It was the only explanation that Trio needed, he could use his imagination with the rest. “Why did she look so sad?” Aziel was suddenly lifting himself off of the floor and tossing his scrub brush into the pale of bloody water. One simple flick of the wrist later, the rest of the blood was gone and the floor was spotless. Trio blinked down at the mess and scoffed, rolling his eyes as he followed Aziel back to the bar. “You aren’t going to answer me?”
“From what I recall, the two of you love to gossip over drinks. Perhaps you should follow her back to the palace, get her drunk, and she’ll tell you everything.” He raised a glass of whiskey to his lips, but Trio snatched it away and slammed it on the counter.
“Stop being a brat.” He snapped.
“I’m not beinganything.”
“Yes, you are.” Trio stepped closer to him, shoving a finger into the center of his chest. “You made her sad and you regret it.”
Aziel’s gaze dropped down to Trio’s finger, small black veins appearing under his eyes. “She doesn’t want me, Trio. Because of what her mother did, she will not allow herself towantme. And you expect me to just befinewith that? That I am not supposed to feel anything?”
Trio slowly removed his finger, releasing a strained breath through his nose. “No one is expecting for you to feel anything other than what you feel. But I warned you that this will not be easy for either of you. Your bodies might heal fast as gods, but the wounds on the soul takeyearsto heal.”
“Iknow.”
“Then why distance yourself from her, build these walls between the two of you, when all either of you needs is someone who won’t give up?” The question lingered between the two of them, but Trio could see the very moment that Aziel’s defences dropped.
He saw it in the way the man’s shoulders sagged, the way his jaw loosened. “I don’t want to manipulate her. I don’t want her loving me just because I was there. She will only spend the rest of her life convincing herself—”
“Did she tell you this? Did she say any of this to your face—that she didn’t love you or care for you? Because, from what I’ve seen, all she is doing is because she cares for you. Though it may not be shown in the way you want, sheiscaring for you.” Aziel was not used to seeing Trio angry. He’d seen him bloodthirsty, with nothing but death in his eyes. He’d seen him enraged at the sight of injustice, but it was never directed towards him.
Aziel brought his hand up to the branches twisting and writhing along his chest, rubbing at them as if to coax some sort of feeling out of them. Trio noticed.
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” He asked.
The young god looked up at the ceiling. “Yes.” He responded, too ashamed to admit it in a voice that was louder than a whisper. “I’ve been working on it.”
The twisted, gnarled tree that was seemingly engraved in his skin had been growing. He hadn’t used his Grace on himself in years, but it seemingly did not matter. Once he started taking his own pain away, that tree became invasive. It numbed him, made every bad thought and emotion seem meaningless. It twisted and curved and cut its way through his flesh, growing larger and larger until there were hardly times when he felt anything at all.
Aziel was never warned of what using his Grace on himself could lead to, not until Teigh discovered the start of that darkness. He’d corrupted himself, Teigh had said. And there was no known cure for it. For the first five months, Aziel spent what little leisure time he had searching through every text he had about self-inflicted curses, but none of them were quite as complex as this. None of them mentioned anything about self-corruption.
There were still pieces of himself left, squirming and gasping for air in between the darkness, but those pieces were so fragmented that he had a hard time latching on to them.
“Aziel.” Trio’s voice was low, his eyes filled with remorse as he looked at his friend. “Go home. For just a moment, think of me as your voice of reason and go home.”
Eleven Years Ago
Her eyes moved around the darkened expanse of the tunnels, wincing as she shifted on her cot.
The Queen had come the day before. She’d claimed that what she was doing to her back was to cleanse her of an infection that could spread to everyone in the kingdom, but Nymiria knew better. She knew that what the Queen did to her was dark and hateful because there was not an ounce of care in the way she handled her body.
She’d cut her, burned her, spit on her.
By now, Nymiria just suspected that the gods were still punishing her for her foolishness. She believed that it was deserved.
She didn’t deserve their kindness. She certainly didn’t deserve to be handled with care.
It burned, though. Every time she moved, those things on her back would pull and stretch. They would burn. Not just in theplace of which they rested, but all over. A fire that she could only imagine was akin to the fires in the pits of the Otherworld.
I will lay down,she thought,I will lay down when it hurts and then I will get up. If I’m very still, if I don’t move a single muscle, it won’t hurt me.
Ignore it,she urged herself. Ignore it. Sleep until it goes away.
So that was what she did.
Hour after hour, she laid there. She let the pain lay dormant inside of her. Throbbing and tender. But she was right—it didn’t hurt when she didn’t move.
“Moonflower.”
