Summary: She survived fifty years Under the Mountain. Prythian survived by forgetting her. Found unclaimed and broken-winged, Rhysand's lost sister is taken into the Autumn Court-not as a guest, but as leverage. Bound to Eris Vanserra through survival and strategy, she must learn how to exist in a world where protection has a price and power is never freely given. Masks hide faces. Festivals become battlefields. And Autumn does not burn kindly.
You didn’t leave Eris’s side for the rest of the day. The palace corridors felt impossibly long, the sunlight cutting across the floors like sharp knives. Every step you took reminded you of the forest, of the creature, of Beron’s cruelty—but beside you, Eris was solid, grounded, real.
He didn’t speak much, only small murmurs when he shifted in pain, the faintest wince whenever his back brushed a chair or the sheets. You watched him, heart clenched, fingers twitching to touch him even when reason whispered to hold back. The burns and welts were beautiful in a terrible way—he bore the mark of his own endurance like a crown of thorns, and it made you ache in ways you hadn’t admitted.
“Stop staring,” he said finally, his voice rough, almost playful but carrying a weight that made your stomach twist.
“I’m not,” you said, though your eyes betrayed you.
Eris smirked, one corner of his mouth quirking upward, slow and deliberate. “You are. And you’re thinking things.”
“Maybe,” you admitted, letting yourself inch closer, drawn by the magnetic pull that had only grown since the woods.
He didn’t stop you. Not this time.
When you knelt beside the bed, his hand grazed yours lightly—a brush that made heat blossom through your chest. His eyes, violet and unyielding, locked with yours, daring you, teasing you, testing you in ways Beron never could.
“You know,” he said softly, “pain can be… instructive.”
You swallowed hard, unsure if he meant the forest, Beron, or this—this sharp tension that throbbed between you both. The air in the room was thick with it, the kind that made your pulse hammer and your breath catch.
Eris shifted slightly, letting the sunlight fall across his chest, showing you the smooth lines of muscle beneath pale skin. Every mark, every line told a story. Every curve seemed carved to draw your attention, to hold it hostage.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he murmured, but his voice betrayed him. It was a low, slow drawl, something intimate and dangerous.
“I can’t help it,” you whispered.
His fingers finally found your wrist, pressing lightly, pulling your hand to rest over the side of his chest. Heat radiated from him, searing and grounding. You froze for a heartbeat, just listening to the soft, uneven rhythm of his breathing under your palm.
Eris tilted his head slightly, studying you. “You’ve been through hell,” he said, voice rough but tender. “And yet…” He paused, letting the weight of his gaze anchor you. “…you’re still here. Still wanting.”
You shivered, and the shiver ran straight down your spine. “I…” You faltered, words catching in your throat.
He leaned just a fraction closer, enough that your noses nearly brushed. His hand slid from your wrist to your shoulder, not roughly, but with ownership, a claiming that wasn’t cruel but undeniably possessive. Your breath hitched.
“You’re reckless,” he whispered, voice low and dangerous. “In the woods, today… you should’ve run. You should’ve fled. But you didn’t. You fight. You survive. And yet…”
Eris’s gaze flicked to your lips for the briefest second, then back to your eyes, violet fire burning with an unspoken hunger. “…still, you hesitate. Still, you hold yourself back. Why?”
You couldn’t answer. Because it wasn’t just him questioning you—it was the pull between you, the tension that had been building since the forest, since the fear, since Beron’s cruelty. Your body knew the answer before your mind did.
Eris smiled faintly, a dangerous, intimate curve of lips. “I’ll make it easier for you.”
Before you could respond, he leaned closer, capturing your lips in a kiss that was slow, deliberate, tasting, testing. Not gentle, not frantic, but something in between, a heat that made your knees weak and your chest ache. Your hands went to his shoulders instinctively, feeling the taut muscles beneath your fingers.
He pulled back just slightly, enough to let his forehead rest against yours, eyes closed. “So stubborn,” he murmured, as if the word itself was a caress. “So unrelenting.”
You laughed softly, breathless. “Maybe I learned from the best,” you teased, though your words were soft, shaky.
Eris chuckled against your skin, low and intimate. “Flattery now? You should save it for later.”
Your lips brushed again, tentative at first, then more daring, testing the line between pain and pleasure, desire and restraint. He groaned softly, a sound that made something in your chest ache and twist in the most delicious way.
“You want this,” he whispered against your lips, “and I want you to admit it. Don’t hide behind caution now.”
“I… I—” You shivered, heat rolling through your body. You’d been pushed, tested, hunted, yet here, in this room, every nerve was alight simply by his nearness. “I do,” you admitted finally, breathless, voice trembling but honest.
Eris’s smile deepened, slow and wicked. “Good. Then stop pretending otherwise.”
He slid one hand down to your waist, guiding you closer, anchoring you to him. Your chest pressed against his, hearts pounding in near-perfect rhythm. The heat of his body was overwhelming, intoxicating. You couldn’t tell where he ended and you began.
His lips found your neck next, and you gasped, fingers tangling in his hair. Every mark on his back, every ache and sting from the whip faded in comparison to the fire he now kindled across your skin.
“You feel that?” he murmured, voice low and throaty. “The way everything you’ve been through, all that pain… it’s sharpening you. Making you more… you.”
“I—” You choked on your words, lost in the dizzying storm of sensation, in the way he made you forget the world, the court, even Beron’s cruelty for a fleeting, suspended heartbeat. “I can’t…”
“Shh,” he hushed you, lips brushing your ear. “You don’t have to. Just feel.”
And you did. Every nerve ending screamed with awareness. Every pulse, every shiver, every fleeting touch was heightened. The air between you thickened, taut with need and something deeper, something unspoken but understood.
Eris’s hands roamed, careful but claiming, learning the lines of your body, mapping the heat and fire beneath your skin. Every glance, every brush of lips, every low growl was a promise, a declaration: here, you were untouchable yet utterly vulnerable, broken yet whole.
And when you finally pulled back, faces flushed, chests heaving, you realized it wasn’t just desire—it was connection. Fierce, dangerous, intoxicating. Beron’s cruelty, the forest, the tests—they had sharpened you, but Eris had reminded you what it meant to be alive, fully, recklessly, unapologetically.
He pressed a lingering kiss to your forehead. “This,” he said softly, “this is ours. For now, at least. And whatever comes, don’t let the court, don’t let him, make you forget it.”
You nodded, still breathless, still trembling. The world outside could wait. Beron could wait. The Autumn Court could wait. For this moment, you were here. With him. And that—raw, electric, undeniable—was enough.
The night didn’t ask permission.
It took.
It wrapped itself around you and Eris like a living thing, thick with heat and shadow, with secrets pressed into every breath. Moonlight spilled across bare skin and tangled sheets, silver tracing the lines of him as he hovered over you—burning, relentless, undone.
Eris kissed you like the world was ending.
Not gentle. Not careful. As if he needed to feel you now, before something tore you away. His hands were everywhere—anchoring, claiming, memorizing—like he was afraid the night might steal you if he didn’t.
“You’re shaking,” he murmured against your mouth, voice rough, undone.
“Because of you,” you whispered.
That was all it took.
He pressed closer, heat overwhelming, bodies fitting together like this had always been inevitable. Every touch was slow torture, every breath a promise neither of you dared say aloud. The palace, the court, Beron—none of it mattered. Only this. Only the way he said your name like a vow and a curse all at once.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said hoarsely, forehead resting against yours.
“I know.”
“You’ll ruin us both.”
You kissed him again. Harder. “Then don’t stop.”
The night swallowed the sound you made when he finally gave in.
When it was over—when you were both spent and breathless, limbs tangled, skin still burning—Eris pulled you into his chest like he could shield you from the world by force alone. His fingers traced slow, absent lines along your spine, grounding, protective.
For the first time since Autumn, you slept without dreaming.
The wards shattered silently.
You never heard the door open.
You woke to darkness moving.
To magic flooding the room—cool, sharp, unmistakable.
Rhys.
You barely had time to gasp before shadows wrapped around you, yanking you from the bed. You screamed his name—not in desire, but in shock, in betrayal.
“Rhys—what are you doing?!”
Eris was on his feet instantly, flames roaring to life. “Get your hands off her!”
Rhys didn’t even look at him.
His face was fury incarnate—eyes blazing, jaw clenched so tight you thought it might crack. His grip on you was iron, protective to the point of pain.
“I’m getting you out,” he said coldly. “Now.”
“Let me go!” you fought him, panic and rage colliding. “You don’t get to do this!”
“I absolutely do,” Rhys snapped. “You disappeared into the Autumn Court. You’re sleeping in the bed of Beron’s son. Do you have any idea what kind of danger you’re in?”
Eris moved toward him, fire curling viciously around his hands. “Touch her again and I’ll burn you where you stand.”
Rhys finally turned his gaze on him.
“You already have,” he said. “You just don’t see it yet.”
With a sharp twist of magic, the room fractured—space folding, shadows swallowing you whole. Your scream tore out of you as Eris lunged—
—and missed.
The last thing you saw was Eris, wild and furious, reaching for you as the world collapsed.
You reappeared in darkness.
Cool stone. Night air. The scent of jasmine and starlight.
Velaris.
Rhys set you down roughly, hands still gripping your shoulders, eyes scanning you like he was checking for wounds. His touch was frantic, protective, brotherly in the most suffocating way.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded.
You shoved him. Hard. “You kidnapped me.”
“I rescued you.”
“You dragged me out of bed,” you hissed, shaking. “Out of his arms.”
Rhys flinched—not from the words, but from the truth in them.
“You don’t understand what Beron is,” he said more quietly. “What Autumn does to things it wants. And it wants you.”
“And you think stealing me in the night is better?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Because I’d rather you hate me than end up dead—or owned.”
Your chest burned. “Eris would never—”
Rhys cut you off sharply. “Eris is not the danger. Beron is. And anyone who stays there long enough becomes leverage.”
You turned away from him, arms wrapping around yourself, still feeling Eris’s warmth like a ghost on your skin.
“You didn’t even ask,” you whispered.
Rhys’s voice softened, just barely. “Because if I asked… you wouldn’t have come.”
Silence stretched between you, heavy and aching.
Somewhere far away, Autumn burned.
And Eris—furious, wounded, abandoned—was already hunting the night.
AN: Thank You for reading AOA BON, just 6 more chapters left until the series is finished and a new series start🍂
Summary: Beron Vanserra hid his daughter like a shameful secret—trained her silence, sharpened her into something dangerous, and pretended she did not exist. She survives the Mountain, endures Spring’s gilded cage, and steps into the Night Court knowing she was never meant to be chosen. Rhysand came for Feyre, but he leaves with something far more complicated: an Autumn flame that refuses to bow. And fire, once brought into the dark, does not stay small for long.
The sensation came first, the warmth on her skin, and the softness beneath her body that felt unfamiliar enough to be alarming. The air smelled wrong in the best possible way. Green. Living. Nothing like stone or iron or blood.
She didn’t open her eyes immediately.
She just listened.
There was no screaming. No echoing drip of water. No magic pressing down on her chest like a weight. The quiet here was… breathable. Gentle. Almost cautious.
Her fingers twitched.
“Hey,” a voice said softly. “Easy now.”
Her eyes opened at once.
Lucien.
He was right there, closer than before, perched in the chair beside the bed like he’d never left. His posture was relaxed only in the way someone who hadn’t slept in days could manage, alert, coiled, ready. Relief flashed across his face the moment he saw her eyes focus.
“There you are,” he said. “Took you long enough.”
Her throat tightened.
“…Lucien,” she whispered.
He smiled, small, real, tired. “Good morning, Emberling.”
That name hit her square in the chest.
It wasn’t a title. It wasn't an obligation or duty or bloodline. It was familiar. It was a boy crouched beside a hearth, poking at dying coals with a stick and insisting the smallest spark still mattered.
“You still use that,” she murmured.
“Of course I do,” he said. “You’re still stubborn. And small. Relatively.”
She huffed weakly. “I’m not small.”
“You were,” he countered. “And you bit me when I said you’d never survive Autumn coldness.”
“You deserved it.”
He laughed quietly, and the sound loosened something in her chest she hadn’t realized was locked so tight.
She shifted, pushing herself upright with a wince. Her body felt heavy, magic sluggish beneath her skin, like embers buried too deep under ash.
Lucien was immediately there, steadying her with a hand at her shoulder. He didn’t rush. Didn’t overdo it. Just grounded her.
“You’re in the Spring Court,” he said gently. “You’ve been asleep for almost two days.”
Her brow furrowed. “Two—?”
“You collapsed when the Mountain broke,” he continued. “Magic backlash. Nothing permanent, they said. Just… a lot.”
Memory came back in flashes—stone cracking, screams, power tearing through the air, her knees giving out. Then darkness.
“And after?” she asked.
Lucien’s jaw tightened, just a fraction. “After, things got complicated.”
She studied him. “That’s not an answer.”
“No,” he admitted. “But it’s the truth.”
She swung her legs carefully over the side of the bed, testing her weight. Lucien hovered but didn’t interfere. When she stood without collapsing, he looked faintly impressed.
“See?” she muttered. “Not small.”
“Never said weak,” he replied.
She met his gaze then, serious. “Am I a prisoner?”
Lucien didn’t answer immediately.
“No,” he said finally. “Not here. Not like before. But… you are being watched.”
She exhaled slowly. “Of course I am.”
He grimaced. “Tamlin insisted on meeting you as soon as you were awake. Feyre too.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Now?”
“Soon,” he said. “They’ve been… cautious. But kind.”
Kind was not a word she trusted easily.
Lucien seemed to read her hesitation. “I’ll be with you. The whole time.”
She nodded once. “All right.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The walk through the Spring Court palace felt like stepping into a story she didn’t belong in.
Light spilled through high arched windows, catching on ivy-covered stone and pale marble floors. Everything here breathed—plants curling up columns, flowers blooming freely in places Autumn would have burned clean. The air hummed with magic that felt… open.
Y/N stayed close to Lucien, her steps measured, her awareness sharp.
“Try not to glare,” Lucien murmured under his breath. “They’re not enemies.”
“I don’t glare.”
“You do,” he said. “It’s very Autumn of you.”
That almost made her smile.
They stopped before a set of wide doors carved with vines and blooming flowers. Lucien paused, glancing at her.
“You ready, Emberling?”
She straightened her spine. “As I’ll ever be.”
Lucien pushed the doors open.
Inside, the room was bright and warm, sunlight pouring in from every direction. Tamlin stood near the windows, posture stiff but attentive, green eyes sharp as they landed on her. Feyre was beside him—quiet, watchful, her expression unreadable but not unkind.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Feyre stepped forward first.
“You’re awake,” she said softly. “I’m glad.”
Y/N inclined her head politely. “So am I.”
Tamlin cleared his throat. “You’re safe here,” he said, a little too formally. “Lucien told us who you are. Or… as much as you were willing to share.”
Y/N glanced sideways at Lucien. He lifted a brow innocently.
“Some things are better told by the person who lived them,” he’d said earlier.
“I didn’t
✦ ✦ ✦
Healing, Y/N learned, was not a single moment.
It was not waking up in a soft bed or breathing air that didn’t taste like fear. It wasn’t safety declared aloud by others or sunlight spilling freely through open windows.
Healing was quieter than that.
It came in small, almost unnoticeable pieces.
The first morning she managed to walk the length of the corridor without her knees shaking.
The first meal she finished without feeling sick.
The first night she slept without dreaming of stone closing in around her chest.
Spring did not rush her.
The court seemed to understand something she did not yet have words for—that things broken by force could not be fixed by urgency. Flowers bloomed where they pleased. Vines climbed at their own pace. Even the air felt patient.
Lucien stayed close but never crowded her.
Some days he walked beside her through the gardens, pointing out plants she didn’t recognize, telling stories she half-listened to. Other days he merely lingered nearby, pretending to be busy while keeping her in the corner of his eye.
“You don’t have to watch me like that,” she told him once, gently.
He snorted. “I absolutely do.”
She didn’t argue.
✦ ✦ ✦
The flashbacks came without warning.
One moment she’d be standing in a sunlit greenhouse, fingers brushing soft petals. The next—
Fire.
Beron’s voice, sharp and cold: Stand straight.
A room too quiet. Tutors watching her like a liability.
The knowledge, learned far too young, that she was a mistake that could not be undone.
She remembered the way he never looked at her directly. The way his gaze slid past her like she wasn’t worth acknowledging. Sons lined up beside him—strong, fierce, undeniable proof of his power.
And her.
Hidden. Disowned. Taught only because ignorance would embarrass him more.
Once, when she was very small, she’d asked why she couldn’t sit beside her brothers.
Beron hadn’t answered.
He’d simply turned away.
The memory still burned.
Y/N pressed a hand to the stone railing of a Spring Court balcony, breathing through the sudden tightness in her chest. Below her, the gardens stretched endlessly, green and alive.
“Hey.”
Lucien’s voice....soft, grounding.
She didn’t turn. “I’m fine.”
“I know,” he said. “You still look like you want to disappear.”
That made her huff a quiet laugh. “Old habit.”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I know.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Rhysand crept into her thoughts when she least expected him.
Not as a savior. Not as a hero.
As a question.
She remembered his voice—light, sharp-edged, layered with meaning. The way his eyes had lingered on her not with ownership or hunger, but curiosity. As if he’d seen something familiar and couldn’t quite place it.
You’re not invisible here, he’d said.
The words echoed more often than she liked.
Why had he noticed her when so many others hadn’t? Why had his attention felt different—less like a threat, more like being truly seen?
She didn’t trust it.
And yet, sometimes, when the Spring Court sky deepened into evening blues and purples, she found herself wondering where he was. If he was safe. If he remembered her at all—or if she’d simply been another fleeting distraction in a place full of horrors.
That thought stung more than she cared to admit.
✦ ✦ ✦
Feyre visited often.
She never pushed. Never demanded explanations or confessions. She simply brought tea, or sat beside Y/N in companionable silence, or talked about small, ordinary things.
One afternoon, Feyre said quietly, “You don’t have to earn peace.”
Y/N stared at her. “That’s… not how it works.”
Feyre met her gaze steadily. “It can be.”
Y/N didn’t know whether to believe her.
But she wanted to.
✦ ✦ ✦
Some nights, she dreamed of Autumn.
Of fire racing through her veins.
Of standing in a hall where her name was spoken aloud without shame.
Of looking Beron in the eye and seeing—not fear—but regret.
Other nights, she dreamed of wings cutting through starlight.
She woke from those dreams unsettled, heart racing, a warmth in her chest she couldn’t explain.
Lucien noticed the way she stared at the night sky sometimes.
“You’re thinking too hard,” he told her once.
“I always am.”
He smiled faintly. “That tracks.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Spring began to feel less like a refuge and more like a beginning.
Not a clean one. Not an easy one.
But a real one.
Y/N stood among blooming flowers one morning, warmth on her face, and realized something had shifted. The fear was still there. The scars still ached.
But she was no longer just surviving.
She was becoming.
And somewhere beyond Spring’s borders—beyond memory and fire and secrets—threads were tightening, pulling slowly, inevitably, toward something she did not yet understand.
Y/N closed her eyes and let the sun warm her skin.
For now, she would heal.
For now, she would breathe.
But fire, once kindled, never truly forgot how to burn.
Summary: Beron Vanserra hid his daughter like a shameful secret—trained her silence, sharpened her into something dangerous, and pretended she did not exist. She survives the Mountain, endures Spring’s gilded cage, and steps into the Night Court knowing she was never meant to be chosen. Rhysand came for Feyre, but he leaves with something far more complicated: an Autumn flame that refuses to bow. And fire, once brought into the dark, does not stay small for long.
AN: Sorry for the long wait, I know I said this series would be uploaded after AOA BON was completed but I was busy moving and I also have a little emberling, but here’s chapter 2 Enjoy🍂
Word Count: 1,917
Chapter 2: What Was Never Claimed
Previous Next
Y/N was a dishonor the moment she was born.
Beron Vanserra did not look at her and see legacy, or alliance, or strength. He saw weakness—an error carved in flesh. Daughters did not conquer. They did not intimidate. They did not inspire fear in rival courts.
His sons did.
That was why he hid her.
Not sent away no, that would invite questions. Instead, he buried her in plain sight, tucked into the quiet wings of the Autumn Court where servants tread quietly and power pretended not to look. She was raised by wet nurses whose names blurred together over the years, women who loved her carefully, always afraid to give too much of themselves to a child the High Lord refused to acknowledge.
She did not grow up in her mother’s arms.
She did not sit at Beron’s knee.
She learned early not to ask why.
Her lessons began young. Tutors arrived like clockwork—history, strategy, languages, court etiquette, magic control. Beron insisted on that much. After all, even an embarrassment could be useful. She was Autumn Court royalty whether he liked it or not, and ignorance was a liability he would not tolerate.
But she attended those lessons alone.
Never beside her brothers. Never at the High Lord’s table. Never where anyone might connect her red hair and amber eyes to Beron Vanserra.
She learned to speak softly and think sharply.
To listen more than she talked.
To hide her fire until it was needed.
Eris noticed first.
Not when she was small—but when she stopped crying.
He’d found her once in the training hall long after the others had left, practicing forms meant for sons, her movements precise and furious. He said nothing. Just watched.
After that, he made sure she knew the rules.
“Don’t be seen,” he told her once, voice low. “Father doesn’t forgive reminders.”
She never asked what she’d done wrong.
She already knew.
✦ ✦ ✦
Under the Mountain, there was no hiding.
Y/N sat where Amarantha had placed her—too close to the dais, too far from safety. The stone chair was cold beneath her palms, grounding and cruel all at once. She kept her posture perfect, chin lifted, expression composed.
A princess, even when disowned.
Amarantha watched her openly now, interest no longer subtle. “You’re very still,” she mused. “Most people fidget when they’re afraid.”
“I’ve had practice,” Y/N replied.
A smile tugged at Amarantha’s lips. “From what?”
Y/N met her gaze evenly. “Being forgotten.”
That earned a ripple of reaction—soft laughter, sharp inhales. Beron’s expression did not change, which told her everything she needed to know.
Amarantha rose slowly from her throne. “I think,” she said thoughtfully, “you deserve company.”
Y/N felt the shift before the name was spoken.
“Rhysand.”
He approached with the easy grace of someone who understood attention as both weapon and shield. Violet eyes flicked briefly to Amarantha, then to Y/N.
Curiosity sparked.
He bowed. “My lady.”
She inclined her head. “High Lord.”
Amarantha gestured between them. “Sit. Talk. Entertain me.”
Rhys took the seat beside Y/N, close enough that she was acutely aware of his presence—warmth, power, awareness sharpened to a fine edge.
For a moment, neither spoke.
“You don’t like being watched,” he said quietly.
Her eyes slid to him, amber assessing. “Neither do you.”
His mouth curved. “Fair.”
He studied her now—not rudely, but carefully. “You look like Autumn,” he continued. “But you move like someone taught not to exist.”
Her fingers curled slightly in her lap. “That’s a skill.”
“An expensive one,” he replied.
She finally looked at him fully. His expression was open, but his eyes were sharp—intelligent, observant. Dangerous in a way she recognized.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
Rhys considered her. “Why Beron pretended you weren’t real.”
The air tightened.
She did not react outwardly. Years of training saw to that.
“Men like him,” Y/N said calmly, “confuse cruelty with strength.”
Rhys’s gaze darkened—not with anger, but understanding.
Amarantha clapped her hands once, delighted. “Oh, I adore honesty.”
She leaned forward. “You’ll stay close, little fire. I dislike losing interesting things.”
Y/N inclined her head. Obedient. Controlled.
Trapped.
Rhys rose when dismissed, but before he stepped away, he leaned closer and murmured, “You’re not invisible here.”
Her lips curved faintly—not a smile. “I know.”
As he walked away, Rhys glanced back.
Y/N sat beneath Amarantha’s gaze, fire banked low, spine straight despite the weight pressing down on her.
Beron had hidden her to avoid looking weak.
But Under the Mountain did not reward men who mistook silence for absence.
And Rhysand was already paying attention.
✦ ✦ ✦
Rhysand told himself it was nothing.
Curiosity was a tool, not a weakness, and he had survived centuries by noticing what others missed, by reading rooms and people the way others read books. Patterns, movements, half-spoken words—nothing escaped him. He had learned to see, to remember, to predict. He had learned to survive.
But the girl from Autumn—the one Beron had hidden, disowned, buried in secrecy—had drawn his attention in a way that was dangerous. Dangerous because it was instinctual, unbidden, and impossible to suppress.
It wasn’t her beauty that captured him; he had seen far greater. It wasn’t raw power, though she carried a quiet kind that was compelling in its own way. It was the way she moved, the way she carried herself beneath the gaze of monsters. Controlled, careful, precise. Calculated. Calm in a room that could kill without a thought. She had learned survival long before she knew what fear was.
And Rhys had been watching.
At first, he told himself he wasn’t. He moved through the Mountain’s halls, through the crowded chambers, through Amarantha’s games, and tried to distract himself. He laughed when required. He smiled when necessary. He played the part of the obedient, amused consort to the cruelest High Lady the world had ever known. And yet his attention returned to her. Over and over.
It was impossible not to notice.
✦ ✦ ✦
Amarantha had a way of noticing everything. She was cruel, yes—but she was clever. Predatory. Possessive. And she delighted in using the things that other people thought they could hide. Rhys had been forced into her chambers the night before, as he always was, and he had played along. Every touch, every command, every whispered word—it had been part of the performance he had learned to survive.
He had given her what she wanted, and in return, she had given him her amusement, her cruel smile, and her watchful green eyes. He had obeyed. He had played. He had endured.
And he hated it.
Hated every moment.
Every second of it left a bitter taste in his mouth. And yet, even as he felt disgust coil like a snake in his chest, he couldn’t stop noticing Y/N.
“You’re distracted,” Amarantha had said, her voice soft and sharp all at once, her nails tracing a line across his chest.
Rhys had not looked at her. He had looked at the girl from Autumn—the daughter of a man who had disowned her, hidden her, and hoped she would vanish.
“I’m not distracted,” he said, flatly.
Amarantha’s laugh was a blade. “Curiosity,” she said. “You can’t hide it.”
He said nothing. Could not. She was correct. He couldn’t stop noticing.
“You find her… intriguing,” Amarantha continued, leaning closer, green eyes gleaming with jealousy and delight. “I like that.”
He clenched his jaw. Yes. Intriguing. Dangerous. Frightening. Everything Amarantha delighted in controlling, yet entirely out of her reach.
He did not answer. He didn’t want to.
Because the truth was far more complicated: he could not stop watching her.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next day, it happened.
Y/N was taken.
Swiftly. Silently. Before Eris could even reach her side. Guards closed in, strong hands gripping her wrists, firm but careful. She did not fight. She could not fight—not yet. She had been trained to endure, to survive, to observe, and every instinct screamed at her that resistance was pointless. Still, her amber eyes cut through the room, sharp, fearless, unflinching.
And Rhys felt a jolt of fury that settled deep into his chest.
Someone—someone clever, someone deliberate—was taking Beron’s hidden daughter. And he could do nothing.
Amarantha had smiled before she left, soft, almost intimate. “A little toy to play with,” she had said, voice low, dangerous. “Something her father hid, something she thought was safe. I’ll make sure she learns quickly. Like him. Like all of them.”
Rhys ground his teeth. Beron had hidden her because daughters made him look weak. Amarantha was proving that secrets were not protection. Control was. Chains. Captivity. Fear. And she wielded it like a blade.
✦ ✦ ✦
Under the Mountain, time had no meaning. Days bled into nights, magic pulsed unpredictably, and every corridor was a reminder of the High Lady’s power. Rhys saw Y/N often—sometimes deliberately displayed, sometimes glimpsed fleetingly as he moved through the halls. Every time, his attention sharpened, but he remained outwardly detached.
Amarantha delighted in reminding him she could place the girl wherever she wanted, that she could show her, hide her, torment him with her presence or her absence. Every glance Y/N cast in his direction, every subtle gesture, was a reminder of what Amarantha controlled—and what she could take.
“You shouldn’t look,” Y/N had murmured once, voice soft as he passed near her cell.
“I’m very bad at that,” he replied evenly.
She had laughed quietly, bitterly. “I noticed.”
Amarantha had noticed too. And she punished them both—not physically, not yet—but in ways that reminded him of the extent of her control, the dangerous intelligence she wielded like a weapon.
✦ ✦ ✦
And then the Mountain fell.
Chaos tore through everything. Magic screamed, stone cracked, and Feyre Archeron tore through the halls like fire incarnate, saving those she could, shattering curses, breaking chains. Rhys fought, moved, bled, and survived. Every instinct honed, every movement precise.
Y/N had been too exposed. Too weak.
She collapsed.
He lunged for her—but she was gone. Someone, unseen, powerful, had taken her. Not in plain sight. Not with chains he could follow. Just… gone.
Rhys froze, rage coiling deep in his chest, white-hot and unrelenting. The space she had occupied was empty. The girl he had been watching, the one Amarantha had toyed with, Beron’s hidden daughter, was gone.
And he had no idea where she had been taken.
✦ ✦ ✦
Hours later, Y/N woke somewhere unfamiliar.
The air smelled of night-blooming flowers, warm and heavy, soft and intoxicating. The sheets beneath her were unfamiliar, too smooth to be Autumn Court stone or Amarantha’s harsh silk. She tried to move, and immediately realized: she was restrained. Not cruelly, but magically, subtly. She could move, but not far. She could struggle, but only just enough to remind her that she was being held.
She tried to call out. Silence answered.
Panic flared, but her mind raced faster. Who? Why? How?
And somewhere, far away, Rhysand felt the same emptiness—the same ache, the same obsessive pull, the same anger and helplessness.
The girl he had been watching, the one Beron had hidden, was gone. Taken. Far from him. Far from anyone who could protect her.
And the Mountain, now silent, had no answers to give.
Rhys clenched his fists, teeth grinding. She was gone. But she was not forgotten.
Summary: Beron Vanserra hid his daughter like a shameful secret—trained her silence, sharpened her into something dangerous, and pretended she did not exist. She survives the Mountain, endures Spring’s gilded cage, and steps into the Night Court knowing she was never meant to be chosen. Rhysand came for Feyre, but he leaves with something far more complicated: an Autumn flame that refuses to bow. And fire, once brought into the dark, does not stay small for long.
Sound lived here—music winding through stone, laughter sharp enough to cut, the clatter of goblets and the murmur of power layered thick in the air. It pressed in from all sides, heavy and suffocating, making it impossible to forget where one stood.
She slipped inside anyway.
Her cloak was drawn close, hood deep, fabric worn soft with age and travel. She kept her head down as she moved, steps careful, unhurried. Panic drew attention. Confidence blended. She’d learned that lesson young.
Stay near the edges.
Don’t meet anyone’s eyes.
Don’t let them see the fire.
She kept to the walls, slipping between pillars and bodies alike, letting the press of the crowd hide her smaller frame. Still, she could feel it—that subtle shift when someone noticed. The pause in a conversation. The slight turn of a head.
Autumn blood was never subtle.
A strand of hair slipped free, brushing her cheek. She stilled, heart stuttering, then angled herself away from the room, fingers tightening around the clasp at her throat. She could still disappear. She just needed—
The music faltered.
Not completely. Just enough.
Her breath caught.
She didn’t look up, but she knew. The awareness crept over her skin, sharp and unmistakable. Too many gazes. Too much attention.
Slowly, carefully, she turned her face just enough to assess the damage.
It was worse than she’d hoped.
Red hair—fiery and bright—had slipped free in earnest now, spilling from beneath her hood in waves she could no longer hide. The color was unmistakable. Not the dull red of lesser fae. Not copper. Not auburn.
Autumn Court red.
Her features were soft where her brothers’ were sharp, elegant where theirs were severe—but the resemblance was undeniable. The same proud cheekbones. The same dangerous mouth. The same amber eyes that had learned to watch before they ever trusted.
Across the room, Rhysand noticed her because she did not want to be noticed.
It was instinctual. A lifetime of court politics had trained him to read rooms, to feel when something shifted beneath the surface. His attention snagged on the stillness around her, the way space subtly opened, people edging back without realizing why.
He focused.
And then he frowned.
She was standing half-hidden near the edge of the cavern, shoulders slightly hunched beneath her cloak, gaze lowered. She looked like she was bracing for impact rather than seeking admiration.
That alone was strange.
Then he saw her hair.
Rhys straightened imperceptibly, violet eyes narrowing as he studied her more closely. The resemblance struck him in fragments at first—the color, the posture, the bone structure that spoke of power restrained rather than flaunted.
Autumn.
Beron’s line.
But he knew every son. Every bastard rumor. Every political pawn.
This girl was none of them.
Her eyes lifted briefly, scanning the room, calculating. When her gaze brushed past him, there was no recognition—only wariness, sharp and practiced.
Interesting.
He watched as her hand trembled slightly while she reached for her cloak. She hesitated, then seemed to realize hiding was no longer possible.
With a quiet exhale, she lowered it.
Her hood slipped back fully, fire cascading down her back. The murmurs returned, louder now, curiosity sharpening into something more dangerous.
Rhys’s interest deepened—not desire, not recognition, but a slow, unsettling pull of wrongness. She shouldn’t be here. Not because she was weak—but because someone had gone to great lengths to keep her unseen.
Before he could think further—
Someone moved fast.
A hand closed around her arm, hard enough to make her gasp. She spun, instinct flaring, eyes flashing as she tried to pull free—
Only to freeze.
Eris.
The eldest of Beron’s sons was already hauling her away, his grip firm, his expression carved from fury and disbelief. He leaned down, voice low and cutting.
“What in hell were you thinking?”
“Let go,” she hissed, struggling. “You’re hurting me.”
“You’re lucky that’s all I’m doing,” Eris snapped back, dragging her toward the darker edges of the cavern. “Do you want him to see you?”
Her face went pale.
Rhys watched them go, his pulse quickening as realization slid into place.
Not a courtier.
Not a pawn.
Not a guest.
A secret.
Eris positioned himself between her and the room, his body a shield, his jaw tight with barely leashed rage. She looked over his shoulder once—eyes bright, furious, and edged with something like fear.
Her gaze caught Rhys’s.
Just for a heartbeat.
Something passed between them—curiosity meeting caution, questions unanswered, fate hovering just out of reach.
Then Eris pulled her fully away, swallowing her into the press of bodies and stone.
Rhys remained where he was, staring at the empty space she’d left behind.
Beron doesn’t lose control of his blood, he thought grimly.
Which meant this girl had never been lost at all.
Only hidden.
And Under the Mountain had a way of dragging secrets into the light.
✦ ✦ ✦
Eris did not stop walking until the noise dulled.
Not vanished—Under the Mountain never truly quieted—but softened enough that words would not carry. He dragged her through narrow passages and half-lit corridors, past carved stone and damp walls that smelled faintly of iron and old magic. His grip never loosened, fingers biting into her wrist like a warning.
She wrenched free the moment he halted.
“I told you to let go.”
Eris rounded on her, face sharp with fury and something far more dangerous beneath it. “Do you have any idea what you just did?”
She rubbed her wrist, chin lifting. “I breathed.”
“You showed your face,” he snapped. “Here. Of all places.”
“I didn’t plan for it,” she shot back. “Things happen.”
A bitter laugh escaped him. “That’s exactly the problem with you. Things always happen.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it. Her jaw tightened. “You don’t get to scold me.”
Eris stepped closer, voice dropping. “I get to keep you alive.”
Silence pressed in, thick and uncomfortable.
Her gaze slid away first.
“I didn’t think anyone would notice,” she said quietly.
“That was foolish,” he replied without softness. “Everyone noticed.”
She flinched—not at the words, but at what they implied. “He didn’t—”
“Father?” Eris cut in sharply. “He noticed the moment you crossed the threshold.”
Her breath caught.
Eris ran a hand through his hair, frustration etched deep into his expression. “You were supposed to stay hidden. Forgotten. That was the only reason you were allowed to exist.”
“Allowed?” she echoed, eyes flashing.
He met her stare unflinchingly. “Don’t twist this. You know how it works.”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
They stood there, fire and ash, bound by blood neither had chosen.
“You can’t go back,” Eris said finally.
Her heart sank. “What do you mean?”
“I mean Amarantha has seen you,” he replied grimly. “Others have seen you. You don’t vanish after that.”
“I don’t belong here.”
“No,” he agreed. “But that won’t matter.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Rhysand did not follow them.
He learned long ago that chasing answers openly only made people bury them deeper. Instead, he watched. He listened. He remembered.
Autumn Court politics were a language he spoke fluently—pauses, glances, the way certain High Lords stiffened when a name was almost said. He replayed the moment again and again in his mind: the girl’s careful movements, the way she tried to fold into the edges of the room, the way Eris had reacted.
Not surprise.
Fear.
Rhys drifted through the cavern with practiced ease, trading words and smiles he did not mean, ears tuned for whispers beneath the music. It didn’t take long.
“A girl—did you see her?”
“Red hair—looked like—”
“Eris lost his temper—”
“She came out of nowhere—”
Out of nowhere, but not unknown.
Rhys paused near a group of lesser fae, letting their nervous chatter wash over him. He catalogued every detail. The resemblance. The urgency. The way Beron had not spoken—but had not looked away either.
Beron doesn’t make mistakes, Rhys thought. He buries them.
Which meant the girl was not an accident.
She was a secret.
And secrets, Under the Mountain, were currency.
✦ ✦ ✦
Beron sat rigid in his seat, fury simmering beneath his composed exterior.
He had known the instant she stepped inside.
The blood had recognized itself—fire answering fire in a way that made his skin crawl. For a heartbeat, he had thought himself haunted. A trick of the mountain. A punishment.
But then Eris had moved.
Too fast. Too openly.
Beron’s jaw clenched.
Idiot.
He rose smoothly, offering Amarantha a thin smile as he approached the throne. “You seem entertained this evening.”
Beron’s smile tightened. “You mistake coincidence for intention.”
“Do I?” she asked lightly. “That girl—she’s yours.”
The word yours scraped like a blade.
Beron inclined his head just enough to avoid offense. “Blood does not equal claim.”
Amarantha laughed softly. “How very Autumn of you.”
Her gaze sharpened. “You should be more careful. I dislike being kept in the dark.”
Beron bowed and retreated, his mind racing.
She had been seen.
Which meant she was no longer safe.
Which meant containment—not concealment—was now the priority.
✦ ✦ ✦
She learned the truth an hour later.
Eris returned, face grim, shoulders set like a man marching toward a battlefield. He didn’t sit. Didn’t soften his voice.
“You’re not leaving.”
Her chest tightened. “Eris—”
“She’s decided,” he said bluntly.
“Who?”
“Amarantha.”
The word landed heavy.
“She wants you close,” Eris continued. “Visible enough to watch. Useful enough to keep.”
“I won’t play her games.”
“You already are,” he snapped. Then quieter, “And so are we.”
She sank onto the stone bench behind her, fire dimming into something tight and aching. “So that’s it.”
“For now.”
Her hands curled into fists. “Father did this.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re letting it happen.”
Eris hesitated.
“I’m making sure you survive it.”
She looked up at him then—really looked. Saw the strain, the fear he would never admit, the weight of being the eldest in a court that devoured its own.
“Under the Mountain eats people alive,” she whispered.
Eris’s mouth thinned. “Then don’t let it.”
✦ ✦ ✦
From across the cavern, Rhysand watched her take her place among the court—no longer hidden, no longer free.
She sat too still. Watched too carefully.
Like a flame trapped in glass.
His curiosity sharpened into resolve.
I’ll learn your name, he thought. And why Autumn tried to erase you.
Because nothing stayed buried forever.
Not fire.
Not secrets.
And not her.
AN: Welcome to my new story, Let’s see how you guys love it, Next chapter would be posted when AOA BON is finished. Also I’ve decided not to do a taglist anymore, just for certain reasons. Until next time my embers🦊
content warnings: alcohol intoxication, vomiting (brief, from the alcohol), reader has some possessive thoughts sue her, some grinding?, language, more angst and yearning I'm sorryyy
word count: 9.6k
synopsis: Azriel was always meant to be yours.
trope: childhood friends to lovers
part 1 ~ part 2
my masterlist
~ ~ ~
“Let me guess,” a low and familiar voice murmured into your ear. You fumbled with the jewel crested knife, nearly slicing your palm in your attempt to catch it. “Not flashy enough?”
You cast a sheepish smile to the merchant glowering at you behind the table before carefully setting the knife down. You twisted around to glare at Azriel, whose eyes danced with mischief. “It’s not for me, you ass,” you grumbled, stepping away from the table to continue weaving through the merchant stalls.
Azriel easily fell into step beside you. “Oh, I know,” he said. “You have a habit of gift shopping at the last minute.”
You merely cast him a sideways glance, knowing you had no defense. You half-heartedly examined a pair of leather gloves on another table, rubbing the fabric between your fingers before placing it back down. Really, how could you find a unique gift for a male that you had spent centuries of birthdays with?
“So, what are you thinking?” Azriel asked, walking beside you as you perused the tables.
You shrugged. “What did you get him?”
Azriel’s silence made you glance up, your eyes narrowing as Azriel toyed with a pair of gloves in a rotten shade of chartreuse. You forced out a disbelieving laugh, indignation licking at your spine. “You have to be kidding me,” you said. Azriel’s ministrations over the fabric paused. “You ignored me for four days, and now you want my help?”
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” he said quietly, still pretending to look at the gloves that neither of you would be buying.
“I have not seen your face since you dropped me on the terrace and then vanished into the night.”
“I did not vanish,” he argued, but his voice wavered. He finally met your eyes, and the wariness in his gaze only made you more exasperated.
You had spent the last four days torturing yourself with all of the possible reasons Azriel had disappeared. You had agonized over the very real possibility that your brief moment of foolishness in Windhaven had sent him right into the arms of his mate—because that was exactly where he should be.
You had nearly kissed him, and you knew he knew. He was the spymaster, for fuck’s sake. He was fluent in the art of body language. He knew you were about to kiss him in the middle of the kitchen of your pseudo-childhood home, and he pulled away from you. He pulled away, then ferried the two of you off to Velaris, and he disappeared. For four days.
Until now.
Because he wanted help buying Cassian’s birthday gift.
The slimy mixture of mortification, humiliation, and jealousy turned your stomach sour and your heart cold as you stared at the male across from you. Maybe it was hypocritical to be mad at him for the very thing you had done to him not long ago, but it felt justifiable at the time. It still did. You were acting out of self-preservation. Azriel—well you didn’t know what Azriel was doing, actually, which made it all the more infuriating.
“Will either of you be buying something today?” the female manning the merchant table asked pointedly, breaking you from your stupor.
You smiled at the female, fighting a wince at the irritation in her gaze. “Sorry, not today. Thank you for your time.” She pursed her lips in disapproval, and you hurried to add, “Your work is lovely.”
Azriel sent his own apologetic glance toward the female as he laid down the unfortunately ugly gloves, then he stepped around the table to grab you by your elbow and guide you away. You pulled away from his touch as soon as you were away from the disgruntled merchant, glaring at him. His hand fell to his side, curling into a fist. “We always buy Cassian a gift together,” he said.
“Not always.”
“Fine, for the last decade.”
“Well,” you said, voice tight, “things are different.”
Azriel reached for you again, pulling you to an abrupt stop in the middle of the market. “What does that mean?”
Sometimes you felt like you were losing your mind. You had been in love with him for over five centuries. You didn’t know it was love for that long—you didn’t really even let yourself consider it until much, much later—but it didn’t change the fact that it was love.
You had spent every night for the last couple of months replaying every memory you had with Azriel, trying to pinpoint when things changed for you. When did you fall for the male that was your closest friend? The soul-crushing truth was that there never was a change, there was never a shift that sent you toppling, because you loved him from the very beginning.
And it did not make sense to you how he could not feel even a fraction of what you felt for him, when you had lived through it all together.
Anger flared deep in your chest, smoking out the words tumbling around inside you before you could think them through. “Because you have a mate,” you snapped. “You should give Cassian a gift from you and your mate.”
Azriel might have tried to say something, but you didn’t stop. “Is that where you disappeared to? To be with her?” you asked, the center of your chest fracturing outward with every word. “Will she be there tomorrow? At Rita’s?”
The ache in your chest was somehow worse than it had ever been, so many clashing sources of heartbreak melding together into one messy and convoluted vat of poison. It was unfair. You should be able to shop with your friend for your other friend’s birthday without having an existential crisis over it, but this was too much. It was all just too much.
Azriel, to his credit, looked bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
Sometimes his oblivion to the heartache he had caused you, unintentionally or not, hurt worse than anything else.
“You have to be fucking kidding me—”
His hands suddenly grabbed your shoulders, his grip firm and unrelenting as his shadows swallowed the two of you whole. As soon as they deposited you on a familiar outcropping of the mountains overlooking the city, you shoved away from him, your fury building irrationally fast.
“Don’t do that,” you gritted through your teeth.
Azriel looked like he was at a loss. “I want to talk to you without the whole of the Velaris market square watching us.”
You stared at him, your arms falling to your sides. “You want to talk to me.”
“Yes!” he exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. “I want to talk to you.” His hand fell to his side, his wings drooping slightly behind him. “I don’t understand what is happening,” he said, and the quiet desolation in his voice made your heart twinge, despite everything.
“What do you mean?” you murmured, looking down at your boots.
“Don’t do that,” he snapped, his eyes wild with more emotion than he usually ever showed. Then his voice softened as he said, “Please. Please just—” He shook his head. “Things have been different,” he finally said, and all you could do was stare at him as your heart thundered against your chest, your mind racing to find a way to protect yourself from any more heartache. “Since that night at Rita’s, things have been different.”
You couldn’t stop the scoff that flew from your lips, though regret sliced through your chest at the wounded look on Azriel’s face. His throat bobbed as he stared off into the forest behind you. “Y/N,” he rasped, “I don’t know what I said.” He looked at you, and Mother, his eyes were glossy. “I don’t know what I did that night. I—I know I told you I have a mate,” he hurried to add, and the words seemed to feel like sandpaper against his throat. “I know that, but my shadows refuse to tell me anything else and, I just, I’m sorry if I said or did something—”
“You did nothing wrong, Azriel,” you cut him off quietly. As angry and hurt as you were, as much as you wished he had done something you could rationally hate him for just so it might dull some of this pain, you could not let him go on thinking he had done something terrible—not when all he had really done was find something everyone could only hope for. “You—” You swallowed hard, shoulders deflating as you forced the words out of your mouth. “You told me you found your mate, and you said nothing but lovely things about her.”
He looked like he didn’t believe you.
“I promise,” you said softly. “You had fun at Rita’s, and I helped you home, and you told your friend about something wonderful. That’s all.”
He stared at you for a moment, blinking slowly. Silence wrapped around you like a stiff blanket, scratching at your skin with every passing second. The sunlight beating down on your face was unseasonably warm. It felt wrong to be illuminated so brightly while Azriel grappled to tear apart the invisible walls you had desperately built between you. There was nowhere to hide.
Azriel stepped closer, and you hated the small hitch in your breath. You hated the way he noticed, and you hated that his steps faltered when he heard. You hated that there were mere feet between you, and he still felt worlds away.
“Why didn’t you visit my mother with me?”
Your eyes snapped to his, guilt sliding down your throat. “I—”
“And don’t lie to me,” Azriel cut you off, near pleading.
And what could you really say? That you were worried his mother would see your broken heart the second she set eyes on you? That you were worried you would have to endure his loving confessions about his long-awaited mate to his mother—his mother you loved and that you had known for centuries? That jealousy so potent and toxic would eat you alive and ruin anything that might still be salvageable of your friendship?
“I couldn’t.”
It wasn’t an answer. It didn’t explain anything, but it was the only thing you could say that was not a lie, and that was not as baring as the truth.
Azriel shook his head, looking up at the sky. “You know,” he said quietly, “I thought maybe things were okay, when you asked me to go to Windhaven.”
Your pulse pounded in your ears, thinking about how there was never any question of who would go with you to Windhaven. You were selfish, and there was never anyone else that could have gone with you to that camp.
“And when you came to me that night,” he continued, his eyes slowly falling back to yours. He looked lost, and you hated it. He huffed out a sad laugh. “I was actually grateful that we were there. That things felt normal.” His nose twitched, and his shadows seemed to spread outward in agitation. “Then you were pissed at me again.”
You shook your head slowly. “It wasn’t you I was angry with,” you said quietly. “Not really.”
Azriel looked at you incredulously.
You looked up to the sky. “Fine,” you admitted. “I was pissed at you for taking over.” You were pissed that he felt the need, that he acted like it was his duty, to protect you from some self-righteous male.
You were not his responsibility.
“I did not take over.” Azriel moved toward you, his boots stopping mere inches from yours, and you had to look up slightly to meet his eyes. “You can be pissed at me all you want, Y/N, I don’t care. No one will speak to you that way and get away with it.”
“I do not need—”
“I am always going to protect you!” His hands came up to cup your face, his gentle touch a startling contrast to the ferocity of his words. You stared at him wide eyed, his own gaze searching yours. “I told you that. You know that,” his voice softened exponentially, but his words were spoken with fervor. “I don’t care how angry you are. I don’t care if it pisses you off. I don’t care. I’m sorry—” He closed his eyes briefly, inhaling deep before letting it out slowly. “You are the most important person in my life,” he said softly. Your eyes burned. “I will always protect you with my life.”
Your hand came up to curl around one of his that was still cradling your cheek. Your mind was racing with his words. It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. A foolish, hopeful part of you wanted to consider that maybe—maybe he did feel the same. Maybe—
But you could not forget the terrible reality that he had a mate.
You loved him so much. It was intertwined with every fiber of your being and every thread of it throbbed with painful longing and hope that it might finally be recognized. Every thread was fraying with dread that it might never be tied off, that this love might be unmoored forever until you completely unraveled.
“Sweetheart,” Azriel murmured, and you closed your eyes as his thumb grazed the top of your cheek. “You’re shaking.”
Your eyes flew open, and you suddenly pulled away, his touch falling away from your face abruptly.
“Y/N—”
“I’m fine.”
You were not fine.
You had to get out of there.
“Wait, Y/N—”
You shook your head, your wings flaring out before you really even thought about flying. “I have to get Cassian a gift,” you muttered. Then you took off into the sky, leaving Azriel and your heart behind.
You shook off the tendril of shadow that clung to your wrist.
~ ~ ~
“And explain to me, Rhysand, why I should take this young female into my court?”
Your heart pounded in your chest as you fought against the urge to lean against Azriel. Your muscles trembled from the weight of your exhaustion and dread that this disillusioned plan would all collapse around you at any moment. You could not appear weak in front of the High Lord, not if you wanted this plan to work.
You could stand on your own two feet.
Azriel’s pinky grazed the back of your hand, a gentle touch that could easily be an accident, but then his wing bumped into yours, and you knew Azriel was far too careful for accidental touches. You let yourself breathe in deep, let the comforting and familiar scent of Azriel wash over you as Rhysand argued with his father.
Rhysand’s mother stood a step back from him, but still in front of you and Az, watching their exchange with pursed lips. Rhysand and his father had been talking in circles, their voices growing louder and the room growing darker with every passing minute.
“I think that’s enough,” Rhysand’s mother cut in, without an ounce of fear in her voice.
Rhysand and his father both went silent. Then his father’s eyes narrowed. “The boy must learn how to advocate for himself, Melina—”
“And he has, my Lord,” she agreed placatingly. She stepped closer, and Rhys fell back to stand beside you. “But this is ultimately my request of you. She is Rhysand’s friend, yes.” She glanced back at you with so much warmth and pity it made your stomach twist. “But she has no one. She is of no use in Illyria, no one who cares for her.”
Your eyes burned as her words lodged in your chest, the truth wrapped around them like barbed wire. Azriel stepped closer to you, his arm now nearly pressed against yours. The High Lord’s eyes fell to the two of you, and maybe you should have stepped away, maybe you should have moved closer to Rhys, but the thought of leaving Azriel made your head spin. So you stayed in place, with your arm pressed against Azriel’s, and his shadows licking against the back of your neck and hands.
“No one but us,” she continued, her voice softening, and it took everything in you to keep your tears at bay. “She is not safe in Illyria. Let her stay in the House of Wind. Let her work for me. I need the help.”
The High Lord was quiet for far too long. You desperately wanted to grab Azriel’s hand, but you didn't move. Instead, you waited, the four of you silent as you prayed to the Mother the High Lord agreed.
“Alright,” he said. “She can stay.” You were going to throw up. “But you are mine.”
He wasn’t looking at you. Your eyes slowly followed his gaze, slowly looking at the male standing still beside you.
“Father—” Rhysand started to protest, taking one step forward, but the High Lord cut him off.
“That’s my condition. You want her to stay here? Fine. She can stay. But so does he.”
“He still has to pass the Blood Rite,” Rhys argued.
“Fine,” the High Lord agreed. “You will finish your training, complete the Blood Rite in Spring, and then you will come work for me, Shadowsinger.”
This was insane. Azriel couldn’t sign his life away to the High Lord just because you asked for help.
“But father—”
“Okay.” Azriel stepped forward, his warmth vanishing from your side. “I agree, on one condition.”
“Azriel—” you and Rhysand both spoke at the same time. He glared at both of you.
The High Lord grinned. “In addition to her sanctuary here, you mean?”
You hated that he had yet to refer to you by your name, but you knew that, really, it was inconsequential compared to what your fate would be in Illyria.
“Yes,” Azriel said.
He was so large, standing in front of you. His leathers were stretched around muscles that lined his body, and his wings were wide behind his back that was ramrod straight, his head held high as he met his High Lord’s eye.
You weren’t children any more.
The High Lord waved his hand at Azriel. “Go on.”
“Y/N keeps her wings.”
You stopped breathing.
The High Lord raised his brows, but said nothing.
“Y/N stays here and works for the Lady of Night, and she keeps her wings.” He spared a brief glance at you, and when his eyes met yours, you finally released the breath trapped in your chest. “And I will work for you.”
An inexplicable warmth washed over you, working outward from the center of your chest, thawing the icy terror that you had been trapped in for the last 48 hours, even as you now feared for Azriel. You worried it was selfish to feel such relief when Azriel was practically signing his life away for you.
The High Lord smiled. “I accept.”
~ ~ ~
“We need to talk.”
You glanced at the male behind you, shaking your head as you focused on the training bag in front of you. You landed another punch, a heavy thud reverberating through the room. “Not now, Cassian.”
You heard his steps draw closer as you continued throwing punches, relishing in the dull ache blooming around your knuckles. The sun was just starting to rise, but you had been here for hours.
Cassian caught your fist before you could land the next punch, his face looking unimpressed. “Yes, now.”
You yanked your hand away, scowling at him as you shook your hand out. “What do you want?”
He raised his brows, a flash of amusement passing through his eyes. “Happy Birthday, Cassian. You're my dearest friend, Cassian. I’m so happy to celebrate another year of life with you, Cassian—”
You grabbed his shoulder quickly, your eyes wide. “I’m sorry. Mother—Cassian—”
Cassian smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’s okay, Y/N.” He pushed gently at your shoulder, knocking your hand away from his own. “I’m just messing with you.”
“Still,” you murmured, shame making your face warm. You looked down to start unwrapping the cloth around your hands, then you looked back up at him sheepishly. “Happy Birthday.”
He grinned, tugging you into his side. “Thank you.” Then he turned you toward the terrace, guiding you to lean against the cool stone railing not yet warmed by the morning sun. “Now, we need to talk.”
You fought the urge to roll your eyes. “Fine. What is it?”
He leaned forward on his elbows, looking out over the city before glancing at you. “What’s going on with you and Az?”
You sniffed, rubbing at your nose as you looked out at the city, mirroring his position. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said pointedly, shifting his body so he faced you. “Why are things so damn awkward?”
Your face was hot now, and you wished you could pass it off as the sunlight hitting your cheeks. “They’re not,” you lied, terribly.
Cassian scoffed. “Y/N,” he said, unimpressed. You met his eyes warily. His eyes narrowed. “First, you avoided him for weeks. Then, there was the lovely dinner from Hell—”
Gods.
“—then you refused to visit his Mother—”
“He told you about that?” you interrupted, that same shame from when Azriel confronted you yesterday curdling in your stomach.
Cassian paused, seeming to think over his words before just saying, “Yes.” Then he kept going, “Then there was Windhaven, which we will also be talking about, by the way. Then he avoided you for days—”
So he was avoiding you.
“Then he apparently saw you yesterday, but walked into Rhys’s office like a storm cloud, and has been in a foul mood since.” He studied you quietly, and you knew he was leaving out every ounce of unbearable tension and awkwardness that had infused every minute between the events he laid in front of you. “So tell me,” he said, voice softening, “what happened?”
You could probably tell Cassian. You could probably cry, right now, in front of him on this terrace—on his birthday, no less—and he would not hesitate to try to pick up your broken pieces and find a way to glue them back together. He wouldn’t judge you.
But you felt too fragile to do that right now, and he deserved better than that on his birthday.
But he also deserved something, and maybe it would be nice to hand off just a piece of the weight crushing your soul.
“Do you know who his mate is?” you asked quietly, your voice as small as you felt.
Cassian was quiet for so long that you turned to look at him, and when you saw the painful understanding in his eyes you thought you might actually cry. “He hasn’t told me,” is what he finally says, looking back out over the city.
You chuckled weakly. “That’s not a no.”
His lips twitched. “It’s not a yes.”
“Cassian,” you said, staring at the side of his face until his eyes met yours again.
He sighed, leaning heavily against the balcony now. “I don’t know, no.”
Oh.
You bit your lip, not sure what you were expecting. You weren’t sure what you even wanted to hear. Maybe that he did know, and he hated her? Maybe that she was a terrible match and he didn’t know what the Mother was thinking?
You didn’t know.
“Nothing makes sense, if I’m honest with you,” Cassian said.
“What do you mean?”
He glanced at you. “I mean Azriel and his mate.” He tossed his hand toward you haphazardly, as if that cleared anything up.
“What?”
“I didn’t know he told you he found his mate.”
You blinked. You felt like he was talking in circles.
“Cassian,” you said, voice flat and tired. “We were all at that dinner.”
Cassian shook his head. “I mean before that.”
You swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah, well,” you said, “he did.”
His mouth twisted in thought. “Right. Surprising.”
“Cassian, what does this have to do with anything?”
He shrugged. “How long ago did he tell you?”
You threw your arms out. “I don’t know!” You did know. “A couple months ago? After Rita’s.”
He hummed. “Which is when things started to get tense—”
“Cassian,” you cut him off, your heart starting to race. “I’m not in the mood for this.”
Cassian immediately sobered, his expression turning serious. “Azriel found his mate over a year ago.”
You went cold. His words practically shoved you outside of your body, and you were floating just a few inches away from where you stood in front of him, grappling to reorient your already fractured reality to his words. “What?” you rasped.
Cassian shrugged, as if this was an entirely inconsequential detail. “He told me and Rhys a little over a year ago.”
You blinked. “So this entire time he—”
Cassian killed your words with a hard stare. “He what, Y/N?”
“I had no idea,” you said quietly. You had no idea things had changed so much sooner than you were even aware.
Yet they hadn’t, had they? Azriel never acted any different toward you. You were the one that made everything turn sour.
You frowned. “Over a year ago…we were at war,” you said slowly.
Cassian didn’t say anything.
“I thought he must have met her in Velaris, but—” You were going to be sick. “Oh gods, is it Elain?”
Cassian whipped his head to you. “What?” he asked. “Are you insane? Elain is mated to Lucien.”
You shook your head, all logic having been replaced with sick terror. “Mor then—”
“Y/N, for fuck’s sake,” Cassian said, cutting you off quickly. “It’s not Elain, and it’s not Mor.”
“You said you didn’t know—”
“Well I know it’s not them.”
“But—”
“I don’t know where or when he met her,” he said. “He didn’t tell us anything. He just…told us he had a mate. We were pestering him and he snapped, and then made us swear not to say a word because she didn’t know. That’s all, but I’m also not a fool.”
You scowled, recognizing his insinuation that you were a fool.
You were also tired of this conversation, and you were tired of the emotional whiplash. After a long beat of silence, you said, “Is it Nesta?”
Cassian growled, his eyes flashing with brief rage. You smiled, relieved that your jab landed successfully. His nostrils flared. “Enough.”
You rolled your eyes, leaning forward on the balcony again, letting your head droop. The two of you stood in silence for a while, the sun slowly rising higher in the sky as the sounds of the city slowly waking up washed over you.
Velaris had always felt like home.
Even that first night you crossed the city’s borders, clinging to Rhys and Azriel in mild terror, something settled inside you as soon as you were within the city’s limits. The air was cleaner. Fresh. It was still just as cold as Illyria, but it didn’t have that bitter tang that licked at your skin when you crossed the camp’s borders.
The air smelled like salt and jasmine. It was so unlike the stale and rotten air that wafted through Windhaven that, at the time, you could hardly fathom that a whole city full of faeries lived here. Now you were one of them.
“I heard about Windhaven.”
You let out a long breath, your shoulders falling. You were tired. “Cassian,” you said, a warning, but he shook his head.
“I’m done talking about Az.”
You rolled your lip between your teeth and looked out over the city, taking in the soft and joyful life that pulsed through the streets. The stark contrast between here and an Illyrian camp was sometimes so jarring it made your bones ache. “Yeah,” you said quietly, not sure what else to say.
He placed a hand on your shoulder, squeezing once. “You saved that girl.”
You let out a bitter laugh, refusing to meet his eyes. “Right,” you said, “or I just made it worse for her after we left.”
“You didn’t.”
His words held so much certainty, you couldn’t help but turn to meet his gaze. Cassian wasn’t necessarily one for platitudes, but how could he know that for sure? “What?”
“You didn’t make things worse,” he said. “You saved her wings.”
“But how—”
“I’ve been to Windhaven every day since your return,” he explained, his voice unusually soft. Your eyes burned as he stared back at you with overwhelming sincerity. “I’m headed there after this. No one will touch her wings. They all know what will happen if anything happens to that girl—oh.”
You threw yourself into Cassian before he could finish his sentence, your arms circling him in a vice. He let out a soft chuckle before he quickly returned the hug, one hand coming up to rest on the back of your head. “This is much nicer than, What do you want, Cassian? Not now, Cassian—”
You squeezed him harder. “Shut up.”
~ ~ ~
“I want to teach you how to fight.”
You barely glanced at Azriel as you slid another book back onto the shelf. “Me?” you asked, disbelieving.
Azriel followed behind you as you pushed the shelving cart further down the aisle. “Yes.”
“Why?” you asked, pointedly sliding another book back into place.
Why me? Is what you didn’t say. I’m a scholar. I’m the High Lady’s right-hand. I’m not a warrior.
“Why not?”
You ignored him, continuing on with your shelving duties—which, really, were not yours, but there was also no one else willing to voluntarily work in the library. At least, no one that the High Lord had authorized. You liked being here anyway, and the few librarians scattered throughout didn’t mind.
“You are more than capable.”
You hummed. “Yes,” you agreed. “Doesn’t mean I want to.”
Suddenly Azriel’s hand was on your wrist, and he had you twisted around so that your chest was pinned to the book shelf. His point was clearly made, but still he didn’t move away. His body was pressed against yours, his chest grazing the base of your wings with every inhale.
His lips might have briefly brushed the shell of your ear before he said, “I’m serious, Y/N.” His grip on you relaxed, letting go of your arm that he had pinned behind your back, but he didn’t move away. “War is coming.” Which sounded very serious, but all you could think about was how his body was pressed against yours, and his breath was warm against your ear. Goosebumps pebbled along your arms.
Azriel pulled away, and you had to blink yourself back to reality before you slowly turned around to face him.
Your face was warm. Azriel seemed unaffected—serious and stoic as always.
“This city is meant to be impenetrable, I know, but—” He cut himself off, looking away.
“You’re worried,” you said quietly.
He nodded. His shadows slowly curled around your ankles, one gliding up your leg to then curl around your wrist. “If we go to war,” he said, voice hushed, “I won’t be here.”
Your stomach twisted. It had been years since you moved to Velaris, and years since Azriel had become the High Lord’s spy. Your time with Azriel was fleeting as it was. Stolen moments peppered over the years whenever he could slip away, but he has always been around. Sometimes months passed without talking to him, but you knew deep in your bones that if Azriel was worried about this war, it would happen, and he would be gone much longer than a couple of months.
“I just want to know that you’re safe,” he continued, as if he thought he still had to convince you. “I know it might be complicated for you,” he said slowly, gently, as if he was coaxing a timid animal. “Training, I mean. After everything that happened in Windhaven. But it would just be me, and—”
“That was a test,” you cut him off, realization washing over you.
Azriel’s mouth shut, his eyes wide.
“That—” You gestured between him and the bookshelf behind you. “You—you were seeing how I would react?”
Azriel looked only mildly guilty. “Yes.”
Irritation flared in your gut. He was right, of course. You had never spoken about why you never trained. You had never even told him outright that you didn’t want to, but the offer had always been there, unspoken, waiting quietly, and you never took it. Now Azriel was forcing you to confront it, and he knew fully well why you might be hesitant to let someone put their hands on you.
But Azriel had just pinned you to a shelf with his entire body, and not even a flicker of fear arose inside you. Fear was the last thing you felt.
“I’m sorry,” Azriel eventually said. You knew he meant it, but you also knew he didn’t regret it.
“No,” you said, biting the inside of your cheek once as you contemplated his words. “You made your point. And you’re right.”
Azriel’s gaze was a mix of sympathy and worry. “I’m sorry—” he started to say again.
“I want to know how to fight,” you cut him off. His shoulders seemed to visibly relax at the words, and your stomach fluttered at the flash of pride you might have seen in his eyes. You weren’t doing this for him, though. You needed to be able to defend yourself. It was unwise as it was that you had gone this long in the House of Wind without learning.
“But I also want to know how to hide,” you said, and his eyes glinted with excitement. You couldn’t help but grin when you added, “Like a spy.”
~ ~ ~
Your steps faltered as soon as you felt his presence. Your blade wobbled as it came down, losing its clean momentum from your misplaced footing. You growled in frustration, slashing the blade through the air once more before spinning around.
Azriel was standing there in the shadows, watching you quietly.
“What are you doing here, Azriel?”
He walked closer, the moonlight illuminating his face as he stepped into the clearing. He studied you for a moment, his eyes lingering on the sword in your hand. “You’re late for Rita’s.”
You glanced at the sky, your heart dropping when you realized just how far the moon had traveled. You had meant to leave at sunset. “Fuck,” you cursed. Your grip tightened on your sword as you ran a hand through your hair, cursing again when your fingers got caught.
“It’s okay,” Azriel said, voice soft. He moved closer to gently guide your hand away from your face, then smoothed a hand over your hair. He smiled softly when he pulled his hand away, almost hesitant. “Cassian won’t mind.”
You stared at him, taking in the way the moonlight illuminated the hazel of his eyes and glinted off the inky strands of hair that fell over his forehead. He was wearing a black button-up that clung to his body perfectly, molding the contour of his muscles with perfect definition.
You blinked, then shook your head. “It’s not okay,” you grumbled, taking a step back.
Cassian had just spent the morning of his birthday comforting you, letting you lean on him. The least you could do is show up to his birthday party.
“Y/N,” Azriel said, “It’s okay. They were only just leaving the River House when I left to find you. I told them I was picking you up.”
You frowned. “How did you know where I was?”
Azriel’s lips twitched, like the question amused him. “You weren’t hard to find.”
You tried to argue, wanting to point out that you were in a random clearing in the mountains, but Azriel silenced you when he stepped closer again. “You were sloppy,” he said, nodding toward the sword.
“I’m aware,” you snapped.
“You’re fighting angry.”
“I know, Az,” you groaned. “I don’t need the lecture right now.”
“I’m not trying to lecture you,” he said gently. He stepped even closer, the heat from his body pressing against your skin. “Lift the sword.”
“We’re late,” you warned.
“So what’s a few more minutes? Lift it.” He circled around you, moving so that he stood at your back. You waited a moment, but eventually lifted the sword again.
“Good,” he murmured. He was crowding your space now, his body brushing against yours. You could hardly breathe. “Lower your wings for me?” he asked softly, a low hum that reverberated through your body.
Your wings lowered.
Azriel’s arm covered yours, his hand enclosing yours that held the hilt of the sword. “Right now,” he said, practically talking directly into your ear. “You’re angry, and it’s making your movements messy, because that anger is radiating in every direction. Your body doesn’t know what to do with it.”
You swallowed hard, your breaths heavy as you let the truth in his words wash over you. You were angry. You had been angry for months, and sometimes it felt so loud and potent that it might just consume you. It felt like there was nowhere for it to go.
“I always taught you not to fight angry—but, really, that’s shit advice,” he said.
You couldn’t help but smile.
“You care too much to not get angry when you’re fighting,” he continued. You weren’t sure if you should be insulted, but then he said, “That’s not a bad thing, Y/N. Just channel it. Let that anger stabilize you.”
You sucked in a sharp breath when his other hand grazed the membrane of your wing, your body going still when that hand settled on your hip.
“I’m sorry,” Azriel said quietly, his body also going still.
Your heart was beating frantically in your chest, and you were sure he could hear it, but you nodded your head anyway. “It’s okay,” you told him breathlessly.
A beat of silence passed, then Azriel’s hand slid a little closer to your front, his fingers grazing your abdomen. “Direct that anger to your core,” he murmured. His tone had permanently dropped, a low lull in the delicate silence around you. His hand slid back to your hip, then pushed you to step forward with him. “Let that anger guide your movements. Don’t let it force them.”
The two of you stepped back, and his chest was flush with your back. “Now swing. Let your anger extend into your blade. Keep it sharp and defined.”
You closed your eyes for just a moment, taking a deep and steadying breath as you gripped the anger swirling through you. You imagined it as an anchor, locking your mind and body as one. You imagined it as sharp as the blade in your hand. You imagined it washing over your muscles, powering the force of your movements. You swung the blade in one of the most complicated moves you knew, the angles between movements sharp and defined with an elegance you had been reaching for all night.
You grinned as you finished, relief you had been desperate for settling over you. Azriel’s touch fell away, and you turned around to meet his eyes.
He was smiling too. “Now we can go to the party.”
Your grin only widened. “Thank you.”
Azriel’s smile then wavered, his expression suddenly sobering. “Y/N,” he said, “about yesterday—”
“Az—”
“I’m sorry.”
You stared at him. “You’re sorry? Az, you did nothing—”
“I did nothing wrong, so you’ve said,” he brushed you off. “But something is upsetting you,” he went on, voice gentle again. “And Windhaven—it was hard. I know that. And I wasn’t there for you when we got back, and so I’m sorry for that.”
You looked away, eyes falling to your boots, your toes mere inches away from Azriel’s. You shrugged a little, then finally met his eyes again. “I haven’t really been there for you that last couple of months,” you admitted quietly. “So I guess we’re even. Or, really, I still have much to make up—”
“We don’t do that,” Azriel interrupted softly.
“Do what?”
“Keep score,” he said. You felt warm all over as you stood under his gaze, relishing in the comfort of this male you had known and loved your entire life. Just his presence, without worrying about mates or relationships or boundaries that may or may not exist for the first time in months, was enough to quell the fury and despair that had been warring inside your soul for weeks.
You nodded, knowing he was right.
“Whenever you’re ready to talk about whatever is bothering you, I’ll be here to listen,” he promised. “But for tonight,” he said, a smile slowly stretching across his face again, “Let’s have fun and celebrate our friend.”
Your own smile didn’t quite reach your eyes as you half-heartedly joked, “Will you be getting as drunk as our last night at Rita’s?”
Azriel grabbed your hand, jostling it lightly between you before tugging you close again, his shadows already creeping in around you. “No,” he hummed, mirth in his eyes. “I think it’s your turn tonight.”
Your grin was real as you said, “I like the sound of that.”
~ ~ ~
You weren’t kidding when you told Azriel you liked his plan for tonight—specifically, you getting drunk.
He had taken you back to the House of Wind, and he waited for you to bathe and get dressed before taking you to Rita’s. You would like to think that his cheeks were tinged pink as he grabbed your waist because of you—because you were in a silken dress that shimmered in the moonlight and defined every curve of your body, and you felt good, for the first time in a while.
The two of you were silent as he pulled you in close by your hips, his chest lightly brushing yours before his shadows cocooned the two of you in their familiar embrace. Time always seemed to bend when you traveled through the shadows, warping around your body in a way that felt too fast and too slow all at once. The entire time your eyes were glued to his, his own gaze unwavering as he stared back.
You were in front of Rita’s before you could blink, and yet it felt like those seconds with Azriel’s hands on your body and his eyes stuck to yours had stretched into years. Your heart was racing again. It was becoming a problem.
You stepped back, breaking eye contact with an awkward cough. Your body felt far too warm in the chilled night air. Azriel’s hands fell away from your waist, and you took a second to smooth your hands over your dress, recentering yourself before walking into the crowded tavern.
Azriel watched you, and eventually you forced yourself to smile before meeting his gaze again. “Here we go,” you said with a grin that felt too tight on your face.
You didn’t wait for Azriel before you pushed through the door, the dim lighting and cacophony of music and voices disorienting at first. You scanned the room for your friends, and it wasn’t until Azriel placed a gentle hand on the small of your back and pointed toward a corner of the room that you found them.
He laced his fingers with yours before you could even take a step, guiding you through the sea of bodies. His skin was warm against yours, and you relished in the feeling of your hand in his. He pulled you closer to him when an especially tipsy faerie bumped into your shoulder, jostling the two of you.
Eventually you reached the booth everyone was crammed in, Cassian sitting on the end with a wide grin. You expected Azriel to drop your hand, but he only squeezed it tighter when the two of you stopped in front of the table. Your face was hot when Cassian’s gaze dragged up from your hands to your face.
His eyes were already glossy in the dim light, and empty glasses were scattered across the surface of the table. You hoped he kept his questions and observations to himself tonight.
He pushed up from the table, with Nesta stabilizing it frantically as he bumped the corner and glasses clattered together. Cassian didn’t notice, and he pulled you into him for a hug, effectively breaking Azriel’s hold on your hand. “You’re here!” Cassian cheered.
You laughed as your face squished awkwardly against his chest, his arm squeezing your waist on just the verge of too tight. “Happy Birthday, Cass,” you said again, even if you already saw him this morning. This morning felt forever ago anyway.
Cassian pulled back, his gaze set on the male behind you. He kept one arm around your waist before he reached for Azriel, tugging him into a clumsy hug that you were still held hostage in. The three of you were a mess of arms and wings, Azriel’s body half covering your own and Cassian held you both by one arm.
Azriel would deny it, but he was smiling as Cassian hugged him. Even if he didn’t wait long before extricating himself from the messy embrace. You managed to break away too, your hands squeezing Cassian’s forearms once before falling away. “I’ll have to give your gift tomorrow,” you told him.
Cassian’s brow furrowed. “Az already gave me—” His words died as his gaze flicked behind you, and your neck felt hot. Cassian’s smile faltered, but you could tell he fought to keep it on his face, even if the alcohol running through him had eroded his already thin filter. “I can’t wait,” he said.
Your smile was tight, and you were ready to escape the awkward tension that had fallen over you. You locked eyes with Mor on the end of the booth, relief washing over you when she stood up. She grabbed your hand, immediately dragging you toward the bar as she declared it was time for more drinks.
She dropped your hand once you reached the bar, her gaze sympathetic as you gathered your bearings. You didn’t hear what she ordered as you took in the crowd around you, the floor flooded with dancing bodies and loud music. Mor handed you a glass of blue liquid, and you didn’t bother asking what it was before you tossed it back.
Which might have been a mistake, because it was foul.
You gagged, clanking the glass down on the counter. “Mor, what the hell was that?”
She also gagged as she downed her own, her class clinking against yours as she sat it down. “Disgusting,” she said, wiping her mouth. Then her eyes glinted. “But effective.” She waved toward the bartender ordering another round of something that hopefully didn’t taste like acid.
She leaned against the bar while you waited, her gaze flitting up and down before settling back on your eyes. “I figured it was that kind of night.”
You leaned against the bar next to her, your arm brushing hers as someone bumped into you. “Yeah,” you said with a weak laugh. “You could say that.”
Mor glanced toward the table with your friends. You followed her gaze, and your heart skipped a beat when your eyes met Azriel’s, who had taken Mor’s seat at the booth. His shadows were mostly hidden behind his wings, but a few stray ones pulsed to a slow beat. You averted your gaze, your skin feeling even more flushed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mor asked, and you were fairly certain she knew more than you had ever told her, just like Cassian, and Nesta, and probably everyone else around you.
“Nope.”
The bartender brought your drinks, and Mor handed you another glass, this time with a pink liquid. “This one is better, I promise,” she said, then clinked her glass against yours. “Let’s get drunk.” Then she tossed the liquid back.
You grinned, following her lead, relieved when the liquid was smooth and sweet. “Let’s dance,” you said, grabbing her hand as you sat the glass down, the two of you giggling as you pushed into the sea of bodies.
It was hot. So many bodies brushed against yours, so many faeries overheating the room as you all moved to the music. Song after song drifted over you, and Mor came and went with drinks in hand more times than you could count. Your blood felt fuzzy, your entire body vibrating from the alcohol coursing through your veins and the electric buzz that permeated the air.
At some point Cassian and Nesta joined you, periodically dancing with you and Mor when they weren’t entirely absorbed with each other. Your head was light and hazy, and you almost forgot why you had felt so heavy before.
Then a hand grabbed your waist from behind, familiar scarred fingers curling around the curve of your hip. You leaned back, your body connecting with a warm chest you knew better than your own skin. Your skin was hot and flushed, tingling all over as the scent of salt and cedar and something so uniquely Azriel enveloped you.
Your head lulled against him, your body moving against his in time with the music. His other hand settled on your other hip, and you let him guide your body however he saw fit. Your heart was racing and your stomach was fluttering, and you never wanted this feeling to end. You never wanted Azriel’s grip on your body to fade, and you never wanted another male to touch you like he was now. You wanted him to claim you in this crowd of people. You wanted everyone to know that you were his.
You wanted everyone to know that he was yours.
Azriel had always been yours.
Your hand came up to curl around the back of his neck, pulling his face down to meet your gaze. You had to tilt your head back to see him, but Mother above, he was everything you ever wanted. He was the most beautiful male alive, and you wanted him so much it hurt.
Why did it have to hurt?
You turned around to face him, his hands never leaving your hips. Your chest grazed against his, and you met his eyes as he continued guiding your bodies together in a dance that was for the two of you alone. Your eyes never left his, his own eyes glossy in the lights streaming across the room. He had a lazy smile on his face that made your stomach flutter, and when he tugged your body closer you sucked in a sharp breath.
“Azriel,” you murmured. In the back of your head, you thought it should have been a warning, but really it was a plea.
Your arms looped around his neck as his thigh slotted between yours, and you thought you might die when your core grazed the rough fabric of his pants. The hem of your dress was undoubtedly rucked indecently high, but you didn’t care. You just wanted more. You wanted everything.
Azriel slowly ground your bodies together in a rhythm that you thought might have loosely followed the music, but it was hard to tell. It was hard to think of anything other than the building pleasure low in your belly and Azriel’s hands on your waist and his breath against your cheek. You guided his head up with your hand splayed on his cheek, and when he met your eyes he looked like he might devour you there in the middle of Rita’s.
It was exactly how you had always wanted him to look at you.
You wanted him to want you. You wanted him to forget about anyone else that might think they had a piece of his heart, because Azriel was yours.
Azriel’s tongue briefly wet his lips, and you didn’t think before you pushed yourself up on your toes to capture his lips with yours.
And he kissed you back.
Your head was floating, possibly completely detached from the rest of you. You weren’t entirely sure you were even still inside your own body, except for the feeling of an undeniable warmth that flooded through your chest. Azriel’s hands slid from your hips to the back of your thighs, his fingers curling around the hem of your dress and tugging it down, all while his lips chased yours.
His hands gripped your legs tight, his fingers undoubtedly leaving indents in your flesh as he simultaneously tugged you closer and kept your dress from sliding too far up. Sparks of electricity flew everywhere your body touched his, leaving your entire body vibrating. The sounds of the music and the voices around dulled into a muffled buzz, your entire world view shifting to focus solely on Azriel.
Your skin was hot with want, flamed only by inconceivable stores of repressed emotions and desire breaking through the surface. You wanted to curl inside of Azriel and never leave. You wanted this moment to stretch for an eternity, bottling up the euphoria coursing through you and never letting it fizzle away.
One of his hands had migrated to your face, cupping your jaw in a way that you thought might have been reverence. The touch was so gentle compared to the firm grip his other hand still had on your thigh, guiding your body against his lazily as your lips melded with fervor.
Why had you never done this?
Well, you had once—
His teeth nipped your lower lip, making you gasp at the light sting before his lips latched onto the sensitive skin below your ear. Your stomach flipped, and your heart was pounding as he moved down the column of your throat, the drag of his lips leaving goosebumps in their wake.
Someone bumped into Azriel, and the two of you careened to the side a bit, his grip tightening on you as a low growl rumbled from his throat. The floor still tilted beneath you even as he held you upright, and you blinked once, and then twice, willing the feeling away.
Then you were engulfed in darkness that was cool against your skin, and you were stumbling backward until your back met a wall. Azriel started laughing against your neck, his hands still holding your hips, and he was likely the reason you didn’t completely crash into the wooden wall behind you.
You started laughing too, vaguely recognizing that you were outside of Rita’s now, only the moon lighting the dim alley. The air was cool, but it only made you feel more flushed, more exposed now that you were alone with Azriel.
Azriel resumed his kisses along your neck, trailing down to your collarbone as he slotted his thigh back between your legs. The pressure at your core was consuming, traveling upward in shaky tendrils that stole your breath and twisted your stomach.
There was a cacophony of sensations traveling through your body. Azriel’s hands on your waist. His lips on your neck. His whispers that sounded like “perfect” and “beautiful” but you couldn’t be sure because your ears sort of felt like they had been stuffed with cotton. The tension in your core that felt like a confusing blend of impending euphoria smeared with doom.
Your breaths started to grow faster, and fuck, it was really hot.
The world was spinning.
You gripped Azriel’s shoulders, and at first he sank further into you, his body melting into yours. Then your motions slowed, and your mouth was watering, and you must have pushed him back a bit, because his lips were no longer on your skin, and his hands were cupping your face.
“Hey,” he said, squeezing your face slightly to drag your eyes to him. You blinked, trying to focus, but the high you had been riding was crashing down fast, and your head was no longer blissfully floating. “Y/N,” he said, and you pulled your gaze back to him again. “Are you okay?”
He sounded worried.
Maybe you should be?
Maybe you shouldn’t have drank that last shot Mor gave you, or the one before that.
You might be really drunk.
You might—
You threw up.
Everything came rushing up, and you crumbled to the ground, knees hitting the stone hard with stray pebbles biting at your skin. You heaved, and heaved, expelling the monstrous cocktail of alcohol you had tossed down throughout the night.
Gentle hands brushed your hair away from your face, rubbing your back soothingly as you shook, irrational fear coursing through you. Maybe you were dying.
But eventually the nausea passed, and while your head still spun and your thoughts were covered in mud, you knew you were not, in fact, dying. You were just drunk.
Far drunker than you had ever been, but still just drunk.
You were also crying, but your tears were quiet and quickly wiped away by Azriel with gentle hushes. “You’re okay,” he murmured. “You’re okay, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry,” you said, or maybe it sounded more like a whimper. Your throat hurt. You weren’t sure what exactly you were apologizing for, but you felt like it needed to be said.
“No,” Azriel choked out, wiping his thumb under your eye again. He swayed a bit, or maybe that was you. “My turn to take care of you, right?”
You closed your eyes, smiling a little, leaning your head back against the wall that you somehow had ended up sitting against. Your chest pulsed with warmth again, washing away the chill that had crashed inside you, and replacing the uncomfortable heat you had been washed in moments ago.
Azriel lifted you, your body curling into his chest with ease. You hid your face against his chest, the thump of his heart calming your still racing one.
Azriel would take care of you.
You loved him.
~ ~ ~
a/n: I won't lie this part was a little hard for me to write because it felt it little bit like a filler but I needed it to get to the next part which I'm excited for!!
Summary: In the golden shadow of her sisters' post-war happiness, a forgotten Archeron sister slowly fades into the background of the Night Court, entirely unnoticed until she is captured by lingering enemies. When Azriel finally unravels the truth of her disappearance, he faces a family blind to their own negligence and a broken bond that can never be fully mended.
warnings : established rhysand!sister!reader, mention of suffering, torture, kidnapping (sort of implicit) and hurt with almost no comfort. fluff if you squint
The mountain air of Velaris was always crisp, but tonight, it felt entirely devoid of warmth.
In the months following the war with Hybern, the House of Wind had transformed into a sanctuary of recovery and joy. Feyre and Rhysand were inseparable, managing the court with a shared, unspoken language. Nesta and Cassian sparred with an intensity that burned bright, while Elain found a quiet, steady rhythm alongside Lucien. The bonds of mates were a physical force in the house, thick and consuming, anchoring everyone to a new, immortal reality.
Everyone except you.
At first, the isolation was subtle. An invitation to breakfast forgotten because a training session ran late. A conversation cutting off as you stepped into the room, not maliciously, but simply because the space had already filled with the heavy presence of coupled fates. The sisters didn't mean to do it. But the mating bond was a tidal wave, and you were a shorebird being slowly pushed inland, away from the water.
You became an afterthought in the very house you had fought to protect.
One evening, when the weight of the silence became too heavy to bear, you walked out onto the eastern balcony. The wind whipped at your hair, and you bit down on your lower lip, trying desperately to keep the tears from spilling over.
"You look miserable."
The voice came from the shadows near the stone pillar. You didn't flinch. You knew the cadence of that low, steady rumble anywhere.
"Thank you," you whispered, wiping your face quickly.
"It wasn't a compliment," Azriel said, stepping into the moonlight. His dark wings were tucked tightly against his back, his scarred hands resting lightly on the balustrade.
For the first time all week, a genuine laugh broke from your chest. It was small, but it was real. Azriel stared at you for a moment, his hazel eyes tracking the movement of your shoulders, as though he had forgotten what the sound of your laughter felt like.
Without another word, he vanished into the shadows, returning a minute later with a steaming mug of tea. He didn't offer a grand speech. He didn't make promises he couldn't keep. He just stood there, leaning against the stone beside you, letting his silence keep yours company. For someone who had spent weeks feeling invisible, it meant everything.
A few weeks later, the house was entirely empty again. Everyone had vanished into the city or the camps, leaving the halls echoing. You wandered into the library, seeking the comfort of old paper, and found Azriel deep in a stack of reconnaissance reports.
The quiet settled between you comfortably, the only sound the turning of pages. But the question that had been burning in your chest for months finally refused to be contained.
"Do you ever feel unnecessary, Azriel?"
The spymaster froze. The shadows swirling around his shoulders went entirely still, flattening against his skin. He knew that feeling better than anyone in the Night Court; he had lived in its grip for centuries.
He didn't look up from his papers, but his voice was a quiet, piercing truth. "Every day."
You closed your eyes, a strange sense of relief washing over you. You weren't fixed, and you weren't comforted, but for the first time since the Cauldron, you were understood.
But the comfort was short-lived. The next morning, Rhysand ordered Azriel to the Illyrian camps for an extended inspection—an assignment that would take weeks, possibly longer. And just like that, your one anchor was gone.
The weeks that followed didn't hurt because people were cruel. They hurt because people were careless.
You tried to reach out. You went to Feyre first, finding her at her desk in the townhouse, buried under mountains of post-war paperwork.
"Feyre, I don't think I'm doing very well," you said, your voice barely louder than a whisper.
Feyre finally paused, setting her pen down. She looked up at you, her expression softening into something so deeply empathetic that a sudden, fierce spark of hope flared in your chest. For a beautiful, fleeting second, your heart swelled—she was looking at you the way she used to. She was going to open her arms, pull you into her light, and tell you that she saw how hard you were drowning. You thought, Finally. Finally, someone understands.
Then, she spoke.
"It's probably just the adjustment, sweetie. Your Fae body is still settling."
The spark vanished, leaving behind an even deeper, freezing dark. The warmth in her eyes wasn't understanding; it was just a gentle, generalized pity.
"I've been adjusting for months."
"Y/N, you're immortal now," Feyre said, her tone shifting to a patient, slightly distracted murmur as her eyes drifted back toward her documents. "Everything feels overwhelming at first. Just give it some time."
Dismissed.
You tried Nesta next. She was out on the training rings, wiping sweat from her brow as Cassian adjusted her stance.
"Nesta, can we talk?" you asked, standing at the edge of the dust.
"Later," Nesta replied, her focus already shifting back to the wooden blade in her hand.
Later never came.
Desperate, you tried Elain. She was tending to the winter roses in the garden, a serene smile on her face. When you asked if she had a moment, she offered a warm promise: "Let's have tea tomorrow, Y/N. Just the two of us."
But tomorrow became next week. Next week became next month. Eventually, the weight of asking became heavier than the weight of the loneliness, and you stopped trying entirely.
One night, the three Archeron sisters sat in the small parlor, drinking wine while their mates were at a strategy meeting.
"She's having a difficult transition," Feyre noted, staring into her glass as she thought of your brief visit to her office.
"Still?" Nesta asked, leaning back against the cushions.
"She's always been sensitive," Feyre sighed.
"A bit dramatic, honestly," Elain agreed softly, setting down her teacup. "She always finds a way to make the silence feel like an accusation."
And just like that, the narrative was written. You weren't drowning; you were just being dramatic.
The hopelessness settled in like a thick winter fog.
One evening, you walked out of the townhouse, wandering aimlessly through the winding streets of Velaris. You weren't paying attention to the shadows, nor were you listening for footsteps. You hadn't cared about your own safety in weeks. If the world didn't notice you, why should you notice the world?
You turned down a quiet, darkened alleyway near the city's western wall. A heavy canvas hood was thrown over your head before you could even draw breath.
There was no grand struggle. Magic, cold and suffocating, bound your wrists. A sharp pain bloomed at the back of your skull, followed by a heavy, absolute silence. Then, nothing.
When you woke, you were underground. The air tasted of damp earth and old iron. Cold stone pressed against your back, and heavy chains bound your ankles to the wall. There were no windows, no torches—just the dim light of a single faelight sphere, and faces you didn't recognize. Hybern loyalists. Remnants of a broken army looking for a vulnerability to exploit.
The questions began immediately.
"What does the High Lord discuss during war councils?"
"I don't know," you rasped, your throat dry.
"What weaknesses does the Shadowsinger possess?"
"I don't know."
"How many soldiers serve the General in the north?"
"I don't know."
The interrogators didn't believe you. To them, you were an Archeron. You were the sister of the High Lady. Surely, you sat at the right hand of the Inner Circle. Surely, you knew their secrets. They didn't understand that you had been sitting at the edge of the room, invisible.
The days blurred into a singular, agonizing existence. Food arrived randomly, just enough to keep your Fae heart beating. Sleep was impossible in the freezing damp. But the physical discomfort was nothing compared to the quiet realization that grew heavier with every passing hour.
One day. Three days. Five. A week.
Nobody came.
The wards of Velaris hadn't flared. No armies were tearing the continent apart looking for you. The terrifying truth settled deep into your bones: nobody had noticed you were gone. They likely thought you were still in your room, being dramatic.
The interrogators grew frustrated with your silence. Your lack of answers was taken as stubborn defiance rather than genuine ignorance. They began to mock you, throwing words at you that cut deeper than any physical threat.
Worthless. Useless. Disposable. Dead weight.
The terrible part was that you didn't fight the words. You started believing them. They were the exact same phrases you had been whispering to yourself in the empty halls of the House of Wind.
Dead. Dead. Dead
Eventually, you stopped crying. You stopped screaming when they dragged you to the center of the room. When the cold iron bit into your skin, you simply bit down on your tongue, refusing to make a single sound.
Burdens complain. Burdens need saving. Burdens cause problems for the people who matter.
And you refused to be a burden anymore.
Two weeks after he left, Azriel returned to the House of Wind. He was covered in the dust of the Illyrian mountains, his wings aching from the long flight, but his first thought was of the balcony. He wanted to see if you were there, perhaps waiting with another quiet silence to share.
He searched the balcony. The library. The gardens. The riverwalk.
Nowhere. Your scent was completely absent from the common rooms, faded to a ghost of a memory.
He walked into the dining hall where Feyre, Nesta, and Elain were gathering for dinner. "Where is Y/N?" he asked, his voice cutting through the warmth of the room.
Feyre shrugged, adjusting a silverware setting. "Probably wandering. She's been doing that a lot lately."
Nesta didn't look up from her book. "She does that when she wants attention."
Elain let out a soft, dismissive laugh. "She's likely trying to make a point because we've been busy with the winter preparations."
The air in the room instantly turned to ice. Azriel's shadows didn't just rise; they exploded. Dark, suffocating midnight flooded the dining hall, extinguishing the candles and rattling the glass fixtures.
"What do you mean, trying to make a point?" Azriel hissed, his face completely pale, his eyes flashing with a terrifying, lethal light.
Nobody answered. The sisters shrank back, shocked by the sudden violence in his demeanor.
Then Feyre spoke, her tone exasperated. "Azriel, honestly, she's always been dramatic. She'll come back when she's done moping."
In that single second, every strange interaction from the past year clicked into place in Azriel's mind. The exhaustion in your eyes. The way you looked at your sisters as if they were miles away. The desperate, quiet question in the library.
He looked at the three sisters, and a horrifying realization struck him.
Nobody had actually seen you in weeks.
Azriel didn't waste another breath. He slammed through the doors of Rhysand's study, where the High Lord was deep in conversation with Cassian and Lucien.
"Where is she?" Azriel demanded, his hands trembling with a rage that shook the foundations of the room.
Rhysand frowned, standing up. "Azriel, calm down. What are you—"
"Your mate," Azriel snarled, pointing a finger at Rhys, then turning his lethal gaze to Cassian and Lucien. "Your mates. They let her walk out. They let her disappear because they thought she was brooding. They haven't looked for her in weeks."
Cassian immediately stepped forward, his jaw set, his defensive instincts flaring for Nesta. "Watch your tone, Az. Y/N is fine. Nesta said she just needed space."
"She isn't fine!" Azriel roared, the sound tearing from his throat like a wounded animal. "She's gone. Her room is freezing, her scent is dead, and your mates think she's playing a game for attention!"
The room went entirely still.
Lucien looked down at his hands, a sudden, sickening memory hitting him. Every time he had asked Elain where you were over the past fortnight, she had murmured that you were resting, that you didn't want to be disturbed. They haven't told the males anything. They had kept it to themselves, a small domestic annoyance they thought they were managing.
Rhysand's face went completely bloodless as he reached out with his power, sweeping the city's wards. There was no trace of your signature. Anywhere.
"She's gone," Azriel whispered, the absolute finality of the words freezing the room to its core.
The search was an exercise in pure terror.
For three days, the Night Court became a living nightmare. Azriel didn't sleep, his shadows tearing through every alleyway, every border, every whisper in the wind. Rhysand ripped through the minds of every traveler passing through the territory, while Cassian scoured the skies and Lucien tracked the physical borders.
Finally, deep in a forgotten valley near the cracked perimeter of the court, Azriel's shadows caught the faint, metallic scent of blood and old iron.
The assault on the subterranean stronghold was completely merciless. There was no negotiation, no questioning. Cassian and Azriel tore through the heavy stone doors like a thunderstorm, leaving the captors no time to even raise their weapons.
When the dust cleared, Azriel kicked open the final iron door at the end of the corridor.
You were curled into the furthest corner of the damp cell, your knees pulled tight to your chest. Your clothes were ruined, your skin pale and mapped with the physical toll of a two-week confinement. Your eyes were wide, staring unseeingly at the doorway, flinching violently at the sound of the heavy footsteps.
At first, your mind couldn't process the dark wings or the blue siphons. You just saw figures coming into the dark again.
Then, Azriel dropped to his knees in front of you, his hands shaking so violently he couldn't bring himself to touch you. "Y/N," he choked out, his voice cracking. "Y/N, it's me. I've got you."
You didn't cry. You didn't reach for him. Instead, a panicked, desperate expression flooded your face, and you tried to press yourself deeper into the solid stone wall.
"I didn't tell them anything," you whispered, your voice a ragged, broken thing that made Cassian freeze in the doorway. "I swear I didn't."
"Y/N, stop, look at me—"
"I know I'm not useful," you sobbed, the words tumbling out in a terrifying, rushed panic, your eyes wide and pleading. "I know I'm a burden. I know I don't belong here. But I didn't tell them anything. Please... please don't let them take me back. I'll do better. I'll stay in my room. I'll be quiet. I promise."
You looked directly into Azriel's hazel eyes, your lips trembling. "Don't let them do that again."
In that exact, devastating second, something primordial and violent snapped into place inside Azriel's chest. A golden bond of pure, undeniable light flared to life in the darkness, connecting his soul directly to yours.
The mating bond didn't bring warmth or celebration. It brought the collective weight of every single night you had spent believing you were nothing. It brought the echo of every silent tear you had shed on that balcony.
Azriel's shadows completely swallowed the room, turning the space into a void of absolute wrath. He lunged forward, gathering your fragile form against his chest, his wings wrapping around you so tightly that the rest of the world vanished. He buried his face in your hair, a low, terrifying growl vibrating against your skin.
"Never again," he promised against your ear, his voice rough with a lethal vow. "Never again."
They brought you back to the House of Wind, but the home you returned to was dead.
The physical wounds healed under the care of the healers, but the silence remained. Only now, it was a silence born of profound guilt and terror.
You didn't trust anyone. Especially your sisters.
Every time Feyre entered a room, you didn't yell or accuse her. You simply flinched, your shoulders tightening as you quietly stepped away toward the window. It wasn't anger; it was the simple, devastating memory that when you had begged for help, she had looked at a piece of paper instead. You remembered that nobody came.
Nesta tried to apologize one afternoon, standing at the door of your bedroom with her hands clenched at her sides, her eyes red. "Y/N... we didn't know. If we had only realized—"
You looked at her from the bed, your expression entirely hollow. "I know."
Nothing else. No anger, no screaming, no tears. Just an acceptance that cut Nesta deeper than any blade ever could.
When Elain came to your bedside, she broke down, weeping openly into her hands, overwhelmed by the horror of what her carelessness had allowed. You reached out, your pale hand gently patting her shoulder, comforting her out of sheer, ingrained habit.
And that act completely destroyed the house. Because even now, broken and hollowed out by their neglect, you were still the one taking care of them.
Months passed.
The seasons shifted toward winter, and the house remained quiet. But you were never alone. Azriel never left your side. When the nightmares woke you in a cold sweat, he was sitting in the chair by the hearth. When the panic attacks made it impossible to breathe, his shadows gently wrapped around your shoulders, muting the sounds of the world just as he had promised. He said very little, but he stayed. He knew you no longer believed in words.
One night, months after the rescue, you found yourself standing on the balcony where it had all begun. The stars were bright over Velaris, casting a silver glow over the snow-dusted rooftops.
The shadows shifted, and Azriel stepped out beside you, his presence a steady, familiar warmth against the winter chill. Neither of you spoke for a long time, watching the city lights twinkle below.
"Did you know?" you asked quietly, your eyes fixed on the horizon.
Azriel's breath caught in his throat. He turned his head to look at you, his features soft in the moonlight. "Know what?"
You didn't look at him. You just kept staring at the city that had forgotten you. "That I was disappearing."
A long, agonizing silence settled over the balcony. The wind sighed through the chasm of the mountains.
"Yes," Azriel whispered, his voice rough and thick with an old, lingering grief.
You closed your eyes, a single, hot tear slipping down your cheek. For the first time since you had been taken, the tight knot in your chest loosened slightly. You weren't crazy. You hadn't been dramatic. Someone had seen you slipping into the dark.
"I just didn't realize how far you'd fallen," Azriel added, his hand finally reaching out to cover yours on the cold stone.
And there, under the indifferent stars of Velaris, you finally let yourself cry. Not from fear, and not from pain, but because someone had finally admitted the truth. They should have noticed. And sometimes, that is the only apology that can begin to heal the break.
A/N: IM BACKKK Y'ALL, some of you may have noticed that anchor was deleted with the exception of the first part, i am aware of this but this was mainly done because i feel like i have grown a lot from the time i took a break and feel the idea did not do my writing justice, so i present this piece of work!! english is not my first language so please tell me if i made grammar mistakes anywhere. also lmk if you want to be added to the permanent taglist!
It streaked in silver ribbons down the wide panes of glass, turning Velaris into a watercolour of blurred rooftops and muted skies.
I curled into the window seat, knees tucked beneath me, cheek pressed against the cool wall as I traced the meandering path of a single droplet with my finger.
My world, for the last few weeks, had been narrowed to this, quiet rooms, borrowed clothes, Rhysand's steady presence just near enough to remind me I was safe.
The door clicked softly.
"I need to talk to you."
The words cut through the hush, heavy with something unspoken. I turned, blinking, and found him standing there.
Rhysand. High Lord of the Night Court. Shadows and starlight and violet eyes that had seen too much. His face was carefully schooled, unreadable and that was what made my stomach twist.
"Okay..." My voice sounded smaller than I meant it to. "Did I... do something wrong?"
His reaction was immediate, almost startled. "No. No—gods, no." His face softened, the tension slipping from his jaw, those eyes settling on me with something gentle.
He crossed the room, slow, deliberate, and sat on the other end of the window ledge. The cushion dipped beneath his weight, the smallest shift bringing his warmth close enough to feel.
For a long moment, he only looked at me. Then, in a voice that carried all the gravity of a promise, he spoke.
"I need to confess something."
My heart leapt into my throat.
He exhaled, gaze steady, as though choosing each word with care. "I have located the males who... who hurt you." His jaw clenched, the words almost breaking against his teeth.
I froze. The rain outside blurred into nothing.
"What I mean to say is..." He faltered, then pressed on, voice low but certain. "If you wish to have them punished—in any way you see fit—I can make that happen. No one will question it. No one will touch you. You need only tell me what you want."
The silence after stretched wide, ringing in my ears.
I stared at him, at this male who could break Courts, who had levelled mountains, who had endured unspeakable horrors of his own.
His expression was open, unguarded. Violet eyes holding nothing but patience, waiting.
I looked down at my lap, fingers twisting the hem of my shirt.
The thought of seeing them again—Levi, Avi, turned my blood to ice. My lungs seized, my body still remembering the alley, the hands, the laughter that wasn't laughter at all.
I could not. I could not stand before them.
And yet if they were left unchecked, how many others would be dragged into shadows? How many others had already been silenced the way I was?
The war raged inside me until my voice finally broke free, barely a whisper.
"I do not wish to see them again." My throat ached with the admission. "But they must be punished."
Rhysand inclined his head, as though he had expected nothing less. His voice was quiet, but iron threaded through it. "They should be."
My lip trembled. "Is it cowardly... to not want to face them again?" The words came out ragged, shame burning hot in my chest. "To want them gone, but—never to see them?"
His reply was immediate, fierce. "No."
I looked at him, startled by the force of it. His gaze locked on mine, steady as the Sidra itself. "It is not cowardice to protect yourself. It is not weakness to choose healing over blood. You survived what they did. You don't owe them your presence, or your forgiveness, or even your rage. Wanting justice without wanting to stand in their shadow again..."
His voice softened, broke a little. "That is strength. That is survival."
The tears I'd been holding back spilt over, hot against my skin. "I just don't want anyone else to—" My voice cracked, the rest lost in the weight of everything I could not say.
Rhysand's hand hovered in the space between us, close, but not touching. His restraint was a vow in itself.
"No one else will. Not by their hands." His jaw tightened. "That, I swear to you."
Something in me unclenched. Slowly, painfully, like a fist opening after too long clenched.
Currently the dining room was awash in candlelight, the golden glow catching on the crystal decanters and silver serving trays that cluttered the long table.
Laughter echoed off the walls, easy, bright laughter that only seemed to live here.
For days, I had imagined it drifting through doors and hallways, distant and muffled. Tonight, for the first time, I sat among it.
I wasn't sure how Rhysand had convinced me.
Perhaps it wasn't convincing at all. Perhaps it was just the way he had asked, so casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for me to join his family for dinner.
And perhaps it was because for the first time since that night I didn't immediately recoil at the thought.
So now I found myself seated at the table, between Rhysand and Amren, the others already gathered, plates full and chatter spilling easily.
"This is my friend," Rhysand had said when he'd guided me into the room.
A friend. The word had caught me off guard, but not unpleasantly. It was simple. Solid. Something I could hold onto.
Mor, all sunshine and silk, had beamed at me as if I were a long-lost sister.
"Finally! I was wondering when Rhys was going to stop hogging you all to himself." She winked, sliding a basket of bread toward me. "I'm Mor. Eat. Please. If you don't, Cassian will just steal your food anyway."
Cassian, sprawled across his chair like a lazy cat, shot her a look that was more bark than bite.
His eyes, though, hazel, warm, guilty shifted to me. "About the other night..." His voice trailed off, a rough edge cutting through his usual swagger.
Azriel, beside him, was quieter, but I could feel his shadows even before his voice joined in. Low, solemn. "We didn't mean to frighten you. We should have been more careful."
The air seemed to still. All their eyes were on me, waiting.
For a heartbeat, the memory of that night pressed in, flashing, sharp, suffocating. My throat tightened.
But then I looked around the table, Mor's hopeful smile, Amren's unblinking curiosity, Cassian and Azriel watching me as if I held the weight of their guilt in my hands, and Rhysand beside me, steady as a mountain.
I exhaled. Shook my head. "You don't need to apologise." My voice wavered, but I forced myself to continue. "You didn't know. And... I'm fine."
Cassian's brows furrowed, as though he wanted to argue. But I gave him a small smile, fragile, maybe, but real. "Truly. I'm fine."
Something eased in the room then, a subtle shift I could almost feel in my bones.
Conversation picked up again, lighter this time, Mor launching into a story about some poor shopkeeper who'd tried to flirt with Azriel, Amren rolling her eyes with all the disdain of an ancient creature trapped at a table with children.
I listened. I even laughed, quiet, startled, but real. The sound of it seemed to surprise them all, though none more than me.
By the time dessert appeared, something chocolate and decadent Cassian nearly inhaled the knot in my chest had loosened just enough that I leaned back in my chair and let myself look around the table.
I didn't belong here. Not really. And yet... for the first time since that night, I felt something like safety. Something like being tethered back to the world.
Maybe even dare I believe it, something like healing.
Rhysand's POV -
The street was quiet when we arrived, the pale light of dawn barely spilling over the rooftops. Velaris was still yawning awake, the Sidra in the distance a hushed ribbon of silver-blue.
And there she stood, at the threshold of her home. Her hands twisted in front of her, her eyes fixed on the door as though it might bare its teeth.
I didn't rush her. Gods knew I understood the weight of walking back into a place where the walls remembered too much.
"You don't have to do this today," I said softly, keeping my distance. Not too far. Not too close. "The townhouse is yours for as long as you want it. No one will question it."
Her breath hitched just barely. She shook her head. "If I stay, I'll never leave. And I... I need to. I need to try. My roommate's already gone, after everything... after them. The place is empty now. It's just me. I have to learn how to stand here again. To go back to work. To live."
Bravery came in many forms. I'd seen it on battlefields, in the throne rooms of tyrants, in the dark, quiet moments when a soul chose to fight another day.
But this, this was a kind of courage that hollowed me out.
I stepped closer, my voice low. "Then do it. On your terms. And if it gets too heavy—if you need air, or silence, or just someone to sit with you—I'll be there. Always."
She looked up at me then. Gods, those eyes. So much had been taken from her, torn and bruised and burned away.
And still, still she managed to meet my gaze without flinching.
Her lip trembled, though a faint smile pulled at it too. "Do you think... do you think we'll stay friends?"
The question was small, hesitant. As if friendship with me, the most dangerous male in Prythian was some fragile, impossible gift.
My chest ached with the weight of it.
I wanted to tell her she was already far more than that to me. That she was a living reminder of resilience, of quiet strength that demanded reverence.
But I only reached out, careful, and let my hand rest lightly over hers.
"Of course we will," I said, my voice a vow more than a reassurance. "No matter where you go, or how far you drift, you'll always have me as your friend."
Her shoulders eased, just slightly, as though the words settled into the cracks of her armour.
Her hand moved beneath mine. I thought she might pull away, thought she might retreat into that quiet shell of hers that I had come to respect, to protect.
But then she moved. Not back. Not away. Forward.
Her arms lifted, hesitant as a trembling leaf in the wind, before circling around me. Her body pressed lightly, carefully, against mine.
The first touch she had ever offered.
For a moment, I froze, not out of discomfort, but out of the sheer reverence of it. The enormity of what this meant.
For someone who had every reason to fear touch, to distrust closeness, to flinch at even the brush of laughter in the air... she had chosen to close the space between us.
My throat tightened. I let my arms hover at her back, not caging, not gripping, just resting, as though anchoring her without ever binding her.
She smelled faintly of rain and soap, and beneath that, the quiet, unbroken pulse of someone who had endured hell and still stood.
"I..." Her voice cracked against my chest. She pressed her forehead there as though it steadied her. "I just wanted to say thank you."
Her words were muffled, but I felt them all the same.
When she finally pulled back, her eyes were shimmering, but not with panic. With something gentler. Something fragile, and new.
Before I could speak, she leaned in again, so quick, so tentative and pressed her lips against my cheek. A whisper of a kiss, softer than starlight.
It wasn't desire. It wasn't desperation. It was trust. Pure, aching trust.
The kind I knew the cost of. The kind I hadn't thought I'd ever be worthy of again.
I let out a breath I hadn't realised I was holding, my hand brushing, just once along her arm as though to return the vow without words.
We stood like that for a long moment, the silence between us not empty, but whole. She wasn't healed. Neither was I. Maybe we never would be, not entirely.
But we were still here.
Still breathing. Still fighting. Still choosing, day after day, to live.
Two souls marked by different horrors, bound not by what had been done to us, but by the unyielding truth that we had survived it.
And standing with her there, on that quiet street with dawn breaking over Velaris, I knew that was enough.
A/n - Final Part! I didn't focus too heavily on the 'justice' in this because, in reality, it's rarely fair. Sadly, far too many survivors never see accountability, nearly 98% of perpetrators are never held responsible.
She goes home. She chooses to take that first step back into her own life. And when she initiates physical contact for the first time, it's not just touch—it's trust. Those are enormous milestones for her, and for what this story represents!!
The next fic is called "Terms and Conditions" and it's an Azris x reader. The masterlist is already posted for anybody interested and it's surrogacy AU with a contract/arrangement romance :)
Thank you so much for reading if you've made it this far. I know it's different from my usual stuff, but it's a story I really wanted to tell <33
In Autumn, rain turned the forest floor slick with mud and rot. It drowned kindling, ruined roads, and made the hounds restless. It crept beneath collars and cuffs, cold and persistent, until even the finest velvet felt like a second skin made of discomfort.
Rain in Autumn was not beautiful.
It was inconvenient.
It was another thing to endure.
So when the skies over Adriata darkened halfway through negotiations, Eris felt the first thread of annoyance coil behind his ribs.
Not enough to show, of course.
He sat perfectly still at Tarquin’s left, one ankle crossed neatly over the other, spine straight, expression carved into the sort of mild interest that had made older, crueler males underestimate him for centuries.
Across the table, Tarquin spoke of trade routes and border protections with the easy grace of a High Lord who had never needed to raise his voice to be heard.
That, more than anything, irritated Eris.
Summer was too bright.
Too open.
Too warm even with storm clouds gathering over the sea.
The palace smelled of salt and citrus and rain-soaked stone. The windows had been left open to catch the breeze, sheer curtains lifting and falling like slow breaths along the walls.
In Autumn, windows were closed before storms.
Doors were barred.
Fires were fed.
Here, no one seemed concerned that the sky had begun to split itself open.
A low roll of thunder passed over the city.
One of Tarquin’s advisors glanced toward the balcony and smiled.
Smiled.
As if rain were a guest.
Eris looked back down at the parchment in front of him and reminded himself, again, why he was there.
Beron wanted information and he wanted weaknesses.
Beron wanted to know whether Summer’s young High Lord had grown comfortable enough on his throne to become careless.
Eris had been sent to watch and listen.
To smile when necessary and remember everything.
He had not been sent to think about the way the people in the courtyard below laughed when the first heavy drops began to fall.
He had not been sent to notice how no one ran for shelter.
He certainly had not been sent to wonder what it must be like, to live somewhere a storm did not make everyone flinch.
“Lord Vanserra?”
Eris lifted his gaze.
Tarquin was watching him from the head of the table, mouth curved in something that was almost polite. Almost amused.
“Do you find the proposal disagreeable?”
Eris let his own smile answer first.
A careful thing.
Court-trained.
Empty where it needed to be.
“Not at all,” he said smoothly. “I was merely considering whether your merchants would honor the same protections on Autumn roads.”
“They would,” Tarquin said.
“So confidently?”
“My people do not break agreements made under my name.”
A simple statement.
No threat tucked beneath it.
No sharp edge.
Eris inclined his head. “How fortunate for them.”
Tarquin’s smile did not change, but something in his eyes sharpened.
There was the High Lord beneath all that summer charm after all .
The meeting continued.
Rain tapped against the balcony tiles. Then it fell harder. Then harder still, until the open windows filled the room with the sound of it, steady and endless.
Eris could hear the city beyond the palace.
The distant call of vendors covering their stalls. The delighted shriek of children somewhere below. Music, faint at first, then rising in uneven bursts as if someone had taken shelter under an awning and decided the storm was reason enough to play.
He ignored it.
He was very good at ignoring beautiful things.
Beauty was often a distraction.
A polished blade. A painted trap. A pretty smile hiding a clever mouth.
Another laugh rose from below.
Bright and young.
Several voices this time.
Tarquin paused.
Not long enough for anyone else to notice, perhaps.
But Eris did.
The High Lord’s attention shifted, just briefly, toward the balcony. His expression softened in a way Eris had no name for.
Then one of the advisors near the door chuckled.
“She must have made it back from the lower district.”
Another answered, “Of course she did. The children would have dragged her by the skirts if she tried to stay away.”
Tarquin shook his head, but there was no reprimand in it.
Only fondness.
Open and unashamed.
Eris looked from one face to the next, filing the reaction away.
There it was.
A weakness, perhaps.
Or at least something worth knowing.
“She?” he asked lightly.
The conversation stilled by half a breath.
Not with fear. With surprise.
As if the idea of him not knowing was stranger than the question itself.
Tarquin leaned back in his chair.
“My sister,” he said.
Eris kept his expression pleasant.
“I was not aware Summer had another royal figure so involved in trade negotiations.”
“She is not involved in trade negotiations.”
“No?”
“No,” Tarquin said, that sharpness returning beneath the warmth. “She is a healer.”
A healer.
Eris almost lost interest.
Then the music below grew louder, joined by clapping. Children’s voices rang through the rain, chanting a name.
Her name, he realized.
Again and again.
Not milady.
Not Lady.
Not some polished title set carefully behind rank and distance.
Her name.
Spoken like a blessing.
Spoken like a favorite song.
Something in Eris went very still.
Tarquin noticed.
Of course he did.
“My sister is well loved here,” the High Lord said.
It sounded casual.
Eris smiled faintly. “So I hear.”
A child shrieked with laughter below, so loudly that even the eldest advisor at the table looked toward the balcony.
Tarquin sighed, but the sound had no irritation in it.
Only resignation and what Eris could only assume to be affection.
Then he stood, the room shifting with him.
“I believe we have earned a pause,” Tarquin said, gathering the signed parchments with one hand. “The rain will make the eastern docks difficult to inspect until it passes.”
Eris rose with the others.
“How unfortunate,” he said.
Tarquin glanced at him before gesturing to an arch way that seemed to lead to the square in the town below.
Eris followed the High Lord of Summer, curiosity about this ‘she’ getting the best of him.
“Do you dislike rain, Lord Vanserra?”
“I dislike most things that make a mess.”
That earned a quiet laugh from one of the advisors.
Tarquin only smiled.
“Then Summer may prove challenging for you.”
The next few minutes passed in silence.
Or what would have been silence, if not for the rain and the music in the square before them.
Eris looked toward the square.
Beyond the rain-slick stone, Adriata gleamed beneath the storm. White buildings curved toward the sea, their golden rooftops dulled beneath silver rain. The bay beyond them was restless and shining, waves folding over themselves beneath the dark sky.
People had gathered.
Not fled, like they would in Autumn, but gathered.
Children splashed through puddles. Women lifted their skirts and laughed beneath awnings. An old man played a fiddle with a pipe clenched between his teeth while two younger males clapped beside him.
And at the center of it all was her.
Eris knew before anyone said it.
She stood barefoot in the rain, skirts soaked around her ankles, darkened by water and movement. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, healer’s satchel still hanging crookedly from one shoulder. Flowers had been tucked into her hair by small, clumsy hands, and more were scattered in the puddles around her feet.
A little boy stood in front of her, one knee freshly bandaged, tears still drying on his cheeks.
She bowed to him with all the solemn grace of a court lady greeting a king.
The child giggled.
Then she offered him her hand.
The boy took it, and she spun him once, carefully, mindful of his injured knee. He laughed so hard he nearly tripped, and she caught him before he could fall, laughing with him like the rain had washed every bit of rank from her shoulders.
Another child ran forward.
Then another.
Someone threw more flowers.
They landed in her hair, against her shoulders, in the puddles, bright petals scattered over rainwater like pieces of sunlight the storm had failed to drown.
Eris did not move.
He should have looked away.
There were too many eyes.
Too many witnesses.
Too much softness in the scene, and softness was dangerous when seen by anyone who knew how to use it against you.
But he could not look away.
She danced as if the whole city knew the steps and she had merely remembered them first.
A baker took her hand, spinning her beneath his arm.
An old woman swatted him aside and stole the next turn, laughing when the healer kissed her wrinkled cheek.
A guard in Summer blue bowed deeply, one hand pressed over his heart, and she rolled her eyes before letting him lead her through three dramatic steps that made the children howl with delight.
Then Tarquin appeared at the edge of the square.
Eris had not realized the High Lord had moved.
She saw him immediately.
Her face lighting up.
Not with duty. Not with practiced respect.
With the kind of joy Eris had only ever seen children give freely before someone taught them better.
She crossed the square in three quick steps, seized her brother’s hand, and dragged him into the rain.
Tarquin protested.
Badly.
No one stopped her.
Not the children chanting louder. Not the advisors watching from the edge of the square with Eris. Not the guards pretending not to smile.
Certainly not Eris.
Tarquin allowed himself to be pulled into the dance for one full turn before catching his sister by the waist and spinning her away from him. She laughed, head tipped back, rain clinging to her lashes and flowers slipping loose from her hair.
And Eris forgot, for one terrible second, where he was.
No wonder, he thought.
The words came unbidden.
Unwelcome even.
No wonder they love her.
She was not beautiful in the way Autumn preferred beauty.
Not arranged or contained, not polished into something cold enough to admire from a distance, not quiet and unseen like his mother.
She was rain-warm skin and bare feet on stone. A healer’s hands and a royal spine. A laugh that made children brave enough to reach for her. A face turned toward the storm like she trusted the sky not to strike her down for daring to be happy beneath it.
In Autumn, joy like that would have been punished.
In Autumn, someone would have told her to lower her voice.
To fix her hair.
To remember who was watching.
Here, they only loved her louder.
Eris felt something ancient and foolish twist behind his ribs.
A memory, perhaps.
Or the ghost of one.
There once had been a boy who looked like him.
A boy with a wandering mind and a heart too large for the house that raised him.
A boy who had looked out rain-streaked windows and imagined roads beyond the forest. A boy who dreamed of seas he had never touched. Cities where no one knew his father’s name.
That boy had been corrected.
Sharpened and buried.
And yet, watching Tarquin’s sister dance barefoot in the rain with flowers in her hair, Eris felt the earth shift over the grave.
As if something underneath had heard the music.
As if something dead had remembered it had once wanted to live.
Then she looked up.
Straight at him.
The dance continued around her, but her steps slowed.
Only for a breath.
Only long enough for their eyes to meet through the silver fall of rain.
Eris held her gaze.
He did not smile. He did not bow. He did not let a single piece of himself reach for the strange, impossible warmth blooming in his chest.
But she smiled.
Not politely.
Not because he was a lord from another court and she had been trained to offer pleasant expressions to dangerous males.
She smiled like she had caught him standing too far from the music.
Like she knew. Like she could see, somehow, that he had forgotten how to step into the rain.
Then a child tugged on her hand, and she turned away, laughing as she was pulled back into the spinning heart of the square.
Eris remained where he was.
Dry beneath the awning above. Perfectly composed.
Untouched by the rain.
Yet somehow utterly ruined by it.
He had lost sight of her.
For one brief, foolish moment, Eris hated that he noticed.
The square had shifted again, bodies turning with the music, children cutting through the spaces between adults like bright little fish through water. Flowers floated in the puddles and collected along the edges of the stone streets, petals bruised beneath dancing feet.
Tarquin made his way back to Eris with rain dripping from his curls and a grin he did not bother hiding.
It looked strange on a High Lord.
Joy being worn so openly. Being given so carelessly it would have been a death sentence anywhere else.
“You survived,” Eris said.
Tarquin glanced down at his soaked sleeves, then back at him. “Barely.”
“You may want better guards.”
“My sister is more dangerous than most of them.”
Eris looked toward the square before he could stop himself.
Tarquin noticed. Of course he noticed.
But whatever he might have said was stolen by a burst of laughter from the crowd.
The music changed. Faster now. Brighter. Hands clapping in rhythm beneath the rain. Someone called out a count, and the children answered too loudly, their voices tripping over each other in their excitement.
Then the crowd parted. Not dramatically, or out of fear.
Simply because people made room for her the way flowers turned toward the sun.
She stepped out from between a laughing pair of fishermen, cheeks flushed from the dance, hair damp and curling around the flowers tangled there. Her healer’s satchel had been abandoned somewhere. One sleeve had slipped loose from where she had rolled it, and a child’s ribbon was tied messily around her wrist.
She looked less like a milady than she did a story the city had agreed to keep telling.
Eris went still.
She came toward them. Not toward Tarquin, but toward him.
Each step splashed lightly through the rain-slick stone. Close enough now that Eris could see the droplets clinging to her lashes. Close enough to see the small scar near the base of her thumb, pale against wet skin. A healer’s scar, perhaps. Or a child’s accident. Or something sharper.
She stopped just beyond the awning.
Just far enough into the rain that reaching for her would require him to leave the shelter.
Clever, he thought.
Then hated that he thought it.
Her eyes flicked over him, not rudely, not with the cold assessment most courts favored, but with something warmer. Curiosity, perhaps.
As if he were a puzzle someone had left unfinished.
“Lord Vanserra,” she said.
Her voice was softer than he expected.
Eris inclined his head. "Milady."
Her nose wrinkled.
Tarquin huffed a laugh beside him.
“No one calls me that here,” she said.
“I gathered.”
“Then why did you?”
“Habit.”
“Well, we all have our bad habits.”
Eris’s mouth almost curved.
“That is a bold accusation from a female standing barefoot in a storm.”
She looked down at her feet, as if only just remembering the rain existed, then back at him with a smile that made something in his chest tighten in warning.
“It is only water.”
“In Autumn, water usually becomes mud.”
“In Summer, it becomes music.”
As if to prove her point, the crowd behind her clapped louder, the rhythm rolling over the square like a second heartbeat. Children shouted her name again, begging her to return.
She did not look back, instead she held out her hand.
Rain slipped over her knuckles and down the lines of her palm.
Eris stared at it.
The offer was simple, and that was what made the whole ordeal so unbearable.
There was no courtly trap. No demand hidden beneath sweet words. No watching nobles waiting to see whether he would make a mistake they could sharpen later.
Just her hand.
Open, an invitation being presented patiently. As if she had all the time in the world.
“Dance with us,” she said.
Tarquin went rigid beside him..
The square seemed to breathe around them.
Eris could feel every possible answer arrange itself behind his teeth.
A flirtation. A refusal. A clever remark. A cruelty. Anything to put distance between him and the feeling in his chest.
He had always known how to make distance.
It was one of the first things Autumn had taught him. How to keep space between himself and anything soft enough to bruise. How to turn longing into disdain before anyone else could see it. How to look at an open door and convince himself it was a cage.
Her hand remained between them.
Wet from the rain.
Flower petals stuck to the hem of her dress.
He did not take it.
“I do not dance in the rain,” Eris said.
The words came out smooth.
A lie dressed well enough to pass inspection.
Her smile did not falter.
That was the worst of it.
She did not seem embarrassed. She did not withdraw as if rejected. She did not look at him like he had disappointed her.
She only lowered her hand slowly, fingers curling back toward her palm.
“That’s all right,” she said.
Eris waited for the pity. The teasing. The little cut that would make this easier.
It never came.
Her gaze softened instead, and somehow that was far more devastating.
“Not everyone knows how to dance in the rain.”
The sentence struck with no edge at all.
Still, Eris felt it land.
Beneath the mask he had so carefully put on that morning. Beneath the cruel words and glares he gave others.
In some forgotten place he had stopped guarding because he had assumed it dead.
Tarquin looked away.
A kindness, perhaps.
Eris held her gaze and gave her nothing. Not even the truth.
If he had been younger, perhaps he would have taken her hand.
If Autumn had not already carved him into something they deemed useful.
But he was not younger.
He was a Vanserra.
The next in line to be High Lord of Autumn.
“Then I will leave the talent to Summer,” he said.
She nodded once, as if accepting that too.
Then she turned, stepping back further into the rain as if returning to something that had never once questioned whether she belonged.
A little girl darted toward her immediately, clutching a fistful of yellow flowers. She bent to listen, serious as any general receiving orders before battle.
Whatever the child said made her laugh.
The sound slipped under the awning.
Eris hated how easily it found him.
The girl thrust the flowers up, and Tarquin’s sister accepted them with a bow before pressing one behind the child’s ear. Then she kept one for herself, twirling the stem between her fingers while the music rose again.
She did not return to the center immediately.
Instead, she stood with the others at the edge of the circle and clapped along.
A young mother leaned close to say something in her ear. She listened, brow knitting with concern, then touched the woman’s arm gently. Whatever answer she gave made the woman exhale as if she had been holding worry in both hands.
A boy tugged at her skirt.
An elderly male kissed her knuckles.
A guard bent his head so she could scold him about the bandage wrapped beneath his sleeve.
Loved, Eris thought again.
Not admired. Not obeyed out of fear.
Loved.
And she wore it like rain.
As if it had never occurred to her to be afraid of what people might do with that much of her heart exposed.
“You are staring,” Tarquin said quietly.
Eris did not look at him. “I am observing.”
“Is that what Autumn calls it?”
“Among other things.”
Tarquin’s gaze remained on his sister. His face had softened again, but the High Lord beneath it was still there. Watching. Weighing. Deciding how close a male like Eris Vanserra was allowed to stand to something so clearly cherished.
“She asks everyone, you know,” Tarquin said.
“To dance?”
“To join in.”
Eris finally looked at him.
Tarquin’s expression was unreadable now.
“She believes most people want to,” he continued. “Even when they pretend otherwise.”
Rain dripped steadily from the awning between them.
Tarquin watched his sister clap with the crowd, flowers in her hand, head tilted toward another child who had begun speaking animatedly at her side.
“She claims it’s freeing. I suppose that would be worse in Autumn than it is here.”
Eris said nothing.
There was no useful answer to that.
The music softened eventually. Not ended, not truly. It only loosened its grip on the square, becoming background noise again as vendors returned to their stalls and children were gathered by damp, laughing parents.
Tarquin gestured back toward the palace.
“We should finish the agreements before the docks flood.”
“How practical of you.”
“I do try.”
Eris followed him back beneath the archways, away from the rain, away from the music, away from her.
He did not look back.
Not once.
That, at least, was something he could control.
The rest of the meeting passed as meetings did.
Ink dried. Terms were adjusted. Tarquin argued with irritating fairness.
Eris smiled when expected, countered when necessary, and tucked away every detail Beron would demand from him upon his return.
Trade routes. Dock schedules. Guard rotations. Names.
Weaknesses.
He should have counted Tarquin’s sister among them.
The beloved healer.
The lady who walked barefoot through storms and made an entire city soften around her.
She was an obvious vulnerability.
A thread that, pulled correctly, could unravel a High Lord.
Eris wrote nothing of her.
When he returned to Autumn, the rain followed three days later.
It came in the evening, cold and gray, tapping against the windows of his private rooms like impatient fingers.
Eris stood before the glass and watched the forest darken beneath it.
Mud gathering between roots.
Mist curling through the trees.
The hounds shifting restlessly in the kennels below.
Rain in Autumn was not beautiful.
It was inconvenient.
It was another thing to endure.
Still, when thunder rolled over the estate, Eris thought of golden rooftops dulled beneath silver light.
Of flowers in puddles and a hand held out just beyond shelter.
Not everyone knows how to dance in the rain.
His fingers curled at his side.
For one strange, impossible moment, he wondered what would have happened if he had stepped forward.
Then he turned from the window.
In Summer, when the rain returned to Adriata and the city gathered again near the bay, Tarquin’s sister paused at the edge of the dancing crowd.
Tarquin’s sister paused at the edge of the dancing crowd.
Across the square, beneath the awning, there was a flash of red and gold.
There for a breath.
Then gone.
She smiled anyway.
And when the children called her name, she stepped into the rain.
Ya girl is back!! After disappearing for I don’t even know how many weeks actually 😅😅 also side note, very much in my feels so if you have any emotional, angsty, fic requests, ACOTAR, the Pitt, etc. send them my way, my brain be itching to write so please send some ideasss.
I will be updating Trial by Fire soon once I get back in the groove a bit more, and I haven’t forgotten about the Hundredth Dawn either so updates for both of those are outlined, and are on their way
Anddd if anyone’s wondering/cares lol here’s a lil life update from me:
Truly thought I was back for good, then got laid off, which led to me reconsidering my entire career plan, had a family member go in for an unexpected surgery (thankfully they’re okay now) and to top it all off found out some not great medical news, and was sick and in bed for like 3 weeks, fell into a wonderful depressive hole there for a while, truly felt like my main character moment there but good news! Pulling myself out of this funk one day at a time now that something unexpected isn’t happening every 3 days and have finally found it in me to start writing again!! Frankly, things could have ended up a lot worse, so here I am just trying to appreciate the unknown and motivating myself to one small thing a day.
This ended up being longer than I thought but thank you all for the very sweet check-in messages and comments, even though I didn’t respond always it always did truly brighten my day so I genuinely appreciate it ❤️❤️
On a separate note, my newly unemployed status gave me lots of time to catch up on shows so I binged all of the Pitt in 2 days and I am absolutely obsessed with all parts of this show now. So…very good chance of Pitt fics in the future from me
Warnings - Mentions of past sexual assault, trauma
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A few days had passed since that wretched night.
A few days of wandering through a house that wasn't mine, moving like a ghost draped in borrowed clothes, clutching borrowed necessities. A guest in every sense of the word.
The sheets I slept in didn't smell like me. The walls didn't hold my memories. The fireplace didn't feel like home.
But my home? I couldn't even bring myself to step near it.
The thought of walking back into those rooms, of seeing the place where everything had changed, it turned my stomach.
And yet, I needed things. My things. Little fragments of myself scattered across that space.
I couldn't keep wearing clothes that didn't fit, or combing through hair with brushes that weren't mine. I needed to feel, if only for a moment, some piece of familiarity.
That was the only reason I found myself standing outside Rhysand's study door, knuckles hovering, trembling, before I finally knocked. The soft sound echoed too loud in my ears.
"Come in," his voice called, calm and even as always.
I pushed the door open, peeking in as though afraid to intrude. He looked up immediately, those violet eyes sharp and watchful.
"Are you alright?" he asked, softer this time, as if sensing the storm swirling in my chest.
I swallowed, the words catching in my throat. "I... I need some things from my home," I managed, my voice thin and unsteady. "But I don't want to go alone. Will you... will you maybe accompany me? I know you're busy, I know you have work—"
"Of course I will." He didn't let me finish. He didn't hesitate.
He stood in one fluid movement, sliding papers into neat stacks and tucking them away as though they'd never existed. His answer had been absolute. Immediate.
Relief cracked through my ribs, though shame nipped at its heels. "Okay... okay. Thank you," I whispered.
We left together. He didn't walk too close, didn't crowd me, but remained steady at my side. The kind of presence that anchored without binding.
We spoke little, our words quiet and practical, and I was grateful, grateful he didn't try to fill the silence, grateful he didn't force me into conversation I wasn't ready for.
We turned onto my street.
And I froze.
The air turned sharp in my lungs, my heart slamming against my ribs as if it wanted to break free and run. Because there, not far off, standing with a careless tilt to his shoulders, was him.
Blonde hair, windswept as though the gods themselves touched it. Blue eyes like shards of ice. Broad, towering frame. And ink curling up his arm—a snake, its fangs bared, etched into his skin.
The sight of it hit me harder than any blow.
I knew who that was. I knew what he had done.
My knees weakened. My hands went cold. The world narrowed until all I could see was him, and the echo of that night slammed into me with merciless force, hands rough and unyielding, breath that smelled of ale, the burn of pain, the helplessness that had swallowed me whole.
No. No, no, no.
The street tilted. My lungs stopped working, dragging in shallow, useless gasps that left me dizzy, lightheaded. My chest tightened until every inhale was a knife.
"What happened?" Rhysand's voice cut through the ringing in my ears.
I couldn't look at him. Couldn't tear my eyes from the man in the distance. My lips moved, but the words were strangled, broken. "I—he..."
My hand shot to my chest, clawing for air, for anything to stop the crushing weight. But the memories were already clawing back, tearing through me with all the violence of that night.
I was there again. I was back there again. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't breathe.
Darkness stirred at the edges of my vision. Not memory this time, but power. Cool, steady, wrapping around me like a shield.
The world fractured. The street, the house, him, they shattered away, gone in a blink, replaced by the familiar hush of the townhouse.
We were back.
My knees buckled, the ground tilting beneath me, but Rhysand's hand was there, steady at my elbow, just enough to keep me upright, never more.
My breaths tore out of me in ragged, uneven gasps, chest heaving, throat raw. Tears stung, hot and useless, blurring the room until it was all light and shadow.
He didn't speak. Didn't ask. Didn't push.
He simply stood there, a quiet sentinel, cloaked in shadows and starlight, as if his very presence could hold me together when I was splintering apart.
I pressed my back against the nearest wall, palms flat to the cool surface as though I could ground myself to it, dragging in breath after trembling breath.
He stayed several feet away, watchful, careful not to crowd me. His silence wasn't empty, it was patience, steady as the sea, waiting for me to resurface.
Slowly my lungs remembered how to work.
The frantic hammer of my pulse ebbed to something less violent. My hands still shook, my vision still blurred, but the vice around my chest loosened just enough for me to speak.
"I saw him," I whispered, voice so thin it nearly broke apart. My gaze snapped up to Rhysand's, violet eyes sharp, locked on me like he could anchor me there. "I saw one of them. He was right there—he was there—"
My throat closed, the words collapsing under their own weight.
Something dangerous flickered across Rhysand's face, gone as quick as lightning but unmistakable.
Rage. Pure and violent.
His body went taut, shadows curling tight around his shoulders like a living storm. His jaw clenched hard enough to crack stone.
"Where?" The single word was lethal. Not a question so much as a promise.
"No—" I choked, stumbling forward, my shaking hand half-raised as if to catch him even though he hadn't moved. "No, please. Don't. Don't go after him."
His eyes darkened, his power shivering through the air like thunder rolling beneath the skin of the world. "He was there. He was near you."
"Please." My voice cracked, desperation breaking free as I shook my head, tears spilling faster. "Don't leave me. Don't—" My chest hitched. "Not now. Please just... stay."
The silence that followed was heavy, thick as night.
His power withdrew, shadows slinking back into the corners like restless beasts denied blood. His posture shifted, the lethal promise still simmering in his eyes but reined in for me.
"Alright." His voice was quieter now, but no less certain. He took a step closer, then another, slow and measured, until he stood near but not touching. "I won't go. Not tonight."
The air seemed to steady with him, my frantic heart easing by the smallest fraction.
Rhysand held my gaze, grounding me with nothing but the certainty in his tone.
"I'm not leaving you."
Rhysand's POV -
The silence was the kind that pressed down on a room, heavy enough to crush.
The only sound was the faint crackle of the fire, the occasional uneven breath she drew as if every inhale scraped her lungs raw.
She sat across from me on the couch, hunched small, her shoulders curled inward as though she could fold herself into nothing.
Her fingers toyed endlessly with the hem of her borrowed shirt, tugging and twisting the fabric until it bunched and wrinkled. Her cheeks were wet, streaked with silent tears she hadn't bothered to wipe away.
But her breathing had steadied into something less frantic.
When she finally lifted her gaze to mine, her throat worked around words that scraped out ragged, hoarse.
"There were two of them."
I sat up straighter, the words lodging sharp and cold in my chest.
"You don't have to tell me anything," I said quickly, softly, because I meant it. "You owe me nothing. Not this."
But she shook her head, violently enough that her tangled hair fell forward around her face. "No. I have to. Because if I don't—if I keep it in—it's going to press down and kill me."
The tremor in her voice shattered something inside me.
I nodded once, carefully, the way you'd reach out a hand to a wounded animal and hope they'd take it.
"Alright," I whispered, my throat tight. "Then tell me."
She drew in a breath so shuddering it broke halfway through. Her gaze darted anywhere but me, over the firelight, the wall, her knees but eventually her voice scraped out.
"The one I saw today... he's the brother of the female I live with. Levi. He was visiting, staying in our house." Her hands clenched hard into her lap, twisting the fabric of her shirt as though it was the only thing tethering her. "That's why I don't want to go back."
His name was a poison in my mouth. Levi.
Her voice faltered, cracked, but she forced herself on. "He wanted to go out—to have fun. So me, him, my roommate Lyra, and one of his friends... Avi, I think—that's his name—we all went to a few bars."
She swallowed hard, her eyes darting to mine, pleading for me to believe her. "I wasn't drunk. I wasn't—I swear I was conscious, alert. I need you to know that."
Gods. She was explaining herself, defending herself.
"You don't need to swear anything," I said quietly, but she pressed on, the words spilling like blood from an open wound.
"At some point we lost Lyra. She disappeared, and I thought—we thought—we'd just find her. But Avi—" She flinched on the name, as though it burned her lips. "He'd been making advances all night. I brushed him off, over and over, but eventually he... he had enough."
Her breath hitched, and I could feel my hands curl into fists where they rested on my knees.
"I don't know what he said to Levi," she whispered, her voice breaking apart. "But they forced me into an alley. Said we had to find Lyra. And then they—"
Her voice failed. Her chest rose and fell in jagged heaves. She pressed her fists to her thighs as if she could grind the memory out of her flesh. "They forced themselves on me."
The world tilted sideways. My lungs filled with fire, my blood turned to ice.
The room blurred around her as every muscle in my body locked against the urge to winnow out that very second, to hunt, to destroy.
But she wasn't done.
Her voice was shaking apart now, fragile and desperate. "I tried to stop them, I swear. I said no. I fought them—I fought hard. But there were two of them. Two—and only one of me and..."
Her words dissolved, her gaze flicking to mine, frantic, searching. Searching for what? Belief? Forgiveness?
Approval. Gods. She was looking to me for approval.
I leaned forward, my voice breaking, rawer than I had ever let it be. "It wasn't your fault."
Her mouth trembled, as though she didn't believe me. I pushed on, sharper now, fighting my own rage to make sure she heard me, every word.
"Do you understand? Not your fault. Not in any way. It doesn't matter if you fought until your bones broke or if you froze in fear. It doesn't matter if you screamed or cried or couldn't make a sound. It doesn't matter if you said no once, or a thousand times, or if you couldn't get the word out at all."
My voice cracked, the fury in me colliding with the grief, the unbearable grief, until it felt like shrapnel tearing me open.
"If you didn't want it—and they still—" My throat closed. I forced the words out anyway, quiet, trembling. "Then that is on them. Only them."
Her eyes filled, tears spilling over, falling fast down her cheeks as though each word I spoke shook something loose in her chest.
I wanted to hold her. Gods, I wanted to gather her into my arms and shield her from the entire world. But I didn't. Not yet.
Because this wasn't about me. This was about her. About her finding a place in my silence where her words could land without judgment, without question.
So I stayed still, hands gripping my knees until my knuckles ached, and let her see it, all of it.
The rage I felt on her behalf. The sorrow I carried with her. The vow burning through me like wildfire.
"I believe you," I said softly. Fiercely.
I should have said more. Should have promised blood and vengeance and every horror I could conjure for the bastards who hurt her. And gods, I wanted to. The rage simmered low and black in my veins.
But right now, what she needed wasn't my wrath. It was... me. Just me.
So I breathed through it, forced the darkness down, and when I spoke, my voice was quiet.
"I know you don't believe me yet," I said, watching her fingers clench and unclench in her lap, "but none of this is on you. Not an inch. Not a breath."
Her gaze flicked up to mine, glistening, searching.
I swallowed hard. The words I'd buried for years clawed at my throat, desperate. She'd given me her truth. Maybe the only thing I could do was give her mine.
"Do you know what Prythian called me? For years, after Under the Mountain?"
Her brows pinched together, shaking her head.
"A whore." The word slid out like ash. I forced myself not to flinch. "That was the name they gave me. The High Lord of Night, the whore of Amarantha. Because I stayed by her side. Because I played her games. Because I let them believe it was what I wanted."
Her lips parted, silent, horrified.
I looked away, staring at the flames dancing in the hearth, the memories rising unbidden. "But it wasn't want. It was survival. Every smile, every touch, every night I endured her bed—it wasn't for me. It was for my court. For my family. For the people who didn't even know what was happening beneath the mountain. I let them call me that because it meant they lived."
My throat closed.
The old shame pressed in, bitter and suffocating. "And yet... even when it wasn't my choice, even when it was the only way to keep them safe—they still spat that word like it defined me. Like it was who I was, rather than what was done to me."
Silence stretched, brittle and raw. My chest ached with it.
Then her voice, fragile but sure spoke out "Rhys... you're not that."
I forced myself to meet her eyes. She held my gaze steady, unflinching despite the tears still streaking her cheeks.
"You're brave," she said, the word catching as though it cost her something to speak it. "Brave, because you endured. Brave, because you kept going, even when no one knew. You carried all of that—alone. That's not weakness, Rhys. That's the strongest thing I've ever heard."
The air punched out of me. My lips parted, but no words came.
I shook my head, voice rough. "No. You're the strong one. You fought when they hurt you. And when you couldn't fight, you survived. You're sitting here now, breathing, speaking. You shared this with me when you didn't have to. That's strength."
Her chin wobbled, but she managed the smallest, trembling smile. "Then maybe we're both strong."
Maybe we were. Or maybe we were just two shattered creatures, clinging to the broken pieces and calling it survival.
Still... I reached out, not to touch, but to let my hand rest on the cushion between us. An invitation, nothing more.
After a long moment, her fingers brushed mine, tentative, fragile. Not a grip, not a hold. Just a touch, as if to say I'm here. You're here. That's enough.
We sat like that in silence, shadows and firelight wrapping around us.
Two souls gutted by what had been done to us, finding a strange, quiet refuge in each other's brokenness.
A/n - Both of them open up and share their traumas in this part (please lmk if I should adjust the warnings—I wasn't entirely sure what would be most appropriate for this section!)
It's easy to feel like you have to justify or explain what happened to you, and just as easy to see courage and resilience in others. That contrast, between how we perceive others strength and our own is something deeply human, rooted in insecurity and pain, but also in empathy.
This part is as graphic as the story will get in terms of discussing the SA. The next two parts will focus on healing :)
Summary - The bond snaps after a rather brutal breakup, and after witnessing you with another Vanserra, Azriel is trying to find a way to avoid being hurt once again.
Warnings - fluff, angst, pining, swearing, unrequited love, heartbreak, sad Az, happy ending (yay!)
Word count - 8.4k (oops)
Based on this ask
It had become so intense in the House of Wind that you had little to no choice in moving yourself to the River House. Between Nesta and Cassian's bustling sex life and the constant bickering arguments between Azriel and Elain, you decided that you needed some peace.
And fast.
Rhys had welcomed you at the door that day, his sort-of sister in arms surrounded by brown leather bags that he could almost envision you launching down the House of Wind steps just to escape as fast as possible. Flipping him off and smirking at his chuckle, you slipped around his form stood in the doorway and headed right to Nyx who was more than thrilled to see you, babbling incoherently and grabbing for you the moment you were in eyeshot.
"I take it that it's getting a bit loud over there?" Rhys turned to you, his shirt half unbuttoned and hands burrowed into his pockets. He was lucky. To have a mate and a child. To not have to live with the band of animals currently residing in the Night Court's most opulent residence.
"How am I supposed to get anything done wedged between that lot?" Nyx smiled at your cooing, lapping up all of your love and affection, "I'd much rather be here with my favourite prince."
Within minutes, your bags were taken upstairs by Rhys who was grumbling to himself about never being able to have any peace to which you blissfully quipped that you'd be out of his hair the moment he bought you a lavish apartment in the city. It wasn't as if he couldn't afford it after all.
Your position within the Inner Circle was irreplaceable. Not only were you Rhys' childhood best friend, the only one he could truly depend on before Cassian and Azriel flew into the picture, but you were also known as a witch. A powerful celestial being that had the capability to destroy and create as you saw fit with an affinity to sky and water magic.
The scales could have tilted in the wrong direction had you truly taken up Amarantha's offer to be her pet, the only reason you had confined yourself to that chamber Under The Mountain was to make sure that Rhys survived, and you played your part well, just as you always had.
A break was needed, the air in the House of Wind was almost suffocating, and no amount of your power was able to drown it. Elain was spending more time with Lucien, her mate, and Azriel was not happy about it considering that they were meant to be in a committed relationship. The barking insults and shouting had become too much to bare, so intense that your own power was itching for release in order to silence them for at least a couple of minutes.
"They're going to break up, aren't they?" Rhys certainly wouldn't be the first to tell Azriel I told you so, but he'd certainly be thinking it when the Shadowsinger would inevitably return to the River House just like you had to escape the nightmare of his life.
Humming softly, sadly, you looked up at Rhys, your godson in your arms resting his head on your chest, "I think so. Az hasn't been himself lately."
It was true, your friend had become a shell of himself, wallowing in self-loathing and doubt, and you cursed Elain eternally for turning him into such a thing. How anyone could hurt Azriel was beyond your scope of realisation, he was perfect in every way, devoted, kind, caring, and definitely a force to be reckoned with in the bedroom if your ears served you right.
Being attracted to Azriel was a natural bodily response, you had told yourself at least, it was difficult to not want to jump the bones of the illustrious Shadowsinger who kept a watchful eye on your every step. Like he was waiting for his moment to swoop in and save you.
But you had never needed saving, and you never would.
Elain and you had never really gotten along, it wasn't as though you hadn't tried to be friendly with the Made sister, she just couldn't stand to be around you. Maybe her own abilities clashed with yours, perhaps she was terrified of you. You couldn't blame her, the idea of you was one that stalked travellers and gifted nightmares to the young.
A celestial witch. In the flesh.
Anyone who knew you well enough would be able to dispel any wrongful intent, but Elain was not one of those people.
"I did warn him," Rhys' finger drifted to hook itself around Nyx's outstretched hand, and he shook it gently as he continued on, "A mating bond is not something to get entangled with."
"Az needs us to be his friends right now, Rhys. A breakup on its own is awful, but when it's so close, when he's been waiting so long for it, it's bound to hurt."
A firm hand on your shoulder comforted you, you knew how tough it must be for Azriel to go through it, after how painful it was to hold out hoping that he would be enough to suddenly not be, "I know, Witchling," you scoffed at the nickname as you always had and always would, Rhys pressed a dainty kiss into your hair, like a brother to a newly born sister, "Whatever he needs, I'm here, and so are you."
If you had known what awaited you that week, you'd take the telling words back in a second.
Like you had guessed, Azriel moved back into the River House, residing in his own room across the hall from your own. And boy, was he a raincloud if you ever did see one. Even his shadows looked solemn, and they didn't have faces. Azriel looked positively awful, constantly messy hair, large bags of onyx that imprinted onto the skin beneath his usually warm hazel eyes that had turned into nothing but dark pools of heartbroken sadness.
In the night, you had heard him crying, you'd stood outside of his door, not saying a word, but hoping that he knew that someone was there for him even if he didn't want them to be.
You had tried to talk to him, to coax him out of his haze by offering to train with him, or walk with him along the banks of the Sidra, you'd even asked him if beating your ass whilst you wore a mask of Lucien would bring a smile to his face. Unfortunately, everything you had tried had failed you, and you were at a loss as to help your friend.
"Honestly Rhys, how do you reach anything in here?" Rhys was hovering in the doorway, eyebrow raised with delight as he watched you try and scale the countertops to reach the top shelf of the cupboard.
There were chocolate chips for your cookies up there, and they had your name all over them.
"It's not my fault you're not Illyrian," his eyes darkened into a smirk, "Why don't you just hop onto your broomstick and fly?"
Even a silent Azriel emitted a gasp from his place on the opposite side of the centre island. If there was one thing you hated, it was being likened to the witches children sang about in their storybooks. It offended you how utterly unalike you were, and it made you seethe when someone, usually Rhys or Cassian, would use that hatred to rile you up.
"Oh," you stood on the countertop, towering over the High Lord by a few mere inches, "Is that why all of the doorways are so wide? Because your fat fucking head needs all the room it can get?"
Rhys stood speechless before you, the room fell silent.
Then a laugh.
Not yours of Rhys', you had to check it wasn't you making any noise before your eyes landed on the owner of the most joyful thing you'd heard in weeks.
A smile. Curled parted lips as a howling laugh ripped through them. Azriel's shadows danced to the sound, and his body shook with it. You could have cried, but you kept it together, you choked down your happiness to witness the momentary return of the one who meant the most to you.
It was no secret that you used to be Azriel's favourite. There was nothing that the two of you wouldn't do together, even if it was a medial task like taking you to the bakery or finding you a new Starfall dress that would make Mor dim in comparison. Azriel was always happy to come along. Until Elain, and then you had stopped seeing another, you'd drifted so far apart that he didn't even properly greet you anymore, all you were adorned with was a curt nod and tight lipped smile before Elain would whisk him away.
The male in front of you was nothing like that one, not in that singular glimmer of hope at least. Once his laughter died down, and a serene smile planted itself on his lips, Azriel opened his eyes and moved them to you, they glowed with something you couldn't quite understand, and then they widened. His eyes faltered. His smile faded.
Azriel gasped.
"Mate."
Darting your line of sight to Rhys, you pointed at him, flickering your gaze back to Azriel who had rose from his seat "Him?"
Rhys swatted your finger away, "I'm mated, y/n," Rhys glanced between you and took a step backward.
"So?" It couldn't be. Not right now. Not now.
"I can't do this," Azriel was struggling to breathe, his chest was rising and falling rapidly, sweat beaded at his brow and his skin had paled.
Scrambling down from the worktop, you went to take a step toward him, one that he mirrored in the opposing direction, furling his wings behind his back and clawing his shadows into submission, "Don't, Az. I can go."
The visible wince of pain that shot through you was enough for Azriel to suck in a breath and disappear from sight. The bond was dull, a golden thread soaring across the night sky to meet a shield of inked darkness. Azriel had closed you off. Shut you out.
Silence befell the kitchen, the chocolate chips you had gotten from the top shelf now scattered across the dark oak wood beneath your bare feet. Rhys had never seen you cry, he almost thought it impossible, but then he saw that single tear roll down your cheek, he could feel the pain radiating from you from finding your mate for him only to run from you.
"Hey, it's alright," he wrapped you into his arms, shushing you softly as he ran his fingers through your hair to soothe the quiet sobs rattling your shoulders, "It's going to be fine, y/n. Azriel's just confused, he'll be thrilled soon. Just you wait."
The snap had been gentle, like you had just come home after a long day, like you'd stepped through the door to see everyone you had ever loved all in one place and he was at the epicentre of it. Safe. Warm. Perfect.
Being a witch, you were never sure how life would look for you. Not even the cauldron understood your kind, you had always thought that perhaps the cauldron overlooked your species for the things most pure, like mating bonds and children. Witchlings were rare, you were the lone example of it, perhaps a part of you thought that you weren't allowed to have any love or joy, that you weren't good enough for it.
And there it was right in front of you, with the male a part of you had always yearned for, dancing in ash.
In the weeks that followed, Azriel did all he could to avoid you. No reason was good enough to make Azriel even glance in your direction let alone utter anything to you.
It had gotten to the point where you had asked Rhys for the keys to the cabin, you packed up your things and stepped through time to stand on that cold wooden floor with moonlight drifting through the small square windows.
You’d never thought that you could ever feel so alone, but as you stood there in a cabin so cold that you could see your own breath, the loneliness certainly began to set in.
There was little else to do other than light a fire to warm the little cabin on the outskirts of the city and run a bath; the tub was surrounded by candles, the ottoman at the foot of it was full of scented oils and salts which made your heart flutter. At least if you were to wallow in your own heartbreak you’d be able to do it smelling like the ocean surrounded by candlelight.
Bubbles crept up your neck as you sank into the wooden tub, it should have been a tranquil moment for you, but it was far from it in reality.
Az, please. Just talk to me. I'm still y/n, I'm still your friend. Things don't have to change.
Instead of enjoying the alone time like you should have considering that it was rare to have a minute of peace in a city full of needy children, you sat and let your mind wonder just how everything had gotten so messed up. You understood his confusion, really, you did, you understood how conflicting it must have been for him to separate with Elain, the female he was ready to spend the rest of his existence with, to then find out he was mated to you, not just you as his friend, but you as a witch.
Talk to me.
Too many tears had been spilled, you couldn't stop them from flowing from your eyes each time Azriel would fumble some excuse to get away from you. The bond was cold, it was like trying to break through a shield, an icy 10 foot deep floor that wouldn't even crack under whatever you would throw at it.
If you need me to leave then I will, Az. I'll leave for you, so you can have space, so you can think.
In the weeks that followed the revelation, you'd done all you could to try and get through to him, to let him know that you weren't expecting him to accept it, that he could take all the time he needed to process everything before speaking to you, all you needed was a sign that he was listening to you, that you mattered. It didn't surprise you that Azriel hadn't exactly thought about you in the predicament, of what it had done to you, and you couldn't even be angry at him over it because you'd be the same.
It didn't mean that it didn't hurt though.
Dark skies littered with blinking starlight was cast overhead, too beautiful to be real, too beautiful that you were sure that it was some kind of abstract painting on a black canvas. The cabin used to be one of your favourite places, Azriel and you used to escape there frequently, spending nights upon nights drinking Rhys' best wine and talking about everything and nothing.
A soft knock at the door pulled you from the memories, your eyes drifted to the clock softly ticking on the wall and you frowned, it was quite late. Lifting yourself from the tub, you wrapped a towel around your frame and padded over to the door, your wet footprints embedding themselves in the wood below. Slight disappointment sliced through you when you opened the door to see Mor, Nesta and Feyre on the deck shivering in the brisk breeze.
"We brought supplies," Nesta pushed past you, placing a wicker basket on the table and shrugging off her coat, "By supplies I mean wine, wine, and more wine."
Mor and Feyre entered, sniffing the air with soft smiles, they had always loved your scent, it was peaceful, like ocean waves lapping against the side of a mountain at dusk, airy, blissful, fresh.
The news had spread around the Inner Circle rather quickly thanks to Rhys, he had told Cassian, and well, Cassian wasn't exactly known for holding his tongue. The Lord of Bloodshed had apologised to you, feeling guilty for making things worse between you and Azriel, but you didn't mind. All you wanted was for the Shadowsinger to simply look at you. Anything else was a pointless worry. Not worth your time.
Tugging the towel tighter around your frame, you forced a smile, "This is really nice. Thank you."
Strangely, both Nesta and Feyre had been surprisingly supportive of the bond between you and Azriel. To them it made sense, you had been friends for over 500 years, you both struggled with fitting in, and you only felt truly comfortable to let your walls down around one another. To them, the bond had been there for a long time, waiting for the perfect moment. Too bad that the perfect moment had ended up making feel like the most worthless creature on the planet.
"Has he let you in yet?" Nesta rested her hand on your shoulder, her other hand was busy handing you a goblet of wine which you hugged closely to your chest and shook your head, "I'm sorry y/n. I really thought he would have by now."
"Give it time. He'll come around," Feyre draped her cloak over the arm of one of the dining chairs, smoothing out her skirt. It had always astounded you just how perfect they all were, the Archeron sisters that is, it was hard to understand how any male couldn't be attracted to them. They were quite heavenly.
"You've all been saying that for weeks," you shrugged off Nesta's hand, exasperated, "If anything he's become colder. Azriel doesn't acknowledge me, he looks right through me, he finds any reason possible to not be in the same room as me and when he sees me in the halls he turns on his heels and runs."
"I'm now living in this damned cabin hoping that some space will help him," your shoulders dropped, "I've waited my entire existence for this, I started to think that I wasn't worthy of it, and when it happened and the bond snaps with the one person I know that I could be truly happy with," your bottom lip wobbled slightly, but you choked it down and swallowed hard, "He ran."
Mor leaned forward in her seat, wide eyes under her perfectly sculpted furrowed brows, "It has nothing to do with you, y/n."
"How am I supposed to believe that when he won't even look at me?"
Something thick and fluffy draped over you, Nesta's robe that you always eyed was resting on your shoulders, "Go and get in your comfy clothes, then we can talk and bitch until all you feel is anger."
Amongst the chatter, you spied the three leather bags full to the brim of differing clothes and cosmetics, and then you realised that you weren't alone, not really, not when those three bags of clothes and trinkets belonged to the three females in the cabin with you, clearly ready to move in and stay with you until you were ready to face life again.
Who needed a man when you had three raging bitch queens?
Nesta was right, you just had to get back to work.
If anything was going to be able to distract you from that aching in your chest, then it would be work.
Luckily, Rhys, whilst he loved your abilities greatly, saw you as much more than just a celestial witch residing in his court, he likened you to a sister, blood family, which meant that he trusted no one more than you to act on his behalf when it came to court politics.
Holding such a position meant that you were rather close with the High Lords, they never saw you as Rhys' lackey at all, they saw you as a being that cared greatly about the continent who would stop at nothing to ensure harmony in all jurisdictions. Such a role meant that you were also required to entertain the High Lords whenever they visited Velaris, a place you had extended to them after the war to aid their research and better their own courts, with your help of course.
That particular evening, Rhys had asked you to entertain a certain High Lord of Autumn, Eris Vanserra; he was visiting Lucien and his new mate, Elain, and the entire visit was putting Azriel on edge. So, naturally, you couldn't say no.
"I always love our dinners, y/n," Eris' whisky amber gaze burned into you, searching the supernatural speckles in your own.
It was no secret that Eris had a flame for you, a being he found intriguing beyond belief, in the grasp of the Night Court when Eris knew how much you would thrive in Autumn by his side. The High Lord had offered Rhys pretty much everything he could to try and convince him to let him near you. All attempts had been swiftly denied.
Plates were littered with blotches of sauce and chicken bones, two empty bottles of red had been disposed of long ago, and you were just about to order that sticky toffee slice that made your toes curl when Eris asked, "When were you going to tell me about you and Azriel, hm?"
Candlelight drifted over the side of his face, illuminating his eyes against the darkening backdrop. "What are you talking about?"
Eris smirked, swirling the second glass of your third bottle that evening in perfect circles in his palm, "Come on, y/n. You reek of him, that cedar scent that even I have to admit is rather interesting."
In all of your self wallowing and sudden busyness you hadn't realised that the scent of the mating bond lingered on you, entwining with your scent of blissful oceans to create something new, something drowning. Something suffocating.
"I can admit that the news did hurt me, just a little bit," Eris, since the war, had allowed his hair to grow out. It sat just below his shoulders, layered and playful, he had it lazily pulled back low on his head. Something about that hair and those eyes made you question everything you knew, and you did know that you weren't the only one who felt like that when around the High Lord of Autumn.
Fluttering your lashes at Eris, you ran your fingers across the line of your bodice, "I apologise. It seems that fate wanted to lead me elsewhere."
Eris dismissed the waiter, eyes grinning at you through his lashes, "Let's go to Rita's. I need to drink some more, and you," he pointed to you, knowing that he was interrupting a rather important date with a rather important pudding, and said, "Need to loosen up, Witchling."
That fucking name.
You were sure that steam was emitting from your ears, but you couldn't deny that he was right, you couldn't really remember the last time you let loose and danced the night into oblivion. So you grabbed your purse from the table, a ornate gold cage that matched the intricate details of your skirt, and rose from your seat, "I hate how right you are, Vanserra. Let's go."
The High Lord towered over you, like all of them did really, stupid high fae and Illyrians and their stupid perfect genes making them so handsome and mysterious and utterly fuckable.
Stumbling from the restaurant at the edge of the Sidra, you looped your arm through Eris' and he practically had to pull you along the streets of the city or else you'd go and do a ritual in a field or something. Despite his crush, Eris found that part you a bit odd. In a way, you did too.
"When are you going to come to Autumn, Witchling? You know you'd love it there."
Eris propositioned you with the notion every time he saw you, he clearly thought that if he pestered you about it enough then you'd agree to it one day. Even just a fleeting visit would be enough to satisfy him. Just a day or two. You couldn't deny that Autumn piqued your interest, and with everything going on, perhaps a little break would do you some good.
"Maybe sooner than you think," despite the shameless flirting, you were glad that you could call Eris your friend, underneath that mask of loathing, you found the High Lord to be complex, and he appreciated your understanding. You were the only being that had ever approached him with kindness and treated him for who he truly was and not what he displayed. "All of this stuff with Azriel is spinning my mind. I feel like I'm going insane."
Eris hummed, tugging you a bit tighter into his side as he draped his arm over your shoulder, something completely platonic that you knew would send a certain someone spiralling, "That's what mating bonds do, y/n. I know that everyone keeps on telling you that he'll come around, I hope he does. Truly." It was the first time you had seen him say something and know that he was sincere of it "But, for tonight and tonight only, you are mine and we are going to drink and dance until we physically can't anymore, alright?"
Inhaling deeply, you met his gaze, "Alright."
Rita's was packed to the brim, you could feel the music thumping through the air so intensely that the ground beneath your feet was vibrating in time with the bass. Suddenly, you felt overdressed, but Eris commanded that you not think of it as he pulled you through the doors and past the guards who nodded at you with a curt smile as you clicked by.
In Velaris, you were quite known for being the wild one, the entire city was in awe of you and the powers you displayed so beautifully. More often than not, you would be found in the poorer parts of the city enchanting the children with your magic, curls of water would dance along their cheeks, and they would gasp when you would pluck a star from the sky and rest it in the palm of your hand. You knew what it felt like to feel alone and forgotten, being the last existing witch in your coven and all, and you didn't want anyone else to feel like that. So, if some water and a star would bring some form of happiness to those children, then you'd spend the rest of your life bringing them that wonder.
Eris tugged you through the grinding bodies, some of which parted as soon as they saw your eyes glistening in the lights, and stopped at the bar, shouting over the music to order drinks for you both before he turned, handing you a glass of what you could only assume was straight liquor, "To stealing you from the Night Court, Witchling," Eris raised his glass, rolling your eyes, you met it with a clink and wasted no time in downing the liquid, relishing in the burn that travelled down your throat and chest.
"Keep dreaming, Vanserra."
Hand on heart, Eris swayed into you, "Oh believe me, y/n, I do."
If you had known who was staring at you from across the room then you would have taken a step away from Eris, much like if you had seen the shadows followed you since you left the cabin that evening you wouldn't have agreed to go to Rita's. It was too late to do anything when your eyes connected with his, yours widened in surprise and solemn shock as his own narrowed, flickering between you and Eris before softening.
Of course, the first time Azriel actually looked at you was when you were stood beside Eris Vanserra, a High Lord, the brother of the one now laying with Elain.
Fuck.
It was like he didn't even see you really, he only saw Eris standing far too close to the one the cauldron had decided to be his mate. There was no way to be blind to the hatred between them, and with Azriel's temper and Eris' flare for the dramatics, you weren't surprised that Rhys had asked you to entertain the latter for the evening.
Noticing how your body froze, Eris frowned, he followed your line of sight to the Shadowsinger perched at a booth across the room ignoring both Cassian and Rhys who were trying to speak to him, to keep him calm.
Rhys. I didn't know.
I know, y/n. It'll be fine. We can handle Az if you can handle Eris.
Stiffly nodding, you turned to speak to Eris, to convince him to leave and find another place to drink, but he was gone. Then you saw his red hair moving through the crowd and you cursed, colourfully, and you scrambled through the crowd to try and reach him before he did something stupid.
Rushing up the steps to the usual booth reserved for the Inner Circle only, you stopped in your tracks as Eris' voice sliced through the chilled air, "When are you going to give our sweet y/n a break, Rhys? I keep on asking her to come to Autumn but she keeps on refusing."
Stop talking.
"It seems that she could use a break now more than ever."
Stop fucking talking.
"Especially since the bond is unrequited and she's sat in that little cabin day in day out wondering what her fate will be."
Wrapping your fingers around his wrist, you tugged on him, harshly, like you were reprimanding a dog on a leash, "Stop talking."
Little did you know, that one touch alone was enough to make Azriel visibly flinch and shudder with pain. That one act pierced his heart deadlier than Elain ever had or could, the way your fingers rested just over Eris' pulse, the way you looked at him with flame in your eyes, it was too much.
Eris wouldn't hurt you, you were the closest thing he had to a true friend, bit his loosened lips would be the end of you, "You both know that this isn't fair on her. Why is she the one who has to sit in misery and move to the outskirts of this city in order to make your poor Azriel more comfortable?"
Tension bubbled, Rhys was slowly rising from his seat whilst Cassian angled himself in front of Azriel, probably to stop the Shadowsinger from doing something he would come to regret, "Eris, you're making it worse," he finally gave you his attention, "Just wait outside for me, we can find somewhere else to drink, okay?"
It took him a moment, but your pleading eyes convinced him to listen, and Eris moved from your side, disappearing from you and leaving you stood before three Illyrians, all of which you were sure didn't wish to be around you in that moment. Fiddling with your fingers, you looked up from the ground at them, "I'm sorry. I didn't know that you were going to be here. You told me to keep him entertained, I'm sorry."
Rhys froze, his breath caught in his throat, and Azriel was glaring at him with such intensity that it made even you shrink, and you didn't shrink away from anything or anyone, "I'll go. I'm sorry," your chest ached when Azriel didn't even glance in your direction, instead keeping his gaze trained on his High Lord who simply nodded once at you.
Then you left, you grasped Eris by the lobe of his ear and dragged him away from Rita's before Azriel could make him pay for his words, or even worse, Rhys. It took only a few blocks for Eris to swat your hand away, "I'm not a child, y/n." Eris rubbed the red tinged patch of skin at his ear with a pout.
Velaris watched on as you bundled down a cobbled path toward the bank of the Sidra, a place you went to often to channel your magic, it was serene and beautiful, and had been the perfect place for you to find your calm in the midst of such brutality, "That is my mate, Eris. Do you understand that? Azriel is going through so much already, he lost Elain to Lucien," Eris cocked his brow in warning but you continued, "Elain was meant to be the one for him, and as long as Az was happy then I could choke down everything I had ever felt for him because he deserved all of the happiness possible after everything he's been through. I could live alone for the rest of my days as long as he was happy. Then it turns out that he's mine, that he was always meant to be mine, it should have been the best day of our lives," tears pooled on your bottom lids and you were sick of it, of crying, you had never cried, it wasn't in your nature but it was all you could do these days.
"Azriel can't even look at me, I had to move out of the River House and isolate myself from everyone I love just to give him a moment to think and process everything," you turned to Eris, "You just had to prod him, didn't you? You just had to get under his skin. Do you know how this looks? Elain chose Lucien and then he sees me drinking with you?"
Eris ran a hand over his face and sighed, "I didn't mean to make things difficult, y/n. I just want what's best for you, what you deserve."
"I know and I appreciate that, I really do. I just wanted things to get better, not worse."
It astounded Eris how Azriel wasn't over to moon to have you as his mate, you were elegant and graceful, a formidable opponent, tactical and sharp, and one of the most beautiful creatures to ever walk under the skies of Prythian. Perhaps he could have been a touch more sensitive to the situation at hand.
The moonlight waltzed over the rippling waters of the Sidra which acted as a mirror to the sky above, clear and bright, full of possibility.
The bond strained in your soul, empty and unrequited, a lone dying ember searching for its flame, and you knew then that Azriel was going to pull away from you more than ever.
"You should go back to the House of Wind," your voice was small and weak, "I'll see you before you leave tomorrow."
Eris took a step toward you, fumbling, knowing that he had messed up, "Please, y/n."
"Eris," he paused his movements, "Just go. I'll see you tomorrow."
Knowing that nothing was going to change your stubborn mind, Eris retreated up the embankment and down the cobbled path, leaving you completely and utterly alone.
Pebbles brushed together under your weight, moving flat to accommodate your position. You hugged your knees to your chest, unclasping your heels and tossing them aside, rubbing the skin on your ankles softly to alleviate the pinching that was once there.
How long could you go like this? How long would be able to deal with the rejection before it broke you? How long until you took Eris up on his offer and left Velaris forever?
You didn't have much time to think of an answer, not when a familiar cool pressure coiled at the small of your back, travelling up your spine and over your shoulders. The shadows drifted through your hair and you smiled sadly at them, at the sweet sign to tell you that you weren't alone.
"How did you find me?"
A shuffle sounded from behind you, shoes scraping along the pebbles, "This is our place. Where else would you go?"
You turned then, peering over your shoulder at him, examining him for a moment. Azriel certainly looked better, his eyes had lightened by a couple of hues and his skin was healthy an tanned to perfection, though, sadness and doubt still lingered in his eyes.
Silently cursing yourself, you turned back to the water. It was yours and Azriel's place, it always had been, until Elain came along that is and then it became your place. Whenever either of you had a bad day, the other would bring them there, to listen to the water rushing up on the rocks and watch the stars, and you'd talk, about anything that was bothering you and causing you any pain, and then suddenly you'd be alright again.
You rose from the ground, brushing little fragments of twigs and dirt from the golden swirls of your skirt, and Azriel gazed at you as you did, wondering how his best friend had become a stranger so quickly, "If I had known you were there tonight I wouldn't have taken him."
"I know," Azriel had his hands bundled into his pockets, afraid that if they lingered at his side then he would reach for you and risk a whole other world of pain, "I think we need to break the bond."
The world stopped moving.
"What?"
Azriel repeated, "I think we need to break the bond."
Break the bond.
It writhed in your chest, it writhed in pain and sorrow, striking you so deeply that you thought you may stop breathing, "I can't do it again. I can't be broken like this again, not with another Vanserra, not with anyone."
Thumping in your chest, your heart cried out, lurching around in its cage, and you struggled to form any words, "Az-"
"It's what's best for us, y/n."
No. No, no, no.
"How can you say that?" Azriel frowned, his hazel orbs softening, like he too was in pain, "I have done everything I can to give you space to process this, I moved out of our home, twice, to give you space to process whatever you need to process and feel whatever it is that you need to feel. I have gone 500 years being perfectly content of being your friend and that alone, because that was better than not having you at all. I stood by and watched you pine for Mor, and then her, the one who put such a wedge between us that I was reduced to polite hellos and nods. But I dealt with it, for you and your happiness. I dealt with all of the comparisons and pain, I dealt with the punishment of your feelings for her. I would deal with every ounce of hatred you throw at me if it meant that you would feel better, hoping that one day you'd realise that I have always been here for you, that I have always loved you in ways that no one else ever could."
You were pacing up and down the riverbank, pebbles knocking together as you walked, and Azriel stood before you unmoving, unknowing of what to say and only knowing that he needed it to end, "You never even gave it a chance," your choked whisper put him on edge.
Azriel had never seen you cry, had never heard of it happening, clearly Rhys had negated to tell him just how deeply the last few weeks had impacted you. To the point where you had actually cried. Tears gathered at your bottom lids and he noticed how you looked up at the sky to prevent them from falling.
"You never let me in."
Everything within Azriel was screaming at him to reach for you, the bond that he had frozen in place behind a wall of shadow was battering against the shield like a ram to break free and comfort you.
You were right, you had been his best friend, one of the few he could ever really depend on for everything. Elain had never liked you, she had always blamed it on her abilities not being able to harmonise with your own, but Azriel had always known it was deeper than that. Elain was a seer, and somehow it hadn't dawned on Azriel just how much she could have been hiding.
Elain hated it when he spent time with you, and being as in love as he was, he believed that it was down to some strange jealously that lingered on the surface. No one would have blamed Elain for her jealousy, you were truly a sweet creature, the other half to his marred coin that he had so carelessly tossed away. What if Elain had seen something and had chosen to lead Azriel away from you in order to preserve what she wanted them to share?
"I've given you everything I can," you sounded utterly defeated, "I don't know what else to do, Azriel."
His name was like a sonnet on your lips, one of heart-breaking sadness and longing, and he stepped to it, his shadows swirled around his body and drifted out to you. They had always adored you. They had always sought after you, a stark difference to their hiding from Elain.
"I would ruin you, y/n. You deserve so much more, so much better than me," his fingers twitched for you, he was so close yet so far from holding you, from inhaling the coconut scent of your shampoo and the scent of your soul, of soft salted breezes and jasmine, "I never meant to hurt you. I never wanted you to feel like you weren't worthy of love, and I'm so sorry for making you think that you were alone in the world," you had cocked your head to the side in question, "Rhys told me."
Azriel took another step forward, exhaling with relief when you didn't make a move to get away from him, "Love scares me. Elain had my heart in the palm of my hand and then crushed it, and then the bond snapped with you, with the one person I know would never hurt me, and I just couldn't risk it. I can't risk it. I can't risk being broken again, I can't risk hurting you."
All this time, when Azriel had been wallowing in the loss of Elain, of having to deal with her and Lucien's bond, he had completely neglected you, and your feelings. It was something you had never done to him, something you never could.
A gentle breeze flowed through the air, it carried your scent to him, and on inhaling it, he felt his entire body relax, he felt his aching disappear, and it was as though the world had gotten clearer. You turned away from him, hands folded over your chest and facing the river so that he couldn't see your tears, "I thought I was destined to be alone. The rules of your kind and the fae have never really applied to me, even the Cauldron doesn't understand me. I thought that it took the chance of love from me, but now I see that it was just some cruel joke."
Let her in. Feel her.
The shadows cooed to him, faintly, like a lullaby to a new-born babe.
"If it'll bring you peace," your voice broke, "Then break it. Break the bond. I'll find some other place to be."
Don't let her get away. Mate. She loves you. Love her. Let her in.
As though the world was tilting, Azriel let down that wall, he felt that bond slither over the seam of it to reach you, and then what he felt brought him to his knees.
Love. Wanting. Hope. Pain. Sorrow. Longing.
It consumed him with light, fighting off the demons that had been left to plague him, decimating them with the most pure substance in Prythian. Love.
When you heard his knees hit the ground you had turned and ran to where he knelt on the pebbles, meeting him as you slid onto your own, ignoring the stabbing into your skin, "Az? Are you alright? What's wrong?" You cupped his face in your hands and he felt each one of your fingertips flow life back into him.
The two tethers to the bond were dancing with one another, meeting in the middle and thrumming as two became one, turning dark skies into ones of bright sun and opulent warmth.
It was you. Sweet and fierce you. You who had always protected him, you who had always put him first even when he couldn't return it. You.
"Az? Talk to me, tell me what's happening. Do I need to call for Rhys? I'll get him right-"
Azriel stopped you before you could rise to your feet, the act of wrapping his fingers around your wrists enough to make your words vanish in your mouth, "You love me."
Settling into the space before him, knee to knee with him and his shadows itching to pull you closer, you didn't remove your hands from his, the feeling of it so powerful that it wiped all of your pain away, "I always have."
Walks along the Sidra. Visits to the bakery. The countless thoughtful gifts for Winter Solstice. The nights spent locked away in the cabin talking about dreams and fears.
Azriel's fingers drifted along your cheek before resting there, his thumb softly soothing the tightness in your jaw, "Why did you never say anything?"
"Because you deserve to be happy, even if it isn't with me," Azriel watched your bottom lip wobble, and that stream of love within him rippled with upset. His thumb moved to it, dragging across that plump flesh that he had always wondered of the taste.
Would you taste sweet or of lightly salted oceans? Of the air at dusk perhaps?
All he had ever chased was happiness, how foolish of him to be blind to the fact he had always had it within you.
"I think the only time I've ever truly been happy, at peace, has been with you. You've always felt like home," your eyes met and he offered you a small, genteel smile; his fingers moved to your hair, raking over your scalp and floating to rest on the small of your back, "I've missed you so much."
"You have?"
Azriel hummed in admittance, "The worst part of all of this was that I left the House of Wind to be near you, because I could be, nothing was in the way of us anymore, and I knew you'd be the only one patient enough to deal with me. It was selfish, but you've always been the rocks on which the ocean crashes, you've always been the one I can turn to without fear of judgement. You understand me."
"I can still be that person, Az. I can still be your friend."
Resting his forehead against yours, Azriel spoke lowly, like he had just awoken from slumber, "Do you know how hard it is for me to not take you back to that cabin right now and make you mine?" The carnal desire was dwelling within him, a rabid need that begged to be satisfied, "But you deserve better, y/n. Better than what I've done. So if you'll let me, I want to do this properly. I want to court you and make you feel like you're the only woman in the world, and when you're ready, not me, you, then you can accept it for the both of us. Because you deserve the magic of the bond more than me, you deserve this happiness."
"And if you don't want to, then that's fine. I can live with what I've done, and if you want to move to Autumn and find happiness there then I won't stand in your way. In no world would I ever stop you from finding love and passion and joy, because you deserve it y/n, you are everything that is beautiful in this world and then some. Every single part of you is destined for greatness, for a love so powerful that people drown in it."
"I hate what I've done to you, I hate that I've made you feel unworthy of a mating bond and I'll never forgive myself for it. But if you let me, I'd like to show you that I want this, that I want you, and you can decide for yourself if a life with me is something you want."
Silence fell between you but you didn't make a move to pull away, you knelt in place, peering up at him with your hands resting on his biceps, channelling the pulsing energy of the Sidra as it ebbed and flowed downstream, "A life with you is all I've ever wanted."
The bond glowed, golden and blinding, and Azriel was struggling to keep himself together as he basked in the ocean of your love and devotion, "Can I kiss you? Please?"
If he wasn't searching for it then he wouldn't have even noticed the tiniest hazed nod directed at him. Even the stars had stopped their flickering to focus on you, their most prized possession, the only one capable of harnessing their power and turning it into something blissful and good. It was why they chose you.
Closing the gap, Azriel tilted your head upward to give him better access to the lips that had often haunted his dreams; the scent of jasmine entwined with his own and he felt himself hold his breath as he closed that gap between you.
Your lips were as soft and warm as he had imagined them to be, they tasted of fresh saltwater and some kind of sweet fruit from the gloss you always wore that made them shimmer in any light. It stopped the world from turning for a moment, the universe watched on as Azriel sealed your fates. Moving his fingers from the small of your back to your neck and deepening the embrace of your lips, Azriel relished in the taste of you, in your warmth, in the way his soul sang and his shadows pulled you in closer to him. It was a feeling he had waited his entire existence for, one you had also yearned for.
Utterly magical. Soul consuming.
Everything made sense then. How everything you had both endured was meant to be, just so that you could end up entwined in that moment. All of the pain and sorrow, all of the false love and distance, all of the laughter and sweet memories, it was all worth it. It was worth every morsel of agony.
"Such a sweet creature. My sweet creature."
"Yours?" Azriel hummed, pressing dainty kisses to the tip of your nose and cheeks, and you closed your eyes to consume his touch and shuddered when his lips landed on your collarbone, caressing the skin there, "I think I could get used to that."
Authors Note
Hey besties!
I got very carried away with this - sorry if it's not great, these pain meds are really kicking my ass right now so I haven't even properly proof read this yet xo
The same male I thought avoided me like I was a sickness. The same male I thought barely tolerated my presence in the Townhouse. The same male who I thought only came for me because the bond forced him to.
He had watched me. Protected me. Memorised the small details of my life like they mattered.
It was overwhelming. Dizzying. Terrifying.
And the worst part was, I didn't know what to do with that information. I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know how to respond. I didn't know how to be someone worth that kind of love.
So I said nothing.
After I didn't respond to his confession, he left my room quietly, like he didn't want to pressure me. Like he was giving me space to breathe.
I spent the rest of the day in bed staring at the ceiling, Nova curled against my side, my mind replaying every word he had said over and over again until I felt like I might lose my mind.
Then Feyre sent word. Dinner. At the River House. With everyone.
I stared at the note for a long time.
I didn't want to go. I didn't want the looks, the pity, the careful voices, the hovering. I didn't want them watching me like I might break at any second. I didn't want to sit at that table and pretend everything was normal when nothing felt normal anymore.
I wanted to go back to sleep and stay asleep.
But I knew Feyre. And Nesta. And Elain.
If I didn't go, they would come to me. And somehow that felt worse.
So I got dressed slowly, wincing as fabric brushed against bandages and bruises. I chose a simple black dress, loose enough not to press too hard against the worst of the injuries.
White bandages still showed at my wrists and collarbone, stark against the dark fabric, but I didn't bother trying to hide them.
Let them look. Let them see what happened.
When I stepped into the sitting room, Azriel was already there, waiting to winnow us. He looked up when I entered, his hazel eyes scanning me quickly like he was checking for new injuries, new pain, new signs that I wasn't okay.
He didn't comment on the dress. Or the bandages. Or the fact that I hadn't spoken to him since his confession.
He just nodded once. "Ready?" he asked quietly.
I nodded back.
Just as I him, Nova darted past me and practically threw herself at my legs, meowing loudly.
"No, Nova," I murmured, trying to gently push her back inside. "You can't come."
Nova just stared up at me, green eyes wide and stubborn, and meowed again like she was arguing with me.
I glanced at him and he gave a small shrug like it was obvious.
So I bent down and scooped Nova into my arms. She immediately started purring loudly like she had won some grand battle.
Azriel stepped closer then, a hand lightly brushing my arm as he winnowed us away.
The River House appeared around us in a blur of darkness and wind, and the moment we stepped into the foyer, Feyre was there.
She crossed the room quickly and wrapped her arms around me before I could even say hello. Nova meowed loudly between us, squished between our bodies.
"I was so worried," Feyre whispered, holding me tightly.
I stiffened slightly in her arms. "You were?" I asked before I could stop myself.
She pulled back, frowning slightly. "Of course I was."
Nesta stepped forward next and pulled me into a quick, tight hug. "You scared everyone," she said quietly.
Elain hugged me last, lingering longer than the others, her arms gentle around me like I might break. When she pulled back, her eyes were already glassy with unshed tears.
She led me to a chair beside her at the table.
Dinner started fine. A little awkward. A little quiet. A little too careful.
Everyone kept glancing at me like they were waiting for me to shatter. Cassian tried to tell a story about training, Rhys made some comment about Velaris, Feyre asked Elain about her garden, and I sat there pushing food around my plate while Nova curled in my lap.
It almost felt normal. Almost.
Then Nesta spoke, and it wasn't what she said so much as how normal she sounded when she said it.
"So you brought the cat?" she asked, nodding toward Nova curled in my lap like this was any other dinner, any other night.
"Nova," I replied automatically, running my fingers along her back. "Her name is Nova. And yes... she's a little attached."
Nesta gave a small huff of amusement and Cassian chuckled under his breath. Across the table, Elain smiled softly like the whole thing was harmless, like this was just light conversation.
"Attached?" Elain said gently. "She's just a pet."
It was such a small comment. So small. So normal.
But something about the way she said it—light, dismissive, like Nova didn't matter, like none of this mattered made something inside my chest twist sharply.
I stared down at Nova for a moment, at the way she was curled into me like I was her entire world, like she had followed me into darkness and back without hesitation, like she had been the only one waiting for me every single day in that empty Townhouse.
And before I could stop myself, before I could swallow the words down like I usually did, I spoke.
"At least she fucking cares."
The words fell into the room like glass shattering.
Silence followed immediately. Heavy, stunned silence. I looked up slowly and every single person at the table was staring at me.
Nesta's expression hardened first. "Don't yell at Elain," she said sharply. "You know she's more sensitive."
Something hot and ugly flared in my chest.
"Oh my gods," I said, letting out a short, disbelieving laugh as I dropped my fork onto the plate with a sharp clatter. "You and Elain weren't the only ones who went into that forsaken Cauldron, you know."
"That's not what this is about," Nesta snapped immediately.
"No, Nesta," I said, shaking my head, my voice rising despite myself. "It never is about me, is it? It never has been."
"That's not fair," Feyre said quietly.
"No?" I looked around the table at all of them. "Since we were children, Nesta, you were cruel and mean and I just... I took it. I always took it because that was easier than fighting with you."
Nesta's eyes flashed. "You're not seriously bringing up our childhood right now."
"I'm bringing up my entire life right now," I shot back. "Because I am so tired of pretending none of it mattered."
"Stop yelling," Elain said softly, shrinking slightly in her chair.
I turned toward her, anger spilling over now, years of it, not just tonight.
"You always do that," I said. "You just sit there and act sweet and quiet and innocent and never pick a side unless it benefits you."
Elain looked like I had slapped her. "That's not fair."
"Nothing about this is fair," I said, my voice shaking now but I couldn't stop. "None of this has ever been fair."
"Can everybody please just eat dinner?" Feyre said, her voice tight, like she was trying to hold the entire room together by herself.
I pushed my chair back suddenly and stood up, the legs scraping loudly against the floor.
"No," I said. "We can't just eat dinner. I can't sit here and pretend everything is fine when I was kidnapped and tortured because of you."
Silence fell over the table like a physical thing.
Feyre went pale. "What?"
"Because of you and your mate," I said, my voice shaking now but I couldn't stop. "They wanted revenge on Rhysand, so they took me. Not you. Not Nesta. Not Elain. Me. Because I was the easiest one to take."
"That's not your fault," Feyre said immediately.
"Isn't it?" I laughed bitterly. "I was taken because I'm the extra sister. The unimportant one. The one no one watches as closely. The one no one would notice was gone right away."
"That's not true," Cassian said.
"Isn't it?" I snapped, looking around the table. "How long did it take before you all realised I was gone? How long before someone noticed I wasn't at the Townhouse?"
No one answered. That hurt more than if they had yelled back.
"You all have titles," I continued, breathing hard now. "High Lady. Valkyrie. Seer. Lady Death. Cursebreaker. And I am what? Nothing. I went into the Cauldron too. I lost my human life too. I have nightmares too. But no one ever asks me if I'm okay."
Tears were running down my face now but I didn't stop.
"I was hanging from chains in a dark room for days and I kept thinking, they're not coming," I said, my voice breaking. "They're not coming because I don't matter enough for anyone to come."
"That's not true," Feyre whispered, tears in her own eyes now.
"Then why does it always feel like it is?" I asked quietly.
No one had an answer.
I looked around the table at all of them, my sisters, their mates, this family that I was somehow part of but never quite felt like I belonged to.
"I was forgotten long before I was kidnapped," I said softly.
Then I turned and walked out of the room before anyone could stop me.
Nova jumped down from the chair and ran after me immediately, her small paws tapping quickly against the floor as she followed me out of the River House and into the night.
Azriel's POV -
Dinner had taken a turn for the worst.
That was an understatement. It had detonated, years of silence and hurt and misunderstandings exploding in the middle of the dining room, and I had watched the entire thing unfold knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I heard the front door slam shut behind her, the sound echoing through the house.
The room went completely silent after that, everyone staring at the empty doorway she had just disappeared through.
It was Rhys who moved first, straightening slightly, already opening his mouth, probably to say something diplomatic, something High Lord-like, something about giving her space or how they should handle this carefully.
I looked at him. Really looked at him. Whatever he saw on my face made him stop immediately.
"I am speaking to you as your brother right now," I said quietly, but there was nothing soft in my voice. "Do not even think about saying anything. Not tonight."
Rhys held my stare for a long moment, then slowly closed his mouth. He understood. This wasn't a High Lord situation. This wasn't a court problem.
This was mine.
And then I turned and walked out of the River House after her.
There was no way I was letting her walk home alone tonight. Not after everything she had just said. Not after the way her hands had been shaking. Not after the look on her face when she said she had been forgotten.
I found her halfway across the bridge leading out of the district, walking quickly, arms wrapped around herself, Nova trotting close behind her like a small black shadow.
I didn't call out to her. I didn't want to startle her. I just followed at a distance, silent, my shadows keeping me hidden in the dim light.
She knew I was there.
I could tell by the way her shoulders tensed slightly, by the way she slowed just a fraction like she was listening for footsteps behind her.
Eventually, she stopped walking.
She didn't turn around right away. She just stood there in the middle of the quiet street, Nova sitting beside her feet, looking back and forth between us like she knew this was important.
Finally, she turned. "I know you're there," she said quietly.
I stepped out of the shadows then, letting her see me fully.
For a moment, we just looked at each other in the soft glow of the streetlights. Her eyes were still a little red from crying, her posture tired, like the argument had drained the last of her strength.
"I wasn't going to let you walk home alone," I said.
"I figured," she replied softly.
Silence fell between us again, but it wasn't as heavy as before. Just quiet. Just tired. She looked down at the ground for a moment, then back up at me.
"I don't know how to be someone's first choice," she said suddenly.
The words were so quiet I almost didn't hear them.
I didn't answer right away. I just walked closer to her, slowly, like approaching a frightened animal that might run if I moved too fast.
When I was close enough, I held out my hand toward her, palm up, giving her the choice.
She looked at my hand for a long moment. Then, slowly, she placed her hand in mine.
Her fingers were cold. I closed my hand gently around hers, careful of the bandages around her wrist, and I felt something in my chest settle slightly at the contact.
"You don't have to know how," I said quietly. "You just have to let someone choose you."
She looked up at me then, her eyes searching my face like she was trying to find a lie there.
"I have always chosen you," I continued softly. "Even when you didn't know it. Even when I stayed away. Even when I thought you deserved better than me. It has always been you."
Her grip on my hand tightened slightly.
After a moment, I reached carefully for the bond between us, that invisible thread that had nearly driven me insane when she was gone.
I tugged on it very gently, just a small pull, more curiosity than anything.
She gasped slightly and took a small step forward without meaning to, her body responding before her mind did.
I caught her immediately with my other hand on her arm to steady her.
Her eyes widened slightly. "You did that."
I nodded once. "I can feel you through it. I would never use it to control you. But... I can feel if you're hurt. If you're scared."
She was quiet for a moment, then she did something I didn't expect.
She reached for the bond too.
I felt it immediately, a small, hesitant tug from her side, like she was testing it, like she was making sure it was real. The pull landed somewhere deep in my chest, warm and strange and overwhelming all at once.
I took an involuntary step closer to her this time. She looked up at me, surprised.
We both went very still for a moment.
Then, slowly, she smiled. It was small. Tired. A little sad. But it was real.
And I realised in that moment I would spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of that smile.
A/N - Dinner did not go according to plan. It was a long-overdue explosion of feelings, and honestly? It needed to happen. Even if it hurt :(
On the brighter side, Azriel actually goes after her this time (growth) and we finally get a glimpse of her opening up about her fears instead of just burying them. Progress!!
And that ending... a tiny bit of hope, just a little but we'll take it x
Thank you so much for reading <33
Invisible tag list - @sophieliz @azrielblue @whump-loverz @galacticoceans @lilah-asteria @niiickelodeon @justtryingtosurvive02 @rosie-posie08 @mis-lil-red @dnfhascorruptedme @justreadingfanficseveryday @spookypersondinosaur @jugodeshadowsinger @nyxmoretti @karolamurdock @do-nut25 @90s-belladonna @river-of-woe @prettylittlewrites @blueeclipsepaperstudent @chxosangxl @maddybrooke @napzalot @jada-lockwood @acourtofbatboydreams @pinksnowtiger @awkardnerd @throneofem @starinisstuff @alienmotel @chicken-fifi @itsraininghyunebuckets @dreaming-starlet @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @beloveddiary2 @pieceofmyritualexe @livvyluv44 @napzalot @themoonlitquill @pricklepearbloom @kittykaylat1987 @insomniac-astronomer @sinfully-yoursss @immortaliaslane @saamanthaag3 @tanyaherondale @psychiatry-and-poetry @moonlovefairy - tag list continued in comments
summary: Azriel carries his mate off to a much-needed picnic, away from her duties at the Court of Dreams.
word counter: 3.2k
warnings: none, pure fluff, Az being a simp for his woman, mentions of reader being an empath/reader having empathic abilities, Az’s pet names being always accompanied by “my” (bc he needs to remind himself constantly that she’s indeed his), reader is part of the Night Court ever since
author’s note: This is also my first time writing anything for ACOTAR, so please be gentle with me, but I just had to, okay? Az deserves every ounce of happiness I can offer him. Also: This is my first time writing and uploding anything in a minute, so this is definitely not perfect
Dividers are made by @enchanthings and @sweetmelodygraphics <3
He had planned this little escape for weeks now, always trying to find the perfect moment to whisk his mate away between duties and obligations, only to grant her and himself a much-needed break from quite literally everything. His shadows had been restless ever since, just as their wielder, the growing stress and frustration traveling along their strong mating bond only a figment of an indication of how she grew to feel every morning she awoke to tend to the court and their cause to protect and free Prythian in the War looming on the horizon.
And today had been finally the perfect day—due to Rhys’ helping hand after he had seen the growing and building anxiety of his brother.
“Is it not strange how adamant Rhys has acted earlier? I think it’s weird. Do you think I should go and check up on him later? Maybe trying to ease his mind? I think I should.” Her sweet, melodic voice filled the warm air, and a rare chuckle escaped the spymaster at her fast-working mind. Gently, he took the blanket out of her arms, placing it over the arm that already carried the basket filled with all her favorites, and tenderly, his free arm found its home around her waist, pulling her closer to his side.
A perfect fit. It was as if the Mother and the Cauldron had molded them to fit just as perfectly as two puzzle pieces. Made for one another… He still couldn’t grasp how his lifelong wish had been answered and granted after so many centuries.
Azriel’s head dipped to press a lingering kiss to her temple, his nose slightly buried in her soft strands, the soothing scent overpowering the scents wafting around them. “Will you scold me if I tell you how I asked him to give us at least today to ourselves?” His voice was soft, tender, a loving and humored edge to it. Hazel eyes began to twinkle as she looked up at him, meeting his gaze, not surprised in the slightest at his revelation, and the teasing twinkle in her eyes in return made his lips twitch into a smile. “Did you now?” She teased and nudged his side, tickling Az because she knew of every existing weak spot—the only person aside from Cassian and Rhys. Her growing smile made him feel light, free, and still, it was the most exhilarating thing he had ever achieved in his long life; felt as if his heart might explode any second when she turned and stretched slightly to press a kiss to his jawline. Reaching further wasn’t possible with the towering male walking beside her. “Thank you, my love.” Only a whisper, but loud enough to travel to his ears, accompanied by the warm and fuzzy feeling sent down the bond by her.
Another pull with the arm around her waist put her even closer—if that was even possible—and Azriel couldn’t hold back the urge within him to kiss her soft lips he had already kissed so often ever since they had accepted their mating bond. Still, it wasn’t often enough, in his opinion. Giving in, the shadowsinger stopped their path in the hidden passageway towards the lush green rolling hills along the coast of Velaris and slowly bent his body, letting their noses run alongside one another. “Nothing to thank me for, my darling,” he hummed, lips almost already touching in the softest of kisses, and he felt her fingers run through the short hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer to her and letting their lips melt into one. Neither he nor she could tell where the kiss started and where it ended, where his lips began and hers ended.
The low rumble of her stomach put a pause to their antics, and Az hummed once again before entwining their fingers and continued on their path. “Let’s find a place where we can ease that growl, my darling.”
Wildflowers of all kinds surrounded the place they had finally settled on—the glittering ocean right next to them, the rolling green hills as far as sight could reach, and Velaris in the close distance, beautiful as it had always been. Az had made himself comfortable on the blanket, the picnic basket opened right next to him, his body propped up on his forearms, and his eyes followed his mate as she strolled through the flowers. He could see her fingertips gracing the soft petals that stretched their colorful heads towards the sun, his shadows slowly, almost lazily winding around her wrist and fingers, always keeping her company, making sure she was alright. Not that Azriel minded their own ways, but sometimes he suspected they might abandon him entirely for her if they had the chance—and the shadowsinger couldn’t blame them either. He would do the same if it meant being at her side at all times.
“Eat at least a bite,” he now called over to her as she picked the first flower. She only spared a quick glance at him, but her radiant smile couldn’t fool him, nor could it hide the roll of her eyes. “Yes, yes. Only a minute, love.” Azriel himself rolled his eyes now, but the tuck at his lips was too strong to withstand it. Not when they were alone, not when she was the cause of that rare smile sneaking its way onto his face.
So, he watched her while already eating some of the fresh berries, patiently waiting, eyes moving when she moved toward the next flower in full bloom, bending down to pick her, placing the delicate thing in the soft embrace of her arm he knew wouldn’t dare crush her new possession. She wasn’t violent or cruel to beings who couldn’t defend themselves, who didn’t possess a single malicious thought in their entire body. And even for those who might commit evil deeds, she still held compassion if necessary. By the Cauldron, she even had accepted him from the very beginning of their friendship all those centuries ago when Rhys had brought her into the Court of Dreams, right after the War had been won.
A sigh left him when she finally strolled toward him in her pretty flowy dress, hair flowing in the warm breeze, her smile growing the closer she got to him. “What am I supposed to do with you, hm?” Az had pushed himself from his arms into a sitting position, legs slightly crossed, an arm resting on his muscular thigh, while the other reached for her, enveloping her fingers as she sank onto the blanket and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. The sound of his wings stretching and rustling behind him accompanied her adorable chuckle, and he almost melted at the sight of her shining eyes when she pressed his scarred palm against her cheek, her lips leaving a warm mark on it, letting him forget about the pain of the past in an instant.
She had that power over him.
“Az, you had more than four centuries to get used to my antics.” Grinning, her lips pressed another set of kisses to his palm before letting his hand sink onto her knee, where it immediately started to wander and found its place on her thigh, squeezing it tenderly. “I should know by now, you mean?” A nod followed his question, grin still prominent on her lips, but he felt her concentration slip toward the many flowers she had sprayed over the blanket in front of her, and her soft and delicate fingers had already started to weave some of them together. “Perhaps even a lifetime isn’t long enough,” he dared to hum and tease, moving closer toward her side and holding a strawberry in front of her lips. The tip of Azriel’s nose nudged her temple, and she took a bite, sighing in satisfaction. “Perhaps.” The sweet berry muffled her words, and without thinking or even considering he was prepared for it, the woman scooted closer and leaned backward, pressing her back against her mate’s strong chest—because he had been ready. He was always ready and always there if she needed or craved anything.
Even though the bond had taken its sweet time before it had finally snapped into place, they had been close from the beginning, a mutual feeling of closeness and understanding the root and foundation of their slowly blooming friendship. And over the decades and centuries, they had started to learn to know one another. Now, with the bond in its rightful place, it all was merely heightened; no longer a want to fulfill anything they wished for, but an urging need. So Az just knew without thinking when she needed his arms wrapped tightly around her body, his chest pressing against her back like a steadfast wall in a sea of uncertainty and fear.
His chin rested on her right shoulder, the strong and powerful wings softly tucked behind his back, granting the sunlight to kiss and warm her skin while she weaved flower after flower in a steadily growing circle.
“When all of this is over…” The soft voice of his mate traveled alongside the warm breeze. “When all is over, I’d like to leave for a while. Just… the two of us. Somewhere enjoying life itself, forgetting about War, bloodshed, and intrigues. Healing and growing,” she continued even softer, reminding him once again of her calm and peaceful nature, and Azriel felt how she longed for all those things after everything that had happened in the past fifty years. He didn’t dare to think about all that had happened Under the Mountain when she had been forced to live there, didn’t try to recollect everything she had shared with him in those days after Rhys and she had finally returned to Velaris.
All that was important was the exploding sensation of relief since she had followed Rhys over the threshold in the House of Wind, stepping out of the shadow of his broad back and came running right to him. That immaculate sensation had been his companion since that day.
Burrowing his face into the warm crook of her neck, the spymaster released a deep breath. “Whatever you wish, my darling,” he whispered against her skin, making her giggle and squirm in his grasp. “Az! Stop it, or my flower crown will be ruined!” He hid the growing smirk against her skin and nipped at one of her weak spots, making it tickle once more. “They always turn out beautiful.” Azriel could practically feel the playful roll of her eyes at his words, and dutifully, he picked the next flower for her to weave into the growing circle before a small lemon tart found its way to her lips, reminding his mate that they indeed had something else in mind when they had left the House of Wind earlier.
The deep, soft sighing after the first bite of the masterfully baked tart warmed his heart, and Azriel didn’t object in the slightest when the small cake was eaten within a heartbeat, her sweet tooth demanding even more after weeks of relinquishment because they had all been so busy with the preparations for the meeting with Prythian’s High Lords.
“Another one?” He whispered quietly as the shadows now surrounded their legs, resting like they did. “Do we have one of these tiny strawberry cakes we had for Starfall?” Immediately, the memory of the last festivities occupied his mind as he looked for the mentioned dessert and presented it to her like an offering to the gods in his open, scarred palm. “My Lady.” She chuckled at that and abandoned the almost finished flower crown with a gentle “Thank you, my Lord,” only to take the delicate cake and took a savoring bite out of it.
“Have I ever told you how beautiful you looked at Starfall? More radiant as the stars…” Az’s voice trailed off into the distance, pictures of that night clouding his mind once again. As she turned her head to look at him with that one smile entirely reserved for his eyes, he pulled back and let her kiss his lips in a heart-wrenchingly soft kiss. “You told me that countless times, my love. Especially when you see the dress hanging in the armoire.” She grinned at that, making him almost blush. “But do I need to remind you how handsome and dashing you looked that night? All those ladies turning and twisting their heads as soon as you walked through the room…” Even though she knew that no one could take her mate, the bitter feeling of jealousy boiled in her blood for just a second before it vanished at the glowing and warm, but also shadowy feeling of their bond, reminding her once again that they were bound for the rest of their existence.
“No need to be jealous, my darling. There was never anyone but you, and there will never be anyone but you.”
His index finger under her chin moved her face upward to face him, skin touching skin and lips brushing over even softer lips. “I know,” she whispered against Azriel, and for a moment, she leaned her forehead against the strong line of his jaw, feeling him pressing a tender kiss on her hairline.
A rumble in the far-off distance let them look up at last, and both watched the building and rolling clouds over the sea, knowing that rain was a mere thought away. But still, they took their time.
Az continued to feed them both, watching her tirelessly weaving flower after flower into the crown, humming a tune they had danced to countless times by now and savoring the warmth radiating off his body. “Another one for Elain?” Azriel dared to ask as she seemed to be done. All the flowers she had gathered were woven into a beautiful, intricate pattern, and none were wasted. His mate had started to bring Elain flowers and plants in all their forms, especially ones only growing in their lands and not behind the wall, explaining their nature, natural habitats, uses, and sometimes hidden beauty. She was so soft and gentle with the young female that Azriel had to ask himself—more often than not, if he was honest—if she would be like this to their children if they ever were allowed that sort of happiness.
He let her sit up and turn onto her knees, holding the crown in her delicate fingers. She shook her head, an unsure smile now surfacing on her lips, as she softly placed it on top of his dark hair. “I never made one for you, my love.” He was stunned, not daring to move nor touch the petals now resting on his head. “You don’t have to keep it, of course. If you don’t like it, I can just bring it to Elain, and we’ll forget about it. It’s silly anywa-” He stopped her right then and there by pulling her close and kissing her fiercely, only holding himself back from roaring down their bond and scaring the living daylights out of her. He took great pride in the fact how breathless his mate was when Az finally ended the kiss, how gleaming her eyes were when she looked at him, how the blush that had crept to her cheeks made them glow, how her fingers gripped the fabric over his chest to steady herself. “Don’t you dare take it,” he growled and kissed her once more, shorter this time, less desperate, and still tickled those delicious sounds out of her body he still kept reveling in, even after all this time.
The first drop falling from the heavens made them part, and while she started to collect their things to pack them safely into the basket and fold the picnic blanket, Azriel spread his wings to protect his mate from the mighty raindrops. When they were ready to winnow to the barriers of the House of Wind, the summer downpour had already picked up its intensity and soaked the two from head to toe. However, their laughter still lingered over their sacred space of Velaris even after they winnowed away.
Feyre’s brows creased in worry as she looked out the many windows in the palace atop the mountain, overlooking Velaris during the downpour that had been foreseen. The heavy drops splattered against the glass, making it difficult to discern any shape moving in the distance. She knew the rain wouldn’t harm them, but the thunderstorm rolling over the hills induced an anxiety within her that she could barely contain.
“Feyre, darling?”
Rhys’ voice let her spin away from the windows, facing her mate who had stood from his desk he had worked on for the past couple of hours, and walked closer toward her, worry furrowing his forehead. “What is wrong?” He wrapped his strong arms around her body, and the High Lady sighed deeply as she sank into the embrace. “Nothing, I…” The first roaring thunder let her pause for a moment. “Az and YN haven’t returned yet.” Violet eyes gazed out of the window, brows slightly furrowed in concentration as he tried to make out the shapes in the gloomy light of the early evening.
Then, a smile spread across his handsome face, and Feyre turned to see what had happened. “They are now. Come, my love,” the High Lord coaxed his mate toward the door to meet the pair down the hall to greet them. She followed him without hesitation, needing to see for herself that both her friends returned without harm, and had to know if they enjoyed their afternoon, needing all the raunchy details YN would spill over a glass of faery wine and a warm fire.
They only made it atop the stairwell leading down into the hall that housed the balcony primarily used to enter the House of Wind, and the pair watched a dripping YN pulling a not-less-dripping Azriel inside, a laugh dancing on her lips.
The Illyrian shook the rain off his shoulders and wings, eyes entirely focused on the brightly smiling High Fae before him. Without a thought, he let the basket drop to the floor, not sparing a single second for its whereabouts after because his entire being narrowed down to the bond beating in his chest, demanding intimacy, closeness, with the female he desired and loved more than life itself. A shriek escaped YN between laughter as Az playfully pounced on her, wrapping her in his strong arms and lifting her off the ground in one smooth motion, moaning deep in his throat at the first taste of her lips drenched in rain droplets.
As he carried her down the hall toward their shared bedchambers in long, purposeful strides, flower crown still proudly atop his head, YN laughed: “Az, the basket!” The pair above the stairs could only hear him say, “It can wait until I’m drunk and delirious on you,” before a door closed, and Feyre finally allowed the giggle to escape her she had held onto for so long.
Rhys shook his head with a humored grin, pulling the female next to him closer to his chest. “My spymaster wearing a flower crown? I won’t ever let him forget it,” he chuckled deeply, amusement and happiness dancing across his face, especially as Feyre hit his chest in warning. “Don’t you dare tease him about it!” The male grinned at that, pulling her face toward him, and pressed a lingering kiss to her lips. “I can’t make such promises, Feyre darling unless you are interested in a little deal with your beloved mate.”
Now, it was her turn to let a laugh freely echo through the halls.
Thank you everyone for reading! As usual: I'd love to read your thoughts and comments, perhaps you have an idea for a future Azriel - or any ACOTAR character - fanfiction you'd want me to write. Also, likes and reblogs are very much appreciated! <3
