Page 44 of The Heart of Nym (The Twisted Roots Duology #1)

He'd been a fool.

For him to believe that she'd allowed Dorid into her heart, to believe that she'd fallen in love with his brother…

Nymiria was far more clever than he initially gave her credit for.

And Aziel wasn't sure if it was pride that he felt or if it was fear.

Perhaps a fair dose of both. Nonetheless, he could applaud her for being such a great actress. She'd had him fooled.

He watched from the bank of the river as she walked through the rippling currents. Half an hour ago, she claimed that she'd once learned how to catch fish with her bare hands.

Again, Aziel did not believe her.

Again, he was proven wrong.

There were three meaty fish sitting beside him. After she caught the second, he told her that there was no need for more. But Nymiria was hungry. And he hated having to admit to her that being this close to Yaar—to Camalia—made his ability to conjure food for them impossible.

His powers were weaker, but not nonexistent.

Her hair was tied back with one of the laces of her boots, her clothes wet nearly up to her waist. This was not someone raised in Yaar, this was who Nymiria had been in the Beyond. Before he had snatched her up from her reality and forced her to be under his father's care.

If he could have done anything differently, he would have let her go. He wouldn't have gone after her at all. Maybe a version of her would still be here—running through the forest and catching fish with her bare hands, doing all that she deserved to do—had he not.

“How does it feel?” Aziel asked, his own voice surprising him. It’d meant to only be a thought, but the words slipped from his lips before he could catch himself.

It was too late to take them back now, Nymiria was already looking at him with a wild and tired grin on her face. “How does what feel?”

He wanted to smile. He wanted to offer her more than the morose look he wore, but he was too close to Yaar to show genuine joy. “Freedom. Being here.” He moved his legs to the side as Nymiria climbed up onto the bank, frowning when water from her clothes dripped onto his boots. He just shined them.

“I’d say that you were right. That day in the market, when you told me a taste of freedom would make me crave it.” She was still smiling, but her eyes carried the shadows of memories—feelings that she would never be able to grasp again. Grief.

Seeing him studying her so thoroughly, she let out a small chuckle and ran her fingers over the drying fish scales between them.

“Certainly am glad to not be wearing that damned chastity belt. It would have made fishing far more difficult.” Aziel closed his eyes, a low rumble of a laugh spreading through his chest. “Imagine having an extra ten pounds of something between your legs and attempting to do all that we’ve done in the last day. ”

Aziel’s brows quirked up at the remark, lips twitching into a smug grin. “I’d say that I’ve managed just fine with the ten pounds between my legs.”

Nymiria froze, her mouth falling open and her brow crumpling as she looked up at him. When her eyes landed on his smirk, she gasped. “Did you just make a joke?” She shoved him, nearly squealing with joy when he rolled his eyes.

Aziel chuckled. “Am I not allowed to?”

She shook her head, letting out a small laugh of her own. “I never thought that you were the kind of man who made jokes.” She shrugged. “You’re always so serious about everything.”

“You also thought that I wasn’t the type to deliver happy endings, If my memory serves me correctly.”

“Still haven’t seen any evidence that says you are.”

There was no possible way for her to ignore the shift in his aura—the tension that was so tight, one slight of hand could make either of them snap.

And it would probably be her. Because no one had looked at her like this in years.

His eyes were dark, his gaze hooded as it trailed from her lips to her wet clothes.

“I can give you evidence.” He whispered.

Nymiria didn’t know if she could move. Didn’t know if she should. She didn’t know what to do at all, really. Those eyes weren’t taunting her anymore. There wasn’t the slightest hint of amusement swirling in their crystalline depths.

She drew in a ragged breath before forcing a laugh, nudging his arm with her elbow. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why not?”

It was genuine curiosity that Nymiria didn’t have an answer for.

The only answer she had could possibly get her killed.

How was she supposed to say that there was a possibility that she could be attracted to him—that she’d dreamed of his hands on her naked body or that, when he kissed her the night before, she didn’t want him to stop?

She couldn’t say those things.

“Because of my job.” She said, finally, her voice small as she began to busy herself with anything else.

She picked up a fish and Aziel’s knife, figuring it was best to start working on the fillets.

She gripped the gills of the fish and hooked the blade under the skin.

Knowing he was watching, she began to slice.

“What job?” Aziel’s voice broke through the heavy silence.

Still, she refused to look at him. Only continued with the fish. “You know what my job is.” She grumbled.

“Maybe I should ask Oran to give you to me.”

She snorted. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?” Aziel sighed. “Afraid you might actually enjoy it?”

She knew that he was only teasing, but there was a flicker of sadness in her chest at what he said.

For many years, she didn’t think twice about what her role was in the kingdom.

She’d known from the moment she was placed with the other courtesans what she was worth.

A pretty face, a hole to fill, someone to exhaust and use to fulfill even the wildest of fantasies.

Still, hearing Aziel say it—confirm who she was, it made her ache. She decided to be honest with him. “I don’t want you to see me like that.” She confessed.

There was a beat of silence that seemed to stretch on for eternity.

Her cheeks were red, her eyes threatening to fill with tears as she waited for him to say something.

Laugh, make another joke—something other than this torture.

When fear gripped at her stomach, she looked up to see him staring down at her so intently that the knife slipped from her hands.

“I’ve never seen you as a courtesan.” It was all that he said before he rose to his feet and walked away.

Nymiria watched after him for a moment, her heart pounding as he went. She didn’t know what to make of what he said. Hell, she didn’t know what to make of any of this. Everything that had happened… she hadn’t even had the time to think through all of it. Process it.

By the time she finished filleting the fish, Aziel had built a fire in a small clearing that was hidden by an overgrowth of dense vines and trees.

He'd gathered sticks to help with roasting, both of them silent as they twirled their meat over the flames.

Only occasionally did they glance up at one another.

Nymiria found herself grateful for the fact that there were many tasks to complete before they slept—it kept her mind and her eyes from wandering.

They ate their fish quickly before scurrying away from the fire and busying themselves.

"Is the ground good enough for you?" Aziel asked. Nymiria looked up from where she was kicking dirt over the charred logs and ash, swatting smoke away from her face.

She shrugged.

She wasn't too particular and it wouldn't be the first time she'd woken up on a bed of grass. "No fancy magic left for you to poof us a bed or two?" She snorted.

"You want the short answer or the long answer?"

It was meant to be a jest, but now she was interested in what he had to say. "Long answer."

Nymiria watched as Aziel stretched himself out on the ground, his arms tucked under the back of his head to offer some semblance of comfort.

She stared at him for a moment before doing the same.

Once they were both laid out under the stars, a cacophony of crickets and frogs chirping around them, Aziel let out a long sigh.

"Ten years ago, when I was fifteen, my father tried to kill me in the most cowardly way possible.

Once he discovered that I had the smallest seed of magic, he sent me into the pit to play for the position of being one of his many assassins.

He didn't think that I would make it past the first day.

And though the men I was against took it easy on me for the first few hours, it turned into an absolute bloodbath.

Each of them fought each other for the chance at killing the king's bastard son—thinking that offering my head on a stick would grant them mutiny.

" Nymiria turned to him when he paused, watching him as his fingers twirled the black jewel pinned to the lapel of his ranger jacket.

"I got scared. I mean, gods, I was just a boy.

I didn't know how to hold a knife, let alone kill someone.

" He shook his head, his face dark with memories.

"I tried scaling the side of the pit, but it was all smoothed out.

There wasn't a groove or hole I could use to hoist myself up.

When I fell back down, they were on me—beating me, throwing rocks at me. "

Nymiria propped herself up on her elbows, her hands itching—twitching to reach across the three feet of space that separated them and touch him.

As if a touch could take the memories or the pain away.

Aziel didn't have to have an expressive face for her to know that it hurt. The pain was in his eyes.

Always, his eyes.