That instantly brings a smile to her face. Aleesi, sometimes loud and brash, is still so loving and protective that it's almost astounding. She really is like the mother Fiona has always wanted, and now Fiona is positive she could never live without Aleesi's maternal presence in her life.
Walking to her bedside, he sets his small bag on the side table. "Is it alright if I check your vitals?"
"Of course."
In silence, he begins his routine inspection. She has to hold her tongue to keep from correcting the position of his fingers, but he eventually manages to find her pulse on her wrist. Once finished, he begins packing up his instruments. "Looks like you'll be ready in a few more days."
"Ready?"
"To get out of here," he replies, like it's the most obvious response in the world.
Her eyebrow arches. "Get out of here?"
When he sits on the edge of the bed, she inconspicuously inches away.
"I can take you somewhere else," Lianis starts. He stares at her just long enough to be uncomfortable. "Somewhere you belong."
Her face is a mixture of astonishment at his gall and confusion at where he's trying to go with this. "Pardon me?"
He places his hand on her arm. "You don't belong here and we both know it. I can get you out—"
Fiona jerks away from his grasp, and her eyes fiercely lock with his. "You will do well to remember your place."
As soon as the words escape her lips, it's as though a surge of power and previously unknown strength flows through her veins. Perhaps she's finally starting to learn the Kaelan way after all.
But instead of heading her warning, he stands and begins to pace in front of the bed. "But don't you see? I did this for you. I did all of this for you. "
"What?" It takes a moment, but then the pieces click together. Her eyes immediately grow round. "You...you purposely—"
"Myoplacia, though deadly, is something I've treated many times in the past," he begins as he walks towards the heavy door. It doesn't budge easily, but he finally closes it enough to push in the locking clasp. "I knew I could easily reverse the effects. It was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. And with the army taking Faraha's best physician, it was clear that I should be the next choice. "
Warily, she stands from the bed to get into a less vulnerable position. Her hand instantly clasps around the jewel on her neck, but it is powerless now that Tiger has no way of getting into the closed room. Instead, she tries to keep him talking and distracted. "Why would you do such a thing?"
"Why?" He scoffs, and turns on his heel to face her. "Why? So I could be here with you. So I could…so I could get you out of here. Don't you remember me, Fiona?"
She studies his face again, harder, but she still has no recollection. "I'm sorry, I—"
"Vatra? At the Eudes de Laurie Ball? I was your partner. We danced together several times. We even talked about escaping to Arrinas together. That night, you—you were the very first kiss I ever received."
Recognition settles over her features. He was much younger then, both clean-shaven and smaller. No one in Vatra really ever understood her, but he did, if only for a night, and she allowed herself to speak her wildest, naïve fantasies aloud to him in a moonlit gazebo. The next day after the ball, she truly missed his company; though, that feeling faded by mid-afternoon when she received the newest scrolls from Fermidia. He meant nothing, was nothing but a kiss, and was easily forgotten. She assumed she meant as little to him as he had to her.
But apparently not.
"So foolish." He wryly laughs. "I thought we had something."
She holds her upturned hands out in apology. "I was merely fourteen."
"Most are given away younger."
"Yes, but even so, you were—"
"Nothing but a the son of a merchant?" He runs his hand through his hair. "I knew I didn't have a chance at marrying you. Not really. You were royalty, after all. But I still thought…I don't know what I thought. But I when I heard of your impending engagement to this…this savage, I knew I had to come save you."
Her chin juts forward defiantly. "I don't need anyone to save me."
"I can give you things she never could," he practically pleas in response as he comes to stand in front of her. "A normal life. Children. Anything you want, I can give it to you."
She takes a step forward, in challenge, and the conviction in her voice is clear, for she has never meant anything more in her entire life. "There is nothing you have to offer that could ever compare to what Nadira already gives me."
"And what's that?"
"Everything," she replies. "She gives me everything."
His face falls, briefly, before contorting into a thinly veiled rage.
But before he can speak, the door handle rattles, once, twice, and then there's a loud bang against it. "Fiona?"
The panic is clear, and Fiona's reply is immediate. "Nadira!"
The banging instantly resumes, louder now, and the door begins to shake as Nadira tries to force her way inside.
Boom.
Boomboom.
Boomboomboom.
It becomes so loud, so desperate, that Fiona can barely hear herself think.
Clearly panicking, Lianis pulls a dagger from his waistband. Fiona cautiously steps back from him. When it's a challenge of words, she has a fighting chance, but even she knows not to threaten someone with a weapon when she has none.
But it's of no use, not really, for he presses the blade against the flesh of his own neck. "If I'm to die, it'll be by my own hand."
"No!” Fiona screams. “Don’t!”
"There's no way I'm letting that savage—"
The lock shatters, leaving the antiquated door swinging upon its hinges. The noise, so sudden and loud, startles Lianis and he jerks, dropping the dagger to the floor with a clank.
Fiona's eyes are immediately drawn to the doorway. Nadira is standing there, fists clenched around her weapon in true Amadi form, with Tiger snarling and growling by her side, and an unrivaled fury brewing in her eyes. Nadira looks from him, to Fiona, with her chest heaving through labored breaths and jaw clenched tightly. "Nohealani?"
But words fail her, and Fiona is left standing there, awkwardly basking in the charged silence, unable to answer Nadira's unspoken question: Are you okay?
Realizing no answer is to be had, Nadira concentrates the full force of her glower upon Lianis as she predatorily creeps forward.
"I swear if you've harmed a hair on her head," she threatens, voice thick and rough and nothing short of powerful, "you'll regret the day you were born."
He looks around wildly, like a caged animal, taking hesitant steps this way and that, trying to come up with a plan, before realizing that there is really and truly no way out. Nadira, the savage, the protector, has him cornered, and she has no intentions of letting him walk away a free man.
Defeated, he drops to his knees.
The last thing he sees is a flash of silver fur.
Chapter 23
"Fiona, I need you to tell me what happened, okay?" Nadira coaxes. "I need to figure out what to do."
Sitting on the edge of the bed next to Fiona, she softly takes her wife's hands into her own. Her fingers play across the dips and ridges of pale knuckles that are shaking from the influx of adrenaline that has yet to wear off. Fiona looks so vulnerable, so confused and shocked, Nadira isn't sure that she's prepared to hear what comes next.
"H-He did it," Fiona stutters out. "The poison. He—"
"What?" Nadira's face contorts into something akin to a mixture of shock, anger, and perplexity in an instant. Her grip on Fiona's hands subconsciously tightens.
"I knew him when we were younger," Fiona explains. Her eyes refuse to look anywhere but a darkened spot on their otherwise pristine marbled floors. "He wanted take me back to Vatra."
"What?"
Fiona's brow wrinkles as she still tries to process the peculiar events that earlier transpired. "I think he wanted to
marry me."
The words instantly steal the breath from Nadira's lungs. Losing Fiona to someone else is not something she wants to think about. Losing Fiona, period, is not something she ever wants to think about.
But maybe it is something Fiona has thought about. Maybe she thinks about going home and having a normal life, surrounded by people who probably won't try to kill her. And maybe it's only fair to give Fiona that chance to decide, since she wasn't given a choice in the first place.
Nadira's voice is soft when she finally speaks. "Is that what you want?"
Fiona's face jerks up. "What?"
"Do you want to leave? To go back to Vatra and have children and—"
"No, Nadira, listen to me," Fiona interrupts, her eyes pleading for Nadira to understand. "He conjured up this idea that I was unhappy and thought that he was, I don't know, saving me. I don't want any of that."
"Are you though?" Nadira asks quietly. "Unhappy?"
Fiona brings their interlocked hands to her chest. Her bow-shaped lips curve into a perfect smile, and her eyes shimmer in the dim light of the room. "Nadira, I have never been happier."
Even though Nadira can feel the even cadence of Fiona's heartbeat under her fingertips, doubt courses through her so strongly it shines through her eyes. Fiona edges closer to her. "I mean that, Nadira. I've never been happier or more loved or more accepted in my entire life. This, here with you, is where I belong."
Eventually, Nadira resigns to believing it—how can she not when Fiona is looking at her like that?—and faintly grins.
Fiona runs her fingers across the knots of raised flesh on either side of Nadira's hands. "What are you going to do to him?"
"You know what I have to do."
"Shouldn't you figure out how he managed to do this first? How he got into the castle and—"
Nadira's eyes darken. "I'll get everything out of him that I need to know."
"Nadira…" She trails off in an unspoken plea that they both know Nadira can't answer.
Nadira cups Fiona's face in her hands. She is so beautiful, even after the nearly fatal sickness, that sometimes Nadira can't believe she's real. Her thumbs stroke the soft skin of Fiona's cheeks. "I said I wouldn't let anyone hurt you, Nohealani, and I failed you. I'm going to make sure no one is tempted to do it again."
Fiona covers one of Nadira's hands with her own. "I don't want you to kill for me."
"There's already enough blood on these hands, Fiona," Nadira replies. "At least this time it'll actually be for something that matters."
Fiona swallows the lump in her throat, thickly, before speaking. "When?"
"We'll have his trial at the Forum in a few days. He'll be kept in the dungeons until then."
"A trial?" Fiona questions. "He could be released?"
“A trial, yes. Released?” Nadira's eyes flash darkly. "No one votes on his fate but me."
* * *
Nadira paces slowly across the damp, cracked stone floors covered in mold and bodily fluids and other disgusting things that even she doesn't care to think about. It's dark and smells worse than the aftermath of war. She hates being in the confines of these slimy black walls almost more than anything. But there is nothing that will keep her from ensuring Fiona's safety.
Absolutely nothing.
Lianis is finally hoisted into the center of the room, bare-chested and rooted to his spot by his arms chained above his head. Two guards stand on either side of him, and from his already-swollen eye, it looks like he hasn't been very compliant.
She tsks as she saunters closer to him. "I'd say I'm sorry for that, but we both know I wouldn't mean it." Slowly, she walks a tight circle around him. "Did you really think you could just come in here and harm my wife without any repercussions?"
Her sandals crunch against the rocky floor and his labored, terrified breaths are the only other sound in the chamber.
She crosses her arms as she comes to a stop in front of him. "Understand that it's not going to be pleasant if I have to make you speak."
Still, he says nothing.
"Fine. Have it your way." She nods to one of the guards. The crack of a whip instantly connects with the bare flesh of Lianis' back. He grunts from the unexpected blow, but refuses to utter a single word.
"Another," she commands.
This time, his face contorts from trying to conceal the pain, and a scream is almost ripped from his throat. She signals the guards to stop by holding up her hand.
"Now I'll ask again," she says, though it's more threat than anything. "What in the name of hades were you thinking?"
"Look at me," he finally grunts. Making a show out of shaking his arms, the chains that hold him captive rattle together. "I wanted to save her from something like this. Save her from a disgusting heathen like you.”
"Save her?" Nadira scoffs. "I wasn't the one that almost killed her."
When he says nothing else, she turns towards the door and away from watching his punishment.
"You're still hurting her," he finally calls out through a tight-lipped grimace as another whip mars his flesh.
She stops mid-step and spins to face him. He's slumping forward, only held up by his arms, and honestly looks as broken and resigned to his fate as a person ever could. But the way he says it, with such conviction, leaves her unable to ignore it.
Unwilling to look too interested, she slowly starts to make her way back across the room as he continues.
"You think what you do to people doesn't hurt her?" He manages to lift his head enough to look at her. "She isn't like you. She doesn't think the way you think. Wasting life is…it's a cardinal sin in her eyes. And you do nothing but throw it away every chance you get."
His accuracy is nothing less than infuriating.
Her jaw clenches.
"That's enough for today," she finally grounds out.
She doesn't watch as he's dropped to the dirty floor.
Chapter 24
Nadira flops down in the chair behind her desk that she so rarely uses these days. The deep cherry finish and smooth lacquer are so perfect that she can almost see her reflection. It was acquired during the invasion of Janzabar, her first conquest as Amadi, and it's not one she'll easily forget. She marched into that city and ruthlessly destroyed almost everything in her wake in order to prove her worth to not only herself, but also to her army of nearly two-thousand eager and willing warriors that were waiting for the slightest misstep.
But she didn't mess up at all.
In fact, she exceeded their expectations as far as being a totalitarian Amadi goes. No doubt was left in their minds as to her capabilities by the time they left the city.
But the praises and power she felt and received will always be overshadowed by one solitary image. Even after all these years, she can still recall the tear-streaked face of a little boy, no older than six or seven, huddling beside a hunk of rubble that had fallen from one of the buildings, watching her as she ordered her army to ransack the homes.
Sometimes she still catches herself thinking about him, not only on current annexations, but also while she's doing ordinary, everyday things. Last week she caught a glimpse of a servant girl with the same shockingly blue eyes, and the recollection of his tiny, crouched body forced its way to the forefront of her mind. She paused right there, mid-step, in the middle of the dusty street.
It's in those moments, and when she catches glimpses of the youth in her own city, that she wonders if she's responsible for making that boy an orphan, destined to wander the streets begging for a meal. Or if he even managed to make it longer than a week in that plundered, foodless city after she left it completely ravaged of its worth.
She doesn't know what it was about that little boy that caused her to change her approach, but every since then, no one has been allowed to harm a child under her command. That decision isn't seen as weak in the eyes of her people. It's not really seen as anything. They just know to not follow that rule means to die.
She wonders if the
ones she's protecting really make up for the ones she's killing.
Her hands begin to ache, and she pushes her thumbs sharply into the raised protrusions. Maybe everything she's done over the years has been in vain. Maybe she really is just as bad as the rest of these people.
Maybe Lianis is right. She really doesn't deserve Fiona. She shouldn't be allowed to touch that perfect, creamy skin that contains all that is light and moral for threat of marring it with her own red-stained flesh. For all of her claims that she's different than her brutal and corrupt subjects…perhaps she really isn't.
Only now is she coming to see that.
"Hurting?"
Nadira looks up to Fiona standing in the doorway. Her tunic delicately drapes across her curves, and her lips are upturned in a slight smile. Nadira clenches her hands into fists and drops them onto her lap. "It's fine."
Nevertheless, Fiona crouches in front of Nadira and holds her hands out expectantly until Nadira reluctantly opens her fists. Fiona begins gently rubbing out the soreness. "Once I feel strong enough to venture into the city again, I can get things for a salve that should ease the pain."
"You don't have to do that."
"There's no sense in you suffering," Fiona replies. She looks up to Nadira with a soft smile on her face. "And besides, I want to."
Nadira returns the gesture, though her insides are screaming at her to look away from the innocence she's slowly, but inevitably, ruining.
The Best Deceptions: A Lesbian Medieval Fantasy (Deception Series Book 1) Page 11