Chapter 25
NIKIAS
Nikias couldn’t even look at Aimilia without a painful heat crawling over his skin and his stomach turning. On their second day of travel, as they paused at midday to water the horses, Gavril caught his eye. Nikias didn’t have to say a word to his brother to know that Aimilia had told him.
The shallower cuts had faded, but he was still hiding his black eye and the bruising on his neck.
Couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? Why did she think Gavril needed to know about Nikias’ latest failure?
None of this was supposed to happen.
It was bad enough Aimilia knew—not just knew, saw.
Bile rose up his throat at the reminder she’d been present to witness the whole awful, pathetic scene.
That alone was torment enough. But added to the fact that she now knew the only way Gavril and Marcella returned to Areator was if he married…
Day after day he’d been wracking his brain, trying to find a way to scrape the pieces of his plan back together, but they weren’t pieces anymore. It was all dust.
To make his worst nightmare complete, in less than a week, he would have to work with Hypatia.
Maybe if he was lucky they’d find a ditch on the way he could crawl into and die.
That was probably the best solution.
They were a week and a half into the journey when Aimilia finally cornered him.
He’d reworked the night watch rotation to ensure no chance of contact with Aimilia, Gavril, or Marcella, but as he sat on the edge of camp in the middle of the night footsteps caused him to turn his head to see her approaching even though she’d already been on watch the day before and was off tonight.
“You shouldn’t have chosen a pattern. Patterns can be predicted,” Aimilia said as she reached him, taking a seat on the ground beside him.
He just looked out into the night, grip on his legs tightening.
“Go back to sleep.”
He should have been doing random assignments.
“I won’t stay long, but I thought you could use a little company.”
What was she up to?
He’d been skillfully avoiding her because he could see the fire in her eyes, insisting they talk about something that should never be discussed.
Did she just want to lower his guard?
“Do you remember my father’s funeral?” Aimilia didn’t look at him; she just stared out at the trees and darkness. The moonlight struck her cheekbones, making her fair skin shine in the darkness. Even though he couldn’t stand to look at her, he also couldn’t look away.
“No.”
“I wasn’t sure if you were there or not. I know the royal family doesn’t go to all of them. I was six, so you would have been ten. Or you did and you just don’t remember it.”
Nikias swallowed the words, “I would have remembered you.”
Aimilia continued, “My mother couldn’t even get out of bed.
My grandfather, I don’t even remember what it was, if it was your family he was occupied with or another important Runai.
But beside the casket, I was there with Cyprian.
I didn’t really understand it all, but I was crying.
My father wasn’t moving, and I just felt it in the air.
I was the only one crying and I kept asking these nonsensical questions until Cyprian grabbed me and told me to be quiet.
I couldn’t stop. Finally he had one of our other cousins drag me kicking and screaming back to the house.
I didn’t even get to see them close the casket. ”
Nikias finally turned his head to see her wipe at her eye before the tear could escape and take a shuddering breath.
His voice was barely louder than the sounds of the forest. “You were a child.”
Aimilia looked over at him. “For years I didn’t visit his grave. Like I’d forfeited the right to when I couldn’t keep my composure. Disgrace. I remember that word most from Cyprian’s mouth that day.”
She was painfully obvious.
He looked back out at the darkness. “That is not the same thing.”
“I never said it was the same.”
“Then what was the purpose of the story?” Nikias dug his nails into his thighs. “You were a child. Of course you were crying. Why would you ever have the idea you’d forfeited the right to visit his grave?”
“I don’t know where the idea came from.” She tilted her head, her braid slipping off her shoulder.
Her hair in the cool moonlight was practically begging him to look at her.
“I think our minds are strange, dangerous places. I just… believed. And I never told anyone about it, so I never had anyone challenge me on it.”
“Even if I believed you for a second that this could in any way be a good thing to tell anyone, which is laughable, who do I have left to tell?”
Aimilia just stared at him for a moment. Her soft breaths filled the air and she shifted just a little bit closer. But she didn’t reach out.
They’d had a similar exchange before, but every silence had been weighed down by his adoration of her that she would never accept. She’d had him, but she would have only laughed at his offer.
And why shouldn’t she?
What did he really have to offer her?
She certainly wasn’t going to offer herself. She had no interest in being his. Who would after they saw the things she’d seen?
“Nikias—” Aimilia took another breath. “I’m not talking about that.
At least, not telling people in the broad sense.
” She shifted closer and he pulled his knee up to his chest more tightly, pressing it against his heart.
“Why haven’t you asked one of us to heal your black eye?
Why did you run before I could heal your injuries in Areator? ”
On the few occasions Gavril had discovered when Nikias was injured and healed him, Nikias had never asked. Aimilia would, he had no doubt of that. She was always kinder to him than he deserved.
He stayed silent.
The answer was not worth the fight.
A branch rustled nearby. A bird darted through the air. He stared into the darkness. Nikias’ silence condemned him. It always did.
“You don’t deserve them,” Aimilia whispered.
“Commander, I am not interested in your pity.” Each word was clipped, a sharp piece of broken marble.
“I’m not offering any.” Aimilia sighed. “What ever happened to wanting to start over?”
“That’s not possible.” Nikias’ throat tightened. “There’s too much between us. It was a foolish hope.”
“Well, to be fair, it wouldn’t serve your purposes even so.” Aimilia’s voice lightened as she stretched her legs out and leaned on her hand, looking up at him. “I’m still not marrying you.”
Nikias’ head whipped around to face her fully.
“What?”
Aimilia grinned at him. “I might hate you less now, but not that much less. I might also owe you a few apologies as well. I blamed you unfairly for years when there wasn’t anything you could do in that situation that wouldn’t make it worse.
So, I’m sorry for that. But that doesn’t change anything else.
I know now that you were only marrying to keep Gavril around to try to fix your relationship with him.
Although choosing me rather backfired in that attempt, and I’m certainly not going to be swayed by any of that. ”
“Alright?” Nikias couldn’t quite follow what was happening here.
An apology? From Aimilia?
Had he somehow fallen asleep and into a dream?
“Great, then I’ll leave you to your watch. Goodnight, Nikias.”
She was gone as quickly as she’d come.
His head hurt. His stomach churned again as he watched her go, white-hot shame flooding him as his memory of that night returned, echoing the sickening chant in his mind reminding him that she’d seen it.
At least… well, at least he didn’t have to worry about her agreeing to marry him for the wrong reasons now.
But any chance he had of winning her was still rendered to dust. How could she possibly fall in love with him after seeing him reduced to such pathetic depths?
She’d seen just how weak he was with her own eyes.
Any respect he might have had from her, in his character and physical traits, had been ripped out the second he’d let his father break the glass against his head.
And yet… he still loved her.
He’d still vowed to only marry a woman he loved who loved him. And if he didn’t marry soon, the scene the night before was only a shadow of what would come.
He didn’t have any solution. Was it truly hopeless?
The next night Nikias was on watch, Aimilia appeared again.
He eyed her as she took a seat next to him once more. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at her face directly for fear of meeting her eyes. What would he see in them?
“You remember when I was suspended from classes for a week my second year at the Academy?”
Nikias kept his gaze focused on the dark mass of trees stretching out ahead of them.
Before she’d walked up, he’d been staring at it and thinking of nothing but what it would be like to walk in and never come back out.
“You woke up in the middle of the night just to come out here and make small talk with me?”
He could still see her out of the corner of his eyes.
“Do you remember or were you too busy staring into Faustina’s eyes to remember anything about when we were all at the Academy together?”
Nikias pushed the vision of blonde hair and a soft, sweet face back down into the dirt where it belonged.
“You were attached at the hip to my brother; of course I remember.”
“Now was that so hard?”
He grunted in response.
“Did you ever hear why I was suspended?”
Nikias looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “No.”
“Too busy making eyes at Faustina to ask around?”
Why was Aimilia throwing Faustina and the fool he’d made of himself in his face?
He snapped, “I was too busy to concern myself with petty gossip.”
“Too busy with Faustina.”
He whipped around, mouth opening ready to snap when she faced him with a sharp smirk. He snapped his mouth shut and faced forward, pulling his knee up even closer. “Maybe.”
Because it would get a rise out of him.
Nikias was starting to think there was no one who knew him the way Aimilia did.