For the ones who dream of being the only choice x
Summary - Even if hating him is the answer to your problems, your Shadowsinger will always love you.
Warnings - mentions of torture, wing loss, angst, self hatred, depression, heart breaking fluff
The chill of the Night Court breeze drifted across your face, swirls of it scuttering across you bare, scarred back, soothing that roaring hot ache that rippled through your shoulderblades.
It was strange, to feel everything but nothing at all.
Chapped lips and a raw throat encased your rage, the rage that made you shake, the rage that made you tremble and turn cold and sour.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all.
Your wings. Your beautiful midnight blue wings with trunks of black membrane had been carved from your body, the last test to see if you'd break, to see if you'd give in to Beron's demands of information about Nyx, about Feyre, about the Made Archeron sisters. You gave them nothing, but it had cost you too much.
Only Rhys knew what had happened to you in that chamber after diving into your unconscious mind, even then the flashes of memory were too sickening to share, to the point that even he had gone pale, had gone so far to empty the contents of his stomach in the nearest empty vase.
He adored you. They all did. A little sister of the Inner Circle, so pure and full of light, a never-ending smile, a kindness no one would dare to taint. You were like a breath of balanced air, full of life and teeming with outspoken serenity. You were the safe place, the shoulder to cry on, the daybreak at the end of the storm.
Now, now you were nothing but an empty vessel.
It broke them to see you so pale, so lifeless, staring out of the window with bleak colourless eyes whilst you lay on you front to avoid irritating the still healing scars on your back. They shouldn't have sent you, they shouldn't let you go alone. They knew that Beron thought you were a monstrosity, they knew it and they let you walk into the Autumn Court unaccompanied regardless of their knowledge.
Words hadn't left your lips. No food had been eaten, even those cakes you loved so much from the bakery went stale on your bedside table. All you did was stare out of that slightly ajar window, whimpering softly when someone tried to close it to keep any form of warmth within you.
Azriel was beside himself. Mirroring you, he hadn't eaten, he didn't sleep; all he did was drown himself in the deserved self loathing that came with the guilt of not being able to find you sooner, to save you from what you were feeling. Large bags of purple and onyx clung to the sunken skin beneath his eyes, he wasn't sure if you felt his presence in the room with you, but all he could do was watch as you slowly stretched your fingertips toward the window with a flash of longing in your eyes.
Then the monster within you had prowled out of its cage, and you turned cold and distant, only allowing Mor and Mor alone to tend to you, but even then you said little if anything at all and barely left the ice cold confinements of your room.
Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Thinking hurt.
You didn't want to do it anymore.
The floor was freezing beneath your feet as you placed them onto the wood for what felt like the first time in months, you shakily stood, using one of the pillars of your bed to help you. It was so dark in there bar the slits of moonlight that kissed the ground at your feet, the stars shone brighter as you shuffled along the ground, you loose nightgown swaying with every step.
You had lost weight, you'd felt it drop from your body, and that wasn't just the weight of your former wings. It was you, slowly decaying before your own eyes with no willingness to stop it.
Warmth whooshed into the room once you opened the door, warm light pouring in from the hallway, and the sound of faint laughter drifted up the stairs. Silently, you moved further toward it, not making a single sound as you descended the winding staircase, halting a few steps from the bottom and watching their warm smiles and gentle laugher pool at the centre of their collective consciousness.
They looked happy. Happy.
Azriel felt you first, his head snapping to the right so abruptly that everyone else's followed. The room turned cold and you shuddered and the sudden change, and Azriel wanted nothing more than to go to you. Pale skin and lips greeted them, black-grey veins of exhaustion tugged at your eyes and cheeks, your chest struggled to heave in a breath, and you looked at them with such despair, such hatred, that he had to bite down on his bottom lip to stop it from wobbling.
You huffed out an incredulous breath, almost a scoff, "Enjoying yourselves?"
Rhys tentatively rose to his feet, sensing the conflicting emotions within you, sensing the kettle boiling over into searing hot anger, "Y/N," you saw his flattened hand in the air, he used it when he wanted to calm down a hostile situation, he was using it on you.
"Don't say that name," you had snarled, "I stopped being her the moment I lost them," you felt unworthy, you felt ashamed, "I protected you," your eyes darted to Rhys, then to Feyre, to Nesta and Elain, "I didn't give them a single thing and I'm the one who lost everything. For you. I wish I had given one of you over to him, I wish that I didn't have to give the only thing I had to protect people who wouldn't protect me," you were panting, you hands reaching over your shoulder and ghosting at the tips of the gruesome crescent shaped scars embedded into your shoulders.
A gentle tug pulled your attention away from them, they had all risen to their feet, looking at you with alarm and eyes laced with pity, and guilt. So much guilt. You attention shifted to your feet, to the little winged child that stood there, his bright eyes staring up at you with a tsunami of love, his tiny hand grabbing for you, and you indulged him, letting him take your finger in his hand and send warmth flowing up your arm.
Azriel swore he could see some of the colour return to your skin.
Azriel watched as that one touch broke you, you screwed your eyes shut and tears escaped from them, flowing down your cheeks as sobs stung at your chest, he wasn't sure if you could handle the pressure of them.
The night you were due to return was the supposed to be the night that Azriel told you that he was your mate, after 400 years of loving you and 60 years after the bond had snapped for him. He'd been so nervous to the point he'd enlisted Cassian and Elain to help him plan some elaborate evening for you. A hot bath with the lavender soak you loved so much, brand new books he had convinced the author to release early for you, your favourite chocolates, a bottle of your favourite wine, and a letter from him confessing his love for you. He knew how much you cherished letters. You'd kept every letter from all of them in the 400 years they had known you and loved you, they lay sleeping in boxes under your bed.
It hadn't snapped for you yet but you had unleashed all of your pain down the bond, not even searching for him, but feeling too much of the all-consuming pain that your soul was screaming for a moment of light. Just a minute of something else other than pain.
It nearly suffocated him.
Nesta moved to you, almost knocking her chair over in the process and wrapped her arms around you, shielding you by pushing your head into the crook of her neck. She ran her fingers through your limp hair, finding more knots than perfect glossy strands and felt herself breaking at how thin you had become.
"It's okay to be angry, Y/N. It's okay to hate us. It's okay," she whispered to you, turning her head to the side and pleading to Azriel to come to you.
He did without a moments hesitation.
Nesta passed you into his awaiting arms, night kissed mountains and cedar engulfed you, and you felt yourself relaxing into him as he rubbed soft circles into your back, relieving some of that aching tension that had become unbearable, "Hate me as much as you need to, I can take it. I can take all of your anger and darkness, let me take it."
"I'm so tired," you loosely wrapped your arms around him and sobbed, Azriel knew how exhausted you were, he could feel it in your trembling bones how close you were to passing out from the feeling.
"Okay," he moved to scoop you up into his arms, holding you so gently like he was afraid you'd snap in two in his hands, "That's something we can fix. One day at a time. We can do this."
Since that night, you felt lighter.
Months had passed, and thanks to Rhys and Cassian, you found your strength again. Thanks to Nesta, you found joy again. Thanks to Feyre and Nyx, you found passion again. Thanks to Mor and Elain, you'd gotten that innocent wonder back.
And Azriel, you had him to thank for it all.
He had been so gentle with you, coaxing you into physical therapy with promises of warm baths and healing creams, and making sure you ate and drank and found reasons to be happy again. The first laugh from your lips almost made him faint, it was accompanied by that sparkle in your eyes that he had missed too much.
Colour had returned to your skin, your hair had returned to its glossy hue, your smile was wide and bright, and even without your wings that he knew you missed, you were by far the most beautifully resilient creature he had ever seen.
You had closed the bedroom window, allowing him to light a fire and settle into his embrace whilst you both read your books. He had given you the one he was supposed gift to you and could have swooned at the smile you gave him.
"What do you think about mates?" It startled him, it made his heart physically halt in his chest and he moved his chin from the top of your head to look down at you. "Do you believe that there is a perfect half of your soul out there?"
"I do. I know it actually," he told you and you craned your neck upward to look at him properly, flushed cheeks and all.
"Yeah," you eyes twinkled, "How?"
"Because I know who it is I hope to see every morning for the rest of my life."
Your smile faltered, "Do I know her?" You shuffled onto your side, your book forgotten on the floor and arm tucked beneath your head.
Azriel mirrored you, settling into the space beside you, "Very well actually. She is bold and beautiful. Her laugh is the symphony of my dreams and memories. Her being herself is always going to be enough for me. It was inevitable really, to fall for her, it was beyond the scope of my control, the first time I saw her I just knew that she was the person my heart had been craving my entire life. She makes me laugh when all I want to do is hide away from the world. She makes it so easy to see the beauty in everything."
"She sounds perfect, Az," he noticed your sad eyes and the way you had curled up into yourself, but still holding on to every single word he said.
"And even when she lost everything, in a way I think it made me love her more, because even in the darkest hour of her life, she still managed to pull herself out of it, to feel and shine again," he turned to you, your brows furrowed and a small gasp floating from you, "I am completely, utterly, totally, in love with you, Y/N. You are the one my soul sings for," his shadows moved to you, curling around your face and torso, the inky tendrils kissing your exposed skin, "And I promise to love you no matter what life throws at us."
Tears pooled at your eyes and he grasped for you, rolling you onto you back so that his face was hovering above your own.
It happened then, that fairy tale snap you had never thought you'd own, the one you'd never thought you deserved. A split soul merging into one, singing in golden light as tendrils of thread sewed your hearts together, "I was so horrible to you."
Azriel shushed you, "I have loved you for 400 years, Y/N. You have been my light for so long, even when I didn't want one, you were there to pull me out," you cupped his face in your hands, "You have no idea how many lives you have impacted by just existing, I can't imagine a moment without you. I'll never tire of hearing what's going on in that strange little mind of yours. To put it in simple terms, there's not one part of you that I don't want, not a single part of you that I don't adore."
Tears fell from your eyes and he wiped them away, his body entangled with yours, "I don't know what to say."
"Just tell me that you love me. Tell me you're mine," Azriel pleaded, his hazel eyes glistening with a love you'd never seen before, not even between Feyre and Rhys, your soul pulsated with that freshly bound power and you sighed, pulling him closer to you.
Pressing your forehead to his you muttered the words, "I love you Azriel, and I am yours forever, in my darkest of hours and most beautiful of days. I love you."
