Her joints popped as she toed her way across the floor, paying little mind to the fact that the only thing covering her body was a thin silk shift that reached the mid-point of her thighs. Her hair was tangled with leaves and stiff with dried blood and dirt, hanging loosely around her shoulders. Her eyes, that’d been filled with such love and awe mere moments before, were now blazing with an intense rage and determination that stunned him.
Aziel simply rose to his feet and followed behind her as she made her way out of the bedroom and down the hall. Her silence was an ominous thing, making each hair along his arms raise on-end. And while there were vines and moonflowers blooming in the wake of her path that seemed welcoming enough, the chill of her presence was anything but kind. He’d seen her like this once before. He’d seen death in her eyes, vengeance curving the arch of her brows. He saw her ire. He saw her truth—that innate desire to bring justice, to protect the ones that needed her.
Just weeks ago, the hills between Eadyn and Alvaros had been green and lush with the start of fresh grass, the season starting to transition from the damp cold to warm and dry. Now, those hillswere but a mass grave, the green grass having been trampled into the wet soil, darkened by both mud and gore from the bodies that’d fallen. Smoke hung heavy over their peaks, flashes of aura light breaking through the smog like lightning through a cloud-darkened sky.
The shouts and cries of soldiers could be heard in every direction—some of them yelling commands or calling for help. It was chilling. Terrifying. Even if Aziel had commanded battlefields for a good portion of his younger years, he was not immune enough to them for the smell of death and battle not to make his stomach churn.
Nymiria continued forward, ignoring the sense of panic swelling in her gut and choosing rather to focus on what’d driven her to this point. She stepped over bodies, grimacing at the stench of turned earth and metal. She took a steadying breath before disappearing into the smoke, hands clenched and jaw tight.
When she was a girl and would whisper her prayers to a silent altar that never responded, she believed that Greia’s silence had been due to her own behaviors—her failures and the shame that her mother made her believe she’d brought upon their family name. Even still, in all of Greia’s cold silence, Nymiria continued to pray. She prayed for control. She prayed for forgiveness. She prayed that, one day, she would atone for the sins she had never truly committed.
She never imagined that the person she’d prayed to during the lowest moments of her life had been herself—her prayers never fell upon deaf ears. The altar, the gleaming and bright beacon of hope and rebirth, had not been silent at all. Everything she ever needed, everything she ever prayed for, had been within her all along.
Perhaps she’d always known what the silence meant—perhaps she’d ignored it, finding it ridiculous to put as much faith in herself as she had someone who was dying.
Nymiria stood looking out at the ruins of what had once been a place of brilliance and art. She stood between kingdoms, on the line between good and evil, and saw all of the battlement and blood. She saw a swarm of varying colors, heard the clashes of metal and the booming of cannons.
And when the first of the vines began sprouting from the tips of her fingers, the world around them finally fell into an ominous silence. It started with those closest to her. Every man and woman strapped with weapons and wrapped in leather turned to look at the woman who stood glowing on the hill. And then the silence stretched and stretched until those closest to Alvaros’s border stood unmoving.
The vines wove through the earth, digging deep through the blood-soaked soil, weaving and winding around fallen bodies. Hundreds,thousandsof vines that curled around one another, higher and higher until a solid wall formed between both kingdoms.
Thousands of years prior to this moment, Greia had been the one to form the Choking Vines. It was one of the first stories Mystic children were told, a tale used to comfort them when Yaar pushed closer and closer to their borders. She’d created them to keep Mystics safe from outside influence, as they were the direct descendants of the gods. The vines were enchanted to know when the world beyond them was at risk and those foolish enough to still challenge Greia’s creation almost always perished, relinquished to the earth in the most horrible and painful ways possible.
Nymiria remembered this as she watched that wall take shape. She remembered the story of Anam, the Maiden of Laith, the first Life Goddess to have ever been chosen. She had been justa girl when her people killed her. She’d barely lived before they stabbed her in the heart, but not after she’d created for them a prosperous life full of fertile soils, bountiful harvests, and healthy children. She’d taken a decayed and diseased world and made it new.
And, as always, the selfishness of man destroyed it.
“Moonflower,” Aziel whispered, his fingers weaving through hers.
The worry in his voice pulled her from her trance, the humming sound that filled her ears dissipating when she felt the warmth of his hand wrapping around her own. “They know what this means.” She started. “They know what these vines entail. The first to attempt to cross that line will be killed.” Aziel’s face was emotionless, his lips pressed into a firm, thin line. “They know, Aziel. The vines know when someone is not worthy—the same way they knew it with us.”
His brow twitched together. “Us?”
“When you chased after me, after you told me to run that night, we were both able to make it through the vines. You didn’t notice, butIdid. It was the only reason why I chose to trust you completely.” Her confession came out as a whisper, eyes still locked on the wall, watching as the people dressed in Eadynite leathers began falling back, calling for the other soldiers to drop their weapons. “I recognized your eyes, you know? If I hadn’t, I would have killed you without a second thought.”
“Nymiria—”
She turned to him, then, flinching slightly when she began to hear the creaking of the vines as they unfurled. The moment terror-filled screams began to fill the air, she released a shuddered breath. “They haven’t steered me wrong.” She continued. “If I hadn’t listened to the message the Fates were trying to send, we would not be standing here today. So, I will let them decide which side lives and which must die.” Morescreams. More creaking and sounds of large vines swooshing and swiping through the air, stabbing through flesh and cracking through bone.
She hated that it brought so much satisfaction. She hated that hearing evil draw its last breath brought her so much pleasure, but she was tired. She was tired of men and their selfishness and greed—tired of the sense of entitlement they had for things that were never meant to be theirs and their hateful determination to have it. She hated how they hoarded wealth, how they could kill and kill and kill without feeling remorse.
Nymiria just wanted to do something good.
And cleansing the world of evil, as morbid and grotesque as it was, felt like she had finally done it. She tried not to see it as a mass execution, but the truth was in the screams. She wished she could have saved them all, but there were some souls in this world that were beyond redemption. Nymiria bristled at the thought, eyes snapping closed and blocking out the sight of the shadow the wall of vines cast onto the horizon—a shadow that loomed over what once was the heart of Nym.
“Look at me,” Aziel said firmly. Nymiria hesitated, emotions as thick as stagnant water flooding her. He waited patiently, rubbing small circles into her hand until her eyes slowly fluttered open and in his direction. “There are times in our lives when we will be faced with difficult choices and it is hard for anyone, god or not, to determine whether they are right or wrong. But, sometimes, more often than not, the right thing and the wrong thing feel the exact same.”
And with that, Aziel unleashed his roots.
“Where Life cannot travel,” he began. “Death will surely go.”
The smell of death and decay surrounded her, so pungent and thick that it felt like it would suffocate her. Body after body was pulled into the earth, ripping what life remained from them away the moment they were snatched up. They sank into theground, disappearing from sight, leaving a blank, muddy slate in their wake. Nymiria closed her eyes again, but instead of it being in shame, she reached for that ball of magic inside of her. She wrapped her senses around that small flicker of silver light, pulling and pulling at it until it unfurled and exploded inside of her.
Grass, trees, flowers, and shrubs washed over the hills in a titanic wave. The earth rippled with new life, erasing the evidence that death had ever occurred. Soldiers, a mix of all sides, dropped to their knees in awe. Their eyes moved from the oasis that’d formed there to the woman who stood watch over them all. Though she stood so far away from them all, she could still hear them whispering—could hear her name like a prayer upon their lips.
Nymiria, The Flower.
Nymiria, The Future Queen.
