#ch21

So let me personally apologize for any panic attacks and/or thrown furniture yesterday. I appreciate you but I had to do it for theatrical purposes of course.

Please help me in congratulating the newly betrothed couple!

4E, 199

"They slaughtered our brothers!" Astrid's voice, thick with fury, crashed against the walls, filling the hall with a palpable rage.

It was just the three of us—her, Nazir, and me. The tension between them was suffocating, like a storm brewing, threatening to tear everything apart.

"And now, how are we any different?" Nazir's words sliced through the air as he stalked toward the table, his movements slow, controlled. "We've spilled blood too—murdered their brothers and sisters."

"What would you have me do?" Astrid's voice cracked like a whip, every syllable laced with tremors of barely restrained anger. "Do nothing while this threat looms over us?"

"Threat? To us?" Nazir leaned in, his face inches from hers, eyes blazing with defiance. "Or to your authority?"

"My authority is to serve the Sanctuary!" Astrid's fist slammed into the desk with a resounding thud, making it tremble beneath the force.

"To serve the family," she snarled, the words like a challenge thrown down between them.

I stood on the fringes, a silent witness near the door, my heart pounding in my chest. My eyes darted between them as their words clashed, each one a blade, honed and ready to cut deep.

"Family?" Nazir's voice dripped with venom as he stepped back, his gaze narrowing. "You don't care about family, Astrid!" His eyes locked onto hers, unyielding, furious. "Why else would you send her into that hell alone if you cared?"

Their gazes suddenly turned to me, and I felt a cold wave of vulnerability crash over me. My bloodstained armor felt like a second skin, weighing me down, but I straightened, refusing to show weakness.

Astrid's eyes lingered on mine, her anger softening into something deeper, more complex. Her voice, when it came, was a quiet but unbreakable thread, "I knew she would survive."

"She could have died!" Nazir's voice was a raw, wounded thing, but Astrid's eyes held me captive, her gaze unwavering, pulling me into her storm.

"She isn't weak, Nazir," Astrid finally said, her voice low, almost tender, as she turned back to him. "Stop treating her as if she is."

"It's not—"

"She's right." I interrupted, my voice cutting through the thick tension like a knife, leaving new, jagged edges in its wake.

The room fell silent as my words hung in the air, and for a moment, everything froze. Nazir's eyes softened, filling with a sorrow so deep it threatened to drown me. But then, something shifted—his gaze darkened, a shadow passing over his face. Was it fear? Regret?

Or something else entirely?

But then it hit me—the memory of our first encounter. The cave, the cold air clinging to my skin, and the way he had silently pushed my shoulder down onto the bedroll, as if I were made of glass. As if I were precious.

I made my way toward him with deliberate steps, feeling a strange warmth spread through me. Each step made the smile on my lips widen. "Nazir," I began, my tone softer than usual, "I can't thank you enough for what you've done for me."

His eyes, still shadowed with an unreadable darkness, refused to meet mine. They didn't let my smile reach him, didn't let it warm the heart that I knew was somewhere beneath that cold exterior.

"I owe you my life." I said, the words heavy with truth.

"You owe me nothing." he countered, but we both knew better.

"I was dead, you know." My voice dropped to a murmur as I took another step closer to him. "I'm sure of it."

His eyes flickered, hesitating before they finally met mine. Astrid's presence in the background was a quiet weight between us, her watchful gaze adding a layer of tension that neither of us could ignore.

"Then I heard the old man's voice," I continued, feeling a tight ache build behind my eyes, "and then you held me, didn't you?"

The warmth of the hand that had pulled me back from the brink of death lingered on my shoulder, as real now as it had been then. But this time, it wasn't foreign—it was familiar, comforting.

"You taught me everything I know about being an assassin," I confessed, aware of Astrid scoffing softly in the background. "If I survived those wretched sewers today, it was because I'm good at what you taught me."

Nazir took a moment, and I saw something shift in his expression. Fear, sudden and sharp, darkened his features, as if my words had touched a nerve he'd rather not have exposed. His brows furrowed before he forced them to relax. "It was foolish to go alone." he said, his voice thick with concern.

"Being one is better than being plenty, for plenty is noisy. And noise—"

"And noise gets you killed." he finished for me, his tone now edged with frustration. His gaze bore down on me, mocking, dismissive. "Damn right, I taught you that."

He sighed, shaking his head as if trying to rid himself of the weight of it all. "To the damn sewers for those Tong rats!" His eyes cut through Astrid, but she remained calm, a glass of wine cradled in her hand. "Where you knew there'd be plenty of them."

"A dozen of our brothers  fell to those rats in the sewers," Astrid finally responded with a fierce whisper, her gaze shifting to me. She lifted her glass toward me, her voice filled with a sharp edge, "But she is as capable as a dozen men."

I couldn't help the smile that curled my lips, even as her words unsettled something deep inside me. The smile faded as quickly as it had come when she turned her attention back to Nazir.

"You know that," she continued, her voice a quiet challenge. "In fact, you told me that the day you brought her here."

The weight of her words settled between us, thick and heavy, and for a moment, all I could do was stand there, caught between the two people who had shaped me into what I was—a weapon, a survivor, something more than just a girl who had once been broken.

The weight of it all became unbearable—the blood-soaked clothes clinging to my skin, the crimson stains on my hands and face. I couldn't stand it anymore. The urge to scrub away the remnants of death gnawed at me. "Can I go?" I asked, shifting restlessly, impatience seeping into my voice as I fought the desperate need to wash it all off.

Nazir's response was immediate, his tone brooking no argument. "This will never happen again." His words hung in the air like a vow, and when he turned to Astrid, his eyes were hard, unyielding. "Every order she takes, she will take from me."

A cold, humorless laugh slipped from Astrid's lips, her shoulders trembling with the force of it. "This is my Sanctuary, Nazir. I give the orders."

He didn't back down. Instead, he stepped closer to the table, his voice dropping to a low growl as he planted his palms firmly on the wood, as if grounding himself for the battle of wills. "Well, I am the Listener." The title carried a weight that echoed in the silence. "Whatever I say is the rule."

Astrid's laughter was sharper this time, dripping with a confidence that seemed to defy reason. She leaned back in her chair, eyes gleaming with an unsettling amusement. "Oh?" she teased, her tone almost playful. "I thought whatever you said was the rule only if it's what Mother told you."

The tension between them crackled like the air before a storm, an unspoken challenge radiating from Nazir as he met her gaze. For a brief moment, her eyes flicked to me, studying me with a cold, calculating look before returning to him.

"I know Mother never  talks about her." Astrid said, her voice softening into something more dangerous, more cutting. The words seemed to hang in the air, heavy with implication, as if she were daring him to challenge her authority—one that went beyond mere titles.

The silence that followed was suffocating, thick with the unspoken threat that loomed over us all. I could feel the weight of their words pressing down on me, a reminder of the precarious balance that held our world together, and how easily it could all unravel.

With a silent push of her chair, Astrid straightened her back, sitting up with an air of authority as she looked up at Nazir. Her eyes glinted with a dangerous mix of confidence and cunning. "Why don't you let her choose?" she suggested, her voice laced with a quiet challenge.

I could hear the subtle tinge of victory in her tone, a knowing edge that made my stomach twist. She had anticipated this moment, had seen the inevitable choice I would one day have to make. 

And in that instant, I knew she believed I would choose her over the man who had saved my life.