The Book of G, page 1
The Book of G
LILY ARCHER
The Book of G
Lily Archer
Copyright © 2023 Lily Archer
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Lily Archer. This book is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, fictional characters, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dire Warning: If you pirate this book, the Hag of the Bloody Stump will eat you, your children, their children, and your favorite pet (but not your least favorite pet; that one will remain).
Editing: Spell Bound
Cover: Perfect Pear
Illustrations: Zakuga
Contents
The Book of G
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Happily Ever After
Acknowledgments
NSFW Art
Also by Lily Archer
About the Author
The Book of G
A classic villain tells his own story.
I have a glorious past full of achievement and renown. I mean, I feel like I must, right? The problem is, I can’t remember it. I can’t even remember my own name. I was found in a river, body mangled and face scarred, with nothing to identify me besides a single embroidered letter.
My memory is a murky blur, but I have a quest, one that will give me back everything I’ve lost. The voice in the water told me so. But the voice seemed to miss a few important highlights—namely the woman who challenges me at every twist and turn of my journey. The woman who tells me I’m a villain. The woman who never misses an opportunity to throw an insult my way. The woman who becomes every fervent whisper of my heart, and every last thought in my head.
If I can complete my quest and recover what I’ve lost, she’ll see we’re meant to be. But villains don’t get happily ever afters. Do they?
Chapter
One
Pain. Not the kind you get when you stub a toe or bust your knee. This is searing and all-consuming, like lightning streaking off in all directions and wrapping your body in agony. And it’s cold. So fucking cold that for a brief moment I wonder why I hurt so much. Why can I still feel it?
It’s dark here. Not a light or a fire or even a star. Or perhaps I simply can’t see.
Where am I?
I don’t remember. I don’t know.
I can’t breathe. Or, I can, but it burns. So I try not to. I hold my breath until the darkness becomes new and velvety, until I can imagine it’s warm. But then I scrape against something hard and sharp, sending a new streak of pain running through me until I scream, the sound distant and garbled. And then I breathe.
I repeat this process again and again until I wish it was over. I wish I was over right along with it.
How did I get here?
My mind can only process the running thread of my suffering. There is nothing else. When I try to think, to actually think, the hurt brings me right back to the cold dark, to the lightning that flashes over and over again, lighting me up in bright agony until I choke, sinking down, down, down.
I hold my breath.
Hold.
Hold.
Hold.
Hold.
Burn.
Burn.
Burn.
When I finally give in and take a breath, the burning increases a hundred-fold. My lungs are encased in flames as I scrape against the edges of the blackness that surrounds me. The sharpness of the dark cuts away my flesh, flaying me as I drown. I convulse.
This is the end. I welcome it. I want oblivion. I want anything except the agony of existing. If I could pray for death, I would. But my mind can’t go there, can’t stray too far away from the torment that obscures all other thought.
“Not yet.” A voice, one that wraps around me like silky vines.
I feel myself drifting away. I want to drift away. This has to be over. I can’t stand it anymore.
“Not yet.” The voice is more forceful this time.
Fuck off! I take another agonizing breath, my lungs heavy and singed.
The coldness changes. Still icy, but somehow no longer weighing me down. I cough, water spewing from my mouth. Again and again I heave, the lightning pain growing sharper each time, reminding me that I’m caught in some sort of hell.
When I’m empty, when I breathe in gulps of traitorous air. Light sparks. A slight glow, a mirage behind my eyelids. My eyes are closed.
The darkness was so complete only a moment ago. But the light grows until it pierces me, lances thrown through my eyes and crashing through the back of my head. I’m pinned in place like a bug.
I yell, the sound ripped apart and guttural. Deep, gurgling, wrong.
Someone tsks. “A long fall.”
A long fall? I try to pull apart my memories, to find one of falling. But once again, the deep ache rushes up and stills my mind, shattering the whispers before they can create a thought.
“Mortally wounded. You won’t last but a few moments more.” A woman’s voice I realize, smooth and melodic.
“Just let me go,” I say. But I say nothing at all. My mouth doesn’t move. No sound leaves.
“I should let you go.” She touches my forehead, warmth in her fingertips.
I don’t want warmth. I want death! I can’t stand her touch, can’t bear the ribbons of sensation that wrap around my head and suffocate me. It hurts, doesn’t she realize that?
She ignores my plea, her fingers still teasing me with feeling, with life. “A bargain of sorts. Your wickedness has known no bounds. You have not earned a quick death. But perhaps you can earn something more.”
What is she saying? Wickedness? I don’t know. I can’t remember. But I want this to end. All of it.
“You would refuse my gift?” She sounds surprised.
Fuck your gift right in its arse! If I could get to my feet, I would run you through! Leave me be. Let me die. I can’t … I can’t suffer any longer.
She sighs. “You can, and you will.” Her light fades, and she’s rising above me, a star that mocks and eludes. “If you would recover what you’ve lost, you will travel to the Wood of Mist and find the Graven Phylactery before the end of the Fallen Moon. Fail in this task and you will live a long life, forever cursed with what you lack.”
“No!” I can’t make the word. Only a grunt rises from me, a jagged denial. What the hell even is a phylactery?
The light disappears, and once again I’m floating, sinking, impaled on spikes and stripped of my skin. I am nothing but raw nerve endings grated over a burning pit.
“You deserve no less,” she whispers.
“I will fucking gut you and hang you up for the wild hogs to chew and tear!” This time I don’t grunt. I don’t make a sound. My agony is complete, the dark streaked with razors that spin ever faster, bleeding me but leaving me awake to feel.
Every.
Last.
Slice.
Chapter
Two
Something shuffles around near me, waking me from some hellish nightmare. The sound is distorted. I can’t open my eyes.
When I try to speak, the glaring pain of the nightmare returns, streaking across my face.
“Lie still.” A harsh voice, cracked with age. “I’ve already wasted four coppers on you. I won’t call the butcher to bandage you again. Not worth it. Not in this sorry state.”
“He still sleeping when he should be working, Madge?” Someone else, farther away.
“You still running your mouth when you ought to be mucking stalls, lad?” The woman—Madge, I suppose—retorts.
A grumble answers, then silence.
I open my mouth again, but the agony forces me to lie still as Madge instructed. Madge—who the hell is she? And why am I here? I can’t remember.
“Just look at the state of you.” She shuffles closer. “I should’ve left you in the river. Maybe drowned you and sold your body to the butcher so he could use you to teach his apprentice.” She clucks her tongue.
My mind starts to haze over again, and I feel myself being dragged down, as if dozens of clawing hands are pulling me into darkness.
“But I don’t know if he’d take you. Not when you’re already so torn to shreds.” More tongue clucking.
I want to fight the pull of the skeletal hands, but I can’t. Not when I can’t see, can’t move. I’m helpless, and I don’t like it. I hate it. Before, I wasn’t helpless. Before, I was … I was … Who was I? A flash goes off in my mind—like the way the su
“How’s he still alive?”
“I don’t know, Charles. Monsieur Messier is just as surprised as you are. Same as me.” It’s Madge. Her voice is brittle. I’ve come to recognize it over the past few days. I’m finally awake more than I’m asleep, though I still haven’t spoken a word. It hurts too much. So does moving. I’ve managed to wiggle my fingers and move my right arm a slight bit. My legs burn and sting far too much to do anything with them, and I can’t decide if I can feel all my toes or only some. Lying still hurts in other ways—my back aches and a distinct claustrophobia comes over me here and there, perhaps because I can’t open my eyes. The only thing I’ve managed to do is part my lips enough for Madge to spoon feed me some water and a horrible-tasting broth.
“He looks like he’d keel over if he tried to stand,” says Charles, the stable boy, who comes by on a too-frequent basis to comment on my appearance and how I’m taking up bed space.
Madge grunts right beside me. “I was supposed to take these off two days ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“I don’t blame you.” Charles is closer now. “If he looks like this with the bandage on, imagine how bad it must be under there.”
“Shush now. Shouldn’t you be gathering the firewood like Louis told you?”
Charles groans. “Just let me take a look, then I’ll go.”
“Suit yourself.” The bed shifts, and I get the distinct scent of armpit musk and garlic. “Now, if you can hear me, don’t you move. Don’t do anything at all. I’m taking off the bandage on your face, then the ones on your chest, then the ones on your legs. I’ll put on a poultice the butcher left.”
Why is she speaking as if I’m deaf? I can hear her fine. Smell her, too. ‘Just get it over with!’ is what I want to say, but those words aren’t coming, so I simply breathe out.
She takes that as acquiescence, because I feel her hand easing behind my head.
A rusty groan comes from me as she places one hand between the back of my head and the bed and uses her other to unwrap the bandage. It covers my eyes, most of my nose, is open at the mouth, and then wraps around my chin.
She’s not gentle. The bandage comes loose but seems to be stuck to me in places, pulling my skin off with it. I should be used to suffering by now, but the torture still hurts, and I still resent every fucking moment of pain.
“My god.” Charles sounds stricken. “How did he get like this? Mauled by a bear?”
“No idea. I told you I found him in the river. Nothing on him except some torn clothes. But he’ll be up and about soon, so he can tell us himself what the hell happened.”
What happened? I’ve been trying to remember that for all my waking moments. How did I get in a river? Why am I in this state? Whose voice did I hear when I was in the river? What the hell is a Graven Phylactery? And the biggest question of all, who the fuck am I?
“You really think he’ll survive?” Charles dry heaves.
“He’d better. I hate doing all this work for nothing.” Madge harrumphs.
When the weight lifts from my eyes, I open them. The light stings, so I clench them shut again and wait, shuddering as Madge removes the bandages from my chest. I open them a tiny fraction, then more, then more. I can finally see, dimly.
Madge, a white-haired woman with a dingy shawl around her shoulders, bends over my middle.
I blink, my eyes watering from disuse.
I’m in a tiny cottage, the rafters close overhead and the roof thatch rotting in places.
When she reaches my legs, her touch is rough and sends bursts of fire rushing along my calves and thighs. I groan again, my head thumping, my body protesting.
“Charles, get me the pot from the stove.”
“I don’t know if I should be—”
“It wasn’t a question, boy!” Madge snaps.
“Shit. Fine. All right.”
“Damned useless shit mucker.” Madge mutters then stands straight—well as straight as she gets, I suppose—holding brown bandages in her hands. Or is that my dried blood?
“There you are.” She peers at me.
I stare at her.
She smiles, her missing teeth making my empty stomach turn. “You’re a sight. But at least some of you is intact.” She gives a pointed look at my crotch.
Something foul hits my nose, worse than Madge’s scent. It’s sulfur and rotten mud with a hint of dead skunk.
A shadow appears in the doorway. “Here. The poultices.”
“Come in and hold them.”
“They smell horrible. I should probably—”
“What’s your problem, boy? Scared of a little blood? Afraid of wounds? Or is it his cock? You jealous your tiny prick can’t compete?”
Charles makes a pfft noise. “Mine can compete any day of the week, Madge.”
“Full of piss and vinegar, but too delicate to help an old woman.” Madge spits on the floor right beside the bed.
“I’m here.” Charles steps closer, his silhouette marking him as a boy no older than fifteen or so.
“Won’t take but a minute.” Madge grabs more bandages from the pot, but these are steeped in some sort of green gunk.
“No,” I say, but the only sound that comes out is ‘nnnnn’.
“Pish posh. This’ll put hair on your chest.” Madge cocks her head at me. “Not that you need any extra.” She lays the strip of foul shit on my chest, and it burns so bad I grunt. “This’ll get you better faster.” She continues wrapping me in filth, and even puts one of the horrific strips along my forehead and on one cheek.
I think I might pass out from the smell.
“Look here.” Madge points at my face. “What’s left of him isn’t so bad looking.”
Charles leans over, his blue eyes taking me in. “What’s left of him isn’t enough to fill a thimble.”
Madge clucks her tongue. “We’ll see. Now get to your chores. He needs to soak for a while.”
Chapter
Three
“Fallen Moon?” Madge’s voice. “What are you on about in your sleep?”
Was I asleep? I can’t tell waking from dreaming. Both are a nightmare.
“I’m reading here,” Charles grumbles.
“What’s a fallen moon anyway?” Madge asks. “He keeps mumbling about it whenever he’s almost awake, almost asleep.”
“It’s when the moon goes black in the sky; like a shadow crosses it, then clears.”
“Oh, I’ve seen that. Puts a fright in me when it happens.” Clack-clack.
“Sasha says another one is coming in five months’ time.”
“And the villagers try to call me a witch!” Madge chuckles. “I’m not out here claiming I have the power to black out the moon.” Clack-clack.
“I don’t think it works that way, Madge.”
“Pah, keep reading.” The fire burns low, and Madge is sitting on the edge of her bed as she knits some sort of ugly gray hat.
Charles sighs. “Where was I? Oh, I see—but the girl cried and threw herself on her bed, her wicked stepsisters having torn her dress to pieces and ruined any chance she had of attending the ball.” Charles turns the page of a small book, his voice lulling me back to sleep, back to the abyss where I swear I can hear distant echoes of the voice from the water.
“Seems to me the girl should’ve slit her stepsisters’ throats a long time before it got to this,” Madge grumbles as her gnarled fingers work with yarn, her needles making a clack-clack sound in rhythmic succession.
