62. Saige #3
With a final glance at the stranger on the throne, I aim for the exit.
I need to get back to my life, back to the bindery.
I let this stupid quest; this stupid semblance of a romance take me away from my own ambitions.
But nothing will stop me going home now.
All I can think of is losing myself in the work—sharpening my knives, folding signatures, sewing, pressing…
I’m praying that someone in this Triad-forsaken place will help us take a portal back to Hanniel, but even if I must climb down the Spine of Lorevael on foot, it will be better than staying here.
I stride across the fiery floor, with Yevna, Grim, and Raven right next to me, their expressions mirror images of rage.
But as I get closer to the door, heat tingles at my wrists; tepid at first but growing warmer with every step. At the first flare of true heat, I look down to see those black manacles of flame encircling my wrists.
“What in the realms…” I murmur, hands shaking as the intensity starts to singe the fine hair on my arms.
“Saige?” Raven calls, looking back with confusion and alarm from where she’s reached the way out.
I feel the panic rising in me like a tide about to drown me as I take another step towards the door.
Fire kisses my skin and a shriek escapes me as the pain scorches across my flesh.
I can handle pain. I always have. I have dealt with it all my life.
Gritting my teeth, I force one foot in front of the other, biting back a sob as flames sear my wrists.
“Saige!” Raven’s voice is distant because all I can do is focus on getting to that damn door, on ignoring the agony that tastes so familiar on my tongue.
There is a surge of power that rattles the chandeliers and more terrifying black flames leap to life, but this time, it’s not only around my wrists.
This time, a circle of dark fire traps me inside, cutting me off from everyone else.
I am alone. The flames roar, smoke billowing from the now glowing molten floor.
I hear people screaming in the distance, but all I can see is a perfect circle of onyx around me.
Heat kisses my skin, and my scars tingle in the presence of the power that made them.
My breaths come in short and fast as I run the perimeter of my flaming cage.
My chest constricts with a panic that tastes like smoke and childhood.
This is wrong, this is familiar, this is the nightmare I couldn’t remember but my body never forgot.
The smoke makes my eyes water, and for a horrible moment I’m certain I’ll have to jump again—through a window, through fire, through anything to escape.
My scars burn as though trying to warn me: You’ve been here before. You never left.
“We had a deal!” I shout over the roar of the flames, perspiration beading at my brow, my heart now in my throat as a sinking feeling consumes me. My vision narrows to a pinpoint, the edges going dark as understanding crystallizes into something cold and sharp in my belly.
“We did,” Archer says coolly as he steps through the blaze of his own making, dark smoke tapers away in thin, delicate ribbons from his fingertips.
The circle closes up again behind him, and now it’s just us two in the halo of fire.
“We made a bargain, and you won’t be free until that bargain is fulfilled. ”
My voice is full of venom, “I held up my end. I retrieved the Confluence. I restored it. I brought it here for you. Release me. We’re done.”
“But we’re not… The bargain isn’t complete.”
“What are you talking about?” I yell. “I did everything you asked. The Confluence is here, in your possession, in your home. There is nothing more.”
“Grayson, this is my court…” Archer says slowly. “But I never said Ignizar was my home.”
The words don’t make sense at first. Then they do—all at once, like a blade sliding between my ribs. My hand flies to my neck, fingers pressing against the scars hidden beneath fabric and fury. Of course. The trap was always there, invisible as the wounds I carried, patient as a predator.
I meet his eyes across the flames, and let him see not my breaking, but my reckoning.
The forced smile I have worn for so long is gone, and I let that anger—that until now has known no rhyme or reason—catch alight from the smoldering embers.
It’s time I set it all loose, time I liberated all that ugliness and watch the world around me burn.
Archer may have trapped me; he may have bound me to him… but he’s also just shown me exactly what kind of monster he is.
And I’ve survived monsters before.
“Before this war is done, I will break you.” I watch the fire-wielding prince flinch as he witnesses the resolve settle over me. “I see you now, Archeron,” I tell him coldly. “All of you.”