Aziel was silent as he placed her onto his bed. And Nymiria, still too ashamed to look at him directly, turned onto her stomach, burying her face into the black-silk sheets. He covered her with the duvet, and then heaved a long sigh into the air before the world faded into a peaceful darkness.
No nightmares.
No horrors.
No guilt and no blood.
Justsleep.
Chapter 7
Nymiria rolled her eyes as she shoved her legs into his breeches.
She’d already pulled one of his tunics over her head, doing her best to remain modest despite its large size and the fact that the low cut of the neckline left very little to the imagination. She secured it together by cufflinks she found on his desk and though she knew she looked ridiculous drowning in his clothes, she didn’t want to leave him waiting any longer. Not when he seemed so desperate to get away from her.
Perhaps her nightmare had been more of a premonition—perhaps he now hated her and wanted revenge. But that seemed slightly ridiculous. He took his job as the God of Death to heart. It was important to him. Gods and prophecies and her fulfilling that supposedroleof hers was a priority. The fate of the world and the magic that kept the balance of it relied on her and him working together. He could hate her and teach her at the same time; both could coexist.
Once the six inches of extra fabric was rolled above her ankles and the end of his tunic was tied at her waist, Nymiria exited his sleeping chambers. He was waiting on the balcony, his hands gripping the railing as if he were debating throwing himself over it.
It wouldn’t have been the first time.
She snorted to herself, not realizing that the room had such great acoustics. The sound of it echoed and Aziel turned, his eyes squinting in the sun. His hair glistened, blowing into his eyes in the delicate breeze. The piercings, all of the ones that decorated his ears, and even the black stud on his nose caught the light. Her heart thudded so harshly that it took everything in her not to bring her hand up and clutch at it.
Aziel was walking towards her now, his body rigid and avoiding her. He passed by her quickly, going into his sleeping chambers without so much as a word, only to return a few moments later with a stack of books.
He plopped them onto the dining table and stepped back, observing them. “We will start here.” He stated. “We have a lot to cover.”
She eyed the tower of books as it swayed, recognizing some of the spines on them as ones he’d had in his room in Yaar. “Well, I’ve got my learning breeches on and they are extra big—perfect for retaining a lot of information.” She waved her hand down the length of her legs, stopping to point at the cuffs curled up at the bottom.
His head snapped in her direction. His eyes were squinted at her, but not out of anger. He was trying not to laugh.
“Now isn’t the time for jokes.” He said, his mouth pinching slightly.
Nymiria stepped closer to him, nudging his side with her elbow. “It will not kill you to laugh.”
He watched as she took the book from the top of the stack and flipped it open. “It might.”
Seemingly paying him no mind, she brushed past him and dropped into the chair inches away, propping her feet up onto the table. Her toes wiggled as she read, her lips pursing and then relaxing again the more focused she became. Suddenly, she paused and looked at him over the edge of her book. “The God Stones.” She pointed at the page. “You said that they were important for channeling the power of the gods through the earth. It’s like an invisible map—lines.”
Aziel nodded. “Yes. In order to officially claim your godhood, you would need to offer your blood to the stone. The stone, then, would connect you to the lines of your realm of power. In order to maintain balance, Cadiath, the Mother Goddess, gave a certain number of gods to each continent. She hoped this would disperse power equally and reduce bias. She wanted the gods to walk amongst the people and learn their thoughts and feelings—to understand what it was tolive, rather than to be purely sentient. From what we know, there are five realms of godhood in Gaellagh. Death, Fate, Purity, and Deception. And, of course, your realm of power being—”
“Life.”
Another nod. “Yes. Amongst a few other things.”
He began to explain in detail exactly what he meant by that. Nymiria listened. Her realm of power was not just bestowing blessings for good harvest or bringing life to infertile wombs, it delved deeper. She was to be a figure-head of sorts, the person who reigned over her realm and decided what blessings could be bestowed and which could be denied. It was crucial to maintain this balance, for her to assess the outcomes of every blessing.
Prayers were handled by the lines, the ethera, as Aziel called them. The ethera was controlled by her omnipresent, yet sentient form—spirits, in other words. This, too, was important.Offering blood to the stones gave a piece of her lifeforce to the ethera, allowing her to be present physically and spiritually, in many different places at once. These spiritual forms of her had her same thought processes, her same moral compass.
“So, it’s akin to that of a sacrifice?” Nymiria mumbled, thumbing back and forth between drawings of the God Stones and their locations. “I remember my Nan mentioning that the old gods were offered blood as a show of loyalty.”
Aziel nodded slowly. “Only by the Elders—the Guardians.”
“What is that?”
He plucked another book from the stack with one hand, using the other to stabilize the rest. She watched as he flipped through the pages and then she placed her own book to the side as he slid his book to her from across the table. “Guardians are like us. Chosen at birth to protect the gods and the god stones. In giving their blood to the stones, they bind themselves to the gods, as servants and protectors.”
Nymiria’s finger trailed along the fading ink. Some words were so ruined by time that she could hardly make them out. She improvised. “Born with a mark upon their brow, declaring the worth of their soul, the integrity of their nature…” Her back straightened as she recalled his mother’s journal, what she’d read. “Oran is a Guardian?”
