[untitled part 2]
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, I was planning on sleeping here.”
His gaze swept slowly across the familiar sitting room.
“I didn’t realise it was occupied.”
She stared at him.
“Not here, Az.”
A beat.
“Here. In Velaris.”
He regarded her for a long moment, as though deciding whether she deserved an answer.
“I was invited.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I usually am.”
She let out a brittle laugh, shaking her head.
“This is hardly the first invitation you’ve received in the last five years.”
“No.”
“But it’s the first you’ve accepted.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He didn’t reply.
Instead, his attention drifted past her shoulder.
The books stacked neatly beside the sofa.
Fresh flowers on the windowsill.
A cardigan draped over the armchair.
Signs of a life lived.
A home.
“You live here.”
Her brows knitted together.
“Of course I live here.”
“Not with him?”
Her mouth parted.
For one absurd heartbeat, she couldn’t think how to answer.
“My living arrangements are none of your concern.”
“No. I suppose not.”
Silence stretched between them.
She hated that he could still do this. Make her feel as though every secret she’d ever kept was written across her face.
“What are you doing here, Az?”
He waited a long moment before answering.
“I was commanded to come.”
“Commanded?”
“By my High Lady.”
Ah.
Not because he wanted to.
Not because he’d chosen to.
Because he’d been ordered.
Her fingers curled into her palms.
She forced them to unfurl.
“I see.”
She looked away.
“Well… like you said. I live here. So…” She gestured towards the still-open front door.
“Why do you live here, Elain?”
“We are not doing this.”
“Doing what? Having a polite conversation?”
“You’ve got some nerve.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Something hot and sharp twisted beneath her ribs.
“This isn’t some mission for you to pick apart. This is my home. My family. My life.”
She took a step towards him.
“I don’t know what you’ve convinced yourself you’ve deduced in the five seconds you’ve been standing here, and I don’t particularly care. Whatever you’re looking for, Azriel…”
She held his gaze.
“Leave me out of it.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
Then he bent, lifting his pack from where he’d left it beside the door. He shrugged it onto one shoulder, then reached down for the pair of gloves he’d dropped on the hall table, tugging them back over his scarred hands with slow, practiced movements.
At the door, he paused, and when he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet she almost thought she’d imagined it.
“I’m trying to.”
The latch clicked softly behind him.
Then he was gone.
