This is Me

[Nhysa]

She did not like that he second-guessed the Ascendancy or the Custody. The target painted on Li’s back was there because of what he was, not because he had signed his name to the Atharim registration list. Whatever its perceived risks, the fact he did not consider it a modicum of protection bothered her, but not enough to comment. She found him simply wrong. 

In the shadowy war between a cult and the greatest nation in the world, Nhysa had no doubts as to the eventual victor. She respected the Atharim’s reach, and had a gut wound to prove it, but while it remained a threat to Nikolai Brandon its days were numbered. The list Li disparaged now might be the very thing to save him, one day. A reckoning would come, and the Atharim would either evolve into a form the Custody found agreeable, or they would die.

Voicing that seemed pointless, though. A brow arched, but she remained silent.

Throaty laughter rolled for the last comment. As Li’s life was in the sun, so Nhysa’s was in the darkness. Numerous times he had spoken of such shadows like they were something to be feared, while at the same time acknowledging their temptation. She shrugged lightly, and let the subject drop. Her eyes narrowed. “You know, we did not agree terms for a yield,” she teased instead.