Chapter 1
There weren’t many places between Alvaros and Eadyn where she could rest her head.
She’d been lucky to find reprieve in a small inn south of the border, but the rooms filled up quickly once Yaar’s forces started making their way into Fairnam and the once-nice and generous innkeeper needed money, not a loiterer hanging around begging for scraps.
Nymiria left the inn with her head hanging between her shoulders, her too-big boots kicking stones out of her path, and a complimentary bottle of absinthe dangling loosely from her fingers.
She’d been a million different people in her twenty six years of age. A princess, a queen for about a week, a prisoner, a courtesan, an assassin, and now…
A beggar. A drunk. And a goddess. Apparently.
Six long months had come to pass and while the bite of winter was nearing the warm embrace of spring, Nymiria still could not quite shake the cold that had taken hostage of her heart.
The only thing that made her feel warm these days came in the form of the vibrant blue bottle she was now holding in her hand.
For the past two weeks since she’d jumped off that ship and swam to shore, she’d bounced around from place to place, not in search of something inwardly, but mostly a place to sleep.
Sleep did not come easy to her these days, either.
Ever since she’d touched that God Stone, she would rouse from her slumber in a cold sweat, gripping at her ears as if it could shield her from the incessant hum of prayers that was akin to the sound of a swarm of bees.
She tried to grasp them, to grip one single prayer and assess it, but the moment she reached for them, they slipped from her grasp.
She just wanted to know what they were saying.
She wanted to know who believed the Anam still existed.
She did not know if it was a thousand prayers or twenty, but it was a comforting thought to know that someone believed in her.
Even if they still prayed to Greia, the goddess of Life before her, it was still something that made her feel less…
Pathetic.
It didn’t have to be that way. She could have stayed with Aziel and perfected her godly powers, but her fear and her guilt made it hard to rationalize things at times.
So, now, she braved this walk of shame through the forest outside of Eadyn, desperately trying to convince herself that she was actually doing the right thing by showing her face again.
Aziel told her to come home.
That was what she was holding on to.
Well, that, and the fact that she was incredibly mad at him and wanted to look him in the eyes when she called him every ugly name she had in her repertoire.
While Nymiria had been humiliated on many occasions throughout her life, none of them seemed to sting quite as harshly as that moment with Aziel in that cupboard on the ship had. She’d made a fool of herself. He’d made a fool of her. And then, as always, he disappeared.
Perhaps she was partially to blame for his quick escape.
She hadn’t been very kind upon their last meeting, but what was she to do?
He deserved much more than she could offer him.
So much more than who she was or what she came from.
Neither of them had been dealt very good cards in the game of Life, but Aziel played his with such poise and she…
Was drunk.
The sun hadn’t even started to crest the rolling white hills in The beyond and Nymiria Celentas was stumbling around, gripping tree trunks and rocks to catch her footing.
She hated absinthe. The taste was horrendous and she had only four sips of the blasted thing before her head started to swim and the world started to turn faster and at a peculiar angle. She couldn’t even begin to understand why she believed it was a good idea to get that first sip at all.
“Don’t you think that you are being a little too hard on yourself?”
Nymiria looked up to see Owen standing at the base of the large husk of a maple tree, his arms folded over his chest, his smile dazzling. She narrowed her eyes at his mouth, noting that one side was raised higher than the other. He was smirking, the bastard.
“Go away.” She grumbled, shoving herself away from a rogue sapling and stomping through the snow in his direction.
Owen beamed. “Not likely, Nym. Unfortunately for you, this is actually my job. I’ve been tasked to ensure that you are protected when there isn’t anyone else to do it.”
“Fantastic.” She grumbled. “So you’re technically my nanny.”
Her ghost chuckled. “I hope that was just for a lack of better words and not you insulting my position.”
“And what position is that?” She asked dryly.
“Annoying me to death? Is that what you’re wanting out of all of this—to pester me until I die of mental exhaustion and shame, so that I can be dragged to the Otherworld with you?
” Owen frowned. Nymiria drew in a breath, released it, and stopped. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. You’ve said worse to me before.”
She had. On multiple occasions. Alive and dead, Owen had faced the brunt of her hateful ways, taken them in stride, and still decided to stay by her side.
Years ago, when he’d first attempted kissing her, she’d shoved him away and told him to stop being delusional, that any idea he had of her needed to leave his mind completely.
She’d called him ugly. She’d called him a peasant, she’d been hateful.
Not because she didn’t feel the same as he did, but because she was terrified of…
Well…
This.
Him being dead and her being here, having to relive his death every single day.
“You know I loved you.” She sighed, but when her eyes lifted to the place where his ghost once hovered, she was met with empty air. He was gone. Swallowing the bitterness in her throat, Nymiria pushed forward.
She was wandering at this point, with a vague sense of direction that she could only assume was her sheer instinct. She could tell by the steady slope of the forest that she was descending upon something and by the steady sound of trickling water, she knew that she was nearing a stream.
Years ago, when she was but a child running through the forests of Nym with her guard, he’d informed her that the rivers and streams from Alvaros fed into her kingdom.
And from her kingdom, those currents of water fed those of the South Mists.
It was due to these very blurry memories that she’d made it this far.
And, as of late, those memories had been coming to the surface far more frequently and vividly than she would have liked for them to.
Remembering her time spent with Thorn, the guard that she just recently learned to be her true father, were not typically accompanied by feelings of anger and dread. But with those bright and shiny memories of her and Thorn, inevitably came the memories of her and her mother.
There weren’t many.
Even so, a great majority of them left her staring off into a void of some sort, trapping her in a loop of what had transpired all those months ago in Yaar.
Her mother—The Witch Queen—had done great and terrible things to people who didn’t deserve it.
Her mother, the one that bred and bled to bring her into this world, whose corrupted blood pumped through her veins, had…
Hate was not a strong enough word for what she felt for her mother.
She drew in a slow breath, holding it for a moment as she continued down the hill, doing her best to keep her footing on the wet leaves down below. Slipping and sliding, she finally reached the creek.
Nymiria emptied what little absinthe remained in the bottle she held and lowered it into the stream, letting the water curl into the rounded lip and fill it.
She rinsed it out first, ensuring that there would not even be a single remaining scent of the drink, before she filled it a final time and brought the bottle to her lips.
Heavenly.
That was how it tasted. She’d been panting and sweating for three hours, and still had many hours to go before she would reach Eadyn, so she took that moment to sit down and rest.
Kicking off her shoes, Nymiria lowered herself onto the steep bank of the stream, letting her feet dangle into the cold, whispering current.
“Are you in a better mood?” Owen asked, his form rousing from a white mist at her side.
Nymiria shrugged, taking another long drag of the water.
“For now. I think I am just…” She didn’t know how to describe it.
Months ago, she’d been set on venturing out into the world, finding herself, and escaping the nightmares of her reality.
But Aziel ruined it all. He’d swooped in, as he always did, and made her go against everything she thought she believed about herself.
“Just… what?” Her ghost pressed.
“I’m embarrassed, in a way.” She breathed a sigh of relief at the words escaping her mouth, eyes drifting to her dirtied nails and stained clothing.
She hadn’t bathed in weeks. The few nights she’d stayed in the inn, she hadn’t had the bravery to attempt using the shared baths.
Not because she believed the other occupants to be too dirty, but because the first night she’d attempted, a couple deep in the throes of passion had accosted her and groped her.
She killed them by accident—her thorned vines seemingly having a mind of their own when they’d ripped through the flesh of that couple, leaving gaping holes in their chests where their hearts were once beating rapidly with desire.
Hiding the bodies required help from a shadow friend that swore on his life he wouldn’t tell Aziel where she was or what had happened.
Did she make a good decision in whispering to the shadows to summon him?
Yes. Did she believe him when he promised he wouldn’t tell Aziel a thing?
Gods, no. Trio couldn’t keep a secret, even if it meant saving his life.
Especially where Aziel was concerned. Nonetheless, she was thankful towards her shadowy friend.