“Listen to me,” he said lowly. “I’m going to set you free. And the moment these ropes are removed, you are going to turn and you are going to run as hard and as fast as you can. Do you understand?”
Nymiria could do nothing, but nod.
She couldn't understand why anyone would help her. She’d betrayed her kingdom. She was a traitor. She was dirty and she was nothing. Why was this man here? And why the hell did he care enough to let her go?
“Which one of them did this?” The man asked again. “Was it those men in the house?”
She hesitated, but her silence was enough of an answer.
“Just a few or all of them?”
Snow was falling again. Nymiria shivered and forced a dry swallow that made her throat burn. “I’m sorry.” She croaked quietly.
The man paused. Her arm fell to her side, heavy and sore in each joint. “For what?”
Nymiria shook her head, eyes closing as he moved the knife to her other wrist. “I just wanted to do something good.” She flinched when his knife slipped under the rope around her other wrist and he jerked, breaking the circle. She groaned when that arm dropped down.
“All of them, then?” The man hummed, as if he’d just heard something interesting. He hesitated when he lowered himselfand began working at the rope around her ankle. “Must be my lucky day.”
“P-please,” she wheezed. “Please, just…”
He looked up at her then, leather-clad fingers hooking under another piece of rope. “Do you think I am going to hurt you?” He asked. And before she could answer, he sliced through the final thread keeping her at that post and her knees finally gave out.
The man caught her before she could completely hit the ground, a small squeak of a sob leaving her lips at the pain she felt flooding her extremities. “Look at me,” the man said softly.
She had no choice but to obey. “Remember what I said? I know it hurts, but you need to get up and you need to run. I’m going to catch up to you after I kill these fuckers.”
“No!”
“No?”
Nymiria shook her head, curling her fingers around the thick woolen lapels of his coat. “It’s my fault.” The man stared at her for a moment, breathing heavily in the pale white silence. Her eyes flickered to the house, following the sound of the front door squeaking on its hinges. They were coming. “Promise me you won’t kill them. I’ll run, I’ll go as fast as I can, but please don’t kill them.”
“They did this to you—“
“Trust me,” she rasped. “They should have done worse.”
That man with the blue eyes didn’t seem to believe her. Though she couldn't see his face, she could see the sheer disbelief in his eyes, looking at her as if she’d claimed the snow was pink. He turned towards the voices coming from the house, the bellows of laughter that flitted through the air. “Fine,” he hissed. “I won’t kill them. But you need to go now.” She looked down at her bare body, hesitant. But the man just shoved her forward. “Go, little Mystic. Fuckingrun.”
This time, Nymiria didn’t hesitate.
She ran.
She prayed.
And those eyes never stopped searching for her.
Chapter 1
There weren’t many places between Alvaros and Eadyn where she could rest her head. She’d been lucky to find reprieve in a small inn south of the border, but the rooms filled up quickly once Yaar’s forces started making their way into Fairnam and the once-nice and generous innkeeper needed money, not a loiterer hanging around begging for scraps.
Nymiria left the inn with her head hanging between her shoulders, her too-big boots kicking stones out of her path, and a complimentary bottle of absinthe dangling loosely from her fingers.
She’d been a million different people in her twenty six years of age. A princess, a queen for about a week, a prisoner, a courtesan, an assassin, and now…
A beggar. A drunk. And a goddess. Apparently.
Six long months had come to pass and while the bite of winter was nearing the warm embrace of spring, Nymiria still could not quite shake the cold that had taken hostage of her heart. Theonly thing that made her feel warm these days came in the form of the vibrant blue bottle she was now holding in her hand.
