Chapter 11
Days had passed since she’d last seen him.
When she awoke the morning after he vanished, there was a letter waiting for her on his desk, detailing exactly how Aziel and Trio wanted her to handle Everand.
They didn’t want her to talk about the war or Eadyn at first. They wanted her to make her act as believable as possible—a friend who had missed a friend and was glad that they were alive.
It would be fairly easy for her to do that because while she wanted to believe Trio and Aziel weren’t just acting out of paranoia, Everand had also been someone she cherished once.
They’d both been raised relatively the same and they had both been forced into an engagement that neither of them particularly wanted.
As young teens, they had a lot in common. As adults, she was not so sure.
On the second day that Aziel was gone, Nymiria wandered out into the forest, hoping that the books she and Aziel left at the altar hadn’t been ruined by the weather.
When she finally found the place, the altar was empty and silent, with not even the sounds of birds or bugs to be heard.
The books were gone. She took one fleeting look back at the altar before she turned and left, spending the majority of the day browsing the shops in the market.
The third morning, Nymiria woke up and readied herself for her day with Everand, even going so far as to attempt to braid her hair in those beautifully intricate ways of her people. After several failed attempts, she decided to leave it down.
She dressed herself in something simple, yet elegant, one of the few dresses that was stored in the armoire in her washroom before she headed off to her father’s palace.
Thorn answered his own door, his hair unbound and sleep still weighing heavy at his eyes. She could see the line at the center of his brow, a sign that he’d been scowling or stressing more and more. She pulled him into an embrace, smiling as he crushed her against him.
“Do you know why I’m here?” She asked.
He nodded, glancing over his shoulder. “Trio informed me of their concerns. I just wish that they hadn’t included you.”
Nymiria gave a noncommittal laugh, rolling her eyes. “I suppose this is penance for my transgressions. I’ll be fine, though. It was my job once, you know? Convincing people to give me information. Just a bat of the eye here, a touch on the shoulder there, and they were like putty in my hands.”
He didn’t seem pleased with that response at all.
In fact, that line between his brows deepened and his lips turned down at the corners.
“Aziel is like a son to me and one of my most trusted advisors, but what I say takes precedence over any of his requests. One word, and we will call this off—don’t feel like you are forced to do this. ”
Waving her hand at the offer, Nymiria strode into the palace. “Aziel already tried to convince me that I didn’t have to do it, but… I’m trying to make myself useful.”
“You should be focusing on your Grace.” He said, following close behind.
“But I do appreciate your help.” She smiled and nodded, allowing him to guide her towards the veranda at the opposite end of the main foyer.
Her father left her standing at the opening, a light squeeze delivered to her shoulder before he vanished.
Everand was waiting, the delicate teacup he was sipping from looking ridiculously tiny in his large, bejeweled hands.
Years ago, Everand once told her that he could not stand how his father flaunted their riches.
Perhaps it was due to his newfound freedom and a sense of intense patriotism, but Nymiria still frowned when she saw the gold on his fingers.
Drawing in a deep breath, she made her way towards him.
He looked at her as soon as her feet touched the slate stone of the veranda, lifting himself to his feet and offering her a polite bow. Nymiria’s stomach curled with unease. “There is no need to bow.” She chuckled. “I am beneath you now.”
Everand straightened, eyes glimmering with something that made her palms sweat. “No matter their station, I would always bow to a beautiful lady.”
She hesitated, entirely aware that her smile would seem forced. It was too twitchy and too unnatural, it didn’t reach her eyes. There was a moment when she believed that she’d made a horrible mistake, that the talents she’d used as an assassin for Dorid were lost to her now.
“Are you nervous?”
Those three words were enough for her to remember who she became during her assignments.
Men of power were fiends for innocence and naivete, especially when it came wrapped in a pretty dress and wore a pretty face.
Nymiria had captured the most cold of hearts with one simple, sweet, and bashful smile—playing into their delusions to give the impression that she was just as weak and hopeless and in need of guidance as they wanted her to be.
Are you nervous? They would ask, but it was not out of genuine concern. They asked it with hope, a twinkle in their eyes that made her skin crawl.
She played the part of a stammering fool fairly well.
Nymiria gave a slight nod. “When I heard that you wanted to meet with me, I was reluctant at first. I… I didn’t know what I would say to you when I saw you again.
There’s just been so much change, I feared that you wouldn’t like the person I became.
” She said it quickly, toying with her fingernails and glancing around the courtyard, giving the impression that she was too afraid to meet his gaze.
In response, Everand pulled a chair out from underneath the table. “Sit with me.” He said tenderly. “You have nothing to fear, Nymiria. I wanted to meet with you so that I could be introduced to this new version of yourself.”
She took a small step forward, glancing at the chair and then at him before she finally slid into the seat.
Everand sat down beside her, sliding a plate of pastries and a cup of tea in her direction.
It was silent at first, but then Everand took over.
He told her about Alvaros, about the improvements they were making in the mines, the accommodations they were preparing for the workers, and how much gold they’d already been able to secure and export.
He made no mention of his time in the camps and while Nymiria believed it to be suspicious, she figured that it was too sore of a topic for this sort of meeting.
It was not hard to play the avid listener, but her mind began to drift the moment he began speaking of a recent excursion to one of the islands off the coast of O’Shea.
Three days.
She hadn’t seen Aziel in three days now.
Her cheeks bloomed with a furious heat, her hands clenching in her lap as she recalled her behavior.
She shouldn’t have touched him. She shouldn’t have kissed him.
She should have gone to the washroom and washed herself, just as he wanted her to.
And while she wanted to make excuses for herself and her behavior, she simply could not.
She’d acted on impulse and scared him off.
She thought of how he looked at her, how his face changed when he’d looked up at her, the wildness in his eyes and the hardness of his body pressed against every soft and pliable part of hers.
Had she taken advantage of their connection—that sacred bond that tethered them? That was the only logical explanation she had. That he’d acted on instinct and then remembered exactly who she was and who she came from.
Nymiria shuddered, jolting slightly when her eyes refocused, only to see Everand watching her with a rather concerned expression. “Nymiria, you’ve grown pale.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, thick fingers massaging close to her neck.
She didn’t like it.
She hated it.
“I must apologize,” she said breathlessly.
“I have these moments where it feels like I can’t breathe properly.
” She swiftly rose to her feet, desperate to be away from the feeling of his hands on her.
Much to her dismay, Everand was already following suit and as she stepped off of the veranda and began walking across the courtyard, he was still trailing her.
“Did I say something wrong?” He asked.
Nymiria shook her head. “No, no, you’ve done nothing wrong.
It’s just…” She paused, keeping track of his steps as he came to a stop in front of her.
“Everand, I am thrilled that your life has been going well. You deserve it. After all you and your people have endured, you deserve all of the wealth and success that Alvaros receives.” She meant that much.
Even if she felt conflicted about being a spy, she could at least admit that truth to him.
She’d never wanted any of the Mystics to suffer.
“I have heard things about you, Nymiria.” He confessed. “Whenever we would get new prisoners, the prisoners would come with news from Yaar, keeping all of us informed on what was happening on the other side. And, well, many of them said that they saw you there.”
Her body went rigid, her arms folding around herself as she took a half-step backwards. “Everand, I—”
“You were a courtesan, weren’t you?” He asked quietly. “You were forced to do things with those people?”
Even if she wanted to respond, even if she wanted to lie and say that that was the extent of what she did, the truth was far more gruesome.
Nymiria had never been forced to bed anyone.
Sure, she’d used her body as a way to lure men to their deaths, but she’d never let them inside of her.
She never really had to. They were gone, usually bleeding out onto the sheets before they could get their fill.
Everand took her silence as a confirmation. Based upon the sad look that took hold of his strong, handsome features, he’d drawn his own conclusion. “I know that Aziel is your mate, but how could he have allowed something like that to happen to you?”
Allow?
She wanted to scoff. She wanted to scream. She wanted to stomp her feet and claw at his mouth for even daring to insinuate that Aziel hadn’t tried—that Aziel hadn’t been forced to do so much worse than what’d been done to her. She’d never been forced to fuck anyone. But Aziel had.
Her lips curled, her eyes narrowing as they locked with Everand’s. “You know nothing.” She said in a whisper. “Those camps were horrible, Everand. But just like in the Otherworld, there were different layers of hell in Yaar. We were all just trying to survive the ones we were forced to live in.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Nymiria held up her hand, silencing him before he could continue. “I’m not offended. But I will not allow you to talk about what happened in Yaar without knowing the full extent of what we had to endure.”
He looked at her with the same wide, puppy eyes that he’d looked at her with when they were children.
For a moment, she saw him there—saw her friend and not someone she was supposed to be spying on.
She saw that boy that would run these fields with her, the boy who taught her how to climb trees, and who was a master at tying bows.
“Is he nice to you?” Everand asked. “Does he treat you well?”
Her brow furrowed. “Aziel and I aren’t—we aren’t together.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” the words escaped her on the wind of an exhausted breath.
“We just aren’t.” She turned away from him immediately, not even bothering to glance back at him to see what his expression looked like.
She didn’t exactly care. The only thing she was worried about was the fact that she’d kissed Aziel and his scars and he ran out of that room as if he were in fear of his life.
She needed to find him and apologize. She needed to make things right.