His shock was fitting for the situation. Aziel felt it, too. Knowing that the next Goddess of Life was outside tending to a fuckinggardenwas absolutely laughable. As many times as he'd read over his mother's writings, it never said much about who the nextAnamwould be, only that she was everything that was good and pure in the world, that she would sense theMorteminside of her son. It was said that they would call to one another.
In the time of the old gods, it was said that the gods would eventually die. But before their deaths, they would choose from their children and their followers, finding people that exhibited powers and hearts similar to their own, to fill the roles that they would leave behind. Without the beating hearts of these godlings, the powers that the gods bore would dissipate into the earth, leaving them unregulated—uncontrolled. Gods were vessels for these blessings, forever keeping the balance.
Greia, the Goddess of Life and Fertility, was the most-worshiped goddess in Seelie culture. She was the most coveted. The one that people fell to their knees and prayed to at the end of a very long day—the one that they screamed for when life was coming to an end. People rarely prayed for death. And when they did, the circumstances were far more dire and depressing than Aziel once assumed.
The prayers usually made in his name were curses and screamed with hatred.
For the last ten years, Aziel had scoured the world in search of the next one, following his intuition, following any fae being that exhibited Greia's powers. He'd discovered fae that could make flowers bloom with the snap of their fingers, he'd found some that sprouted flowers from their very skin, resembling a walking garden. He'd seen them all. But he'd never seen them digging through the dirt and planting seeds with their bare hands the way Nymiria did.
It couldn't be true.
"Thorn has to know about this. There is absolutelynoway that he would not have known." Aziel said it more to himself than to Trio, trying to find some excuse that would make all of this impossible. This couldn't be happening.
"We always knew Anam was out there somewhere, Aziel." Trio moved in beside him, watching as Aziel opened his mother's journals and began thumbing through the pages. "Doesn't this make things easier for you? Instead of having to retrieve the princessanda goddess, you found them both at the same time. Two birds, one stone." Trio leaned back against the stone wall, pushing his bleached locks away from his face. "Reading it for the thousandth time isn't going to change anything, Aziel. It is what it is." Aziel let out a sharp noise of distaste, tossing the journal across the room as if distance from the proof could change reality. "Why are you so upset about this?"
"Neither of us are ready for what this entails." Aziel sighed, finally able to look at his friend again. "She is likethem."
"How do you know that?" Trio asked. "Have you had an actual conversation with her?"
"No. And I don't think that's happening in the foreseeable future"
"Have you beenniceto her?"
"Fuck." Aziel growled, the force at which his head recline into the wall behind them was nearly strong enough to crack the stone. He closed his eyes. "Some days I wish I'd never been born."
Trio chuckled. "Some days, I agree. My life would have been far simpler if you weren't here. But youare. And I have devoted my life to helping you. So, that being said, we need a course of action. We need a plan. Either you charm her, enchant her, curse her, or…something. Fuck her, if you—"
"Watch it." Aziel warned. One blue eye snapped open, glaring in Trio's direction. "I may not want this, but that is stilla goddessyou are talking about."
The shadow wielder shrugged, his smirk grating against a nerve that always seemed perfectly reserved for Trio and his inability to keep his mouth shut when the moment called for it. "Rather protective there, Haze. One would assume that you actually carefor her."
Aziel laughed at this, rolling his eyes and pulling himself off of the wall just enough to grab the decanter of whiskey off of the table to his right. He looked down at the amber liquid and swirled it. It wasn't necessarily him being protective, but more so him being…him. Nymiria was once a beacon of hope for the Mystics he was saving and he'd devoted the greater part of his adult life insuring that she would return to her kingdom. That was all that this was believed to be in the beginning. When Thorn approached him about the missing princess, Aziel believed that this would be an easy job. He believed that she would still be the same wild little princess he'd seen ten years ago and would immediately gravitate towards him, given their likeness.
But it didn't happen that way. Every chance he had of talking to her, he'd scared her off.
"But," Trio sighed. "I suppose one would actually have to have a heart to feel anything. And you and I both know that you arehorriblylacking in that department."
Aziel grumbled something under his breath and raised the decanter to his lips, swallowing down the amber fire and letting it warm his frozen center. He shuddered in approval, letting out a soft groan as the alcohol hit his stomach. "I might be lacking in that department, but there are other departments where I am perfectly well-endowed."
"It certainly is not the department ofmodesty, either."
He cut his eyes at Trio, making a sound that resembled a laugh around the lip of the decanter. With a roll of his eyes, Aziel tipped the bottle up once again.
They sat in silence for a while, passing the whiskey between themselves until Aziel's intense emotions were dulled just enough to head towards his next job. One of the taxmen in Yaar was causing problems with Dorid's shipments and Aziel was summoned to dispatch him.
The taxman was younger than the others, fresh out of his training and hadn't yet learned that his job only applied to the merchants in the city, but that he was never to question what was coming in or out of the palace. It was unfortunate—such a young life being cut short for only doing the right thing. But the sun was only getting lower and Aziel was informed that he'd find the young man at one of the taverns in town. It was a non-issue. As always, a job was a job.
Still remained the problem of the oddities that he was housing in the apartment across the hall—the apartment that Dorid intended to sequester Nymiria to in order to put distance between her and Oran.
"Before you go," Aziel ran his fingers through his hair, combing the unruly silver strands away from his face. "There are some things across the hall that I will need you to take with you. They can go in the palace."
Trio didn't question him. He simply nodded, taking one more swig of the whiskey before he placed the decanter in the open space between their thighs. "Speaking of which, they're nearly done with the third floor. The question still remains if you want it to be sleeping quarters or if you want a ballroom."
It was a ridiculous question that he never would have imagined being asked. Still, it filled him with a feeling of pride at the thought that they'd even come this far. Years of planning and secret missions were finally coming to fruition. "Turn it into a ballroom." He thought for a moment, his eyes homing in on the painting of Greia that hung on his wall, one that belonged to his mother. He remembered it being situated above her altar, the flickering of candles illuminating the image of the glowing goddess as she moved through a lush forest, blooming moonflowerssprouting from underneath her feet and curling around the bases of the pines. He smiled. "Would it be too much to ask if I request for them to put a garden on the roof?"
Trio gave his best friend a once-over, his eyes narrowed. As long as Trio had known Aziel, he'd never shown a single interest in gardening. But who was he to judge? It wasn'thispalace, after all. "In a realm full of Mystics, I'd say that anything is possible."
The sound of crackling leather sounded around the room as Aziel stretched his stiff fingers. The scars underneath the fabric were starting to ache, the skin getting tight from lack of movement. He needed to see Hilla again. "This won't be an easy task," Aziel started toward the door of his rooms with Trio following close behind. He checked both directions of the hall, waiting for Trio's shadows to surround them before he took the step towards the door directly in front of them. With the simple wave of his hand, the door opened.
