Page 40 of Vows of Sacrifice

Since my return to Tarnton, I have tried by all means to avoid finding myself alone with Nadrisse. I understood what she had in mind and refused to play along. She had guessed my feelings towards her for years. We were both aware of it. In any case, the time had come when hiding them had become impossible. And yet, Nadrisse had never responded favourably to my attempts to confess to her. The Isamane had managed to be nothing more than water slipping through my fingers. Such torment!

I was immortal. I wouldn’t die. Not in a human way, that is. So, experiencing one-sided love was a torture that could last until the end of the world.

My history with the Osacan royal family went back so far that, by now, I feared I’d forgotten some important details. It seemed as if a thick fog was stubbornly obscuring my memory. Perhaps it was not long after I had lost my original form. I'd been wandering and killing in my preform, a stormy black cloud capable of smothering the slightest spark of life. Under this guise, my way of thinking was reduced to that of an animal with primitive instincts and even more basic needs. A beast that was content, half the time, to react rather than reason.

I remembered very little of this period, which I imagined to have been very, very, very long. All I had left of that time was the vague sensation of having watched the world and human beings evolve over entire decades. Centuries and centuries, even. One day, as I wandered about with no other aim than to kill, I heard the desperate cries of a little girl near the quicksand, not far from Osacan Castle. Curious, I approached and indeed, before me was a sad, pitiful human child struggling to survive. I almost walked away and let nature take its course, but finally, on a whim, I turned back and saved her. This child was the one to become Nadrisse’s grandmother.

Curiosity. My weakness. I became curious about their lives. I watched them grow up. Marry. Have children, who in turn had children of their own. The royal family of Castle Baal. Then, one day, when Nadrisse was just a little girl of about ten, I appeared to her in a slightly older form, a fourteen-year-old boy covered in tattoos. My curses for killing for the taste of blood when I was stuck in my preform. She had smiled at me and offered me a piece of fruit. The king then took me under his wing, unofficially regarding me as a son. Growing up at the same pace as Nadrisse and Elendur, I fell under the spell of the girl’s radiance, which quickly transformed her into a woman of astonishing beauty.

Upon the elder’s death, Elendur asked me to swear allegiance to him, which I accepted by handing over my stone as a token of my sincerity and loyalty.

I hadn’t foreseen that he would want to marry me off to Ashana, daughter of King Mersif of Carlion. Just before I received the parchment from the noble eagle, I was still thinking of returning to Osacan as a victor and immediately asking for Nadrisse’s hand in marriage. What had happened in my absence? What had occurred between Nadrisse and her brother, while I was at war with Muvaria, for him to make such a decision?

I bitterly remembered my fury at having to accept this request, the one that bound me to a complete stranger. It was Nadrisse I wanted more than anything and had wanted for so long! Why such treachery on the part of someone who was like a real brother to me? He must have been well aware of my love for his twin; I’d never made any secret of it. I was in total incomprehension.

Yet today, I refused to make Ashana, who had already lost so much, pay the price for this decision. Once I got past my anger, I took a step back regarding her. Like me, she had been stripped of her freedom, taken away from her family and her country, and now she had to share a forced intimacy with her father’s murderer. I closed my eyes for a moment.

Although I had tender feelings for Nadrisse, I refused to make Ashana suffer, as she was just another innocent in the chaotic and painful universe of my existence.

We were in the middle of supper when the urge to smoke a cigar overcame me, forcing me to slip away. I was ashamed to abandon Ashana to the terrible Silh twins. Whenever Nadrisse was around, I had a fierce need for my drug, whereas when I was only in the presence of my wife, I almost forgot to take it, as I was immersed in physical and mental well-being. What could I deduce from this? That Paivrin was right? That Ashana really was my flame?

I took a long puff on my cigar. I liked Ashana. I couldn’t say I was in love with her the way I was mad about Nadrisse. It was far too soon to have such emotions, and those I had for the Isamane had been built up over the years with a gentle friendship as a foundation. Only, I had to recognize that I could quickly forget the world when my gaze plunged into the green eyes of the princess of Muvaria. And then there was her breasts . . .

I immediately cleared my throat to help chase away this licentious thought.

“So, this is where you’ve been hiding.”

Ah. Nadrisse. Little pest.

“I wasn’t hiding.”

“No, of course not, you were just taking your . . . medicine.”

I finally raised my head to meet her gaze, which was incomparably blue, but held a strangely cold glow. There was always warmth in Ashana’s gaze, especially when she was angry. By contrast, the Isamane’s irises were like frozen stone. However, her mocking smile hit me right in the heart. I showed her my cigar.

“Yes, as you can see.”

A short silence stretched between us.

“Your wife is lovely.”

I smiled inwardly. You’d have to be deaf to ignore the hint of jealousy in her tone of voice.

“She’s very beautiful, yes,” I confirmed.

I’d expressed myself sincerely, without even trying to stir up resentment. Nadrisse squinted wickedly.

“I can easily imagine what you like about her,” she quipped, tracing the outline of her own breasts, but with Ashana’s dimensions.

I choked on a plume of smoke, which I immediately fanned by waving a hand in the air. Hard to deny when I had been fantasizing about it just before she arrived.

“And you don’t even deny it!” she snapped.

I preferred to remain silent. When Nadrisse got angry, she only listened to herself. The privilege of having been raised as a spoiled child. She glared at me before displaying a pained expression.

“It breaks my heart, and you don’t comfort me.”

“It wasn’t my decision to marry her. It was Elendur’s decision.”

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