockets. “I’m aware.”
“You need to focus on something else, to pull yourself together. We can do this. We can figure it out. We can pull you together. Tell me, what’s one of the best times in your life?” she asks, holding my gaze.
“We don’t need to do this now—”
Raven takes me by the shoulders, lending me her strength. “We do. You’re going to walk in there with your head held high. Like a gods-damned queen. Tell me, Saige.”
I feel my throat bob as I swallow the lump there. “I suppose… When I moved into the lodgings near the market square, after you split up with that… was he a cobbler?”
“I think he was a miller…?”
“Those are two very different things,” I say with a tired laugh.
“Whoever he was, it doesn’t matter. It was when I lived in that tiny flat.
I woke and slept on my own schedule. There was so much freedom, so much joy in getting to know myself outside of work and obligations.
I woke up and drank tea on the balcony, stuffed my face with stale pastries I pillaged from the bakery the night before, without having to say a word to anyone.
I could eat a block of cheese for dinner without having to justify it.
I could come home from the Kettle and dance in my nightshirt to music only I could hear.
It was a time in my life where I said fuck everyone and everything, fuck expectations and propriety.
I did whatever I wanted, for me and me alone.
I could… I could maybe be happy like that again. One day.”
Raven nods with a wide smile. “Then think of that when we enter that hall. Not long until we get you back to the bindery and you can live your life exactly like that, free of Azkari and magical tomes, free of their problems and lies. Just you. As your own woman.”
“I like the sound of that,” I admit.
“Then you must tell me what cheese was so good you ate an entire block in one night,” Raven adds. “You can never have enough cheese.”
I appreciate her attempt at distraction. “I’ll put in an order with the cheese monger as soon as we’re back. But for now, we need to get to that meeting. Once I deliver this, we can go home. We can—”
“Yev’s already there, saving us a spot. Follow me.”
With mere moments to spare, we find ourselves back in the Eros Atrium, and I’m still clutching my satchel to my heaving breast, the Confluence pulsing in time to my heart.
Mortals and Azkari alike take their seats in the throne room, the atmosphere decidedly more tense than before.
I’m grateful when I feel Raven’s hand in mine, squeezing it in reassurance.
When Archer steps out onto the dais, my knees buckle and I nearly lose it.
I had reconciled the green-eyed prisoner with the Azkari general known as the Black Flame.
The Black Flame had become Archer to me, someone special, someone I cared for deeply, someone I wanted to see flourish.
I had even reconciled Archer with the Azkari prince, the ruler of the House of Desires.
One identity after the next I had accepted and loved for every facet, every part of his wretched, tortured story.
It had been a painful, but enlightening journey. Until now.
Now, I don’t recognize the male clad in black armor standing before the throne of fire.
The room spins and I grab Raven’s arm to keep from falling.
Everything feels distant, muted, like I’m watching this happen to someone else.
My body is here but my mind is somewhere else—a little girl in the dirt, perhaps, or a woman who thought she knew what love could be.
I dig my nails into my palm until I feel the bite of pain, using it to anchor myself back to this moment, this betrayal, this truth.
I don’t know who he is, but for the pain he’s caused there is one word that echoes in my head.
Monster.
Archeron Dawnstrider is a monster.
His voice rings out across the hall, but it may as well be the voice of a stranger. “What do the rulers of Lorevael have to say? Who has selected champions to take the Confluence to Anwyn in time for the Triad’s Ascension?”
My heart hammering, I count four people stepping forward from all around the atrium. An Azkari female and three mortals—all men.
“Grayson.” My surname is cold on Archer’s lips as he barks it across the hall. “Bring the restored Confluence forward.”
I don’t look at him. I don’t look at anyone as I take the finished book from my satchel and carefully undo its wrappings before I take it to the center of the room, its power thrumming in my hands.
But something is different now. The book feels warm beneath my fingers—not uncomfortable, but familiar in a way that makes my skin crawl.
It pulses in rhythm with the ache in my scars, as though recognizing the magic trapped in my flesh.
His magic. I want to drop it, to scrub my hands clean, but I force myself to hold on.
Just a little longer. Just until I can be free of him.
After all the work I did to restore it, I feel protective of the Confluence, invested in it somehow.
That’s how I usually feel when a project ends, I reason with myself.
It’s only natural—to want assurance that your labors will not go unappreciated.