Backhome.
Nyssa let go of every emotion she'd kept pent up in her these last few weeks. Of having to lie and endure the taunts of man. The wife's abuse. Keeping up her face in front of the Noble to ensure her staying alive and finding out information for her people. To keep her world safe.
“Are you okay?” he asked after a while.
He hadn't stopped touching her. She assumed he was as desperate to make sure she was as real as she was him.
She sank her head against his chest as he held on. Her knuckles were brought to his lips, and he kissed each of them deliberately. Her heart turned to warmth in her chest, and she closed her eyes for a moment.
“I’m trying to be,” she whispered.
She clenched to his shirt, memorizing the thread of it beneath her fingertips—the jagged edges and thin lines of the white linen. A tear stretched down her chilled cheek, and she tucked her legs behind her.
“I thought you were dead,” he said against her skin. “I thought… I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”
“Me too.”
She pulled back, and he reached up to her cheek, thumb tracing the scar along her jaw. But he didn’t speak, almost as though neither of them knew the words to say. He simply hugged her against him, softly kissing her head or squeezing her hand and waist every once in a while. Her wet tears dried on her skin, making her flesh stiff and chilled. Nadir reached up on the bed for a blanket and wrapped it around her after apparently having felt the chill on her skin.
His eyes closed as he pressed his forehead against her temple and his fingers gripped the blanket around her.
“I need you to punch me.”
Her brows knitted, and she pulled back to see his face. “Why?”
“Because I still cannot believe this real,” he admitted. “I’m hoping I’ll wake up back at the Umber, and these last few weeks will never have happened. That you’ll be in my arms sleeping peacefully back in my bed just as you were the morning you left.”
She almost smiled, and the quirk of it made her heart constrict. She hadn’t smiled in weeks. But the muscle memory of such a feeling brought tears back into her eyes.
"You found me," she breathed.
He buried his head into her neck, chest flinching, and she realized he was sobbing in her arms. His hands moved on her back as he held on. Unwilling to let her go even for a breath.
"Of course I found you," he whispered. "I haven't stopped looking. I—“ He paused and pulled back, forehead resting against hers as he held her face. "I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner. I had to barter and plea my way in. And I didn't know if you were even here or if you'd been taken back to Magnice. I... I thought I failed you. Ididfail you."
And she knew admitting that word meant more than anything else he could have told her.
"I'm okay," she managed, hating seeing him broken so. She wanted to assure him it wasn't his fault. That she had been there to get information for them. To put him and their people in a stronger position in this war.
"No, you're—“
But she wiped the tear from his cheek, and his words ceased in his throat. "You could never fail me," she promised.
Eyes swollen and tears glistening in that cerulean gaze, he cupped her face and kissed her forehead, but he didn't speak as he pulled her back into him.
Her stomach growled as she held on, and she realized she hadn't had anything except the bread that morning and the wine. It was about the time Quinn would bring in scraps for the night.
“You didn’t… You didn’t happen to bring any water or anything, did you?” she asked.
He brought her hand to his lips, and they brushed her knuckles just briefly before he stood from the floor. “Hang on. My cart is just outside. Still think I have a bit saved even though he took most.”
She grabbed his arm as he turned. "Make sure you say something obscene to the Porter. Something about wanting to seduce me with your wine or delicacies. I told them you were an idiot just wanting to say you got a foreign lay."
"Do they not know who you are?"
"They do," she said. "But I told them I was secluded and did not travel from my castle. I told them you do not know who I am."
Nadir's eyes narrowed, but he nodded anyway.
