Page 18 of The Heart of Nym (The Twisted Roots Duology #1)

The old woman only laughed, using a spatula to pull Nymiria's tart from the tiny clay oven on the other side of the stall.

"There's no maybe about it, Mystic. You'd be smart to remember that the next time you decide to come and drool all over my bread.

" She looked behind Nymiria to where Desi stood, her hands politely interlocked behind her back and her head low.

"Quit bringing her here, Desi . She ruins my day. "

Nymiria gasped, making a dramatic show of shock and horror. "That hurt more than that slap with the sugar cane."

"Good." Dieve laughed, stuffing the dragon tart into a paper bag before handing it to her over the counter. The old woman paused, patting the top of Nymiria's hand before she reached out to cup her cheek. "Are you doing alright, little flower?" She asked.

If she was being honest with herself, Nymiria wasn't quite sure how she was doing.

She hadn't been sure for quite some time.

It was hard to answer a question like that when there were so many thoughts and emotions flooding through her that she could hardly decipher them at all. "I'm doing fine, Dieve. Just hungry."

Dieve frowned. "You've been saying that for the last three weeks."

"She's been saying that any time I ask her anything." Desi grumbled.

Nymiria shot her friend a look. "I am fine, though!"

"She punched Aziel in the throat."

"Aziel?" Dieve gasped. "My sweet, darling Aziel? What on earth did he do to deserve that?"

Nymiria rolled her eyes at the sentiment.

"Of course you think he's sweet and darling—both of you must have crawled out of the same pit when you came here from hell to torture me.

" She didn't mean it literally, but she didn't need to tell Dieve that.

The old woman was well versed in the art of sarcasm.

But in terms of Aziel, Nymiria wasn't stretching the truth very much.

He looked at her like he wanted to murder her every time they were forced to be in the same room with one another.

Of course, that'd only been three times, but three times was enough to tell that he didn't like her very much.

"You have the audacity to keep calling me a demon? After all of my dragon tart you've eaten?" Dieve chuckled.

The conversation switched to Desiree and her studies.

Although she was a servant, Dorid insisted for all of those within the palace to be highly educated and knowledgeable in almost every subject.

Desi was one of the smartest people in Yaar and Nymiria would know—she'd been forced to entertain scholars and scribes that were close friends with Dorid and hardly any of them spoke of anything beyond the kingdom.

As if the world outside of Yaar simply did not exist.

Nymiria took her dragon tart from the paper it was wrapped in and allowed herself a small bite of the corner.

She didn't want to spoil her lunch and Desi had practically begged to go to the new bistro that opened on the edge of the city.

It was still quite a ways away from where they currently were and her time of freedom was dwindling to an end.

She drew in a deep breath, savoring the flavor of the dragon berry jam as it melted on her tongue.

The air around her suddenly started to shift.

It was already thick with humidity, but this was something else…

something terrifying that made her stomach sour.

She turned her head from Desiree and Dieve, searching the throng of people for the source of her sudden discomfort.

Sweat formed at the nape of her neck as she brushed a flaky crumb away from her lip, eyes narrowing to help her focus.

The breeze that washed over her was one that made her nose scrunch, the smell of wet and rotted roses filling her nose.

Her mind had taken over, her curiosity guiding her as she turned away from her companions and walked in the direction of which the smell came.

The moment she saw him in the shadowed alley a couple of streets over, Nymiria knew that the source of the smell was him. He was crouched over a slumping body, his fingers curled around a straining neck, being clawed at by hands that were desperate to take purchase of freedom.

"I told you to stay away, didn't I? I told you that I would handle it and, yet, here you are—out here causing a scene and whining about injustices when you were given strict orders to keep your mouth shut.

" Aziel hissed, his white hair falling into his face as he shoved the man into the stone wall behind him. "If you ruin this for them—"

"Aziel, I would never do that. It was a lapse in judgement. I swear it won't happen again." The man was fumbling over his words, his voice weak and trembling as tears ran down his plump cheeks. "P-please. I promise I won't say another word."

Aziel rose to his feet and motioned for the man to do the same. "And, yet, you're still blubbering like a fool." He sighed.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Aziel. Please." The man held up his hands in front of him, as if doing such a thing would prevent anything from happening to him. "Please don't hurt me."

"Hurt you?" Aziel laughed darkly, his blue eyes narrowed in the very same way he'd looked at her the day before.

Venomous. Filled with hatred and disgust. Nymiria could not stop the shiver that ran over her body, but she also could not stop watching.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Char. But I am going to give you something to remember the next time you want to open that drunken little mouth of yours.

I have worked too hard and sacrificed too much of myself to have some little grub-worm ruin everything. "

The man trembled as he flattened himself against the stone wall. "What are you going to do to me, then?"

Her stomach dropped. She had to do something.

Even if this was the worst idea she'd ever had in her life and it would only make circumstances with Aziel worse, she couldn't allow him to kill this man.

Because by the look of Aziel's eyes, she was almost certain that death was where this was going to lead.

Without a second thought and a curse under her breath, Nymiria threw herself into the trash bins at the front of the alley, letting out a squawk of surprise as she collided with the metal.

The little scream she gave was most certainly fake, but the pain that bloomed through her elbow was very real.

She whimpered softly as she watched a sideways version of Aziel Haze approach her.

Everything about him was sinister. It seemed as if the dark shadows of the alley followed him as he approached her and the smell… gods, he smelled like death. Not like a rotting corpse, but of the earth—of fungus and rot. Like a fallen tree, hollowed out and left to crumble on the forest floor.

Nymiria slowly pushed herself up off of the cobblestone road, eyeing him with the same ferocity as she had during their encounter in the gardens.

"You have a knack for being in places you don't belong, Nymiria.

" Aziel was towering over her now, his long form concealing the sun that blared at his back.

She gritted her teeth and swiftly moved to her feet, still scowling up at him. "According to your father, I'm as welcome here as anyone else."

Though his eyes were downcast, she could still feel him picking her apart from head to toe. He toyed with the straps of his gloves, thumbing away dirt and grime that was not there. "How gracious of him."

Dorid Yaarborough was not a gracious man.

The things that Nymiria had to do—the ways she had to scheme to achieve this level of freedom were the very things that haunted her when she looked in the mirror.

It never came down to giving him her body, not in a sexual way, but she was a slave to them.

She provided companionship and comfort to an evil overlord that did not care about the people in this market that worked day in and day out to bring home mere scraps for their families.

He certainly did not care for people like her.

How could he even deign to claim it when the Seelie were all locked away in camps, working themselves to the bone and living in squalor?

He profited off of misery and paraded himself as a savior—claiming that, with the Seelie and other Mystics gone, that the people of Yaar would have more money, more privileges, and better lives.

Nymiria didn't know if Aziel's distaste for his father was true or if it was a way to test her loyalty.

She could only assume it was the latter, considering the recent threats against Dorid and Oran's lives.

Perhaps Aziel was digging into her so deeply to see if she was the one plotting their deaths.

"I take whatever freedoms His Royal Highness allows me and I am grateful for them.

" Her voice was emotionless. She prayed that Aziel could not see the lie, that he didn't notice how her hands trembled as she spoke.

She knew what happened to those who betrayed Dorid's trust. The image of rocks colliding with the bare flesh of a young courtesan, strung up in the middle of the city, would forever be ingrained in her memory.

She didn't want that ending for herself.

It didn't matter if she was worthless or not, no one deserved that kind of humiliation in death.

Aziel stepped closer to her and though every muscle and tendon was tense in preparation to run, her feet did not move. He was so close now that she could feel the warmth of his body against hers, his soft breaths tickling the shell of her pointed ear as he ducked his head towards it.