Taken to the Badlands.
Taken.
Vadim had been taken.
It all made sense. Realization dawned across Miriella as she tried not to get too swept away in it, wanting to hear everything Nahawi was saying. Whereas just moments ago she’d found herself frustrated at his kindness through his injury, she now found she felt grateful. Despite the pain he was going through, he still managed to tell her news of Vadim that she’d been needing to hear.
Well, sort of.
She wants him there and wont give him up.
Vadim was Miriella’s. He might have a plethora of pretty little trinkets that he played around with, but at the end of it all, he was hers. Rage trickled through her blood, cold like the ice that was blown across Tinuvel’s stormy winds. While she had been stuck here in the Inlet, waiting for an answer that could never come, some herd mare had taken Vadim away and was keeping him in Salem? Some heir to an entire territory?
A horrifying truth struck her. Vadim was strong, he could never truly be kept prisoner against his will. He wanted to be off in the Badlands with whoever this mare was… She was sure of it. Too good at making her own misery, within a few moments of learning where he had been, Miriella was already creating a new narrative to prove how much he didn’t care about her.
Vadim would not abandon someone unless he had no choice. Nahawi finished and Miriella blinked as she looked curiously at him for a moment. Those doubts she was having shrank somewhat, replaced by Nahawi’s conviction that if Vadim could have come for her by now, he would have.
“Maybe,” she agreed, but her voice was more soft and thoughtful than it had been moments ago, less angry. She wanted to believe it was so, but she had a lifetime of knowing what it felt like to be second; to watch everyone else in the world get everything that they wanted while she had to suffer and struggle through it alone.
The quiet stretched out between them. Miriella had never been one to offer help, but looking at Nahawi lying there in pain, festering in rage brought on by the topics she’d brought up, she couldn’t help but sigh. “I doubt I can be much help, but is there anything I can do for you right now?” She didn’t sound enthusiastic about offering, but she was honest. If there was something he could think that would help him she could at least offer him that, he’d already done so much for her.
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