Nymiria flinched and squeezed her eyes closed, unable to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling out. If she moved it would hurt. She couldn’t move. She needed to sleep.
“Moonflower, can you hear me?”
A strangled cry escaped her throat, the sound of it pressing around a groan of pain as she shifted. She’d heard that voice before. It was not the nice girl with the purple eyes—it was the boy. The boy that visited her, the boy that smelled like cherry blossoms.
Thorn would always tell her the story of her birth, how she came into the world on an early spring morning, when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. He said that the first moment he held her in his arms, he could tell that she was destined for wonderful things. He planted a cherry tree in her honor, and the whole kingdom came to celebrate. She was passed from person to person, each of them bestowing a single kiss upon her brow, tucking petals from the cherry blossoms into her swaddle, giving her their own blessings.
Nymiria, The Flower. Nymiria, The Future Queen. Princess Nymiria Celentas, Future Queen of Nym.
“Are you hurt?” The boy asked.
This time, Nymiria nodded. It didn’t hurt as much as she believed it would. “Yes.” She whispered.
She could hear the clanking of metal against metal, and then came the unmistakable click of the lock on her cell. The door squealed open, her body going rigid as his footsteps drew nearer. Even in her pain, she imagined that boy’s smile. She imagined that he looked at her the same way, but she knew that the moment he saw what’d been done to her skin, he wouldn’t be smiling anymore.
The boy whispered. “My friend couldn’t come today, but she sent me with medicine for your back.” He was behind her now and the moment his fingers began tugging away the torn cloth on her back, she let out a hiss of pain, her nails digging into the damp, slick bricks in front of her.
“Don’t… want…” She managed, a shameful sob shaking her huddled form.
“It will get infected.” Nymiria cried out when his fingers were replaced with something warm and wet, the fire lancing her spine. “I know it’s going to be difficult, but you need to be quiet.” He urged.
“What do you know?” She snarled, jerking forward.
It was silent aside from the sounds of her soft crying and the scraping of her legs against the fraying cot. “I’m sorry.” The boy whispered. “I’m sorry.”
He repeated the words over and over again until they drowned out the sounds of her cries. He repeated them as he coated her wounds with something that took the burning away. He said them one final time before he left her there, breathing in the dull scent of cherry blossoms.
Nymiria, The Flower. Nymiria, The Future Queen. Princess Nymiria of the Kingdom of Nym.
She never saw the boy again, but she always dreamed of his smile.
Chapter 14
Ajolt coursed through her body, her senses flaring into alertness. A phantom quickening of fire coursed up her spine, bleeding out into the tips of her fingers. Her body was drenched in sweat and as she looked around the darkened room, she swore she saw her mother in the shadows. Her neck was sliced nearly to bone, her head tilted back and her mouth hanging open, as if she were stuck in a state of maniacal laughter. Her jaws were unhinged, the bottom hanging to one side, maggots crawling along grey and decayed flesh.
Nymiria squeezed her eyes shut, trying her best to regulate her breathing. Her heart pounded, her body trembling.
And then there was warmth.
Like a fire-warmed blanket being placed on top of her, weighing down at her limbs and sinking into muscle and bone until it reached her soul.
“It’s not real.” That boy whispered, his smile nearly blinding in the dark. “It’s not real. It’s alright.”
The boy had transformed into a man. A man that her soul would recognize immediately. If not by his smile, then that smell…
Cherry blossoms.
Aziel’s hand wove through hers, his thumb brushing against the inside of her pointer finger. When she looked down at their joined hands, a new swirl of silver vines had etched its way around her finger.
“Why did you come back?” She asked, her throat so dry that her voice cracked. He merely sighed, sliding closer to her until his arm was able to wrap around her waist and draw her closer to him. She breathed him in, allowing herself this affection. If only for the night.
“I don’t want you waking up alone anymore.” His eyes, those beautifully blue eyes that seemingly glowed in the night, stared down at her. She should have been afraid. She should have told him to leave, that he should have stayed gone. But there was not a single shred of her being that felt like saying those things were necessary.
“When I was younger, I used to watch my mother get ready in the morning.” She whispered. “I used to think that she always looked so pretty and Thorn told me such wonderful things about her, so I believed that she was the most perfect person in the world for quite some time. It started to change when she noticed that Thorn would play with my hair to get me to go to sleep at night. When I was young, I couldn’t understand why she got so angry about it. She said that I didn’t need his affection, she said that him being gentle with me would make me weak. But I’m starting to believe that she truly did hate me, Aziel. I believe that she wanted to destroy me.” She drew in a ragged breath, tears flowing at their own accord. “She took everything I loved away from me. What kind of mother would do that to their own child?”
Aziel’s hand came up to her jaw, his thumb brushing a cold bead of sadness away from her skin. “Hatred always stems from fear, moonflower. Perhaps she did hate you, but underneath all of that hatred, your mother was nothing but a coward.”
“Do you remember telling me that you once believed that the best way to get revenge against your father was to become the father that he never was?” He hesitated for a moment, as if she’d reminded him of something he wanted to forget. He finally nodded. “I wanted to be a mother, too. But now—” Her voice wavered, her chin quivering at the weight of her words. “I believed that I could have been a good mother, Aziel. I believed it once and now that’s gone, too.”
