Page 98 of The Heart of Nym (The Twisted Roots Duology #1)

Inasha let out a piercing howl of pain, clutching the wounded hand to her chest, eyes wild as she watched her black blood spill down her skin.

Believing that the pain of her mother losing a finger could be distraction enough, Nymiria moved as quickly as she could, only to be blown away from the dais with a force that stole the breath from her lungs.

She landed on her side, hissing at the impact.

When she lifted her eyes, Nymiria let out a cry of rage, her heart hammering in her chest with fear, anger, turmoil, and every emotion in between as her gaze landed upon Aziel.

His sword was lodged in his chest, his hands already bloodied and his teeth clenched as he worked to loosen the blade from his sternum. Nymiria clambered to her feet, her side throbbing.

“Why are you angry, love? Because I lied to you? Abandoned you?” Inasha laughed, but the moment Nymiria prepared to launch herself forward, a blast of power from the witch sent her surging backwards into the wall behind her.

Pain bloomed through Nymiria’s skull, her lungs burning as she tried to draw in air.

Hands and knees planted on the ground, she looked up to her mother again.

“I’m not going to make this easy for you.

You have had an easy enough life as it is. ”

Nymiria let out a weak laugh, shaking her head in disbelief. “Easy? You think that all I had to endure was easy?”

“My parents made me undergo multiple tests of strength to ensure that I was fit enough to be a queen, Nymiria. You faced but a fraction of what I had to endure, and look at me!”

“Yes,” she sneered. “Look at you. A wretched little thing with no soul.” Nymiria slowly rose to her feet again, finally able to draw in a complete breath without her muscles seizing.

“Instead of looking at me with love and protecting me from the things that corrupted your soul, you chose to continue it—to pass that pain onto me as if it was some sort of birthright. Because you never loved me at all. You only loved the power my existence promised you.”

None of this mattered. It would have made no difference if Nymiria had spoken or not, her words were falling upon deaf ears.

Her mother was old and so rooted in her ways and her beliefs that nothing could change her.

No threat, no consequence could make her feel remorse for all the pain she’d caused.

She turned her head to look at Aziel again, at the bloodied sword he’d finally pulled free from his chest, and drew her shoulders back once again.

She charged for her mother again. Again and again. And though each of her attempts were met with painful blasts of power that threatened to cripple her, Nymiria continued to stand. Continued to fight.

If Philter had taught her anything useful during their sessions, it was that tiring someone out was the most effective way of getting them to let their guard down.

Nymiria was powerful, surely, but she had no clue on how to wield her grace, nor the defense magic she’d inherited from her fae lineage. She knew glamours. She knew how to grow flowers and sprout vines, but those energy forces were entirely unfamiliar.

She needed a window. A moment of weakness.

“This tantrum of yours isn’t just because of me, is it?” Inasha asked, eyes slowly gliding to Aziel. He was still breathing raggedly, blood forming at the corner of his mouth. “Are you angry that I had him first, Nymiria?”

Fuck the moment of weakness, Nym. Kill her now.

Owen.

She heard him. Felt him. Like a violent force that she’d never felt before.

His hands moving under her arms, guiding her back to her feet.

His eyes filled her vision and he nodded to her as if to tell her to keep going.

The moment she saw him, she wanted to blurt out apologies, to beg for forgiveness for ending his life when he had so much left to offer the world.

She’d snuffed his light too soon. All because she was afraid.

You will not fail yourself again. He assured her. You’re stronger now.

"Now, moonflower." Aziel amended. "Do it now."

The moment Aziel clumsily rose to his feet and made his death crawl across the throne room floor once again, Nymiria looked at her mother. Trio was pushing himself to his feet, his face pale and twisted with pain, clutching at his side as if something was broken there.

Aziel looked as if he wanted to be the one to do it.

His eyes filled with malice and his jaw clenched tight as he looked at the Witch Queen, Nymiria knew he would have preferred to be the one to end her life.

He had probably waited for this moment for an entire decade.

But he was still weak, still holding onto the crowd and keeping them locked in place with what little strength he had.

He was healing, his wounds closing more and more by the second, but the internal damage was also severe. He was in pain.

Emotionally. Physically.

Just like her.

With a scream that could be heard at every corner of the continent, Nymiria let her vines free.

Each tendril uncurled from the formation of wings they’d made at her back, weaving through the crowd.

Just as the legend went about the Choking Vines that guarded her home from the forces beyond, her vines plunged through bodies, ripped through flesh in an unforgiving dance.

Trio's shadows accompanied her vines, twisting through the air like fatal plumes of smoke, they sliced and carved, wove themselves around limbs and ripped them from screaming bodies.

Screams filled the air, along with the thick, metallic scent of freshly spilled blood.

The floor of the throne room was covered in gore, a sight that would have surely made her vomit had this instinct, this ancient power inside of her, not taken over.

Aziel’s roots were quick to consume the death, bodies being swallowed into the earth and carried into the Otherworld where they would stand trial for their crimes. One by one, they vanished. Every last one of them. Until the evil in the room had almost completely vanished.

The biggest evil, the most horrid of them all, watched in horror at the gruesome scene before her.

Nymiria's anger had taken hold. Every ounce of her hurt and the betrayal that carved through her like a knife was being funneled into those vines. She marched toward her mother at an inhuman pace, approaching her at the same speed it took her to blink. And as those thorns continued their work on those who bowed to her mother and Dorid’s commands, Nymiria lifted her dagger from the floor and brought it to her mother’s throat.

“I can only hope,” Nymiria began. “That if you are given the chance at another life, you are tortured in every single one. I hope that you are reborn as a pig for slaughter, as a worm for a bird, made to be eaten and digested and shit out onto the earth like you deserve.” She spoke through bared teeth, eyes wild with fury as she pressed the tip of her blade into her mothers neck.

Inasha glanced down at Nymiria’s hand and as she lost her footing on her step back, fear finally settled into the blue of her eyes.

“All of this for love?” She asked in disbelief, swallowing so thickly that her throat bobbed against the tip of the dagger. “You could have been something great, Nymiria. Having a heart in this world will only lead to your ruin.”

“If having a heart makes me horrible, then so be it.” Nymiria snapped. “Let me be horrible. Let me be so terribly awful and never experience greatness a single day in my life. I don’t care. I won't let you hurt anyone else. I will never be like you.”

Inasha swallowed again, wincing as the iron pierced through her skin just enough to draw the first drop of blood.

“You say that now.” She breathed shakily.

“But I once served a king that used me to kill his enemies, that battered and bruised me just because he could. I sold my body to the highest bidder—to someone who promised me so many wonderful things, but never truly let me shine. And,” her lips curved into a smile that wasn't really a smile at all. "I killed my mother, too."

“You were never my mother. You were just the bitch that birthed me.” And with those final words, Nymiria dragged the dagger across her mother’s neck in swift, fluid motion.

At first, there was not a single indication of what she’d just done.

Inasha only stared at her with terror in her eyes.

It wasn’t until the blood began to bubble to the surface of the cut that Nymiria realized what she’d done—what her mother had said.

Terror overwhelmed her as she watched the Witch Queen grapple and claw at her bleeding throat, as if she could somehow stitch the wound back together.

The dagger clattered to the floor and Nymiria stumbled back, bumping into a solid surface that smelled so strongly of cherry blossoms that it made her eyes burn.

No, those were tears. She was crying. It was not from sadness, not from guilt. Her tears came from a place inside of her that prayed for relief from her pain, a pain that neither death nor revenge could fill. Her anger still burned, just as furious, just as hot as it had before.

She glanced around the throne room, at the receding vines that’d left nothing but puddles of blood and chunks of flesh in their wake. She shuddered, horrified at what she had done—what she was capable of doing.

“It’s alright,” Aziel whispered, his arms looping around her waist to hold her upright.

She could feel her body slumping the same time that Inasha fell to the ground.

His strength kept her upright. Had he not been there, she would have fallen with her mother.

“Look at me.” Nymiria shook her head weakly, chin quivering as she stared at what she’d done. “Look at me, love.”

“No.” She sobbed. Though it hurt, she found the strength to pull herself away from him, her head hung as her vines finally retracted into her skin, burying themselves deep into her flesh. “I have to leave.”

Panicked, she scrambled for her dagger. She still did not face him, for she feared that when he looked upon her face, he wouldn’t be able to see her, but the monster that created her.

She feared that the evil that birthed her had planted the seed of destruction in her veins, that she would bring nothing but ruin and heartache to those beyond The Divide.

So much courage—so much anger, and all of it for nothing. All for the person who instilled that doubt in her to snatch it away once again, even in her death.

“Nymiria.” Aziel whispered. “You don’t have to go.”

She shook her head furiously, tears streaking her cheeks, carving lines through her mother’s blood. Her hands came up to shield her face from him, to protect him from the resemblance she shared with his abuser. “Don’t look at me.” She hissed. “Please. Don’t.”

“I don’t see her, Nymiria.”

She peaked at him from between her fingers, chest aching as she took slow and unsure steps back towards the door.

“I do.” She said. Her voice was a trembling whisper, her eyes scanning the blood-stained ballroom.

“I see her everywhere.” Her throat squeezed around a suppressed sob as she opened the door.

Her next few steps would surely break her heart, but her fear for what lurked in her blood was stronger than her selfish desire to stay.

“The gate to the garden is locked. I left the key in your room at your palace. Don’t leave them here.

” She pleaded. “Take them and bury them where they belong.”

"Love—"

Before Aziel could speak another word, she was turning to face the world beyond the stone stairs that led into the palace.

The fear of consequence still lingered as she stared out at the open world, though there were no longer any chains that bound her to this place.

She drew in a breath and took one step forward.

“I’ll find you, you know.” Aziel said, his voice causing her to pause mid-stride. “I don’t know how long it will take. I don’t know what it will take to bring you back. But I will.”

She didn't doubt that he would. By how intensely she felt his presence, she knew that he would track her to the ends of the earth, chase her until both of them were breathless and spent.

Nymiria knew that he would find her, just as he'd found her all those years ago—just as he'd found her every other time since.

All she could hope for was that, when he did find her, she was someone different, and that her face would not bear a single shred of resemblance to her mother's.

I know. She thought, her hand tightening around her dagger. You never say things that you do not mean.

As she made her escape into the forest, the demon at her back watched over her, already knowing what this moment entailed. And Aziel, as heartbroken as he was to see her go, knew that this was necessary.

Nymiria Celentas had been reborn the very same way she first came into this world—crying, terrified, and covered in the blood of her mother.