Page 22 of The Heart of Nym (The Twisted Roots Duology #1)

Oran’s hands were busy dealing the cards, but his eyes were still flickering back and forth in between them. “I have a feeling that you’re bluffing right now, actually.” Aziel sounded proud of himself—like it’d only taken him this long to have figured her out.

She was bluffing. But Aziel didn’t need to know that.

Instead, she just laughed her pretty little laugh and did her best to ignore him.

When Aziel and Oran lifted their cards, Nymiria raised her own, glancing between the brothers.

She had to seem as if she didn’t know how to play—that she hadn’t spent the better half of a year in every back alley pub gambling for coin.

With each bet raised, with each card placed, Nymiria swallowed her pride and played her part.

She leaned to Oran, flashing him her cards to ask for help which, inevitably, led to the cards having to be shuffled and dealt out again.

She did this three times in a row, keeping an eye on Aziel to see if his shoulders relaxed at all.

They did not. And his eyes were just as painstakingly menacing as they were when they started.

And both brothers, despite their very different personalities, were astonishingly patient with her.

By the fourth round, Nymiria slowly began to pretend to have an idea of the game. And when she looked down at her cards and saw a winning hand sitting prettily in her fingers, she frowned.

“No good?” Aziel asked.

Nymiria cocked her head to one side, brow furrowing slightly. “What do you mean?”

He nodded towards her cards. “Your hand. Is it not to your satisfaction?”

She wanted to lash out at him, slam the cards down onto the table and shove his nose in them.

“I’m not sure.” She sighed, turning to look at Oran with a hopeless expression, her hand extending to lightly stroke his bare forearm.

“I’m so sorry. Both of you must find me to be the worst person to play this game with.

I promise, you two continue to play, and I will eventually catch on. ”

Oran smiled at her, reaching over to pat the top of her hand that was resting over her coins. “It’s no bother, really, we’ve had worse experiences.”

“I highly doubt that.” She giggled, shaking her head.

“It’s true—”

“No it’s not.” Aziel cut in. When Nymiria looked at him, his irritation was evident.

His jaw clenched and his eyes nearly five seconds away from rolling.

Again. As if the first fifty times had gone unnoticed.

“We’ve never played with someone this bad.

Even if they were beginners, they at least understood the concept of the game.

The dealer lays the card, you either match it or aim higher.

You go on this way until someone chooses to pass and claims that they do not have a card of that caliber, then other players can call them on their bluff.

If they are correct, you bow out. If they are not, you win that round.

It is a child's game that takes very minimal comprehension skills to understand.” He leaned forward, cards crumbling in his hand.

“If you are going to lie, at least be good at it.”

Her heart was pounding angrily, sweat forming at her brow as she pressed herself closer to him. “What gives you the impression that I am lying?”

The look on his face was one so cold it could freeze fire and when he laughed, she swore the hair raised on her arms.“You are not daft, nor are you really this sweet.” Nymiria flinched at his words, her mouth opening to retort, but nothing could come out.

She froze. “Lie to me, Nymiria. Show me how sweet those lies sound.” A single chill ran up her spine, teeth clamping together.

“It’s just a game, Aziel.” Oran hissed.

Aziel only shook his head, eyes burning through her own and never turning from her.

“I don’t think so.” He shoved himself to his feet almost as soon as the words left his mouth.

That anger that coiled like snakes in her chest was getting tighter, restricting air flow as she watched him leave.

Oran was staring at her and while she usually would have laughed something like this off and made some excuse, the only thing she wanted to do was charge after him and demand a reason for his hatred of her.

It was what she intended to do when she stood and charged after him.

She followed the stench of decay down the long corridor that led to the west wing, twisting and turning down the intricately designed halls until she found him standing outside of the small library. He was an ominous haze in the dim light, his hair seemingly glowing as she made her approach.

Aziel knew that she was coming. No matter how stealthily she believed she was walking, he could feel her all over his body, the damned thing already reacting to her being this close. The hair on his arms lifted, his neck prickling when she stopped just a few paces behind him.

The very faint rustle of the silk that flowed over her body made him turn, not even flinching when he found himself staring at the sharp end of a blade.

“You’re going to kill me?” He could have laughed at the irony.

Knowing that, all those years ago, she had been his dispatch orders and he’d so foolishly put his physical and mental well-being on the line to ensure her safety… It was laughable.

A fucking joke.

“What are you waiting for, beautiful?”

Nymiria’s hand dipped just slightly, but just enough for him to use it to his advantage.

All it took was one quick movement for him to snatch the dagger from her hand and throw it into the wall behind her head.

He did not give her a single moment to recover before he was backing her into the space below her dagger, looming over her like the monster he was until she was flush against the wallpaper, hands splayed out against it to brace herself.

He stood there, looking at her, his body far enough away to allow her an escape if she was truly desperate enough for one, but close enough to show her that he was on to her.

It seemed as if Dorid had given her new orders, Aziel gathered. Orders with his name written all over them.

She was to deliver his death. He was a fool not to have noticed sooner.

“I’ll give you some advice,” he sighed. He reached his hand up to pluck the dagger from the wall, but upon seeing Nymiria flinch at his sudden movement, his brow lowered a fraction.

It was only for a moment—the realization and the anger flickering through his mind before it was gone again, replaced with the usual nothingness that plagued him.

He jerked the dagger out of the wall, gripped her hand and placed the handle in her palm.

“Use your head when you are going in for the kill, not your heart.

Sneaking up on a trained assassin usually ends in failure if you aren't smart about it.”

She knew that. And she knew that she was being irrational—fueled by her anger at him so blatantly calling her bluff. Humiliating her and everything she’d worked so hard to achieve. If he let others know that the personality she’d so carefully designed was nothing, but a farce…

She was done for.

“You could have just let me lie. Why say anything?”

Aziel’s eyes darkened, his gaze falling to the flower on the center of her chest. Usually, Nymiria would have reacted—would’ve moved to cover it had it been anyone else, but there was not a single ounce of malice when he beheld it. He looked sad.

“Has he hit you?”

The question, though entirely out of context, struck her right in the chest. It suddenly felt as if he’d stripped every ounce of silk and flesh from her bones and had bared her soul to the cruel forces of their withering world just to pick her to pieces.

His eyes were akin to a murder of crows, come to feast on the raw flesh underneath her glamour.

It roused that very same feeling inside of her that she’d felt that day in the garden. And she detested it.

“You are quite the conundrum, aren’t you?” She jabbed.

Aziel chuckled. “We aren’t talking about me, little Mystic, we’re talking about you.”

It was her turn to laugh. It was her turn to chortle and roll her eyes.

To glare at him the very same way he’d glared at her since they first crossed paths.

Her fist was certainly aching to connect with the column of his throat, but by how closely he was assessing her, she knew he would catch her fist before it made impact.

“I am talking about you—you with all of your anger and your hatred for someone you have never once met in your life. You with your cryptic words that you never fully explain—you just walk away.”

“I have to walk away from you.”

“Why?” Her whisper was certainly a suppressed yell, her voice straining against the urge to scream right in his face. “What is it about me that makes you so angry?”

His hand curled, leather squeaking in his grip.

If he clenched it any harder, his knuckles would surely burst through the fabric.

“I never said that I was angry with you. But hatred? Certainly, I feel it. I hate what you are pretending to be. As if you aren’t like me—like the rest of us.

” He snarled. “I hate that you sold your soul to a man that could not and would not give a single fuck about you if he saw you in a camp somewhere.”

“What else would you have me do, then? Would you rather me be in a camp somewhere, Aziel?”

“Yes.” He snapped. “Yes, I would love for you to be in a camp. I would love for you to be as far away from me as possible. Because, if you were, I wouldn’t have to look at you and be reminded of everything I have had to do—”

He turned away from her then, the force at which he moved causing her to suck in a sharp breath.

She watched him as he thrust his hands into his hair, groaning as they moved to press against his eyes.

Nymiria couldn’t understand what was happening, nor what he meant.

All she knew was that what he’d said had sliced through what remained of her civility.

She stomped towards him, shoving him into the wall with a solid thunk, her dagger poised at his chest.

“The next time you speak to me, I will not hesitate to drive this straight through your heart. Considering that you even have one.” She growled.

“And if you think, for one second, that you know anything about me or what I have had to do to survive this hell, you ought to rethink it. Because you clearly know nothing.”

That menacing gleam had returned to his eyes, along with the darkened sense of pride that usually accompanied it. “I don’t think you have the heart to kill me, Nymiria.”

Nymiria dug her blade deeper into his chest, piercing the fabric of his jacket. “Think again.”

“Does pretending that I am the villain make this easier for you, moonflower?”

Her eyes changed. Softening for a fraction of a minute, her lips parting to breathe in a shaky breath. “What did you just call me?”

Her hands were shaking.

It was a small detail, but a grandiose display of where her mind truly was.

She did not want to kill him. Not yet. Not until she believed that he was someone worth killing.

It was a small detail that proved there was hope for her, yet.

Any of Dorid’s other men would have attempted to end the job the moment he stepped foot in Yaar.

Not Nymiria. And it was not fear or trying to find the perfect moment to complete the task at hand, not really.

Nymiria didn’t want to kill anyone. Not even him.

Aziel slipped out from underneath the point of her dagger then, taking a few steps away to put distance between them before he spoke again. “Good night, Nymiria.”