Chapter 25
He gave up hope.
Finally, after five years of torment, after five years of unwanted touches, and hands dripping with blood, all of the hope he’d hoarded in his soul had been vanquished. There was not much left in him that was good.
He wandered the streets of Yaar with no purpose, clutching at an old, weathered journal that had once been filled with such promise. Even the god that had been hunting him for the last year was silent today—he could hear nothing. Feel nothing.
Aziel staggered through the narrow, rugged streets, slipping on the wet cobblestones as he approached the dilapidated townhome at the very end.
He didn’t know what brought him to this place, but he’d heard stories of the old woman from the market—the things she could do for people like him.
He wasn’t quite sure if they were as broken or as lost as he was, but he hoped that she could guide him in the direction he needed to go.
He gave up hope.
None of it was worth it anymore.
On the darkest days of his life, the days spent in Camalia’s presence and the days after, he’d always held out hope that his princess was going to be safe.
He hoped that she would remember him. He hoped for a lot of things.
But five years had passed and it was hard to think that anything could be worth all of this pain.
Earlier that day, he tried to escape Camalia. She found him, as she always did. And she smiled at him when she told him of Nymiria’s lover.
When he entrusted Owen and Desiree with Nymiria’s care, he didn’t expect for one of his oldest and dearest friends to fall in love with her.
He also did not expect for Nymiria to fall in love with Owen, either.
He had hope. But hope, in a place like this, was such a foolish thing for him to have.
He should have learned that lesson five years prior when Dorid threw him into that pit.
He should have learned that lesson when Camalia sterilized him.
He should have learned that lesson already, but it was his mother’s good heart and her love for people that she’d instilled in him that was stronger than the seed of hate that his father tried to sew.
It wasn’t as if she belonged to him. Nymiria was not his.
He had no claim on her and even if he wanted to, he had nothing to offer her—not a home, not a means of escape.
He had nothing, but his mother’s journal and the weight of a prophecy hanging over his head, a fate that he was cursed with the moment Dorid spilled his seed into his mother’s womb.
Aziel drew in a ragged breath, leather-clad fingers digging into the spine of the journal as he pressed it closer to his chest.
He gave up hope in silly ideas of love, but there was something more for him out there.
He had a future. He had promise. He had the ability to become something more than the bastard to a king that only kept him alive to utilize him like a weapon.
He had a mate out there… somewhere. And whether it took ten years or a hundred, he was willing to hold on to the idea that there was someplace that he belonged.
As wretched and corrupt as he was, there was someone out there for him. Someone that his soul would call to.
He could have been incredibly drunk and full of emotions, but he could not shake the feeling that this person—his mate—was closer than he believed. That, whoever she was, needed him just as much as he needed her.
I will love her, he told himself. I will love her and she will love me, too.
Righting himself on the stone wall he’d stumbled into, Aziel drew in a deep breath and continued towards the house at the end of that street.
He climbed the wobbling and rotting stairs, knocked twice on the door that seemed to hang a tilt.
When it opened to reveal the wrinkled face of a woman that would always sneak treats into his pocket while in the market, Aziel nearly threw himself into her arms. But Dieve was not the affectionate type.
“What on earth?” She croaked, tugging him upright and pulling him inside.
At a loss for words, Aziel slowly handed her his mother’s journal. “I have a mate.” He said quietly. “I have a mate.”
Dieve took the book from him, casting glances at him as she thumbed through the worn pages. As she read, her expression went from one of confusion to solemn understanding. She turned to him slowly, closing the book as she did. “Come with me.”
She led him through the home to a work table in one of the back rooms. Aziel ducked his head, but the dried herbs and crystals that hung from her ceiling were still disturbed by his height.
When she urged him down onto the table, Dieve began to pray.
Aziel was still learning the old languages and could only decipher a few of the words she said.
He watched her move around, grabbing needles and small metallic bars that she had in glass containers along the wall.
He’d never felt so vulnerable, yet so sure of something in his entire life.
There were many things that he was responsible for, many souls that relied on him to receive their fateful end. Teigh wanted him to become the ruler of the Otherworld, and Thorn wanted him to lead a revolution.
“You know what this means?” She asked him, running one of the needles over the top of a lit candle.
He nodded. “There is a friend. He’s told me things—the traditions.” He swallowed thickly as she approached him with the needle. “It doesn’t frighten you? That I’m a god?”
The old witch eyed him for a moment, waiting as he shuffled his breeches below his hips.
“No,” she shook her head. “I’ve seen more than my fair share of frightening things, Aziel Haze, and you are the least of those.
” She lowered her hand and took hold of him, not even giving a warning before she pierced the sensitive flesh down below.
Her hands worked quickly, and after the first three rods, she handed him a dusty bottle filled with amber liquid.
“Do you love the one you are mated to, young man?” She asked.
Aziel wasn’t sure how to answer. If he’d allowed the liquor on his lips to loosen them and all of his heart spilled out onto her table, he wasn’t sure how he’d feel about himself in the morning.
He closed his eyes, trying to formulate the words that he wanted to say, but the only thing he could see—the only thing that made any sense was the image of Nymiria Celentas sitting in that dungeon, smiling at him as he handed her the dress for her trial.
He’d done it hoping that Dorid would see her as worthy. He’d hoped that his father would see past her matted hair and swollen eyes, the bruises that hung beneath them. He’d hoped that he would see her as something beautiful, just the way Aziel did.
That image transformed to her, the brief glimpse he’d caught of her earlier that day before Camalia dragged him into her rooms. She was dancing. Smiling. She didn’t even look at him.
If he had any hope left, he would have hoped that Nymiria had been his mate.
But it seemed as though Fate had other plans.
He decided that he could try. He could try to love the person Fate had chosen for him, just as he’d tried to accept the fact that he was a god of a realm he wanted absolutely nothing to do with.
He hated Death, but he was learning to love it.
He couldn’t see why he wouldn’t be able to love the person that Fate chose for him, even if it was not the one he originally wanted.
Nymiria Celentas would be a dream to him—an untouchable thing, something he was not worthy of having.
And Aziel was very familiar with that feeling.
He would survive.
“I will love her,” he said, finally. Though he’d intended to sound sure of himself, it was hard to achieve the moment a low sob spilled from his lips. “I will love her and she will love me, too.”
Dieve continued working on him. She let him lay there and drink himself to the point that he couldn’t stand on his own.
She let him cry. She didn’t say another word, not even as she helped him off of the table and all but carried him to the small sofa in the dusty, dark parlor.
There was a window behind the sofa, one that was covered with tattered, moth-eaten curtains.
At a distance, one would assume they were lace, given their state.
Nonetheless, Aziel peered up at the sky through the holes, eyes flickering from constellation to constellation before finally settling on the moon.
“I don’t know where to go from here.” He whispered.
The clacking of the old crone’s cane against the ground garnered his attention, slowly turning his head to watch as she plopped herself into the chair beside him.
She took a long sip of that amber liquid, rubbing her arthritic fingers along her protruding brow.
“She will lead you to her when you need her most.” The old woman began.
“Her crows will be your companions. You will sense one another, in the way that two halves of a whole always do.”
Aziel was too drunk to understand what she’d meant, at the time. It wouldn’t be until five years later, as he approached a young courtesan with dirt caked under her nails and staining her cheeks, that he would realize the error he’d made—the judgement he’d passed too soon.
He saw the crows perched atop the gates of his mother’s burial grounds, saw the wild look in Nymiria’s eyes as she charged towards him, berating him because she believed he’d ruined her flowers.
His mate.
His enemy.
The reason he’d lost all hope in the world.
Nymiria.
Nymiria.
“Nymiria.”
“NYMIRIA!”