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 inyears. 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 fingerstrailed 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 savedhundreds, 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 ahome. 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 foryou. 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 lifewithout 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.
Ever since she’d tried to rescue her coward of a mother from people that hadn’t even taken her, Nymiria made it a point to never attempt heroics ever again. Sure, she’d snuck food to people in the dungeons and helped a few courtesans escape Yaar, but she hadn’t done anything in her life to be deemed as someonedeserving.
“May I impart you with a bit of hope, Nymiria?”
She wanted to say no. She wanted to run as far away from him and this conversation as possible, but she didn’t. A part of her needed something to cling to at the moment. With a small nod of her head, Oran took her hand into his.
“Love can withstand some of the strongest forces in the world. Sometimes, even death. I know from experience. That being said, if you believe that love cannot withstand the tempest of your heart, you are so foolishly wrong.” If he’d said that to her a few weeks ago, Nymiria would have laughed in his face and made some sort of joke in response. Instead, she simply watched as Oran rose to his feet and looked around at all of the closed blooms waiting for dusk to come and awaken them from their slumber. He shrugged. “Dorid and Camalia are gone for the night. They’re attending a dinner up north with my fiancée’s family and I have decided that we should all have a bit of fun before all hell breaks loose.”
“Before all hell breaks loose?”
Oran tilted his head to the side and let out a small chuckle. “I’ll leavethatfor my brother to explain.” Sounds of laughter rippled through the courtyard, drawing Oran’s attention for a moment. He peered over his shoulder, taking a small peek at those behind him before turning back to her. “We are all gathering at sunset. I’ll see you there.”
Nymiria pushed herself to her feet with a grunt, dusting the dirt from her palms onto her robe. She smiled, if only to give the impression that his words hadn’t made her mind even more of a jumbled mess than before. So much had happened in the last day, she had no idea how to sort through her racing thoughts. Her whole world had changed in such a short amount of time.
“And where is he?” She asked. “This brother of yours seems to have vanished into thin air.”
“He’s probably in the Otherworld torturing some poor sick bastard who most definitely deserves it. I would like to feel sorry for the dastardly souls that had the honor of dying at a time when my brother reigned over the hells, but I do not.” He let out a weak laugh.
Nymiria nodded, biting back a grin of her own.
