Chapter 31
Morning came with the tolling of the temple bell, signifying that all worshippers of the new gods would need to rouse from their comfortable beds, dress themselves in their best attire, and report to the Market Square with haste.
Nymiria rose with a start, her hand going to her bare chest and her eyes flickering around her room.
She couldn’t fight the slight disappointment she felt in finding that the other side of her bed was now empty, but she was soon thankful for his absence when Dorid’s courier barged into her room.
He was an old man with tiny eyes and tiny spectacles propped on a hooked nose.
The wrinkle between his brow gave the impression that he was perpetually angry, his thin lips always in a hard line.
He didn’t bother looking at her as he placed a sealed envelope onto her dresser, he only huffed and limped back out of the room.
She tucked her bed sheet under her arms and braved the walk to the dresser, popping the wax seal and slipping the letter out.
My dearest treasure,
We will be having guests tomorrow. Princess Fiernan of Shidosha and her parents will be making an appearance and there will be a soirée to honor them.
I have had a dress made for you in honor of this event.
Given their ties to the islands and their customs, we have chosen to go with a theme for the evening.
Sirens.
Do you know what sirens are known for? They lure men into the water and are said to bleed the life from their bodies, feeding off of their death.
It is by the power vested in me that I command you to kill Aziel Haze with a blade to the heart tomorrow evening. You will not flirt with my orders any longer. If it is not done by the midnight hour, you will face grave consequences.
Do not disappoint me again.
Forever yours,
His Majesty Dorid Ciarnan Yaarborough of Yaar
As impersonal as always, his name was not signed, but stamped with large ornate lettering, his royal seal pressed into the corner of the page.
Meaning that it was an official royal request and not just a spoken order.
This meant that Aziel’s assassination was approved by Dorid’s advisors and the other members of the house court.
Nymiria’s hands were shaking as she curled the letter into her palm, her nails digging so deep into the parchment that they made crescent-shaped puncture marks.
Of course, she was not going to kill him.
That much had been made clear weeks before.
Still, she could feel the pressure on her, like a boot upon her shoulders that pressed her so deep into the dirt, she could see nothing but filth.
It was as she always believed, if Dorid could not physically kill either of them, he would surely find a way to hurt both of them to the point that they wished they were dead or they would take their own lives.
He was not above torture, both mental and physical.
And he would do so in both ways until one of them broke. She was sure of it.
Unless she or Aziel could rid themselves of their runes completely, killing anyone in that palace—
Nymiria’s brow furrowed, her mind connecting pieces of a story, minuscule details, that Camalia probably never believed she’d realize. Months ago, when Camalia came to Nymiria late in the night and they devised a plan to kill Dorid and Oran, she said nothing about the runes in her back.
Those runes were not for protecting the king and the prince at all. They were only for Camalia’s protection.
With the letter still crumpled in her hand and her heart thudding loudly in her ears, Nymiria threw on her robe and darted out of her room.
She didn’t know where her heart was trying to lead her, but the moment the iron bars of her garden came into view, she broke into a sprint.
Ever since that day that Aziel tried to snatch the key from around her neck, she’d left it unlocked.
It wasn’t hers to keep, not when the bones of his mother rested under the bed of moonflower vines that now crawled along every inch of the garden.
The gates were left open. And while it left the sacred resting grounds open to all those who roamed the lawn, it felt too precious to be kept a secret.
His mother deserved to be known. Owen deserved to be known.
The people in the kingdom needed to know just how depraved their king truly was—that he could take someone so pure and twist them in ways that they became unrecognizable.
Nymiria hadn’t recognized herself in years.
The blood that stained her hands felt as if it had drenched her entirely, muddying her features until she no longer knew the person looking at her in the mirror.
It didn’t matter what Dorid threatened. She wasn’t going to kill anyone else for him—especially Aziel.
And as she knelt down in the bed of flowers and peeled the vines away from his mother’s headstone, she swore to the woman that laid there that she would turn the knife on herself before she ever pointed it in the direction of Aziel Haze.
“Nymiria?”
She startled, her eyes going wide with fear until they landed on Oran’s large and looming form. While she was taken off-guard by his sudden appearance, she was more shocked to find him looking so disheveled and unkempt. As if he hadn’t had a lick of sleep in years.
“Are you alright?” He asked.
She glanced down at the crumpled letter in her hand before returning her gaze to him. “I’m well. Why do you ask?”
“I called your name. Multiple times. Even followed you all the way out here, but it was as if you were in some sort of daze.” He told her, casually carding his fingers through his hair. “You looked terrified.”
She was. “I’m… well.” They hadn’t seen one another since Dorid humiliated her in front of him and Aziel—since she’d humiliated herself by vomiting in front of them.
Oran probably had so many questions for both her and his brother.
“Thank you, by the way. For lying for us. You didn’t have to do that. ”
Oran let out a soft chuckle and took a cautious step into the garden, looking to her for assurance as he did. Nymiria granted him entry, patting the ground beside her and encouraging him to sit. He did so with a soft groan, his face giving small signs of pain. “I did, actually.”
“They can’t kill us.”
“Maybe not, but I’ve seen them control Aziel and force him to do unspeakable things to people.
Whatever magic my parents have—whatever control they have over him has caused irreparable damage to him.
” He plucked a small flower from a vine, twirling it between two fingers as he peered up at the sky.
“I hope you know that my lying is not just for Aziel’s cause or the fact that the two of you are gods.
He is my brother and you are…” he released a soft sigh as he let the flower fall to the ground.
“I shouldn’t be speaking for him, Nymiria, but I haven’t seen a single spark of joy on Aziel’s face in years.
He’s had moments of happiness, sure, but not like this. ”
She sat there for a moment, hoping that those words would erase her fear, but it only made it worse.
She had been so absorbed in her heartbreak for all of these years and to actually feel something other than pain when it came to her feelings for someone was terrifying in itself.
Since she met him, she’d despised Aziel.
She believed him to be hateful and cocky and quite awfully rude, at times.
Then there was the way he looked at her, the way he assessed her.
Even during their first interaction with one another at Oran’s engagement, when his fingers trailed over the bruise Dorid left on her neck a few days before, there was a gentleness about him—a possessiveness over her that made her skin crawl in the most morbidly fascinating way she’d ever experienced.
Aziel saved her. He saved hundreds, perhaps even thousands.
He was confusing. He was beautiful, brilliant, hilarious, and sad.
When the people of The Beyond offered a temple to him in his honor, he denied them—all he asked for was a home.
Something that was his in a world that had denied him everything from the moment he was conceived.
She wouldn’t let anyone take that away from him.
“Nymiria, what are you so frightened of?” Oran asked. “You’ve gone pale.”
She looked at the headstone once more, her heart feeling as if it’d been ripped from her chest the moment her lips parted to speak.
A single tear rolled down her cheek as she turned to face Oran once again.
“Dorid wants me to kill Aziel tomorrow. I can’t let that happen.
I can’t let them get the chance to force him into doing anything that will ruin him completely.
I think I'm going to have to turn the knife on myself. They’ve already taken so much—”
“It would kill him, Nymiria. If you harmed yourself to save him, do you sincerely believe that he would want to continue living? Everything he has done has been for you. And I am not saying that to frighten you. I am telling you this because both of you deserve a chance. Away from this place, somewhere where the both of you can be safe and happy—both of you deserve that.”
“I’m not deserving of anything.”
Oran stared at her in silence, baffled when he realized she was not just trying to be modest. “You are the only person I know who believes that statement to be true.” He sighed. “How many people will it take to convince you that you are worth more than the things you’ve had to do to survive?”
She didn’t like thinking about it—being someone of importance to those around her.
For so long, she’d wished to fade into the background and be forgotten.
Swallowed by a sea of people and simply blend in with the chaos.
A simple life without titles. A life where she went to sleep at night and dreamed of beautiful and wild things instead of being met with the things she wanted to forget.