Gorford still looked uncertain, but tried pushing a smile onto his face when Nymiria raised her hand to him in greeting. The men at the table were drawn to her presence, practically salivating as their eyes dragged over her form. He couldn’t blame them for looking or for admiring, her presence was like a balm to a wounded soul.
But hecouldkill them for it.
“Wait!” One of the soldiers called out. Aziel heard him stumbling to his feet from the old wooden chair, stumbling over his own feet. “I know you!” The hair on the back of Aziel’s neck was standing on-end, his grip on his glass pushing small cracks into the sides.
“You must be mistaken. I’ve never seen you a day in my life.” Nymiria said simply.
Aziel nearly lurched from his chair the moment the soldier’s hand gripped Nymiria’s forearm. He could feel the pressure of it, the slow anger unfurling in Nymiria’s chest. “No, no, I never forget a face. Irememberyou. You’re Dorid’s Mystic.”
He heard Nymiria grunt, surely yanking her arm away from the bastard. “As I said, you aremistaken.”
“You and I both know that is a lie.” The soldier laughed.
Aziel glanced back again, watching as two more soldiers stood. “We know it’s a lie, too. Especially since King Dorid has your face posted all over Yaar. There’s a pretty hefty bounty on your head,Nymiria.”
The moment her name left their lips, Aziel turned around. The stool he’d been sitting upon kicked out from underneath him, toppling to the ground slower than his Death could be unleashed. Within a fraction of a second, his Death ripped through the room, turning each of those soldiers’ bodies to a fine, red mist.
Nymiria let out a squeal, attempting to jump out of the way from the spray, but with no luck. She was covered in tiny red beads of dead soldiers. Gorford took one look at the mess, heaving a sigh as he slammed his mixing bowl and his spoon onto the counter.
“You’re cleaning that one up.” He grumbled, his human glamour shifting back to the version of himself that looked like a tree.
Nymiria turned to Aziel, her mouth still hanging open, her shoulders still raised, frozen in a flinch. “Was that necessary?” She asked, breathless.
Aziel merely smirked, letting his glamour fall as he approached her with Gorford’s drying cloth. “They deserved much worse. I would havelovedto do much worse, but…” He clicked his tongue, choosing not to finish the sentence.
She took the cloth from him, grimacing as she wiped the gore from her skin. It didn’t help much. She sighed and shook her head. “I had an odd feeling that I would have been interrupting something. I should have just stayed away.”
“Don’t worry about that.” He muttered. “I’d rather you seek me out when needed than for you to wait.”
Finally, she peeled her eyes away from her skin and looked at him. “I wanted to apologize to you. I know it must be hard to be around me, given everything that has happened. It was entirely inappropriate. I shouldn’t have touched you.”
Was that what this was about? Aziel’s brow twitched together, his jaw going rigid as he looked down at the strip of skin clinging to his boot. “Nymiria, there is no need for you to blame yourself for anything. I didn’t run because of you, I ran because ofme.”
She looked just as perplexed as he felt, her face scrunched up at him. He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand the fact that she couldn’t see the truth, that sherefusedto see it. “Why do you always feel the need to protect me?” She asked.
Aziel sighed, glancing around the tavern. “This is hardly the place for this discussion, Nymiria. You are absolutelycoveredin blood and viscera. You should go and wash off.” He prepared to turn on her, jaw ticking with regret when her hand closed around his arm.
“I would rather hear it now than to sit and ruminate over this extremely vague conversation while you continue to ignore me for three more days.”
He grunted and faced her. “Alright,” he said sharply. “I left because you didn’t want it. I left because I knew that if I took things any further, you would have hated yourself in the morning. You were emotional and you were hurting and I refused to take advantage of that to satisfy my own selfish desires.” He stepped closer to her, until barely an inch was left between their bodies. “I told you before,do notbe mistaken by my aversion, because there has not been a single night that I have not longed to have you. I just simply cannot be with you when you refuse to acknowledge that I do not see you as anyone other than who you are.”
Nymiria stared up at him with an impassive expression. He could not place the emotions on her face, but he could feel them. She was stunned and confused, trying to decipher exactly what he meant, as if she hadn’t likened herself to her monster of a mother for the last six months. When the realization finally settled, he watched as that confusion shifted to anger.
“The guilt you have is not one that you should carry.” He continued. “You can do with that what you wish, but I am not going to continue this conversation until you forgive yourself. And, in my eyes, I believe that youshould. Because none of what happened ever had anything to do withyou.”
It was a lie.
It was the biggest lie he could have ever told. Because the truth was that he’d done everything for her. He’d endured ten years of torment for her safety—and when he’d learned that all of it was for naught, he continued to endure it. He went back to his tormentor time and time again because he feared that if he stopped, Nymiria’s treatment would have become far worse. He feared that the things that’d been done to his body would have been done to hers, that they would have tortured her and placed her back in the very same situation that he’d found her in.
It was all for her. And he regretted none of it.
The only thing he regretted was having ever told her the truth to begin with.
This time, when he prepared to turn away, she released him. “I know that I’m not her, Aziel.” She whispered. “But children carry the sins of their parents with them. We are the ones that have to navigate what we do with the legacy they leave behind and I’m not so sure that my legacy is any less detestable than hers. Ikilledpeople. I seduced them and lured them to their deaths. Nothing about what I did makes me any better than she is. And I fear that, in loving me, it will bring nothing but death to you, too. Perhaps not a physical death, but the death of your soul.”
His thumb traced over the silver button on the side of his glove, hands aching. Nymiria shuffled at his silence. He could sense her worry, the deep sadness that was clawing its way to the surface.
“What do you want from me?” She asked, her voice barely audible.
