Warnings: SMUT, mdni, 18+ ONLY, NSFW, CNC
Summary: Your mate has been working so much lately that the distance leaves you restless and needy, so you decide to take matters into your own hands late one night.
A/N: Inspired by these gifs that I have not been able to stop thinking about.
You couldn't sleep. You had been tossing and turning, staring out the window for what felt like hours now.
The hazy effects of the wine you’d had at dinner had long since faded, leaving only a restless energy beneath your skin.
Well, restless and horny.
Your mate had worked you up all evening without even realizing it. The soft, absentminded caresses of your back and shoulders whenever he passed behind your chair. The gentle way he would rest his hand on your thigh beneath the table, giving it a lazy squeeze every so often.
His sweet kisses pressed to your temple. His genuine attentiveness—always making sure you were comfortable, that your wine glass stayed full, knowing precisely when to switch it for water before you’d had too much. Keeping your plate filled with all the little things he knew you loved most.
He was just so perfect. And you loved him so much.
You had loved Azriel long before either of you knew what the bond between you truly was.
You’d met before Rhys went Under the Mountain, when Azriel had been sent on some mission to the Summer Court, your home. You had been visiting a friend near the palace when someone barreled into you from behind hard enough to send you sprawling. You’d landed badly on your arm, the sharp pain immediate and blinding.
The poor male had looked stricken. Truly horrified. He had insisted on escorting you all the way to the healer’s cottage himself, hovering like a silent shadow the entire time, refusing to leave until the healer declared the break clean and easily mended.
Taking pity on the beautiful, guilt-ridden stranger, you’d informed him the only proper way to make amends for breaking your arm was to have dinner with you and your family.
Reluctantly, and with a suspicious narrowing of those hazel eyes, he’d agreed.
Eventually, friendship blossomed where neither of you expected it to. Azriel began finding reasons to return to the Summer Court. Then reasons for you to visit Velaris. Rhys and Cassian quickly became like brothers to you, welcoming you into their circle as if you had always belonged there. Azriel never once asked Rhys for special favors, but Rhys had always suspected something deeper lingered between you long before either of you were ready to see it.
It was after Rhys was trapped Under the Mountain that the bond finally snapped into place.
In the midst of fear, grief, and helpless waiting, you and Azriel found solace in one another. Pain forged what fate had already begun, tempering it into something unbreakable.
And maybe it was because he was grieving. Maybe because the walls he’d built around himself were too exhausted to stand. But for the first time, Azriel truly let you close.
He let you love the parts of him no one else saw. The quiet, gentle pieces hidden beneath the deadly reputation of the Night Court’s spymaster. The tenderness in him. The softness. The sensitivity he guarded more fiercely than any secret.
You loved all of him equally.
Azriel adored you just as deeply. The newness of being mates had never worn away, even after all these years. You were still just as enamored with each other as you’d always been. He was your best friend, your better half, everything you could have ever asked for.
But gods, did he keep you worked up.
The intimacy between you had never been anything less than devastatingly perfect. Equal parts worship and ruin.
You rolled onto your side and looked at him now as he slept peacefully beside you. Thick dark lashes brushed against his cheeks. His full lips were slightly parted, his handsome face stripped of its usual tension and vigilance. He looked younger when he slept. Softer.
Your mate was so unfairly pretty.
You loved looking at him—always, if you were honest. But especially like this, when he was asleep and couldn’t tease you relentlessly for staring. Though, truthfully, you quite enjoyed when he did that too. Being teased by Azriel was equal parts torment and reward.
Your gaze traced slowly down the sharp line of his jaw, where the faint shadow of stubble had begun to grow in. Along the strong column of his neck. Across the broad expanse of his chest and the sculpted planes of muscle that had no business looking so sinful in moonlight.
The dark swirls of his tattoos beckoned you, winding over golden skin like promises meant only for your eyes.
A soft sound nearly escaped you as you clenched your thighs together, your gaze catching on the small script over his heart.
Your name.
The tattoo that had appeared the night you accepted the mating bond. Not carved by hand nor inked by needle, but etched into his skin as when fate itself had marked him. Elegant script over the place where his heart beat strongest, a vow written in flesh that he would love you beyond breath, beyond death, beyond the final beat of his immortal heart.
Even now, seeing it made warmth bloom in your chest.
You were carried with him always. Into battle. Into sleep. Into every quiet breath he took.
Azriel sighed softly in his sleep, the sound drawing your attention from the broad planes of his chest down the hard lines of his stomach. Moonlight traced every sculpted ridge of him, and your mouth nearly watered at the sight.
You could wake him. You could climb over him right now, sink down onto him, and take exactly what you wanted. He had told you often enough to do just that.
The memory of his deep voice, rough and breathless in your ear as he made love to you, played through your mind.
"I’m all yours, baby. Use me. Love me. Take me whenever you want me…whenever you need me."
Your gaze wandered back up his body, lingering on the powerful lines of his arms and those rough, beautiful hands. Dark tattoos curled around corded muscle, veins tracing beneath golden skin. Even in sleep, there was strength in every inch of him.
Your breathing grew heavier as the scent of your own arousal filled the room.
Still, you didn’t want to wake him. Your sweet mate had been working himself ragged lately—long nights, early mornings, sent to Windhaven for training more often than not. You missed him terribly, but you knew he needed every scrap of rest he could get.
So when his tongue darted out in sleep to wet his lower lip, your resolve shattered.
Slowly, carefully, you slid your panties down your hips and legs, tossing them onto the floor beside the bed. Your fingers slipped between your thighs, finding yourself slick and aching.
You ran your fingertips through your folds, coating your clit before circling it gently. A shaky breath escaped you. It felt good, good enough to make your back arch, but not enough.
You had been spoiled for decades by your mate’s thick, calloused fingers. Your own touch never quite compared.
As you continued stroking yourself, your eyes landed on his large hand resting beside your hip.
Fuck.
You needed it.
Gently, trying not to wake him, you lifted his hand and guided it between your thighs. You pressed his fingers where you needed them most, using your own hand to move them through your wetness.
Your eyes fluttered shut at the feel of his rough skin against your most sensitive places.
You were just beginning to find a rhythm that might finally send you over the edge—rubbing his middle finger over your swollen clit with the perfect amount of pressure—when his fingers twitched.
Then slid deep inside you.
Your eyes flew open. Panting, you turned to look at him.
Azriel still appeared peacefully asleep beside you, lashes resting against his cheeks, expression calm. Yet his fingers were buried knuckle-deep inside you.
A helpless whine escaped as you rolled your hips, trying to coax movement from him, trying to make him hit that spot only he ever seemed able to find. Your own hand returned to your clit, circling quickly as you rode his fingers.
Pleasure built fast, hot and relentless.
Then he gave the slightest curl of his hand inside you.
You shattered.
Your mouth fell open, unable to hold back the soft cry that spilled free as pleasure rushed through you.
The mattress shifted sharply beside you.
Azriel jolted upright, instantly alert, eyes sweeping the room before landing on you as if checking you were unharmed.
His dark hair was tousled from sleep, lips swollen and soft. It took him only a heartbeat to understand what he was seeing.
His gaze moved over your flushed face, the sheen of sweat on your skin, the rise and fall of your chest. Then lower—realizing his hand was no longer resting at your waist where it usually stayed while he slept.
A low sound rumbled from deep in his chest when he found his fingers still buried inside your trembling body.
Experimentally, he curled them deeper.
You gasped.
His groan answered you.
“What’s this, sweet girl?” he murmured, voice still rough with sleep as he slowly withdrew his fingers. You whimpered at the loss, and a smirk touched his lips. He brought those same fingers to his mouth, wrapping his lips around them as his gaze darkened over your body. “Just for me?”
Your cheeks burned.
“I needed you,” you said, reaching for him with a pitiful pout.
Immediately, he moved over you, covering your body with his own. The delicious weight of him pressed you into the mattress, and you felt how hard he already was against your thigh.
He brushed his nose along the side of your neck before pressing a soft kiss below your ear.
“Poor girl,” he murmured. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
He kissed your pout, then drew back to frown down at you.
“I’m supposed to be taking care of my mate.”
His hands slid up your sides, pushing your nightgown higher as they went.
“You’ve been working so hard lately,” you said seriously, catching his right hand and pressing a kiss into his palm. “I wanted you to rest. I’m sorry for waking you. I should’ve gone to the bathroom.”
He frowned harder at that.
“Don’t ever hide from me. Not for anything.” His voice softened, but the intensity in it made your chest tighten. “I hate being gone so much. You’re all I think about when I’m away.”
He brushed his knuckles over your cheek.
“You waking me in the middle of the night for time with me is never something I’d refuse. Whether it’s to talk, to hold you, for you to boss me around…” His mouth curved wickedly. “Or for whatever wild little thing you were just doing with my fingers.”
You covered your face with both hands, mortified.
Azriel laughed softly and pulled them away, threading his fingers through yours before pinning your hands above your head. He crawled closer until every inch of him surrounded you, then kissed you slow and sweet.
“I love touching you,” he murmured against your lips. “Even in my sleep.”
His hazel eyes held yours, molten with affection and heat.
“Don’t insult me by denying yourself something I’m more than happy to give you. I’ve already told you that.”
Warmth flooded your chest at the look on his face, the love there so open it nearly stole your breath.
You wrapped your arms around his neck, legs hooking around his hips as a smile curved your lips.
“Then I suppose,” you whispered, tugging him closer, “you’re going to have to remind me just how much you love touching me.”
Azriel went still for half a heartbeat, hazel eyes flashing with something hot and possessive before a slow, dangerous smile curved his lips.
“Is that so?” he murmured. “My sleepy little thief steals from me in the dark, then gets demanding when she’s caught.”
You tugged him down by the back of his neck, smiling against his mouth. “I’m your mate. It’s hardly stealing.”
A low laugh rumbled from his chest. Gods, he loved his mate. And Cauldron help him, you knew exactly how to make him weak in the knees. Waking to the feel of your tight warmth wrapped around his fingers, using his hand to chase your own pleasure, had nearly undone him on the spot.
His wicked little female.
Azriel moved over you with practiced grace, shedding the last of his clothing before reaching for the hem of your nightgown. He peeled it slowly over your head, tossing it somewhere into the darkened room without care. His gaze swept over your bare body, open admiration written plainly across his face.
“Beautiful,” he said, voice rough with sleep and want. “Always so beautiful for me.”
Heat climbed your cheeks, but he gave you no time to answer.
He bent to your throat, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along the sensitive skin there. His mouth trailed lower, down the line of your neck and across your collarbone, lingering over the swell of your breasts. He groaned softly as he took one nipple into his mouth, tongue circling it with maddening precision while his scarred hand slid between your thighs.
You gasped, back arching as his fingers found the slick heat waiting for him.
“There she is,” he murmured against your skin. “So ready for me.”
His fingers drew slow, rough circles over your swollen clit, the callouses on his hands sending pleasure skittering through every nerve in your body.
“Azriel—”
“I know, sweetheart.” He kissed between your breasts, then lower. “I know exactly what you need.”
He moved down your body, kissing a path across your stomach. When he reached your belly, he paused, nuzzling there affectionately, almost reverently, before pressing one soft kiss to the skin. The tenderness of it made your chest ache.
Then he breathed warm air over the place you needed him most, and every coherent thought vanished.
“I need to taste you,” he growled.
Before you could answer, his tongue swept through your slickness in one long stroke. A deep groan tore from him at the taste of you, like it was something he could never get enough of.
Your fingers buried in his dark hair instantly, tugging hard enough to earn a pleased sound from him. He looked up at you from between your thighs, hazel eyes dark and hooded, mouth shining.
The sight alone nearly sent you over the edge.
“Gods,” you breathed.
“That’s right,” he murmured, kissing the inside of your thigh. “Look at me.”
He licked you again, slower this time, savoring every reaction he pulled from you. Your legs trembled around his shoulders.
“I need you inside me, Az.”
The words came out broken, needy, and Azriel swore under his breath. Who was he to deny you anything? Especially this.
He kissed his way back up your body, leaving your skin flushed and sensitive in his wake. When he reached your mouth, he kissed you deeply, letting you taste yourself on his tongue.
Then he settled between your thighs, broad shoulders fitting there like they belonged nowhere else.
His arms braced on either side of your head, caging you in. You glanced at them immediately, at the flex of muscle, the elegant swirl of tattoos disappearing over powerful forearms.
Azriel caught you staring and smirked. He knew exactly how much you liked his arms. You’d told him enough times.
So, being the arrogant male that he was, he flexed them for you.
Your lips parted. “You’re insufferable.”
“And yet,” he said, dragging the blunt head of himself teasingly along your entrance, “you’re soaked for me.”
He nudged against you once, twice, making you squirm.
“Azriel.”
“What?” he asked innocently. “I’m just enjoying how pretty my mate looks when she’s impatient.”
You reached for him, nails scraping lightly down his back. “Stop teasing me.”
That breathy plea shattered whatever restraint he had left.
His teasing expression softened into something molten and hungry. He bent to kiss you once—slow, deep, claiming—before guiding himself inside you in one steady thrust.
Both of you moaned at the same time.
He buried himself to the hilt and stayed there, forehead dropping to yours as he fought for breath.
“Every time,” he whispered hoarsely. “Every damn time, you feel like the first.”
Your arms wrapped around his neck, legs locking around his hips. “Then stop talking,” you murmured against his lips, “and show me how much you missed me.”
Azriel caught the challenge in your voice, and something heated flashed through his gaze.
“Careful what you ask for, sweet girl,” he murmured.
Then he moved.
The first slow roll of his hips stole the breath from your lungs. He held himself over you on those powerful arms, every line of muscle flexing as he set an unhurried rhythm that felt designed solely to ruin you. Each measured thrust dragged a gasp from your lips, each retreat making you chase him helplessly.
“There you are,” he said softly, watching every expression that crossed your face as though it were something sacred. “Missed this look on you.”
You could barely form words. “Azriel…”
“I know.” His mouth found your throat, kissing the spot beneath your ear that always made you shiver. “I missed hearing my name like that too.”
His hand slid between your bodies, fingers finding the place that made your body tighten instantly. The contrast of his rough touch and the tenderness in his eyes nearly undid you.
He always knew exactly how to touch you. Exactly how to take you apart and hold you together all at once.
The room filled with the soft sounds of breath and whispered praise. Azriel never stopped speaking to you when he loved you like this, telling you how beautiful you were, how much he missed you, how perfectly you fit him, how he thought about you every night he was away.
You clung to him, nails dragging lightly across his back as pleasure built hot and relentless inside you.
“That’s it,” he encouraged, voice roughening. “Let me have it, baby. Let me feel you.”
Your body trembled beneath him. He dropped lower, bracing on one forearm while the other arm flexed beside your head, bicep taut beneath your grasp.
When release finally crashed through you, you cried out and bit down on his bicep to muffle the sound.
Azriel groaned low and deep at the sensation, the sound vibrating straight through you. Instead of pulling away, he pressed closer, letting you hold onto him however you needed while waves of pleasure rolled through your body.
“Good girl,” he whispered against your temple, kissing there gently. “That’s it.”
Your legs tightened around him, body still trembling.
The feel of you coming apart around him was what finally shattered the last of his own control. He buried his face in the curve of your neck with a broken sound, arms tightening around you as he found his own release, holding you so close it was hard to tell where one of you ended and the other began.
For a long moment, neither of you moved.
Then Azriel lifted his head, hair tousled, lips swollen, and eyes heavy with satisfaction as he glanced down at the mark blooming darkly across his bicep.
A slow, smug grin spread across his face.
“You bit me.”
You buried your burning face against his chest. “I did not.”
He huffed a laugh, wrapping an arm tighter around you before lifting the marked arm into the moonlight like evidence.
“This says otherwise.” He admired it shamelessly. “Think I’ll need to get this tattooed. Memorialize the best morning of my life.”
“It is not morning,” you mumbled into his skin.
“Feels like it.” He kissed the top of your head. “Waking up with my mate using my hand to make herself come, then leaving me a pretty little mark while I finish the job?” He gave a thoughtful hum. “Best way I’ve ever woken up.”
You groaned and tried to hide deeper against him. “You’re insufferable.”
“And you love me.”
He tipped your chin up just enough to kiss your pout away, smiling against your lips.
“Next time,” he murmured, brushing his thumb over your cheek, “bite harder.”
Summary: Azriel saves a mute fae woman left for dead after an ambush. Haunted by her silence, he finds himself drawn to her, not out of pity, but recognition. She reminds him of something he lost… and something he never thought he'd find again.
Warnings: Mentions of past abuse & torture (non-graphic but emotionally heavy), trauma responses including selective mutism, violence, aftermath of assault, PTSD, survivor's guilt, anxiety, grief and loss of family, slow emotional healing and intimate recovery scenes, soft angst + comfort
Word count: 12.6k
A/N: Hi! Thank you so much for reading 💛 English is my third language, so if you spot any grammar mistakes or odd phrasing, please be kind! I’m doing my best. Feedback is always welcome, especially if it's helpful and respectful. This fic is really close to my heart. It’s about healing, trust, and connection without words and I hope it speaks to you, even if it's quiet.
masterlist
Smoke still clung to the charred ruins of the village, curling through the early dusk air like ghostly fingers refusing to let go. The ground was slick with soot and blood, a patchwork of scorched cobblestones and scorched earth. The scent, acrid, raw, was more than just fire. It was despair, clinging to the bones of the place like a second skin.
Azriel stood beside Rhysand and Cassian at what had once been the village square, soldiers and warriors surrounding them. Now it was just rubble. A well had collapsed inward, blackened beams jutted from the earth like broken ribs, and half-burned furniture lay strewn about, a child’s wooden toy horse among them, snapped in half. It was quiet now, but not peaceful. Too quiet. The kind of silence that hummed with what had been done.
“They came through at night,” Rhysand informed everyone, his voice low and tightly leashed. “Wards were weak, barely held together. Half the villagers were Fae with lesser magic. Some couldn’t even defend themselves. The males who led the attack… they didn’t just want to kill.”
Cassian’s jaw flexed. His wings twitched, as if he couldn’t decide whether to fold them in or unfurl them in rage. “They weren’t just soldiers. They were predators.”
Azriel didn’t speak. His shadows slithered around his boots, darting in agitated wisps toward the edges of the square, as if still seeking out threats or witnesses. They found neither.
“The ones we caught,” Rhys continued, staring at the wreckage like it personally offended him, “are in chains. The rest… fled before we arrived. The survivors, the ones hiding, have been found. Healers are seeing to the injured. Children have been taken in by the temple elders from the northern hillside.”
Azriel’s shadows whispered again. A soft, mournful hum.
“It’s done,” Rhys said, scanning the hollowed shells of cottages and shattered windows. “Everything that can be done, has been. It’s over.”
But it didn’t feel over. Not to Azriel. Not with the metallic tang of blood still staining the air. Not with the look on that elderly female’s face when she had asked them, in a broken voice, “Why didn’t anyone come sooner?”
He hadn’t had an answer.
Rhysand glanced between Azriel and Cassian after the soldiers left, noting their silence. His own eyes, usually glowing with a spark of slyness, were dull. Exhausted. “You can rest now,” he said. “Or go home.”
Azriel looked past him, to the tree line beyond the village where the smoke thinned into mist. He caught a glimpse of a child sitting on a stone step, clutching a burned blanket, eyes hollow. The child didn’t cry. Just stared.
Rhys would return to Velaris. To Feyre. To warm arms and gentle laughter. To peace. But Azriel and Cassian… they had always found peace harder to carry. Harder to believe in.
“I’ll fly back in the morning,” Cassian said, rolling out his shoulders. “Want to make sure the families here have shelter. Food. Some of them don’t even have shoes.” He paused. “It still feels… raw.”
Azriel gave a quiet nod. “I'll stay here, too.”
Rhys hesitated, as if he wanted to protest, to pull rank. But then he just studied their faces and sighed.
“Fine. But rest, both of you. You're of no good use if you overstrain yourself,” he said softly. Then he was gone, winnowing in a shimmer of darkness and violet starlight.
The world felt heavier once he left.
Cassian turned toward a row of broken homes and muttered, “I’ll check the supply wagons again, make sure nothing’s gone missing.”
The village quieted further without him. Just the sound of crackling embers and murmuring healers in the distance. Cassian broke off to check the perimeter, but Azriel lingered by the outskirts, near the forest line.
The temporary camp had been set up just beyond the village outskirts, a collection of tents pitched beneath the shadow of the pines, where the smoke from the ruins thinned into something cleaner, but not quite peaceful. The sky had bled into twilight, bruised and streaked with orange. The smell of fire still lingered on the wind.
Azriel stepped into the tent he shared with Cassian, a canvas shelter thrown together more for function than comfort. His leathers creaked as he unbuckled his chest plate, his siphons clicking faintly as he set them down beside the low cot.
Cassian wasn’t there yet, probably still helping rebuild the central well, or lifting logs like they were made of kindling. Azriel rolled his shoulders and sat down heavily, stretching out his long legs and leaning back against the support pole. For a moment, he let the silence settle around him. He closed his eyes. Exhaled.
Then a shadow darted into the tent like a dagger. Fast. Sharp. Urgent.
Azriel’s eyes snapped open.
He didn’t need words. His shadows never spoke in them, not truly, but their intent thrummed through him like a pulse. There’s another. A survivor. Still out there. Still in pain.
He was already moving.
Armor forgotten, he strapped his siphons back on with swift, practiced movements and swept out of the tent without a word. No time to tell Cassian. No time to alert the others. His shadows were already leading the way, slithering ahead of him like smoke toward the trees.
The forest was dark, dense. Pines loomed like sentinels, and the path was barely a path at all, just loose soil and patches of moss tangled with roots. Azriel moved like a ghost, silent and fast, eyes trained ahead, shadows feeding him flashes of what they’d sensed.
Fae. Alive. Hurt. Alone.
He ran deeper, branches clawing at his shoulders and wings, the shadows growing sharper in their urgency. The quiet of the woods wasn’t peaceful, it was stifling. Suffocating. No animals moved. No birds cried.
Something clenched in his chest.
Then, a scent.
Blood. Faint, old. Human-like, but Fae.
His shadows curled tight around a cluster of trees, and Azriel slowed. Stepped carefully now. Each footfall deliberate. His siphons glowed faintly, casting a subtle blue hue against the undergrowth.
And then he saw her.
She was barely a shape in the gloom, slumped against the base of a thick pine, her body partially hidden by brush and shadow. A small Fae woman. Her wrists were bound cruelly above her head, tied to the tree with frayed rope that had cut deep into her skin. Her dress was torn, legs smeared with mud, face streaked with dried blood. One of her ankles looked swollen.
Her eyes were closed. Chest rising shallowly. Not asleep, not unconscious, just… still. Too still.
Azriel’s heart lurched. For a split second, he feared she was already gone.
He was beside her in a blink.
“Hey,” he said softly, dropping to one knee, his siphons dimming as he reached out. “Can you hear me?”
Nothing. Not even a flinch.
He hovered a hand near her cheek, not touching, not yet. “You’re safe now. I’m not here to hurt you.”
Slowly, slowly… her lashes fluttered.
She didn’t open her eyes, but her body tensed. Her lips parted slightly, but no sound came.
Azriel felt it then, not just the physical damage, but the weight of something deeper. A silence that had settled into her bones. Not shock. Not in this moment. This silence was old. Familiar.
He reached for the ropes carefully, cutting through them with a dagger he pulled from his belt. The bindings snapped with a dry crack, and her arms slumped forward, too weak to catch herself. Azriel caught her gently, cradling her body with one arm as he sliced the rope from her wrists.
She didn’t try to pull away. But she didn’t relax either.
“You’re okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
She blinked again, just once, then lifted her hand weakly, her fingers twitching in the air.
Signing.
Clumsy. Slow. As if she hadn’t done it in years.
Azriel’s breath caught. He understood.
“Don’t hurt me.”
He remembered the signs from centuries ago. His throat worked around the knot forming there. He shook his head, voice a whisper. “Never.”
Another flicker of fingers.
“I couldn’t scream.”
She wasn’t just mute from pain. It was something older. Deeper. She hadn’t screamed because she couldn’t.
Azriel gently gathered her into his arms. She was light, too light. Starved and cold. Her fingers clutched weakly at the collar of his leathers as he stood.
“I’m taking you back,” he said, already moving through the trees. “You need to see a healer."
And though she didn’t speak, he felt it, a shiver in her body. Not of fear, but something near it. Not trust, not yet. But recognition. A thread, fraying and fragile, tying her to this moment.
To him.
His shadows twined around them both as he carried her toward the broken village, a silent promise echoing in the night: Never again. Never left behind.
Azriel moved quickly through the woods, his steps fast but careful as he cradled the small Fae female against his chest. Her weight was next to nothing. Too thin. Her head lolled weakly against his shoulder, but every now and then, he felt her tense-sharp flinches whenever his boots crunched too loud, or when a branch snapped somewhere nearby.
Trauma lived in every muscle of her body.
“You’re safe,” he murmured again, more for her than himself. “Just a little longer. The healers will take care of you.”
She didn’t respond, didn’t sign, didn’t lift her head, but he felt her heartbeat flutter like a bird’s wing, fast and erratic against his arm.
The treeline broke, and the village came back into view: still smoldering, still broken. Torches burned in a quiet perimeter around the camp. The night had deepened now, casting everything in a dull, aching gray.
Azriel descended the last rise toward the path leading to the camp when a familiar voice called out.
“Az?” Cassian emerged from around a pile of crates, brow furrowed. He froze mid-step as his eyes landed on the figure in Azriel’s arms. “What the hell?”
“She was in the woods,” Azriel said without slowing, his voice clipped but steady. “Tied to a tree. Alive. Barely.”
Cassian’s face darkened. “You’re serious?”
Azriel gave a sharp nod, eyes flicking down to the female in his arms. She kept her face turned inward, buried against his shoulder, as if the mere sight of another male might break her.
Cassian stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Where exactly did you find her?”
“Half a mile east of the perimeter,” Azriel said. “Tucked into a tree line past the ravine. They left her there.”
Cassian’s fists clenched. “Left her?”
Azriel didn’t miss the way her shoulders flinched again. He tightened his hold around her protectively.
Cassian’s expression softened just slightly as he crouched to her eye level. “Do you remember who did this to you?” he asked gently.
She stirred then. A hand moved hesitantly from Azriel’s chest, slow and trembling, as if even that effort cost her. Her fingers began to move, barely forming a sign before faltering.
“She can’t speak,” Azriel said quietly, his shadows curling around her like a shield. “She’s mute. I think she always has been.”
Cassian blinked, stunned. “Shit.”
“She couldn’t scream,” Azriel went on, his voice sharper now, more bitter. “That’s probably why they left her. Grew tired of her when she didn’t make enough noise while they—” He cut himself off, his jaw locking. “The marks on her body… they didn’t come from the ropes alone.”
Cassian swore under his breath, eyes flicking with a warrior’s rage and a male’s sorrow. “Monsters.”
Azriel looked down at her. “She needs a healer. Now.”
Cassian nodded immediately and moved aside, clearing the path ahead. “Go. I’ll make sure they know to expect you.”
Azriel strode past him, his steps swift as he made his way to the makeshift healer’s tent at the edge of the village. It was lit with soft blue faelight, quiet voices murmuring within. He ducked inside.
The healers, two older Fae females and a half-Illyrian male apprentice, looked up in surprise.
“She’s injured,” Azriel said. “Badly. Found her just now.”
One of the healers, a calm-eyed woman named Thera, stepped forward and motioned for him to lay the girl down on the cot. “Bring her here, carefully.”
Azriel hesitated only for a second. He turned to the girl in his arms, his voice soft. “You’re with healers now. No one will hurt you. I promise.”
She looked up at him, finally meeting his gaze.
There was nothing left in her eyes, no fight, no anger, not even fear. Just exhaustion. And behind it, buried deep, something older. A wound without a name.
He set her down gently. Her fingers twitched, but she didn’t pull away from his hand until the healer nudged him back.
“We’ll take it from here,” Thera said gently, already unfastening the remnants of the ropes from her wrists.
Azriel didn’t move far. He stayed just a few steps away, arms crossed, shadows flicking around him protectively like they were refusing to let go of her.
Cassian appeared in the tent’s entrance, arms crossed, watching her with the same quiet horror Azriel had swallowed down moments before.
“She’s lucky you found her,” Cassian said after a beat. “Another night out there and…”
Azriel didn’t look at him. His eyes stayed on her face, on the way she winced at every touch, even the gentle ones. “It’s not luck.”
His voice was low. Absolute.
“She was meant to survive.”
────────────
Warmth.
That was the first thing she noticed.
Not the cloying, suffocating heat of ropes cutting into her skin or the rank, sticky breath of her captors. No. This warmth was soft. Dry. Almost… clean.
A blanket. Someone had tucked a blanket around her.
She blinked her eyes open. Faint blue light bathed the room, soft and shifting like water. The ceiling above her was canvas, not sky. She was lying on a cot. Her arms, for once, were free.
Her throat tightened.
I'm not tied up.
But her wrists still ached. Her whole body felt stiff, like her bones had forgotten how to lie still without pain. The pressure at her ankle pulsed in slow waves, wrapped now in linen and balm. She smelled herbs. Clean ones. And something else, leather, faint smoke, a scent like fresh wind after a storm.
She turned her head. He was there. The male who had found her. The quiet one. The one made of shadows.
He sat just beyond the edge of the cot, wings tucked in tight, shadows flicking softly around his shoulders like living smoke. His siphons gleamed blue in the faint light. But he was sitting like a sentry, not a predator.
He was watching her without staring, his expression unreadable. Not cold. Not cruel. Just... steady. A pillar in the storm.
She tried to move her hand. It shook.
The blanket slipped off her shoulder and panic rose like bile in her throat. She flinched, curling slightly, waiting for the blow, for the sneer, for the voice that would growl “Don’t waste my time again, mute girl.”
But nothing came. The shadows stirred. Not toward her, around her.
A gentle breeze kissed her temple. Not wind, not air, shadow. It felt like someone brushing hair from her face.
Her vision blurred. She blinked fast.
The last thing she remembered clearly was the sound of boots. Loud. Heavy. She'd kept her eyes closed as the footsteps approached the tree, too exhausted to move, too broken to care. She had thought, truly, deeply, this is the end. The males who left her had no interest in finishing the job. They just didn’t want to look at her anymore. She hadn’t made enough noise for them.
So she stayed silent. Even when it hurt. Even when the ropes cut skin. Even when she bled. And they’d left her. Forgotten. Until him.
She turned her head again. Looked at him. His shadows stilled. Not gone, never gone, but quiet. Curious.
She lifted her hand. Slow. Trembling.
Signed: “Thank you.”
His head tilted slightly, and to her shock… he understood. He nodded once, low and firm, and murmured, “You don’t have to thank me.”
She stared at him.
Another sign: “You know?”
A pause. Then: “I do. A long time ago.” His voice was a whisper. Rough and soft at once. “I used to know someone like you.”
The words made her throat burn. Something inside her cracked open a little, not wide enough to be a wound, but enough to let air in. Enough to breathe again.
Her hand fell slowly back to her chest, the simple motion of signing already exhausting.
But he didn’t look away.
Azriel’s shadows curled faintly, retreating to his shoulders like they were giving her space. His wings shifted slightly, and then, with a quiet rustle, he moved closer. Not looming. Not hovering. Just near enough that his voice could stay low.
“Do you have a house here?” he asked, careful and quiet, like he was afraid to press too hard. “I could check. See if anything’s left.”
She looked at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, painfully, her fingers began to move again.
“I saw it burn.”
Azriel’s breath caught, but he didn’t interrupt.
“My sister was inside. I couldn’t—”
Her hands trembled too much to finish. The signs faltered and fell apart, and her throat clenched in frustration. Not being able to scream was one thing. But not being able to say it, even now, made the grief coil tighter around her chest.
Azriel didn’t ask for more. Didn’t demand she finish.
“I’m sorry,” he said instead, his voice rough. He shifted again, closer but not touching, and added, “You’re sure you’re alone now?”
She nodded once. It was the hardest motion of all.
For a long moment, neither of them said anything. The healer’s faelight swirled around them, blue and soft. Outside, the quiet hum of the camp settled into the air — the distant sound of Cassian’s voice barking orders, wood being stacked, water poured.
And still Azriel sat with her.
Then he spoke again. “We’re going to rebuild the village. All of it. We’ll keep it safe. I promise you, this will never happen again.”
She looked at him, not with hope, not yet. But with a fragile thread of belief. Not because she trusted easily, or because his words were sweet. But because his eyes didn’t lie.
Because when he said we’ll rebuild, she knew he meant every stone, every broken family, every shattered soul, including hers.
And he wasn’t promising to fix her.
He was promising that she wouldn’t have to do it alone.
────────────
The war room in the House of Wind smelled of parchment, cedar, and the faintest trace of lavender, likely from something Feyre had left behind. Morning light streamed through the high windows, catching on the scattered maps and marked reports laid across the obsidian table.
Rhysand stood at the head, fingers steepled under his chin as his violet eyes swept over the latest reports.
“They’re calling it Emberon now,” he said at last, tapping a finger to the northern ridge of the map. “The villagers decided on it a few days ago. Said they wanted something that acknowledged the fire, but didn’t let it define them.”
“Emberon,” Cassian echoed, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed. “Has a ring to it.”
“Poetic,” Azriel added, though his voice was low, contemplative. His eyes lingered on the spot on the map, far beyond the borders of Velaris. The smoke and ash had long since cleared, but the memory remained vivid, especially one particular memory.
Rhys nodded. “Most of the homes are rebuilt. They’ve started clearing out the western fields for planting again. The last supply drop from Velaris got there two days ago. But I want to see it myself.”
“You’re going?” Cassian asked.
“I’ll only stay for the day. Feyre’s painting again, and Nyx has been using my leathers as a canvas. But I want to speak to the village leaders in person. Make sure they have what they need.”
“I’ll come,” Cassian said immediately. “I want to see the families again. The way they bounced back from that mess…” He trailed off, eyes hardening. “They deserve everything we can give.”
Rhysand turned to Azriel. “You?”
Azriel didn’t answer right away. His shadows curled thoughtfully across his shoulders, stirred by something quieter than words.
In truth, he’d been thinking about that village for days. Ever since the last courier had brought back news of a functioning market square and newly laid stone paths, a thread of thought kept pulling at him.
The girl.
The one he’d found bound to a tree, all bone and silence, eyes hollow from more pain than any person should endure. She hadn’t spoken, couldn’t speak, but her hands had told him enough.
He never got her name.
She’d stayed in the healer’s tent the last time he saw her, still too weak to walk. When he and Cassian had flown back to Velaris days after the attack, she hadn’t woken to say goodbye.
He hadn't expected her to. But he had thought about her far more than he admitted, wondered if she had a roof again, if she still flinched in her sleep. If she still signed “thank you” with trembling hands.
Azriel looked up. “I’ll come.”
Cassian raised a brow. “Didn’t think you’d say yes. Thought you were brooding too hard in your tower lately.”
Azriel gave him a flat look. “I’ll be brooding in the skies today.”
Cassian grinned. “That’s the spirit.”
Rhysand just offered a small nod. “Then we leave within the hour. Bring warm gear, it still gets cold up in those hills.”
As Rhys vanished to prepare, Cassian stood and stretched with a dramatic groan. Azriel remained seated, tracing his gaze over the inked lines of Emberon on the map. It wasn’t just a village anymore, it was a scar turned to a seed.
He wondered if she was still there, among the rebuilding. If she had a home now. If her silence still felt like a prison, or if it had started to feel like power.
He didn’t know what he hoped for.
But he knew this: when he set foot in Emberon again, the first person he would look for was her.
The wind was brisk over the hills when they crested the last ridge and Emberon came into view.
It looked nothing like the place they’d left behind.
Where there had once been scorched timbers and the ghostly remains of shattered cottages, now stood a patchwork of new roofs, whitewashed stone, and garden plots with sprigs of green clawing their way through the thawing earth. Smoke curled from chimneys — not the smoke of ruin, but of hearths. Cooking fires. Blacksmith forges. Life.
Children ran between homes, their laughter carried on the wind. Baskets of bread and vegetables sat outside doors. Bright scraps of fabric fluttered on clotheslines like prayer flags.
A rough wooden sign greeted them at the edge of the road: Welcome to Emberon Forged by Fire - Reborn by Choice
Azriel’s shadows stilled around him as they landed at the edge of the main square. He wasn’t the only one surprised.
Cassian let out a low whistle. “They’ve done a gods-damned miracle here.”
Rhysand didn’t respond immediately, his violet gaze scanning every face, every movement. Then he gave a quiet, satisfied nod. “This is what rebuilding should look like.”
The square was buzzing with activity. A group of Fae elders spoke quietly at a stone table under a tree in bloom. Two younger males carried buckets from a well. And off to the side, a tall healer was speaking with a few villagers, nodding in approval at someone’s bandaged arm.
But Azriel wasn’t focused on any of them.
His shadows had stirred again. Not warning, guiding.
They pulled softly at the edge of his coat, brushing his neck and nudging his gaze toward the far side of the square. Toward a small communal garden fenced with woven branches.
And there she was.
Kneeling in the soil, sleeves rolled past her elbows, dark earth streaking her hands and forearms. A loose braid of hair hung over one shoulder, strands escaping to catch the sun. Her face was turned toward the raised bed, her expression hidden, but there was something different about her now.
Not fragile.
Focused.
She moved carefully, planting tiny seedlings into the soil with practiced care. Around her, several others worked, older women, a pair of teenagers, but even in the crowd, Azriel saw her as clearly as if she stood in a spotlight.
He felt it again, that thread, that invisible pull in his chest. It didn’t ache like it had before. Not grief. Not guilt.
Just a quiet, steady certainty.
She was alive.
He hadn’t imagined her resilience, her presence. She wasn’t still in a healer’s cot, curled into herself. She was here. Rooted.
Cassian followed his gaze, and a small grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Is that her?”
Azriel didn’t answer.
Because in that moment, she looked up.
Her eyes met his across the square, not startled, not afraid, just still.
Recognition flickered there, followed by something gentler. Like the first breeze of spring brushing across old wounds.
She stood slowly, wiping her hands on her apron. And though she didn’t smile, didn’t wave, didn’t move toward him… she didn’t turn away either.
Azriel’s shadows curled like smoke around his boots. “She’s stronger,” he said quietly, almost to himself.
Cassian clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Looks like someone’s been taking care of her.”
Azriel nodded once. “Or maybe… she’s been taking care of herself.”
Across the square, she tilted her head, just slightly, and lifted one hand. The sign was small. Barely a motion.
Hello.
And for the first time in weeks, Azriel felt the corners of his mouth lift. Not a smile, exactly. But something close.
Hello, he signed back.
Azriel crossed the square with deliberate steps, not because he feared startling her, not anymore, but because he wasn’t sure how to approach her. Not because of any distance between them, but because he had grown used to watching her from a distance, giving her the space she needed to heal.
As he neared the low fence, she noticed him. She straightened, brushing her palms against her apron once again. There were faint traces of dirt on her cheeks, and her hair was loosely braided, a few strands escaping as she worked. She didn’t seem startled by his presence, but instead looked at him with quiet curiosity, the same way she had the first time he had found her in the woods.
When Azriel reached the edge of the garden, he stopped. He gave her the choice, as he always did, waiting to see what she would do next.
She tilted her head, just slightly, and then without a word, she stepped through the small gate, closing the space between them.
Azriel stood still for a moment, taking in the changes he could see in her. Her face had filled out with strength, the faint weariness in her eyes replaced by something more like calm determination. There was a quiet confidence in the way she held herself, the way she moved between the rows of plants, even as the shadow of her past still lingered in her gaze.
When she stood before him, she didn’t look away. There was no tension in her body, no unease, just an understanding that they were both in this moment together.
Her hands moved, slow but steady. “You came back.”
Azriel’s voice was soft, low. “I wanted to see the village. And see if you were still here.”
For a long moment, she didn’t respond. Then she signed again, more slowly this time, as though careful with her words. “I never left.”
Azriel’s chest tightened at her words. He didn’t know what he had expected, but there was something in her response that settled in him, a quiet kind of peace, maybe. That she had stayed. That she had found a way to stay.
She hesitated, fingers trembling ever so slightly before continuing. “You never asked for my name.”
Azriel felt a pang of realization. He hadn’t asked for her name, hadn’t thought to ask it before. The moment of crisis, of survival, had taken away the small things, the human things. He hadn’t asked, because there hadn’t been space to.
“I didn’t want to ask until you were ready,” he replied quietly.
She regarded him for a long moment, her eyes studying his face, then placed her hand gently over her chest.
“Y/N.”
Azriel repeated the name in his mind, letting it settle like a new melody in his thoughts. He nodded, though his voice was quiet when he spoke again. “Azriel.”
There was no smile, but her lips twitched, almost imperceptibly, a flicker of something there. Maybe it was acknowledgment. Maybe it was relief. Maybe it was both.
She then turned slightly, gesturing to the garden around them. “Do you want to see?”
Azriel nodded and followed her through the rows of plants. She led him from one raised bed to the next, pointing out herbs, vegetables, and flowers, thyme, rosemary, young lettuce, and the beginnings of carrots and squash. With every motion, she signed the name of the plant, and Azriel followed her hands, his gaze not on the plants but on the rhythm of her movements. The way her hands danced through the air as if she had been doing this all her life.
At one point, Y/N handed him a small wooden trowel, her expression one of quiet challenge. Azriel accepted it, and with a slow, deliberate motion, crouched beside her, taking his time as he began to dig gently into the earth. Together, in silence, they planted a row of small sprouts.
There was no rush. No expectation. Just the quiet work of two souls who, for this moment, shared something that wasn’t spoken aloud but was understood.
After some time, Y/N stood and wiped her hands on her apron. She didn’t look at Azriel immediately but glanced down at the garden, a small flicker of something passing over her face. When she finally did look back at him, there was no sadness in her expression. No fear.
Just quiet contentment.
Azriel’s shadows, which had settled low around him, shifted lightly at his feet, as if aware of the change in the air between them. The space between them felt less like distance, less like hesitation, and more like a soft, growing connection.
For the first time since he’d found her in the woods, Azriel allowed himself to believe in the possibility of what could come next, in the small, steady steps forward, and in the quiet trust that was beginning to blossom between them.
The village of Emberon was slowly coming back to life. The faint hum of hammers and chisels filled the air as more homes were rebuilt, children played in the dirt streets, and the scent of fresh bread wafted from a small bakery on the corner. Azriel walked beside Y/N, his shadows swirling at his heels, as she led him toward the place she had called home since her recovery. It was a modest house, but to her, it was a sanctuary. The early evening sun bathed the streets in golden light as they made their way through the village, Azriel glancing at the quiet houses and newly constructed buildings.
"I can't believe it's finally coming together," Azriel murmured quietly, his tone soft as he looked around at the rebuilding.
Y/N gave him a smile, though it was subtle, and motioned toward the direction of her house with a small wave of her hand. She signed quickly, and Azriel nodded, catching the gist of her words. "I’m proud of it. Of what’s been built here."
They had been walking in silence, and Azriel found comfort in the stillness, the sense of normalcy beginning to return to the village. His mind drifted as they walked, but it was broken by the sound of raised voices from down the street. His sharp eyes cut through the crowd, and he spotted Cassian and Rhysand talking to a tall fae male, a general from another region, right outside one of the shops. The conversation seemed to be heated, and Cassian’s boisterous voice was hard to miss even from a distance.
Y/N hesitated for a moment, then gestured for Azriel to follow her toward the group. She wanted to show him her new home, but there was no harm in saying hello. As they approached, Cassian turned and spotted them immediately, his grin widening at the sight of Y/N.
“Well, well, look who it is!” Cassian called, his voice booming across the street. He took a few steps forward, his eyes scanning her, noticing her calm but wary demeanor. “How are you?”
Azriel stood back a little, watching as Y/N stepped forward to respond. She raised her hands, signing rapidly, and Azriel moved closer to her side. His shadows drifted around her, a constant comfort, as he translated her words for Cassian.
Cassian nodded, his expression softening. “That’s good to hear. You know, we’ve been working hard to help everyone here. You’ve got a good home now.”
Y/N signed again, this time more slowly, and Azriel watched as her hands moved fluidly. He translated for her again, the words flowing as she spoke.
“She’s thankful for everything that’s been done,” Azriel said, glancing back at Cassian. “But she still remembers everything. It’s hard to move past it all, even if she has a place of her own.”
Rhysand, who had been quiet up until now, stepped forward, his violet eyes locking with Y/N. The breeze shifted as the power of his Daemati abilities sparked in the air around him. Without a word, Rhysand reached out, connecting with her mind. Azriel’s brow furrowed as he watched, instinctively stepping back, sensing the power at play. He couldn’t hear their conversation, and neither could Cassian, but it was clear what was happening.
Y/N’s eyes softened as Rhysand’s voice entered her thoughts, and Azriel felt a strange mix of emotions as he watched her respond, her lips moving slightly, but not making a sound.
“You’ve helped so many here, Rhysand,” Y/N’s voice came, quiet but clear in Rhysand's mind. “Without you, and without Azriel and his shadows, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
Azriel felt the weight of their conversation in his chest, but he couldn’t hear what they said. He didn’t need to. The connection between the two of them, that subtle shift in her expression, told him everything he needed to know. There was a tenderness in the way Y/N held herself, a gratitude so deep that Azriel felt it resonate with his own heart.
Suddenly, Rhysand broke through the mental connection, his voice cutting through the air for all to hear, loud and firm.
“It’s our responsibility,” Rhysand said, his voice carrying over the conversation. “To protect, to help, and to make sure this never happens again. We will rebuild this place, just like we’ve rebuilt so many others.”
Azriel stood still, his eyes focused on Y/N’s reaction. She blinked, as though Rhysand’s words were just as powerful in her mind as they were in the air, and she gave a small nod. It was as though she had heard it all before, and yet, it still made a difference to her.
Y/N turned to face them, her hands moving again. She signed with slow, graceful gestures, her fingers weaving through the air as she asked Azriel to translate.
“She’s offering us food,” Azriel said with a small smile, his voice quieter now. “She wants us to come to her place. A quick meal.”
Cassian raised an eyebrow. “I’m not turning down a free meal,” he said, his voice teasing.
Azriel glanced at Y/N, who smiled at Cassian's words. Then, with a subtle nod, she turned toward her home, motioning for them to follow.
Rhysand’s eyes lingered on the village for a moment before he turned to follow them. “Lead the way, Y/N. We’ll be happy to join you.”
Azriel, trailing behind, allowed his shadows to flow around him like a cloak. He could feel the weight of the day lifting, but he wasn’t sure if it was because of the meal or because Y/N had invited them into her world. They had done what they could for her, for the village, but it was clear that her journey was far from over. Still, there was a small flicker of hope in the air, a belief that maybe, just maybe, she could begin again.
The inside of Y/N's house was simple, yet welcoming. The small kitchen area had a hearth where a pot of stew simmered on the flames, filling the air with a savory aroma. The furniture was modest but carefully placed, and the warmth of her home was a stark contrast to the cold, barren village Azriel had found her in all those weeks ago. The stone walls were lined with fresh herbs, and small touches of color from woven fabrics gave it a sense of life.
Rhysand, Cassian, and Azriel stood near the entrance, surveying the space. Cassian was running his hand along the rough wooden shelves, his eyes scanning the room for anything that stood out. He noticed a few things still left unfinished, some shelves that weren’t fully mounted, a small pile of firewood in the corner that needed to be stacked.
Rhysand’s eyes were softer than usual as he observed the place. The High Lord of the Night Court was always in command, always exuding a certain distance, but here, in the quiet of Y/N’s home, something in him softened. He turned his attention to her, and his voice was gentle as he reached out to her mind.
“Y/N,” Rhysand’s voice was like a whisper in her thoughts. “Would you like us to help finish anything here? We could take care of the shelves or the firewood, whatever you need.”
Y/N paused for a moment, considering the offer, but then signed in a quick, dismissive motion as she shook her head. She wanted to refuse, her hands moving gracefully in the air as she said to Azriel, who translated for the group.
“She says she couldn’t possibly ask for the High Lord of the Night Court to do something like that,” Azriel said with a chuckle, his voice warm as he glanced toward Rhysand. “She’s too proud.”
Rhysand raised an eyebrow, letting out a soft laugh. “Don’t worry, Y/N,” he said aloud, his voice echoing in the small space. “I won’t put my hands on anything. But Cassian over here”, he grinned slyly, “he’ll do all the work.”
Cassian’s eyes widened in mock horror. “What?” he grumbled. “I don’t even know how to-”
Before Cassian could protest further, Rhysand just waved a hand dismissively, clearly enjoying the banter. Azriel couldn’t help but grin a little as he watched the two of them, but his attention soon shifted as Y/N turned back to the stove, checking on the stew.
Azriel gave the room one last sweep and noticed that Y/N had already begun setting the table for the meal. He could see the care she’d put into everything, but there was still a certain sense of unfinished business, the house wasn’t quite complete, and the simple details spoke volumes about how much she had left to do.
He moved toward her, not wanting to stand idle. “I’ll help with the stew,” Azriel offered quietly, his voice low but steady.
Y/N glanced at him, a smile playing at the corner of her lips before she nodded. She handed him the ladle to stir the pot, and Azriel did so with ease, his attention on the bubbling stew. He caught the faint scent of vegetables and spices, his mouth watering slightly. The sounds of Cassian and Rhysand’s conversation in the background faded as he focused on the simple task of preparing the meal.
Once the stew was ready, Y/N began ladling it into bowls with precise, careful movements, her hands flowing through the motions as if she had done it a thousand times. Azriel stood by, ready to help, and as she placed the bowls on the counter, he moved to take them and set them on the table.
But just as he was about to move, one of his shadows seemed to get in his way. It darted out from behind him, swirling in front of his hands like an unruly piece of cloth. He tried to move past it, but it lingered, twining in front of him like it had a mind of its own. His focus was split for just a moment, and before he realized it, the stew spilled over the edge of the bowl, splashing onto his hands.
Azriel cursed under his breath, grimacing as the hot liquid seared his skin. He jumped back, quickly wiping his hands on the towel he had nearby. The sting of the burn made his jaw tighten, but it wasn’t unbearable. He muttered a curse to himself, knowing it was his own fault for not being more mindful.
“Damn shadows,” he told them, low and to himself, not realizing how loud his thoughts were as he cursed.
But then, just as he was preparing to move the bowl again, a cold, wet cloth pressed gently to his hand. Azriel froze, his brow furrowing in confusion as he looked up to see Y/N, who had come to his side without him even realizing. She was focused, her hands working quickly to press the towel to his injured skin.
Azriel blinked in surprise. “How did you-”
Y/N’s gaze met his, and she tilted her head, her brow furrowed in concern. She seemed to sense his confusion and signed back to him, her hands moving slowly and deliberately as she explained.
“I heard you,” she signed carefully. “I could hear you talking to yourself. I thought... I thought you were in pain.”
Azriel’s breath hitched. He had been speaking to himself, yes, but there was no way she could have heard him. Wasn’t it just his internal thoughts? She couldn't have—
“Wait,” he asked, his voice a little unsure, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You... you heard me?”
Y/N nodded, a flicker of confusion in her own eyes. She signed again.
“You were talking to your shadows. I heard it. Are you okay?”
Azriel’s mouth went dry, and his mind raced. He had been speaking to his shadows, sure, but the fact that she could hear him... that was something else entirely. He had never imagined that someone who couldn’t speak could somehow hear his thoughts. It was impossible... but then again, this was Y/N.
Azriel paused for a moment, staring at her, trying to process everything. “Can you hear... my thoughts? Like how Rhysand can?”
Y/N’s brow furrowed even more in confusion, and she signed again, this time slower, as if trying to make sense of it herself.
“I don’t know. I just... I could hear you. In my mind. Can you hear me, too?”
Azriel blinked, feeling the faintest ripple of something he couldn’t explain, something new between them. “I... I think I can.”
He wasn’t sure how it worked, or why it was happening, but as he stood there, with the cold cloth still pressed to his hand, a strange connection started to form. He could hear her in his head, her thoughts were as clear as if she had spoken aloud.
Azriel’s mouth went dry as he turned to her, unsure whether to be thrilled or confused. “This... this is new.”
Y/N’s lips curled into a small, unsure smile. She signed once more.
“Maybe it’s something we share now. I’m not sure.”
Azriel smiled faintly, looking down at his hand, which no longer burned from the hot stew. His shadows had settled, and his mind was still spinning. But in that moment, he felt something shift between them, something tangible and warm.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said quietly, feeling more at ease than he had in weeks. “Together.”
Y/N nodded, and Azriel couldn't help but feel a flicker of hope rise in his chest. Maybe this was a new beginning, one where she didn’t have to remain silent anymore.
────────────
The sun had already dipped behind the hills, casting the village in soft lavender hues when Azriel knocked gently on Y/N’s door. A cool breeze stirred the leaves in the trees outside, rustling just loud enough to be noticed. Her home, tucked between two larger cottages near the outer edge of the rebuilt village, was bathed in the golden light of a few lanterns within.
Y/N opened the door before he could knock again, her expression neutral at first, but softening immediately at the sight of him. She stepped aside wordlessly, inviting him in.
Azriel stepped inside, the warmth of her home wrapping around him like a soft blanket. It smelled faintly of dried herbs, pinewood, and something sweet.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked him, speaking gently into his mind.
He nodded. “Sure. Whatever you’re having.”
A flicker of warmth crossed her face as she moved into the small kitchen area, setting a kettle on the iron stove. From a wooden drawer she pulled out a small tin and opened it, releasing the delicate fragrance of her favorite blend, peppermint, chamomile, and rose hip. The colors were beautiful in the low light: deep green leaves, pale yellow petals, rich crimson fruit. She dropped them into a small teapot and poured hot water over them.
Azriel watched her from a nearby chair, silent, but something about the domesticity of it, her careful movements, the quiet ritual of preparing something comforting, felt oddly intimate. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed this kind of quiet.
When the tea had steeped, she poured two cups and handed him one. Their fingers brushed briefly. He muttered a soft “thank you,” and she nodded, taking her seat by the hearth, gesturing for him to join her.
They sipped in silence for a few minutes, letting the warmth of the drink settle into their bones. Then, she looked up at him, her gaze sharp but kind.
“You’re troubled,” she said into his mind, gently, without judgment.
Azriel leaned back, his fingers wrapped around the cup, wings slightly hunched behind him. “I’ve been thinking. About… this. You and me. Whatever this is.”
She didn’t interrupt. Just waited, eyes steady on his.
“It’s not a mating bond,” he said slowly. “At least, I don’t think it is. I’ve read everything I could find on the subject over the years. I thought… I hoped I’d recognize it instantly, if it ever happened. I would know. But this...” He paused. “It feels different.”
Y/N’s eyes didn’t leave his. Her mental voice was quiet, steady. “It’s not a mating bond.”
Azriel stiffened, then nodded once. “You’re sure?”
“I had one once,” she said. The words slid gently into his thoughts, but their weight landed heavily. “A true mating bond. I rejected it.”
His brows drew together. He set the cup down, leaning forward. “Why?”
“Because he was cruel. Manipulative. He wanted to break me, not cherish me.” Her hands remained folded in her lap, but her voice in his head was calm. “The bond was there, yes. But I would rather walk alone than be bound to someone like him.”
Azriel’s chest ached. He shifted to sit across from her now, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “And yet,” he said, “you and I… we have something.”
“We do.”
“I can speak to you without sound. You can answer. It’s not like what you have with Rhys, I can’t do that with anyone else. And you can’t do it with anyone else, either, can you?”
She shook her head. “Only you. And Rhys, because of what he is. But with you… it’s different. Easier. Natural.”
He studied her face, her stillness, the way her shadows always seemed to draw nearer when he was near her. “Maybe it’s the shadows,” she offered softly. “They understand me. I’ve always felt like they listened when no one else could. Maybe they… carry me to you.”
Azriel looked down. His own shadows curled at his ankles, one brushing the hem of her skirt. They didn’t pull away. If anything, they seemed... content. Restful.
“You might be right,” he admitted. “I’ve never known them to behave like this before. They whisper to me, warn me, guide me… but they’ve never connected me to someone like this.”
She leaned forward slightly. “Do you think they’re giving you something you didn’t know you needed?”
The question was quiet, but it dug in deep. Azriel looked up, met her eyes, and for a moment, it felt like she’d peeled back every layer he spent a lifetime guarding.
“Maybe,” he said finally, his voice low even in his own mind. “Maybe they are.”
Y/N’s lips curved faintly, not quite a smile, but something just as kind. She reached for the teapot, poured them both another cup.
And as they sat there, in the fading evening light with the scent of peppermint and rose hip between them, neither spoke aloud.
They didn’t need to.
The air between them shifted, thick with unspoken words. The warmth from their tea had settled into the bones of the small cottage, but Azriel couldn’t shake the feeling that something heavy lingered in the space between them. He’d always known Y/N was a survivor, that there was more to her silence than met the eye, but he hadn’t pushed, until now.
The shadows at his feet coiled tighter, drawn to the quiet stillness of the room. He could feel them, just as he could feel the weight of her presence. She was stronger than she realized, but there were cracks in her walls. Azriel’s mind lingered on those cracks, and the realization hit him hard: She has a story. And I need to hear it.
“Y/N,” Azriel began, his voice quiet but steady, “You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not ready to, but... I need to ask. Were you always mute?”
She paused, her fingers gently tracing the edge of her teacup. Her eyes fell to her lap, and for a moment, he feared she would close off completely, retreating into herself. But then, slowly, she looked up at him. The silent communication between them was a delicate thread now, one she grasped without hesitation. And for a brief second, Azriel saw the rawness behind her calm facade.
“No,” she said, her mental voice soft, laced with pain. “I wasn’t always like this.”
Azriel leaned forward, sensing that this was the moment where the walls would either crumble or solidify. He said nothing more, allowing her the space to share her story on her terms.
She inhaled deeply before speaking again, her voice now shaking, though still only audible to him. “I was born into a family that was... never safe. My parents were good people, I think. But the world around us was always breaking, always trying to tear us apart. I was just a little girl, caught in the chaos.” Her mind drifted for a moment, eyes looking past him, as if seeing something Azriel couldn’t.
“When I was young, our village was attacked, too. They came at night, burning homes, ripping families apart. My parents were taken from me, pulled from my arms while I was screaming, too loud, too helpless. They told me to be quiet. They told me that if I made a sound, I would die like them.”
Azriel’s heart twisted painfully at her words, at the way she spoke with such quiet certainty of loss. But what struck him the most was the calmness in her voice, as though she had long ago resigned herself to the horrors she had lived through.
Her mind continued, and the weight of her trauma filled every thought. “After they... they killed them, the others came for me and my sister. They said they’d cut out my tongue if I ever screamed. They said I was worthless if I didn’t learn to obey, to shut up. And they made sure I understood by threatening to do it right there.”
Y/N’s eyes squeezed shut, the pain almost palpable even though it was confined within her mind. Azriel could see the shadows at her feet, as if they, too, felt her anguish. He reached for his own, needing the connection, needing to hold something tangible as her memories bled through their shared silence.
“They locked us away. Kept us in a room, chained to a wall. And every time I tried to make a sound, anything, there were punishments. Whips. Swords. It didn’t matter. The message was clear: Don’t speak. Don’t make a sound. And after a while... I couldn’t anymore. I was so terrified. Every time I tried, it felt like my voice was gone.”
She paused, the heaviness of her confession suffocating the air between them. Azriel could feel it, could see it in her eyes. The tears that had never fallen, the silent scream she could never release.
She looked at him now, her eyes full of something else, resignation, but also a quiet, unyielding strength. “It’s like my voice was stolen. It’s not just fear anymore. It’s like my body just... refuses. Even now, if I try to speak, nothing comes out. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
The silence that followed was deep, and Azriel felt like the room itself had stopped breathing. His hands clenched into fists, the sharp ache of helplessness pulling through his chest. What she had been through, what she still carried, was unimaginable. And yet, she was still here. Alive. Still fighting.
Azriel didn’t know what to say, didn’t know if there were words to make this right. Instead, he took a slow breath, pushing through the growing ache. “You don’t have to fix it, Y/N,” he said softly, his voice rougher than usual. “You don’t have to speak for me to understand you.”
Her eyes flickered with something like relief, but she didn’t respond. She just closed the space between them, a tentative touch to his arm, her hand resting there, silent but full of meaning.
“I just…” she thought, her mental voice hesitant, “I want to be heard. In my own way. To be understood.”
Azriel reached up slowly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. He didn’t need to speak aloud. He didn’t need to fill the silence with words. Instead, he let her know, through the bond they shared — through the shadows and his steady presence — that she was heard.
Azriel sat in stillness for a moment longer, watching the way her fingers curled around her teacup as if grounding herself through the warmth. The weight of her story still hung in the room, but there was something new now, a vulnerability she hadn’t shown before, and the trust it took to reveal it.
He shifted slightly, resting his arms on his knees. His voice came quiet, thoughtful, each word etched with a heaviness he didn’t try to hide.
“Aren’t you afraid,” he asked gently, “that something like that might happen again?”
Her head lifted at that, her eyes meeting his, not startled, not offended. Just honest. He hesitated, then continued.
“It happened again, Y/N. Just a few weeks ago. That night I found you... bound, bleeding. Alone.”
The shadows at his back flickered restlessly, echoing the unease he barely contained.
She was quiet for a long time before her voice slipped into his mind, soft and sure. “Yes. I’m afraid.”
She didn’t try to hide it. And the admission, simple as it was, carved deeper into Azriel than any scream ever could.
“But I trust Rhysand,” she added. “This village matters to him. To you. I believe he’ll keep us safe.”
Azriel’s jaw flexed as he looked at her, at the softness of her features, the hard-earned strength beneath. The shadows whispered against his skin, tugging at him, as if echoing what he was about to say.
He took a breath, ran a hand through his hair, and then asked what had been weighing on him since the day he left the village: “Would you come to Velaris?”
Y/N blinked, taken aback, her fingers going still against her cup.
“It’s safer there,” Azriel said quickly, before she could answer. “The city is protected. Guarded. No one would touch you. I could take you there. You’d be safe.”
He didn’t say I’d sleep better knowing you’re behind those wards. He didn’t say I think about you more than I should. But it was all there, in the way his voice dipped, the way his shadows hovered near her like they were drawn to her pain, her quiet strength.
Y/N’s thoughts reached him after a moment, hesitant but clear.
“I can’t abandon them.”
Azriel frowned slightly, but said nothing as she continued.
“These people… they stayed. They rebuilt this place together. With blood on the ground and ash in their mouths, they still stood. I can’t leave them behind.”
He nodded slowly. He understood, more than she could know. Still, he leaned forward, his voice barely above a whisper. “But you can’t scream for help.”
He hated the sound of that truth aloud. “If something were to happen again-”
“Then maybe,” she cut in gently, “you could teach me how to stay safe.”
Azriel blinked. Her eyes met his, unwavering. There was no fear in them now, only quiet determination.
The shadows stilled.
“You want me to train you?” he asked, surprise flickering through his voice.
She nodded. “I don’t want to be helpless again. I don’t want to rely on someone hearing me. I want to be able to protect myself… and others too.”
Azriel’s mouth curved — not quite a smile, but something close.
“Alright.” His voice was gravel and warmth. “Then tomorrow, we begin.”
And even though she said nothing aloud, he felt the quiet warmth ripple across their bond, gratitude, fierce and radiant, and beneath it, something new: Hope.
────────────
The sun had just begun to dip behind the Sidra, painting Velaris in shades of gold and lavender as Starfall’s first shimmering streaks whispered across the sky.
At the House of Wind, laughter and warmth swirled through the grand dining hall like old music. Lanterns floated gently above the long table, casting soft hues of blue and violet over wine glasses and golden plates. The Inner Circle was gathered, every one of them dressed in star-kissed silks or tailored leathers, the room buzzing with anticipation, except for one lingering question.
“Why aren’t we eating?” Nesta asked, arms folded, her patience thinning as she eyed the untouched food on the table. She looked radiant tonight, as always, in midnight blue, like she belonged among the stars themselves.
Rhysand, lounging at the head of the table with Feyre nestled beside him, smiled with that infuriating calm of his. “Because,” he said smoothly, “Azriel is picking someone up.”
Cassian, who had just downed a sip of wine, leaned back in his chair and smirked. “You mean Azriel and his girlfriend.”
Mor nearly choked on her drink, eyes sparkling. “Wait, seriously? Are they…?”
She left the question open, eyebrows raised toward Rhysand.
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he glanced toward the open balcony, where the night sky had begun to stir with faint threads of starlight. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, thoughtful. “I don’t know what to call it,” he said. “But I can feel it. Whatever is between them, it’s real. And different.”
Amren, perched near the end of the table, narrowed her silver eyes. “He shares something with her he doesn’t with any of us. That much is clear.”
Feyre nodded softly, brushing her fingers along the stem of her glass. “I’ve seen it, too. The way his shadows behave around her, like they’re part of her now.”
The conversation faded into a hush as a faint sound stirred from the hall, the rustle of boots on stone, the quiet press of wings folding behind them.
The door opened, and Azriel stepped inside, dressed in soft black, his Siphons gleaming like frozen stars on his hands and shoulders. At his side walked Y/N.
She wore deep forest green with a shimmer of silver woven into the fabric, nothing elaborate, but breathtaking in its simplicity. A small braid was pinned behind her ear, and her gaze moved over the Inner Circle with a calm steadiness that held no fear. Only curiosity. And quiet strength.
Azriel kept close beside her, a shadow brushing along her arm like it was anchoring her, or maybe the other way around.
Rhysand stood first, his smile genuine. “Welcome.”
Y/N bowed her head gently in greeting, and though she didn’t speak, she didn’t need to — the way her eyes met each of theirs, full of quiet warmth and gratitude, said enough.
“Thank you,” her voice echoed gently into Rhysand’s mind. “For letting me be here.”
Rhysand inclined his head with a smile, then turned toward the rest of the room. “Shall we eat now, Nesta?”
Nesta rolled her eyes, though a smirk played at her lips.
Cassian was already rising to his feet, nudging a chair out beside him. “Come sit, Az. And Y/N, we saved the good bread for you.”
Mor beamed as Y/N took a seat beside Azriel, the shadows around him curling like smoke in moonlight, peaceful for the first time in days.
And outside, the stars began to fall, like silver rain from the heavens, silent and endless.
Dinner was laughter, the clink of glasses, warm candlelight, and the shimmer of magic laced in the air.
Y/N sat quietly between Azriel and Feyre, a faint smile on her lips as she watched the easy rhythm of the Inner Circle, the way Cassian teased Mor with flicks of bread rolls, the way Amren rolled her eyes and muttered about “children,” even though the corners of her lips were quirked in amusement.
“Did Azriel tell you,” Cassian said mid-chew, gesturing toward Y/N with his fork, “that he threatened three construction workers last week for letting a hammer fall too close to your garden?”
Azriel, without looking up from his plate, said calmly, “I told them to be more careful.”
“You said,” Mor mimicked in a deadly-serious tone, “‘Drop that again and I’ll rip your arms off and bury them in the herb bed.’” She grinned at Y/N. “We were all there.”
Y/N’s eyes widened slightly in amusement, then her hands moved, quick, fluid gestures of her fingers.
Feyre laughed, translating instinctively, “She says the hammer didn’t even touch the ground.”
Azriel didn’t argue. He just raised a brow and flicked a shadow toward Cassian’s wine, tipping the cup ever-so-slightly.
Y/N caught the movement and bit back a laugh, shaking her head as if to say boys.
The Inner Circle was basking in warmth, and Y/N felt the unfamiliar but comforting sensation of being part of something, even if she mostly listened. Still, she didn’t feel apart from them. Not tonight.
Azriel stayed close at her side, his shadows uncharacteristically calm. Every so often, he’d lean in, not out of necessity, but as if it was simply his instinct now.
When Cassian launched into another embellished story about Mor and a bakery brawl years ago, Y/N turned slightly toward Azriel and caught his eye.
“Are they always like this?” she asked in his mind, her tone dry, amused.
Azriel’s lips curved faintly. “This is tame. Wait until Cassian’s had three more glasses of wine and starts dancing.”
She laughed silently, a soft sparkle lighting her eyes.
“You’ve changed,” she added after a moment, more hesitantly now. “Since the night you found me. You seem… lighter.”
Azriel turned his head to her, searching her face in the flickering glow. “Maybe because you’re here. And safe. It’s easier to breathe when I know that.”
Across the table, a pair of sharp silver eyes were watching them closely.
Amren said nothing. She swirled the deep red wine in her goblet and observed the pair, the way they seemed to speak without a sound, how Azriel’s shoulders loosened when he was with Y/N, how Y/N’s expressions shifted as though full conversations were happening in silence.
There was something deeper there. Not a mating bond, she’d known enough of those to recognize it, but something… older. Stranger.
When dessert arrived, Amren stood without a word.
Feyre glanced over. “You’re not staying?”
“I have something to look into,” Amren replied, her tone clipped as always, though her eyes flicked once more to Azriel and Y/N before she turned. “Something I should’ve thought of sooner.”
And then she was gone, shadows slipping behind her as she vanished from the dining hall, no doubt heading toward the library’s oldest corners.
Back at the table, Y/N noticed Azriel watching Amren leave. She nudged his arm gently, tilting her head.
“Everything alright?”
He shook his head once. “With her, who knows.” But his eyes softened when he looked back at her. “You okay?”
Y/N nodded. “I’m more than okay. This is the first time in… years… that I feel like I’m not surviving. I’m just living.”
Azriel blinked slowly, something fierce and fragile sparking behind his eyes.
Then, almost without thinking, he reached under the table, just a brush of his pinky finger against hers, a quiet promise. She stilled, and then wrapped her fingers around his.
Later, when most of the Inner Circle had drifted to other corners of the House of Wind, some to sip wine by the fire, others to dance beneath the starlight, Azriel and Y/N slipped away to one of the balconies.
They said nothing for a while. They didn’t need to.
Y/N leaned against the stone railing, gazing up at the stars as they fell in slow, glowing streaks. The sky shimmered with ancient magic, vast and silver-blue and full of unspoken dreams. Her hair moved gently in the breeze, and Azriel, standing just behind her, watched as one of his shadows twined itself around her wrist like a ribbon, then flitted away as if shy.
She turned to him after a moment, her voice touching his mind in that soft, singular way.
“Is it always like this?”
Azriel shook his head. “Some years, the stars fall slower. Sometimes the wind carries them in spirals. This… this is rare.”
She smiled faintly, her eyes reflecting the light. “Then I’m glad I’m seeing it like this. With you.”
A pause.
He looked at her, really looked, as if this was the first time he could, uninterrupted by fear or pain or the weight of everything else they’d survived.
“I thought I knew what I was looking for,” Azriel murmured. “All these centuries. I thought I’d know the shape of it when it came.”
Her brows lifted, curious.
He stepped closer, slowly, giving her time, space, always.
“But this,” he said, voice lower now. “This wasn’t what I expected. It’s not a mating bond. It’s not fire. It’s… quiet. Like peace. Like my shadows finally have nothing to warn me about.”
She didn’t speak to his mind immediately. Instead, she reached out, just barely, and brushed her fingers against his.
Azriel’s eyes darkened as they held hers.
“Then maybe,” she said gently in his mind, “you weren’t looking for fire. Maybe you were always looking for quiet.”
The words landed like a balm across a scar.
Slowly, deliberately, Azriel lifted one hand and cupped her jaw. His thumb skimmed the curve of her cheek, the corner of her mouth. Her breath caught, eyes wide and shining.
When he leaned in, it wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t claimed. It was reverent.
Their lips met beneath the falling stars - soft, slow, warm.
Y/N exhaled into him, and Azriel breathed her in like he had waited a lifetime to do so.
Above them, a shooting star blazed past, brighter than the rest. And for a moment, time stilled.
When they parted, Y/N rested her forehead against his chest, her mind brushing his again with a whisper: “You make me feel safe.”
Azriel’s hands trembled just slightly where they held her.
“I will always keep you safe,” he murmured aloud. “No matter where you are.”
The stars were still falling when the soft click of the balcony door stirred them from their shared silence.
Azriel turned first, instinctively, his shadows twitching before settling as the figure stepped into view.
Amren.
She looked… different. Not in appearance, still timeless, still clothed in midnight silk and draped in something sharper than elegance, but there was an intensity in her silver eyes that hadn’t been there at dinner.
“I thought I’d find you two out here,” she said, folding her arms. “You’ve become rather inseparable.”
Y/N straightened slightly, unsure if she should step back from Azriel, but his hand remained gently over hers, grounding, not possessive. She didn’t move.
Amren strode to the balcony’s edge, glancing once at the sky, then at them again.
“I saw the way you were interacting tonight,” she said plainly. “The way you speak without sound, how your magic knows each other before you do. It reminded me of something I once read. A long, long time ago.”
Azriel narrowed his eyes. “You went to the library.”
Amren’s mouth twisted into something half-smirk, half-snarl. “Of course I did. I don’t like mysteries I can’t name. And what you two have-” she waved a hand vaguely between them, “-is not a mating bond.”
Y/N’s brows drew together. Amren turned her gaze to her.
“No, girl, it’s not a bond of body or desire. But it is powerful. And old.”
She paused, and for once, the silence was heavy.
“It’s called a thirren bond,” Amren said at last, voice quieter. “From a language lost before Velaris was even built. It only happens under very rare, specific circumstances. Two souls, both fractured, but not by fate, like mates. By experience. By grief. And sometimes, when the cracks align just so…”
Her gaze swept between them again, sharp and unreadable. “They fill each other.”
Azriel’s voice was low. “And what does that mean, exactly?”
Amren tilted her head. “It means you share more than thoughts. You share… knowing. Not just emotions or whispers. You don’t complete each other. You comprehend each other. There’s no hierarchy. No instinct to dominate or claim. It’s a conscious harmony. A chosen one.”
Y/N stared at her, mind gently spinning.
Azriel was quiet beside her, shadows curling slowly at his feet.
“But it’s rare,” Amren continued. “Rarer than any mating bond. Most fae don’t even believe in it anymore. Because it requires pain. It requires survival. And a willingness to connect that deeply without being compelled.”
She stepped back toward the door, her words falling like stones.
“So whatever this is between you,” she said, “don’t waste it trying to label it with something lesser.”
Then she turned and disappeared into the hallway, her scent fading with the soft click of the door.
Silence fell again.
Azriel looked over at Y/N.
Her eyes were distant, thoughtful.
“Do you believe her?” he asked gently, his mind brushing hers.
Y/N looked at him then, searching his face, the raw honesty in it, the care.
And she nodded once.
“I think we already knew. We just didn’t have a name for it.”
Azriel stepped closer, reaching for her hand again.
And this time, when their fingers laced together, it felt like confirmation. Not the beginning, not even the middle, but something ancient finally remembered.
The night air was cool, laced with starfall’s faint shimmer. They stood close, quiet in the wake of Amren’s revelation, both of them turning it over in their minds like a precious, fragile truth.
Y/N’s gaze lingered on the distant hills beyond Velaris, her expression thoughtful but unreadable. Then, finally, she turned to Azriel.
“What does this mean for us?” Her mental voice was soft, tentative. “This… thirren bond?”
Azriel looked at her for a long moment. His shadows were quiet now, as if they, too, were listening.
“I don’t know exactly,” he admitted, brushing his thumb gently across her knuckles. “But I know what it feels like.”
He searched her face, his voice a low murmur in her mind. “It feels like I’m not carrying the weight of the world alone anymore.”
A soft, trembling smile curved Y/N’s lips, and her eyes flicked down to their hands, still laced together.
“I feel that too,” she said. “But it’s not just the bond.”
Azriel’s head tilted, curiosity blooming in his features.
She looked up at him then, eyes lit with quiet fire.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” she said. “Not because of the connection. But because of you. Because of how gentle you are with me. How patient. How you see me without needing me to explain every broken piece.”
Azriel stilled, just for a breath, shadows curling gently at his shoulders, like they’d heard something sacred.
Then he stepped a fraction closer, his voice brushing against her mind with warmth.
“I’m falling too.”
Her breath caught as he reached up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear.
“I’ve been trying not to rush,” he whispered aloud this time. “Trying to give you space, especially after you said you didn’t want to leave the village.”
Y/N gave a small, almost sheepish smile — the kind that crinkled the corner of her eyes and made something bloom in his chest.
“Maybe I changed my mind,” she teased softly. “Maybe I want to come to Velaris. To be closer to you.”
Azriel’s heart stumbled.
“You do?”
She nodded, her smile widening just a little.
Azriel let out a breath, more like a laugh, really, one of disbelief and gratitude mingled, before he cupped her cheek in one hand and leaned in.
This kiss was slower than the one beneath the stars earlier. Deeper. A quiet promise shared under falling starlight, between two people who had once lived in silence and shadow, and now found peace in each other’s presence.
When they parted, their foreheads resting together, Azriel whispered, “You have no idea how happy that makes me.”
“I think I do,” Y/N whispered back into his mind, her fingers brushing his cheek.
They stayed like that a while longer, wrapped in each other, beneath the gentle rain of stars, knowing that whatever this bond was, it was theirs to define.
summary: the act of patching up small cuts and bruises is so exceedingly mortal, something azriel has never worried about. until she kneels in front of him, fretting.
word count: about 1k
warnings/tags; archeron!reader, fem!reader (she/her pronouns) ummmm this is Not Good & not beta'd.
notes: i make my return for azriel... since my last fic (in the year of 2022! insane!) i have started reading a lot again, i've settled into my job and i've started writing again. how exciting. this is a disaster of a fic. it's been awhile. hopefully i write mooooooooore though, i do miss it.
-
Azriel had been through worse. Far worse. He had lived through two wars. Had completed the Blood Rite. Trained alongside Cassian and Rhys for centuries. His hands had been burned, scarred and permanently altered. His wings had been torn before.
So he had been through worse.
The cuts across his torso were minor, already closing, and the bruises blooming along his ribs would be gone in hours. His Siphons hummed faintly, magic stitching him together even as he sat, still and quiet, on the edge of your bed.
He could handle pain. He had handled pain his entire life.
But this? This was different.
You knelt before him, brow furrowed in concentration, bottom lip caught between your teeth as you dabbed an ointment onto a particularly nasty gash just beneath his collarbone. You had practically manhandled him into this spot, told him to not move as you retrieved the jar of ointment Madja had given you for your own cuts when you had been training with Nesta.
At any point before you knelt before him, he could have been honest and told you it wasn't necessary. That by the time you moved on with your day and joined Feyre in her studio or Nesta in the library, the wounds would be nothing to him. Scratches he will eventually forget he ever had.
“I swear, Az,” you mutter, dipping your fingers into the little glass jar beside you. Your nails have gotten longer. Painted a pretty blue that looks eerily familiar. “I don’t know how you’re still walking around after all of this.”
Azriel huffs a quiet laugh. “I heal fast.”
You shoot him a look—one of those unimpressed, sharp glances that remind him exactly who your sisters are. Rhys sometimes says that when Feyre looks at him, he feels like bowing down. Cassian constantly says he's at Nesta's mercy.
Azriel thinks he finally understands the sentiment. He would kneel to you, make himself at your mercy. He would bend to your will.
He smiles down at you. Your sharp eyes narrow in a way that always seem to make his shadows curl around him in amusement, like they also find you cute. “That doesn’t mean you don’t feel it.” You say.
He doesn't reply. Because he knows you're right. And because the gentle press of your fingers against his skin makes his throat tighten in a way that had nothing to do with pain.
Because he wants you to keep touching him.
It was such a mortal thing, this tending to cuts and bruises. Rhysand and Cassian would have waved you off with a smirk and told you it was pointless. Maybe even laughed at the naivety of it, at the idea of warriors tending to these small injuries like they were huge inconveniences.
You weren’t a warrior though. You hadn’t grown up knowing the brutality of being an Illyrian. And you didn't grow up with the efficiency of fae healing. To you, wounds meant something—they weren't just small things that could be shrugged off but proof that someone you cared about had been hurt. They were proof that someone you cared about was not invincible.
So he lets you fuss over him, lets you press too-gentle fingers to his ribs. He forces his breathing to remain even when your nails scratch over his stomach by accident and you offer him an apologetic smile.
It was sweet. Infuriatingly, heartbreakingly sweet how you tended to these cuts and bruises like they were fatal.
“You don’t have to do this,” he murmurs, watching as you smoothed the salve over his shoulder, fingertips lingering against his skin.
You shrug, continuing to touch him. "I want to.” You say simply.
He swallowed hard. Nobody had ever wanted to take care of him. At least, not like this. Madja was always there for the inner circle. His brothers loved him, so did Mor and Amren in her own way, maybe. But nobody had ever wanted to take care of him. Not in this simplistic way.
He glances down where your fingers dance across his collar bone. Watches your hands as they examine the bruises along his chest.
Your hands were so different from his. Soft where his were scarred, warm where his were cold. They didn't know battle, did not know pain in the way his did. And yet, they were careful with him. As if he were something fragile. Something you wanted to take care of.
No one had ever touched him like this before.
You pull your hands away, sit back on your heels and tilt your head at him. Then you grin, devastatingly beautiful. “There,” you say with quiet satisfaction. “Not perfect, but it’ll do.”
Azriel wanted to tell you that it was perfect, anything you did was perfect. That the ache in his ribs had nothing to do with the fight and everything to do with the way you were looking at him now—soft, fond, completely unaware of the chaos you created inside his chest.
Instead, he reaches out, brushing his fingers lightly over your cheek. A quiet thank-you, unspoken but understood because he knew you understood him.
Your lips part slightly, breath catching, and for a moment—just a moment—he let himself believe that this was something he could have. That this tenderness was meant for him.
Then you smile, small and knowing, like you could read every single thought Azriel had. Like you understood why his heart was racing.
Azriel’s fingers linger against your cheek, scarred and rough, but you didn't flinch and he didn't pull away. You just sat there, looking at him like he was something more than shadows and scar and unworthiness.
“Az,” you murmur, voice the softest that he's ever heard it, like you knew his mind had trickled into thoughts of not being good enough for this, for you.
He swallowed hard. He should pull away, stand and urge you to stand up with him. Should let his hand fall away and bury whatever this feeling he has beneath layers of duty and restraint. Go back downstairs and join the rest of your family at the kitchen table.
But you were still kneeling before him, still so close, and he could see the way your lashes fluttered, the way your lips parted, like you felt this as much as he did.
He was an idiot.
A complete, utter idiot.
Because instead of pulling away, his thumb brushes over your cheekbone, barely a whisper of a touch, and he says, “You shouldn’t waste your time on this.”
Your brows knit together, and you reach up, wrapping your fingers around his wrist before he could retreat. “Why not?”
His throat tightened. “Because it’s pointless.” It is. Not the tending to cuts, not your mortal practice, doing this for him. Wasting your time worrying over him, was pointless.
Your grip doesn't falter. If anything, it only grows firmer, grounding him. “I don’t think it is.” You say softly.
Azriel inhales sharply through his nose, shaking his head, but you don't let him look away. You tilt your head again, studying him the way you always did—like he was something you wanted to figure out.
“Just because you heal fast,” you say slowly, carefully, “doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be taken care of.”
Something in his chest cracked, splintering apart under the weight of your words. No one had ever said something like that to him before. No one had ever looked at him like this before.
Like he was something worth taking care of. He had never been afforded this gentleness.
He let out a breath, slow and uneven, and decides to allow himself one more indulgence—just one. He turns his hand, catching yours in his grasp, and he squeezes.
“I’m fine,” he murmurs, even though the words feel like a lie. Maybe they are one.
You let out a soft, exasperated laugh. “Of course you are.” You say, but you don't let go. You just sit there, hand wrapped around his, warm and steady and real.
Azriel should let go. He should get up, finally put space between you and remind himself of all the reasons why this—you—were not his to have.
Azriel doesn't let go though, and neither did you.
The silence between you stretches on, but it's comfortable. His mind may be warring and his heart may be racing, but silences with you were never anything but comfortable. It was like you knew how to exist with him. Like you knew he needed a moment to sort his thoughts out.
And the truth was, his thoughts were coming down to the fact that he was afraid to want this. Afraid of what it would mean for his relationship with Rhys and your sister. Would Rhys see him worthy of one of Feyre's sisters? Would Feyre? Would they confirm every thought he's ever had about himself?
(Did it matter? If you looked at him like this? If you touched him like this? Did it matter what anybody else thought?)
Your free hand lifts between the two of you and he startles out of his thoughts. You smile gently as your nails trace the edge of his jaw softly before gently cupping his cheek.
His pulse stutters. He's touch starved and desperate for you. Azriel's eyes flicker between yours, searching for doubt or fear or disgust, something to prove to him that he shouldn't do this.
But he finds none, and he's done fighting, so he lets his eyes slide shut. He lets himself lean into your touch.
(He doesn't see your eyes flickering down to his lips. He has no clue that your own heart is racing in your chest. Azriel is completely unaware that for so long, since you came out of that cauldron irrevocably different, all you've wanted is him.)
He can only feel your hand, still wrapped in his, tense with nerves. He can feel the hesitant brush of your lips against his and he inhales sharply.
Then he kisses you. Any ounce of restraint he had, which hadn't been much, disappears.
His hand moves to cup your face instead of staying intertwined with yours and his fingers thread through your hair as he pulls you closer. Your legs extend into a tall kneel at his urging.
You shift so your front is almost fully pressed against him, your hands holding onto his waist. It's a little awkward and entirely uncomfortable for his back and your knees, but neither of you care all that much. His wings expand around you two, his shadows swirl in excitement.
Your arms move to wrap around his neck and your breasts press against his chest when you do so. He makes a quiet, desperate sound against your mouth before kissing you harder, as if he’d been starving for this. He supposes he has been.
From the moment he saw you in the mortal lands. From the second a scream tore from his lungs when you were dumped into the cauldron and then dumped back out. He has starved for you. For this. For your touch. For your body to be pressed against his like this.
Your hands shift to his shoulders, fingertips running over warm skin and fresh-healed wounds, but he doesn't care. This had never been about the wounds. All he had wanted is you with him, if he was being honest.
When you had seen him come inside from training with Rhys and Cassian and gasped at the cuts while you ran your fingers across his torso and back, he had been vibrating with want. When you had wrapped a hand around his wrist and pulled him towards your room because you had a jar of salve, he had gone willingly, just wanting to be in your space.
Not because he cared about these cuts. But because he cared about you.
Your lips part against his and his tongue slides into your mouth. Both of you groan and he presses so close to you that neither of you are truly sure where one of you starts and the other ends. He kisses you like he's not entirely sure he'll ever get to kiss you again.
And when two you finally, finally, pull away—just enough to catch your breath—his forehead drops to yours, his chest rising and falling in sync with your own.
His eyes open slowly. They meet yours, still sharp but now even more beautiful and dazed.
You smile at him, breathless. “Not so pointless now, is it?” You tease. "My care regiment."
Azriel lets out a quiet, disbelieving laugh, shaking his head as his thumb traced along your cheek. “Not even a little. Do you always kiss your patients?"
You laugh, a little like you can't believe he made that joke. "Just the very pretty, Illryian shadowsingers." You say quietly with a bright grin.
And what kind of male would he be if he didn't kiss you again?
-
notes: i fear i do still suck at endings. i also have gotten worse at accepting criticism so pls be nice <3
Synopsis: you're studying to become an official healer, which means you've been super busy and haven't spent much time with azriel lately. one night he shows up at your office super needy and you don't get much work done after that...
Warnings: smut, f!receiving, slight breeding kink, not sure if this is a warning but semi sub!azriel
Word Count: 1,950
A/N: thanks for this request! i had fun writing it <3 i love azriel so bad and as much as i love dom!azriel, i have a soft-spot for his subby side <3 let me know what you all think!
Ever since you’d started studying to become a Healer, you hadn’t been able to spend much time anywhere but the library.
Thankfully, you were close enough with Gwyn and Clotho that they gave you an office to keep your books in and have a quiet, private study space.
You sat in the desk chair of your office, elbows propped up on the desk and chin in hand. It was past midnight, but study calls.
You flipped through one of your pre-Healer books half-asleep when a shadow landed on your shoulder and tickled at your neck.
“Hey Az,” you giggled, smiling.
Moments later, he appeared in the doorway with your favourite flowers in hand.
He wasn’t in his battle attire, he wasn’t the scary Spymaster, he was just your loving mate.
You rose from your chair, heading to the doorway to greet him.
“Aw Azriel,” you grabbed the flowers then touched his face, “you’re the sweetest male in the world.”
“I miss my mate,” he said wearily.
Guilt swallowed you whole. You knew that Azriel hadn’t been on any official Night Court business trips in a while, and it was getting to him.
It was kind of a good thing because it meant no shady shit was going on that needed taking care of, but it was also a bad thing because Azriel needed the adrenaline of Spymaster duties. He was restless without it, and without you.
It was like he didn’t know what to do with all his free time. Especially since you were so busy studying.
You couldn’t even remember the last time you had sex, which seemed to be exactly what Azriel was thinking too.
You swatted some notebooks out of the way and placed the flowers on your desk, Azriel following you into your office.
“I know Az, I miss you too. I’m sorry I’ve been so busy lately and I haven’t had much time for us.”
“It’s okay princess…it makes me happy knowing you’re studying for something you want so bad. I’m really proud of you.”
Your heart melted at your mates reassuring words. You really loved him more than anything, and he was the only one to ever say he was proud of you, so every time he said it it was the best feeling in the world.
You leaned against your desk as Az put his hands on your waist.
“I love you,” you whispered to him.
He pressed his forehead to yours and the scent of him made your head spin.
“I love you too,” he whispered back and placed a soft kiss on your lips.
“What’d you do today?”
“I paced around our bedroom, sparred with Rhys because I was jealous that he has his mate around all the time, made dinner, ate dinner, then Nesta said she was sick of my brooding and gave me one of her smutty books, and now I’m here because I don’t want to be away from you any longer.”
He nudged you with his head like a cat.
“Aw…so you read Nesta’s books huh?”
He smirked at you and bit his lip to hide his smile.
“Is that why you’re really here, Az?” You teased, “Did those books get you all worked up?”
“Maybe…but I do really miss you princess, I miss touching you,” he breathed and started moving his hands up your body.
You closed your eyes and inhaled. Your final exam was only two days away. You couldn’t get distracted now, when you were so close to the finish line.
You pushed off the desk and out of Azriel’s grasp.
“I miss you too sweetheart, I really do,” you started as you circled the desk to reach your chair, “but my exam is in two days. Just use that Spymaster patience for two more little days and then we can fuck like rabbits. I promise.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“Babyy,” he whined, rolling his eyes and sinking defeatedly into the seat across your desk.
“I’m sorry Az! You know how important this is, c’mon don’t be a big bat-baby, it's two days.”
“Just because you put emphasis on ‘two’ doesn’t make it sound better you know.”
You scoffed playfully at Azriel’s needy attitude, but you stood your ground.
“You heard me, Shadowsinger.”
He dipped his head and looked at you intensely with his hazel eyes; one of his wings twitched.
“Fine,” he huffed, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.
You smiled at having won, and because you liked seeing your mate all sexually frustrated like this. A little teasing never killed anyone.
You assumed the same position you were in before Azriel entered.
Roughly five minutes passed of you two sitting in complete silence. The only sound was the one of you flipping the page every now and again.
Azriel was completely still the whole time, focused on you. Then, he moved.
He pushed his seat back, but instead of getting up, he tucked his wings in tight and got on his knees, crawling beneath the desk.
Your eyebrows rose.
“Az? What are you doing…?”
You looked down and he appeared right at your knees, placing a scarred hand on either one and slowly spreading them apart.
“You can keep reading your books all you want princess, but I can’t wait two minutes for you, let alone two days.”
You were at a loss for words. You knew Az loved going down on you, but you’d never seen him this desperate to taste and touch you.
Once your knees were spread to his liking, he hooked his hands beneath your thighs and pulled your hips closer to him. You gasped as your ass slid down the seat of the chair.
He bunched your short skirt up to your waist and lifted your legs so that your ankles rested atop your desk. You pushed your ankles down onto the desk to help you lift your hips up so Azriel could peel your panties off.
You were spread out, on full display before your mate who was on his knees, looking at your pussy like it was God.
You softly moaned at the sight of him, and he did the same.
He dragged his eyes from your wetting core back up to your eyes.
“Keep reading.”
“What?”
“You need to study, right? So keep reading.”
Cauldron. There’s no way you’d be able to retain any of the information you read while Azriel ate you out. That male can and has made you scream on his tongue.
“Read out loud this time,” he added before placing his hands on your thighs, readying himself.
He looked up at you in a way that you knew meant he wouldn’t start until you did.
You grabbed the book off the desk and leaned back into the chair.
“Chapter six, the limits of healing,” you started.
You felt Azriel’s breath against your pussy, and heard him mumble something along the lines of ‘I need you’ before he started pressing kisses to your cunt and flicking his tongue up and down it.
Your voice trembled as you continued reading.
“Th-there are b-boundaries of healing that should n-never be crossed, fuck, the c-conseq-quences will be deadly.”
Azriel licked and sucked at your pussy with wild desperation.
He moaned as he sucked on you and spit on your pussy, licking his spit back up as it slid down your core and burying his face in you.
His grip on your thighs was tight enough to leave bruises that matched his siphons.
His wings began twitching underneath the desk, making it shake left and right.
Azriel’s wings only twitched in unison like that when he was close to cumming…
Was he gonna cum just from tasting you?
The thought pushed you right to the edge.
“Fuck, A-Azriel, I’m g-gonna cum.”
He groaned his approval against your pussy and plunged his tongue inside you, fucking you with it until you came on his tongue, your wetness dripping onto his chin.
“It’s not enough,” he said as he practically threw the desk off his wings and stood up again, pulling you off the chair and bending you over the desk that was now five feet away from where it should be.
“I’m sorry princess, but your books can wait two minutes until I’ve had my turn with you,” he pulled your tank top over your head and grabbed your breasts, pulling you against his hard on.
“Azriel,” you breathed out, “I love it when you get like this.”
“Yeah? I’m sure you do,” he responded while he stripped out of his pants and underwear, “you’ve made me wait way too fucking long, I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
He lined his hard length up with your entrance and moved himself against your clit.
“I’m sorry baby,” you moaned out, “I swear I didn’t mean to.”
Azriel placed your hands on the desk, then placed his own hands beside yours, towering over you and hovering atop your head.
He leaned forward and kissed your temple.
“Don’t apologize princess, I feel so much better now,” he whispered close to your ear as he slid himself into you and you moaned in pleasure.
Azriel started fucking you at a steady pace, grabbing your jaw and tilting your head upwards to look at him.
“I fucking needed this,” he groaned.
“Mmm, yes, Azriel, fuck,” you drawled out as the sound of Azriel’s hips snapping against your ass filled the office, maybe even the whole library.
You braced your hands more firmly on your desk and used them to help push your hips back against Azriel’s dick.
He whimpered as he gripped your hips with both hands and started pounding into you, faster and harder.
“I need to cum in you, I need it so bad princess, please can I cum in you?”
“Cum in me Azriel please,” you replied out-of-breath as you neared your orgasm too.
“Fuck, f-fuck baby,” he moaned as his wings twitched and he emptied himself inside you, your orgasm following right after.
He put his arms around you and held your shaking body through it until you caught your breath.
Azriel slid out of you ever so slowly, so as to make sure you kept all his cum inside you.
You pressed your thighs together once he was fully out to keep his cum from sliding down them.
Azriel, still with his hands on your hips, turned you around to meet his gaze.
“Thank you princess,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against yours once more.
“Thank you Az, I needed to decompress.”
He giggled lightly and held you close in the silence for a few moments.
“Do you think you’re gonna do some more studying?”
“I don’t think I can focus on a single sentence with my brain this warm and fuzzy.”
He smiled.
“Then, do you think I could have more?”
You furrowed your eyebrows at him in confusion.
“You wanna have sex again?”
“No,” he said rather shyly, “I want to make you cum on my face again.”
Your pussy filled with butterflies.
“What happened to the Azriel who told me never to be too greedy?”
“What can I say,” he said as he began lowering himself to his knees before you, “you healed me princess.”
You smiled down at him and put your fingers in his hair as his shadows skittered up your arms.
Azriel placed a kiss on your pussy then looked up at you.
“You really are gonna make a great Healer.”
You looked at him with admiration.
“Thank you, my Azriel.”
He whined at the sound of you calling him your Azriel, and buried his face in you once more.
summary: Azriel finds you at Rita’s drunk off of too much Nightbloom and… something else. Little does he know, everything happens for a reason.
word count: 1,816
author's note: okay okay nasties, here's your azriel smut. trying to write his pov but also second person was killing me so hopefully it doesn't sound horrible @sjmromanceweek
{Tags: smut, sex pollen, alcohol, dubcon kinda, heat, reader pushing azriel to make a move, fingering, denial, azriel gets confident real quick, az makes you do the work, x reader, no y/n}
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There was something deliciously sinful about Rita’s that you just couldn’t stay away from.
Maybe it was the flickering fae lights casting the sweaty room in neon hues. Maybe it was the powdered fae bane that glittered from the nostrils of males that wanted to be helpless for one night of fun. Maybe it was music, strings and horns and other strange devices that kept a beat swelling over the crowd. Maybe it was him.
You could see him now, forcing his way through the crowd like some dreamy, majestic angel of death… damn, it must have kicked in.
Warm, scarred hands gripped your shoulders, attempting to pull you out of the haze. “What the fuck did you do?”
You flashed Azriel your most charming smile, wiping away a golden streak of Nightbloom from your lips. “Nothing.”
“Liar. How much?” Azriel knew what those trails of powder across your mouth meant. He knew what would be coming.
“Only a little…”
“Liar.”
“Okay, fine, like a tablespoon.”
His jaw tensed, the soft honey of his eyes hardening to amber. “A tablespoon?”
“That’s just a guess,” you shrugged, allowing him to pull you closer. His face was mere centimeters away from yours as he took in your scent, the Nightbloom on your breath.
Everything was going to plan. Azriel would insist on taking you home, drunk as you were, and then insist that he stay up all night to watch you. And then you would insist he do so from the comfort of your own bedroom, and voila, scheme accomplished.
But the fond, exasperated eyeroll you had expected from him was not what he gave. Azriel’s brows furrowed, his wings pulling taut as he scented you again. His thumb came to your cheek, collecting a sample of gold powder that he brought to his tongue. “Who gave this to you-“
“I don't know one of the-“
“I need you to show me exactly who.” His voice was deadly, his expression void of any warmth.
Your vision swam now. “I- i don’t remember. It’s just Nightbloom, Azriel, it’ll wear off in a few-“
“It’s not.” He didn’t bother to let you finish. “This is- its-“ he could hardly get the words out as a dark flush bloomed beneath his tan skin.
“What is it?”
He mumbled something, but you couldn’t quite make out the words over the dizzying tempo of a fiddle.
“What?”
Azriel gripped your shoulders tighter, pulling you out toward the edge of the dancing. “It’s pollen.”
He must have read the confusion on your face, because he sighed and rubbed his face in his hands. The loss of his touch felt suddenly… devastating. You needed it. More than anything.
He took one last look at the dark, gaping pupils of your eyes. “We need to get you home.”
~~~
Azriel couldn’t get the smell of you off of him. On a good day he already struggled to ignore it, how warm and fresh it was when you breezed past him. Now it was tinged with some kind of sickly sweetness, something wrong and yet irresistible all the same.
Even his shadows, stoic and sensible as they were, seemed discontented with their own restraint.
Azriel’s fists tightened, and he folded his arms to keep them from clenching harder as Rhysand leaned in close to you.
“Follow my finger with your eyes.” He said slowly, dragging his pointer back and forth as he watched the pitch of your eyes trail. Hazy, hardly keeping up, and so wide, Rhysand could see his own reflection with perfect clarity. “Yes, her Nightbloom was tainted,” he muttered with distaste.
Azriel’s eyes narrowed as Rhysand’s gaze flickered to his own. “I can get Cassian to-“
“No.” The words left Azriel’s mouth with certainty, even as he dreaded what would follow.
“Cassian?” You chimed, “where is he?”
Something tightened in Azriel’s chest. Why did you care where he was? Did it matter right now? It wasn’t your fault, it was the pollen’s, but it stung all the same.
Rhysand said nothing. Azriel’s cue to take over. He stepped closer as Rhys quietly left your darkened bedroom.
“Rhys…?” Your words trailed off as you noticed the Shadowsinger’s approach.
“How do you feel?” Stupid. Gods, he was so stupid. You felt drunk as hell, obviously. “I mean… any worse?”
He stiffened as you stood to meet him, as you stopped right at his chest, head tilted back to greet him. “Warm. So warm.”
It wasn’t a deadly amount then, or you would likely have been crying with need by now. “Good.” Azriel couldn’t stop his hand from finding your cheek, from brushing back a lock of damp hair.
The way you shivered was… intoxicating. A sight he wanted more of. Forever. “Listen…”
Your face nuzzled into his palm, pressing a delicate kiss to the rippling, silvery skin. “I’m listening.”
Fuck. Whoever thought leather was a good material to be worn at all times definitely didn't think about the temptation of a beautiful woman in front of you. One who would be throwing herself at you within the hour. He was fucked.
Azriel took a steadying breath. “Your fever is only going to get worse.”
He wanted to smooth the crease between your brows with his lips. “It will?”
“Yes… unless-“
“Unless?”
“Unless you…” fuck. There was no pleasant way to say it, was there?- “relieve it.”
Understanding glowed in your eyes, and you wasted no time in taking his hand and guiding it- down and down.
Azriel knew he was blushing. He merely prayed that you were out of it enough to not notice. This wasn’t how things were supposed to play out for you two, it was supposed to be-
That trail of thought disappeared as you slid his hand beneath your dress. The smell of the pollen and Nightbloom was stronger now, mixing with that scent of you and the glittering body oil you had applied quite liberally before going to Rita’s.
His breath stopped when he felt the lacy edge of your panties. “Do you really want me to-?” There was so much unspoken beneath his question. Was he just a stand-in for someone else unavailable?
“I went to Rita’s tonight.”
“I know.”
You shook your head, not quite finished. “I went to Rita’s tonight because I knew you’d follow.” He bit his tongue as you followed by pressing his fingers against the folds of your sex. “I knew you’d find me missing. I knew you’d wonder where I went. I knew you would go looking all on your own.”
You sounded surprisingly coherent for someone with pollen in your bloodstream.
“You did this on purpose?”
A shy smile from you. Damn, he had been fucked since the moment he noticed your door left slighty ajar. He felt almost… angry?
He stilled as your slim fingers found the ties of his pants. His shadows twirled around you in delight, and it took every bit of his strength to push your hands away. “No, if we do this, we do it my way.”
~~~
Maybe you did sneak that pollen into your own dose of Nightbloom. Maybe you did plan it, knowing Azriel stood outside your door every night to make sure he heard your breathing even into sleep.
If you hadn’t, he never would have made the move. He didn’t feel he deserved to, despite your constant flirting.
It was just enough to push him.
“Your way?” you questioned breathlessly. “And what’s that?”
“I won’t fuck you,” he said plainly, and your heart sank for a brief moment until he finished. “Not until I’m certain you’ll remember every inch of me. But I’m not so cruel as to deny you relief, even if you did this to yourself.”
The tone he used with you was harder, cooler than the nervous cadence he had had only moments before.
But everything turned to white noise as he fingers finally slid beneath the black lace you had worn just for him. “Mmmh.”
Long, slow strokes mapped your cunt. Slow enough to trace the tip of your clit, the sides, your hole, and find the exact spots that made you gasp. And he was a quick study.
Soon enough you were panting, nails finding purchase in his biceps. He didn’t bother to move any faster, letting you sit with the poisonous heat festering in your belly. “Fuck, Azriel, I need more.”
Your pleas meant nothing, did nothing. After all, you weren’t in any real danger. You hadn’t taken enough to require a true breeding.
His fingertips paused at your entrance, feeling the phantom clench of your muscles. He paused.
“What. What do you want? I can beg.”
His apathetic lips twitched into a dangerous smirk. Debasing yourself. That’s what you were doing. Without him even needing to lift- or rather curl- a finger. No wonder Rhys left his enemies in his care.
“If you want it so bad,” he crooned, the sound so foreign to your ears, “then take it.”
Again you reached for his cock. It was pressed against the front of his pants so tightly you could practically make out the shape.
He tutted impatiently. “No. I gave you my fingers. Use them.” He held them still, poised just against your hole.
“You’re not serious…”
The look in his eyes said otherwise. He was deadly serious.
“Fuck. Fine.” You gripped his arms tighter, using his solid form for leverage as you sank down onto his hand. He didn’t offer any assistance in taking his fingers deeper.
You wiggled your hips, a rhythmic rocking that pulled him further, up against the place you needed him most. “Please move them.”
He did a very good job pretending not to hear you.
“Please, Az, at least- at least move them a little.” You sounded pathetic, panting and whining like that.
This time, he obliged. Two long fingers curled into your spot, just enough to send a current of warmth through your thighs and legs. Your knees went weak when he did it again. And then he didn't stop.
Every movement of your hips that you managed earned you more pleasure, until you were writhing against his chest and clinging to him for dear life. “Please- I’m gonna cum- please-“
He worked you through every moment of it, his thumb joining in at your clit and rubbing soothing circles until you were shaking. “That’s it. Good girl, go ahead.”
You didn’t need to be told twice. You shattered on his fingers, the sticky sound of your pleasure drowned out by your own cries. Inky black shadows caressed your skin encouragingly, gentle brushes to your hips and thighs, then your reddened cheek.
Azriel kissed the blush away. “Okay, that’s enough for you. Now you need to sleep off the Nightbloom.”
“Only if you stay.”
He pretended to consider. “I’ll stay, but only if you promise not to do that ever again.”
Summary: Elain whispers a name, and something deep inside Azriel stirs, a reaction rare and unsettling, one he cannot understand. The shadows echo it, and suddenly he knows he cannot ignore her.
Sweat rolled down Azriel’s temple and disappeared into the collar of his leathers. The wind screamed in his ears as he flew, wings cutting through the night. Cassian’s voice carried behind him, loud and exasperated.
“Slow down, shadows! You’re going to take out my wings trying to prove a point!”
Azriel ignored him. He angled higher where the air thinned and the stars stretched endless above the world.
Since the war with Hybern ended, sleep had been a stranger. Every time he closed his eyes something inside him stirred awake again, a tension with no name and no end. He knew that feeling. He had lived with it his entire life, but now it felt different. There was no war to fight, no enemy to hunt, no monster to kill. Only peace. And somehow that was worse.
Rhys and Feyre had found joy in rebuilding. Cassian and Nesta were mated, spending their days between sparring and loving each other so fiercely that everyone else learned to stay out of the way. Amren had settled with Varian in her own sharp and feral way. Even Elain had begun to find her footing again. She laughed more, sometimes even visited Lucien in the Day Court.
Everyone had someone.
Everyone except him.
He filled the quiet with work until Rhys forced him to rest. He helped Cassian train the priestesses, pushed himself harder, further, faster. He even let Gwyn’s bright humor pull him into friendship, though they both quickly realized that was all it would ever be.
So he trained alone. It was the only thing that quieted the noise in his mind.
“If you can’t keep up, just say it,” Azriel called over his shoulder, his voice even.
Cassian’s laugh echoed across the wind. “Please. You couldn’t lose me if you tried. You fly like an old man.”
Azriel’s mouth curved slightly. “And yet I’m still ahead of you.”
“You mean barely,” Cassian said, drawing level. “What are we doing, Az? You trying to outfly your thoughts again?”
Azriel didn’t answer. He tilted his wings and dropped into a dive. The wind howled. Cassian swore and followed, landing hard beside him on the balcony of the House of Wind.
Cassian flexed his wings, grinning. “You’re insufferable, you know that?”
Azriel tugged his leathers tighter. “You talk too much.”
Cassian laughed, clapping him on the back. “And yet you keep me around. Must be love.”
“Or pity.”
Cassian’s grin widened. “I’ll take either.”
“Come on,” he said as they stepped inside. “Nesta’s still in the ring. She’ll say I’m avoiding her again.”
Nesta was, in fact, still training when they reached the courtyard. Her braid was loose and sweat gleamed along her neck as she corrected one of the priestesses’ stances. The air rang with the sound of steel and breath.
Cassian leaned against the railing, arms crossed, eyes soft with pride. “Look at them. I can barely keep up anymore.”
“She’s effective,” Azriel said, watching the sharpness in Nesta’s movements.
Cassian chuckled. “You mean terrifying and effective.”
Nesta turned toward them as if sensing their eyes. “You’re late,” she called, voice cool.
Cassian spread his hands. “Azriel needed air. I’m being supportive.”
“You’re being annoying,” she said.
“Same thing.”
Her eyes rolled skyward but her mouth twitched, a smile threatening before she turned back to the ring.
Azriel stayed a moment longer, watching the priestesses train. There was strength in the rhythm of their blades, quiet and deliberate. He admired it. They were rebuilding themselves piece by piece, just as he was trying to do.
Dinner that night was loud. Cassian’s laughter boomed, Mor’s stories filled the air, Feyre smiled softly beside Rhys as he watched her like she was the only thing that existed. Even Amren looked entertained, in her own cool and predatory way.
Azriel sat at his usual place across from Rhys, Elain beside him. Her presence was gentle, grounding.
Cassian was in the middle of another ridiculous story when Mor cut in. “That is not how it happened,” she said, laughing.
“You weren’t even there,” Cassian replied.
“I was the one who saved you,” she said.
“You distracted the wrong guard.”
“I distracted the right one,” Mor said. “He just didn’t survive it.”
Rhys chuckled quietly. “Remind me to never send the two of you on a diplomatic mission together.”
Amren lifted her glass. “Diplomacy is wasted on them.”
“Better than being boring,” Cassian muttered.
Feyre laughed softly and leaned against Rhys’s shoulder. The warmth of the room wrapped around them all.
Until Elain went still.
Her fork slipped from her hand and hit the plate with a sound that cut through the chatter.
“Elain?” Feyre asked, her voice careful.
Elain didn’t look at her. Her gaze had gone unfocused, lips parting as if she were listening to something none of them could hear.
“She ran,” Elain said quietly. “Long ago, before the courts were divided.”
The table went silent.
“She was meant to rule them all,” she continued, her voice distant. “But she hid. She hid so well that even the stars forgot her.”
Cassian straightened in his chair. Nesta froze.
“Elain,” Feyre said again, cautious and soft, “who are you talking about?”
Elain blinked, her voice trembling. “The heir. The last one. She’s alive.”
Then her eyes cleared. Confusion washed over her face. “I don’t know what I just said.”
No one spoke.
Dinner ended quietly.
Later, they gathered in Rhys’s office. The fire burned low, shadows stretching long across the marble floor.
Cassian paced, restless. “You can feel it. The human queens are whispering again. Spring is a mess. Autumn’s too quiet. If someone doesn’t take control soon, this peace will break.”
Feyre frowned. “You think we should be the ones to do that.”
Cassian glanced at Rhys. “You already lead, whether you admit it or not. Maybe Prythian needs that officially. One ruler. One command.”
Rhys leaned back in his chair, calm as ever. “Unity doesn’t come from a crown.”
Azriel stood near the window, watching the lights of Velaris flicker far below. His shadows curled along the glass. “He isn’t wrong,” he said. “Division has always been our weakness.”
Feyre’s gaze found him. “And you think one ruler would fix that?”
Azriel’s expression didn’t change. “Someone will try, eventually. Better it be someone we trust.”
Amren, who had been silent until then, made a low sound of amusement. “Perhaps that’s why Elain opened her pretty mouth tonight.”
Cassian turned. “You think she was seeing something real?”
Amren smiled, all teeth and shadows. “You’d be a fool to dismiss her visions.”
Rhys’s tone sharpened. “You know something.”
“I know many things,” she said lazily, turning her wine glass in her hand. “Some are better left sleeping.”
Mor crossed her arms. “You’re talking about the old stories again.”
Amren’s eyes gleamed. “Stories have roots. Sometimes they still breathe.”
Feyre tilted her head. “Do you remember the name?”
For a moment Amren’s expression shifted. The air seemed to still. Then she said, “Y/N.”
The name hung in the air like the echo of a bell.
Azriel froze. His heart stumbled once before steadying again. His shadows recoiled from the sound, then crept closer, restless and uncertain.
Feyre glanced around the room. “Who is that?”
Amren finished her wine and set the glass down. “Someone the world forgot,” she said quietly. “Perhaps wisely.” She paused at the door, the firelight catching the edge of her smile. “But not everything buried stays lost.”
And she was gone.
The room stayed silent long after the door closed.
Cassian’s usual humor was nowhere to be found. Rhys sat thoughtful and still, his eyes on the flames. Feyre’s hand was tight around his.
Azriel said nothing. The name echoed inside him, unfamiliar yet heavy, as if it belonged somewhere deep in his bones.
His shadows whispered it again and again, their voices low and unending.
Summary: A mission gone wrong hurls Azriel into a parallel Velaris. There, he meets a woman who knew him intimately in her world. As they search for a way to send him back, grief tangles with growing affection. He teaches her how to breathe again; she shows him a version of himself he never knew could exist. But the Cauldron is cracking, time unraveling. He must leave—or risk destroying everything.
Warnings: grief, past death of a loved one, emotional angst, mentions of trauma, memory loss, canon divergence. Bittersweet but healing.
Word count: 11.6k
A/N: I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of soul-deep connection, something that survives even across worlds. Writing this fic was a journey of emotion, comfort, and quiet hope, and I truly hope it resonates with you. Also, English is my third language, so thank you for your patience with any little mistakes along the way. I’m always learning, and I’m just grateful to be able to share this story with you. Thank you for reading 💙
The spell left her fingertips just as he vanished.
The witch’s lips moved in a frantic whisper, the ancient incantation torn from her throat like a last breath, desperate and reckless. Magic sparked blue at her hands, arcing like lightning across the broken altar stones. It twisted into the air, weightless and burning, then launched toward the night sky.
But Azriel was already gone.
He didn’t see the light flare behind him. Didn’t hear the way the wind screamed as it bent around the surge of power.
His wings beat once, powerful and sure, and then the shadows took him.
Velaris.
His destination shaped itself in his mind, rooftops glistening with dew, the scent of citrus and moonflower in the air. The shadows wrapped around him like silk, folding the world inward and then outward until the mountains welcomed him home.
His boots touched stone.
He exhaled slowly, the winnow sliding off his skin like a second breath. Easy. Clean. Just like always.
The balcony beneath him was familiar, high above the Sidra, at the top of the House of Wind. The air was sharp with pine and river mist, a spring breeze curling over the tiles.
He glanced up. And paused.
The stars were wrong.
Only slightly. Barely noticeable. But Azriel had flown these skies long enough to know every constellation, every shift in the heavens, they were old friends, silent sentries. And now, the stars blinked like strangers.
Frowning, he stepped forward, shadows curling idly at his heels. The door was unlocked. Odd. He stepped inside. The House was quiet. Too quiet.
Not in the peaceful way it usually was but empty. Hollow. As if no one had passed through in days. No scent of food, no lingering traces of Cassian’s boisterous laughter or Feyre’s paint-streaked energy. Just silence.
Azriel reached for the bond. Rhysand.
No answer. He stilled.
He pressed harder, pushing through the mental link, summoning the familiar pulse of his High Lord's mind.
Rhys. Come in.
Nothing. Like throwing a stone into water that didn’t ripple.
He tried again Cassian? Mor? but each attempt came back with the same flat silence.
A cold unease began to thread through his chest. The shadows responded immediately, rising like smoke along his shoulders, alert and watchful.
Something was off.
He launched into the skies again, this time gliding silently over Velaris. It looked... untouched.
The buildings were the same. The Sidra still shimmered like liquid silver beneath him. People walked the streets below. But when he dipped lower, he saw the way they looked up.
Saw the expressions that bloomed across their faces. Not awe. Not fear. Shock.
One woman clutched her child tighter to her side, eyes wide as she watched him pass. A group of males at a café stopped mid-conversation, staring. One stood abruptly, knocking over his chair, his mouth falling open.
Azriel’s shadows coiled tighter. He landed in an alleyway behind the familiar stretch of the Rainbow, his feet hitting cobblestone with barely a sound.
He turned toward the street, and froze. A shop window reflected him.
His armor, his blades, his shadows, all exactly as they should be. But behind him, in the glass, Velaris was... different. Too bright. Too sharp. Like the color had been turned up just a little too high.
He blinked. Turned. The illusion held.
No, he thought. Not illusion. Not glamour. This is real.
The truth whispered through him like a crack in the foundation. He was home. But something was wrong with home. The streets felt narrower here.
Or maybe it was the way people kept staring, some openly, some with barely concealed glances over shoulders, as if they’d seen a ghost and didn’t want to be rude about it.
Azriel kept to the shadows. He’d just rounded the edge of the Rainbow when he heard the gasp. A sharp inhale, half-shocked, half-sucked through clenched teeth.
He turned.
She stood beneath the awning of a flower stall, a spray of wild violets clutched in one hand, her other frozen mid-reach.
Human. Or maybe half-Fae. Familiar enough to recognize the expression on her face: recognition slammed into disbelief, then sank quickly into pale, careful confusion.
She didn’t speak at first.
Azriel gave her a cautious nod, not slowing his stride.
She took a step toward him. "That’s not funny."
He stopped. "I beg your pardon?"
She stared. “Who put you up to this?”
Azriel tilted his head, shadows coiling tighter around his boots. “No one put me up to anything.”
Her hand trembled, still gripping the stems. “You shouldn’t wear his, I mean, your armor. That’s... sick. Even for Cassian.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said evenly. “Who are you?”
Her brows drew together, uncertain now, brittle. “This isn’t funny,” she said again, softer this time. “Is this some sort of cruel Solstice prank?”
“I don’t play pranks.”
“No, he didn’t either,” she whispered. “Not like this.”
Something in her eyes shifted. The anger cracked, just a hairline fracture and beneath it, something raw flickered into view. Fear. Or maybe hope.
She dropped the violets.
Azriel stepped forward instinctively, but she flinched, then shook her head, waving him off like she couldn’t bear to be helped.
“This has to be a mistake,” she muttered. “Or... or a glamour. Are you-? No. You can’t be...”
She looked up at him again, really looked, and he watched her decide something.
“You need to come with me.”
Azriel hesitated. “Why?”
She didn’t answer, just turned on her heel.
“I don’t follow strangers,” he called after her.
She paused at the corner. “You’re not following a stranger.”
She looked back. And for a moment, her expression softened not quite fond, not quite grief-stricken, but edged in something that made his stomach twist.
“You’re following a friend of hers.”
Azriel’s wings rustled. “Her?”
“She’ll know what to do with you.” A beat. “Or... what’s left of her will.”
He didn’t like the sound of that.
But the shadows, ever attuned to unspoken truths, whispered go.
So he followed.
────────────
The children were covered in paint.
It wasn’t entirely her fault. The sun was warm, the breeze soft, and after a long week of rain and restlessness, she had promised them something fun. So the easels were out, brushes flying, water cups sloshing precariously on the garden stones.
Y/N knelt beside a little girl with wild curls and green streaks on her cheeks, helping her mix blue and white into a swirl of sky.
"Like this?" the girl asked, tongue between her teeth in concentration.
"Perfect," Y/N murmured, smiling. "That looks just like a cloud before it rains."
Laughter bubbled nearby. The world, for once, felt light enough to hold.
So she didn’t notice the footsteps at first. Or the quiet tension just beyond the garden gate. Not until a shadow crossed her canvas.
She looked up.
Her friend stood there, a strange expression on her face. Breathless, like she’d been running, though the walk from town wasn’t far. And behind her, half in the sun and half in the shade, stood a male Y/N hadn’t seen in a very long time.
Everything stopped.
The paintbrush slipped from her fingers. Her breath caught on the edge of his name, but she didn’t say it. Couldn’t.
He looked the same.
The armor, the blades, the face she’d memorized long ago. The face she still saw in dreams, the one she sometimes whispered to when sleep clung too tightly. But there was something missing. No recognition in his eyes. No quiet pull between them. Just… calm. Measured wariness. And then there were these things... shadows?
He wasn’t hers.
Not really.
Her friend stepped aside, watching her carefully.
Y/N rose slowly, brushing her hands against her apron out of habit, though streaks of dried paint still clung to her palms.
Azriel’s eyes followed the motion.
She didn’t speak. Not at first. She just stared.
And he stared back.
One of the children tugged on her sleeve. “Miss Y/N? Is that the scary man you told us stories about?”
A huff of laughter slipped from her friend, almost hysterical. Y/N managed a breath.
"No, sweetheart," she said quietly. "He’s not scary at all."
Azriel tilted his head. “You know me.”
She swallowed, forcing her eyes to stay dry. “Not you, exactly.”
He looked down for a moment, then back at her, something almost apologetic in the tilt of his brow.
"I'm not supposed to be here, am I?"
She took a step closer, heart pounding, unsure what to do with it all. The sight of him. The voice. The way her body recognized him even if he didn’t recognize her.
"No," she said. "But you're here all the same."
The breeze picked up, rustling through the garden. The scent of lilac and paint and spring.
She didn’t cry. Not yet.
But the world felt suddenly too full, and too empty, all at once. "Come inside," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "We need to talk."
And he followed her, just like he used to. Even if he didn’t know why.
Y/N kept her voice steady as she called over to the other caretaker, a soft-spoken male named Tarian who’d been helping with the younger ones that day.
“Arios, would you mind staying a little longer? I need to step away for a bit.”
He glanced up from where he was braiding daisies into a toddler’s hair, his expression gentle but curious. His eyes flicked briefly to the male standing behind her, then back. He didn’t ask questions. Just nodded once.
“Of course. Take all the time you need.”
She offered a grateful smile she didn’t feel, touched a child’s shoulder in passing, and turned.
“Follow me,” she said without looking back.
Azriel obeyed in silence.
The garden gave way to the winding path toward the cottage she used for art and quiet reading. It was set apart from the others, tucked between climbing roses and silver-barked trees. Each step she took seemed more uncertain than the last, but her posture stayed rigid, collected. Just enough to keep from unraveling.
Azriel’s eyes moved over everything as they walked.
The cobblestones here weren’t the same. Laid in a different pattern, slightly darker in hue, almost as if the rain had never stopped soaking into them. The flowering vines on the archway above them curled in unfamiliar directions, lavender in color where they should have been white. And the House of Wind, though distant, didn’t quite look like itself either. The cliffs cradled it too tightly. As if the mountains had shifted just enough to close their grip.
Velaris. But wrong.
Beautiful still, but subtly off. A painting that someone had copied from memory rather than life. Familiar and foreign in the same breath.
He could feel the magic in the air too. Not buzzing. Not screaming. Just trembling softly at the edges of everything, like a note held too long on a string.
His shadows had quieted, uncertain of what to guard against.
He studied the woman in front of him. She moved like she was trying not to feel. Like her heart had shattered and she'd pressed the pieces back in place with nothing but breath and willpower. She wasn’t crying. But the tension in her shoulders said she could, at any moment.
“Are you alright?” he asked, voice low but clear.
She didn’t stop walking.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
Her voice didn’t shake. It didn’t need to. The words landed like a stone in his chest.
Azriel let the silence stretch. Not empty. Not awkward. Just necessary. He understood grief. He lived in the shadows of it.
But this was something else. This was her past colliding with his present. And whatever version of himself had once belonged to this world, it was obvious that he had belonged to her.
And now, somehow, so did the weight of his absence.
They reached the door to the cottage. She paused with her hand on the knob, inhaling slowly, the breath catching like a thread snagged on glass.
She looked at him, truly looked. Not at the armor or the blades or the shadows, but at his face. Like she was trying to find something in it. Or make peace with the fact that she wouldn't.
Then she pushed the door open, stepped inside, and let the light swallow her.
Azriel followed.
And for the first time since arriving, he felt the world shift slightly again. Not the magic. Not the timeline. Just his own heart. Something had cracked open.
And he didn’t know yet whether it was meant to be sealed again, or stepped through.
The door clicked softly shut behind them.
Inside, the air was warm with the faint scent of paint and clay and something citrus-sweet, orange peel maybe, left out in a little bowl on the windowsill. Children’s drawings lined the walls, some framed with pressed flowers, others curling at the corners from age or love.
Azriel stood just inside, uncertain of the space but unwilling to impose.
Y/N moved slowly. Not towards him, but toward the shelf where the water pitcher sat. She poured herself a glass with steady hands. Didn’t offer one. Didn’t look at him. Just needed something to do.
Azriel let the silence hold for a moment before speaking.
“I don’t think this is my world,” he said quietly.
She glanced at him, then back at her glass.
“I figured.”
He nodded, stepping forward. The wooden floor creaked faintly beneath his boots. He stopped a few paces from her, careful not to cross whatever invisible line she needed right now.
“There was a mission,” he said. “We were tracking a rogue spell-weaver. A witch who’d been bending too many old laws. I...” He exhaled slowly. “I might’ve said the wrong thing at the wrong time. I made her angry.”
Y/N set her glass down but didn’t drink from it. “And?”
“She was casting something. Ancient magic. I interrupted her. I thought I’d stopped her in time.” He gave a small shake of his head. “But something must have hit me. Something… twisted.”
She finally looked at him then, brows slightly furrowed. “You’re saying she sent you here?”
“I think so,” he said. “Not on purpose, maybe. But the spell left her hands just as I winnowed. I landed in Velaris. But not mine.”
He looked toward the window, out at the sky that wasn’t quite the right shade, at the garden path that curved too gently.
“I knew the moment I saw the stars. They’re wrong here. Familiar, but rearranged. Like someone shuffled the sky when I wasn’t looking.”
She said nothing for a long beat. Then, softly, “You’re a Shadowsinger there?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“And who… who do you work for?”
Azriel’s mouth twitched slightly. “Rhysand. High Lord of the Night Court. I’m his spymaster.”
Her breath caught. He could hear it, even with the distance between them. She looked down at her hands, fingers curling in against her palms.
He took a half-step closer. “I didn’t catch your name,” he said, his voice gentler now. “May I ask?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Swallowed.
Then, almost to herself, she said, “Your voice is exactly the same.”
Azriel went still.
Her eyes flicked up to his. “The way you speak. It’s like… like he’s standing here.”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t know how to.
She closed her eyes briefly, as if the air itself had become too heavy.
“My name is Y/N,” she said finally. Quiet, but clear. “I used to mean something to you. I mean, to him. In this world.”
Azriel let the weight of it settle between them.
“I believe that,” he said.
Azriel’s eyes lingered on Y/N’s face, on the way she held herself just a little too still, like one wrong move might shatter the fragile calm she’d built around her.
“If you don’t mind,” he said carefully, “could you tell me more about this place? This version of Velaris. Is Rhysand the High Lord here too?”
Something shifted in her expression. Not shock. Just quiet confusion.
“Rhysand,” she repeated, as if tasting the name for the first time. “I’ve never heard that name before.”
That struck deeper than he expected. He kept his face impassive, but inside, a slow ripple of unease moved through him. Rhysand had ruled for centuries. If no one here knew his name…
“Then who rules the Night Court?” he asked.
“Lord Tharanis,” she said. “He’s been High Lord since before I was born.”
The name meant nothing to him. Not even a whisper of familiarity. Another piece of the puzzle that proved it beyond doubt, this world wasn’t just a copy. It was a divergence. A different thread entirely.
Y/N must have seen something in his face, because she stepped away from the table and crossed to one of the nearby shelves, tracing her fingers over the spines of a row of books without reading any of them.
“There’s a witch who lives near the cliffs on the eastern side of the city,” she said. “She studies old magic. Real old. Quiet about it, but good. We could ask her to help. Maybe she’ll know how to get you back.”
Azriel caught the way she said it. We. But the tone didn’t hold warmth. It was kindness, not invitation. She wanted him to leave.
He watched her closely now, the subtle tension in her shoulders, the way her hand paused over a small ceramic sculpture on the shelf but didn’t pick it up. She didn’t want to look at him again.
He took a step closer, his voice soft. “Are you afraid of what might happen if I stay?”
Her gaze stayed fixed on the shelf. “No.”
“Then what is it?”
Silence.
Then she turned, slowly. Her eyes met his, clear and unwavering.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “But you’re not supposed to be here. And… part of me keeps waiting for him to walk in.” She didn’t blink. Didn’t look away. “And he won’t.”
Azriel didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
Her voice was steady now. Empty of drama, full of weight.
“My Azriel died,” she said. “Years ago. Not in battle. Not in glory. Just a quiet thing. Magic sickness. He didn’t even tell me until it was too far gone. He thought he could protect me from it.”
Her breath shivered at the edges.
“And he’s been gone long enough that I stopped dreaming of him. Until today.”
Azriel exhaled, low and slow. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Y/N gave the smallest nod, then sat down on the edge of a low bench, hands resting on her knees.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” she admitted. “You’re not him. But every time I look at you, my chest forgets that.”
Azriel lowered himself into the chair across from her. No armor between them now, no title. Just two people caught in something too large to name.
“I’ll help you find a way home,” she said again, quieter this time.
But Azriel wasn’t sure if she meant it for his sake, or hers. Maybe both. And maybe neither of them knew what it would cost when the way opened.
────────────
The room was small but clean. Simple linens on the bed, a chipped blue vase on the windowsill with a few sprigs of dried lavender tucked inside. The shutters creaked faintly in the wind as Azriel stood at the window, arms folded, staring out at the river.
The Sidra glittered under the early evening light, silver and shadowed, the current moving slow as syrup. In his Velaris, it danced faster. The curve of it was a touch different too, this one bent around a cluster of buildings that shouldn't exist. The skyline was off by inches, by centuries. He couldn’t stop cataloging it.
His shadows whispered around him, brushing the walls, curling through the corners of the room like restless thoughts. They brought him details he hadn’t asked for. The smell of something baking three floors below. The hushed footsteps of a couple arguing in the hallway. The flick of a candle being snuffed out in a room across the street. And whispers — always whispers — carrying scraps of names, old magic, things his mind could barely catch before they slipped away.
But he couldn’t focus.
He watched the light shift on the water, caught between the golden pull of sunset and the first hints of stars above. Stars that didn’t belong to him.
How many versions of Velaris were out there? How many Azriels? In this one, he had lived. Loved. And died.
He turned away from the window, ran a hand through his hair, let his fingers drag over his jaw.
He’d seen grief in Y/N’s eyes, coiled tight under her calm. But what haunted him more was the way she looked at him, like her heart didn’t know how to tell the difference yet.
He wanted to ask her. Everything. What he had been like. What he’d done. What they’d been.
But some part of him worried that asking would crack her open, and he wasn’t sure she’d ever put herself back together again.
Still, the questions clawed at him.
He needed to know. If not from her, then from someone who hadn’t loved that version of him with their whole chest.
His mind returned to the woman from earlier, the friend who’d brought him to Y/N in the first place. Sharp-eyed. Suspicious. Protective. She knew more than she’d said.
And if he and Y/N were going to visit the witch tomorrow afternoon, then this was his only chance to find answers before everything shifted again.
Azriel strapped his knives back onto his belt, out of habit more than necessity, and cast one last glance toward the Sidra.
The sky was deepening, thick with color. A world of strangers, and one familiar soul. He slipped into the shadows. And went looking for the truth.
Azriel found her near the edge of the old market, tucked behind a row of shuttered stalls. She stood alone by a railing that overlooked the Sidra, arms crossed tightly as she watched the river move in silence. The lanterns from the lower paths cast flickers of gold against her dark coat.
He didn’t try to be stealthy. He wanted her to see him coming.
She did.
“You’re not exactly subtle,” she muttered, her gaze flicking to his armor, his shadows, the stillness in the way he moved.
“I wasn’t trying to be,” Azriel said, stopping a few steps away.
She exhaled, jaw set. “If you’re looking for Y/N, she’s not here.”
“I came to talk to you.”
She hesitated. “Why?”
“Because I need to understand what this place is. What he was.”
The muscles in her arms tightened where they crossed. “You don’t get to dig through his life like it’s a map back to yours. He wasn’t a version of you. He was someone… And that someone was married to her.”
The moment the word left her mouth, her expression shifted, a slight widening of her eyes, as if she’d only just realized what she’d said.
Azriel’s voice was quiet. “Married?”
She flinched but didn’t deny it. Didn’t backtrack.
“Yes,” she said. “Since they were hundred-twenty-four.”
His breath caught. The word sat in his chest like a stone, unfamiliar and too big to ignore.
She watched him carefully. Noticing, perhaps for the first time, the way he didn’t quite stand like the Azriel she knew. How he held tension in his body like it was armor. How the shadows around him didn’t just cling — they listened.
“You really don’t know anything about this world, do you?” she said, softer now.
“No,” Azriel admitted.
And then, slowly, like the weight of his surprise had unlocked something in her, she began to speak.
“They grew up together. Their fathers were old friends, your father was a smith, hers a spice merchant. They were just… always around each other. Always in each other’s orbit. You used to tease her for stealing fruit off your plate. She used to braid flowers into your hair when you fell asleep in the fields behind her house.”
Azriel listened in silence, the image unfolding before him like a story written in a hand he almost recognized.
“He became a soldier,” she said. “Not a Shadowsinger, he didn't have those shadows. Just a fighter. Loyal. Brave. A little reckless, when it came to her.”
Azriel’s hands were still at his sides, but his knuckles had gone pale.
“He loved her,” she went on. “More than anything. He was quieter than most of the other males we grew up with. Thoughtful. Steady. But gods, when he looked at her…”
She trailed off, blinking fast.
Azriel said nothing. There was something raw sitting in his throat, but he didn’t know what name to give it.
“They were married under the spring cherry trees,” she added after a moment. “I stood beside her. I watched him shake when he kissed her.”
He closed his eyes briefly. The breeze off the Sidra caught the edge of his coat, pulling it slightly. His shadows stayed close, hushed, as if mourning someone they’d never met.
“He died nine years ago,” the friend said finally. “It wasn’t his fault. But it didn’t matter. She hasn’t been the same since.”
Azriel’s voice was barely above a whisper. “And now I’m here.”
She looked at him again, really looked, and for the first time, her eyes softened. “You’re not him,” she said. “But you’re not nothing either.”
Silence stretched between them, and Azriel breathed through the ache of it.
“I don’t want to hurt her,” he said.
“I know,” she answered.
And they stood together at the edge of a world where two lives had almost, impossibly, collided.
Y/N shut the door behind her, turned the lock with trembling fingers, and let her back fall against the wood.
For a long time, she didn’t move.
Velaris was quiet beyond the window, the kind of stillness that always came after the children's laughter faded and the lanterns blinked to life across the Sidra. But the city felt foreign now. Tilted somehow. Too sharp in its familiarity. Like someone had redrawn the lines of everything she'd learned to live with.
She pressed a hand to her cheek and felt the tears that had dried there. She hadn't even noticed when they'd fallen.
Slowly, her feet carried her into the room that used to be theirs.
The walls were warm with the same soft blue he used to say reminded him of summer skies. Her fingers brushed the edge of the dresser, skimming over the old glass bottles and the cluster of pressed flowers still sealed in a frame.
She reached for the drawer beneath the bed. It groaned softly in protest. And there it was. The painting.
A small canvas, edges frayed from being held too many times. A portrait, clumsy, rough-edged, painted on a spring afternoon years ago when the breeze kept stealing her brush and he wouldn’t stop laughing. She’d made him sit still for it, half-scowling, half-grinning. His hand was on hers in the picture, even though she’d never meant to paint that part.
She cradled it in both hands now, sinking slowly to the floor, her back against the side of the bed. Her forehead pressed to the edge of the frame.
He looked so young in it. And now he was standing in her world again. Breathing again. Looking at her with the same eyes but none of the memory.
She had told herself she was fine. That she could handle this. That helping him find his way home was the right thing to do.
But the truth hit her like a blow to the ribs. He wasn’t her Azriel. Her Azriel was gone.
Gone in a way that left the world quieter. In a way that had hollowed out parts of her she’d never been able to refill. And now this new one, this stranger who wore his face and spoke with his voice, had stepped into her life like the echo of a dream she’d spent years trying to forget.
It was too much.
Her hand curled around the bottom of the frame, and her breath hitched.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, voice breaking. “I don’t know how to breathe around you.”
A shadow slipped through the crack beneath the door.
She didn’t see it. Didn’t feel the gentle shift in air as it moved, curious, cautious. It hovered in the corner of the room, keeping its distance like it understood grief by instinct alone.
She pressed her face into her knees, shoulders shaking.
“I miss you,” she whispered. “I miss you every day.”
The shadow watched, then slipped back through the wood and stone, weaving between alleys and eaves, past flower boxes and lit windows, all the way across Velaris.
It found him at the inn, standing at the window again, still staring at the stars that didn’t belong to him. And when it reached him, it didn’t speak. It didn’t have to.
He felt the truth curl against his ribs as the shadow touched his shoulder, cold with the ache of her.
She was crying.
And somehow, the sound of it broke something open in him too.
────────────
The sun was warm where it filtered through the trees, casting soft shadows across the cobblestone walk. Azriel stood near the gate of the care station, wings tucked in, hands clasped loosely behind his back as he waited.
He didn’t have to turn when he felt her approach. The shadows told him before her footsteps ever reached the stone.
Y/N’s pace was steady, but her shoulders were a little higher than usual, her chin set with quiet resolve. Her eyes met his as she stopped beside him, and for a heartbeat, neither of them spoke.
Then Azriel offered a soft, “How are you doing today?”
She looked at him for a long moment, then gave a small, honest smile. “Coping,” she said. “But… it’s hard. Seeing you like this. Every time I look at you, my heart forgets, for just a second, and then it remembers all over again.”
Azriel nodded, gently. “That makes sense. I'm sorry you have to go through this all."
She glanced at him sideways, searching. “And you? How are you doing in a world that doesn’t quite know you?”
His mouth lifted slightly. “Figuring it out as I go. Trying not to get too attached to the wrong sky.”
That surprised a breath of laughter out of her, small, but real.
“I thought maybe,” he said, “you’d feel better if I distracted you a little.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” she admitted, her voice softer now.
They fell into step, walking side by side down the shaded street that led toward the edge of the city.
“You mentioned a High Lady,” she prompted after a pause. “You really have one in your world?”
Azriel nodded. “Feyre. She’s my High Lady, and Rhysand’s mate.”
Y/N blinked, eyes wide. “You have a mated High Lady?”
“We do,” he said. “And she earned it. She was mortal once. Human. Fought through war and death to save our kind. Rhysand gave her the title because she earned her place beside him. Not behind. Not beneath. Beside.”
Y/N shook her head slowly, clearly captivated. “I’ve never even heard of a female high ruler. In our court, the males still hold the bloodlines. Always have.”
“Feyre shattered that,” Azriel said with quiet pride. “And she didn’t do it alone. Mor helped guide her. Amren too. Powerful females, each in their own way.”
Y/N’s brows lifted. “You’re surrounded by strong women.”
He gave a faint, rueful smile. “That’s an understatement.”
The wind stirred as they turned onto a narrower path lined with stone lanterns.
“I think I would’ve liked your Feyre,” she said after a moment.
“She would’ve liked you too,” he said. “She sees people. The quiet strength in them. The ache they carry. She would’ve seen yours right away.”
Y/N looked at him then, really looked, and for a brief moment, the weight behind her eyes eased.
Ahead, the path curved upward toward the rise of a mossy hill. At the top stood a narrow building nestled in wisteria vines, its windows darkened with age, a carved raven perched over the lintel.
“She’s in there?” Y/N asked.
Azriel nodded. “I can feel the wards already.”
They stopped at the base of the hill.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Are you?”
She took a breath that trembled slightly. Then nodded.
And together, they climbed toward the witch who might hold the answers, and the thread that would lead him home, or unravel everything they’d just begun to hold.
The climb slowed as they reached the top of the hill. The weight of the city seemed to fall away behind them, replaced by the heavy scent of moss and wildflowers. The air was cooler here, still enough that the faint rustle of leaves sounded like a secret waiting to be shared.
Azriel glanced at Y/N. She stood a few steps ahead, shoulders squared but tension visible in the tight set of her jaw, the way her fingers curled lightly at her sides.
He shifted, shadows flickering softly around his ankles, a quiet reminder of the darkness he carried and the light she tried to protect.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said quietly.
She looked back, surprise flickering in her eyes, but her voice was steady. “I don’t know any other way forward.”
He nodded, stepping closer, feeling the subtle tremor in her breath. “Whatever happens in there, I want you to know...”
She cut him off with a small, sad smile. “You already know. It’s not the witch I’m afraid of. It’s what comes after.”
Azriel’s fingers itched to reach for hers, but he held back. “Then we face it together.”
She swallowed, eyes drifting to the carved raven above the door. “I’m not sure if I’m brave enough.”
“You’re braver than you think,” he said, voice low enough that only she could hear.
They stood side by side, the silence stretching between them like a fragile thread. Azriel’s shadows curled protectively, sensing her fear, her hope, and the impossible bond that held them here, tangled between loss and the chance at something new.
Y/N took a shaky breath, and without another word, she lifted her hand and knocked.
The door creaked open slowly, revealing a dim interior that smelled of damp stone, dried herbs, and something older, the scent of magic that had been rooted there long before Velaris rose around it.
The witch was already waiting.
She stood at the center of the room, pale hair swept into a thick braid, her eyes the color of moonstone. Everything about her felt quiet and vast, like a pond with no surface ripple — but Azriel felt the power gathered beneath her skin like coiled smoke.
“You’re not from here,” she said before they even stepped inside.
Azriel inclined his head. “No.”
She gestured them in, and the door shut behind them with a breathless hush. Y/N hovered just behind him, silent, wary.
“Explain,” the witch said, voice like frost curling up a windowpane.
Azriel took his time. He told her about the mission. The witch he’d cornered. The way she screamed in an old tongue as she’d vanished into shadow. The spell that had struck as he was winnowing away. And the moment he landed in Velaris only to find that the stars were wrong and nothing quite fit.
The witch listened without interrupting. When he finished, she moved to the shelves lining the curved wall, fingers gliding over jars and scrolls like she already knew what she’d find.
“That’s weaving magic,” she murmured. “Time-threading. Ancient. Nearly extinct.”
Azriel’s brow furrowed. “You recognize it?”
“Barely,” she replied. “It’s old enough that even most witches have only read about it in theory. Which means the one you angered was exceptionally trained… or dangerous beyond sense. Or both.”
Y/N swallowed, watching the way the witch’s shoulders tightened.
“So what does that mean?” she asked quietly. “Is there a way to undo it?”
The witch turned, scroll in hand. “Maybe. But not quickly. This kind of casting unravels space around it, rips a hole through layered time. You’re not just misplaced, Shadowsinger. You’re displaced. And you’ve dragged the thread of your world with you.”
Azriel stilled. “What are you saying?”
The witch looked at him like a storm just waiting to form. “The Cauldron can only bear so much. When a being slips through timelines like this, especially one bound to another world, another rhythm, the strain begins to tear at the core of everything. Realms blur. Boundaries weaken. If you stay much longer, the damage could become… irreversible.”
Y/N’s breath left her in a slow, unsteady exhale.
The witch's voice dropped lower. “One wrong soul in the wrong timeline is a ripple that doesn’t end. Eventually, the Cauldron cracks. And if that happens, it won’t be just you or this world that falls. The entire weave could collapse, all timelines, all lives. Every version of you. Every version of you and her.”
She didn’t have to gesture toward Y/N for the words to land like a blade.
Azriel’s voice was quiet. “Can you fix it?”
The witch hesitated. “I can try. I’ll need time. And help. I’ll reach out to every coven that still remembers the old languages. But we’re not talking about days. You have to be ready when the moment comes, and it will come suddenly. We may only get one chance.”
Azriel nodded once. “Understood.”
The witch gave him a long, unreadable look. Then turned her gaze to Y/N.
“I don’t need to ask how much it hurts to see him,” she said. “But I do need you to understand that if you keep trying to hold him here, even with your heart, the cost might not stop with you.”
The silence that followed was heavy. The kind that broke bones.
Y/N didn’t speak as they left the witch’s house. Not at first.
But when they reached the edge of the hill, with Velaris spread beneath them like a world pretending to be whole, she finally whispered, “You really do have to go.”
And Azriel, who had watched the edges of her tremble and steel themselves with quiet dignity, didn’t argue.
He simply said, “I know.”
The sun had shifted lower by the time they made their way down the hill, painting Velaris in a watercolor haze of lilac and pale gold. The path was narrow, flanked by wild heather and whispering grass, the city glittering below like a dream waiting to be remembered.
Y/N walked beside him in silence, gaze flicking to the horizon, her jaw tight with thought.
Azriel didn’t speak. He could feel the tension in her steps, the storm moving behind her quiet eyes. It was a familiar silence, but not a comfortable one. This wasn’t the silence they’d shared in the witch’s house, filled with fear and consequence. This one was quieter. Raw. Human.
“I know it’s dangerous,” she said suddenly, voice low, like she wasn’t quite ready to admit it out loud. “I know you shouldn’t be here. I understand what’s at stake, what could break because of this.”
He glanced at her, but she kept her eyes forward.
“And still,” she breathed, “some part of me was hoping you could stay. Just a little while longer.”
Azriel’s heart thudded against his ribs. He said nothing, waiting.
Y/N shook her head, her voice thinning with guilt. “It’s selfish. I didn’t even think about… Oh gods...” she stopped walking and turned to him, wide-eyed. “Is someone waiting for you back home?”
Azriel blinked. Then slowly, gently, he said, “No. No one like that.”
She looked away, swallowing hard, but not before he saw the flicker of relief that passed through her features. Relief and shame.
“My family,” he added, softer, “my court. They’ll be worried. But they can wait a bit longer… if staying here means I might help you heal.”
Y/N’s lips parted, but the words didn’t come. Her throat bobbed with the effort to speak.
“I won’t force anything,” Azriel went on. “While we wait for the witch to find a way back, it’s your choice. If you want me to stay away, I will. If it’s easier to forget I’m here, I’ll disappear into the city and you won’t see me again until it’s time.”
She looked at him now. Fully. The grief in her eyes shimmered, but so did something else. Something fragile and reaching.
“But,” he said, the barest trace of a smile curling at the edge of his mouth, “if you think maybe… maybe we could spend some time together, even just as strangers, I’d like that too.”
Y/N stared at him, and then, slowly, her lips curved into a faint, wistful smile.
“There were things,” she whispered, “my Azriel never had time for. Little things. I always told him we had forever.”
Azriel took a breath, feeling the tightness in his chest ease.
“Then let me do them with you,” he said. “I have time.”
The city glowed warmer below them now, the river catching the last light of day.
Y/N nodded once, more to herself than him. “He never got to learn how to paint. Or dance without armor on. Or ruin a cake recipe just because he always wanted to.”
Azriel chuckled, a low, quiet sound that made her eyes brighten.
“I’m excellent at ruining recipes,” he said. “That one I’ve already mastered.”
Y/N laughed — and it cracked something open.
They kept walking.
This time, they walked slower.
────────────
The next day dawned pale and bright, the kind of morning that smelled like clean air and promise. Velaris stirred gently to life as Azriel made his way to the care station, a small satchel slung over one shoulder, shadows curling lazily along his collar like drowsy cats.
The children spotted him first.
Cries of delight broke out across the garden as a handful of small figures dashed toward the fence, little hands waving, eyes wide. Y/N stood under the canvas awning that shaded the painting tables, her apron already dotted with a dozen different colors. She looked up, and despite everything — the pain, the weight of yesterday — her smile came easily.
“You came,” she said, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek.
“I said I would,” Azriel replied, glancing around. “Besides, I’m here to ruin your art supplies.”
“You’re about to be in a lot of trouble,” she warned playfully, already handing him a paintbrush.
The table was covered in bright pots of color, paper curling in the corners from the morning breeze, little hands dipping brushes into everything at once. Azriel found himself seated between two wide-eyed children, both whispering about how tall he was.
“Are you a warrior?” one of them asked.
“Sometimes,” he said, lips twitching.
“He’s going to paint with us today,” Y/N said from across the table. “Be nice.”
Azriel dipped his brush into something bright pink and started dragging uneven strokes across his page. Purposefully clumsy, exaggeratedly bad. The kids giggled with delight as his “painting” became a lopsided blob with what might’ve been wings.
“This is terrible,” Y/N said, leaning over his shoulder.
“I warned you.”
“You’re doing that on purpose.”
He didn’t reply.
Her voice lowered. “You’re better than this, aren’t you?”
He looked up, surprised to find her gaze already waiting for him. Calm. Patient. A little amused.
Azriel sighed. “A little.”
“Then paint something real.”
He blinked. “Real?”
“Something that reminds you of home.”
The children were still lost in their own work, but Y/N had settled across from him now, eyes steady, hands stained blue at the knuckles.
Azriel picked up a clean sheet, silent for a long moment. Then he began.
His brush moved slowly, deliberately this time. Thin strokes forming shadows first, not harsh, not frightening, but soft, layered darkness like the kind that gathered under quiet trees. Then came the mountains, sharp and proud, painted in indigo and deep green, rising in the distance.
A sky filled in next. Not just blue, but dotted with constellations, each one placed with careful reverence.
At the center, a single stone balcony, draped in ivy and overlooking a silver river. There were no people. Only light. Stillness.
Y/N didn’t say a word while he worked. She watched, hands folded in her lap.
When he was done, Azriel set the brush down and sat back.
“That’s the House of Wind,” she said quietly.
He nodded once. “It’s where I feel most like myself.”
She looked at the painting for a long time. “It’s beautiful.”
His voice was soft. “Thank you.”
There was a quiet between them, warm and full, not the silence of absence, but of something being gently built. In the background, a child was explaining to another that Azriel’s first painting was definitely a dragon.
Y/N smiled. “Tomorrow, you’re baking.”
Azriel raised a brow. “I’m what?”
“Ruining a recipe,” she said, eyes sparkling. “Like you promised.”
He chuckled, a low sound that stirred something in her chest.
“All right,” he murmured. “But only if you help me clean up the disaster.”
Y/N leaned her chin on her hand, watching him.
“Deal.”
Azriel wiped his hands on the edge of his tunic, smirking faintly at the streaks of paint across his skin. Most of it was probably from the children, but some, he admitted, was definitely from him.
“Should I help clean this up?” he asked, glancing at the mess of paper, drying brushes, and tipped-over jars of color.
Y/N had already started stacking the unused paper. She looked up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“No, you don’t have to. You’re a guest.”
“I insist,” he said simply.
She hesitated, then laughed under her breath. “You’re very stubborn, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
With a small shake of her head, she handed him a cloth. “Fine. Wipe the brushes gently. We try to save them as long as possible.”
Azriel took the cloth, his hands deft and steady as he followed her instructions. They moved quietly beside each other, the easy rhythm of shared work wrapping around them. For a while, it felt almost ordinary. Light spilling in through the awning, soft laughter still trailing across the yard.
Then, suddenly-
“Miss Y/N!”
A small voice broke across the space.
One of the children, a little boy with untied boots and paint on his chin, came barreling up to them. His eyes were wide, worried.
“It’s Lyla,” he panted. “She fell. Her knee’s bleeding. She’s behind the swings.”
Y/N’s face changed instantly — concern replacing ease. She set down the brushes and knelt to the boy’s level, brushing his curls back gently.
“Is she crying?”
He nodded. “A little.”
“Good job coming to get me,” she said, squeezing his shoulder before rising and heading off across the garden.
Azriel watched her go. The way she crouched beside the small, crumpled shape near the swings, her hands soft as she checked the child’s knee, her voice low and steady. The boy hovered near them the whole time, guilt in every line of his little frame. She pulled him close too, one arm wrapping around each sibling as she whispered something only they could hear.
Azriel didn’t know what it was, but both children clung to her like roots to soil.
He didn’t look away.
Not when she kissed the girl’s forehead. Not when she helped them both stand. Not when she walked back across the grass with her braid loose and her cheeks a little flushed from the sun.
“She’ll be all right,” Y/N said as she reached him again. “Nothing serious. A scrape and a fright.”
“You’re good with them.”
She gave him a small smile. “They’re easy to love.”
Azriel’s mouth twitched. “So are you.”
She froze just slightly. He looked away, but the words lingered between them, soft and unthreatening. Like a truth neither of them needed to acknowledge yet.
“I should let you go,” she said gently. “You’ve spent enough of your day here.”
Azriel’s brows lifted. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”
Y/N tilted her head. “You really don’t?”
He shook his head once. “Not until the witches find a way home. And even then…” He looked around at the garden, the half-dry paintings, the swing swaying slightly in the breeze. “I don’t mind being here. Not at all.”
Something in her chest eased. Not everything. But something.
“I could tell them a story,” Azriel said then. “If they’re tired. Something from my world. I could… make it sound like a fairy tale.”
Y/N studied him for a long moment. “You know any stories with dragons and starlight?”
He gave her a rare, small smile. “I know one with a High Lady who turned a battlefield into a blooming field of moonflowers.”
The surprise in her eyes turned to delight. “Go on, then. They’ll love that.”
Azriel turned toward the group of children now gathering under the big tree near the edge of the garden. The sun had shifted again, dappling light through the leaves, and as he sat down in the grass, a dozen eager faces leaned closer.
For the first time in a long time, in either world, Azriel let himself settle.
────────────
The wind howled low through the canyons of Velaris, carrying with it something strange, a pulse beneath the air, as if the city had drawn breath and forgotten how to exhale.
In a dim, windowless chamber beneath her ivy-covered cottage, the witch worked.
Scrolls lined every surface. Spellbooks lay open to pages so brittle they nearly crumbled beneath her hands. Runes flickered along the floor in fading gold, ancient symbols drawn in circles of salt and powdered quartz. Candles burned with sickly blue flames, their wax dripping sideways, as if gravity itself was beginning to tilt.
Her fingertips trembled. She had felt it again. The Cauldron.
Not in a dream, not in a vision, but in her own bones, a thunderous crack of power, distant but real. Like a ripple through the ocean of time itself. One timeline brushing too close to another, dragging its weight behind it.
She dropped the crystal she had been scrying with. It shattered.
“Damn it,” she hissed, rising to pace the circle.
Magic swirled in the corners of the room, uneasy. The Cauldron did not like to be tampered with. It hated interference, especially from mortals who meddled with the delicate weave of fates not meant to cross.
And yet… someone had done just that.
A witch. Skilled enough to rip one Azriel from his thread and toss him into the wrong tapestry.
And now, the Cauldron was fraying. Not yet breaking. But it would. Soon.
She raised her hands again, whispering the tracing spell. The map of timelines floated before her, glowing strings dancing in the air. One line flickered, silver and pulsing. Azriel’s.
It crossed where it should not.
“I need more time,” she murmured, eyes scanning a dozen different volumes, trying to remember where she had last seen the binding rite. “Just a little more…”
Outside, the wind shifted again, dry and sharp with something like heat. Magic was unraveling. And if she couldn’t fix it… The worlds would bleed.
In the meantime, Velaris held its breath in quieter ways.
The sun filtered through clouds like gold poured from a pitcher, softening the sharp edges of the city. Along the Sidra, the river murmured to itself, weaving through stone bridges and glass-lit walkways as if it had never heard of timelines or cracking Cauldrons.
At a quiet corner café by the water’s edge, Y/N sat across from Azriel, a half-eaten slice of honeyed pear tart on the plate between them.
Azriel had no idea how she’d convinced him to try it, only that the moment she wrinkled her nose and said, “You’ve never had this before?” he’d already agreed. Her smile had done most of the work.
Now, he sipped warm tea from a delicate mug far too small for his hands, letting the sweetness linger on his tongue. The sun caught in his hair, in the curve of her cheek as she laughed at something he didn’t know he’d said quite that funny.
He didn’t think about the witch’s warning. Or the ripple he felt in his shadows earlier that morning. Not right now.
“You’re staring,” Y/N said, her voice light but not teasing.
Azriel blinked, caught. “Just listening,” he said softly, and her expression flickered with something warmer than the sun.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly shy. “To what?”
“The river. Your laugh. Everything.”
That earned a softer smile. Not the kind she gave the children or her friend or even the strangers in the market. This one was quieter. More uncertain. Like she didn’t quite know where to put it.
Their plates sat between them, a shared little mess of tart crust and berry stains.
Azriel leaned back slightly, watching the boats drift past on the Sidra, their sails bright against the water. His wings were folded, his shadows quiet.
“How do you do it?” he asked after a pause.
“Do what?”
“Live like this. After everything.”
Y/N stirred her tea, eyes on the rippling water. “Some days I don’t. Not fully. But then… the sun still rises. The children still laugh. And someone has to be there to hear it.”
Azriel looked at her for a long time. Then, with a faint smile, he said, “I’m glad it’s you.”
Her gaze met his, steady and unsure at once. “And I’m glad you’re here.”
Azriel set his mug down, fingers brushing the rim once before he leaned forward slightly, voice soft in the lull between river sounds and city life.
“You know, back home,” he said, “Feyre, the High Lady, she painted stars on the ceiling of her house. Said they reminded her of hope. I never really understood that until I saw them in the dark once. Alone.”
Y/N smiled faintly, resting her chin in one hand. “And do they remind you of hope?”
Azriel’s gaze lifted to the river, to the way the light danced like silver thread along the surface. “They did,” he said. “Still do.”
But her eyes weren’t on the river.
They had fallen to his hands, gloved as always, even in the warm air. The fabric was worn, the seams faintly frayed at the knuckles. But where the glove slipped back from his wrist, she could just make out the beginning of raised skin. Scars. Twisting like old fire, etched deep and permanent.
Her Azriel didn’t have those scars.
She wondered how far they went. Up to his knuckles? His fingers? Were they from a battle? A punishment? A childhood that had taken more than it ever gave?
She didn’t ask. It wasn’t hers to know, not yet. And maybe not ever.
But something in her chest ached anyway, because she could feel how heavy it must be. Whatever weight those gloves hid, it pressed into the silence between them like an old bruise.
Azriel had noticed her glance. He always noticed.
But he didn’t flinch. Didn’t shift to hide. He only lifted the cup again, held it steady between those gloved hands.
Y/N looked up quickly, catching his gaze.
“I won’t ask,” she said, the words barely above a whisper. “But… I see you.”
Azriel stilled.
And then, with a quiet breath, like the softest exhale of his shadows, he nodded. “Thank you.”
They didn’t speak again for a while. Not because there was nothing to say, but because something deeper was already being understood.
Y/N sat with her legs tucked beneath her on the bench seat, a smile playing at her lips as she watched a little boy toddle past with a string tied to a stick, his makeshift dragon clattering behind him across the cobblestones.
“He reminds me of my brother,” she said suddenly, gaze drifting.
Azriel looked over from where he was peeling apart a croissant. “You have a brother?”
“I do,” she said, still smiling, though there was a soft melancholy to it. “He's in another court now. Duty called him. But before that, he was a terror. In the best way.”
She turned toward him, chin resting on her hand. “We used to sneak honey cakes from the summer festivals. Hide them in the garden under the old peach tree and pretend we were squirrels storing food for winter. Of course, we’d eat them all by sunset. I always had the crumbs on my face, and he never took the blame. Not once.”
Azriel chuckled quietly. “Did you get caught?”
“Every time. My father pretended not to know, but he’d bring out extra sweets at dinner. Said something about growing appetites.” She paused, her eyes twinkling. “That peach tree is still there. Overgrown and wild, but every year, it blooms just the same.”
Azriel watched her as she spoke — the way her hands moved, how the sunlight caught in her hair, how her voice lightened as the story unfolded. There was something brighter in her now. A part of her that had been submerged in grief when he first arrived, now slowly surfacing.
She didn’t look fragile anymore. She looked real. Whole, in a new way.
He smiled, quiet and genuine. “You loved him.”
“With everything,” she said. Then, after a breath, “Like I loved him.”
Azriel’s expression shifted, softening even more. “You’ve been smiling more,” he said.
Y/N glanced at him, caught off guard. “I have?”
He nodded, his shadows curling lazily along the floor beneath the table. “You laugh more too. The children said so yesterday.”
She leaned back, exhaling slowly. “I didn’t think I would, again. Not like this.”
Azriel didn’t say anything, but his gaze stayed steady on her.
She looked down at the tea in her hands, fingers tracing the rim of the cup. “It’s strange, isn’t it? That you could come here by accident and still... somehow bring light back with you.”
Azriel swallowed, the words landing like a weight and a gift all at once. “Maybe it wasn’t an accident.”
Y/N looked up at him and for a moment, the world around them slowed. The rustle of leaves. The breeze off the water. The soft laughter of someone nearby. It all hushed.
“Maybe not,” she whispered.
They sat in that quiet together, the sun warming their skin, and the scent of fresh bread and citrus between them.
And though neither of them said it aloud, they both knew, something was shifting. Not just timelines. But hearts, too.
The moment the breeze shifted, Y/N knew. It was as if the day exhaled, soft and cool, suddenly too still. The scent of citrus faded, replaced by something ancient and electric, like a storm not yet seen but already felt in the bones.
Azriel noticed it too. His shadows straightened, alert. Then, without warning, she was there.
The witch stepped out of the air beside their table, her robes dark and shimmering faintly with threads of starlight. Her face was as calm as the Sidra behind them, but her presence brought with it something colder. Final.
Y/N’s heart clenched.
She stood quickly, nearly knocking her tea. “It’s time, isn’t it?”
The witch nodded once. “Yes. I’ve found a way.”
Azriel rose more slowly, his jaw tightening as he faced her. “You’re sure it will work?”
The witch’s eyes glinted, old magic whispering in her voice. “As sure as I can be. But there’s no room for delay. The threads of your presence here have begun to fray the structure of this realm. I can feel the Cauldron straining, one more crack, and it won’t be this world that breaks.”
Y/N felt her breath catch in her throat.
It was happening.
It had always been coming, but hearing it aloud, seeing the truth in the witch’s steady gaze, it tore the air from her lungs.
Azriel said nothing for a long moment. Then he looked at Y/N.
He didn’t reach for her. Didn’t need to. The look in his eyes was enough. She tried to hold herself steady. Tried to breathe. But the witch’s words echoed inside her.
It’s time.
He was leaving.
Azriel turned back to the witch, voice rough but steady. “How long do we have?”
The witch considered. “A few hours. Sunset.”
Sunset.
That left so little, and somehow, far too much.
Y/N forced herself to nod. Her fingers trembled slightly at her sides, but her voice was level. “Where do we need to go?”
“I’ll find you again,” the witch said. “I just needed to give you warning. You’ll know when.”
She stepped back into the wind, and with a rustle of her robes and a flicker of violet magic, she was gone.
Silence fell again over the café.
The world kept moving. People still passed by, unaware that anything had changed. But for Azriel and Y/N, the day had shifted on its axis.
The end had a shape now. And it was coming fast.
The sun had begun its slow descent, casting the Sidra in liquid gold. The river flowed gently beside them, quiet and endless, its surface glittering like stardust.
Y/N walked beside Azriel in silence, her fingers brushing occasionally against the edge of his cloak. The breeze tugged at her hair, and for a while, all they did was walk, as if they could outpace time itself, if they didn’t speak, if they just kept moving.
But Azriel felt it in her. The way her shoulders curled inward just slightly. The soft tension in her breath. Her sadness folded itself neatly around her like a second skin.
And he felt it in himself, too. That ache.
Not the sharp pain of battle wounds or the burn of shadows in his blood, but something quieter, heavier. A kind of loss that hadn’t happened yet but had already taken root.
He glanced at her, then away. “You’ve helped me more than I ever expected.”
She looked up at him, lips parted as if to protest, but he kept going, voice low. “I came here thinking I’d just disrupted something. That I’d landed somewhere I didn’t belong. And I did. But it’s not just that.”
The shadows at his back stirred gently, like they, too, were listening.
“You’ve reminded me what gentleness looks like,” he said, his voice a near whisper. “You reminded me that healing isn’t just survival. It’s... softness. It’s letting yourself laugh again.”
Y/N’s eyes shimmered, but she kept walking.
Azriel stopped. She did too, a step later, turning toward him slowly.
“If there was a way,” he said, voice barely above the hush of the river, “I’d take you with me.”
The words hung between them, fragile and impossible.
His gaze dropped, and he exhaled softly. “But I know it wouldn’t work. It’s not that kind of magic. It’s not that kind of story.”
Y/N smiled. Not because she was happy, but because she wanted to give him something kind. Her eyes, though, they told the truth. They ached. They mourned.
Still, she stepped in close. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.
Her arms came around him, quiet and certain, and she pressed her cheek to his chest. Her hands flattened against his back, holding him there, like maybe she could memorize the feel of him before he was gone.
She inhaled, deeply, taking in his scent, the leather and pine, the faint trace of wind and steel and something only he carried.
Azriel hesitated only a moment before his arms wrapped around her too. Firm, steady, as if he could hold this second in place forever.
Neither of them spoke.
The Sidra flowed beside them, patient and unknowing. The sun dipped lower. And the minutes they had left slipped quietly by, wrapped in silence and warmth and the weight of everything that would never be said.
The witch emerged from the dusk, her presence silent but heavy with ancient power. Her eyes, gleaming with stars and secrets, settled on them both. There was no urgency in her voice, only a steady certainty as she said, “It is time. You must return.”
Azriel’s gaze shifted slowly to Y/N, searching her face as though trying to etch every curve, every unspoken word into memory. The shadows curled protectively around him, but the strength in his eyes softened with something almost like sorrow.
Without hesitation, he stepped forward, his fingers trembling just slightly as they traced the gentle line of her cheek. The skin was warm beneath his touch, grounding him in this impossible moment.
He leaned in slowly, closing the space between them with a kiss oh her cheek, soft and reverent, a whisper against her skin. The kiss spoke of gratitude and regret, of all the stolen moments and all the things left unsaid.
“Thank you,” he breathed, voice raw with feeling. “For everything. For this.”
Y/N’s breath caught, and for a moment the world seemed to hold its breath with them. Her hands twined in the fabric of his cloak, reluctant to let go, desperate to keep hold of this fragment of a life she never thought she’d have.
His eyes searched hers once more, filled with a fierce tenderness, before he stepped back, shadows rising like dark wings around him, cloaking him from the world.
The witch raised her hand, fingers weaving a silent spell, and a pulse of violet light rippled outward, wrapping Azriel in its glow. The air thrummed with the power of the Cauldron itself, fragile and fierce.
In the blink of an eye, Azriel was gone.
Left behind was the fading warmth of his kiss, the faint scent of leather and pine hanging in the quiet evening air, and Y/N — standing alone by the Sidra, holding onto the echo of a goodbye that still felt impossibly too soon.
────────────
The familiar hum of Velaris pulsed all around him—the distant laughter of street performers, the soft murmur of the Sidra’s waters, the gentle clinking of glasses from nearby taverns—but Azriel felt strangely untethered, like a ghost wandering through his own city. The days since his return blurred together, a fog swallowing his memories whole. Rhys and Cassian had told him he’d been gone for over a week, vanished without a trace, only to reappear as if nothing had happened. He couldn't remember what happened. But inside, Azriel knew something had changed.
There was a quiet, steady warmth beneath the surface, something healing, gentle, like a balm on old wounds he hadn’t realized were still raw.
Today, he was helping Feyre move canvases and crates into her art studio, the smell of fresh paint mingling with the scent of spring rain drifting through open windows. Feyre’s laughter was bright and easy, her presence grounding him even as a restless pull tugged at his chest.
His gaze drifted across the bustling town square just as he set down a heavy crate. And there, among the crowd, he saw her.
A fae, standing with an effortless grace that made the sunlight catch in her hair, turning it to molten gold. She was looking not quite at him, but through him, as if glimpsing into places only shadows could reach… a spark of recognition he couldn’t place, like a forgotten song playing just beyond hearing.
Azriel didn’t understand why his heart quickened, why his hand lifted almost instinctively in a hesitant wave.
The fae’s eyes widened, and then a soft, almost knowing smile curved her lips. She returned his wave before slipping quietly into a nearby shop, disappearing before he could reach her.
His hand dropped slowly, confusion settling over him like a shadow.
He didn’t know who she was. He couldn’t remember her.
But the pull, the silent thread connecting them, was undeniable, aching beneath his skin like a promise he couldn’t yet understand.
"You've been quiet all day," she said, her voice low and knowing. "What's going on in that head of yours?"
Azriel blinked, distracted. Across the square, he could see her through the glasses of that shop.
Feyre followed his gaze, then looked back at him, her brow furrowed. "Az?"
"I... I don’t know," he murmured, almost to himself.
"You don’t know what?" she asked.
But he couldn’t answer. The feeling was too strange, too sharp. His heart thudded in his chest, and before he could stop himself, the words left him like a breath, half-formed and distant.
"I need to go."
"Go where?"
But he was already walking away, crossing the street without looking back, the hum of Feyre’s concern fading behind him.
She had disappeared into a shop moments before, but he knew. He didn’t know why. Didn’t know how. But he knew.
The bell above the door chimed softly as he stepped inside. The world quieted, holding its breath.
And then, there she was.
Closer now. Real. Solid. Her eyes widened, the same as before, but now with something else behind them. Something fragile, something infinite.
Azriel felt it again, deep in his chest. That pull. That thread. It trembled between them like spun gold.
She tilted her head, voice tentative, soft. “Do I... know you?”
He hesitated for a breath, then offered a small smile, one that felt strange and familiar all at once.
"I’m Azriel."
A beat of silence. Then she returned his smile, something in her gaze breaking open.
"I’m Y/N."
Their names, shared again for the first time. A beginning carved into the end.
And somewhere, just beneath the surface, the thread between them tightened.
