Chapter 13
NIKIAS
Nikias’ question hung in the air. Each second it remained, his heart constricted tighter.
Aimilia stared at him. “I know I’m an excellent commander—despite the fact that you refuse to utilize me to my full potential—but I’m not following.”
“You hate me.” Nikias gestured. “You’ve made that very clear. You’ve even explained why, but as I’ve been examining your reasoning, I’m left with more questions. I don’t know what I can do. What will it take for you to not hate me anymore?”
Aimilia didn’t move, just stared at him completely frozen in place.
“You…” She let out a soft, stuttering breath. “Why do you care?”
The scar on his chest ached. “Maybe because I’m trying to make sense of you the way you’re trying to make sense of me. I have apparently spent years digging myself into a hole with you, and I thought I had begun to claw my way out, but that was clearly not the case. So what more must I do?”
“What does it matter now? Is that what all of this exam nonsense is about? Your wounded ego?” Aimilia laughed. “Do you want me to go ahead and write a list of Runai who will be happy to shower you in unearned complements to feed your vanity? Why are you so obsessed with having my good opinion?”
“Believe me, if I cared about protecting my ego, I wouldn’t be asking.” Nikias snorted before shaking his head. He locked eyes with her and his voice softened. “Please, tell me.”
She held his gaze while he held his breath, waiting on the edge of a precipice for her answer. He could drown in the brown and green depths of her hazel eyes.
“I don’t—” Aimilia took a sharp breath as she looked away, blinking before saying, “I don’t know.
I don’t know what would change my opinion of you.
There might not be anything that can. Even if there was, I couldn’t tell you.
It wouldn’t be authentic. I’d know you were only doing it because you can’t seem to let go of the fact that I don’t like you. ”
“I see your point.” Unfortunately. Nikias folded his arms over his chest. He shouldn’t have hoped he could get a straightforward answer. He was going to have to create a new strategy without it.
Aimilia sighed and then took a step forward, but froze when he didn’t move out of her way. She was close enough that he could feel her exhale brush his cheek. She opened her mouth, but he was faster.
“But you don’t hate me the way you claim to.” The gamble came out of his mouth before he could weigh the risk.
Her eyes widened and her voice came out harsh and choked. “Pardon?”
There was no turning back now. If she wasn’t going to give him a clear answer, he had no choice but to force her to confront her bewildering inconsistencies and the fact that her feelings couldn’t be as simple as she made them seem.
“Everything you said before—when you refused me—you made yourself clear about why you hate me, but that doesn’t make sense with your own actions.”
Aimilia went alabaster white and stepped back. “My actions?”
“I’ll forget everything else. I’ll accept you didn’t care if I lived or died when you and Marcella intervened in the duel. All the time we spent together afterwards, you were only tolerating me. That nothing I’ve done, not even when I’ve tried to comfort you—”
Aimilia’s expression twisted and she hissed, “That never happened!”
Nikias’ memories begged to differ, but he wasn’t going to try to argue that point right now. He wouldn’t be surprised if Aimilia had managed to erase each time from her memory through sheer willpower.
Nikias curled his fingers into his cloak.
“My point is, I’ll set all of that aside and take your word.
But even then, it does not account for the contradiction between what you said the other night and what you’ve done.
I remember when you brought my cloak back.
Those weren’t actions or words of someone who hates me with an irreversible passion.
On some level, you care about me, which means there must be a way for me to show you I’m not all the things you think I am. ”
“All the things I think you are?” Aimilia shook her head, and a few stands fell loose from her braided crown, brushing her cheek.
“Those are all the things you have proven you are. I’m not just talking about your failures to protect Gavril as children.
I’m talking about the man you were when Gavril came back with Marcella as his wife.
You are vicious, vengeful, and the cruelest man I have ever met.
You’re a liar. A manipulator. You don’t listen to anyone but yourself. ”
Nikias could not and would not deny the accusations. They were at some point in his life all true.
But not anymore.
Nikias didn’t want to be that man ever again, but would Aimilia ever see him as he was or just the ghost of the monster he’d been?
Aimilia continued, “You know I have never believed you should be king. I still wish your parents weren’t so horrid and prideful that it blinds them to Gavril’s superior ability to be king, but I know you get it honestly.”
Nikias heart slammed against his ribs, each beat making the scar over it dig in deeper and deeper.
He had to know…
“Do you still wish I’d gone in first that day?”
Even though they were outside, his words sucked all the warmth out of the air.
Aimilia stared him down.
He might as well have been surrounded by pure white marble. Their words from that fateful day in that hallway by the throne room lingered in the space between them. The day he might have condemned himself forever in her eyes.
Then she spoke.
“Do you?”
He was no longer standing in that marble hall, but lying in the dirt, a broken arm clutched to his chest as he stared at his most unwilling savior.
Only this time he would not fool himself into thinking she’d done it for him.
The only feeling that had motivated her that day had been the love she had for his brother, even when he’d broken her heart time and time again.
But even so… she’d given him something to live for that day, and Nikias would not trade that for the world.
“I wish it had never happened.”
“Finally, we have something in common then.” Aimilia echoed his parting words from that day. She ducked her head for a moment, then her voice came softer even than the breeze. “I don’t wish it had been you. Not even if it meant Gavril would be king.”
Had he heard that right?
“You…” Nikias’ hands fell to his sides. “Really?”
Aimilia paused, closed her eyes, and then opened them with a nod and a slow breath out. “Yes. You… You did change my mind about that when you negotiated with Hypatia. I will admit one day you’ll be a good king, and maybe—despite your faults—even someday a great one.”
There it was again. Hope.
A strange foreign thing to him, but one he could not get rid of. It was a stubborn little thing. Much like the girl it was always attached to for him.
If she could change her mind about that…
“That means a lot to me.”
“Don’t let it mean too much.” Aimilia crossed her arms. “That doesn’t change anything. I still remember that day… the day I begged you not to put Marcella back on the table.”
“Aimilia… I’m not that man.” His hands shifted, and he brushed his palm against her arm. “Not anymore.”
“You know… I’ve felt a lot of things in regards to you.
” Aimilia’s head tilted ever so slightly, causing the few loose strands to brush her shoulder.
“Usually hate. Occasionally compassion. Pity, once. A lot of anger. But even with your position, your power, your dislike of me, I was never once afraid of you… until that day. I remember it so clearly, watching from the edge of the throne room as you had Marcella dragged in. I was repulsed by you, but even more, I was afraid.”
He… He couldn’t hold that reaction against her. But he’d never once imagined she could fear anything, much less him.
“If you were afraid of me, why did you come out and try to stop me? Why did you keep defying me?”
Aimilia blinked at him. “How could I do anything else?”
His esteem for her only grew.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how many times and how many ways I can say it in order to make you believe me. I regret it more than you could ever know, and even so, I know that I can never undo what I’ve done.”
“I know.” Aimilia shook her head. “And I know you say you’re not that man anymore. Maybe… Maybe I believe you, but you could be. I hate you for the fact that you could be that man again.”
“And the fact that I would sooner die than let myself sink to those depths again means nothing?”
At his words, she ducked her head and stared at the floor.
Nikias hated her silence.
What was going through her head? What was she thinking now?
“And even with all of that, you still returned my cloak and cried when you saw what had been done to me.”
Finally, she looked up again, with a helpless shrug. “You’re Gavril’s brother. I hate you, but I care about him. That’s how it’s always been with us. That’s how it’s meant to be.”
Couldn’t she see it didn’t have to be? Unless…
“Do you still love him?” Nikias braced himself. It was necessary. He had to know—
“Not that it’s any of your business, but…
Gavril is my oldest and closest friend. He’s everything you’re not.
I’ll always love him.” Aimilia smiled, pained and sad, and all he wanted was to pull her in his arms even as her words clawed into his chest. Then she said, “But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with him. ”
“You’re not?”
“I don’t expect you to understand. Nor can you say anything about my friendship with your brother or my feelings. You have no room to condemn me.” She shook her head, that awful smile growing wider and sadder. “You’ll always be in love with Faustina.”
Oh, how little she actually knew. How much he wished he could tell her.
But if she never feared him until that awful, fateful day, then he’d never feared her until now. If she knew how wrong she was…
She’d break him in two. And she wouldn’t mean to. Not the way she had when she’d refused him. This would be worse. She’d pity him.
He couldn’t tell her the truth until he had crawled his way into her good graces and her heart. When he was certain he was no longer misreading her, then he could finally tell her. He couldn’t bear what would happen if she didn’t believe him, or worse, thought he was lying to manipulate her.
And he couldn’t deny her statement without her demanding an explanation.
“Thank you,” Nikias said, stepping to the side and leaving a clear path to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“That’s… all?” Aimilia took a few hesitant steps forward, eyeing him.
“I appreciate your honesty. Even when things are… complicated.”
Aimilia nodded decisively and kept moving.
He watched her go, always watching her go, but this time she paused in the doorway and looked back.
“If you’re being genuine… I suppose, it doesn’t have to be so complicated, does it?”
But she didn’t stick around for an answer either, leaving Nikias standing there this time… A little bit closer than he’d been before. Genuine…
If he could show her and remove all her doubts and fears that he could ever lose his morality and become such a monster ever again, maybe he had a chance.