Summary: When a blizzard rolls through Windhaven, you learn firsthand just how brutal Illyrian winters can be—and how soft Azriel can be when it comes to you. Cold fingers, warm jackets, grumpy shadows, and one very flustered spymaster.
You'd always heard that Illyrian winters were brutal. What you hadn't realized was that "brutal" was a massive understatement.
Standing outside the war camp's central meeting hall, you hugged yourself tighter as another gust of snow-laden wind cut through your woefully inadequate cloak. When Azriel had mentioned bringing you along to Windhaven, you'd packed what you thought was appropriate winter attire.
Apparently, "winter attire" in Velaris and "winter attire" in the Illyrian Mountains were two entirely different concepts.
"It'll just be a quick meeting," he'd said with that rare, small smile that still made your heart flutter. "Wait for me outside. The camp lords get tetchy when outsiders sit in."
That was two hours ago.
Your teeth chattered so violently you worried they might crack. You'd long since lost feeling in your toes, and your fingers had progressed from painful to alarmingly numb. The snow had begun falling harder, creating white walls of wind that obscured everything beyond ten feet.
"This is f-f-fine," you muttered to yourself, stamping your feet in a futile attempt to generate warmth. "T-totally f-fine."
A passing Illyrian warrior, bundled in thick furs and leathers, shot you an incredulous look that clearly said. No, you idiot, this is not fine.
You glared back, though the effect was probably ruined by how pathetically you were shivering.
Just as you were contemplating whether it would be worse to interrupt Azriel's important meeting or to slowly freeze into a human popsicle, the door to the hall slammed open.
Azriel stood in the doorway, his expression shifting from irritation (presumably at whatever had transpired in the meeting) to absolute horror when he spotted you.
"What in the name of the Mother—" He was across the space between you in three long strides, shadows writhing agitatedly around him.
You attempted a smile. "H-hi."
"Are you—" He reached for you, then hissed when his fingers touched your cheek. "You're freezing!"
"C-curious observation, s-s-shadowsinger," you managed through chattering teeth.
The shadows around his hands seemed to darken and multiply, whispering what sounded like curses in languages you didn't recognize. For a moment, you swore they formed tiny, angry little faces that scolded the wind.
"Why didn't you go inside somewhere? Any building would have been better than standing out in this!" His voice was gentle but firm as he rapidly unfastened his heavy leather jacket.
"Y-you said wait outside the m-meeting hall."
Azriel paused in the middle of removing his jacket, those hazel eyes widening. "I meant wait outside the meeting, not outside in a blizzard!"
You blinked snowflakes from your lashes. "Oh."
With a noise that was half exasperation and half concern, he shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around you. Instantly, delicious warmth enveloped you – the leather practically radiated heat, the blue siphons embedded in the shoulders glowing subtly.
"You enchanted your jacket?" you asked, already feeling the painful tingle of circulation returning to your extremities.
"Of course I did. It's the Illyrian Mountains in winter," he said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. His shadows continued their angry whispers, now seemingly directed at you.
"Are your shadows... lecturing me?"
A hint of color touched his cheeks. "They're concerned."
"They sound cranky."
"They hate seeing you in distress," he muttered, the admission clearly costing him something. Before you could tease him further, he bent and swept you into his arms as if you weighed absolutely nothing.
You squeaked in surprise. "Azriel! Put me down! I can walk!"
"Your lips are blue, your clothes are soaked through, and you've probably lost feeling in your feet," he countered, already striding through the snow. His massive wings unfurled partially to shield you from the worst of the wind. "So no, you cannot walk."
The few Illyrians out braving the storm quickly stepped aside, their expressions ranging from amusement to outright shock at seeing their intimidating spymaster carrying a shivering human through camp.
One brave warrior called out something in their native tongue that made Azriel's ears redden.
"What did he say?" you asked, snuggling deeper into the wonderful warmth of his jacket.
"Nothing important," Azriel replied too quickly.
You poked his chest. "Liar."
His lips twitched. "He said I've gone soft."
"Well, your jacket is very soft," you agreed, deliberately misunderstanding. "The big bad shadowsinger has a comfortable jacket. Shocking."
That earned you a rare chuckle as he pushed open the door to a small cabin with his foot. Inside was blessedly warm, a fire already crackling in the hearth.
He set you down gently on a chair near the fire, kneeling to remove your soaked boots. "You need to get out of these wet clothes."
When you waggled your eyebrows suggestively, he gave you a flat look. "Not like that."
"Spoilsport," you teased, but your attempt at humor was ruined by another violent shiver.
His expression sobered instantly. "You could have gotten seriously ill." His scarred hands cradled your frozen ones with infinite gentleness. "Why didn't you find shelter?"
"You told me to wait," you said simply. "I didn't want to miss you."
Something in his expression softened, and the shadows around him stilled their frantic movement. "Next time, assume that 'don't freeze to death' is implied in all of my instructions."
"I'll make a note of that," you promised, your lips curving into a smile as feeling returned to your face.
He disappeared into another room, returning with a pile of blankets and dry clothes that would clearly swallow you whole. "These will be too big, but they're warm."
As he helped you change – turning his back with endearing propriety when necessary – you couldn't help but observe, "Your shadows are still grumbling."
"They're saying I should have checked on you sooner." His voice was quiet, laced with guilt. "They sensed your discomfort but couldn't reach me through the wards in the meeting hall."
"Well, tell them I'm fine now. Just a bit chilly."
He raised an eyebrow. "'A bit chilly' doesn't turn someone's lips blue."
Once you were bundled in dry clothes and wrapped in multiple blankets, he sat beside you, hesitating only briefly before putting an arm around you.
"Your shadows are still muttering," you pointed out, leaning into his solid warmth.
"They're arguing about whether to tell Cassian."
You straightened in alarm. "Don't you dare. He'll never let me live it down."
The corner of Azriel's mouth lifted. "I think they're more concerned with whether he'll let me live it down for leaving my... for leaving you in a blizzard."
You caught that little slip, that unfinished word that hung between you, and tucked it away to examine later. "Your what, exactly?"
His wings shifted behind him – a nervous tell you'd begun to recognize. "My responsibility," he said finally.
"Hmm." You settled more comfortably against him. "Well, tell your shadows that if they snitch to Cassian, I'll find a way to make them regret it."
To your delight, the shadows actually seemed to recoil slightly, curling back toward Azriel's hands.
"They're suddenly reconsidering," he said, and you swore you could hear amusement in his voice.
"Good." You yawned, the warmth and safety making your eyelids heavy. "I'm very intimidating, you know."
"Terrifying," he agreed, his arm tightening around you. "Especially when you're blue with cold and buried under every blanket I own."
"Exactly," you mumbled, sleep beginning to claim you. "The most fearsome creature in all of Prythian."
As you drifted off, you felt the gentle press of lips against your temple and heard him whisper, "To me, you certainly are."
Outside, the wind howled, but you were warm, safe, and held by an Illyrian warrior whose shadows had finally stopped scolding the weather and started singing you to sleep instead.
End.
Author's Note: Just a little snowy slice of fluff starring everyone's favorite brooding shadowsinger and a very cold (but very stubborn) you. May the shadows always bring you blankets. 💙❄️
summary: Azriel discovers that his fiercest protector isn’t his shadows—but his own child, who takes their job far too seriously.
genre: fluff
Azriel was feared across Prythian. He was the Shadowsinger, the spymaster, the silent specter that haunted the nightmares of his enemies.
But today?
Today, he was the father of a menace.
And that menace was currently threatening a fully grown male in the middle of the Velaris market.
Azriel watched, horrified yet vaguely impressed, as his son—no taller than his thigh—stood before a merchant with his tiny arms crossed, his wings flared, and his brows scrunched in utter defiance.
The crime?
Apparently, the male had looked at you for too long.
"You better step back, mister!" your son snapped, voice far too bold for someone who still needed help tying his boots. "My dad is the deadliest Illyrian alive, and he will DESTROY YOU."
Azriel nearly choked.
The merchant—a poor, confused older male who was just handing you some fruit—blinked rapidly, looking between you, Azriel, and the tiny ball of righteous fury that had just challenged his entire existence.
You pressed a hand over your mouth, clearly struggling.
Azriel? He was malfunctioning.
"Sweetheart," you said, voice trembling with amusement, "he's just selling peaches."
Your child, unconvinced, narrowed his eyes at the merchant. "He was staring."
Azriel, for once in his life, had no idea what to do.
He had trained armies. He had interrogated traitors. He had survived Cassian’s cooking.
But this?
This was a new level of warfare.
"Uh…" Azriel cleared his throat, stepping forward. "He's, uh…very protective of his mother."
The merchant nervously laughed, handing you your fruit before making the fastest exit of his life.
Your son huffed in victory, brushing his hands off like he had just saved the entire Night Court from certain doom.
Azriel slowly turned to them. "Where did you learn to threaten people like that?"
His child beamed. "Uncle Cassian!"
Azriel closed his eyes.
Of course.
"Alright," he sighed. "New rule—no threatening people in the market. Or anywhere. Ever."
Your child pouted. "Even if they’re looking at Mommy weird?"
Azriel almost caved.
But then he glanced at you, watching as you fought back laughter, and he knew he needed to shut this down immediately.
"Especially then," he said firmly.
Your child grumbled but relented. "Fine."
Azriel exhaled in relief—too soon.
Because the second he turned away, his son muttered under his breath, "But if anyone looks at Daddy weird, I’m punching them."
Azriel groaned.
You, meanwhile, burst into laughter, finally losing your composure.
The rest of Velaris?
Well, they had no idea that the Night Court’s most feared spymaster now had his own tiny, overprotective bodyguard.
The End.
I hope this made you laugh! Let me know if you want another one—your little menace has so much more chaos to unleash!
Azriel x Reader | Romance, Angst
Azriel finally meets his mate. Only to realize you exist only in his dreams. Each night with you feels achingly real, until one touch snaps the mating bond into place. When he wakes with only your scent and fading clues, he knows one thing: he’ll tear the world apart to find you.
Part 1
The House of Wind had never felt so much like a cage.
Three days had passed since Azriel woke with the mating bond blazing in his chest, and he hadn't been still for longer than five minutes at a time. His shadows writhed constantly now, agitated and seeking, whispering fragments that made no sense.
White stone, lavender fields, dying light, hurry hurry hurry.
"You look like hell," Cassian observed from the doorway.
Azriel didn't look up from the map spread across his desk, covered in marks and crossed-out locations. Red ink bled across mortal territories like wounds. "I'm fine."
"Right. And I'm a delicate flower." Cassian stepped inside, noting the clothes scattered on the floor, the unmade bed, the way Azriel's hands trembled as he traced routes through the mortal lands. "When's the last time you slept? Actually slept?"
"I sleep." Azriel's voice was rough from disuse.
"Having visions doesn't count as rest, brother."
Azriel's head snapped up, hazel eyes blazing. "They're not visions."
The rawness in his voice made Cassian take a step back. In five centuries of friendship, he'd seen Azriel angry, cold, even broken. But he'd never seen him desperate.
"Az," Cassian said carefully. "What's going on?"
Before Azriel could answer, his shadows suddenly coalesced into a tight spiral. He doubled over as the mating bond flared with such intensity it stole his breath. Somewhere—somewhere—his mate was in pain.
"Fuck," he gasped, white-knuckled against his desk.
Cassian was beside him instantly. "Azriel, what—"
"Get Rhys. Now."
"A mating bond," Rhysand said slowly, violet eyes studying Azriel with careful intensity. "Through dreams."
They gathered in Rhys's study—Azriel rigid in his chair, Cassian hovering by the window, Feyre perched on the arm of Rhys's chair. The High Lord had probed gently at Azriel's mental shields, and even that light touch had been enough to feel the bond's golden fire.
"It's real," Azriel said for the third time. "She's real. And she's dying."
"Dream-bonds are theoretical at best," Rhys said carefully. "The few documented cases—"
"I don't care about documentation." Azriel's shadows began to writhe more violently, responding to his agitation. "I can smell her on my skin. My shadows reach for her even when I'm awake. The bond is there, Rhys. You felt it yourself."
"I felt something," Rhys agreed. "But bonds don't typically form with humans, and they certainly don't form across planes of existence."
"She's not typical." Azriel's voice quieted, and something tender crept into his expression. "She can touch my shadows. They play with her like they're pets." He looked up, and Feyre's heart clenched at the desperation in his eyes. "She taught me to make flower crowns."
The simple statement hung in the air. Azriel, who hadn't allowed himself simple pleasures in centuries, making flower crowns with a dying girl in his dreams.
"What do you need?" Feyre asked softly.
Rhys shot her a warning look, but she ignored it. She knew what it was like to feel a bond snap into place, knew the desperate need to reach your mate, to protect them.
"Information," Azriel said immediately. "Access to the mortal healers' records. Permission to cross court boundaries without diplomatic protocol." His shadows curled around his wrists like shackles. "And time. I need time."
"Az," Cassian said gently. "Even if she is real, if she's dying—"
"Then I'll find a way to save her." The words carried such fierce conviction that no one dared argue.
Rhys studied his brother's face—the hollow cheeks, the way his hands clenched into fists, the barely leashed violence in his posture. This was Azriel stripped to his most essential self: a creature built for hunting, for finding what was lost.
"You have three weeks," he said finally. "After that, you come home and we reassess."
"I'll need longer—"
"Three weeks, Azriel." Rhys's voice carried the weight of a High Lord's command. "If the bond is real, if she exists, you'll find her. You always find what you're hunting for."
Always, Azriel thought grimly. But what if this time was different? What if this time he was already too late?
The dreams were becoming his salvation and his torment.
Each night, you looked paler, more translucent, but for those precious hours, you were his.
Completely, utterly his. And he was falling apart trying to hold onto you.
"You look tired," you observed during what might have been the tenth shared dream, or the hundredth. Time had no meaning in this place between sleep and waking, where golden light filtered through ancient oak leaves and the air always smelled of lavender and something uniquely you.
"I am tired," he admitted, settling beside you on the blanket you'd somehow conjured in their clearing. In the waking world, he'd been searching for six days. Six days of false hope and crushing disappointment. But here, here you were warm and whole and reaching for him.
"Come here," you murmured, opening your arms.
He went without hesitation, something in his chest unclenching as you pulled him down to rest his head in your lap. Your fingers found his hair, threading through the dark strands with a tenderness that made his throat tight.
"You carry too much," you said softly, and he could hear the frown in your voice. "Even in dreams, you can't let go."
He wanted to tell you that he couldn't let go because you were fading, because each night brought less of you to hold. Instead, he turned his face into your stomach, breathing in your scent like a drowning man gulping air.
"Tell me about your day," you said, the same request you made every night. As if his daily search for you was just ordinary work, as if this was simply a lover's reunion at day's end.
So he did, editing out the desperation, the way his hands shook when leads went cold. He told you about flying over the mortal lands, about villages tucked into valleys, about the way morning mist clung to rivers.
Safe things. Beautiful things.
Your fingers never stopped moving in his hair, occasionally trailing down to trace the shell of his ear, the line of his jaw. Touch-starved as he was, each caress sent heat racing through his veins.
"I missed you," he said against your skin, the words muffled but honest. "Every second I'm awake, I miss you."
"I'm right here," you said, but your voice sounded farther away than it should have. "I'm always here."
He lifted his head to look at you, taking in the soft curve of your mouth, the way your eyes seemed to hold starlight.
You were beautiful—heartbreakingly so—and you were his in a way that defied logic or reason.
"Kiss me," he said, the words torn from somewhere deep in his chest.
You smiled, that slow, sweet smile that undid him completely, and leaned down to press your lips to his. The kiss was soft at first, gentle, but when he made a low sound of need, you deepened it, your tongue sliding against his in a way that made him forget everything but this—you, warm and alive and wanting him.
When you finally pulled back, you were both breathing hard.
"I’ll find you," he said, the words spilling out before he could stop them. "I'm going to find you, and I'm going to save you."
Something flickered across your face—confusion, maybe, or fear. "Save me from what?"
The question hit him like ice water. "You're sick," he said carefully. "In the waking world, you're dying, and I'm trying to—"
"I don't feel sick," you interrupted, your brow furrowing. "I feel... tired sometimes. Like I'm forgetting something important. But not sick."
He cupped your face in his hands, memorizing every detail. "Promise me something," he said urgently. "Promise me you'll fight. Whatever is happening to you out there, promise me you won't give up."
"I don't understand," you said, but you leaned into his touch anyway, nuzzling into his palm like a cat seeking warmth.
"Promise me," he repeated, and there was something broken in his voice that made you nod.
"I promise," you whispered. "I promise I'll fight."
He kissed you again, desperate and claiming, pouring all his love and fear and desperation into the contact. You responded with equal fervor, your arms winding around his neck, pulling him closer until there was no space between you.
You curled against his side then, your head on his chest, one leg tangled between his. His shadows, which had been agitated all day, finally settled, wrapping around you both like a dark, protective cocoon. Your fingers traced idle patterns over his heart, and he caught your hand, bringing it to his lips to press soft kisses to your knuckles.
"I wish I could stay here forever," you murmured against his skin. "Just like this."
"So do I," he said, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "So do I."
But even as he held you, he could feel you beginning to fade, your edges growing translucent in the golden light. He tightened his grip, trying to anchor you somehow, but you slipped through his fingers like morning mist.
"I have to go," you said sleepily, though you made no move to leave his arms.
"Not yet," he said, desperation creeping into his voice. "Please, not yet."
"I'm sorry," you whispered, and then you were gone, leaving him alone in the empty clearing with nothing but the memory of your warmth and the taste of your kiss on his lips.
He woke to cold dawn light streaming through his tent, the mating bond a dull ache in his chest, and the terrible knowledge that he was running out of time.
"The Shadow Lord looks ready to murder someone," Mor observed, watching Azriel interrogate a healer in one of the mortal villages.
They'd been at this for twelve days. Twelve days of flying from village to village, of Azriel questioning anyone who might have information about dying girls, of following his shadows as they searched for a scent that seemed to exist only in his memory.
The healer—a middle-aged woman with kind eyes that had turned fearful—trembled under Azriel's stare. His shadows coiled around him like living smoke, and his voice carried the promise of violence barely held in check.
"Think carefully," Azriel said, leaning forward. "A young woman. Sick for months. Dreams of places that don't exist. Has anyone mentioned—"
"Please," the healer whispered. "I've told you everything I know. There was a girl in Rosehall, but she died last week. And the merchant's daughter in Millbrook, but her illness is consumption, not—"
Azriel's shadows surged forward, and the woman flinched back.
"No." Rhys's voice came from behind them. They turned to see him approaching, his face grim. "Let him work. He's gotten more information in twelve days than our spies have gathered in months."
It was true. Azriel's intensity had a way of making people very eager to be helpful. Fear, it turned out, was an excellent motivator.
"Any luck?" Mor asked.
"Three possibilities," Rhys said. "A girl in Rosehall who was having prophetic dreams before slipping into a coma—but she died two days ago. A healer's daughter two villages north who's been wasting away from some unknown illness. And..." He paused, watching as Azriel's shadows suddenly stilled, as if listening to something none of them could hear. "A girl near the mortal queens' territory who's been asking about shadow-touched magic."
"Shadow-touched?" Cassian straightened. "That's not exactly common knowledge in mortal lands."
"No," Rhys agreed. "It's not."
They watched as Azriel finished with the healer, his shadows coiling around him like a dark crown. When he turned toward them, his face was carved from stone, but his eyes—his eyes burned with something that might have been hope.
"The girl near Rosehall is dead," he said flatly. "The healer's daughter has bone-rot, not the wasting sickness." His shadows began to stream in a specific direction, like a compass needle finding true north. "But there's a third option. A girl who's been asking about dream magic and shadow-touched fae. She's been sick for months, having dreams about places that don't exist."
"Where?" Cassian asked, though he could see the answer in the way Azriel's entire being seemed to orient toward something distant.
"Near Thornfield. In a cottage by the white cliffs." Azriel's voice was steady, but Cassian caught the tremor underneath. "She's there. I can feel it."
For the first time in nearly two weeks, the mating bond felt strong enough to follow.
The girl was already cold when they found her.
Azriel stood in the doorway of the modest cottage, staring at the still form beneath a patchwork quilt. She looked peaceful, younger in death than she probably had in life.
But she wasn't you. The bond lay silent in his chest, cold as winter stone.
The mother—red-eyed and hollow-cheeked—wrung her hands behind him. "She passed in her sleep," the woman whispered. "Just... slipped away."
His shadows recoiled from the body as if burned.
Wrong, they seemed to whisper. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
"Not you," he breathed, and turned away.
He was airborne before the woman could speak again, wings cutting through gray morning sky. Below him, Cassian called his name, but Azriel didn't slow. Couldn't slow.
The bond pulled him east, toward the sea cliffs, toward white stone and dying light.
That night, you flickered in and out of focus like candlelight in a draft.
"You look sad," you observed, reaching up to trace the line of his jaw. Your fingers felt insubstantial, more memory than flesh.
"I found a girl today," he said, catching your hand and pressing it firmly to his cheek. "I thought... I hoped it might be you."
"But I'm right here," you said, confused.
"The real you," he clarified gently. "Your body. Where you are when you're not dreaming."
You tilted your head, and the gesture was so familiar, so perfectly you, that it made his chest ache. "I don't understand. This feels real to me."
It felt real to him too. More real than the waking world, where everything was sharp edges and bitter disappointment. Here, in this place between dreams, you were warm and whole and his. Here, the bond sang true and bright.
But here wasn't enough. Not when he could feel you slipping away a little more each night.
"Tell me about the shadows," you murmured against his throat, just as you had every night for the past week.
So he did. He told you how they'd first come to him in that dark cellar, how they'd wrapped around him like living things seeking comfort. He told you how they danced for you in the dreams, how they seemed more alive when you were near.
He told you everything, storing each moment like a treasure against the growing certainty that soon there would be nothing left to hold.
The daughter was wasting away, but her eyes were clear and lucid when they met his. Brown eyes, not the color he'd memorized from his dreams. No recognition. No pull from the bond.
"Bone-rot," her father said grimly. "Been eating at her for months. Nothing I can do now but make her comfortable."
Azriel's shadows curled inward like wounded animals. He'd been so sure, had felt something tugging him here, but the bond remained silent. Dead.
Another false lead. Another failure.
He thanked the healer and walked away, his steps mechanical. Behind him, he heard Cassian making their excuses, offering gold for their time, but the words seemed to come from very far away.
Cassian found him hours later, sitting motionless on a rooftop overlooking the village. His brother settled beside him with careful grace, close enough to offer comfort but far enough to avoid crowding.
"Az," Cassian said gently. "When did you last eat?"
"I'll eat when I find her."
"And if you don't? If you die of exhaustion before—"
"I'll find her." The words were mechanical, hollow. "I have to."
Cassian studied his brother's profile—the hollow cheeks, the way his hands trembled against his knees, the shadows that writhed restlessly around him like caged things. In all their centuries together, he'd never seen Azriel like this. Even during the worst missions, even when torture had broken his body, Azriel had maintained that core of steel that made him the Spymaster.
This was different. This was unraveling.
"What if she's not—"
"She's real." Azriel's voice cracked like a whip. "Don't."
The single word carried enough warning to silence even Cassian. They sat in silence as the sun set, painting the sky the color of old blood. Finally, Cassian spoke again.
"What's she like? In the dreams?"
Azriel was quiet for so long that Cassian thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than Cassian had heard it in decades.
"She laughs," Azriel said. "Real laughter, not the polite kind you hear at court. She makes flower crowns and tells me stories about her grandmother's garden. She's not afraid of my shadows—she treats them like pets, lets them wind around her fingers." He paused, swallowing hard. "She sees me. Not the Spymaster, not the shadowsinger. Just... me."
"And she's forgetting?"
"More each night." Azriel's hands clenched into fists. "Last night she couldn't remember my name. Tonight..." He trailed off, shaking his head.
"We'll find her, Az."
"Will we?" The question held all of Azriel's fears, all his desperate hope. "What if I'm too late? What if she's already—"
"She's not." Cassian's voice was firm, certain. "She's fighting. The bond wouldn't be this strong if she wasn't."
But even as he said it, Cassian wondered if he was lying. The bond had been growing weaker, hadn't it? More fragile each day?
The cottage near Thornwood sat in a clearing ringed by ancient oaks, and for a moment—just a moment—Azriel thought he'd found his dream made real. As he approached, the mating bond flared brighter than it had in days, and his shadows surged forward like hounds on a scent.
This is it, he thought, landing hard in the overgrown garden. She's here.
The bond was singing now, a golden rope pulling him toward the cottage door. His shadows raced ahead of him, and he could almost smell lavender on the wind.
A girl emerged from the cottage—young, pale, with the wasted look of chronic illness. But when she saw him, she didn't run toward him with recognition. She stumbled backward, eyes wide with terror.
"Please," she gasped. "I don't know anything. I just heard the stories—"
The bond went silent. Cold. Dead.
The devastating disappointment hit him like a physical blow. Not you. Not you again. How many more false leads? How many more dying girls who weren't his mate?
"Stories?" His voice was barely human.
"About the dream-sick girl," she stammered. "The one who asks about shadow-touched magic, who dreams of places that don't exist. But she's not here—she lives east, near the white cliffs. Everyone knows about her."
White cliffs. His shadows had been whispering those words for weeks, and he'd assumed they meant white stone buildings or walls. But cliffs—cliffs by the sea.
Hope blazed to life again, fierce and desperate.
"The white cliffs," he repeated.
"By the sea," the girl whispered. "Where the old watchtower stands. They say she's been sick for months, getting worse. The healers don't know what's wrong with her—she just wastes away, like she's fading from the world." She met his eyes, and something in his expression made her add urgently, "If you're looking for her, you should hurry."
The mating bond suddenly flared to life, a golden thread of fire that pointed east like a compass needle. His shadows streamed in the same direction, eager and urgent.
White stone. Not buildings—cliffs. The white cliffs by the sea, where dying light would paint them gold each evening.
"How far?" he demanded.
"Two days' ride," the girl said, shrinking back from the intensity in his voice. "Maybe less if you... if you fly."
Azriel was already spreading his wings.
He launched into the night sky, cutting through darkness toward the distant sea. Behind him, his brothers called his name, but he didn't look back. Couldn't look back.
For the first time in nineteen days, the mating bond sang with certainty.
"Three weeks, Azriel." Rhysand's voice cut through the dawn air as Azriel prepared to leave camp. "That was the deal."
Azriel didn't look up from checking his daggers, ensuring his siphons were functioning. Making final preparations for what he knew would be his last chance. "The deal's changed."
"I could order you back."
Azriel finally met his brother's violet eyes, and Rhysand took an involuntary step back at what he saw there. Not the controlled Spymaster, not even the desperate male from weeks past. This was something else entirely—something wild and dangerous and barely leashed.
"You could try," Azriel said quietly.
The threat hung unspoken but clear. Rhysand was powerful, arguably one of the most powerful High Lords in Prythian's history. But Azriel was desperate. And desperate creatures were the most dangerous of all.
"If you're wrong about this," Rhysand said carefully, "if she doesn't exist—"
"Then I'll die looking for her." Azriel's shadows coiled around him like armor. "But I'm not wrong, Rhys. The bond is pointing east, stronger than it's ever been. She's at the white cliffs. And she's running out of time."
He could feel it in his bones, in the way the bond flickered like a candle in a hurricane. Whatever was killing you was winning. He had hours, maybe less.
"The Inner Circle—"
"Will survive without me," Azriel cut him off. "They always have."
"Azriel." Rhys's voice softened, became the voice of a brother rather than a High Lord. "What if you find her and she's already gone? What if you're too late?"
Azriel was quiet for a long moment, his shadows settling around him like a dark cloak. When he spoke, his voice was steady, resolved.
"Then at least I'll know I tried. At least I'll know I didn't give up on her." He looked at Rhys, and for a moment, his mask slipped entirely. "I can't live with myself if I don't try, Rhys. She's out there, she's dying, and she's mine. How could I live with myself if I didn't exhaust every possibility?"
The raw honesty in his voice—the complete vulnerability—made Rhys's chest tighten. This wasn't about duty or mission success. This was about love. About a bond so deep that severing it might destroy Azriel entirely.
"Go," Rhys said finally. "Find her."
Azriel nodded curtly and spread his wings.
"Az," Cassian called from behind them. "Let us come with you."
"No." Azriel didn't turn around. "This is mine to do."
"You don't have to face this alone, brother."
Azriel paused at that, his shoulders tensing. "I've been alone for five centuries," he said quietly. "I can handle a few more hours."
He launched himself into the sky, leaving his brothers standing in the camp below. The mating bond pulled at him like a golden rope, leading him toward the distant sea cliffs where morning mist clung to white stone.
As he flew, his shadows whispered constantly now: hurry, hurry, dying light, almost gone, hurry. The bond grew stronger with each mile, but also more fragile, like spun glass ready to shatter.
Somewhere ahead, past leagues of countryside and forest, past villages and rivers and rolling hills, you were waiting.
You were dying.
But you were real.
And Azriel would find you, even if it killed him.
The sun climbed higher as he flew east, his shadows streaming behind him like a comet's tail, the mating bond burning bright and true in his chest—a beacon guiding him home.
Azriel collapsed beneath an ancient oak as darkness fell, his wings trembling from exhaustion. He'd been flying for nearly two days straight, the mating bond pulling him relentlessly eastward. The white cliffs were close now—he could taste salt on the wind, feel the pull growing stronger with each league.
But his body had reached its limits. Even shadowsingers needed rest.
His shadows curled around him protectively as sleep claimed him, and for the first time in days, he let himself hope. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would find you.
The dream-clearing materialized around him, but something was wrong. The golden light that usually filtered through the oak leaves was dim, flickering like a dying flame. And you—
You were crying.
Azriel's heart clenched as he took in your appearance. You were more translucent than ever, your edges blurred like watercolors in rain. Tears tracked down your cheeks as you sat beneath the oak tree, your knees drawn up to your chest.
"What's wrong?" he asked, crossing to you immediately. His shadows reached for you instinctively, wrapping around your shoulders like a dark embrace. "Why are you crying?"
You looked up at him, and the devastation in your eyes nearly brought him to his knees. "You have to go back," you said, your voice raw with desperation. "Please, Azriel. Turn around. Go home to your family."
"What?" He knelt beside you, reaching for your face with trembling hands. His fingers found the warmth of your skin, real and solid despite everything. "No. I'm so close—I can feel you. The bond is stronger than it's ever been."
"Please," you begged, gripping his wrists. "I'm begging you. Just go home. Go back to Rhys and Cassian and—"
"Never." The word came out fierce, desperate. "I can't. I won't leave you."
Your face crumpled. "You don't understand—"
"Then explain it to me." His hazel eyes searched yours, wild with need. "Tell me why you want me to abandon you when you're dying."
"I can't be happy without you." He pulled you against him, his voice breaking. "Don't you understand? You're everything. You're the only light I've ever had."
"No." You pushed against his chest, tears streaming. "No, you have so much light already. Your brothers, your family, your purpose—"
"None of it matters without you."
"It has to matter!" You were shouting now, desperate and furious. "It has to be enough!"
"Why?" He gripped your shoulders, his own voice rising. "Why are you so determined to push me away? Why won't you let me save you?"
"Because you can't!" The scream tore from your throat, raw and broken. "You can't save me, and you're going to destroy yourself trying!"
"I don't care!" His shadows exploded outward, responding to his desperation. "I'd rather die trying than live without you!"
"Well, I care!" You shoved him hard, your face twisted with grief and rage. "I care that you're killing yourself! I care that you're abandoning everyone who loves you for someone who—"
You cut yourself off, pressing your hands to your mouth.
"Someone who what?" His voice was deadly quiet.
You shook your head, backing away from him. "Go home, Azriel. Please. I'm begging you."
"No." He stalked toward you, his entire being focused on you with predatory intensity. "I'm going to find you. Tomorrow. I'm going to reach those cliffs and I'm going to save you."
"You stubborn, impossible male!" Fresh tears spilled down your cheeks. "Why won't you listen to me?"
"Because I love you," he said simply, reaching for you again. "Because you're mine and I'm yours, and I would tear apart the world before I gave up on you."
You let him pull you close this time, sobbing against his chest. "I love you too," you whispered. "I love you so much it's killing me."
"Then why—"
"Because love means letting go sometimes." You pulled back to look at him, your hands framing his face. "Sometimes it means choosing what's best for the person you love, even when it destroys you."
"No." His voice was broken, desperate. "That's not love. Love is fighting. Love is never giving up."
"Oh, my shadow-singer." You traced the lines of his face like you were memorizing them. "My beautiful, stubborn, impossible male. You have such a good heart."
"Don't talk like you're saying goodbye." His grip on you tightened. "This isn't goodbye."
"Azriel—"
"No." He kissed you then, desperate and claiming, pouring all his love and determination into the contact. "I'm going to find you. Do you hear me? I'm going to find you and save you and we're going to have forever."
You kissed him back with equal desperation, your fingers tangling in his hair. "I wish we could," you whispered against his lips. "I wish—"
The dream began to fade at the edges, reality creeping in. Azriel pulled you tighter against him, trying to anchor you somehow.
"Promise me you'll fight," he commanded, his voice rough with emotion. "Whatever's happening out there, promise me you'll hold on until I reach you."
Your face crumpled with fresh grief. "Azriel—"
"Promise me." His grip on you was desperate, almost painful. "Say the words."
You stared at him for a long moment, love and anguish warring in your eyes. Finally, you whispered, "I promise I'll try."
"Not try. Promise me you'll fight. Promise me you won't give up."
The lie came easily, born of love. "I promise," you said, even as you felt yourself beginning to fade. "I promise I'll fight."
He kissed you one last time, fierce and claiming. "I love you. I'm coming for you."
"I love you too," you whispered, and then you were gone.
Azriel woke to pale dawn light filtering through the oak leaves above him, his cheeks wet with tears and the mating bond burning like fire in his chest. Your pleas echoed in his mind, but he pushed them aside as he spread his wings.
The white cliffs were only hours away. Whatever you were afraid of, whatever had made you beg him to turn back—none of it would stop him.
His shadows streamed behind him as he launched into the morning sky, racing toward his mate with single-minded determination. Behind him, your desperate words followed on the wind: Go home, go home, go home.
But Azriel had never been good at following orders when it came to the people he loved.
The white cliffs rose from the sea like ancient guardians, their limestone faces catching the afternoon sun. Azriel's shadows surged ahead of him as he crested the final hill, eager and electric with anticipation. The mating bond sang in his chest, stronger than it had ever been—a golden rope pulling him toward a small cottage nestled in the clifftop meadow.
This was it. This was where you lived.
The cottage was exactly as his shadows had whispered: white stone walls, a thatched roof, lavender growing wild in the garden. On such a cool day, smoke should have been rising from the chimney.
But the air was still.
Too still.
Azriel circled overhead once more, wings catching the salt breeze. His shadows whispered unease, coiling tighter around his shoulders—behavior he'd learned to read over centuries of missions. They only acted this way around death.
No. Not possible.
The garden below looked abandoned. From this height, he could see the lavender had turned brown at the edges, petals scattered by weeks of wind. The same lavender scent that had haunted his dreams, now withered.
He landed hard among the brittle stems, the sound too loud in the unnatural quiet. His shadows recoiled from the cottage door like they'd been burned, forming anxious spirals around his wings.
"Sweetheart?" The endearment slipped out—a word he'd whispered in dreams but never spoken aloud. "I'm here. I found you."
No answer.
The door stood ajar. Not forced—simply open, as if you'd stepped outside for air and never returned. His spymaster instincts catalogued details automatically: no signs of struggle, no blood, no indication of violence. But his shadows kept hissing warnings he didn't want to understand.
The bond is weaker. Why is it weaker?
Each step toward the threshold felt like walking through water. The rational part of his mind—the part trained for five centuries to assess and adapt—whispered truths he refused to hear. His shadows' behavior. The dead garden. The too-quiet cottage.
The smell hit him as he crossed the threshold. Not violence or fear, but something worse in its gentleness. Decay. Natural. Peaceful.
Wrong.
The cottage was pristine except for dust coating every surface. No overturned furniture. No signs of struggle. Just... absence. And through the open bedroom doorway, a small form beneath white sheets.
She's sleeping. That's all. Just sleeping.
His feet carried him forward without conscious thought, each footfall echoing in the silence. The bond in his chest flickered like a candle in wind.
You lay in the bed as if you'd simply decided to rest. Your face peaceful, unmarked by pain or fear. For one desperate moment, Azriel's mind conjured explanations.
Sick, not dead. Unconscious. Under some spell he could break with true love's kiss like the human fairy tales.
But his shadows knew better. They circled the bed in a wide perimeter, keening softly.
"Wake up," he whispered, reaching toward your face before stopping. His hand trembled inches from your skin. "Please. I'm here now. I found you."
The stillness of your chest. The waxy quality of your skin. The way the bond that had sung so strongly now felt like an echo chamber.
Dead. She's dead.
The thought hit him like a physical blow. His knees buckled, catching himself against the bedframe with white knuckles.
How long? Days? Weeks?
His spymaster training kicked in against his will. Body temperature. Decomposition. The state of the garden outside. You'd been gone for at least two weeks.
While he'd been dreaming of you every night.
The dreams. Understanding crashed over him like a cold wave. She was already dead. The dreams were... what? Her spirit? Her soul trying to reach me?
In every dream, you'd grown more translucent. More desperate to send him away. Begging him to go home, to forget you, to stay safe in Velaris.
"Don't come for me, Azriel. Please. Just go home."
You'd known. Somehow, you'd known you were already gone and had been trying to spare him this moment. Even in death, your first instinct had been to protect him from pain.
The mating bond gave one last, desperate flutter—and snapped.
The severing was unlike any pain he'd ever endured. Not the sharp agony of a blade or the burning of fire, but something fundamental being torn from his very essence. Azriel doubled over, a sound ripping from his chest that belonged more to a wounded animal than a warrior. It felt like losing a limb he'd never known he possessed, like having his soul carved out with molten metal.
When the initial wave subsided, something worse took its place. Emptiness. A gaping void where the golden thread had hummed with promise and possibility.
She died alone.
His hands shook as he finally reached out to touch your face. Your skin was cold as winter stone, but there was peace in your expression. No fear. No pain. You'd simply... stopped.
I would have protected her. I would have loved her. I would have been worthy of her.
But he'd been too late. Again.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking on the words. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I tried to get here faster. I dreamed of you every night and I thought—I thought I had time."
The cruel irony wasn't lost on him. Five hundred years of perfect timing. Every mission, every extraction, every kill—he'd built his reputation on being exactly where he needed to be, when he needed to be there. The Night Court's spymaster who never missed his mark.
Except when it mattered most.
Rhysand felt the wrongness before they reached the cottage. Through the mental link all three brothers shared, Azriel's presence wasn't fractured or wounded—it was absent. Like reaching for something that had never been there.
He's not responding to any of our calls, Rhys told Cassian as they flew through storm clouds toward the coastal cliffs. Something's happened.
How long since he checked in? Cassian's mental voice was tight with worry.
Four days. He was following intelligence about his mate.
The word hung heavy between them. They'd all heard stories of what finding a dead mate could do to a male. The lucky ones went quietly mad. The unlucky ones took half the continent with them.
But this felt different. Worse.
If she's dead...
Then we help him through it, Rhys replied, though uncertainty colored his mental voice. Whatever state we find him in.
They saw the cottage before they smelled it—shadows writhing around the structure in patterns that defied wind or natural light. Azriel's power, but leashed so tightly it seemed mechanical. Like watching clockwork move.
The scent hit them as they landed in the overgrown garden. Death, but old. Peaceful. And underneath it, the complete absence of Azriel's usual emotional signature.
He's alive, Rhys confirmed, carefully probing the mental link. But there's... nothing there. Not shields, not withdrawal. It's like probing an empty room.
They found him in the bedroom, exactly as he'd been for three days. Sitting in perfect stillness beside a bed where a small female lay in peaceful repose. He didn't react when they entered—didn't even acknowledge their presence. His shadows circled him and the female in precise, emotionless patterns.
The cottage told its own story. Dust on everything except the path between the chair and the door. A kitchen with opened containers of food that hadn't been touched. Water basins that had been refilled multiple times.
He'd been caring for your body. Keeping vigil.
"Az?" Cassian called softly.
No response. Azriel stared at the female's face with perfect stillness. His hazel eyes held no pain, no emptiness—just complete and utter void. Like looking at a doll's glass eyes.
Brother, Rhys tried through their mental link.
The connection was there, but led nowhere. Not blocked or protected—simply vacant.
Cassian stepped closer, boots creaking on old floorboards. Still no reaction. "Azriel."
Finally, slowly, Azriel's gaze shifted to them. His face remained perfectly neutral, but something flickered behind his eyes—not recognition, just the automatic cataloging of new variables in his environment.
He said nothing. Just looked at them with those empty eyes and waited. Not for comfort or help or conversation.
He simply... waited.
"We came to find you," Cassian said, his voice gentler than either of them had heard in decades.
Azriel blinked once. Slow. Deliberate. Then turned back to stare at the female. The movement was perfectly controlled, devoid of any human warmth or urgency.
This isn't grief, Cassian realized with horror. This is complete emotional shutdown.
His mind is... Rhys searched for words. Not broken. Not retreated. Gone. Like he's burned out every emotional pathway he had rather than feel what happened here.
The silence stretched. Azriel's breathing was perfectly measured, his shadows the only movement in the room as they continued their mechanical circles.
"She's beautiful," Cassian offered quietly, hoping for any reaction.
Nothing. Not even a flicker of acknowledgment.
"What happened, brother?" Rhys asked aloud.
For a long moment, nothing. Then Azriel spoke, his voice completely flat and emotionless.
"Dead for weeks. Bond snapped three days ago."
That was all. No pain in the recitation, no hint that these facts held any meaning for him personally. He might have been reporting the weather.
Rhys carefully extended his mental touch, assessing his brother's state. What he found made his chest tight with fear. Not madness—madness would have been preferable. This was the complete absence of feeling, so thorough it was like touching a void shaped like his brother.
"What do you need?" Cassian asked, though he doubted the question had any meaning for Azriel now.
Azriel turned those empty eyes on him again. "She deserves better than this," he said. "She deserves to be laid to rest properly. With honor."
He spoke of you with perfect detachment, as if discussing a stranger's funeral arrangements.
"She doesn't have any family," Azriel continued. "No one to mourn her. No one to remember her."
The words that should have been devastating were delivered with complete neutrality. He understood intellectually that these were tragic circumstances, but they held no emotional weight for him.
Cassian crouched beside his brother's chair, careful not to disturb the mechanical circle of shadows. "Then we'll make sure she's honored. All of us."
Rhys nodded, though his heart was breaking. "We'll take her to Velaris. Give her a proper funeral."
"The House of Wind has a garden," Cassian added. "Peaceful. Overlooking the city."
Azriel's shadows pulsed once—not with emotion, but with programmed response. A reflex, nothing more.
"I can't carry her," Azriel whispered.
Not an admission of pain or weakness. Simply a statement of current limitations.
"We'll carry her," Cassian said, though he felt like he was speaking to an automaton wearing his brother's face.
"She was alone when she died because I failed to arrive in time," Azriel noted without inflection.
Rhys and Cassian exchanged a look of pure terror. This wasn't their brother anymore.
He'd saved himself from drowning in grief by cutting out his ability to feel anything at all.
And unlike madness, this wasn't something they could heal.
This was a choice. And Azriel had chosen to become nothing rather than face what losing his mate truly meant.
But even nothing had its limits.
Azriel's body finally surrendered what his mind had refused to acknowledge. The three days without sleep, without food, without moving from that chair—combined with the trauma of the severed bond—caught up to him all at once.
His vision blurred mid-sentence as he gave Rhys coordinates for the cottage's location. The world tilted sideways, and then he was falling, his brothers' voices fading as darkness claimed him.
For the first time in days, Azriel felt something.
Relief.
The meadow stretched endlessly under starlight, exactly as it had been in all those other dreams. The same wildflowers, the same gentle breeze, the same sense of peace that had called to him night after night.
But you weren't there.
Azriel stood in the center of the meadow, his shadows coiling anxiously around him as he turned in slow circles.
"Sweetheart?" His voice cracked on the endearment. "I know you're here. You have to be here."
Nothing. Just wind through the grass and the distant sound of waves against cliffs.
He began to run, crashing through the wildflowers with desperate urgency. "Please!" His voice echoed strangely in the dream-space. "I found you! I came for you, just like you wanted!"
But even as he said it, he knew it was a lie.
You had never wanted him to come. In every dream, you'd begged him to stay away, to go home, to be safe. And he'd ignored you, driven by his own selfish need to find his mate.
The realization hit him like a physical blow, and he sank to his knees among the wildflowers, his wings folding tight against his back—a gesture of submission he hadn't made since childhood.
"Mother," he whispered, his voice breaking on the word. His scarred hands shook as he pressed them to his chest, over his heart. "Please. I know I'm not... I know I've done terrible things. My hands are stained with blood, my soul is probably damned, but she was innocent. She was pure and kind and—" His breath hitched as he doubled over, forehead nearly touching the grass. "She didn't deserve to die alone and afraid."
Tears tracked down his cheeks as he pressed his palms flat to the dream-earth, his wings trembling with the effort of holding himself upright. "I've served faithfully for five hundred years. I've been your sword in the darkness, your silent protector." His voice cracked as he bent lower, shoulders shaking with barely contained sobs. "I never complained, never asked for mercy when others received it freely. But I'm begging you now."
He collapsed forward completely, his forehead pressed to the earth in complete submission, his wings spread wide and dragging in the grass. "Please, just let me save her. Let me take her place. Let me—"
Silence.
The meadow remained empty, untouched by divine intervention or mercy. No gentle voice offering comfort. No sign that his centuries of devotion meant anything at all.
Something inside him snapped.
"NOTHING?" He surged to his feet, tears streaming down his face as grief transformed into something darker, more dangerous. "I bare my fucking soul to you and you give me NOTHING?"
"WHERE WERE YOU?" he roared at the empty sky, his shadows exploding outward in violent tendrils. Wildflowers withered black beneath their touch. "Where were you when she was dying alone? Where were you when I was locked in the dungeon as a child? Where were you during five centuries of war and blood and death?"
His voice cracked, raw with centuries of suppressed fury. "I never asked for anything. I took the beatings. I killed on command. And the one thing—the only thing—I ever wanted for myself... you let slip away!"
He collapsed to his knees among the ruined flowers, his carefully constructed emotional barriers finally shattering completely. "She was MINE!" The word tore from his throat like a battle cry. "My mate, my other half, and you let her die before I could even hold her hand!"
The meadow went silent. Even his shadows trembled now—not violent anymore, but grieving, like children who had lost their mother.
"What kind of Mother lets her children suffer like this?" His voice broke to a whisper. "What kind of divine plan requires me to lose everything that ever mattered?"
Azriel's fists slammed into the dream-earth, his shadows writhing around him like living things in pain. "I just wanted to love someone." The confession scraped from his throat. "I just wanted someone to love me back. After everything I've endured, was that too fucking much?"
He doubled over, forehead pressing into the grass as sobs wracked his frame. Five hundred years of stored pain poured out of him—every beating from his father and brothers, every mission that had cost him pieces of his soul, every night he'd lain awake wondering if he was even capable of being loved.
"Please," he begged, no longer caring about pride or strength. "Please, just let me see her. Let me tell her I'm sorry. Let me tell her I would have loved her with everything I had left."
The meadow shimmered. Around his knees, the blackened wildflowers began to bloom again—soft purple and white, touched with silver starlight.
The air changed. Not empty anymore, but filled with a presence so familiar his shadows stilled instantly.
"Azriel."
He looked up through his tears to find you kneeling beside him, translucent but there—more real than anything had ever been. Your face was wet with tears that mirrored his own.
"My love," you whispered, reaching out to cup his cheek. Your touch was like starlight made solid. "My beautiful, broken love."
"You're here," he breathed, afraid to move, afraid you'd disappear. "You're really here."
"I've been trying to reach you," you said, your voice thick with emotion. "But your pain was so loud, I couldn't break through. Until now."
Azriel pulled you against him, and somehow—impossibly—you were solid in his arms. You clung to each other in that dreamscape meadow, both of you crying with relief and grief and love that transcended death itself.
"I'm so sorry I left you," you sobbed against his chest. "I didn't want to go. I fought it, but my body just... gave up."
"Don't apologize." His voice was fierce despite his tears, protective even here. "Never apologize. You tried to protect me even after you were gone."
You pulled back to look at him, your hands framing his scarred face with infinite tenderness. "Tell me," you whispered. "Tell me about the life we would have had."
The question broke something loose in his chest. "Velaris," he said, his voice cracking. "The House of Wind. You would have loved the library—all those books, the priestesses would have adored you."
"What else?" Your thumbs traced his cheekbones, catching his tears.
"Breakfasts I'd burn, gardens you'd fill with jasmine, laughter softening every ruined meal." The words tumbled out, desperate and raw. "Flying at sunset over the Sidra. You fearless in my arms, wind in your hair."
His shadows wound around both of you, gentle as silk. "Children," he whispered. "Little ones with your eyes. Teaching them to fly, watching you sing them to sleep. I would have been so gentle with them. So different from my own father."
"You would have been perfect," you said fiercely. "And I would have helped you heal. All those scars on your hands, on your heart—I would have kissed every one until you believed you deserved love."
"We would have had centuries." His forehead pressed to yours. "I would have memorized every expression, every hum while you garden, how you take your tea."
"With honey," you said, smiling through your tears. "Two spoons, and I always drink it too fast and burn my tongue."
"I would have kissed it better."
You both laughed—broken, watery sounds that held infinite tenderness.
"Reading by the fire. Dancing in our kitchen to no music at all. Mornings when we didn't have to be anywhere." His voice grew softer, more reverent. "I would have worshipped you until you were breathless and perfect and mine."
"I would have traced your tattoos," you murmured. "Every shadow-mark. Made you tell me the stories behind your scars until you stopped being ashamed of them."
"This isn't the end, Azriel." Your voice grew stronger, more certain. "Souls like ours don't just disappear. We're connected by something deeper than one lifetime."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because love this strong doesn't die." You pressed your forehead to his. "Promise me you'll keep living. Promise me you'll keep your heart open. When I come back—and I will come back—I want to find you still capable of all that love you just described."
"I promise," he whispered. "I'll wait for you. However long it takes."
"I love you, Azriel." The words he'd never gotten to hear in life. "In this life and whatever comes next."
"I love you too." His voice broke completely. "I love you so much it feels like dying and being born at the same time."
As the dream began to fade, you smiled one last time. "Find the jasmine, my love. When you smell jasmine, know that I'm thinking of you. And know that somewhere, in some other life, we're getting that forever."
He woke in the House of Wind's healing room, Madja fussing over his dehydrated form.
He lived. Not thrived—that would take time he wasn't sure he had. But he kept his promise. He completed his missions, protected his family, and kept his heart carefully guarded but not completely closed.
And when jasmine drifted through the summer air, he would close his eyes and see the meadow—endless, starlit, waiting.
One Hundred Years Later
The Dawn Court's summer solstice festival blazed around Azriel like a living thing—music and laughter spilling from every corner, fae dancing in the streets with crowns of golden flowers. He moved through the crowd like a shadow, his mission clear: gather intelligence on the Dawn Court's new trade agreements, then return to Velaris before sunrise.
He'd kept his promise to you, more or less. He lived. He breathed. He served his court with the same lethal efficiency he always had. The jasmine Rhys had planted bloomed every summer in the garden where your body rested, and Azriel visited when the pain became too sharp to carry alone.
But he didn't hope anymore. Hope was a luxury he'd learned to live without.
The crowd pressed closer as the festival reached its peak, and Azriel slipped between bodies with practiced ease, his shadows mapping exits and cataloging faces. Just another mission. Just another—
The scent hit him like a blade between the ribs.
Jasmine.
But not just jasmine. Your jasmine—that exact combination of night-blooming flowers and something indefinably sweet that had haunted his dreams for a century.
This wasn't possible. He was hallucinating. The mission stress, the lack of sleep, the anniversary of your death approaching—his mind was finally cracking.
His shadows went wild, writhing around him in recognition, reaching toward something he couldn't see yet. They remembered too, and shadows didn't lie. Shadows didn't dream.
His hands shook as cold dread and desperate hope warred in his chest. He couldn't survive losing you again. Not even in his imagination.
Around him, the festival continued, but the music seemed to fade to a distant hum. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, so loud he was certain the entire Dawn Court could hear it. Each breath came short and sharp, like he'd been running for miles. The air itself felt thick, charged, electric.
Then the lights began to flicker.
Not the festival lanterns—something else. Something that shouldn't exist. Tiny orbs of soft, silvery light appeared in the air, identical to the ones from your shared dream. They pulsed in rhythm with his erratic heartbeat, forming a path through the crowd.
His shadows strained toward them like plants reaching for sunlight, and Azriel's knees nearly gave out.
With trembling hands, he reached toward one of the orbs. It pulsed warmly against his scarred fingertip before drifting further along the path, exactly as it had in the meadow where he'd found you a century ago.
Terror and hope warred in his chest as he followed the impossible path. What if this was real and he ruined it? What if it wasn't real and following it finally broke him? Each step felt like walking to his execution.
The crowd thinned as he moved, the music fading to nothing. The lights led him past vendor stalls and dancing couples, past fountains carved with Dawn Court suns, until finally they guided him to a small overlook where the plaza met the rolling hills beyond.
The meadow spread before him—moonlit, dotted with wildflowers that swayed in the gentle breeze. It was smaller than the one in his dreams, more contained, but the scent of jasmine grew stronger here, and those impossible lights danced over the grass like fallen stars.
There, standing at the stone railing with your back to him, was you.
You wore a gown the color of sunrise—silk that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Your hair caught the light like spun gold, and when you shifted, the jasmine scent that clung to your skin made his chest ache with recognition.
High Fae. Dawn Court nobility, from the way you held yourself. But even from behind, even in this new form, he knew.
His shadows reached for you before he could stop them, stretching across the space like desperate fingers.
It was the way you tilted your head—exactly as you used to when you were thinking—that shattered his last doubt.
This was real. You were real.
You must have sensed him—or perhaps the way his shadows reached toward you like starved, desperate things—because you slowly turned.
When your eyes met his, the air left his lungs entirely.
The mating bond didn't just snap—it exploded back into place. Golden thread blazing between your souls, molten and fierce and so brilliant it lit up every dark corner of his being. The force of it drove him to his knees on the stone, his wings flaring wide as a century of numbness shattered like glass.
But what destroyed him completely wasn't the bond.
It was your smile.
Soft. Knowing. Secret.
Like you'd been waiting for him to find you, like you'd orchestrated every step that led him here. In your eyes was the weight of memory—dreams shared across lifetimes, promises kept in meadows that existed between sleeping and waking.
Find the jasmine, my love.
The lights around you pulsed once more before fading, leaving only moonlight and wildflowers and the golden thread singing between your souls.
And in that smile, he knew—death was just another door you'd walked through to find your way back to him.
Author’s Note:
Okay so 😬 The Night We Met was supposed to be a one-shot. ONE. A tragic lil ✨emotional grenade✨ to ruin your evening and then I’d move on with my life.
But nooo, y’all showed up in my inbox like: “👀 Part 2 when??” “🥺 Please??” “😈 Make Azriel suffer more.” And I-weak, soft, bond-sick fool that I am, caved.
So here’s Part 2: aka me violently shaking Azriel like a grief snow globe. Hope your tears are salty and delicious.
And just so we’re clear: there was never supposed to be a Part 3. ❌ (…unless 👀👀)
Azriel x Reader | Romance, Angst
Azriel finally meets his mate. Only to realize you exist only in his dreams. Each night with you feels achingly real, until one touch snaps the mating bond into place. When he wakes with only your scent and fading clues, he knows one thing: he’ll tear the world apart to find you.
Part 2
Azriel had not dreamed in over two centuries.
Sleep, when it came at all, brought only blessed darkness. A temporary reprieve from constant vigilance.
Dreams were a luxury he'd abandoned long ago, along with hope and the foolish notion that somewhere in this vast world, someone might be meant for him.
So when he found himself standing in a moonlit clearing he'd never seen before, surrounded by ancient oaks humming with old magic, his first instinct was to reach for Truth-Teller.
The blade wasn't there.
Neither were his leathers.
Instead, he wore simple black clothing, and his shadows swirled around him with restless energy, reaching toward something he couldn't yet see.
That's when you stepped into the clearing.
The breath left his lungs in a rush.
Beautiful. The word felt inadequate for what stood before him.
You were ethereal in the moonlight, all flowing hair and luminous skin that seemed to glow from within. Your bow was held with easy confidence, but it was your face that undid him completely. Delicate features arranged in perfect harmony, eyes that sparkled with mischief, lips that looked made for kissing.
You were the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. In five centuries of existence, through courts filled with fae females of legendary beauty, nothing had prepared him for you.
When you saw him, you didn't scream or run. Instead, you tilted your head and said, "Well. You're definitely not a deer."
"No," he managed, voice rougher than usual. "I'm not."
You studied him with those captivating eyes, not assessing him as a threat but with genuine curiosity. "This is a dream, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Thank the gods," you breathed, lowering your bow completely. "I was starting to think I'd finally cracked and gone completely mad."
Despite five centuries of training that screamed at him to maintain distance, Azriel found his mouth curving upward. There was something infectiously warm about your presence.
"And why would you think that?"
"Because I've been having the strangest dreams lately," you said, gesturing animatedly. "Places that don't exist, magic that feels real enough to taste. And now there's you, looking like some dark god of war who wandered out of a fairy tale." You paused, color blooming across your cheeks. "I mean, not that you look like... I didn't mean to..."
The stammering was adorable. When was the last time anyone had blushed because of something they'd said to him?
"You're not afraid," he observed.
"Should I be?" You settled onto a moss-covered log, then immediately stood back up. "Actually, wait. That looked more elegant in my head."
You sat again, more carefully this time, but somehow managed to catch your braid on a low branch. As you untangled yourself with muttered curses, Azriel felt something unprecedented happen. He wanted to genuinely smile.
"It's a dream," you continued once you'd freed yourself. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"You could be a nightmare," he pointed out, moving closer despite every instinct.
"Could be." Your smile was warm, inviting. "Are you?"
His shadows crept closer despite his attempts to call them back.
"I don't know," he admitted.
You patted the space beside you with such casual invitation that he found himself sitting before he'd consciously decided to. His shadows immediately betrayed him, reaching toward you.
"Oh," you breathed, extending a hand toward the wisps of darkness. "They're beautiful."
Beautiful. Applied to parts of him others had only called terrifying.
"They're dangerous," he said quickly.
"So are thunderstorms," you replied, letting one curl around your wrist like a bracelet. "Doesn't make them any less gorgeous."
The shadow settled against your skin as if it belonged there. His shadows didn't behave this way. They didn't seek out strangers, didn't show interest in anyone outside his small circle of family.
"That's impossible," he murmured.
"Good impossible or bad impossible?"
The question made him look at you, really look. You were smiling at the darkness surrounding him as if it had given you some precious gift.
"I don't know," he said again.
"What's your name?" you asked.
Names had power. Names created connections.
But this was a dream, and you were looking at him like he was someone worth knowing.
"Azriel."
"Azriel." You repeated it carefully, and something about the way you said his name made his shadows pulse with satisfaction. "I'm—"
"Don't," he said quickly. "Don't tell me your name. Not yet."
You tilted your head curiously. "Why not?"
He couldn't explain the sudden certainty that knowing your name would make this too real, too dangerous. That it would cement something he wasn't ready to face.
"What do you do, Azriel? When you're not appearing in strange dreams looking like every maiden's fantasy?"
The casual compliment hit him like a physical blow. Every maiden's fantasy. You thought he was...
"I serve my High Lord," he managed. "I gather information."
You nodded as if he'd told you he tended gardens. "Sounds important. Lonely, though."
The observation hit close to home. "It can be."
"When's the last time you did something just for yourself?"
The question made him blink. "What do you mean?"
"Fun. Enjoyment. You know, that thing people do when they're not being brooding warriors of darkness?" You tilted your head, studying him with perceptive eyes. "You carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, don't you? Everyone's safety, everyone's secrets. When do you get to just... exist?"
No one had ever asked him that. No one had ever looked at him and seen the burden he carried, the way he'd made himself into a weapon at the cost of his own happiness.
"I don't think I know how," he admitted quietly.
Your face lit up with something fierce and determined. "Then I'll have to teach you. Starting with the revolutionary concept of having absolutely no agenda whatsoever."
Despite himself, Azriel found himself smiling.
The dreams became his obsession.
Every night, he counted hours until he could see you again. You appeared like clockwork in that moonlit clearing, always with some new lesson in "having fun."
You taught him to skip stones across the stream, laughing when his attempts sent rocks plunging with military precision.
"You're thinking too hard," you said, demonstrating with a smooth motion. Then you immediately tripped over your own feet and nearly tumbled into the stream.
"Graceful," he observed, steadying you.
"Shut up," you muttered, grinning. "I'm a woman of many talents. Coordination just isn't one of them."
Watching you laugh at your own clumsiness, seeing starlight catch in your hair and make your eyes sparkle, Azriel felt something shift in his chest. Something warm and golden and terrifyingly precious.
You convinced him to weave flower crowns, your nimble fingers creating delicate circlets while his fumbled with stems.
"This is ridiculous," he muttered when you insisted he wear the crown.
"This is fun," you corrected, reaching up to adjust the flowers in his hair. "There's a difference."
Your fingers brushed his forehead as you worked. You were close enough that he could smell your sweet scent, count the freckles scattered across your nose like stars.
"There," you said, stepping back to admire your work. "Now you look like a proper fairy prince instead of a terrifying shadow lord."
"I am a terrifying shadow lord," he protested weakly.
"Not in here," you said simply. "In here, you're just Azriel. And Azriel looks very handsome in flower crowns."
The casual compliment made his shadows flutter with something like preening.
His shadows seemed to enjoy the flower petals, playing with them instead of their usual vigilant hovering. You watched with delight, occasionally reaching out to let them wind around your fingers.
"They really like you," he observed.
"I really like them too," you replied. "They're like curious little pets."
"They're extensions of my will," he said automatically. "They don't have personalities."
You shot him a look that clearly said you thought he was an idiot. "Right. And I suppose they investigate my hair because you will them to?"
He followed your gaze and realized several shadows had wound through your hair, seeming to enjoy the silky texture. He hadn't commanded that.
"That's not normal," he said.
"Maybe normal is overrated," you shrugged.
One night, you lay side by side in soft grass, pointing out constellations. The casual intimacy of it, your shoulder pressed against his, your hand occasionally brushing his arm as you gestured, was driving him slowly mad.
"There," you whispered when a star fell, catching his scarred hand and pointing it toward the light. "Make a wish."
The feel of your skin against his scars sent electricity through him. You didn't flinch, didn't pull away from the evidence of his past. Instead, your thumb traced over one of the worst scars with such tenderness it made his breath catch.
"What did you wish for?" you asked softly.
He turned his head to study your profile, noting how moonlight caught on your lips.
For the first time in centuries, he wasn't cataloguing exits or potential threats. He was simply here. Present.
Memorizing the way your lashes cast shadows on your cheeks, the small smile playing at your lips, the way your braid had come undone and spilled across the grass like silk.
When had he stopped being the shadowsinger and started being just Azriel?
"Can't tell you, or it won't come true," he said quietly.
But he could tell you.
He'd wished for this to be real, for you to be real, for some impossible way to keep you. He'd wished to always feel this strange peace that seemed to settle in his bones whenever you looked at him.
The space between you seemed to crackle with tension. He wanted to kiss you, had wanted to since that first night, but something held him back. Some instinct that this was precious, fragile, not to be rushed.
Instead, he traced the curve of your cheek with one finger, marveling when you leaned into the touch like a cat seeking warmth.
"This doesn't feel like a dream," you murmured, your breath ghosting across his palm.
"No," he agreed, voice rougher than intended. "It doesn't."
It was on the night you attempted to teach him to whittle that everything changed.
"It's supposed to be relaxing," you said, demonstrating with a piece of wood and a small knife. "Meditative."
Azriel watched your hands move with practiced ease, creating delicate curls of wood. "I don't think I'm built for relaxation."
"Everyone's built for relaxation. You just have to find the right kind." You handed him the knife and a fresh piece of wood, your fingers brushing his wrist as you did. The contact sent sparks up his arm. "Try it."
He took the tools, hyperaware of every point where your skin had touched his, the lingering warmth like a brand.
"What am I supposed to make?"
"Whatever wants to emerge," you said with that dreamy smile he'd grown to love. You shifted closer, your knee bumping against his thigh as you settled beside him. "Sometimes the wood tells you."
"The wood tells you," he repeated dryly, trying to ignore the heat radiating from where you touched him.
"Mock me all you want, but—oh!"
You'd been gesturing enthusiastically when your elbow knocked into his wing. The unexpected contact sent a shockwave of sensation through him. Wings were sensitive, intimate, and his sharp intake of breath made you freeze.
"I'm sorry," you said quickly, but your hand had landed on his forearm to steady yourself, fingers pressing against his skin. "I didn't mean to—are you hurt?"
"No," he managed, voice strained. The dual sensation of your touch on his wing and arm was making his head spin. "Wings are just... sensitive."
Understanding dawned in your eyes, followed by something that looked like hunger disguised as curiosity. "Sensitive how?"
The innocent question, delivered in that slightly breathless tone, made heat pool low in his belly.
"Sorry," you said again, but you weren't moving away. If anything, you'd leaned closer, your fascinated gaze tracking over the membranous expanse. "I just—they're beautiful. Can I...?"
You reached out tentatively, stopping just short of touching. The anticipation was exquisite torture.
"Yes," he breathed.
Your fingertips brushed the edge of his wing, feather-light, and Azriel bit back a groan. The sensation was overwhelming, part pleasure, part pain, entirely consuming.
"Like that?" you asked softly, voice gone husky.
He could only nod, not trusting his voice. You grew bolder, trailing your fingers along the sensitive membrane, and he felt his carefully constructed control beginning to fracture.
"You're trembling," you observed, wonder in your voice.
"You're touching my wings," he said roughly. "It's... intense."
"Good intense?"
Before he could answer, you leaned closer to examine the intricate patterns, your breath ghosting across his skin.
Your free hand came up to steady yourself against his chest, palm flat over his racing heart. The innocent curiosity in your expression, combined with the intimacy of touching him like this, made him feel like he was coming apart at the seams.
That's when you stumbled.
Your foot caught on something and you pitched forward. Instinct had him catching you before you could fall, his arms coming around you as his wings flared instinctively to shield you both from harm.
Time crystallized.
You were pressed against his chest, your hands fisted in his shirt, face tilted up toward his. Moonlight streamed through your disheveled hair, turning it to liquid silver, and when you looked up at him with those bright, beautiful eyes, pupils dilated, lips parted in surprise, something ancient and primal roared to life in his chest.
The mating bond didn't just snap into place.
It erupted.
The world exploded into sensation and color and rightness so overwhelming it drove him to his knees. Golden threads of light blazed between your souls, weaving together everything he was with everything you were until he couldn't tell where he ended and you began. Five centuries of emptiness, of believing himself unworthy of love, of carefully controlled loneliness, all of it shattered in an instant.
Mate. Mine. Forever.
The words weren't thoughts so much as truths written into the fabric of reality itself. His shadows went wild, streaming around you both in a protective cocoon, some part of him desperate to shield this moment from anything that might disturb it.
Distantly, he was aware that he'd pulled you both down onto the grass, that he was cradling you against him like you might disappear, that his hands were shaking with the force of restraining himself from claiming your mouth, your body, your soul.
"Azriel?" Your voice seemed to come from underwater. "What's happening?"
He tried to speak and found he couldn't. The bond was singing in his blood, demanding he tell you what you were to him, demanding he make you understand that you belonged to him now, that he would burn the world down before letting anything harm you.
But you were human. You didn't know what this meant, what had just changed between you. To you, this was still just a dream.
To him, you had just become his entire reason for existing.
"I..." He tried to form words, but his voice came out raw, broken. "You're..."
"What?" you whispered, reaching up to cup his face. Your thumb traced his cheekbone with devastating gentleness. "What's wrong?"
Wrong? Nothing was wrong.
Everything was perfect and terrifying and he was drowning in the need to kiss you, to taste you, to bury himself so deep in your soul that you'd never question who you belonged to.
"Mine," he breathed, the word torn from somewhere primal and possessive. "You're mine."
Before he could stop himself, before sanity could intervene, he crushed his mouth to yours.
You made a soft sound of surprise that turned into something hungrier when he deepened the kiss, his control finally snapping entirely.
You tasted like starlight and forever, like every good thing he'd never dared hope for. The bond blazed brighter with each touch of your tongue against his, each breathless gasp you gave when he traced the curve of your lower lip.
When he finally pulled back, lungs burning, hands fisted in your hair to keep you close, you stared up at him with dazed wonder.
"That felt..." you started, voice dreamy and confused.
"Real," he finished roughly. "It felt real because it is real."
You went very still in his arms, and when you looked at him again, there was something heartbreaking in your expression.
"Azriel," you said gently, "this isn't real."
The words hit him like a physical blow. "What?"
"This is just a dream." Your voice was soft, patient, like you were explaining something to a child. "A beautiful dream, but still just a dream. And I'm—" You took a shaky breath. "I'm dying. In the real world. I've been sick for months, and the healers can't do anything more for me."
"No." The word tore from his throat. "No, you don't understand. You're my mate. This bond between us, it's real. I can feel it."
You reached up to cup his face, and he could see tears gathering in your eyes. "I know you feel it. I feel it too. But that doesn't make it real."
"It is real," he said desperately. "You have to believe me. I'm going to find you, I'm going to save you."
"You can't save me from a dream," you whispered. "And you can't save me from dying."
"This isn't a dream," he insisted, but even as he spoke, he could feel the world beginning to fracture around them. "You're real. We're real."
"I'm dying, Azriel." The words were gentle but final. "My body is failing, and my mind is creating this beautiful fantasy because it's easier than facing the truth. You're everything I've ever wanted, everything I've ever dreamed of, but you're not real."
"I am real," he said, panic rising in his chest as the dream continued to dissolve. "Please, you have to believe me. I exist, I'm coming for you, just hold on."
But you were already fading, becoming translucent around the edges.
"This is just a dream," you said again, and this time there was peace in your voice. Acceptance. "A beautiful, impossible dream."
"No," he breathed, reaching for you as you slipped away. "Please, just tell me where you are. Tell me your name, tell me something I can use to find you."
But the last thing he saw before everything went dark was your sad, sweet smile, and the last words you spoke echoed in the silence:
"It's just a dream. Just a dream."
Azriel woke with a roar that shook the foundations of the House of Wind.
The mating bond blazed in his chest like a dying star, gold and molten and desperate. Your phantom scent still clung to his skin, jasmine and starlight and something fading, like flowers pressed between the pages of a book.
His mate was dying, and he had no idea how to find you.
His shadows writhed around him, agitated and hungry, still reaching for the ghost of your touch. They whispered of dreams and dying girls, of bonds that burned across impossible distances, and Azriel felt something cold and determined settle in his chest.
You thought he was just a dream. You thought none of it was real.
But the mating bond didn't lie. And neither did the way his shadows had responded to you, the way they'd played in your hair like they belonged there.
Somewhere in the mortal lands, his mate was dying, convinced that the love she'd found was nothing more than her mind's final gift to itself.
Azriel rose from his bed, shadows streaming around him like liquid night, and began to plan.
He would find you.
Author’s Note:
Slowly crawling my way out of writer’s block, and this little dreamscape romance with Azriel was the spark I needed. Hope you enjoy it as much as I loved writing it. ✨
Summary: Azriel never expected to finally meet his mate and to be… this.
A walking disaster with a talent for tripping over air, an uncanny ability to charm even the grumpiest Illyrian, and a knack for throwing herself headfirst into situations that require his immediate intervention.
She is warmth where he is shadow, laughter where he is silence. And worst of all? She makes him smile without trying.
Azriel, Are you Okay? - Masterlist
You Are Not a Soldier
You remind yourself of this as you sprint through the Botanical Archives with a butterfly net in one hand, an empty jar in the other, and your braid unraveling behind you like a flag of surrender.
You are a respectable researcher. A curator of flora. A keeper of peace between Velaris’s more temperamental plant species.
Not—whatever this is.
“Snapper, get back here!” you yell, because yes, you named the snapping thistle-sprite Snapper, and yes, you now regret every single decision that led to this moment.
The tiny creature—part vine, part criminal—ricochets off marble pillars, its petals snapping like bear traps as it gleefully demolishes three months of careful research.
“Stop! You’re breaking botanical order!” you wheeze, lunging after it. You trip over a basket of moonseed cuttings; they scatter like little stars. “Sorry! I’ll fix that later!”
Snapper chitters, smug, as it launches onto a display table, dragging an ancient scroll like a cape. “That’s a second-age specimen report, you little demon!” you scold.
Then it leaps—straight through an open window.
You don’t think. You vault after it.
The morning air hits you full in the face, warm and bright. The Sidra glitters below, the Rainbow gleams, and the scent of cinnamon, bread, and sea salt hangs sweet in the breeze.
And somewhere in all that beauty, your escaped research project commits acts of public indecency.
“Snapper!” you shout, waving your net like a lunatic.
A painter pauses mid-brushstroke; a street vendor blinks. They see you sprinting down the cobblestones, soaked hair and jar in hand, and nod as if to say, ah yes, another Thursday.
You thunder past, hair half undone, skirts flapping, entirely out of dignity. You are chasing a sentient plant through Velaris.
And losing.
“Don’t you dare go near the river!”
Snapper, whose life consists exclusively of poor choices, launches itself directly into the Sidra.
“Oh, come on!”
You skid to the bank. The sprite bobs once, twice, then starts paddling smugly downstream.
You consider your options. Fetch help? Pretend this never happened?
You sigh. “I’m going to regret this.”
Then you jump.
The Sidra is ice and knives. You gasp, flail, and immediately swallow half the river. “Snapper!” you sputter, kicking hard. Your hand closes around something spiny. “Ha! Got you—ow!” The sprite bites you. “Bad plant!”
And because the Mother has a sense of humor, a voice you know too well calls from the steps.
“Do I even want to ask?”
You twist in the water, and—Cauldron save you.
Azriel stands on the riverbank, shirtless, wings half-spread, the sunlight catching on sweat like liquid gold.
Your brain stops functioning.
Don’t stare. Don’t—
You stare.
He looks at you, looks at the dripping jar, sighs. “Of course.”
“Don’t,” you warn.
“Don’t what?” His mouth twitches as he steps closer, shadows slinking behind him in amusement. “Point out that you’re swimming with weeds again?”
“It’s a thistle-sprite. A rare one.”
“It’s biting the jar.”
You glance down. It is. “That’s how it shows affection.”
He wades in without hesitation, river up to his waist. His muscles flex. The sunlight loves him. Stop noticing that.
“Azriel, I can walk—”
“You’re shivering,” he says simply, and before you can argue, he lifts you, jar and all, like it’s nothing.
You yelp, kicking water everywhere. “Put me down!”
“Into the river?”
“On land!”
He carries you out while half of Velaris watches. Someone gasps, someone else laughs, and a voice calls out from a balcony, “Marry me instead!”
Azriel’s shadows bristle like it’s possessively offended.
He sets you on the steps, water dripping everywhere. You are very aware that your body is plastered against his bare chest.
The fae women nearby are also aware.
You notice them noticing.
And then you notice him noticing them noticing.
Something hot flares in your chest. A stupid, irrational, territorial spark. Mine, whispers a traitorous voice.
Except he’s the most beautiful male in the city—maybe the whole damned Prythian—and you’re… you. A soggy scholar with kelp in your hair and an angry plant in a jar.
He reaches for his discarded training leathers, pulling it on. The fabric clings to every muscle. Somehow, this makes it worse.
“Better?” he asks.
“Much,” you lie.
Your heart is performing acrobatics while your brain replays Kiss me! on loop.
You reach for your modest magic—just warmth, nothing fancy—and steam curls from your clothes. Your dress dries, your hair stops dripping. Not impressive, but it works.
Azriel watches. “Useful,” he says softly. His shadows brush your wrist, cool and curious.
“It’s nothing special,” you mutter. “Just practical magic. Drying, heating, very boring. Nothing compared to shadows and wings and… heroic brooding.”
His mouth curves, almost-smile. “Practical isn’t boring. Practical keeps you alive.”
Your heart does something very stupid.
He picks up the jar with Snapper inside. “Come on. I’ll walk you back.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” His hand settles at the small of your back, warm, steady. “I always want to.”
No breathing. There is no breathing now.
The two of you walk through Velaris. Morning light gilds the streets, bakeries spill sweet smells into the air, and every passing fae woman seems to forget how to blink when Azriel walks by.
You try not to notice, but of course you do.
One giggles behind her hand. Another sighs dramatically. A third all but trips over her own feet.
And Azriel—sweet, oblivious male—doesn’t seem to notice any of it. His eyes are on you, calm and unreadable, as his wing tilts slightly to shield you from the morning breeze.
Which is unfair.
And illegal.
And entirely distracting.
Maybe I should’ve drowned, you think faintly. That would’ve been less humiliating than standing next to this living sin while looking like a drowned chicken.
You glance at one particularly stunning female in a lavender gown. Her hair cascades like spun silk.
Her lashes could start a windstorm.
You look down at yourself—mud-stained hem, wild braid, a bug (probably) clinging to your sleeve.
Fantastic.
Your chest tightens before you can stop it. He could have anyone. He could have the kind of female who glows, who dances, who doesn’t chase carnivorous plants through rivers.
You bite your lip. “Az?”
He glances down, instantly alert, like you’ve just said something dangerous. “Hmm?”
You blurt before your brain can save you. “Would you still pick me if I were, hypothetically, a goose?”
There’s a pause. The kind where you can practically hear his soul buffering.
Then—slowly—“A… goose?”
“Yes. A goose. Hypothetically.” You flail a hand. “Say I got cursed or something. Or reborn. Into a goose. Would you still—”
He stops walking. Turns. “You want to know if I’d still choose you if you were a waterfowl?”
You cross your arms, trying to look dignified. “It’s a valid question.”
A faint smile ghosts over his mouth. “Are you a regular goose or an Illyrian mountain goose?”
“Does that matter?”
“It matters for survival,” he says solemnly. “The mountain kind are vicious.”
“Azriel.”
He steps closer until you have to tip your chin up to meet his eyes. Shadows curl lazily around you both, soft and curious. “If you were a goose,” he says quietly, “I’d build a pond.”
You blink. “A pond?”
He nods, entirely serious. “A big one. With a ward around it. And I’d feed you breadcrumbs from the balcony until you decided you were done being a goose.”
Your jaw drops. “That’s absurd.”
“That’s love.” His voice is dry, his expression unreadable—but his eyes are smiling. “Besides, you’d probably still chase dangerous plants. You’d just honk at them instead.”
You try to hold your composure. You fail spectacularly. Laughter bubbles out of you—loud, bright, unstoppable.
He watches you, eyes softening in a way that makes your stomach flip. “There it is,” he murmurs. “That’s my favorite sound.”
“Me cackling like a goose?”
“Exactly that.”
You shake your head, cheeks aching from smiling. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And you’re adorable when you’re jealous,” he says, voice just low enough to make your knees threaten to dissolve.
You sputter. “I wasn’t—jealous!”
“Of course not,” he says mildly. “You were just evaluating threats. Like any good researcher.”
You glare at him. “I hate you.”
He grins—a rare, quiet, breathtaking thing. “Right.”
His hand finds the small of your back again as you walk. This time, you let yourself lean into the warmth.
Inside is chaos—the kind that looks almost artistic if you squint. Sunlight pours through the high windows in dusty slants, catching paper snowdrifts midair. Pressed specimens have avalanched off a shelf and now carpet the floor in brittle fern silhouettes. Two propagation trays have upended themselves in perfect parallel—seedlings splayed like startled stars, roots exposed, little dirt hills formed where they slid.
A pot of dew-lily cuttings has given up entirely and flopped its leaves over the rim in botanical despair.
Elain stands at the epicenter as if she has always lived inside disasters. Beside her, Lira is chaos’s favorite daughter. Ink on her thumb, dirt on her cheek, curls half out of their ribbon.
“Oh, perfect,” Lira crows, slapping her knee. “Please tell me you dove into the Sidra again.”
“It was for research,” you say, dignity valiantly gasping for air.
“It was for chaos,” Lira counters, sweeping an arm at the wreckage. “Behold: the shrine to your methods.”
Elain’s gaze moves like a calm tide: from your face, to the jar in Azriel’s hand where Snapper glowers like a tiny criminal, back to yours. “Is that Snapper?”
“Yes,” you say, already bracing.
“The one I asked you to be careful with?”
“…Also yes.”
Elain’s sigh manages to carry patience and fondness and the faintest whiff of I-told-you-so without ever tipping into scolding. “Let’s tidy before Orvin sees,” she murmurs, and sets the honeyed water down like a benediction.
Azriel steps forward and places the jar on the main table. The wood is scarred from a lifetime of useful work; the jar clinks softly.
“I’ll help,” Azriel says.
Elain opens her mouth, perhaps to insist that the Spymaster’s time is worth more than potting mix and broken labels, but he cuts in gently, voice low enough to settle everything. “Nothing more important than this.”
Your heart. It doesn’t so much beat as erupt and ricochet off your ribs like the seedlings from earlier. You pretend to adjust your sleeve.
Lira fans herself with a crumpled herbarium sheet. “Ugh. Disgustingly romantic.” Then, aside, sotto voce: “Keep doing it.”
You drop to your knees among the fallen trays, palms cupped around a handful of uprooted seedlings. They’re shock-silver at the edges; when you exhale warm, steady breath and lay their roots back into damp soil, they ease, leaves uncurling with little sighs you almost imagine you can hear.
Your magic is small, practical—never showy—but plants listen to kindness. It’s something you like about them.
Across from you, Azriel moves like careful weather. He rights a stack of folios and sets weights along the spine to keep them flat. His shadows slip under shelves, peer behind benches; a moment later, one emerges dragging an index card in its dark grip.
Another oozes up along the back of a cabinet, pushes at a stuck door with the offended dignity of a cat demanding entrance—there’s a click, and a scroll rolls out as if it had simply been hiding until the right audience arrived.
You blink. “How did that even get in there?”
“Snapper is motivated,” Azriel says, straight-faced.
You look at the sprite, who bares a microscopic thorn in your direction. “He does have a work ethic,” you admit, and almost—almost—catch Azriel’s smile.
Mother above. A smile like that could end a minor war or start a major one.
One of his shadows twirls over the rim of a nursery pot and nudges a leaf, making it bob like a puppet taking a bow. Another shadow taps the edge of your boot, then retreats as if shy.
“Are they… entertaining the plants?” you ask, aware that your voice has pitched into delighted scandal.
Azriel glances over. The shadow freezes mid-bob, absolutely guilty. “No.”
“Azriel.”
“They’re being helpful.”
“They’re being cute.”
His wings give the faintest shrug. “They like you,” he says, quieter now, like a secret the room has to deserve. “They want to impress you.”
Something warm and wild breaks open in your chest. You can’t help it; you smile down into the soil. “They don’t have to.”
“They disagree.” His voice lowers another shade, a richer note that threads along your spine. “So do I.”
You look up too fast. There’s dirt on your cheek; his gaze flicks to it, to your mouth, back to your eyes. The room tightens to a single line between you and the way air has stopped trying to be air and started trying to be yours.
“Az—”
It changes in an instant. The fine muscles along his jaw draw tight; his eyes go distant, siphons dimming and flaring as if the light in the room is suddenly wrong. The shadows that had been playing immediately flatten into sleek attention, like the moment a flock senses a hawk.
Rhysand. You don’t hear the words; you see the listening.
“I have to go,” Azriel says, apology threaded through duty.
You find the smile you keep just for him and fit it to your face even though your chest goes tight. “Go. We’ve got this.”
He hesitates. You know this is not because he’s unsure of your competence; he’s cataloging exits, windows, ward strength, the thousand small things he never stops tracking—and also, maybe, you. His hand lifts, as if to touch your cheek, then chooses your wrist instead, thumb grazing the inside where your pulse races.
“Tomorrow,” he says. “Dinner. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
His gaze lingers that one heartbeat too long—enough for a promise to fit between you. Then the shadows fold like wings and he is gone, the air cool where he had been warm.
The Archives feel… larger without him. Empty in the particular way of a space that has not actually lost anything and has also lost the weather it wanted.
Lira exhales extravagantly. “He’s gone for you.”
“We’re just—” you begin, because reflexes are habits and habits are hard to uproot.
“If you say just friends, I will release Snapper,” she says sweetly, already reaching for the jar.
Within, the sprite perks up, absolutely ready to participate in your poor choices.
You make a strangled noise. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would dare twice.” Lira tilts her head toward the door where Azriel had been a moment ago, then back to you. “He just told the High Lady’s saintliest gardener and the Archives’ least controllable menace that nothing outranks helping you repot. Open your eyes, scholar.”
Heat crawls up your throat. You throw yourself back into work to escape your feelings, which is something plants have never once judged you for. You coax a fallen dew-lily back into its pot, packing soil around its rhizome with care.
“Thank you,” Elain says, and you realize she’s addressing the shadows that remained.
A few linger—thin ribbons fading at the edges. One gives a little bow, or you imagine it does, and slides under the table to retrieve a stray tag with your handwriting on it: Snapper—snapping thistle-sprite (probably regret).
“I’m burning that,” you mutter, reaching for the tag. The shadow snatches it back playfully. You narrow your eyes at the air. “Traitors.”
“Flirts,” Lira corrects. She plants her hands on her hips and surveys the room. The chaos is receding under steady work: seedlings tucked back in, scrolls stacked, glass wiped. The Archives begin to look like themselves again—eclectic, beloved, lived-in.
Elain straightens a tray and glances up at you, something like mischief and certainty braided in her quiet gaze. “He looks at you,” she says softly, “the way I look at sun on rosemary—like it makes everything else make sense.”
Your throat wobbles. “Elain,” you whisper, horrified by the sudden threat of tears.
“What?” She smiles. “It’s true.”
Lira makes a triumphant noise as she rights the last knocked-over pot. “There. Catastrophe downgraded to dramatic anecdote.” She points the brush end of an old quill at you. “Now, go wash your face. You have soil on your cheek.”
You swipe at it; the smear only relocates. Elain steps in with a damp cloth and dabs gently, smelling of thyme and clean paper. “Better,” she says. “And if you plan to have dinner with the Night Court’s greatest secret weapon, you should not arrive looking like you lost a fight with a compost bin.”
You groan. “Is that an official policy?”
“It is now,” Lira says. “Section One: no drowning in the Sidra before romantic engagements. Section Two: no unleashing carnivorous flora indoors. Section Three: always bring me leftovers.”
You open your mouth to argue—and stop, because something warm and steady slips under your skin from far away: a brush of cedar and wind, the bond checking on you the way a hand checks a pulse.
You send back a quiet I’m all right. The warmth answers once, and then recedes like a promise you can hold in your mouth for later.
Lira watches your face soften and smirks. “Ugh. There it is again. The goose-in-love expression.”
“I do not have a—”
“You absolutely do,” she sings, already turning to relabel a tray. “And for the record? If you were a goose, he’d still pick you.”
You try for dignity and get laughter instead. “He said he’d build me a pond.”
Elain’s mouth tips, delighted. “That’s very sweet.”
“It’s absurd,” you say, and then allow, “Sweet.”
You straighten a final stack of notes, tuck stray labels into their box, and look around. The Archives breathe again—shelves upright, leaves lifted, sun pooling where it should. In the jar, Snapper glowers like a penitent thief with no regrets. You tap the glass once. He snaps in reply, offended and perfect.
“Let’s never speak of this,” you announce.
“On the contrary,” Lira says. “I intend to speak of nothing else until your ceremony.” She ducks your halfhearted swipe and winks. “Now go eat something. And maybe change. Perhaps into an outfit that says ‘I don’t always chase plants into rivers, but when I do, my mate still can’t take his eyes off me.’”
You sputter. “We’re not— He’s not—”
Elain hums, that serene little sound that ends arguments by refusing to join them.
You fold the damp cloth, pat your pockets for your quill (gone; a shadow has it, the scoundrel), and head for the door, warmth lingering under your skin where a thumb had pressed your pulse and promised dinner.
By late afternoon the Archives look like themselves again: benches scrubbed, seedlings upright, Snapper triple-locked with a warded latch Elain pretends not to notice you kiss. Master Orvin barrels in, hair wild, voice pitched to “crisis.”
“The Spring shipment—bulbs, cuttings, two crates of dew-lilies!” he pants, hands fluttering. “Stalled at the western outpost. Courier refusing to pass our wards unless someone from the Archives signs in person.”
Lira is already shouldering a satchel. “So we go sign.”
“We’ll take remounts from the courier stables,” you add, trying not to think about damp shirts and dinner promises. “If we leave before dusk, we can hit the halfway inn.”
Elain’s gaze softens. “Send word when you arrive.” It sounds like a blessing.
Or a warning you don’t hear.
The courier stables gift you two sleek black remounts—sure-footed, tireless. The stable master adjusts your stirrup and says gravely, “They’ll carry you all day. Pay rabbits no mind. The horses won’t agree, but you pay them no mind.”
“Rabbits?” Lira echoes.
“Don’t ask,” you mutter.
Velaris unspools behind you—pastel houses folding into green, then deeper green. The Sidra narrows to a bright ribbon between pines. For a while, it’s only hooves, birdsong, Lira’s chatter: gossip about a painter’s scandalous mural, new seed catalogues Elain’s excited about, a pastry she swears will change your life.
“You’re doing that dreamy face,” Lira announces after a mile of merciful silence.
“I don’t have a face.”
“You have one face and it’s disgusting. I’m happy for you.”
“He’s not— We’re not—” Words tangle; you give up and pretend to study the road. You can still feel the bond humming under your ribs like a secondary pulse. Not intrusive. Just there.
“He’s Azriel,” Lira says softly. “He doesn’t do casual. He does chosen.”
The trees thin. Fields roll out in gold and sage. Wind carries wildflower and something metallic you can’t place. Lira is still talking when a rabbit explodes from the grass.
Your horse screams like it’s seen Death himself and bolts left. Lira’s bolts right.
“Lira!”
“Small problem!”
Branches whip your arms; burrs catch your skirt; tears spring to your eyes from speed and wind. Eventually your mount stumbles back to sense, snorting, foaming. You huff it down, hand flat to its hot neck, and wait until your chest stops trying to escape. The woods are louder here. Not city birds—big wings in the canopy, the click of insects, fern-rasp.
“Lira?” you call.
“Tree,” she replies faintly. “Entirely decorative. Come admire my work.”
You find her dangling from a low branch, hair full of leaves, dignity somewhere far behind. She drops, groaning. “If anyone asks, this didn’t happen.”
“No one would believe it,” you assure.
By the time you find the road, evening has washed the edges of everything in blue. You make the inn at twilight: a low-beamed place half-swallowed by ivy.
The common room smells of bread and woodsmoke. No music tonight; only murmured talk and the creak of chairs.
You wolf down stew and bread you barely taste. Lira hums at the fire, content. “So. Dinner,” she says around a mouthful. “Are you going to let him cook?”
“He’ll insist,” you say, and try not to glow.
“Good. You can light candles and pretend your magic is for romance, not drying socks.”
“Useful is romantic,” you murmur.
Lira’s expression gentles. “He likes that you think that.”
Dawn broke soft and silver.
The kind of dawn that should’ve promised gentler things—warm bread, soft laughter, quiet mornings in Velaris.
Instead, it promised silence.
Not peace. Silence.
Mist clung low to the hills, swallowing the road until it looked like a ribbon into nothing. The horses snorted, stamping their hooves. Even they seemed uneasy.
You adjusted the reins in your hands, the leather slick from dew.
“We’ll be quick,” you told yourself. Just a pickup. Plants, a signature, and back before dinner. Back to the city, to laughter, to him.
Lira’s voice broke through the hush. “Nearly there,” she said, squinting at her crumpled map. “Outpost should be tucked in that stand of stone pines.”
“You’re too cheerful for this hour,” you muttered.
“I’m manifesting survival,” she said lightly. “Also, I want to be home in time to watch you get kissed.”
“Lira—”
“If he doesn’t, I will,” she chirped, guiding her horse ahead. “I’ll even apologize to him after. Probably.”
You were still laughing when you saw the outpost.
A small stone house, a fenced paddock, a cart piled high under canvas. No flag. No smoke curling from the chimney. The air itself felt… strange. Thin. Humming faintly with old wards that smelled faintly of iron and something acrid, like spell-ink burned too long.
“Quiet,” Lira murmured.
“Maybe he’s inside,” you whispered, scanning the still yard.
“Maybe,” she said—but her fingers brushed the hilt of her hidden knife.
You rode in slowly. The horses flicked their ears, nervous. Every instinct in you tightened. The wards here were broken in places, leaking faint whispers of energy that scraped along your skin.
Then he stepped out.
A tall male with slicked-back hair and a smile so sharp it looked carved there. “Representatives from the Botanical Archives?” he called, voice smooth as glass.
“That’s us,” Lira replied, calm, bright. Her voice didn’t shake, but her hand hovered near her side. Yours tightened around the reins.
“Excellent.” He inclined his head, the motion too precise. “Tarren, courier master. Apologies for the delay—my man had a coin dispute with your gate-wraiths. No offense.” His gaze slid over you like a knife through silk. “The delicate stock is inside, kept cool beneath warded cloth.”
Warded cloth.
Your magic prickled. The air behind him shimmered faintly—the edges of glamour, painted too thin.
Something in you whispered wrong.
But the crates—Mother, the plants looked wilted. Pale leaves, starved of light and water. Just grab them. Sign. Leave.
“In and out,” Lira said under her breath. “If it smells wrong, we walk.”
You nodded, dismounted, tied your reins loose enough to flee if you had to. The stable was empty. No other horses. No noise except the low pulse of the wards humming through the ground.
Inside, the air was cold. The faint scent of old water and older blood lingered beneath it. The shutters were drawn, slivers of light cutting through like blades.
Your heartbeat thudded between your ribs, loud in the quiet.
“Here,” Tarren said, gesturing toward a draped table. “Dew-lilies. Your signatures, and we’re square.” He reached for the cloth.
Lira’s posture shifted—a stillness that meant danger.
You didn’t know why, only that the world went tight.
Tarren pulled back the cloth.
Not lilies.
Ropes. A hood. Iron manacles etched with runes that gleamed faintly red. The scent of faebane burned your throat.
Your blood iced over.
You didn’t think. You just moved.
“Run,” you breathed.
Lira didn’t ask why. She slammed her shoulder into the side door. The wood cracked, splinters tearing your arm as you burst into sunlight.
“Get them,” Tarren snarled. His pleasant voice vanished—and with it, the illusion.
Glamour peeled off the yard like shed skin. Shadows moved—five, six men, half-hidden under the remnants of veils.
Boots hit earth.
You didn’t look back.
The horses were gone. The road empty. The wards along the fence buzzed when you crossed them, sparking faintly against your skin. Containment wards.
Traps.
“Fence!” Lira gasped.
You vaulted it. Your skirt tore, your thigh burned, a hand grabbed your ankle—missed. You hit the dirt, rolled, spat leaves, and ran.
The forest swallowed you whole.
Pines closed in, their tall spears blotting out the sky. The ground dipped unevenly, slick with pine needles. You reached for your magic—small, simple warmth—and found nothing.
Nothing.
It wasn’t gone. It was smothered.
Faebane dust. In the air. On your skin. Your heart stuttered. They knew. They had prepared for this.
Behind you, boots pounded the ground. A man’s low laugh carried through the trees.
Something inside you—something quiet, and soft, and tethered to the only person who had ever made you feel safe—snapped.
The bond.
It surged through your chest like a live wire. You didn’t hear words—never could—but you felt him. Felt the jolt of his sudden terror like it was your own heart misfiring. The sharp, cutting edge of his fear.
Then his rage.
Dark and vast and all-consuming.
It poured into you like cold water and fire, making your knees buckle. You could taste it—smoke and steel and storm.
He knew.
He knew, and he was coming.
“Left!” Lira shouted. You obeyed without thinking.
A trunk loomed—fallen long ago. You scrambled over, bark slicing your hands. Pain didn’t matter. Only the next breath, the next step, the next direction.
“Up the ridge!” she panted. “If we reach the road—”
You didn’t hear the rest.
An arrow hissed past your ear and buried itself in a tree trunk with a deep, shuddering thud. Bark exploded across your shoulder. You flinched but didn’t stop.
“Down!” Lira yelled.
You dove into a shallow ditch, sucking air through your teeth as dirt filled your mouth. Two sets of boots thundered past—close enough for the stink of sweat and oil to turn your stomach.
One of them laughed. Cruel and certain.
You didn’t move. You didn’t breathe. Not until their steps faded.
Lira’s hand tapped twice—up.
You climbed out, keeping low, running bent double through ferns that sliced your shins. The ground tilted down toward a dry creek bed.
“Jump,” Lira said.
You jumped.
Pain flared through your knee as you landed. She hit beside you, limping but still running. You grabbed her arm, half-pulling her up the opposite bank. “This way!” you rasped, throat raw.
The bond pulsed again. Azriel’s emotions slammed into you—fear turned fury, fury turned focus.
He was coming. He was flying.
But he was far. Too far.
Your chest ached with it. The knowledge. The helplessness.
“Keep the pines to our right,” Lira said, her voice trembling. “We’ll find the road.”
You nodded, lungs burning, throat closing around every breath.
A branch snapped behind you.
Then another.
They weren’t running full speed anymore. Just walking. Talking to each other in low voices, amused. Like this was a game. Like you were prey that had forgotten how to hide.
Your panic clawed up your throat.
“Smugglers?” you panted.
“Worse,” Lira said tightly. “Keep going.”
The ground sloped up. You forced your shaking legs to climb. Each step felt like knives between your ribs.
Then—
A blur.
A man stepped out from behind a pine, knife raised.
Lira slammed into him with a snarl that barely sounded human. They hit the ground hard. You grabbed the first thing you could—a rock—and threw it.
It cracked against his temple with a sick, wet sound. He dropped. Lira shoved him off, her face streaked with dirt and blood.
“Go!” she barked.
You went.
Branches clawed your arms. Thorns caught your dress. Something hot trickled down your calf, but you didn’t stop.
Behind you, the voices were closer now.
The bond burned in your chest—Azriel’s terror, his desperation, his unrelenting need to reach you. It made your own panic worse. You could feel him coming, could feel the hurricane of his rage and the black promise in it.
But he wasn’t here.
Not yet.
“Listen to me,” Lira gasped, running beside you, her hand finding yours. “If we get separated—”
“We won’t,” you said, voice breaking.
“If we do,” she said fiercely, “you run until you can’t. Then crawl. Hide. Wait for him.” Her eyes burned. “He always finds you. Meet him halfway.”
You nodded. Because if you spoke, you’d scream.
The forest answered for you.
A net hissed through the air and snapped around Lira’s legs. She went down, hard.
“Lira!”
You turned, reaching—but three men broke through the trees. They were veiled in faint glamour, the shimmer of it sliding off their skin like oil. One lunged for you.
You ran.
Branches whipped your face.
Your lungs screamed.
You ran until the world blurred. Until your heartbeat was the only sound. Until you couldn’t tell if the wetness on your cheeks was sweat or tears.
“Little rabbit,” a voice called from behind. “Don’t make it worse.”
You didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
You stumbled over a root, caught yourself, kept going. The forest tilted down into shadow, into mist, into something ancient and watching.
The bond pulsed again—pain this time. His pain. The edges of it like broken glass under your ribs. You couldn’t send back comfort. Couldn’t tell him you were still breathing.
You could only run.
The path narrowed. Trees rose higher. Their trunks were carved faintly with old wards—faded sigils from the wars before the wall fell. You stumbled through them, too desperate to care.
A clearing opened ahead—bowl-shaped, hemmed in by rock. The air shimmered. The wards hummed like a heartbeat beneath your feet.
A trap.
You stopped.
Your body knew before your mind caught up.
Three men stepped from the opposite side. Relaxed. Smiling. Patient. Hunters waiting for the doe to exhaust itself.
Behind you, only thorns.
You whispered, “No.” It came out small, broken.
They looked at each other and smiled wider.
You turned and hurled yourself into the bramble.
Thorns shredded your dress, your arms, your legs. The pain was white and hot and real. You drove forward through it, teeth clenched, lungs sobbing for air.
A hand snagged your dress and tore it to your spine. Cool air kissed raw skin. You lunged forward, ripping free. Something—fabric, flesh, you didn’t know—gave way.
You burst out the other side, skin stinging, bleeding, half-blind with tears and sweat. The trees here leaned together like teeth.
Your foot caught on a root. You went down, skidding through damp leaves, hands burning. Pain flared bright, sharp. You rolled to your back—and froze.
A man stepped out from the trees. Smiling. Lazy. Inevitable.
You scrambled backward, but your shoulders hit stone—a boulder draped in moss.
Left—another man. Right—a third. All watching.
Your heart thrummed so loud you thought it would break your ribs. The cuts along your thighs burned.
You had no weapon. No magic. Only the bond—burning, pulsing, screaming with Azriel’s rage.
He was close. You could feel him.
But not close enough.
Author’s Note:
Yes, I’m alive. No, I don’t know how.
I haven’t updated in roughly 84 years because life decided to side quest me into actual adulthood, but here we are, traumatizing you (and me) with another chapter.
Anyway, enjoy the panic, the trees, and the sheer audacity of faebane. Love you, mean it. 💅
Genre: angst, romcom, humor, fish out of water reader, canon (ish)
Summary: Murdered after a late-night study session in the modern world, you awaken in Prythian—still yourself, but with Fae features and the infamous title of Beron’s cold-hearted and ruthless daughter.
Then, fate snaps the mating bond into place between you and the shadowsinger, Azriel—who rejects it so fiercely, even the magic recoils.
You died a healer. You woke up a villain. Now fate’s mated you to who wants nothing to do with either—you’ll prove them all wrong, one heartbeat at a time.
Not sure if you’re still taking requests, but how about Az with a reader who has a tendency to hurt herself yet never realizes it until someone points it out?
I am constantly cutting myself and I never feel it - I swear the phrase “Are you okay? You’re bleeding!” Is one I hear at work weekly lol
Title: How to Alarm a Shadowsinger in Three Accidental Steps
pairing: azrial x human mate (fem!reader)
genre: flulf
The scent hit Azriel before he even entered the townhouse kitchen—blood. Your blood.
He was moving before he registered the thought, shadows whipping around him as he materialized in the doorway. His hazel eyes scanned the room with predatory precision, daggers already in hand.
What he found was you, humming contentedly while chopping vegetables for dinner, completely oblivious to the thin line of red trailing down your forearm.
"You're bleeding," he said, his deep voice so sudden in the quiet kitchen that you jumped, the knife clattering to the cutting board.
"Mother above, Az!" You pressed a hand to your chest. "Make some noise when you move, would you?"
He didn't smile, though the corners of his scarred hands tightened around Truth-Teller. "You're bleeding," he repeated, nodding toward your arm.
You glanced down, eyebrows rising in surprise. "Oh. Look at that." You examined the shallow cut with mild interest, as though observing a slightly unusual cloud formation. "Must've nicked myself with the knife."
Azriel's shadows retreated slightly as he realized there was no actual threat, but his concerned expression remained. With a silent sigh, he sheathed Truth-Teller and crossed to where you stood.
"This is the third time this week," he murmured, taking your wrist in his scarred hand. His touch was gentle—always so gentle with you—as he guided you to the sink.
"Is it really?" You tried to remember. "There was the thing with the book yesterday—"
"The paper cut that bled all over the library carpet," he confirmed, his deep voice tinged with exasperation as he ran cool water over your cut.
"And..."
"The splinter from the dock at the Sidra two days ago." Az's shadows curled around your joined hands, as though they too were concerned. "The one you didn't notice until Cassian pointed out you were leaving bloody footprints."
You had the decency to look embarrassed. "In my defense, we were having a very engaging conversation about battle tactics."
"And now this." He patted your arm dry with a clean towel, his movements methodical and practiced. It wasn't the first time he'd tended to your accidental wounds, and you both knew it wouldn't be the last.
"It doesn't even hurt," you protested.
"It never does, until later." Azriel guided you to sit at the kitchen table, where a small medical kit had appeared. You'd never seen him retrieve it. Shadows, probably.
As he began cleaning the cut with practiced efficiency, you noticed the tightness around his eyes, the subtle clench of his jaw. Your shadowsinger was worried, though he'd never admit it.
"I'm not actually made of glass, you know," you said softly, hoping to ease that look from his face.
Az's hazel eyes flicked up to meet yours. "Glass would be better. Glass makes noise when it breaks."
You couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up. "Did you just make a joke, spymaster?"
The barest hint of a smile touched his lips as he wrapped a bandage around your forearm. "It's not a joke when it's true, love."
"Well, lucky for me I have a shadowsinger who can smell a single drop of blood from across Velaris."
That earned you another almost-smile. "Apparently that's a necessary skill when you're involved."
His shadows curled closer, whispering something in his ear that made color touch his cheekbones. After five decades together, you still loved that you could make this ancient, deadly warrior blush.
"What are they saying now?" you asked, nodding toward the shadows.
Az finished securing your bandage, but didn't release your hand. "They're suggesting I assign one of them to follow you permanently, to alert me the moment you injure yourself."
"Oh, now that's just excessive—"
"I'm considering it."
You narrowed your eyes at him, but the effect was ruined by your smile. "You wouldn't dare."
His scarred thumb traced gentle circles on your palm. "You cut yourself chopping carrots, love. Soft, yielding carrots."
"They were being very uncooperative carrots."
One shadow detached from the others, sliding up your newly bandaged arm to curl around your wrist like a bracelet. It was cool but not unpleasant, a familiar sensation after all these years.
"Az," you warned, though there was no heat in it.
"It's just until dinner," he said, rising to his feet. "I'll finish the chopping."
As he turned back to the cutting board, you heard him murmur to the shadow, "Alert me if she so much as touches anything sharper than a spoon."
"I can hear you, you know."
Azriel's shoulders shook with silent laughter. "Good."
The shadow around your wrist squeezed gently, almost affectionately. You'd long ago stopped being unnerved by them; now they were simply extensions of Az himself—protective, vigilant, and surprisingly tender when it came to you.
"I don't need a babysitter," you said, but made no move to dislodge the shadow.
Az glanced over his shoulder, a rare full smile gracing his handsome face. "After fifty years, five hundred and twenty-three bandages, and one memorable incident with a teacup that somehow left you needing stitches, I think I'm entitled to a little caution."
"You've been counting?"
"Shadowsingers never reveal their methods." He resumed chopping with efficient grace.
You watched him work, this deadly warrior now wielding a kitchen knife with the same precision he showed on the battlefield. The shadow around your wrist pulsed gently in time with Az's heartbeat.
"I love you," you said suddenly, because sometimes the sight of him still took your breath away, even after all this time.
Az paused, his shoulders softening. Without turning, he replied, "I love you too. Please try not to bleed on dinner."
Your laughter filled the kitchen, bright against his shadows. The perfect balance, as always.
Later that night, when you somehow managed to cut your finger on a book while reading in bed, Azriel's exasperated sigh was followed by such a tender kiss to your palm that you almost—almost—felt bad for being so accident-prone.
Summary: Azriel never expected to finally meet his mate and to be… this.
A walking disaster with a talent for tripping over air, an uncanny ability to charm even the grumpiest Illyrian, and a knack for throwing herself headfirst into situations that require his immediate intervention.
She is warmth where he is shadow, laughter where he is silence. And worst of all? She makes him smile without trying.
Azriel, Are you Okay? - Masterlist
The dream always began the same way.
A small wooden cabin, nestled deep in a forest far from any court. The perpetual scent of pine and moss, the constant drip of rain on the roof.
Isolation that seemed to stretch forever in all directions.
In the dream, you were a child again, no more than six or seven. Your small hands worked methodically, stoking the hearth fire as winter winds howled outside. You prepared a simple stew in a dented pot, the steam rising in lazy spirals.
She lay on her bed, your mother, staring at the ceiling, as she had for days. Her once vibrant eyes hollow, her cheeks sunken. This wasn't illness.
This was something deeper, a wound in her spirit that never seemed to heal.
"Mother," your child self whispered, "I made dinner."
No response. Just that vacant stare, tears occasionally sliding down her temples to disappear into her hair.
You placed the wooden bowl beside her bed, knowing it would remain untouched. Just as yesterday's had. And the day before that.
"I'll leave it here," you said, your small voice almost swallowed by the emptiness of the cabin. "For when you're hungry."
Loneliness wrapped around you like a physical cloak, heavy and suffocating.
Through the window, you watched snowflakes dance in the darkness, deepening your isolation. No one would travel these woods in such weather. No one would find your cabin.
No one would find you.
Then came the voices, whispers that seemed to seep from the very walls of the cabin. Words you couldn't quite make out, meanings that skittered away when you tried to focus on them.
Strange images flashed. Your reflection in the window glass, eyes shimmering with an odd light. Your mother suddenly sitting up, panic lending her strength where grief had stolen it, grabbing your shoulders with desperate hands.
Words you couldn't remember upon waking, a promise you didn't understand.
You jolted awake, a gasp catching in your throat, but the sound was muffled against warm skin and solid muscle.
Disoriented, you blinked in the pre dawn darkness, momentarily confused by the weight across your waist, the unfamiliar heat surrounding you. Then recognition settled in, along with immediate comfort.
Azriel.
His arm was draped possessively around your middle, his chest pressed against your back, his wings partially unfurled to cocoon you both in living shadow and warmth. His breathing was deep and even, fanning against your neck in a rhythm that normally would have lulled you back to sleep.
But the dream lingered, its ghostly fingers still clutching at your mind.
You shifted carefully, not wanting to wake him, but of course he sensed the change instantly. Azriel had spent centuries honing his awareness, training his body to register the slightest disturbance even in sleep.
"What is it?" His voice was rough with sleep, yet quiet in the darkness. The arm around your waist tightened slightly, instinctively protective.
"Nothing," you whispered back, trying to keep your voice steady. "Just a strange dream."
You felt him shift behind you, propping himself up on one elbow to look down at your face.
Though the room was dark, you knew he could see you perfectly. Those Illyrian senses missed nothing, especially not the rapid flutter of your pulse, the lingering tension in your body.
"The same one?" he asked softly.
You nodded, though you couldn't remember telling him about the dreams before. Maybe he'd sensed them, felt the disturbance through the mating bond that connected you.
With gentle insistence, he turned you in his arms until you faced him. In the darkness, his hazel eyes seemed to glow faintly, catching what little light filtered through the curtains. His shadows stirred around him, coiling closer as if sensing your distress.
"Tell me," he urged, one scarred hand coming up to brush hair from your face.
You hesitated, trying to grasp the dream details that were already fading.
"I was a child, in a cabin somewhere... with my mother, I think. She was sad... or sick. I don't know." You shook your head, frustrated by the fragments slipping away. "It felt so real, but now it's just... pieces."
Azriel's expression shifted, the neutral mask giving way to something sharper, more alert. His shadows suddenly swirled more actively, stretching toward you in agitated patterns. One brushed against your cheek, surprisingly cool against your skin.
"This is the third night," he said, his voice no longer sleep-rough but precise, calculating. "The same dream, becoming clearer each time."
You blinked, surprised by his intensity. "It's just a dream, Az."
"Is it?" His gaze remained fixed on yours, searching.
You tried for levity. "Maybe I'm just stressed about Gregory's upcoming scale polishing appointment. Fish parenting is serious business."
Your joke fell flat against Azriel's unwavering concern. His shadows whispered to him, coiling around his ears before stretching out again to touch your hair, your wrists, the pendant at your throat.
"We need to see Rhys," he said suddenly, already sitting up. "Now."
"What?" You stared at him, bewildered. "Now, as in right now? It's not even dawn!"
"Now." The word was firm, brooking no argument.
"Azriel." You sat up, clutching the blanket to your chest. "It's the middle of the night. We can't just burst into the High Lord's bedroom because I had a weird dream about a sad mother and a pot of stew. That's not how normal people behave."
"You're not normal people," he said, already pulling on his fighting leathers with swift, economical movements. "You're my mate. And something's happening to you."
"Yes, it's called sleep deprivation," you protested. "Caused by a certain shadowsinger waking me up at an ungodly hour to discuss my dreams with his boss."
Azriel paused in buckling one of his many knives to his thigh.
Despite your exasperation, you couldn't help admiring the sight of him, half-dressed and serious.
The man could make paranoia look attractive.
"The cabin," he said quietly. "Did it have a blue door? With a carving of a crescent moon?"
Your heart stuttered. You hadn't mentioned that detail, had you? "How did you..."
"Rhys has been searching for a cabin matching that description for weeks," Azriel said, returning to his weapons with renewed urgency. "Ever since the night of the River House party, when he first recognized you."
"Recognized me?" You felt like you were missing several crucial pieces of a puzzle. "I've only met Rhys a handful of times since I started at the Archives."
Azriel's gaze met yours, something ancient and knowing in his eyes. "No," he said gently. "You met him long before that. You just don't remember."
A chill ran through you. "That's... that's not possible."
"Isn't it?" He crossed back to the bed, kneeling before you, taking your hands in his scarred ones. "The voices that no one else hears. The dreams that feel like memories. The way my shadows sought you out from the moment we met, like they recognized something in you that I couldn't yet see."
Your mouth went dry. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying," he replied, squeezing your hands gently, "that you need to talk to Rhys. Tonight."
"Can I at least put on clothes first?" you asked weakly, grasping at the last shreds of normalcy. "Or should I meet the High Lord of the Night Court in my nightgown? I hear that's the fashion these days."
A smile flickered across Azriel's face, there and gone in an instant. "Clothes would be advisable."
"Well, thank the Mother for small mercies." You slid from the bed, moving to your wardrobe. "But if Rhysand is sleeping, I'm blaming you entirely. I'll tell him you forced me to come, driven by some mad spymaster conspiracy theory about my entirely ordinary bad dreams."
Azriel watched you with that penetrating gaze of his. "You're deflecting."
"I'm coping," you corrected, pulling out a simple dress. "Some of us manage fear with humor rather than an arsenal of pointy objects."
His expression softened. "I would take all your fear if I could."
The simple sincerity in his voice melted your resistance. You sighed, shoulders slumping slightly. "Fine. We'll go see Rhys. But I want it on record that this is ridiculous, and I'm only agreeing because you look very convincing with all those knives."
Azriel's lips curved in a barely-there smile. "Noted."
Ten minutes later, dressed and marginally more awake, you found yourself gathered in Azriel's arms as he prepared to fly you to the River House. His wings spread wide, magnificent even in the dim light of your bedroom.
"For the record," you mumbled against his chest, "if he's is annoyed at being woken up for dream interpretation, I'm throwing you under the carriage."
"He won't be," Azriel said with absolute certainty. "He's been waiting for this."
"For what?"
Azriel's arms tightened around you as he moved to the window. "For you to remember."
As his powerful wings caught the night air and lifted you both into the star-strewn sky, you couldn't shake the feeling that you were flying toward something that would change everything. That the dream wasn't just a dream, but a key turning in a long-forgotten lock.
And somewhere in the back of your mind, a voice whispered.
You promised. No magic. No matter what you see or hear.
But whose voice it was, you couldn't remember.
The flight to the River House was mercifully brief.
Dawn was still nothing more than a promise on the horizon when Azriel landed on a wide balcony with practiced silence, setting you gently on your feet.
You'd expected darkness, servants scrambling to attend unexpected visitors, perhaps even an annoyed High Lord in sleeping attire.
Instead, warm light spilled from the open balcony doors. Rhysand stood waiting, fully dressed in elegant black, a glass of amber liquid in one hand.
As if he'd been expecting you. As if he'd been waiting.
"Right on time," he said, violet eyes gleaming in the low light. His gaze swept over you, assessing, before settling on Azriel. "The dreams have started."
Not a question. A statement of fact.
Your mouth fell open. "How did you—"
"Let's talk inside," Rhys interrupted smoothly, stepping back to allow you entrance. "Feyre has prepared tea."
Your steps faltered. "Feyre's awake too?" You shot Azriel an accusatory look. "Is everyone in the Night Court up at this unholy hour discussing my sleeping habits?"
"Not everyone," Rhys replied with a hint of amusement. "Just those who need to be."
The High Lord's study was unexpectedly cozy, with a fire crackling in the hearth and comfortable seating arranged around it. Feyre rose from an armchair as you entered, her expression kind but tinged with something that looked disconcertingly like concern.
"Please, sit," she said, gesturing to a plush sofa. "You look like you've had a rough night."
"Apparently it's about to get rougher," you muttered, but did as suggested. Azriel settled beside you, close enough that his wing brushed your back in a gesture of silent support.
Rhys remained standing, leaning against the mantelpiece with casual grace that didn't quite mask the intensity of his focus. "Tell me about the dream."
Under that violet gaze, you suddenly felt self-conscious. "It's nothing special. Just a cabin in the woods. A sad mother. Some voices." You shrugged, aiming for nonchalance and failing miserably. "Probably just my subconscious processing Archives stress or something."
"The cabin had a blue door," Rhys said softly. "With a crescent moon carved into it."
Your heart stuttered. "How do you—"
"You were small," he continued, eyes never leaving your face. "No more than six or seven. Your mother was... unwell. Not physically, but inside. She wouldn't eat. Wouldn't speak except to warn you about something. To make you promise."
The room tilted alarmingly. You gripped the sofa cushion to steady yourself, feeling Azriel's hand press reassuringly against your lower back.
"That's... that's impossible," you whispered. "How could you know the details of my dream?"
"Because it's not just a dream." Rhys pushed away from the mantelpiece, moving to sit across from you. His expression softened, a surprising gentleness entering his voice. "It's a memory. One that was taken from you."
"Taken?" Your voice sounded strange to your own ears. "By who?"
Rhys and Feyre exchanged a look laden with meaning. Then Rhys sighed, seeming to make a decision.
"By my father," he said simply. "The previous High Lord of the Night Court."
The words landed like physical blows. You stared at him, unable to process what he was saying. "I've never met your father. He died centuries ago."
"Yes." Rhys leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. "But you knew him before that. When you were a child."
"That's not possible." You shook your head vehemently. "I grew up in a small village near the Day Court border. My mother was a seamstress. I only moved to Velaris a few years ago."
"Those aren't your memories," Feyre said gently. "They're fabrications, planted to replace what was taken."
You let out a shaky laugh, looking between them. "This is insane. Why would anyone bother tampering with a random child's memories?"
"Because you weren't random," Rhys said, his voice dropping lower, carrying a somberness that made your heart ache. "You were his secret, yes. A pawn, perhaps. But you were also—" His breath hitched. "—something he kept hidden, even from us."
The room went utterly silent. You could hear the crackling of the fire, the soft rush of Azriel's wings as they shifted. You could feel his tension beside you, the protective coil of his shadows around your wrists.
"No," you said flatly. "That's not... no. My father was a Day Court soldier who died before I was born. My mother showed me his portrait."
"Did she?" Rhys asked softly. "Can you remember his face?"
You opened your mouth to reply, to describe the portrait you'd seen a thousand times... and found nothing. No clear image. Just a vague impression of a uniform, a faceless figure, a story told so often it had become truth.
"This is ridiculous," you insisted, though uncertainty crept into your voice. "Why would you even think that I... that he..."
Rhys's expression turned solemn. "Because I remember you."
His hand trembled slightly as he reached into his pocket and withdrew a small carved star, its edges smooth from years of wear. It glinted in the firelight, a relic from a past neither of you could have foreseen. "This…" His voice cracked. "You gave this to me, when you called me brother."
A chill skittered down your spine. Something about the star in his palm tugged at your mind, a faint thread of recognition.
"You were brought to the Court Under the Mountain when you were about six. Your mother had been my father's mistress for years, but kept you hidden until then. One night, I found you on a balcony, watching the stars."
Feyre made a small sound, halfway between sympathy and wonder. Azriel remained silent beside you, but his hand found yours, fingers intertwining with quiet strength.
As the memories churned within you, Azriel's shadowed presence at your side became a delicate balance.
He was there—always there—but his restraint burned through him, a visible tension in his jaw. He wanted to reach out, to wrap you in his arms, but he was waiting for you, respecting the distance you needed. His shadows, once so familiar and comforting, now seemed like an extension of his anxiety, curling tight at his sides as if waiting for you to allow them closer.
"After that night, you disappeared," Rhys said. "Both you and your mother. My father forbade anyone from speaking of you. When I asked, he... punished me. And then he removed the memory entirely."
"But it returned," Feyre added, her gaze compassionate. "After all these years. When he saw you at the River House party, something clicked. A memory that had been altered but not completely destroyed."
You swallowed hard, trying to process what they were saying. "So you're claiming that I'm... what? Your half-sister? The illegitimate child of the previous High Lord?"
"Yes," Rhys said simply. "And I believe my father altered your memories before sending you away. Created a false past for you and your mother. To keep you hidden, perhaps as insurance, or perhaps out of some twisted form of protection."
"The dream is your true memory fighting to surface," Feyre explained. "The cabin was real. Your mother's depression was real. And the voices..."
"The voices were your power," Rhys finished. "A power I've never seen before in any daemati. Even in our bloodline."
Your head spun.
It was too much, too fantastical.
And yet... and yet it would explain the whispers in the Archives. The strange sense of recognition you'd felt toward Rhys from your first meeting. The way Azriel's shadows had always seemed to know you, reaching for you even before he consciously recognized the mating bond.
"What do you mean, a power you've never seen before?" you asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Rhys leaned forward, intensity radiating from him. "I'm considered one of the most powerful daemati in Prythian's history. But your abilities, even when untrained and trapped behind whatever shield my father put in your mind... they're extraordinary. You don't just hear thoughts. You hear voices across realms. You hear the dead."
"That's not possible," you whispered, but even as you said it, fragments of memory flickered at the edges of your consciousness. Whispers in the dark. Secrets no living soul should know. The endless solitude of that cabin, broken only by voices that shouldn't exist.
"My father placed a shield in your mind," Rhys continued. "But I don't know why. What he was hiding. What he feared." His violet eyes locked with yours. "I want to help you uncover it. To remember who you truly are."
As he spoke about your mother, about the cabin, something shifted in your mind. Like a key turning in a rusty lock, a door creaking open to reveal horrors long hidden.
The image of her body—a stillness that didn't make sense to your young mind—kept cutting through your vision like a broken film reel.
Blood, you thought. It clung to your skin, soaked into your small hands, but the details weren't clear. You only knew the terror, the screaming. The whispers of someone else… someone cold… someone waiting for you to be strong.
Your mother.
Not sitting up in bed, not warning you about using power.
Her body. Still. Cold. Lifeless.
Blood. So much blood. On the floor. On your tiny hands. On your nightdress.
Your child self, screaming. Sobbing. Alone with a corpse in the wilderness.
And a voice, familiar yet chilling. "She was weak. But you, little one... you will be strong."
The memory slammed into you with physical force. You jerked back, a strangled sound escaping your throat. Azriel's arm immediately went around you, his shadows flaring protectively, but you barely felt it through the surge of panic.
"She's dead," you gasped, the words torn from some deep, wounded place inside you. "My mother. She's dead. In the cabin. I found her."
Rhys straightened, alarm flashing across his features. "What do you remember?"
But the memories were coming too fast now, a torrent of images and sensations breaking through the crumbling dam in your mind. Your mother's body.
The isolation. The terror.
You tried to shove it down, to rebuild the walls that had protected you for so long.
This couldn't be real. This couldn't be your life.
Your mother died peacefully. Your father was a hero. You were normal. Ordinary. Safe.
But the truth clawed its way out, ripping through the carefully constructed lies, leaving you raw and exposed.
The air stilled, thick with tension as your power surged, a wave of energy too raw and untamed to control. The fire sputtered and died in the hearth, the once steady flames now nothing more than flickering embers that reflected in Rhysand's wide, shocked eyes. The tea service shattered, its delicate porcelain scattering in a rain of broken shards that echoed through the silence, the sound as jarring as the chaos inside you.
"Stay away from me," you said, surging to your feet, backing away from them all. Your chest heaved with panicked breaths. "All of you. Stay back."
Azriel's shadows, once a comforting presence, writhed beneath his skin, the invisible tendrils curling tighter around you, though the proximity of his presence did little to ease the tempest inside you. His eyes darkened with his own helplessness, his usual calm shattered by the storm of emotions sweeping over you.
"You're safe," Azriel began, rising slowly, hands outstretched in a non-threatening gesture. "No one here will hurt you."
But you weren't seeing him anymore. You were seeing a cabin in the woods. A small child covered in blood. A High Lord with darkness writhing at his command, reaching for you, into you, twisting something in your mind until the world went black.
"Don't touch me!" The words burst from you in a wave of power that rippled through the room, knocking over furniture, extinguishing the fire, shattering the tea service.
Feyre gasped. Rhys moved in front of her instinctively, though his expression wasn't fear but shock.
And Azriel... Azriel stood perfectly still, watching you with those ancient eyes, shadows writhing around him but never approaching you.
"I need to go," you said, backing toward the balcony doors. "I need... I can't..."
"Let me take you home," Azriel said quietly. "Please. I won't touch you if you don't want me to. I won't speak. Just let me make sure you get home safely."
The raw concern in his voice penetrated your panic. You looked at him, really looked at him, and saw not the threat your fragmented memories had conjured but your mate.
Your protector.
The one who had woken in the night to your distress and brought you here out of worry, not malice.
"Az," you whispered, voice breaking on his name.
He took a careful step toward you. "I'm here."
"I don't know what's happening to me."
"I know," he said softly. "But we'll figure it out. Together."
You looked past him to Rhys and Feyre, who remained where they were, making no move to approach. The shock on their faces had been replaced by deep concern.
"I didn't mean to..." you gestured weakly at the destruction around you.
"It's nothing," Rhys assured you, his voice gentle in a way you'd never heard before. "Just furniture. What matters is you."
And in that moment, despite the terror and confusion, despite the horror of the memories surfacing in your mind, you felt something unexpected.
Belonging.
"I want to go home," you said finally, your voice small.
"Then that's where we'll go," Azriel promised, moving to your side but still not touching you without permission. "May I?"
You nodded, and he carefully wrapped an arm around your waist, gathering you close as his wings spread in preparation for flight.
"We'll talk when you're ready," Rhys said from behind you. "No pressure. No timeline. This is your journey, on your terms."
You didn't respond, couldn't find words through the storm in your mind. But as Azriel lifted you into the dawn-brightening sky, as Velaris spread below you in all its awakening beauty, you clutched the carved star Rhys had pressed into your palm and wondered what other horrors waited behind the walls in your mind.
The apartment felt both sanctuary and prison.
For three days now, you'd barely left your bedroom, the walls both shield and cage. Gregory's bowl sat on your nightstand, his silent companionship the only interaction you could bear.
Even then, sometimes his innocent bubbling felt like accusation—why are you hiding?
Outside your door, life persisted.
The quiet conversations, ceramic against wood as meals appeared and disappeared, untouched. The soft rustle of wings as Azriel moved through your apartment—a constant, patient sentinel.
He hadn't tried to force his way in. Hadn't sent his shadows slithering under the crack to spy.
He simply... waited.
Like the mountain waits for spring after winter's grip—inevitable, unrushing, certain.
Your latest nightmare had left your body hollowed, sheets damp with cold sweat that smelled of fear.
The memories—were they even memories?—grew sharper each night, glass edges cutting deeper. Mother's body. Blood pooling black in the moonlight. The silence after screaming that stretched into forever.
Who am I, if not who I believed? The question echoed, unanswered, a stone dropped into a bottomless well.
A soft knock pulled you from the spiral, gentle but unmistakable.
"There's food," Azriel's voice came through the wood, his deep timbre neither demanding nor pitying. Just stating fact. "And tea. When you're ready."
You didn't answer. Hadn't in days. But something in you ached at his voice—steady as the North Star while you drowned in shifting seas.
"Lira stopped by," he continued, as though conversing through doors was perfectly natural. "She brought more books from the Archives. Said they might help distract you."
Your chest tightened. Lira. Sweet, fierce Lira who knew nothing of your true heritage but had still shown up, bearing gifts and stubborn concern.
"Is she still sick?" she'd asked earlier, her voice carrying through the door.
"Something like that," Azriel had replied, the evasion smooth as silk.
You'd pressed your ear to the door then, desperate for that connection to normal life—if it had ever been yours at all.
"Well, tell her Gregory misses his mother," Lira had said, false lightness straining her words. "And that Mor is threatening to organize a rescue mission if she doesn't emerge soon."
The thought of Mor charging in, all golden fury and determination, had almost—almost—made you smile.
Another knock, firmer this time.
"You should eat," Azriel said.
Not an order but a reminder that your body still existed, still needed care, regardless of the crisis consuming your mind.
The whisper of fabric as he shifted outside—a sound so faint only Illyrian hearing could detect it. His shadows moved too, their presence palpable even through the door, like cool fingertips brushing the wood between you.
"This will pass," his voice came again, softer now, intimate as a shared secret. "Nothing lasts forever. Not even this darkness."
The words carried something rare for Azriel—naked emotion, unguarded by his usual careful reserve.
"How can you know that?" you whispered, unsure if he could hear.
A pause. Then, "Because I see you, even when you can't see yourself."
The simplicity of it burned your eyes with unshed tears.
For days, you'd been terrified of the power that had exploded in Rhys's study, of hurting those you loved. Yet Azriel's voice held no fear, only bedrock certainty.
"I'm afraid," you admitted, pressing your forehead against the door. "Of what I might do. What I might become."
"I know," he said, and you sensed him move closer, his presence a weight against the other side. "But whatever you face, you don't have to face it alone."
His shadows seeped through the thin crack beneath the door, not invading but reaching—cool tendrils of night that carried his silent promise.
"Some nights," he continued, voice dropping to a rumble that vibrated through the wood, "when darkness feels absolute, I remember that dawn has never once failed to come. Not once in five hundred years."
Gregory bubbled in his bowl, a mundane counterpoint to Azriel's poetry.
"What if I hurt someone?" The fear that had kept you locked away. "What if I can't control it?"
"Then we learn control together," he answered without hesitation, the words carrying a thread of steel. "No one expects you to master this alone."
You closed your eyes, his words settling into the hairline fractures of your fear like healing rain into parched earth.
"The others have been asking about you," Azriel said after a moment. "Mor. Cassian. Even Amren, in her way."
"Amren?" The surprise pulled your voice higher. "Truly?"
"She said—and I quote—'Tell the girl to stop wallowing and come learn what she can do.'" A hint of wry amusement colored his tone. "I believe that's her version of concern."
Tiny, ancient Amren, with her quicksilver eyes and merciless pragmatism, worried about you. The thought unfurled warmth in your chest—this strange, cobbled family refusing to abandon you, even now.
"Rhys hasn't pushed," Azriel continued. "He understands better than most what it means to discover truths about yourself that change everything. But he's there, when you're ready."
When, not if. The distinction wasn't lost on you.
"I don't know if I'll ever be ready," you confessed.
"You will be," he said, conviction running through his words like iron. "And until then, I'll be right here. Not moving."
His shadows pulsed beneath the door, physical manifestations of his oath, curling up like ribbons of midnight. One shadow reached toward your bare foot, pausing as if asking permission.
You stared at it—this living darkness that could pierce any barrier yet respected your boundaries enough to wait, to ask.
Slowly, you lowered your hand, allowing the shadow to brush your fingertips. The sensation was cool but not cold, silk against skin, a touch more intimate than any physical contact.
"Az," you whispered, his name breaking on your lips.
"I'm here," he answered immediately, voice taut with restrained emotion.
Your fingers found the door handle, hesitated, then began to turn it.
And then they came.
Whispers.
Not one, but dozens. Hundreds.
A cacophony of voices like brittle bones breaking, like water over burial stones, like the final stuttering exhale of the dying. They surrounded you, filled the room, pressed against your skin from all sides.
"Little listener," they hissed, words overlapping, discordant as broken instruments. "Little one with the gift and the curse."
Your hand froze on the doorknob, lungs seizing mid-breath.
"The shadowsinger cannot protect you," another voice rasped, this one colder, closer, the sound of it like frost forming on your spine. "His shadows are nothing compared to us. We exist in the space between heartbeats. In the darkness behind your eyes."
"His throat would open so easily," whispered one that sounded like a child, the innocence in the tone making the words obscene. "Wet and warm and red. We remember red. We miss red."
Terror crashed through you, limbs locking rigid as ice spread through your veins.
"His wings would snap like frozen branches," offered another, the voice wet with anticipation. "We could guide your hands. We could sing the song of breaking bones together."
"Stop," you breathed, the word barely audible. "Please stop."
The voices laughed—a sound like maggots writhing in rotting flesh.
"She thinks she commands us!" they mocked, voices layering over each other in horrible harmony. "Little daemati, little Night Court foundling. You don't command the dead. You are our doorway. Our puppet. Our hands in the world of flesh."
A sob caught in your throat, your fingers slipping from the doorknob as you backed away. The voices followed, clinging to you like grave mold, their phantom touch raising gooseflesh across your body.
"What's wrong?" Azriel called, alarm sharpening his voice. "Are you alright?"
You couldn't answer. Couldn't form words as the voices pressed closer, their whispers filling your ears, your mind, crowding out thought.
"Tell him," they urged, vicious excitement in their chorus. "Tell him we're here. Tell him we can see the exact moment his heart will stop beating."
"Tell him we're coming for him through you."
The doorknob rattled. "I'm coming in," Azriel commanded, all patience evaporated in the face of your distress.
A sharp crack split the air—wood splintering, metal snapping—and the door swung open, lock destroyed by Illyrian strength.
Azriel stood in the doorway, wings flared wide, shadows roiling around him like storm clouds. His eyes, usually so controlled, burned with fierce concern as they found you huddled against the far wall.
"Don't," you gasped, pressing back as if you could melt into the plaster. "Please. Go away."
"Too late," the voices crooned, crawling over each other in gleeful anticipation. "Too late, too late, too late..."
He didn't leave. But he didn't approach either.
Instead, he lowered himself to the floor, a careful distance away, movements slow and deliberate as if approaching a wounded animal. His wings tucked tight, though his shadows continued their agitated dance.
"I'm not leaving," he said quietly, each word a stone foundation. "Not now. Not ever."
The voices hissed—some in frustration, others in what sounded disturbingly like hunger.
"How sweet, his devotion," they mocked. "How easily it will break when your hands wrap around his throat. Your body, our will. Your power, our purpose."
You squeezed your eyes shut, hot tears tracking down your cheeks. But you couldn't block the voices. They were inside you, part of this cursed gift you'd inherited.
"There's something wrong with me," you managed, words raw and jagged.
"No," Azriel replied without hesitation, the word landing with the weight of absolute truth. "There's something wrong with what was done to you. That's different."
The distinction hung between you—simple yet profound. He didn't demand explanations. Just sat there, solid as bedrock, his shadows gradually settling as your breathing steadied.
The voices retreated slightly, their frustration a tangible pressure, but they didn't vanish. They lingered at the edges of your awareness, whispering promises of violence, of control, of horrors to come.
"I don't know how to do this," you admitted, voice barely above a whisper. You couldn't tell him about the voices, about their threats. Not yet. Not when you feared they might use you as their instrument.
"None of us do," Azriel replied, unexpected vulnerability in his admission. "We're all just... finding our way forward. One step at a time. Even Rhys."
A surprised laugh escaped you, so incongruous with the terror still coiled inside that it startled even you. The voices recoiled at the sound, as if your moment of genuine feeling caused them physical pain.
That was... interesting.
"You don't have to tell me everything," Azriel said, his perceptiveness cutting to the heart of your silence. "Not until you're ready. But don't convince yourself you need to face it alone."
Gregory bubbled energetically from his bowl, as if agreeing—or perhaps sensing the momentary retreat of the dead that had filled the room.
"Even Gregory agrees," Azriel noted, the faintest hint of humor warming his voice.
You wiped tear-stained cheeks with trembling hands. "You broke my door."
"It was between us." he replied simply.
Another surprised laugh, this one stronger. "You're impossible."
"I've had centuries of practice." His gaze remained steady, shadows settling into calmer patterns. "Are you hungry?"
The question was so normal, so everyday amid the supernatural crisis consuming your life, that you could only stare at him.
Then, absurdly, your stomach growled—loudly.
Azriel's brow lifted slightly, the closest thing to smugness his severe features could manage. "I'll take that as yes."
For the first time in days, you felt something simple and human beneath the fear. Hunger—a reminder that regardless of what else you might be, you were still flesh and blood with basic needs.
"Maybe a little," you conceded.
He nodded, rising with fluid grace that belied his warrior's build. He didn't offer his hand, didn't try to help you up—understanding you needed to stand on your own terms, in your own time.
"I'll bring it here," he said, already turning toward the broken doorway. "You don't have to come out until you're ready."
The consideration in the gesture made your chest ache. "Az?"
He paused, looking back over his shoulder, wings shifting slightly.
"Thank you."
For staying. For breaking down doors. For not demanding answers you couldn't give.
"For everything."
His expression didn't change, but his shadows swirled with something that might have been tenderness. "Always."
As he left to retrieve food, the voices whispered again—fainter now but laced with malice.
"You won't escape us forever," they warned. "We are patient. We are eternal. We will always find you, little daemati."
But for the first time since they'd begun their terrible chorus, their threats felt less absolute.
A shadow—one of Azriel's—had remained behind, curling around your wrist like a bracelet of cool night. It pulsed gently, as if taking your pulse, reminding you that you weren't alone in this darkness.
That perhaps there was light worth fighting for after all.
Consciousness returned like the tide—gradual yet inevitable. Sunlight filtered through the curtains, painting golden stripes across your rumpled sheets and warming skin that had felt cold for days.
You shifted, muscles protesting after being tensed in fear for so long. The absence struck you first—that terrible chorus of dead voices had finally quieted sometime in the night. The silence in your mind felt vast and pristine, like fresh snow before footprints mar its surface. You'd forgotten how peaceful quiet could be.
A soft rustle drew your attention.
Azriel sat in the chair beside your bed, a sentinel carved from shadow and steel. His wings were folded tight against his back, the tips brushing the floor. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, the only evidence of his sleepless vigil. His shadows moved languidly around him, more settled than you'd seen them in days.
Guilt twisted through you. "You didn't sleep," you murmured, voice rough from disuse.
His eyes—sharp despite his evident exhaustion—focused on you immediately. The slightest tremor ran through his hands before he stilled them against the armrests. "You did. That's what matters."
You pushed yourself up against the headboard, studying him. The shadows beneath his eyes looked almost bruised, his normally immaculate appearance showing subtle signs of strain—a slight wrinkle in his fighting leathers, a strand of dark hair falling across his forehead.
"Az, you need rest too," you said softly.
A muscle in his jaw tightened. "I've gone longer."
The stubborn male.
Your lips pursed into what you knew was a childish pout, brows drawing together as you frowned at him.
Something shifted in Azriel then—subtle at first, like ice beginning to thaw.
The rigid line of his shoulders eased slightly. The severe set of his mouth softened at the corners.
Then, like dawn breaking after endless night, his expression transformed completely. A genuine smile spread across his face, reaching his eyes in a way so rare and beautiful it momentarily stole your breath.
"What?" you asked, unsettled by this sudden change.
"There you are," he said, voice hushed as if sharing a sacred truth. "I thought I'd lost you to the fear."
His shadows stirred, stretching toward you like creatures seeking warmth.
Before you could respond, he moved to the edge of your bed. Not with his usual predatory grace, but carefully, almost tentatively, as if afraid you might shatter or flee.
"Az?" Your heart quickened as he leaned closer.
His scarred hands hovered near your face—hesitating, uncertain—before gently, reverently cradling your cheeks. The calluses on his palms were rough against your skin, a warrior's hands trying to be gentle. Then he pressed a kiss to your forehead, his lips lingering as if in prayer.
"Azriel!" Heat flooded your face at the unexpected tenderness.
He pulled back just enough to meet your gaze, something vulnerable flickering in the depths of his hazel eyes. A question. A fear of overstepping. But at whatever he saw in your expression, his hesitation melted away.
Another kiss found your temple, his breath warm against your skin. Then your cheek, the touch feather-light yet devastating in its sweetness. The tip of your nose. Each contact deliberate, almost worshipful.
"Az, what are you doing?" you asked, breathless.
The shadows of his lashes fell across his cheekbones as he looked down. "Making sure you're real," he confessed, voice rough with emotion he rarely displayed. "That the voices didn't take you from me."
His shadows joined this unexpected display of affection, curling around your wrists like cool silk ribbons. Where they touched, they left a sensation like starlight against your skin—bright yet gentle, familiar yet extraordinary.
"I'm still here," you assured him, flustered by this uncharacteristic display. "You can stop now."
He caught your chin between thumb and forefinger, his expression softening further.
"No," he said simply, the word carrying a world of tenderness you'd never heard from him before. "I don't think I can."
The bold declaration, so unlike his usual measured restraint, left you momentarily speechless.
"When did you get so impossible?" you managed finally.
His thumb traced the curve of your lower lip, his touch reverent. "When I thought I might lose you to the darkness in your mind."
You tried to maintain your composure, but a smile betrayed you, tugging at the corners of your mouth. "I'm stronger than that."
"Yes," he agreed, shadows swirling with something that might have been pride. "You are."
He brushed your hair back, the scarred ridges of his fingertips catching slightly against the strands. "The voices... are they quiet now?"
The question sobered you. You turned your awareness inward, holding your breath as you listened for that terrible chorus.
Nothing.
Where before there had been a cacophony of malicious whispers, pressing against your consciousness like hands trying to break through glass, now there was only blessed stillness. The relief was so profound it brought tears to your eyes.
"They're gone," you whispered, voice breaking on the words. "I can't hear them at all."
A shudder passed through Azriel, his exhale shaky as he leaned his forehead against yours. "Thank the Mother."
For a moment, you simply breathed together, sharing the same air, the same space. His shadows drifted around you both, forming a cocoon of living darkness that felt strangely like protection.
"You know," he said finally, his voice a low rumble that you felt more than heard, "Rhys believes he can help."
Tension crawled back into your shoulders. "How?"
"He's a daemati too," Azriel reminded you, one hand sliding to the nape of your neck in a steadying touch. "He could teach you to build shields in your mind. To filter what you hear."
His shadows faltered slightly at the mention of Rhys, twisting into agitated patterns before settling again—a tell you'd never noticed before.
"What if I hurt him?" Fear crept back into your voice. "What if the voices come back when I'm with him, and they make me do something terrible?"
Azriel's grip on you tightened fractionally, his jaw hardening with determination. "Then I'll be there. Between you and him. Between you and anyone who might be harmed." His shadows surged in agreement, darkening with protective intent. "But we can't hide from this forever."
The "we" wasn't lost on you—he had claimed your burden as his own without hesitation.
"I'm terrified," you admitted.
"I know." He kissed you again, this time at the corner of your eye where a tear threatened to fall. "But I've watched you face impossible things before."
"You make me sound braver than I am," you murmured.
"No," he said with unexpected fierceness. "I see you exactly as you are."
The simple truth of it struck deep, warming places inside you that had been cold with fear for days.
His thumb brushed your cheek. "We'll go only when you're ready. But Rhys can help in ways I can't."
You sighed, leaning into his touch. "When did you get so persuasive?"
"Five centuries of practice," he replied, the serious line of his mouth betrayed by the warmth in his eyes.
"Fine," you conceded, unable to resist the hope he offered. "We can see Rhys. But after that, you're going to sleep for at least twelve hours."
"Is that an order?" he asked, amusement threading through his voice.
"Yes," you said firmly. "And stop with all the... the..."
"Affection?" he supplied, pressing another deliberate kiss to your cheek.
You tried to summon a glare, but a helpless laugh escaped instead. "It's disconcerting. You're supposed to be scary and brooding."
"Only to everyone else," he said with quiet sincerity. Then, as if catching himself being too earnest, he added, "Besides, this is far more effective at keeping you off-balance."
He rose gracefully, extending one scarred hand. "Breakfast first? I imagine you're hungry."
Your stomach growled in agreement, making his lips twitch with satisfaction.
As you placed your hand in his and let him help you to your feet, you felt something fundamental shift between you. The voices might return. Your power remained untamed. But for the first time since the River House, since the memories and the whispers had begun, you felt a flicker of something precious.
With Azriel looking at you as though you were the dawn after his longest night, even the darkness that had nearly consumed you seemed less absolute, less eternal.
And in the Night Court, perhaps that was the greatest victory of all.
Author's Note:
Dear wonderful readers,
I apologize for vanishing faster than memories in the Night Court! Life's been a whirlwind—juggling the whispers of the dead, a pet fish named Gregory, and a moody shadowsinger boyfriend demands more multitasking mojo than I've got.
I promise the next update won't take as long—Azriel's threatened to hunt me down with his shadows if I keep you waiting. (Who knew he'd be so invested in my storytelling? Definitely not him!)
Thank you for your patience! Now, back to stumbling over things and accidentally causing havoc.
