Chapter 28
NIKIAS
“If this is what you’ve always been, I wonder how you ever managed to love Faustina at all. Or how she ever loved you in return.”
The fury burning in Aimilia’s eyes cut Nikias to the core.
Why couldn’t she just listen to him for once?
Why was every move he made in her eyes one worthy of condemnation?
Why did she always know exactly what to say to destroy him?
He stepped closer, desperate to reach out and grasp all the hard-won progress he’d made with her the last few months and keep it from slipping away, but then the memory had slipped out of his hands as the scene changed completely.
“If you all want peace so badly, you’re going to have to be willing to suffer for it.”
All Nikias could see was the wild, deranged gleam in the demon’s eyes as silence fell over the tent.
Horror rushed over him and held him down as the woman he loved rose from her seat and said, “I’ll do it.”
Ready to sacrifice herself on Hypatia’s altar to save the man she loved, even when he had cast her aside for another woman.
“You cannot do worse to me than you already have.”
If only Nikias had known what would follow his fateful words, he would have thought twice about them.
Nikias was on his knees, arms bound behind his back in that fateful tent as Hypatia stepped back. He breathed through gritted teeth, unable to stop a pathetic cry from falling from his mouth.
How long had Hypatia been at it?
He had no sense of time anymore. All he knew were the burns he felt when Hypatia had tired of making him relive the memory of Faustina’s death over and over again.
She stumbled into the table, panting for breath herself.
She braced her hands on the counter beside her.
Her curls fell into her face even as she looked over her shoulder at him and said, “One night. I get one measly night to make you feel the agony you’ve inflicted for decades on my people. I’m going to make it count.”
Nikias blinked.
Was this what Marcella had felt those days she’d spent under the healer’s knife?
Was this what all of them had felt?
“Far be it…” Nikias coughed, fighting the urge to retch. “From me to give you advice. But how much worse can this get? How many more visions of the past can you use? How many more burns until there’s nothing left of me?”
Nikias should have never opened his mouth.
Because Hypatia had straightened up and looked at the bowl on the counter. The grin that stretched over her was one of complete evil and pure delight.
She lifted it, arms trembling and sending a little water splashing over the side. “Oh, dear Nikias, there can only be one thing worse than your past.”
She dropped to her knees, even more water splashing and Nikias hissed when some of it hit a burn on his leg. Hypatia had in one hand thin sticks that had a pungent and repulsive smell emanating off them. She began casting with the other hand as she said, “Your future.”
The sticks caught fire with her rune, but they didn’t burn like normal wood. Smoke poured off the tips doubling the smell and sending Nikias into another coughing fit.
Hypatia scattered the incense throughout the tent before grabbing him by the hair and pushing his head down so he could not look away from the water.
She began casting with the other hand rune after rune as she spoke in her tongue, a frantic stream of babble Nikias could not imagine contained any real words.
Was he actually about to witness the demon’s abominable ability for himself?
Her nails dug painfully into his hair, tearing out the strands when her voice rose as the water remained still. Vitae continued to flood the air, blinding him as she jerked his head when she stepped closer. She kept casting.
Finally, the water in the bowl began to ripple even though nothing touched it.
Nikias’ breath caught in his throat as an image began to form and Hypatia’s nonsensical chatter ceased. Hypatia stilled, smoke and vitae still flooding the tent, making it hard to even see what the image was.
Hypatia kept her grip on Nikias’ head, forcing him to keep staring at it as she stepped closer and leaned in to see it too.
Bile crawled up Nikias’ throat as he saw himself in the water, but it wasn’t his reflection. No, this was him moving through a room at the palace, he thought. It was hard to tell for sure with how hazy it was. He couldn’t tell what time of day it was or when this was supposed to be.
This…
This was wrong. Unnatural. An abomination.
Nikias in the vision was pacing frantically, and then a voice rose from the bowl, echoey and faint, but unmistakably his.
“—see it.”
Then another voice followed, one that haunted Nikias’ dreams.
“How awful can it be?” Aimilia appeared in the water, and Hypatia let out a sharp, elated noise.
She also drew a hiss from Nikias as her nails pierced his skin.
Hypatia whispered something in her tongue, but Nikias was wholly focused on Aimilia following him through the room.
“You haven’t told anyone, not even Gavril.
For months now, you haven’t shown me. What could she have possibly done to you? ”
Nikias choked. Was this a vision of the future discussing the very events he was living through at that moment?
In the vision, Nikias whipped around, reaching up and unclasping the left side of his chiton, letting it fall and exposing his chest.
Aimilia jerked back, eyes widening and letting out a horrified gasp.
Nikias stared at his chest.
At a scar he didn’t have.
Yet.
Inamatus.
“N—Nikias—” Aimilia took another step away from him. “That-—That’s what she did?”
In the water, Nikias stood there, staring at Aimilia with a cold, marble expression. “She carved it into me with her own hand.”
Hypatia’s grip on his head loosened, but Nikias could not dare look away.
He could see his left wrist now. The religo scars… were no longer scars. He bore a wedding bracelet.
And so did Aimilia.
Were they married?
Nikias shifted closer to the bowl, even though every limb he had screamed in agony at being jostled. He could not look away.
If this was real, if the demon’s abilities could be trusted…
Nikias married Aimilia?
He almost laughed. He didn’t care if she wanted to carve into him after this. She could carve a thousand scars into him; it would not change his elation.
If he had Aimilia’s love and her hand in marriage, he would endure any torment it took in order to reach this moment before his eyes.
“Well?” Nikias took a step toward Aimilia. He spat out each word. “Now you have nothing to say? This is all it takes to render you speechless?”
Aimilia stepped back, shaking her head. “What… What do you want me to say?”
He grabbed her by the shoulders, and Nikias could count on one hand the number of times he’d sounded so desperate. “Tell me it’s not true! Tell me that you love me.”
Aimilia reached up, brushing her fingertips over the scar. She whispered, “Don’t ask that of me.”
What?
Hypatia behind him gasped, letting go of his head and dropping to her knees beside him.
In the vision, Nikias pulled Aimilia closer so she was pressed against him. “Please, Aimilia, I love you. Tell me it’s not hopeless. You must.”
But Aimilia pulled out of his grip and started backing away from him. She shook her head and the disgust was palpable. What was worse was the pity.
“You know I can’t. That scar… You deserve it. Asking me to lie to you proves you do. After everything you’ve done, how could you not? After everything you’ve done, how could anyone ever love you?”
“No—”
“Don’t. Don’t make this any worse than it needs to be. You didn’t need that scar to tell you what you already knew to be true. Everyone knows it. No one loves you. Stop this futile endeavor. No one will ever love you. No one ever could.”
And then the image vanished as Hypatia let out a dark, choking gasp. She hit the ground, and all Nikias could do was watch as she collapsed, pale and shaking. Her vitae flooding the air faded and the smoke began to dissipate.
Hypatia kept convulsing, and Nikias could only dimly stare. Would the vision still come true if Hypatia died this very moment?
But she didn’t. Eventually she managed to roll onto her front and begin crawling across the ground.
Her choking breaths transformed into a hideous, hysterical laugh she didn’t seem to have any control over. She reached the counter, grabbing hold of it and with shaking arms she managed to sit up against it, the last of her laughs coming out.
The glazed, distant look in Hypatia’s eyes was worse than the cold, focused one from before.
He preferred that demon to this one.
That one had been in control.
His head was pounding from the incense. Every inch of his body had been brutalized. His heart was in so many pieces, not even the greatest seamstress could stitch it back together.
Hypatia dug her hands into the curls at her temples as she said, “Your love was so obvious I practically smelled it on you the second you arrived, but not even that I could have predicted.”
“Demon—”
Hypatia laughed, and there was a tearing sound. Strands of curls fell from her grip. “She doesn’t love you either. She never will. After the things you’ve done, how could she? No one ever could.”
A few tears slipped from Nikias’ eyes. His throat was already raw from his screaming; he did not have anything left in him to cry for what he’d seen.
Because wasn’t Aimilia right?
That’s why he was on his knees in front of the woman who’d killed his first wife. Because after everything he’d done, he deserved this.
How could someone like Aimilia ever love someone like him?
“I…” Hypatia said something in her language, before blinking several times and switching back to Nikias’. “What… What has been Seen cannot be unseen.”
Nikias shook his head. “No. You cannot—I cannot—You got one day and one night! This night, demon. You do not get to sink your claws into the rest of my life. Our agreement was I would suffer for this night and this night only!”
Hypatia reached up to the counter and fumbled with a dagger above.
She dropped it, cutting her palm with a hiss as it fell to her lap.
The wild, delirious look began to fade as she stared at the shallow cut on her hand.
“Actually, no. You think a measly twenty-four hours is enough to satisfy your people’s blood debt to mine?
I could line up everyone in this camp and every single one of them could speak of a relative, a friend, a lover they lost to your people’s so-called cleansing of our corruption, to your heretics and their cursed tables, and still we would not be halfway done by the time we were all a year older.
I’m not… I’m not the one who has decreed this, Asentai herself has determined this one day of suffering is not enough.
She will have you suffer the rest of your life, a mark on your chest to forever remind you just how unloved you are and will always be. ”
What was the demon rambling on about? Was she going to pretend this was her goddess’ doing and not hers? Was she trying to cling to some illusion of innocence?
She wiped her bloody palm with a rag, clutching the dagger to her chest. “That’s the thing about those of us with Sight.
I don’t make the future, Asentai does. I just see it.
But when I do, it is a gift and it is a curse.
So it shall be for both of us now. Our agreement was you would pay for peace with your blood. I haven’t actually made you bleed yet.”