Chapter 27 #2
Aimilia’s presence was a steadying comfort, even in her silence. Without Hypatia in the room, Nikias didn’t have to worry about keeping an eye on the demon and on Aimilia to ensure that the demon that didn’t open her big mouth or sink her claws into the redhead.
The hours flew by until early afternoon, when Konstantin had to cut the session short after lunch, when a servant came to them and gave him a message Nikias couldn’t translate.
Aimilia whispered, “I didn’t catch all of it either, but it sounded like he already had something planned. I think it might be with Marcella and Gavril.”
Nikias nodded as Konstantin rose from his seat and made his apologies to them. Even though this day had been easier than the last, Nikias’ head was still starting to throb, so he wasn’t all that disappointed to be ending it.
Since he had so much time, Nikias decided he might as well make good use of it and wash, only to discover the clan mages didn’t have bathhouses. Apparently most of them bathed in whatever body of water was nearest. A little savage, but he was going to keep that to himself.
He'd sooner go without any washing than lower himself to bathe in some creek. Fortunately, their upper echelons had tubs and servants to fill them with hot water that Nikias was going to take advantage of instead.
It was an arduous process to allow one person to wash.
Nikias really couldn’t fathom why they would object instead to building bathhouses to save them the effort of this excursion every time someone of note wanted a bath.
He watched several servants haul buckets of water into his room to fill the tub, heated over fire or by vitae.
Still, their hard labor was worth it for Nikias when he sank into the warm water and the gnawing tension pounding up the back of his skull eased. He lingered in it for as long as he could justify, cleaning himself up from the weeks of travel on the road that he hadn’t yet.
However, taking so long and letting the water go cold meant Nikias missed the first dinner rush and the second and the third.
So once he finally pried himself out of the water and cleaned up, refusing to look in the mirror the whole time, he began to wander around the halls, hoping to find a servant to either point him in the direction of the kitchen or to go there themselves and get him something to hold him over for the night.
Of course it was too good to be true that he could spend even a single day in the heart of the demon’s territory and not be subjected to her presence.
He turned the corner, and there she was, coming from the opposite direction.
Her eyes landed on him, and a vicious grin split her face in two.
She was a grotesque mirror of Marcella, and it was in moments like these that Nikias could not comprehend how two women could look so similar and be so different at the same time.
“Ah, Nikias, how delightful,” Hypatia said. Her accent was thick, but not as thick as Marcella’s.
How she managed that, Nikias did not know, given Marcella had months more practice among his people.
Nikias could only imagine what she had in mind if she could only describe what was about to happen as delightful.
Nikias, however, had somehow absorbed some of Gavril’s eternal spring of hope as he turned on his heel and began walking away. But he should have known better than to believe for even a second he had a chance of escaping Hypatia without incurring a few new wounds.
“Come now, Nikias, we’re hardly going to get very far if you turn tail and run from me the second you see me.” Hypatia’s voice followed him down the hall as her pace increased.
Nikias froze in his tracks, teeth grinding together. What was worse, letting her have her fill of his flesh? Or the insinuation that he was a coward who couldn’t take another beating from her?
Nikias stayed put.
“My apologies, demon.” Nikias turned and looked at her from the corner of his eye. “I presumed your handler—sorry, husband—had imparted anything of significance to me already today.”
Hypatia’s facade, cracked almost imperceptibly, but Nikias caught the twitch of her eye before she continued walking, her voice a smooth coo.
“Whoever said all the two of us have to talk about is strictly business? We are family, after all. You needn’t fear me.
Have you ever considered maybe I’m here to offer you a shoulder to cry on? ”
Hypatia’s eyes gleamed.
“Considering what I’ve seen you do to your own dearest cousin, I don’t think being called your family comes with any protection, but especially not any honor.”
Hypatia raised an eyebrow, fingers brushing over the scar on her side he’d once given her that she had then mirrored onto Marcella to save her own skin from capture.
“You think the word honor has any place in your mouth?”
He ignored the wound cutting through him and spat out, “More than it does yours.”
But Hypatia did not seem bothered by the dig. Unsurprising, given she was a creature wholly unfamiliar with such concepts as honor. Instead, her eyes landed on his heart, seeing right through the fabric to the mark she’d left on him.
“What a reception I get when here I am in friendship. Did you decide to be this way, or were you born this way?” And then like the snake she was, her tongue darted out to lick her lips as she went in for the final blow. “Completely and utterly unlovable.”
If killing her wouldn’t restart a decades-long war, Nikias would have done it in that instant. The mark on his chest flared and ached.
He gritted his teeth. “You can say it all you like, Hypatia, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
And then she grabbed him by the throat without even moving her hands.
“Are you trying to tell me that I’m wrong?”
Nikias could not.
Not with the phantom pain of a black eye lingering despite the physical wound healing. His parents might have preferred him over Gavril, but that didn’t mean they loved him.
Maybe Hypatia was on to something.
Had he been condemned from birth?
No. He could not let her get into his head.
“You should quit while you’re ahead. I have been exceedingly gracious to you.” Nikias stared down at her, leveling her with a dark look. “You should not test my patience.”
But Hypatia had her claws in him now, and she wasn’t letting him go anytime soon.
“Oh, dear Nikias, don’t delude yourself. She didn’t love you last time we met, and she doesn’t now. She never will. Try all you want. You can’t change that fact.”
“You don’t know that.” He would not believe there was any magic that could possibly tell her that. “Maybe you should spend less time worrying about my future marriage and more time worrying about your current one.”
Hypatia might have had him in her claws.
But from the way she was bristling, clearly she wasn’t as unbothered by everything as she pretended to be. “Speaking from experience?”
Nikias could gouge out her eyes, if it would destroy her abominable ability to See. It was unnatural, even for magic. No human should be able to know such intimate details about another.
However, Nikias had hit a nerve, and it was his turn to dig in.
“There’s a reason you didn’t say any of this yesterday.
Only when you’re off the leash your husband keeps you on are you so bold.
Do you think it makes a difference?” Nikias laughed.
“Your husband knows you’re a rabid dog that he can’t afford to put down.
He has to hold you back and hope he tames you before you turn on him and kill him. ”
“See?” Hypatia gave him a grin with all the brilliance of a blade.
“I just knew the two of us would get along so swimmingly. Attack me all you want. It doesn’t change the way the little redhead looks at you.
You can blame me all you want for your actions, but I wasn’t in Areator.
I wasn’t pulling your strings.” She shifted even closer, lowering her voice to a cooing whisper.
“Every wicked thing you’ve done was your own choice.
Showing her the monster you are can’t be undone.
You dropped the illusion. She will always look at you and see a monster. ”
Nikias stayed perfectly still, as solid as marble. “Is that what you tell yourself at night to comfort yourself when your husband looks at you the same way? That is, if he’s even in the same bed as you.”
Hypatia’s expression twisted into a sneer as she lifted her chin. “Distract yourself from the truth with me all you want. It doesn’t change what I saw. Nothing can change it. Struggle in vain all you want, Nikias—it won’t work. Your fate was sealed the moment I saw it.”
Nikias stepped closer, his words coming out a barely restrained snarl, even as her words worked, crawling up his spine and into his throat trying to suffocate him. “We’ll see about that.”
“Hypatia!”
Nikias pulled away right as Hypatia did the same. Hypatia turned on her heel at the sound of her husband’s voice. Konstantin had a dark look in his eye, and it took all the Nikias’ self-control not to grin. Hypatia maintained a calm and collected composure, but she was caught red-handed.
Maybe if she didn’t want Nikias to accuse her of letting her husband control her like a dog, she should act less concerned with her behavior in front of him.
Why was she bothered? Nikias couldn’t tell.
The only reasonable theory he had was that Konstantin was leveraging some cooperation of his clan that benefited hers based upon her behavior toward Nikias and the rest of his delegation.
For all that Hypatia was a monster, she was at least ruthlessly committed to her people. It had been the only way they’d gotten peace. Albeit she’d still demanded blood to quench her thirst first.
As much as Nikias wanted to stay and try to translate their tongue enough to hear Konstantin get onto Hypatia, he was too jittery to truly enjoy it.
He might have gotten some shots in, but he was certain that she’d been the victor once more.
One day he’d come out on top. And he knew when that day would be.