“I mean, if you’re exhibiting this, she may have accidentally given you fire as well.”
Nyssa frowned. “That doesn’t… I haven’t been able to do this until now. Dorian has been dealing with his fire since we were children.”
“You’ve also never really exerted yourself into situations where you've been as scared as this in just these last weeks,” he said. "And with you pushing the creatures away, your core probably latched onto the last thing it could use to protect itself."
Her first thought was to argue with the accusation. But she knew he was right, and so she simply fumbled with her fingers a moment and allowed his words to sink in.
“Perhaps you unlocked something,” he continued.
“Yes, well, whatever it is, it needs to go back in,” she snapped. “It’s quite terrifying not knowing how to control it or when it’s going to unleash itself.”
Nadir chuckled under his breath. “And yet, you’re planning to use it to get yourself out of here,” he noted.
Red crept on her cheeks as she chewed on the piece of bread again, and she met his smirking eyes, feeling her own smile at the mock on his face. Nadir leaned forward, the stubble on his chin scratching against her cheek when he kissed her temple.
"I cannot wait to tell Lex I found you," he whispered.
Her stomach knotted at the thought of how she'd treated the Second Sun before she left, and she hung her head. "How is she?" she asked.
Nadir paused, a long enough pause that color began to drain from Nyssa’s cheeks.
"Pushing herself harder than she should be," he informed her. "She's training with the Flights, with Soli. Honestly, she's hardly spoken. She didn't like my coming here. She insisted you were being held by the Venari deserters somewhere in the Forest—“
"Iwasbeing held by the Venari," Nyssa said. "I was. They brought me here. And then the Noble cut their throats."
Nadir met her eyes, and he sighed as he sank against her. "Will you tell me everything?"
Before she could stop herself, she was.
From the moment she and Lex got in the fight, all the way to her being lashed the night before by the wife. Nadir didn't cut in except for his eyes widening about the Infi—a fear stretching across his face that she knew meant there was more to this story than what she knew. And when she finished, he simply held her tighter.
“I wish you would come back with me,” he whispered.
“This is something I must follow through. Something I have to do on my own. I got myself into this mess. You have to let me get myself out of it.”
"What can I do?" he asked.
Her heart bled at his agreement. “Come back in a week,” she forced herself to continue. “But don’t barter for me. He’ll be suspicious. I can meet you in the market. I’ll tell them I’m looking for things for his wife.”
“I don’t like it,” he argued. “What if they catch you?”
“They won’t,” she insisted. “I’ll have more information for you. Whatever you do, do not allow Lex to come with you.”
“She’s not going to like that. She’s been completely beside herself.”
“Which is why you are to leave her at the Umber.”
Nadir sighed again and rubbed his neck. "Right. That will be fun to explain."
She almost felt her lip quirk. "Have you heard any news from my brother?"
"Ah... Not much," he replied. "I hear he was put through the Blackhand trials, and he beat both." He shrugged, a half-smile forming on his lips. "Seems to be okay. He has been asking a lot about you, though."
The way Nadir avoided her gaze when he'd said the last sentence almost made her smile. "No one has told him I ran away?"
His entire face furrowed up at her. "I actually like my body intact and not on fire," he muttered. "Can you imagine? I wouldn't have a home."
The laugh that left her made her choke. I was so foreign in her body that she wasn't sure what to do with it. She knew he was right, even if it did annoy her. But her chest swelled at the thought of her brother actually succeeding in the mountains, and she exhaled out the worry for him.
