Chapter 44
Eadyn still stood. The kingdom and her soldiers returned to their camps in an eerie silence, none of them knowing what to say about what they’d witnessed.
They’d heard whisperings of her being the next Anam, but found such a notion to be entirely unbelievable.
Nymiria was born into power, certainly, and had not been such a horrible princess that they objected to the idea of her being a goddess.
In terms of Fate, who were they to argue against it, anyhow?
Still, the world kept turning. Flowers sprouted and bloomed every day and the soldiers eventually returned to their homes.
They ate with their families, hugged and kissed their loved ones, and found solace in their beds at night.
Some proclaimed they were lucky and others insisted they were blessed, the stories of what happened on the battlefield spreading as far as Yaar by the second week succeeding the war.
Nymiria had grown used to withering looks, eyes filled with contempt when they befell her.
She even considered herself more comfortable with the curious and inquisitive glances she’d received when she first returned to Eadyn.
But… she could not quite bring herself to find comfort or pride in the way people looked at her now.
She felt uneasy accepting offerings and words of gratitude and would physically flinch when people dropped to their knees or bowed to her.
It would certainly take some getting used to.
Eadyn was proclaimed victor in The God War, with Shidosha being named as a trusted alliance in the days that followed—their assistance with the war not going unnoticed.
Even Yaar, subsequently ruled by Crown Prince Oran Yaarborough after his father’s death, had signed treaties with Eadyn and declared that Yaar would, henceforth, welcome all Mystic individuals without persecution.
In doing so, many of those who still detested Mystics eventually fled the continent.
Good riddance, as far as Nymiria was concerned.
After two weeks, Thorn made the decision to cross into Alvaros and speak with their king.
Nymiria’s wall still stood strong along that border, parting to reveal a landscape that was still left in ruin, before Thorn stepped through.
When he returned to Eadyn the following day, his features were hard.
His eyes, usually bright and cheerful, were filled with dread when he explained to them what he’d uncovered.
King Tiberius Alvaros, Everan'd father, had died. Not during the war, but well before. Killed, Thorn claimed, by his own traitorous wife and son.
Auritsa, Everand’s mother, was still nowhere to be found. While Nymiria hoped that she’d fled or perished in the war, she had a feeling that the wretch of a woman would appear when her time came. She could not hide from her consequences forever.
It came to pass that Thorn would return to Alavaros, the kingdom in which he’d been born, and try to rebuild and reshape what had been left to waste. With no remaining relatives in the Alvaros family, Thorn claimed the crown.
When it came to choosing who would rule Eadyn in their father’s absence, Nymiria extinguished the idea that Raven would take the throne.
She remembered being young and inexperienced—terrified of such a responsibility at such a young age.
And despite the fact that it made her sick to her stomach with nervousness, Nymiria agreed to reclaim her title as crown princess. Inevitably…
She became queen.
Again.
It all happened so quickly, but was less chaotic than her first crowning. She wasn’t alone in this anymore, she reminded herself. And it brought great comfort to look at the throne beside her own and see Aziel there.
Not as a consort or an advisor, but as a king. Her counterpart.
The people of Eadyn did not fear him the way those in Yaar had.
They didn’t turn and walk away when they crossed paths with him, nor did they utter prayers of protection when he looked at them.
They revered him in the way Nymiria believed he always deserved—not a monster, not a creature that lurked under their beds and waited for the night to descend upon them.
He was not the horror that his father had written and Nymiria…
She was not her mother.
Though she believed her mistakes would follow her to her grave and smear a legacy she’d never had the freedom to form on her own, she was dutifully proven wrong.
Perhaps her subjects were well-versed in the art of flattery, but on the off chance that they truly believed in her, she found herself entirely overwhelmed in the deluge of their kindness and acceptance.
Even now, as she looked out of her window at the calm summer night that still hummed with life down below, she had a hard time believing that any of this was real.
She’d survived her mother. She’d survived Yaar, Everand, and all of the other greedy men she’d had the misfortune of crossing paths with.
She’d survived death, of all things, and oftentimes believed that the surreality of her circumstances were due to that very fact.
Some nights, she had to convince herself that it wasn’t just some sort of utopia that’d been curated for her in death.
As much as Aziel tried to make it seem as though he wasn’t bothered by her death, it was more than obvious that he felt that if he looked away from her for too long, she would disappear into thin air.
She could feel his eyes on her as she gazed down at their kingdom, and could practically hear the thoughts running through his mind as he approached her.
During the weeks following the end of the war, he hadn’t left her side.
It took her having to shove him out of their room that morning for him to finally part from her.
He met with her father earlier that morning and then finally returned to the Otherworld to oversee his own affairs he’d unceremoniously neglected.
“You’ve been gone quite a while.” She bit down in her lower lip to hide her smirk, eyes meeting his as he slid his suit jacket from his shoulders as tossed it away.
He plopped down beside her on the settee she’d forced in front of the window a few days prior, hands immediately drawing her feet into his lap.
There was a soft gleam in his tired eyes, his blinks slow and tired as he looked at her.
“There were a number of things I needed to tend to,” he sighed.
“As it turns out, I probably shouldn’t stay away from the Otherworld for more than a few days—it was pure chaos.
Lost souls wandering into the pits, demons torturing the wrong people for the wrong things…
” He clicked his tongue in disapproval. Nymiria stifled a moan when he dug the pads of his thumbs in the tops of her feet, working the muscles in deep circles.
“Moonflower, if you keep making noises like that, we won’t be leaving this room for a few more days. ”
She flushed instantly, trying and failing to glare at him. “I wouldn’t mind it. Being locked away with you for eternity sounds delightful.”
“We’d drive each other insane.”
“Love and insanity often go hand in hand.” He frowned slightly, switching to her other foot. “I believe it takes two very mad, mad people to allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to trust someone with their heart. But being madly in love is far better than the alternative.”
“And what is that?” He hummed curiously.
Nymiria’s breath hitched as his fingers began working up her calf and to her thigh, that heat that seemingly pulsed in her cheeks spreading to her chest. “Regret.” She said simply. “Regret is a death in itself.”
The look in his eyes became shadowed and just by that, alone, she could tell that he’d slipped into that memory again—the memory of watching her die. His grip on her thigh faltered. “I should never have been so selfish. Your death… it could have been avoided.”
Nymiria released a deep sigh and moved into his lap, clasping his face in her hands.
“Don’t.” He still tried not to look at her, that shame till weighing heavy at his features.
“Aziel, I am fine. I am alright. I’m breathing, I’m alive.
There is absolutely no reason why you should feel any sort of guilt for what happened.
Everand… he would have done everything he could to win and I have no doubt that if it came down to killing innocent people, he would have done that as well—”
His eyes finally met hers, shame mixing with anger in their depths. “I didn’t kill him to save the world, Nymiria. I killed him because of what he did to you.”
If she hadn’t already felt lightheaded at their closeness, his confession would have done the trick.
She could never quite understand why the notion of him killing things that harmed her made her feel this way.
Perhaps she’d saved herself for so long, that having someone willing to defy the natural order of the universe just to protect her was now a grand display of affection.
It was morbid, surely, but what was she to do?
Aziel brought her hands to his lips, brushing feather-light kisses over her knuckles before he spoke again. “My selfishness has cost us both a great deal of torment. And I must confess that it will only get worse from here.”
Nymiria almost laughed at the absurdity of his thought processes.
They’d overcome the worst moments of their lives and survived.
Their villains were dead, the world was beginning to return to the way it should have been all along.
They’d done everything right. “What do you mean by that?” She asked, nonetheless.