Lavender, cardamom, petunia, posy, sage…
Nymiria took hold of the sage-scented soap, coupling it with a mint body oil that made her eyes flutter when she scented it.
Between each shelving system of bottles and tins was a vanity, another mirror positioned over top of it. She paused at her reflection, studying her dirtied face and her hair, decorated in various scraps of foliage. She sighed, placing her selections on the vanity before reaching for one of the silver brushes perched on the flattened surface. She released her white tresses from the leather strap, groaning at the relief she felt when it fell around her shoulders.
Turning to the tub at the center of the room, Nymiria slipped the boots off of her feet, wincing as the leather brushed against the blisters on her ankles and the sides of her toes. She kicked them away before ridding herself of the rest of her clothes and lifted the water pump at the foot of the tub.
In awe, she watched as the steaming water filled the basin. No need for a heating apparatus to be placed underneath, it was the most amazing thing she’d experienced in years. She grabbed the container of soap from the vanity, letting loose a few drops of it into the water until brilliant pink suds formed. She smiled, willing herself forward and into the steam, sinking into the sage-scented waters and letting the warmth of it spread through her aching and weary muscles.
She soaked, scrubbed, rinsed, and soaked some more, only to repeat the process over again until her skin was red and pruned from her length of time spent in the comforting warmth.
Once dried, she hesitantly moved towards the armoire, fingers curling around the cotton drying cloth she’d secured under her arms.
How had Aziel been so sure that she would come back? Nymiria wanted to believe that it was his smug confidence, the way he believed he could manipulate everything to bend to his will. She wanted to believe that all of this was just a way of saying that he knew her better than she knew herself—and that nothing about it was romantic, but merely a threat.
Believing that was much better than the alternative…
That he’d prepared all of this for her based upon the single shred of hope that she would return. Because, with that thought, came a thousand of others that would surely break her own heart. She didn’t want to imagine that he’d provided all of thisjust in case. She didn’t want to imagine that everything in this room had been hand-selected and curated with her interests at the forefront of his thoughts.
Worrying her lip, Nymiria opened the doors to the armoire. She let her fingers trail over the various cotton gowns, the blouses and breeches, before settling on one dress in particular—the dress she’d worn the night she helped him set a trap at a card game near the South Mists.
Her first reaction was to trace over the sheer, delicate fabric and she allowed herself to do so, remembering just how spectacular her body looked wrapped inside of it. Remembering his hands on her hip, the way he’d seemed all too eager to call her his wife.
At the sudden wave of grief that plagued her, Nymiria scoffed and shoved the dress aside, continuing her search through the articles of clothing until she landed on a tan blouse, spotted withtiny, pink embroidered flowers. She dressed quickly, foregoing the thought of shoes, before walking out of the washroom.
She froze.
Dressed in dark leathers, her hair neatly braided, and a sword hanging from the belt slung around her hand-encased hips, stood Desiree.
“I hope that you’ve worked up an appetite on this little adventure of yours, because Dieve has been slaving all day over the meal that is waiting for us in the dining hall.” Desi’s lips curved into a smile, her dark skin radiant in the final orange glows of the evening sunset. Nymiria couldn’t stop the tears that sprang into her eyes, her body acting on impulse as she ran across the room and threw herself into her friend’s arms.
Laughing fondly, Desiree slowly pulled away from her just enough to brush the tears from her cheeks. “Why the hell are you crying?” She exclaimed.
Nymiria frowned, narrowing her eyes on the tears gathered at the corners of Desi’s eyes. “You hypocrite—look at yourself!”
Desi looked every bit of the soldier that she’d proclaimed she would one day become. Six months ago, as they said their goodbyes, her friend had not failed to make it known what her intentions were in Eadyn. She joined the army and dedicated her life to protecting the people that her brother and Aziel worked so hard to liberate.
Dorid’s forces had been circling around Eadyn, hovering Yaar’s Wander, just outside the Choking Vines, for months.
She’d had plenty of time to ponder why Aziel left him alive that day—whyshe’dleft him alive that day. But it seemed, even the gods themselves did not have all of the answers. She wondered if this was just Aziel’s way of playing with his food, watching it squirm and writhe and fight in his trap until he was ready to devour it whole.
There was not much Nymiria could do to combat the way things had played out. She’d been absolutely against the war and, yet, she spent the majority of her time traveling alone dodging battles and raids, barely sleeping. She’d narrowly dodged two attempts at being recaptured, one of those instances leading her to Oran.
Oran…
Another bite of guilt.
When she jumped off of that ship and left him, there hadn’t been a day that passed without her wondering if he was alright. She shouldn’t have just abandoned him and to this day, she still wasn’t sure what compelled her to throw herself into the ocean.
That was a lie. She knew exactly why she did it, she just refused to admit she’d done something so irrational because ofhim.
She sighed, promising herself to only dwell on those thoughts when the world was quiet and she was alone. Desi did not deserve her grovelling. Nymiria was supposed to have found herself out there in the world—not return the same battered and broken woman she’d been before.
“Dieve has prepared a meal?” She asked, quickly averting the conversation.
Desi and Nymiria linked their arms as they walked out of the room and into the hall. “Be it her intuitive nature or the fact that my brother is horrible in terms of keeping this sort of thing to himself, but she’d been determined that we were going to have an unexpected guest coming to stay with us.”
Nymiria chuckled, unable to deny just how happy those words made her. When she was out in the world alone, she often wondered what she would come home to. She wondered if the people she left behind would be angry, or if they would understand whatever the hell she was feeling when she left. She hoped they could sympathize with why she ran, why she insisted upon discovering what resided in her core.
