When Oran released Dorid’s head and the man’s lifeless body crumpled to the ground, all he could do was stare at the mess. He looked almost disappointed, Nymiria thought. Like his death did not bring him the satisfaction he hoped it would. She understood the feeling all too well.
She would have liked to comfort him, but they had very little time. If Everand found that she wasn’t in the dungeon where she was meant to be, there was no telling what he would do and Nymiria refused to be the reason anyone else was put in harm’sway. She rose from her chair, stepping to the side to avoid Dorid’s body.
“We have to go.” She said quickly, finally turning to face them. Oran stared vacantly at the puddle of blood as the other false guard removed their helmet.
Desi.
“Des—” Nymiria started, but the woman was already grabbing Oran’s arm and tugging him towards the door.
“She’s right, Oran. We have to go.” Desi insisted, not even glancing in Nymiria’s direction. They were the first to leave the room, Nymiria trailing a few short paces behind. Instead of going through the main halls, Desi led them to the obscured passageway that would take them through the servant’s corridors. She lifted the tapestry that covered it, waving them inside before following them in. Once ahead of the group, they pressed through the unforgiving darkness together.
“How are you here?” She asked, legs moving quickly to match their longer strides.
Oran reached for her hand. “It was luck, really. I was coming here to kill my father, anyway.” His breaths were sharp and ragged, fingers trembling as he squeezed her hand tighter. “When I arrived, I saw Everand… overheard him talking to someone about you being in the dungeon. It was a slight change in plans, but I wasn’t going to leave you there. I wanted you to be in the room when he died.”
It was morbidly sweet, she supposed, that he’d considered her that much. He knew what his father had done to her—all that he’d subjected her to. She gripped his hand tighter, squeezing just enough to let him know that she was there. “And Aziel?”
Oran swallowed loudly. “He’s already on his way.”
When Nymiria and Oran traveled Gaellagh together, she’d grown quite accustomed to him grabbing her hand for support whenever there was not enough light for them to see. Even now,his trembling fingers took purchase of her own, squeezing them. They were still sticky with drying blood, but he gripped her so tightly, his palms sweating so much, that the blood became slick again.
“You really do love my brother.” His voice was a trembling whisper, but the sound of it still echoed through the corridor.
Nymiria gave his hand a tight squeeze and nodded. “More than anything.”
“Good,” he sighed. “Good.”
She didn’t know what to make of him asking it, but she continued to clutch at his hand. Even when he stopped and the contents of his stomach spilled onto the stone floor at their feet, she held onto him. She ran her free hand over the back of his head, trying hard to avoid Desi’s stare as he sobbed and heaved.
It didn’t matter that they were all well-trained killers. Nymiria remembered how she felt after killing her mother—that sick, swirling feeling in her gut when she bound out of the great hall and into the forest. She remembered stumbling through the tree line and vomiting. There was not an ounce of regret in what she did, she just felt sick.
“You defended him,” Oran rasped, wiping a thick line of saliva from his chin. “No one has ever done that.” Nymiria blinked down at him, confused for a moment until she realized that he was still talking about his brother. Bracing one hand on the stone wall in front of them, Oran lifted himself to his feet. The armor he wore dug into Nymiria when he crushed her to his chest.
He released her almost immediately, barreling through the passageway with long and sure strides. There was a new determination about him when he hooked a left towards a stairwell that would lead to the great hall.
“What are we doing?” Nymiria tugged back on his grip, frantically looking between Oran and Desi.
Oran didn’t stop his descent, his grip on her arm getting tighter. “Do you trust me?” He asked over his shoulder.
To be quite honest, Nymiria wasn’t sure if she trusted anyone. A few days ago, she would have trusted Desi with her life and now, she couldn’t even trust her with the smallest secret. She hated it. She wanted to sit and confess all of her feelings and her thoughts to someone she loved. Desi had once been that person for her, but…
“Nymiria.” Oran said in warning. They were nearing the door to the great hall and she was either going to turn the other way and run for her life back to that dungeon or face whatever Oran and Desi planned for her.
“Well,” she sighed. “You haven’t gotten me killed thus far, so I suppose it wouldn’t be a horrible idea to trust you.”
Chapter 35
Aziel liked to believe that he was not evil. But, sometimes, even the kindest, most misunderstood monsters were still monsters in the end. He’d grown used to people hating him. He’d grown used to their fear and the way they all scattered like mice around him, especially in his father’s court. He remembered their fearful eyes following him as he walked the halls. He remembered the shy glances they would cast him, the whispers behind his back about him being lethal. About him being deadly.
Though their accusations were correct, they were still baseless. For years, he’d wondered what it would have felt like for him to be able to prove them right. One of Dorid’s most foolish decisions of his life was making Aziel a Huntsman, another was allowing him to become an Executioner. The final mistake, a flaw in his character, was granting Aziel jurisdiction over the camps. There, Aziel became his legend. He became the monster that they made of him—that the courtiers made of that little boywho held his mother while she died. Who would never forget the sound of her last gurgled breaths.
That image would forever be ingrained in his mind.
Dorid had it coming. His death, that is. It was an inevitability that loomed over him day after day, long before Aziel ever knew of what he truly was. The torture was an inevitable, as well. A consequence. One that Aziel had waited nearly twenty years to act on.
Inasha Celentas, on the other hand, was still chained where he left her all those months ago. That face of hers had decomposed so significantly that she hardly looked like herself. Her hair was ratted, tangled with bards and branches and dried blood. He’d left her there in silence. No audiences. No straggling on-lookers that could give her the time of day.
That was torture in itself for Inasha—not having anyone to preach to. She thrived off of attention, off of the grandeur of being in charge. So he took it all away. Her soul was starved and withered, decaying in the darkness of the pit, forced to listen to the screams and bellows of the other damned ones that just so happened to grace these halls.
