Page 74 of The Heart of Nym (The Twisted Roots Duology #1)

The scent of cherry blossoms was all that she could think of, it roused something inside of her… made her think of someone who she believed she would never see again. It was a soothing scent, she realized, conjuring a memory of a boy who smiled at her at the most terrifying time of her life.

"Can I tell you a secret?"

Aziel hummed in response to her question, his voice thick with exhaustion. “I would love for you to tell me all of your secrets.” He said.

She smirked up at the dark ceiling of the tower, letting out a soft chuckle before turning her head just enough to see him peering down at her.

His eyes were weighted down with tiredness and his smile did not quite reach his eyes.

Still, she relished in the warm look he wore, in the way he gently stroked the tangled waves that spilled over his lap.

"Before I met Owen, there was a boy who would visit me when I was locked in the dungeons.

I lost all hope in life, but that boy… he made me smile.

" Aziel's hand stilled in her hair. There was a gentleness to his features, a shyness almost, that she recognized. "It was you, wasn't it?"

His lack of response was answer enough. He didn't have to say anything for her to know that he'd been the one who protected her since she'd been taken.

She'd never forgotten his eyes. No matter what color they were or the appearance he assumed, his eyes had always been the same.

"I had dreams of that boy until Owen and I…

well, until we came together. I always believed that he was some sort of guardian sent from the Otherworld to bring me happiness at the darkest point of my life.

" Her stomach hollowed fearfully at the thought that flickered through her mind, terrified that if she voiced them, she would never be able to take them back.

That Aziel meant something to her. He always had.

Even when she didn't know it was him. "When Owen died, I prayed for that boy to come back to me—to show me that there was hope and that everything I'd done would be worth it. I just wanted to see that smile again."

"And?" Aziel asked. "Now that I am here, what do you believe?"

"I believe that you made a horrible decision when you saved me." She grumbled. "You must have regretted it a time or two."

“The dumbest idea I ever had.” He laughed humorlessly, hauntingly. As if what he’d done had cost him tremendously, in ways that Nymiria would never understand. “I don’t regret my decision. Not always.”

Aziel probably meant for it to be a joke, but there was a seriousness to his tone that told her his saving her had cost him a great deal of pain.

Knowing Dorid—knowing that he'd brutalized Aziel both emotionally and physically in ways a parent or a person never should, she could only imagine what he'd faced at her expense. She hated it.

She wished that he would look at her again.

She wished that she could see his eyes and feel his hurt against her skin.

Aziel had saved her more times than she deserved.

That day that he cut her free from those ropes, he should have killed her immediately.

He was the Assassin of Yaar—Nymiria was not so daft that she didn’t know what Aziel had originally been there to do.

He was supposed to have killed her, as she was the last of the Celentas bloodline.

She was the last bridge to burn in order for Dorid to conquer the Beyond and have it for himself.

For some reason, he’d had a change of heart. Nymiria should have been dead. At his hand. And the irony was so comical that she could hardly contain the small, breathy laugh she released as she fell away from him.

She looked at him again, seeing his melancholy. “What did you mean by that? When you said you don’t always regret the decision to save me. There are times that you do regret it?”

He let out a sigh that smelled of pain, of a past she so desperately wanted to understand.

“Nymiria, the only thing I can tell you is that I made a deal with someone… a deal to keep you safe and untouched.” He looked at her, finally.

She could see it, then. In the vacant look in his eyes, the tremors in his hands that never seemed to go away.

The truth pieced together like a puzzle in front of her, remembering Camalia’s lustful glances, her fingers trailing over his shoulders at the ball.

It was not a mother’s love. It wasn’t love at all.

It was the story of a sick, twisted, evil, and demented woman who took a young boy’s good heart and tainted it with darkness.

Nymiria sprang to her feet, her hands fisting her hair and tugging at the wild strands as she began to pace.

Her anger and her panic was all-consuming, encompassing her until she couldn't hear Aziel’s pleas for her to calm down—that he was alright.

But this was not alright. None of this was alright.

Whatever he’d traded himself for, if it came to her, it certainly was not worth it. Nymiria was not worth that kind of torture, her life didn’t amount to anything beyond laying on her back and spreading her legs for someone. No matter what Aziel believed her to be, she was none of those things.

“Nymiria, please—I didn't mean that I regret saving you, I meant—”

“It's her, isn't it?" She gasped, her eyes sparkling with her rage. Her hands were starting to shake and her heart pounded in her ears. ”When did you make that arrangement with her, Aziel?” She demanded.

He slowly pushed himself forward. “What are you talking about?”

“How long have you been giving your body to her?” Her words seemed to plunge through his soul, deflating his spirit and his will to go on. “You can’t tell me that it isn’t true. It's Camalia.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know enough.” She rasped. “I know enough about life—I’ve lived a thousand lives in the entire miserable span of my twenty-five years.

I’ve been a daughter, a princess, a captive, a slave, and an assassin.

Just like you. But above all else, there is one thing that has trumped it all, that has haunted me in every aspect of my life and that is that I was a victim, Aziel.

” She drew in a ragged breath. Tears of anger, tears of pain and heartache burned in her eyes.

But she didn’t hide it. Not this time. Instead of muffling her sobs and all of her fury, she embraced it.

She felt it. Without his help, without him taking her pain, she showed him what her heartbreak looked like.

What it sounded like after years and years of keeping it confined.

“You knew what they did to me. You've felt this anger before, too.”

“Nymiria, stop.”

“You saw the blood.” That final sentence came out as a near-silent whisper, but Aziel still heard. “You saw what they did to me and you threatened to murder them all, but now you expect me not to be angry with the fact that it has happened to you?”

“It is not your burden to bear.”

“Don’t give me that. There is no difference here. She's been hurting you.”

His eyes snapped up to meet hers. “You were never supposed to know about this.

Do you think it's easy for me to tell you about any of this—to admit that I've let that devil of a woman touch me?

The last thing I want is for you to look at me and see just how pitiful and shameful my existence really is, Nymiria. "

"How could I ever look at you and feel shame? The only thing I feel is hatred towards my blasted existence because you said that you regret it and that all that has happened to you has been because of me!"

"Because she didn't hold up her end of the deal.

Because she allowed you to get beaten, brutalized, and used at his fucking hand!

That's the only reason I regret anything.

Because I have let her ruin me and I will never be able to fully give myself to you in fear of what you might find—that'd you'd see me for how shameful I really am!

" He exclaimed. "Do not be mistaken—I do not regret taking you away from those bastards that hurt you in Nym.

I would do it again, a thousand times over.

I was in the perfect position to kill every single person in that kingdom, all of the ones that hurt you, every Hunter that was a part of the caravan that night and you told me .

I wanted to kill them all. Coming back here, ten years later, I have spent every waking moment wishing that I could kill everyone in this palace for what they'd done to you.

All of them. You may not remember it well, but I do.

I remember you seeing that look in my eyes and it was like you knew what I was thinking.

You told me not to do it. So I didn't. And all I could think about, from that point on, was making sure that you didn't feel any more pain. "

"You shouldn't have saved me, Aziel."

"I had to, Nymiria. There was not a chance in hell that I was leaving without you."

“Why did you do that for someone you didn't know?”

Aziel shook his head, his lips twitching as he tried to formulate the words to say.

“No one needs a reason to do the right thing.” He stated simply.

“I believe that people should pay for their crimes. And taking something and ripping away their innocence… it is akin to ripping the petals off of a flower and expecting it to still bloom. It is the greatest sin, the greatest crime of all.”

His words settled into the tension between them, twisting around her heart like jagged thorns. Because she’d never been able to explain exactly how she felt—how her life felt since that night that he found her:

A flower without petals.

“Flowers are resilient, though.” He continued. She could feel his eyes on her, watching as she thoughtfully fidgeted with her hands. “But they have to die in order to come back whole again.”

“Do you believe that a flower that dies comes back as the very same flower?”