The Spymaster did not merely walk the streets of Velaris; he was a ghost drifting between reality and desire. He sought a fragment of light that could translate what his voice, cursed by caution and the crushing weight of ancient laws, could not utter. The scent of snow and cedar choked him, a bitter reminder that in this world of High Lords and mating bonds, he was nothing more than an observer in the shadows.
He stepped into a cramped workshop where time seemed to have ground to a halt. There, amidst relics of forgotten centuries, his eyesâeyes that could track a single drop of blood in absolute darknessâfound his only truth.
The golden necklace seemed ordinary. The chain had nothing special about it; a pale, delicate thread as fragile as the promise of a dawn he feared he would never reach. The charm was so small it could be mistaken for an everyday pendant, something a female would wear against her skin and forget. A small, flat rose made of tinted glass.
But Azriel knew that beautyâtrue beautyânever screams. It begs to be discovered.
He held the tiny rose against the light filtering through the cracks in the ceiling. His shadows writhed furiously around his wrists, hissing words he refused to hear.
The world around Azriel simply vanished.
In that heartbeat, the true depth of the colors became visible. The glass was no longer mere glass; It was the pink of the first blossoms she had planted in the snow with those soft, nimble hands; it was the gold of her eyes when the Velaris sun caught them and stole his very breath; it was the crimson of the blood he would spill, drop by drop, until nothing of himself remained, just to keep her safe.
The pendant pulsed with an inner radiance, a spectral garden that revealed itself only to one who had the patience to observe, to wait⌠to love in the dark.
It was her. Exactly her. A mystery wrapped in sweetness, a power no one else dared to name. A secret kept in plain sight. A soul the world considered fragile, yet contained universes of color that no one else had the courage to explore. Especially not the male who was supposed to stand at her side.
Azriel closed his eyes, his jaw tight as he felt the cool glass against his scarred palm. A low, primal growl vibrated in his chest. He imagined the necklace resting against the sweet pulse of Elainâs throat. He imagined the gold chain warming with her heat, becoming a part of her skin, while the small glass rose guarded their forbidden secret against her breast. He could almost smell the scent of jasmine emanating from her, invading his senses like a delicious poison.
"Itâs the simplest piece in the shop," the craftsman remarked, his voice shattering the Illyrianâs torturous reverie.
"I don't think so," Azriel said, his voice vibrating like a harp string amidst the chaos, the memory of her burning in his chest. "I think itâs perfect."
He paid with the weight of a devotion that asked for nothing in return, a silent sacrifice on the altar of what could never be. As he stepped out, the shadows that swirled around him no longer felt like a burden, but like the guardians of a stolen treasure. He carried with him a hidden valley, a piece of captured light, a rose that would never wiltâa reflection of the forbidden feeling he cultivated in the dark garden of his own soul.
And on Solstice night he hoped Elain would know how to read every verse of agony and adoration hidden within that small piece of glass.