The Sun.
Nyssa’s entire face furrowed as she turned her head to her bird.What?
The Sun, the eagle answered.She will wait for you.
Nyssa groaned at the reluctance of her muscles, at the paralyzation of her mind, and she huffed audibly with the splay of her good arm across the bed, the other broken one still tucked onto her stomach.Can she just come in here?
The eagle laughed at her, his great screech filling the small room.I will not command the Sun.
It was another two days before she could raise herself from the bed and move without the constant ache. It was nearly dark outside before she made it up, but Nadir had told her he would come grab her after dinner if she was awake.
The ordeal had turned her into someone she didn’t recognize. Someone she didn’t want to be.
The lashing marks on her back. The scratch across her cheek. She stared back into the hazel fire of her eyes in the mirror. She wasn’t used to the sink of her once apple-rounded cheeks, the stark wrinkle of what used to be full dimples at the corners of her lips. The shadows beneath her eyes, she cursed. The sunken pull between her once supple breasts, showcasing her ribcage, she seethed. She hated the stark of her collarbones, the protrusion of her hips, the frailty of her deteriorating body from being enslaved. She loathed the wash of her once firm muscles that she’d been growing so well before. She wanted her flesh back…her muscles and her fat, her bright cheeks, and her smile… not this wide-eyed frightened girl standing before her.
She wanted to punch the mirror. Shatter it like her own broken body.
At least she hadn't seen the creature in it that morning.
Her eagle flew through the door and landed on the back of the chair at her side.
The Commander is coming, he told her.
Nyssa pushed her shirt over her head just in time before Nadir knocked on the doorframe.
“Yeah,” she called out to him.
“I was wondering if you were hungry,” he said from the outside.
“Starving,” she muttered.
She shoved pants on, cursing at the oversize of them and feeling weak because of it. Red rose on her cheeks, and she grunted under her breath.
“Hey, Nadir? Can you come in?”
His brows were furrowed when he stepped inside, and then his eyes traveled deliberately over her. She avoided his eyes as she held her pants up with both hands.
“Do you think… Do you think someone could possibly make new pants for me?” she managed.
“Ah… yeah, yeah. Of course. I’ll have Sutor make you up a few,” he answered.
She started to strip but hesitated. Hesitated because she didn't want him to see her in such a state. Hesitated because she knew he had loved her body before, and she was petrified this new one would make him not want her.
"Can you turn around?" she finally managed.
He looked surprised… like he might argue. But a wash of understanding slowly raised in his eyes, and he finally nodded. "Why don't I get rid of that mirror while you're getting dressed?" he suggested.
Her heart caved that he remembered. "I would really like that."
His body brushed hers as he walked past and grabbed up the mirror, hauling it out of the room and presumably stashing it in another. She stripped and grabbed for the dress on the bed. And when it fell over her body like a sack, her jaw tightened, and she cursed herself under her breath, fighting the tears in her eyes.
Nadir sighed in the doorway. “Perhaps some new dresses as well,” he said softly.
The shake of her jaw made her cringe. She turned away from him, her hands pressing into her waist, and she inhaled deeply to fight the emotion bubbling at the surface.
“It’s okay, Nys—”
“Fucking—no, it’s not,” she snapped, whirling back around to face him. “It isnotokay. None of this is okay. I’m fucking…look at me!Wasted away in chains for a full moons cycle all because I ran away into the woods having one of my stupid temper tantrums—”
