Chapter 15 #2
“He said that marrying me is the only way his parents will form an alliance. I must be used as collateral or they have no reason to trust my father because Inasha was the one to inform Dorid about their safe houses and the ways to get around their defenses and because you, my father’s second, were their captor.
” The words came out of her all in one breath, her chest aching for air by the time they were spoken.
“I may be making assumptions, but I have reason to believe that they think you have ulterior motives.”
Aziel slowly dragged himself up into a seated position, mulling over her confession as he watched her throw herself onto the foot of the bed. “Why are you angry about that?” He asked.
“Because you had no other choice and they will never understand that.” She grumbled into the mattress. “Because you, Trio, and Thorn risked yourselves to bring them back and they are too self-righteous to acknowledge it.”
He made a quick humming sound and when Nymiria finally turned her face out of the fluffy duvet and looked at him, he was rubbing his temples. “He’s testing us.” Aziel muttered sleepily. “I think the ambush in Gillian was him trying to prove that we needed him—a way to secure you.”
Nymiria released an exasperated groan and rolled onto her back. “I’m so angry I could punch something.”
“Well, let me get out of the room before I become a victim.” He huffed as he rose to his feet, his whole body heavy as he began grabbing for articles of clothing.
Nymiria watched him for a moment and then laughed.
Aziel’s lips tilted up at the corners, his eyes gleaming as he turned and walked into the washroom.
“Don’t even think about following me.” He called out.
“You should dress in something more comfortable. We’ll start lessons early today. ”
“Keep your eyes closed.”
Aziel was leaned against a tree, his long legs crossed at the ankle, arms folded over his chest as he watched her.
He’d been shouting commands at her for the last hour and a half, only coming to her assistance when she collapsed to the ground in a breathless heap.
He’d give her water from his flask, help her to her feet, and then they would start all over again.
Nymiria ground her teeth and muttered her curses under her breath.
She could feel his smug grin, could sense the enjoyment he found in this torture.
She rolled her shoulders, reaching into herself to find that spark.
It always appeared to her mind’s eye no larger than that of a pin prick, a needle point of silver light in the dark depths of her core.
Locating the source of her power never proved to be very difficult, as she’d always known that it was there.
But it rested in a sort of stasis, never moving—always dormant.
A perpetual bead of light. When the runes were removed from her back, it had been the first time that she’d felt that power swell, that it had appeared larger than a pea.
She remembered what it felt like to pull at it, to let it unleash itself into the world.
The feeling was akin to a scream of rage finally leaving the lungs of a battered woman. And it had been.
“You are holding yourself back.” Aziel chided from the tree line. “Stop thinking so much and just let go.”
“I’m trying.” She snapped, scrunching her eyes to resist the urge to open them and glare at him. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
She heard the soft crunching of leaves and twigs over his feet as he approached her. The sigh he released was not one of contentment, but deep frustration.
That makes two of us, she thought.
“Do you remember what you did in order to use your power in Yaar?” He asked.
Her eyes snapped open, filled with a fear that was unmistakable to him.
He’d known for quite some time that the only thing preventing her from using her Grace was that fear.
He was hesitant to mention it in the last few days, but he believed that coddling her from the truth would do nothing, but hinder her.
The longer they waited to move things along, the more unbalanced the world would become.
“I… I don’t want to think about that.” She confessed quietly.
“You need to,” he urged. “Ignoring what happened will only make your guilt eat away at you. Let go. It may be more of a relief to your soul if you do.” He moved in behind her, his hands coming up to her shoulders and giving them a comforting squeeze. “Try.”
Nymiria drew a breath in through her mouth and then expelled it through her nose.
She did exactly as he’d commanded every day and let her muscles relax.
The tension fell away, the worried line between her brow now smoothing out.
She reached for her Grace again, letting out a harsh growl as she drove her senses towards it.
The light grew larger by just a fraction, expanding and retracting, dancing in and out of vision until…
Nothing.
She wanted it back. She wanted to control it again.
She wanted to feel the same magnitude of power she felt the moment Phyona removed those runes from her back.
She wanted her flowers to bloom. She wanted her vines to stretch through the earth, to weave themselves through the dirt and make a home there.
She could feel the calling of the earth under her skin—dirt and stardust and whatever else was woven into the molecular makeup of things that lived.
“She was a disappointment the moment she was born.” Her mother’s voice echoed through her mind, nearly ripping the air from her lungs. It was so close, the power was just within her reach, so close that she could almost taste it.
Nymiria let out a cry of frustration—releasing every ounce of energy she had pent up into a single yell.
Ten years without the ability to make something bloom, ten years without the strength to hold a wilted flower in her hands and breathe life back into it—she’d tried.
Every day for ten years, she tried. And all that came of it was the fucking garden that Lilith and Owen were buried in. And even that had been a failure.
Every flower she planted died. Every weed she pulled sprang back the next day. She scraped and prodded and primped the dirt, sewing seeds, watching them grow and then wilt all over again. The only thing she ever successfully produced in that garden was tears.
Tears.
She was crying.
Aziel stepped forward then, watching as she wiped the tears off of her face, smearing them along her reddened cheeks. She couldn’t understand why he was smiling or why he took a step back when her brow furrowed.
His face fell, the finger he’d pointed at her while yelling his commands was now extended in her direction again. “Look.”
Nymiria was prepared to hurl insults at him, but the moment she looked down at her hands and saw that the intricate designs of moonflowers he’d marked her with were now blooming real blooms, every single word in her vocabulary vanished entirely.
“Now do it again.”
As quickly as her words seemingly disappeared, they all came hurling back to her at full force when Aziel spoke. Nymiria’s eyes narrowed in on his. “Fuck you!”
“You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t want that from me.
Now,” He cleared the distance between them, his hands cupping her face.
Nymiria wanted to pull away. It was her first reaction—to want to shove him off of her and spit in his face.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Even the flowers sprouting from her skin seemed to gravitate in his direction. “Do it again for me, Moonflower.”
“I’m not doing anything for you.” She grumbled, her voice lacking the venom necessary for her words to make impact.
Aziel nodded, his hands falling away from her face. His smirk told her that it was what he wanted to hear all along. “Then do it for yourself.”
Do it for myself.
Nymiria tried to shove away the tingling sensation his presence left on her skin—how those markings covering her body felt alive just from one simple touch. She couldn’t think like that. Not about him.
She continued to breathe, each breath grounding her more and more. Every thought and feeling was cast away to the wind—dust riding a warm breeze. She placed her hands upon her stomach, doing her best to find the place inside of her that she’d believed she sealed shut.
She had to feel it.
Her heart. Her core and whatever else lived inside of those things—she needed to feel them.
Her mind wove through the moments of her life from one unfortunate event to the next.
Her mother, standing over her with a hateful sneer, her face red with anger.
Her mother, looking at her with the sort of contempt one would only save for their enemy.
Men.
Men. Men. Men. Their hands, their faces, their anger, and all of their greed.
It was a blur of faces she’d forced herself to forget, a series of moments she wished to extinguish from her memory forever.
Those faces twisted and bled into the image of Dorid Yaarborough and all of his hateful pride—him hitting her, him berating her.
Him forcing a blade into her hand and giving her a command.
Nymiria flinched at the impact of her blade breaking through muscle and bone, plunging into Owen’s heart. She shuddered as she watched him fall, as she held him in her arms as he died. None of it was real.
Memories. Hundreds, thousands, all of them leading up to the moment she discovered that her mother had been the one inflicting this torture. That her mother, the one she once thought to be the image of power, had been the guiding hand to all of her suffering.
Her mother. Her mother. Her mother’s eyes, her smile, the hatred in her eyes, and…
Blood.
The power inside of her felt like ice coursing through her veins.
Touching it with her mind was the equivalent to a mother tending to the wound of a hurt child or a comforting kiss placed upon a forehead.
The power inside of her was wounded. It hadn’t vanished.
It had just been hiding. She was careful with it—tender.
Observing it closer, she watched the ball of light unfurl, spreading through her core and painting her soul silver. The flowers bloomed along her arms and legs, vines spilling from her fingers and wrapping around each limb, carefully caressing her skin as if to apologize.
Aziel stared at her, watching as those vines twisted and curled around her skin, as she blossomed into something that was so ethereal, the word beauty couldn’t even describe it.
Moonflowers danced along her skin, releasing a silver dusting of pollen into the sky.
They shimmered in the light, dancing around in the broken fractals of the sun’s rays like a million tiny stars.
The white of the vines shifted to green the closer they came to her fingers, spilling out of her and weaving themselves through the dirt.
Her skin had always been pale but there was a specific glow to her now that he could not quite explain in words. She looked as if she’d been carved from the most beautiful gems that lived under the surface of the earth.
“Look at you,” Aziel whispered. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life.”
A chill ran up her spine at the words, her heart stuttering when she felt Aziel’s fingers brush over the soft white petals sprouting from her skin.
She pressed herself into him, letting his hand guide them both to the pedestal at the center of the labyrinth.
Her mind felt detached from her body, the world seemingly spinning when she looked down at herself.
Her breathing quickened when Aziel’s hands ghosted over the flowers on her shoulder, her lips parting when his thumb traced along the curve of her jaw.
She turned to him then, her eyes wide and her heart pounding.
She didn’t have time to think, didn’t have time to convince herself that this was not a good idea.
There were so many emotions flooding her body, but the strongest one of all was the desire to be touched and to touch.
Nymiria pushed herself up onto the tips of her toes and threw her arms around Aziel’s neck.
The vines retract immediately, pulling back into her skin as she hugged him.
He stiffened at the sudden impact, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides before he finally, slowly pulled her closer to him.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He shook his head, shivering at the hitch in her breathing when his fingers moved to the slope of her spine. She pulled back just enough to look up at him, her hands still lingering on his shoulders. “Always so stubborn. And for what?”
Nymiria spent the remainder of that day growing flowers from the palm of her hand. Even at night, as Aziel slept away in their bed, she let them grow. She dedicated each flower to each of her regrets, using all of the energy from her guilt to produce each beautifully delicate bloom.
When Aziel awoke the following morning, Nymiria was still sleeping soundly at his side and their room was filled with thousands of flowers.