Page 13 of The Heart of Nym (The Twisted Roots Duology #1)

She's the king's secret assassin .

She was killing people for Dorid.

When Camalia first told him of Nymiria's little secret, he didn't think that she was telling the truth.

But she had no reason to lie, not when she already had him.

All that mattered was that his eyes were focused on her and not anyone else.

He desperately wanted to believe that it was not true, but the moment he saw her pressed against his brother, making eyes at him and running her fingers along his arms, Aziel couldn't deny it any longer.

She'd become one of them.

It wasn't worth this torture.

The thought raced through his mind as he pulled himself from Camalia's bed. He listened to the rustling of her moving around behind him, tossing a satin sheet over her naked body as she watched him rub his eyes.

The nausea was horrible. It took everything in him not to vomit alcohol and food all over the shiny, polished floors of his stepmother's sleeping chambers. He swallowed thickly, pushing away the phantom caresses of her hands against his skin.

Days like this, he often wondered if the deal he'd made ten years ago was worth it.

There was nothing in it for him, nothing he received in return, save for the vast emptiness he felt days after leaving Camalia's poisonous company.

Images flashed behind his eyes of bound wrists and wide, vacant eyes that begged to be saved—that spoke of torture and pain he hadn't yet experienced.

With a deep breath, he shook the memory from his mind and rose to his feet.

He grabbed his discarded clothing from the floor and retreated to her washroom to dress himself.

She allowed him his dignity in that respect—that she didn't follow him and watch his trembling hands try to fix the buttons on his shirt.

He could blame himself for the deal he made with the woman in the other room, but he didn't. He was just a child trying to do the right thing—trying to save something beautiful from the harsh reality that awaited it beyond the forest. Now, all of these years later, he didn't think that the creature he saved was beautiful.

All it reminded him of was pain and suffering, the horrors he faced both inside the palace and outside of it.

Just looking at it made the leather around his fingers feel as if it was melting into his skin.

He blamed that horrid creature for every mistake he'd made since he found it in those woods.

Fighting the urge to claw the damned things off, Aziel huffed and headed for the door of Camalia's bedroom.

She was finally sleeping soundly, drunk from alcohol and sin.

He left her without so much as a wave goodbye, shrinking into the shadows that lined the corridor.

He could hear the sounds of his father and his courtesan fucking vigorously down the hall.

He turned away from it, face contorting as he swallowed the burn of the bile at the back of his throat.

The palace was a place of dreams for every demented and depraved soul in this world—a beacon of seduction and sin to all of those who looked up at it's gnarled steeples.

The people of Yaar lusted over a chance to grace its dark and decrepit halls, in constant awe of the beautiful people that entered and exited the iron gates.

The Yaarboroughs were once a noble line of Mystics.

They hailed from a far-off continent that was once flourishing with life and success.

But disagreements among the Warlords that led the continent drove the Yaarboroughs here.

To Gaellagh. They took human wives and husbands, eventually watering down the Mystic blood until there was nothing but beauty and greed left.

History told stories of the Yaarboroughs in their prime—a family that was generous and kind that helped the people of Gaellagh.

Looking at them today, surrounded by sex and and selfish desires, you would never know of their grandeur. They were laughable.

Aziel believed that he was better than them for a very long time.

He prided himself in his good heart—in his selflessness.

But with each person he killed, with each pulse he felt slip away under the grip of his own fingers, his heart darkened.

His soul, if there ever was one to begin with, was surely blackened and decayed.

Of all the hatred he held in his heart, the hatred he had towards himself and the fact that he'd allowed himself to be tainted by their twisted ways was the greatest. There was no one he could blame for that. There was just rot.

He didn't have to kill the people his father sent him to exterminate.

He could have warned his victims—told them to run away and start newer, better lives out of Yaarborough's cold clutches.

But he didn't. Not because it was his job to see each death through, but because he liked killing them.

These people were never good people, which was a comforting thought, but there were some who had potential.

Some who hadn't completely ruined their lives.

Some who had families who were innocent and depended on them.

"You look like death." The voice that came from the shadows ahead of him drew Aziel from his inner torment.

He lifted his eyes to the dark figure in front of him, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips as Demetrios, his dearest and equally damnable friend, stepped into the light. "And you smell horrid."

Aziel didn't bother to check. Instead, he clapped his friend on the shoulder and gave him the best smile he could muster. "And you aren't supposed to be here."

Demetrios, or Trio, had been following Aziel around since they were small children.

He was initially supposed to be Aziel's companion, ordered by Dorid to keep a young and feeble-hearted Aziel enriched.

Trio was the child of one of Dorid's many courtesans, who tragically took her own life when they were young.

The king didn't have the heart to cast aside the children of that poor woman, instead he made them work for their stay.

Trio didn't stay.

When Aziel was damned to the death pit at fifteen, Trio had had enough and vanished into the night, joining forces with the Mystic sympathizers on the outskirts of the kingdom.

He couldn't condemn him for leaving, but it did make life in Yaar much harder to bear.

Having to pretend to be thankful—to be appreciative of the bare minimum without a single soul to confide in was excruciating for a young bastard prince that no one seemed to love.

"What kind of friend would I be if I didn't welcome you upon your return?" His friend hummed playfully.

Aziel gave him a dead-panned stare, cocking his head to the side. "I returned three days ago."

Trio shrugged, the flash of his incisors as he smiled was stark against his dark skin. "I had a mission and was delayed."

The pointed tip of Aziel's ears seemed to gravitate towards his friend with keen interest. "And?"

"And," Trio drawled. "We have secured the land. We will begin moving Mystics out of the camps in the next few days. I won't be around for a while, as I'm sure you would've guessed, but I will let you know how everything goes when we are sure that no one has caught on to us."

It was risky business, indeed. Demetrios and the sympathizers had been rescuing Mystics from the labor camps for years—taking to hiding them in cellars and attics once they were able to successfully help them escape.

Many of the Mystics that were rescued had been living in hiding and hadn't seen the light of day since.

Now with the successful purchase of land in a district of Gaellagh that was untouched by the Yaarborough reign, they had a safe place to send them.

And, apparently, plans to retrieve more of the poor souls from their prisons.

A fate that Trio, his sister Desiree, and Aziel had avoided since birth.

All three of them were Mystics. Trio and his younger sister were half-bloods, born of their human mother and a Seelie father.

Both of which were no longer living. Just like Aziel's mother.

He'd inherited all of her distinguishable features—sparkling blue eyes that were flecked with speckles of black, pointed ears, and elongated incisors that could tear through flesh if he wished.

From a young age, he was forced to conceal those features.

Out of his natural-born stubbornness, all he managed to glamour were his ears and teeth.

The rest of him, he forced his father to look at.

Forced him to remember the woman who rested in that gated cemetery just beyond the gardens.

Dorid didn't care about the Mystics. He just cared that they didn't overpower him.

And that was the curse of their family—once the Mystic blood became so diluted, the Yaarboroughs began to fear the other Mystics, the ones native to Gaellagh that had lived alongside the humans here since the beginning of time.

The enslavement started around the time that Dorid's father took the throne and had continued this long.

Only, now, there were seemingly no other Mystic kingdoms to ransack and burn.

The last Mystic kingdom that existed was destroyed nearly a decade ago.

Aziel was young when it happened and though they were able to capture most of the people living in Alvaros, there were still some hidden inside of the cellars of the homes they purged.

The Yaar Huntsmen burned the homes before leaving.

Aziel could still hear the screams and smell the scent of burning bodies, and could feel the weight of his damned torch in his hand.

His guilt had followed him over the course of a decade for what he'd done. But a job was a job.

"Listen," Aziel sighed. "There is something that I need to take care of tonight. How long are you staying for?"