Nyx is a girl who can heal any wounds except her own.
When a king captures and murders her mother, she is imprisoned; forced to heal men of war who deem her lower than dirt and forced to marry the king she loathes the most.
Saval is a servant boy w...
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Momento Mori
•—||—•••—||—•
It takes her two days to heal all the visitors.
There are times when Mother doesn't let her heal people. Her steely hands root Nyx to the spot as she silently watches them gasp and die.
She always thought it was rather cruel.
“Dying,” Mother says reprimandingly, “is something everyone will meet regardless. It's just that some people deserve to meet them earlier.”
—
And disappointingly, even though she knew that it will be so, Saval did not appear to her in days. Waiting is exhausting and she is half thinking about just escaping on her own despite knowing it is fruitless and will not give her the fated happy ending.
The falling snows are firmer now and she spends almost all her time in the room dozing off. Writer gets annoyed when she reads them too much and will float off into the ceiling, snoring loudly.
There is a thump on the door.
She blinks. “Saval?”
Instead, her visitors are curious royal blue eyes peeking through small holes as they argue. “Goodness, Arzha. I said to be subtle not bang your head against the door. But frankly, why had I expected otherwise? Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions written on the heel—”
A shriller voice peeps in. “—Val, if I wanted a loud whiner with me I would have asked the crying four-year-old in the streets—”
“I can hear you two,” grumbles Nyx as she sat up from her bed. “I want to sleep. Leave me alone.”
She hears shuffling and shoving and silent mutters of ‘Told you!’ followed by ‘This is your fault.’
The snide, posh voice—Val—clears his throat. “We humbly apologize for the inconvenience, ma'am and I—”
Nyx hears another tumble and the other voice, the shriller one—Arzha—butts in as graceful a dog doing ballet on a pole and piles questions one after another. “Are you our new mother? Father says we should not see you. Why are you always inside this room? Are you sick? You're really pretty, is it because you're a witch? If so, can you make me prettier? Father says that I have—”
“Stop, stop, stop.” Nyx raises a hand then drops it when she realizes they could not see her. “I—well, look. I'm really tired and I want to sleep so.” She sighs. “How old are you two?”