Chapter 30 Araphi
Araphi
I’ll never belong anywhere else.
Gods, it’s the most beautiful sentence anyone has ever uttered to Araphi in her life. A mess of emotion rises in her throat, but she swallows it down. She’s overwhelmed, grateful, and hungry for more of Sage, always.
All she wants to do is say yes.
Before she can give voice to the fears and doubts stopping her, Sage’s mouth is against hers, and Araphi tangles her hands in the ranger’s short hair. “I love you,” she murmurs against Sage’s lips. “I love you, I love you.”
She can’t give her more than that at this moment, but she can give her honesty at least.
Sage smiles, and Araphi pulls back from the kiss to trace her favorite dimple, the line of Sage’s jaw, the scar above her eyebrow.
“You love me?” Sage whispers, her voice awed and tender.
“I love you,” Araphi murmurs again, the secret flowing out of her like meltwater from the mountains, rushing into streams after being frozen for months. “I’ve loved you nearly this entire adventure, Ranger, but I’ve always thought I shouldn’t tell you because we were destined to part.”
Sage hitches in a breath. “I love you as well, Bard. Now, here, and wherever we go.”
“I’m still not sure how this will work, though. With my family, this army of mercenaries…”
“We’ll figure something out,” Sage says firmly. “Together.”
Together. Araphi likes the sound of that so much. Maybe they don’t have to figure it out now. Maybe there’s a third option or a fourth or a fifth she’s not seeing. Maybe all she has to do is know that she and Sage will be together, no matter what else happens.
“Shall we go and face Remy’s fighters, then?” Araphi puts as much courage into the words as she can muster.
Sage kisses her again, long and lingering. “We shall. And no matter what happens, I’m by your side.”
“Always.” Araphi leans in for one more kiss, then threads her fingers through Sage’s.
Hand in hand, they walk down the forest path toward Briarwall.
Araphi has never been in a real battle before.
Yes, she’s had a knife held to her throat; yes, she’s brandished a piece of firewood at a pack of barbed wolves; and yes, she’s survived a plunge into the Swallow.
But this is different. The fighters stalking through the trees between them and Briarwall look battle-hardened, with long-healed scars, weapons in hand, and a dangerous glint in their eyes.
This is not what she signed up for—but it’s where she is, and at least Sage is by her side, whatever happens next.
I love you.
She squeezes the words into Sage’s hand before she lets go.
I love you.
She looks over at the ranger, who glares at the mess of fighters as she nocks an arrow.
I love you. And I will fight beside you, even if our adventure must end.
Araphi takes a deep breath and draws her slingshot, for what it’s worth.
She shifts her shoulders, and the lute she brought from Arkney settles.
She would very much prefer to not die here—but now, at last, she knows the full measure of her bravery.
She knows who she is, who she loves, and she’s willing to fight for it.
Even if this is the first battle of many.
Still close to sixty feet away from them, the fighters block the only path forward to the gate.
“Clear the way, please!” a familiar voice calls out. “Gods, Sage Wilderstone? Araphi Clauneck? Is that really you?”
Remy pushes out from behind a clump of fighters, striding toward them. His smile is broad but doesn’t reach his eyes. Bramble and Nura trail reluctantly behind him, neither looking very pleased to be there. But something buzzes in Araphi’s brain at his greeting.
He used her real first name.
She’d never given Remy her real name, and he would have no way to know she was Araphi Clauneck unless Sage’s speculations are correct, and Araphi’s aunt has figured out she was with the party, after all. It was a slim hope that she wouldn’t…but now that hope is gone.
“Stay right there,” Sage calls out to Remy, interrupting Araphi’s racing thoughts. She pulls an arrow taut in her bow. “We don’t want trouble. We just want to talk.”
Remy stops about halfway to them, holding up his hands.
“Give us the artifact, Sage. That’s all we want.
We might even be able to overlook you running off with it for all these months if you hand it over now.
I’m not sure you’ll ever find work again, with this stain on your reputation, but who knows?
There are always people willing to hire rangers, even ones who’ve stolen from their employers. ”
“We didn’t steal anything,” Sage spits out.
Araphi’s eyes fly to Bramble, who’s lurking sheepishly just beyond Remy.
What stories did they tell about the night she and Sage went into the Swallow?
Nura stands beside them, arms crossed, looking more wounded than angry.
She thinks they’ve betrayed her, betrayed the party.
If only there was some way to talk to both of them; they were friends once, after all.
Party members. Companions. Surely there’s a way to smooth all of this over?
There’s always a way.
“This is all a misunderstanding,” Araphi calls out, “which I hope we can solve with words instead of blades or arrows.”
Remy shrugs. “I’d be more than happy to sort it all out…after you hand over the tooth.”
“What if we don’t have it?” Araphi dares to ask.
“That would be a problem.” The agent’s eyes narrow. “A fairly insurmountable one.”
“Then we’ll do what we must,” Sage growls.
“C’mon, Sage,” Nura pleads, her knuckles standing out as she grips her staff. “You can’t mean to fight all of us.”
“We wouldn’t like to fight you at all, Nura!” Araphi pleads in return.
Bramble takes a tentative step forward. “Listen, I—”
The mercenary nearest to them drives an elbow into the healer’s stomach, sending them reeling backward behind the line of fighters.
Nura is shoved to the side in kind, shouting in protest, as the mercenaries begin to close in again—that is, until one of Sage’s arrows thwacks into a tree trunk inches from one of the mercenary’s ears.
“That was a warning,” Sage calls. “Let us pass into Briarwall and beyond, and no one will get hurt.”
Remy scoffs, melting back into the trees behind the mercenaries. “With these numbers, you’re the one who’s going to lose here, Sage, and I truly hate to see it. Think like the survivor we both know you are. What good does it do to take on so many?”
Araphi glances at Sage. The ranger already has another arrow nocked on her bowstring, a muscle in her jaw twitching as she draws it tight.
She counts the passing seconds of their standoff in Sage’s tightly controlled breaths, and in the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears.
Then, as if on some unseen signal, two of the fighters draw their own bows and let loose arrows.
Araphi darts to the side as one flies past her. Sage ducks low to avoid another and then fires her own arrow into the crowd. It pierces a man’s shoulder, and by the time he’s fallen, she’s managed two more shots.
A spear goes sailing toward them, and Sage pulls Araphi to the side behind an oak’s gnarled trunk. A few of the fighters—the ones without ranged weapons—surge forward, but Sage’s arrows slow down their advance, while the two archers have found cover and are still shooting.
Araphi lifts her slingshot—thank the gods she had all those lessons with one of Wren’s mothers during their time in Arkney—and loads a stone she found along the road, which she’s developed a habit of picking up.
She’s still not a skilled fighter, but she can hold her own at this distance. For a little while at least.
Okay, not that long, really…
“Nura! Bramble! Help us!” Araphi’s desperate. She flings one rock and then another into the crowd of fighters. What were she and Sage thinking, taking on all these fighters with just themselves?
Nura shakes her head, still holding Bramble back.
“They won’t help,” Sage shouts. “They’re too concerned with their denaris.”
“You know that’s not entirely true,” Bramble says, regret lacing their voice. “We’d help if we could, but we won’t get paid if—”
Their voice cuts off as Nura elbows them in the side.
Araphi wrenches her eyes away from them as more fighters move forward. She sends three rocks in quick succession toward them, hitting one on the forehead and another on the chest. Sage fires as well, and three of her arrows find their marks. “All right, Bard?” she calls over her shoulder.
“I’m fine, Ranger,” Araphi yells a bit breathlessly, working hard to make her voice loud enough to be heard over the yell of the fighters—who still move forward, risking Sage’s arrows and Araphi’s stones.
“Trying to keep you that way,” Sage shouts back.
But there’s just too many of them all at once. Even as they fight on, the mercenaries surge closer. Sage’s arrows are running low and Araphi’s out of stones. Before long, Araphi and Sage are side by side, the fighters now just ten feet away on the path in front of them.
“I love you.” Araphi pushes her shoulder lightly against Sage’s in what will have to do for a hug. “It’s been a tremendous adventure, Ranger.”
“We’re not done yet, Bard.”
The words are barely out of Sage’s mouth when there’s a blur of movement in the corner of Araphi’s vision, and a loud thwack. Beside her, Sage falls to the ground, her feet swept out from under her.
“What the devils?” Sage calls out.
Nura stands above Sage, clutching her staff. She must’ve snuck around behind them through the forest as they fought, small and quick as she is.
“I don’t want to hurt you two!” Nura cries out. “But you’re going to get yourselves killed if you keep going! Stop shooting these bloody arrows and just give us the tooth. Then we can all go home!”
Her voice is so earnest that Araphi’s anger at the diminutive fighter evaporates. She’s trying to help them, not hurt them. If only she knew the truth of it.
Before Araphi can reply, two fighters lunge forward and grab her by the arms.
“Let me go!” she shouts, twisting in their grip.
“Come along now, without a fuss,” one of the mercenaries says as he pulls her in close.
The other leans in, her breath hot on Araphi’s neck. “You’re going with us now, or we’ll kill the other one.” She nods toward Sage, who’s still on the ground, another pair of mercenaries looming above her with a heavy hand on each shoulder to keep her seated, and the rest moving in to surround her.
“Don’t go with them, Bard!” Sage shouts, her gaze meeting Araphi’s.
“Promise you’ll let her go?”
“You have my word,” Remy says, stepping forward.
Winning this impossible fight would have made such an excellent addition to their ballad…Gods, she never got to play it for Sage.
“Fine.” Araphi wrenches her eyes away from Sage. “You can take me. But no one hurts the ranger.”
“We have a deal,” Remy says. “Someone’s waiting to see you inside the gates.”
Regret flashes through her, swift and sharp as any blade to the heart. She squeezes her eyes shut, and despite the awfulness of their situation, a vision of Sage in the moonlit hot spring appears before her and she can’t help but smile.
It has been a very good adventure.
With one last desperate look at Sage, Araphi lets herself be pulled away. This has to be the right thing. She’s saving Sage in the moment, even if it means being marched back to her family. And wherever the Claunecks take her, even if they lock her away, Sage will find her.
They’re in this fight together.