“And did I ever once after that fail to meet you head on?”
Nikias remembered only a few days later when her illusion and shield fell.
He’d barely dodged the bolt of vitae that she had sent flying at him. She hadn’t gone quietly. The rage in her eyes and her savage grin made it clear she was going to relish the fight. It had taken him and several guards to subdue her enough to be able to arrest her for defying his orders.
Partially because even in his dark haze Nikias hadn’t wanted to leave even a single scratch on her. Could he ever tell her that while he did not blame her for her fear even then he’d loved her so much she should never have feared any harm to her coming from him?
“No,” he said.
She had driven him absolutely insane afterwards, fighting him on everything in the weeks and months following. Aimilia loved nothing more than to fight.
“So let me tell you this now.” Her grip tightened as she held his gaze. She would not let him escape her. “What I saw when I was hiding in that passageway did one thing and one thing only when it comes to what I think of you. The day you rose from your seat and offered yourself as Hypatia’s willing sacrifice I regained some respect for you. When I saw what you have been enduring in silence and suffering for years, what I thought I knew about you changed. I didn’t lose any respect for you. I gained it.” Her thumb brushed his cheek as her soft voice shifted with her smile. “I’ve never respected you more than I do now.”
Nikias couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. His voice was still shaky, doing nothing to help his dilemma.
“That makes no earthly sense. How could you possibly have any respect for a man after you’ve seen him humiliated so?” Still, he was unable to resist her siren song. He tilted his head,leaning his cheek into her palm. “When you saw a prince that can’t prevent a man on his literal deathbed from beating him into submission?”
“Do you not remember why it even happened in the first place?” Aimilia shifted closer, looking up at him. “All of that happened because you refused him. Not that it was your fault—don’t ever think any of that was your fault. I only mean that you did stand up to him. You knew what would happen if you did, and you did it anyway. I thought—I hated you because I thought you could stand up to them and never suffer the consequences Gavril did, but chose not to. I had no respect for a man who could do something and wouldn’t.”
Nikias held his breath as she smiled at him, pained and full of wonder all the same.
Her eyes were welling up. Her voice cracked. “Gavril would rather have been beaten by your parents than ever marry me. Nikias, you would rather have been beaten than even think about marrying anyone else.”
That’s what she had seen?
“I had you all wrong from the start. That day, I saw a man who knows what standing up for himself and others is going to cost him. That is the man who stood up in that tent all those months ago. That is the man I saw watching from that passageway, andthatNikias? That is a man I can respect.”
Nikias was completely and utterly overwhelmed. He didn’t know which emotion came first. They were all flooding him, clawing and climbing over the top of each other.
It was all too much for him. He was torn between kissing her and letting the sob that was in his chest finally erupt after years of burying it beneath his father’s fists.
But neither of those was an option, not one he could take anyway.
But his marble was crumbling anyway, so he did the only thing he could do. Nikias pulled her into his arms as his legs collapsed. Aimilia’s arms came around him, crushing him to her as they hit the ground together in a tangle of legs.
Aimilia’s hand came up around the back of his head, fingers sinking into his hair as he buried his head in the crook of her shoulder.
His arms wound around her, one around her waist and the other her back, clutching her to him as her hand rested on his back, moving up and down, across his chiton. Aimilia said nothing else. She just held him as he continued to clutch the rest of his marble shell to keep himself from making even more a fool of himself than he already had.
His entire focus was on not letting his emotions get the best of him and have his rasping, thick breaths turn into sobs. He wasn’t quite able to stop a few tears from spilling out of his eyes and falling onto Aimilia’s skin.
But they were of relief.
As Aimilia’s hand shifted across his shoulders, they had never quite felt so light.
Aimilia rested her head against his and held him in silence.
The thick, constricting hand that had wrapped around his heart when he had spoken to Hypatia that day relaxed.
The scar on his chest burned. Nikias’ fingers sank into Aimilia’s chiton and warm skin underneath.
Aimilia’s words and touch breathed new life into him again.
Nikias was going to stop at nothing to win Aimilia’s love now that she claimed he had won her respect, and when he succeeded, he would finally win against Hypatia.
Aimilia would marry him.
Hypatia’s vision would never come true.
