Epilogue
Six Months Later
As promised, the realms were now at war. For the past few weeks, Nymiria had awoken to the sounds of swords clashing and screams of terror. She and Oran ran from spreading fires and the sounds of boots marching through villages. Oran had already contacted Shidosha, alerting them of the vile ways his father had treated the Mystics within his own kingdom and urged them not to send aid. In return, the Shidoshans offered him refuge, a place for him and Nymiria to stay for as long as they wished.
With no desire to return to the people she'd reluctantly left behind, she decided that Shidosha seemed like the perfect place for her to start over. She just hoped that it was far enough away that she could escape the nightmares.
Unlikely, but it was worth a shot.
Nymiria looked around the crowded room at all of the patrons laughing and enjoying their drinks and company. She sat alone at the bar, her index finger swirling around the chipped clay rim as she searched. She hadn’t yet discovered what she was searching for, but the vacant place in her chest ached so terribly that nothing could soothe it. Not ale, not men, not women, not cards—nothing.
Setting out on her own was her decision. A terrible one of many. Though she had money and a safe place to rest her head, she’d never felt more hopeless. She’d traveled nearly the entire continent in search of something to fill that void, but she always ended up here. Alone. Drunk. Searching.
Months ago, when she last saw Desi in Eadyn, she told her friend that she was setting out to find herself. Six months on her own and she was still empty-handed, finding herself missing the comfort of silken sheets and the scent of cherry blossoms.
No—that was just the ale. Her mind was fuzzy, she had to be hallucinating to some degree.
It was impossible.
Still, the smell surrounded her, masking the stale stench of mildew and ale, of smoke and vomit and sweat. There was no way that it could be him and even if it was, she didn’t give him the glory of her looking around to find out.
You’re being cruel, moonflower.
She didn’t care. He could grovel all he wanted—get on his knees and beg for her to change her mind, but she wouldn’t.
“I recall you being rather fond of seeing me on my knees.” Nymiria went still, muscles freezing under her skin, locking her in place. She didn’t turn her head, but she could see him sliding into the chair next to hers with the same sly grace as a cat. “You’ve made yourself quite the difficult person to find.”
“I wonder why that might be.” She grumbled, still forcing herself to stare straight ahead at the barkeep as he worked his rounds. “Seems as if I had no desire to be found.”
“Is that right?” He hummed, nodding respectfully as the barkeep slid a drink in front of him. Nymiria turned to him then, watching as he lifted the glass of blue liquid to his lips and downed it in one go. She scoffed.
His beauty threatened to wipe her slate clean, to make her forget why she’d ever decided to leave in the first place.Forcing anger was the only way. Though her anger was projected in the wrong direction, it was what she needed to do to protect them both from heartbreak and pain.
“You can come back, you know? I can help you learn how to use your powers, hone your skills.” Aziel sighed. “Take a break from this grueling life at sea.”
Nymiria slid him a side-long glare. “We haven’t even left port yet.”
“That means you still have the option to get off.”
She snorted. “And leave your poor brother all alone?”
She expected some look of contempt at her remark. Instead, his features didn’t change at all. It shouldn’t have mattered if he was jealous or not, but the thought did nothing to ease the sting she felt at seeing how little he cared. “He’s a big boy, he can handle himself.”
Nymiria’s eyes drifted to the place where she’d left Oran. His sleeping figure was slumped over one of the tables in the far corner of the room, hair wild and beard fully grown over the months they'd spent on the run. “I’m not so sure of that. He’s taken his mother’s death rather hard.”
Aziel’s gaze followed hers, his features softening when they took in Oran’s large and pathetic form. “He will survive, I’m sure.”
“Don’t be so insensitive.”
“I’ve never been insensitive a day in my life. What I am isrealistic. Life does not stop in death. The hands of time continue to turn.” He fell silent when Nymiria did not react. She acted as if he hadn’t even spoken a single word. And she would continue to do so until he understood that she did not want his poetic prose. “Alright, then. I see my insensitivity is the only thing that can illicit a response today, so I will be quite blunt when I say that I have come to retrieve both of you from this sorry excuse of soul searching and returning you both to the places where you are needed. You can fight, kick, and scream all you want. It doesn’t matter.”
She turned to him slowly, her eyes narrowed and her lips giving no sign of amusement whatsoever. Aziel felt his stomach hollow at the lifeless eyes that stared back at him, but even though his heart ached deep in the confines of his chest, he did not show it. He could tell by the look on her face alone that she was not wanting love confessions and tear-soaked apologies. He wasn’t even sure he could do it. Not here.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. You can do your worst, Aziel, but the only way I am leaving this ship is if I am dead.” She spat her venom, but looking at him while saying it was almost impossible.
He wasbeautiful. And it was in their nature for their eyes to find one another.She despised how her heart still reacted to his presence—how her body gravitated towards him, how her instinct upon seeing him looking down at her was to throw herself into his arms and submit to everything she'd denied herself.
Finally, against her own will, she reallylookedat him.
