She just wanted to see him. Even if he turned her away—even if he hated her for rejecting him in the forest, she just wanted him to know that it wasreal. All of it… everything she felt, all of her kindness and care. Those were what was real. Not her anger, not her hatefulness; as those things were but a mask, a means of protecting herself.
The last thing she wanted was to enter this marriage with Aziel believing that she wanted this or that she’d chosen someone else over him. Because it wasn’t true. She didn’twantanyone else.
Nymiria regretted many of the things she did in life, but her biggest regret was not allowing herself to love Aziel sooner.
“Figured it out, did you?”
Her head jerked up in the direction of the large stone staircase. Her stomach twisted, body reacting on impulse as she slowly rose to her feet and began backing away with every step Everand took in her direction.
He smiled at her, obviously proud of himself. “I thought that you were smarter than this, Nymiria. But, alas, you have disappointed me again. Fear makes you all do ridiculous things.” He came to a stop only a few feet away from her, his smilestretching as his eyes moved over her. “You should have run away when you had the chance. Because, now, I’m going tobreakyou.”
Chapter 25
He gave up hope.
Finally, after five years of torment, after five years of unwanted touches, and hands dripping with blood, all of the hope he’d hoarded in his soul had been vanquished. There was not much left in him that was good.
He wandered the streets of Yaar with no purpose, clutching at an old, weathered journal that had once been filled with such promise. Even the god that had been hunting him for the last year was silent today—he could hear nothing. Feel nothing.
Aziel staggered through the narrow, rugged streets, slipping on the wet cobblestones as he approached the dilapidated townhome at the very end. He didn’t know what brought him to this place, but he’d heard stories of the old woman from the market—the things she could do for people like him. He wasn’t quite sure if they were as broken or as lost as he was, but he hoped that she could guide him in the direction he needed to go.
He gave up hope.
None of it was worth it anymore.
On the darkest days of his life, the days spent in Camalia’s presence and the days after, he’d always held out hope that his princess was going to be safe. He hoped that she would remember him. He hoped for a lot of things. But five years had passed and it was hard to think that anything could be worth all of this pain.
Earlier that day, he tried to escape Camalia. She found him, as she always did. And she smiled at him when she told him of Nymiria’s lover.
When he entrusted Owen and Desiree with Nymiria’s care, he didn’t expect for one of his oldest and dearest friends to fall in love with her. He also did not expect for Nymiria to fall in love with Owen, either. He had hope. But hope, in a place like this, was such a foolish thing for him to have. He should have learned that lesson five years prior when Dorid threw him into that pit. He should have learned that lesson when Camalia sterilized him. He should have learned that lesson already, but it was his mother’s good heart and her love for people that she’d instilled in him that was stronger than the seed of hate that his father tried to sew.
It wasn’t as if she belonged to him. Nymiria was not his. He had no claim on her and even if he wanted to, he had nothing to offer her—not a home, not a means of escape. He had nothing, but his mother’s journal and the weight of a prophecy hanging over his head, a fate that he was cursed with the moment Dorid spilled his seed into his mother’s womb.
Aziel drew in a ragged breath, leather-clad fingers digging into the spine of the journal as he pressed it closer to his chest.
He gave up hope in silly ideas of love, but there was something more for him out there. He had a future. He had promise. He had the ability to become something more than the bastard to a king that only kept him alive to utilize him like aweapon. He had a mate out there… somewhere. And whether it took ten years or a hundred, he was willing to hold on to the idea that there was someplace that he belonged. As wretched and corrupt as he was, there was someone out there for him. Someone that his soul would call to.
He could have been incredibly drunk and full of emotions, but he could not shake the feeling that this person—his mate—was closer than he believed. That, whoever she was, needed him just as much as he needed her.
I will love her, he told himself. I will love her and she will love me, too.
Righting himself on the stone wall he’d stumbled into, Aziel drew in a deep breath and continued towards the house at the end of that street. He climbed the wobbling and rotting stairs, knocked twice on the door that seemed to hang a tilt. When it opened to reveal the wrinkled face of a woman that would always sneak treats into his pocket while in the market, Aziel nearly threw himself into her arms. But Dieve was not the affectionate type.
“What on earth?” She croaked, tugging him upright and pulling him inside.
At a loss for words, Aziel slowly handed her his mother’s journal. “I have a mate.” He said quietly. “I have a mate.”
Dieve took the book from him, casting glances at him as she thumbed through the worn pages. As she read, her expression went from one of confusion to solemn understanding. She turned to him slowly, closing the book as she did. “Come with me.”
She led him through the home to a work table in one of the back rooms. Aziel ducked his head, but the dried herbs and crystals that hung from her ceiling were still disturbed by his height. When she urged him down onto the table, Dieve began to pray. Aziel was still learning the old languages and couldonly decipher a few of the words she said. He watched her move around, grabbing needles and small metallic bars that she had in glass containers along the wall.
He’d never felt so vulnerable, yet so sure of something in his entire life.
There were many things that he was responsible for, many souls that relied on him to receive their fateful end. Teigh wanted him to become the ruler of the Otherworld, and Thorn wanted him to lead a revolution.
“You know what this means?” She asked him, running one of the needles over the top of a lit candle.
He nodded. “There is a friend. He’s told me things—the traditions.” He swallowed thickly as she approached him with the needle. “It doesn’t frighten you? That I’m a god?”
