Summary: Azriel and you have been friends for centuries. For just as long, you’ve hid your feelings. But a recent development slowly pushes you to your breaking point. Azriel calls it casual. To you, it’s everything
Warnings: ANGST, allusions to sex, Az is a bit of a bonehead here but we’ll fix it dw.
Azriel rolled off you, landing on the empty spot next to you in the bed. You looked over to him, catching your breath, the rapid rise and fall of his chest matching yours. His eyes met yours, and you felt a blush creeping up on your cheeks, as if he was a small crush in the marketplace rather than someone who had just made you see the heights of pleasure.
“Had fun?” You asked, a smile creeping up on your face.
He looked over at you, rolling his eyes.
”Wonderful, as always.” He teased. His eyes trailed over the length of your body, covered only by a thin layer of your sheets. The sunlight of the late morning crept in from your balcony window, illuminating the twinkle in his eyes. You had to look away, entranced by the beauty of him. Here, in your bed. Lying here with him like this, it was easy to pretend. The world narrowed to the two of you in this room, together. Here, your past no longer haunted you, there was no trauma, no secrets, no pain. If you closed your eyes and focused on the way his bare arm brushed yours and the breathing from right beside you, it was as if all was as you imagined.
“I have a light workload today. I was thinking I could take Elain to the marketplace, or through the River House’s garden for a walk.”
The cocoon shattered. For just a moment, your breath caught in your throat, and a surge of shame and embarrassment rushed through you, down to your fingertips. Quickly, you grabbed a hold of yourself.
“Are you…sure that’s a good idea?” You asked, trepidation heavy in your tone.
“Why not? I’ve been busy recently. I’m sure you’ve noticed,” he justified. “I wouldn’t want her to feel neglected.”
Ugly jealousy coursed through you, and you had the sudden urge to be alone.
You took a deep breath, willing your racing heart to control itself. “It’s just that Lucien will be in the city for dinner in two days.”
Defensiveness filled his expression, and you feared that perhaps you had made a mistake.
“So?” he started. “I’m not afraid of Lucien, Y/N.”
“I know that, but he’ll likely want to see her. You don’t want to start anything. Rhys will be unhappy. Maybe wait until after his visit.”
“Why are you being like this?” He asked. “Lucien can’t force her into anything, and I’m not going to refrain from seeing her just because of her so-called ‘mate’ visiting.”
You forced a teasing tone into your voice, trying to keep the mood light in spite of the knot in your stomach. “Az, he is her mate.”
He was silent for a moment, contemplation heavy in his voice. He rolled over onto his side, facing you. His wings shifted, and the sheet covering him from the waist down moved slightly. You forced your eyes up to meet his.
“What if…what if the Cauldron was wrong? What if he isn’t her true mate?”
Your eyes widened slightly. “Azriel.”
“I know. I know what you’re going to say, Y/N. But I just can’t help but feel like he doesn’t deserve her. She’s a Cauldron-made seer. He’s just an emissary.”
That sent a jolt through you. Just an emissary. In the logical part of your brain, you already knew that you weren’t necessarily special. At least, not in comparison to your chosen family in the Night Court. Feyre the Cursebreaker. Lady Death. The Shadowsinger. The Seer. And you were just an emissary. To your home court of Day that you once fled in fear, no less. You tried not to let that comment simmer in your brain for any longer.
“Doesn’t it make sense that she should be with someone else, someone who’s as exceptional as her?” he continued on. “She deserves better.”
He didn’t even seem to notice the effect those words had on you, the shock they sent through your system. For someone so observant, he never seemed to notice such things about you. Not with the comment he made, and certainly not with the fact that he was lying naked next to you, lamenting about his desire for another woman. You used to think him lowering his inhibitions so fully around you was a sign of his comfort. His innate relaxation in your presence, reflecting your own feelings. Recently, you’ve wondered if it was just a manifestation of how little he cared.
But Azriel loved you. If not in the way you’d hoped for, then as a friend. As a member of this family.
Didn’t he?
”Azriel, she has a mate.”
“I know that, but…”
“But nothing, Az,” you stressed. “You may want her, but it’s not a mating bond.”
Azriel remained still, but his wings shifted slightly. A tell of his exasperation. You always knew of his tells. You knew him better than anyone.
“Y/N, you wouldn’t understand. Mating bonds are difficult,” he sighed. “I should go.”
Azriel shifted up into sitting, silently as ever. The mattress dipped slightly as he turned his back to you, his wings dragging off to the side of your bed. He stood, and the emptiness of the other side of the bed was reflected in your chest.
“You’re right,” you said quietly.
But you knew about mating bonds. Knew them quite well, really. You knew what a mating bond felt like when a mate didn’t want you, and you felt for Lucien. He would take Elain any way he could have her, just as you did for your mate. Even if it hurt, even if it left your insides bleeding and yearning.
He paused his motions just slightly, as if sensing the poorly masked fatigue in your voice. Your gaze fixed on the sheets twisted between your fingers, unable to look up at his form moving about your space.
”I’ll see you later. Family dinner, tomorrow night?” he asked.
“Right. See you then.”
_____
You couldn’t really pinpoint when it started. The physical affair between you and Azriel had been unexpected, and you didn’t know exactly what it stemmed from. Loneliness, maybe. At first, you held out a little bit of hope that it would grow into something else.
“You’re not being serious, you did not.”
“I am not. I spilled wine all over him. It was mortifying!” You burst out laughing, and Azriel followed suit, the drinks flowing between you.
The two of you sat in the House’s study, illuminated only by the hearth in front of the room. The untethered mating bond hummed in your chest, filling you wholly with warmth. On a night like this, laughing with him sitting so close, it almost seemed silly to keep it a secret from him. He felt like home. Like the two of you belonged.
“I’m lucky that the High Lord of Day is such a flirt. He took no offense, and instead offered that I assist in bathing him.”
Azriel let out a barking laugh, inhibitions down in a way that made your cheeks heat. “Of course.”
The laughs died down, and for a moment the two of you just stared at each other, smiles lingering on your face. You couldn’t recall who moved first, but after another breath his mouth was on yours, and his hands wandered in places he had never dared touch before.
Through the haze of it all, a spark of joy burst within you. The mating bond sung within you, and fulfillment took over you in a way you’d never known before. It was happening, you’d thought. Finally.
Afterwards, the two of you lay in his bed, your head on his bare chest. His wing was underneath you, and warmth engulfed you from the tips of your fingers to your toes.
He was with you, and he was happy. It was an unconventional start to a relationship, but nothing about you and Azriel had ever been normal.
“I’m glad we can be like this, Y/N. Some…relief. No strings.”
Something within you broke, and the warmth of the mating bond grew cold.
“What are you thinking about?” A voice came from behind you, breaking you out of the memory.
You turned in your seat in the House’s kitchen to see Rhys approaching.
“Nothing, really.” You replied, taking a sip of the tea in front of you, Rhys taking a seat in the chair to your left. “Just thinking.”
”Hmm.” The High Lord started. “Does this have anything to do with a certain spymaster escorting my sister-in-law to the marketplace?”
You shot him a warning look. That bastard. “Rhys.”
“You can’t keep it a secret forever, Y/N. It isn’t fair to either of you, and I can only warn him off Elain for so long.”
Rhys learning of your mating bond had been a freak incident, the result of him catching onto a longing gaze last Solstice. He had agreed to keep it a secret, and to let you deal with it in your own way. You’ve had more than your share of men taking choice from you, and Rhys was not inclined to add to that list.
However, that didn’t stop him from meddling. He took every opportunity to encourage you to shout your bond from the rooftops, whether mentally at family dinners or through surprise check-ins. More recently, he had been more active in his intervention, barring Azriel from pursuing Elain. He claimed it was to prevent the Blood Duel. But from the moment Azriel relayed those events to you, you had seen right through it.
“I do not need you to warn him off Elain for me, Rhys. A mating bond will hardly change who he wants.”
“How do you know that?” Rhys stressed. “It can change everything. He deserves to know.”
The two of you have this conversation at least once every fortnight. It always ended the same way.
“Things would not change, and there is no point burdening him with a mating bond he will surely abhor.”
”It is not a burden. And you must know Azriel would never see you that way. It is a gift, to be mated to someone who is already so dear to your heart. One kiss, Y/N, could change everything.”
You closed your eyes, taking a deep breath and counting to ten. Letting the silence sit for a moment, you prepared yourself before speaking again.
“We have…done more than kiss.”
A beat passed between the two of you, before you spilled the details of the last eight months to Rhys, who watched with poorly contained shock. His eyes sat wide, and his mouth hung open. For the most powerful High Lord in Prythian, one could observe his ability to resemble a fish.
“This has been going on for nearly eight months,” Rhys repeated slowly, “And still he chases after Elain so brazenly?”
”He has never led me to believe this would grow into a romance. Any hopes are my delusion.”
Rhys covered his face with his hands, letting out a deep sigh, “It is not delusion. It is a natural response to a mating bond.”
“Perhaps, Rhys. But there is nothing I can do.”
Your fingers curled around the warm porcelain of your teacup.
“Nothing I wish to do,” you corrected, tone softening. “I do not want a mating bond that exists solely because he feels obligated to me.”
”You cannot truly believe that Azriel would see you as an obligation.”
”I think,” you said, “that if the Mother had some plan for him to joyously accept our mating bond, he would not leave my bed in the mornings with plans to pursue another female.”
—-
Family dinner was delicious, as always.
The aroma of perfectly roasted lamb and beautifully seasoned potatoes lingered throughout the River House, as empty plates signalled a meal well-enjoyed. Elain’s cooking was wonderful, but an ugly part of you couldn’t help but feel the weight of envy taking root in your chest.
Is there anything she can’t do?
Around the table sat you, Rhys, Amren, Cassian, Feyre, and Mor. Wine flowed generously as you discussed plans for a meeting with Lucien and Eris tomorrow. As a fellow Court emissary, you would be in attendance, so you did your best to focus on Rhys’ talking points despite the wine buzzing in your system. Luckily, your two most likely distractions were not here. Elain had excused herself to bed hours ago, and Azriel had left just moments ago to recon with some spies he had placed in Autumn. The table felt lighter without them here. All night, you had sat through Azriel sitting to the right of you, staring holes through Elain. It had been an effort not to burst out sobbing right there in front of everyone.
Recently, that had become a familiar feeling.
After seemingly hours of listening to Rhys drone on, making mental notes for later, you excused yourself to your room. You opted to crash at the River House, too weary to winnow to the House of Wind. Besides, you figured that a change of scenery might do some good. A futile attempt to chase the peace that had evaded you all week.
It didn’t matter that you’d be down the hall from Elain. You had no reason to be angry with her. Not really. She didn’t control Azriel’s overwhelming indifference to you. If he wasn’t focused on her, it would be Mor. Or someone else who met his standards. Someone special and outstanding and worthy.
Just an emissary.
Walking down the halls of the River House, you pondered on a future for yourself. Would you spend the rest of your life pining after a man who would never view you romantically? Would you ever tell him about the bond, wrecking a 200 year friendship and tying him to you in a way that could only lead to his misery?
The thoughts ruminated in your head until you heard the unmistakable rumble of Azriel’s voice.
Soft and low. Gentle in the way he speaks to you when you lay beneath him and you could pretend.
You looked up, eyes setting upon a slightly ajar door, moonlight filtering through.
Azriel’s room.
Your feet moved before your brain caught up to you. Rushing towards the doorway, you stood in the space of the open door before you truly knew what was happening. There stood Azriel and Elain, his arms just barely grazing upon her waist. They stood close, lips about to touch in a stance that you had been in with him just two nights prior.
Something was tearing in your chest. You tried to keep quiet.
But Azriel was an observant male. It was his job. Maybe not in the sanctuary of your bed, but certainly when he was tasked with protecting something as precious as Elain. His head snapped towards you in the doorway as if a fawn coming upon a faelight. His eyes widened slightly as he met yours.
The moonlight caught the gold flecks in his brown eyes, and the sight of them made your own vision blur with sudden tears. And all Azriel did was stare.
One moment he stood frozen, his form blurry through your watery vision. The next, he jumped back from Elain as if her touch had burned him. His gaze never left yours, though his expression shifted to something raw, something almost terrified. It was a jarring change, especially for a male so stoic and controlled. Some instinct deep within you recognized the strangeness of his expression.
His shadows surged forward from the corner of the room, wrapping around his form. They curled up his back, peering over his shoulders towards you. His gaze never left yours, and Elain’s eyes shot rapidly between the two of you, confusion painting her beautiful face.
It was then that you felt it. A tug deep within your chest, reaching down into a place that you knew all too well. Something strong and ancient thrumming within you. Light surged in your soul. Never in your life had you imagined a fulfillment like this. As if the centuries of your life had been black and white, and now you’d seen the colors of the sky for the first time.
The sensation flooded your body, bright and overwhelming, dimmed only by the absolute fear and shock that spread throughout your body. The look on Azriel’s face matched the war happening within you.
Oh gods. He knew. He knew.
Another tug pulled through you. Then another. The silence of the room was overwhelming, and you willed him to say something. To get it over with. To reject you. To end it. But all he did was stare.
“Y/N,” he rasped out, voice heavy. “You…”
You couldn’t do this. Couldn’t bear the words he would inevitably say. The disgust he would regard you with.
The bond tugged once more in your chest. Azriel’s wide, wild eyes were on you.
You turned and ran.
—-
Two weeks.
You’d successfully avoided Azriel for two weeks before the inevitable confrontation. For his part, he had stayed away from your meeting with Lucien and Eris. Immediately afterward, you had left for Dawn to meet with Thesan. An emergency alliance negotiation.
In your mind, it was a blessing from the Mother. Perhaps a small act of repentance after the stunt she pulled revealing the bond to Azriel.
The journey back to Velaris felt far heavier than the one that had taken you away. Dawn had been bright, orderly, predictable. Everything that Velaris couldn’t be until you had settled this with Azriel.
Winnowing to the House of Wind, you headed straight for the kitchen, intending to grab a cup of tea and hide away in your room.
”You’re back.” The voice came from behind you.
The male had an innate talent for silence.
Mother help me.
You took a slow breath, then another. It was time, you supposed. You turned to look at him, wanting to memorize the exact details of his beautiful face. Once he rejects you, would you ever see him this closely again? Could you bear it?
“I’m back,” you said, keeping your voice light, moving towards the kettle on the counter.
Azriel stared at you intently, unspoken emotion deep within his eyes. As if he too, had been anticipating this moment. Dreading it.
Neither of you spoke. The silence stretched between you, thick with everything that had gone unsaid for two weeks. His eyes stayed heavy on you.
He finally broke the silence, tension laden in his voice. “You knew. Didn’t you?”
Your eyes slid shut “I did. I’ve known for almost a hundred years.”
The memory hit you hard.
“How’s the lemonade?” Azriel asked, taking a sip of his own in the chair across for you.
“You were right, this is delicious. Best I’ve ever tasted,” you took another sip of the sweet liquid, “How did I not know about this place?”
“It’s one of Velaris’ many hidden gems. You could live here for years and not know of every treat.”
“Well, I suppose I have much to learn.”
A laugh burst out of him, and you his eyes. It was full and deep and brought heat to your cheeks. His large form, wings brushing along the floor, seemed almost comical in this small, intimate cafe. For a moment, you just watched him. His beauty.
Warmth filled you, and you felt something snap within your chest. Like a key slotting into a lock, something had slid into place within your soul. Your mouth dropped open slightly, and all you could do was blink.
“You ok?” He teased. “Missing the Day Court?”
Your hands trembled slightly from the shock of the revelation. “I’m fine. Just…enjoying the lemonade.”
You gazed up at him, and his expression held shock, betrayal, a hint of anger. “A hundred years? You have known of this for that long?”
You nodded once, fixing your gaze somewhere over his shoulder.
Azriel leaned back slightly, as if the distance might help him process what you had just said. If anything, it only heightened the tension between you two.
“I-” he paused, swallowing before continuing. “Why have you not told me, Y/N?”
“I wanted to, at first. I didn’t wish for you to be disappointed, I suppose.”
He gawked. “Disappointed?” He took two steps closer to you, a smile barely there on his face. “Y/N, I am far from disappointed. I am…elated. But I cannot understand why you’ve hidden this so long.”
Your breath stopped. He took another step toward you. You tried to calm the panic in your brain. This is not what you were expecting. Not how you’d envisioned this moment at all.
”You don’t understand?” You parroted, a mocking tone creeping into your voice. He stood so close to you now you could see the faint crease between his brows, the tension in his jaw.
Something soft crept into his voice. “You truly believe that I would be disappointed to learn that the Mother chose you for me?”
Your laugh came out brittle. Disbelief flooded through you at his words. “The Mother may have chosen me for you, but you have never chosen me, Azriel.”
”What?”
You laughed again. Surely, anyone walking by would think you mad.
”When this bond snapped for you, you were ready to kiss another female, Azriel!”
”So this is about Elain?” He exhaled slowly. “Y/N, that was a misunderstanding. I believe she might be my mate.”
”She has a mate!” You were shouting now, your voice rising despite yourself. An overflow of emotions betraying you. In the past, you’d always thought this moment would be defined by his anger, his emotions towards such a disappointing pairing by the Mother.
“I understand the timing was awful. I’m sorry.”
”You’re sorry,” you deadpanned.
Azriel shook his head, speaking slowly. “I know…I know that I have failed you in many ways. And I can understand why you wouldn’t have told me.”
He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. It was a stark change from his usual directness. Your hands shook slightly, tears welling up in your eyes.
”Please. Please don’t cry, Y/N.” He sounded desperate, pained.
“So what happens now?” You posed. “Elain is not your mate, which anyone with half a brain could have told you.”
”Now you are my mate. Everything has changed, darling.”
”Don’t call me that.” Gods, why couldn’t you stop the tears? They streaked down your face, staining your cheeks. “Nothing has changed.”
Azriel only gaped at you. “How can you say that? We are mates. Elain does not matter.”
”Doesn’t matter?” It was your turn to stare at him like a fish out of water. “You have no feelings for me. And I am not interested in you pretending to care for me.”
”I- I would not be pretending.” He stuttered.
You stepped back immediately.
“Yes, you would,” you argued, insistence heavy in your tone. “Two weeks ago, you lay with me in bed and told me that you wish to be mated to another!”
You had to shut your eyes before continuing. “Do you think that I don’t know you? I have watched for two centuries how you look at women that you actually want.”
“I want you.”
”Because of the bond,” you shot back.
”No,” he said without hesitation. “Don’t say that.”
A bitter breath escaped you, “What would you have me say, Azriel? For hundreds of years, you have looked at every female but me. And when you finally-“ a sob cut through your words. “When you finally touched me, and I had hope, you broke that trust. Stress relief, isn’t that what you said?”
He flinched at the words. “I did not mean to imply-“
”You implied nothing. You said it quite clearly.”
”I thought you were happy with our…arrangement. You never asked for more.”
”So you assumed that I was happy with just sex while you pined for another?” You let out a scoff at that. You were being petty, you knew. But you found that you didn’t care. This was uncharted territory.
You’d never imagined that you’d be the one with the power in the situation. Here he was, and he seemed as if he wanted you. Desired you. But that couldn’t be right. There was no way. He was only trying to do right by you.
“Azriel,” you continued, “You have never desired me romantically. Physically, clearly. But do not stand here and lie to me.”
His shadows peered at you from over his shoulder, and his brow creased slightly with effort. As if he had to work to hold them back from you. “I am not lying to you. I have never lied to you, Y/N.”
“But you still do not love me.”
Azriel huffed. “How can you say that? You are my mate!”
”But you do not love me!” Your voice raised again. “This is why I never told you about the bond.”
”It isn’t like that,” Azriel tried, anguish heavy in his voice. “Please, let’s sit and we can talk about this.”
”There is nothing to talk about.” You sniffled, hand moving to wipe a tear from your cheek. “And we’re stopping our little…arrangement, if it wasn’t clear.”
”Ok,” he nodded, frantically. He moved to take your hands into his. “How about this? We’ll start over. No past.”
You shook your head, sniffling. “No, you don’t understand.”
His expression fractured. “Tell me then. Help me understand how to fix this. We’re mates. And that means something to me, Y/N. It can mean something to both of us. We just need time. I know I was awful to you. And inconsiderate.” He lowered his forehead down to yours, and you felt a tear drop from his cheek to yours. “Let me fix it. I’ll do whatever you want.”
For years, you dreamed of this moment.
”We cannot be together, Azriel. I won’t be your second choice.”
”You would not be my second choice. Never. We are mates.” He stressed.
”But that is the problem,” you stressed. “The bond has chosen me for you. But you would never do so.”
“That isn’t true, Y/N. The Mother has linked us. And that means something to me. We can figure this out.”
Gods, you couldn’t do this. Couldn’t face him as he attempted to placate you.
Here was Azriel, a male that you had dreamed of loving you since the day you met him. And now he was telling you he wanted you. As a mate. As a lover.
You broke out of his hold, maneuvering your hands away from him, “I spoke to Rhys before I left for Dawn. I’m moving back to Day.”
He froze. A beat of silence passed between you, then another. “What?”
A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think! :)
Summary -Eris has learned to fear storms, not for their fury, but for the Shadowsinger they hold within. When Azriel arrives with proof of betrayal, the line between duty and desire blurs dangerously thin. Magic entwines, tempers spark, and the truth Eris has long denied finally demands to be spoken.
Word Count - 3350
A very Happy Solstice to my angelic giftee @theiudices!
I hope that you're happy to finally know that it's me, and that you love the Azris shaped gift I've tied up with a bow and left under the tree for you, and thank you for being so patient and lovely whilst I've churned this out. The inspiration has been amazing and this fic has ignited my writing light once more x
My submission for this years ACOTAR Gift Exchange @acotargiftexchange
Rain had found its way home in the Autumn Court.
No fluttering warmth from the fires around the manor, nor the soft snores of his hounds splayed lazily in the lounge could distract Eris from the one simple fact that a storm was brewing.
With a rough hand dragging through his tangled hair, Eris fixed his gaze on the horizon. The sky bled with fractured hues of orange and mulberry, swallowed whole by a tide of bruised clouds. Darkness crept forward like a patient predator, inch by inch, and Eris understood there would be no resisting it, nor the presence that lurked within its eye.
Eris had gotten accustomed to the signs. Shadows that would linger within the corners of his vision throughout the day. The dark thunderclouds that crept through the skies throughout the afternoon. It, or he, stole his attention whenever he could, if only to taunt and torment at the very least.
Eris had grown to find some odd comfort in it, for he knew that the storm and darkness would never truly harm him.
It had been three winters since Beron had passed, a horrific murder that could not be traced. Eris remembered following the curve of the fresh scar on his cheek with the tip of his fingers whilst looking down at the mangled body on the wooden floor within the manor. Eris remembered the slight, barely noticeable grin that took hold of his lips too.
Since then, since Eris had been crowned High Lord of the Autumn Court and worked to change beliefs and relationships, he unwillingly found himself having to work closer with a certain Shadowsinger more than he would have liked.
There were snakes in the walls, ones loyal to Beron that couldn't quite shake the feeling like Eris was innocent in the demise of his father. Prove it and those vipers could remove Eris from his seat of power and replace him with someone much less accommodating.
He supposed he should have felt honoured that Rhys offered his attention and assistance to the matter, despite their past feeling of one another. But Eris couldn't help but feel that deep-sated anger swirl in his blood with knowing that he was indebted to the Night Court for a considerably long time.
The storm outside was no mere weather. It was a summons. The wards had been crafted to carry messages through rain and thunder, each storm bearing the signature of whoever passed through. And Azriel’s was always the most formidable. The villages flooded during the last week of every month, and Eris was growing tired of spending a small fortune rebuilding walls that the Shadowsinger’s presence so effortlessly destroyed. He was dangerously close to sending Rhysand an invoice for the trouble.
Without waking his hounds, Eris tore his cloak from its hook by the cabin door. Since his Beron’s death, he had found himself unable to stomach living in the main house full‑time. He pulled the hood over his head and stepped out into yet another violent night.
The wind howled and clawed at him. Mud clung thickly to the suede of his boots. Rain gathered on his lashes like a desperate lover, and Eris wiped it away with a sharp, irritated swipe each time it dared return. A deep rumble of anguish vibrated within the confines of his chest as he pushed further into the woods that surrounded his personal, and well hidden, cabin, and Eris cursed Azriel for always dragging him out so far.
Branches bowed under the weight of the storm, their skeletal fingers clawing at his cloak as he pushed through the undergrowth. The wards hummed beneath his skin, a low, insistent vibration that grew stronger with every step. Azriel was close. Close enough that Eris could taste the metallic tang of shadows on the back of his tongue.
A fork of lightning split the sky, illuminating the clearing ahead, and the figure standing in its centre.
Azriel did not turn. He didn’t need to. His shadows curled around him like smoke drawn to a flame, whispering secrets only he could hear. Rain slicked the dark leather of his armour, clinging to the hard lines of muscle beneath. Wings tucked tight, head bowed, he looked carved from the storm itself.
He wore no cloak, nothing to protect himself from the wild winds or rain that bounced up from the ground. Azriel was truly magnificent, not only in the way he carried himself, but in the way that he allowed nothing to effect him.
Eris exhaled, slow and controlled, though something in his chest tightened painfully.
“You’re early,” he called out, voice carrying through the song of the wind.
Azriel lifted his head, just enough for Eris to see the faint gleam of hazel eyes beneath the hood of shadow. Not warm. Not cold. Simply assessing. As if Eris were a puzzle he had not yet decided whether to solve or shatter.
The Shadowsinger grunted in response, his eyes naturally skimming the scape to ensure the High Lord of Autumn hadn't been followed.
"I assumed you would like to know.." Azriel's voice drifted before his hazel eyes snapped to Eris who had lowered the hood of his cloak, finding solace in the canopy of trees, "That my shadows in your court have come back to me with information you may find valuable."
Eris snorted. "You assume a great deal."
A pause. A shift of weight. The shadows stilled, listening intently.
"Don't pretend that you don't rely on it." Azriel smirked, a naturally infuriating action that made a coil warp within Eris' gut.
Eris stepped further into the clearing, boots sinking into the sodden earth. The storm pressed against his back, urging him forward. Azriel did not move, but the air around him turned taut, charged with something dangerous.
“You flood my villages every month,” Eris said, coming to a stop a few paces away, still under the protection of whatever trees the storm hadn't carved away. “You could at least pretend to be apologetic.”
Azriel’s mouth twitched. “If your wards weren’t so dramatic, perhaps I wouldn’t have to be.”
Eris felt heat rise in his blood, anger, yes, but threaded with something else. Something he refused to name, and had turned away from each time Azriel came and went.
“You’re blaming my wards for your inability to enter a court without causing a natural disaster?”
It was wrong to think that Azriel didn't know what Eris was doing with his poor attempts of stalling, but he always seemed to play along with the whim.
Azriel finally turned fully toward him. Rain slid down his cheekbones, catching on a faint scar that cut across one of them. His wings unfurled slightly, a subtle, instinctive display that sent a shiver down Eris’ spine.
“I’m saying,” Azriel murmured, stepping closer, “that you knew exactly what you were doing when you tied your magic to mine.”
Eris’s breath caught.
Because he had. Not consciously. Not intentionally. But the wards recognised Azriel, recognised the shadows, the power, the presence, and responded to him in a way they responded to no one else.
A dangerous way.
A familiar way.
Lightning flashed again, and for a heartbeat, Azriel’s face was bare of shadows. Bare of armour. Bare of anything except the truth Eris had been avoiding for months.
“You should have stayed in the Night Court,” Eris said quietly, though the words lacked conviction.
Azriel took another step, close enough now that Eris could feel the warmth of him beneath the storm’s chill.
"We both know that you don't want that," he flicked his tongue over his bottom lip, collecting a rain drop that threatened to trail off of his chin. "Besides," Azriel's eyes flashed with feigned annoyance, "it seems as though you have forgotten that I have come with information, not to play your games."
Eris swallowed, the motion tight and betraying. “If you truly came with information,” he said, lifting his chin with forced pride, “you would have delivered it already.”
Azriel’s expression didn’t shift, but the shadows at his back curled in, as if amused on his behalf.
“Perhaps I was waiting,” Azriel replied, voice low enough that Eris felt it more than heard it, “for you to stop circling me like a hound scenting something it doesn’t want to admit it wants.”
Heat flared across Eris’s cheeks, infuriating, humiliating, and entirely beyond his control.
“You overestimate your importance,” Eris drawled, though the words lacked their usual bite.
And Azriel knew it.
Azriel stepped closer still, until the space between them was little more than a breath. Rain pattered softly against Azriel’s wings, sliding down the dark membrane in streams that glimmered like molten silver in the storm light.
“Do I?” Azriel murmured.
Eris hated the way his pulse leapt. Hated the way the wards thrummed in answer, as if Azriel’s presence were a key turning in a lock he’d never meant to forge.
During Beron, Eris hated everything that bred from the Night Court, and part of him still did. They were perfect specimens crafted by the mother, and he was sure that they had been put in the world t terrorise and torment him. But there was always a part, a small speckle of him, that envied them, that wanted more than anything to be warped within them.
“Tell me your information,” Eris said, forcing steel into his voice. “Or leave.”
Azriel’s gaze dipped briefly to Eris’s mouth, so quick Eris was sure that he had imagined it, if not for the way his stomach twisted in response.
“You’re very eager to be rid of me,” Azriel said softly.
If Eris didn't know any better, he would have seen that flash of pain that sliced across Azriel's face. It disappeared as quickly as it came, so fast that Eris didn't know what to do with it.
“Because you bring trouble with you.”
Azriel’s smile was a ghost of a thing, barely there, but devastating all the same. “Yet you always make me stay for longer than both of us know I should."
A crack of thunder split the sky, shaking the ground beneath their feet. Azriel didn’t flinch. Eris didn’t either, though the sound vibrated through his bones.
Finally, Azriel reached into the inner pocket of his leathers and withdrew a small, sealed parchment. He held it out, but not quite far enough for Eris to take without stepping closer.
Eris stared at the offered message, then at the hand holding it. Strong. Steady. Rain‑slicked and scarred. Azriel's scent drenched the parchment, a scent of petrichor and musk filled his lungs, and Eris internally roared at what such a fickle thing did to him.
“What is it?” Eris asked, though he didn’t move.
“Proof,” Azriel said. “Of who’s been whispering in your court. And who they’ve been whispering to.”
The words should have chilled him. They should have sent him lunging forward to snatch the parchment and tear it open to ensure the safety of his life and the future of his court.
But Azriel’s voice, quiet, certain, and threaded with something that felt dangerously like concern, held him in place.
“And you brought this yourself?” Eris asked, softer now, his façade crumbling.
Azriel’s wings tucked in, shadows drawing close around him like a cloak. “I don’t trust anyone else with it.”
Eris’ breath stuttered.
Not because of the information.
But because Azriel had said it like a confession.
Slowly, too slowly, Eris stepped forward and reached for the parchment. Azriel didn’t let go immediately. Their fingers brushed, a fleeting touch, but the wards surged so violently that the air crackled between them.
Azriel’s eyes darkened. “Careful,” he murmured. “Your magic is showing.”
Eris snatched his hand back, pulse hammering.
“And whose fault is that?” he snapped.
Azriel’s answering look was molten shadow and storm light. “Yours,” he said. “For letting me in.”
Eris broke the tension first, ignoring the signals and snatching the parchment fully from Azriel’s grasp. The wards pulsed once more, then settled into a low, restless hum beneath his skin.
He forced himself to look down at the seal rather than at the Shadowsinger still standing far too close. Too close that Eris couldn't even think straight let alone breathe.
The wax was black. Night Court black. Stamped with a sigil Eris recognised instantly, not Rhysand’s, but Azriel’s own. A private mark. One he rarely used.
Eris’ pulse stuttered.
He cracked the seal with his thumb and unfolded the parchment. Rain dotted the ink, but the words remained legible.
Names. Locations. Meetings held in secret. A network of Beron’s loyalists woven deeper into the Autumn Court than Eris had dared to imagine.
His stomach twisted. Not with fear, but with the cold, simmering fury that always came when he realised just how much rot and poison his father had left behind.
“You should have told me sooner,” Eris said, voice low.
Azriel didn’t move. “I needed to be certain.”
“And now you are?”
Azriel’s gaze flicked over Eris’ face, lingering on the tension in his jaw, the tightness around his eyes. “Yes.”
Eris folded the parchment slowly, deliberately, though his hands were not as steady as he wished. “Then I’ll deal with them.”
“I know,” Azriel murmured.
Something in his tone, the quietness, the confidence, and something almost protective, made Eris’s breath catch again.
He hated that.
He hated how easily Azriel could unmake him with a single look.
“You linger,” Eris said, forcing a scoff. “Is that all you came to deliver?”
Azriel stepped closer, close enough that Eris could feel the heat radiating from him despite the chill of the storm. Close enough that Eris had to tilt his head slightly to meet his eyes.
“No,” Azriel spoke softly, as if he was afraid of the things that had always been left unsaid. “It isn’t.”
Eris’ heart thudded.
Azriel’s shadows curled around them, dimming the storm light, cocooning the clearing in something that felt... intimate.
“You’ve been playing this game for months,” Azriel continued, voice low and rough. “Pushing. Pulling. Pretending you don’t feel anything for me.”
Eris swallowed. “You’re imagining things.”
Azriel’s expression darkened, not with anger, but with something far more devastating.
“Stop,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Stop lying to me. And to yourself.”
Eris opened his mouth, to deny, to deflect, to say anything that would keep the ground from shifting beneath him but Azriel moved first.
A hand, warm and sure, slid to the side of Eris’ jaw. Not forceful. Not demanding. Just… certain, almost pleading.
Eris froze.
A thousand thoughts ran through his mind. The fury of Rhysand, the deepening hatred from Mor and the rest of Azriel's family. The terror of being vulnerable, the horror of wanting to give into his feelings and live in a moment of bliss that he was sure would be tore away from him.
The storm surged. Eris' breath shallowed, but he didn't move, his entire soul screaming to allow his desire to come to fruition.
And then Azriel kissed him.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t tentative. It was heat and storm and months of unspoken tension crashing together in a single, breath‑stealing moment. Rain clung to their skin, cold and sharp, but Azriel’s mouth was warm, grounding, infuriatingly sure of itself.
Eris’s breath hitched against him, a sound he would deny until the end of time, but he didn’t pull away.
He couldn’t.
Azriel broke the kiss first, though he didn’t step back. His forehead rested against Eris’, breath mingling with his in the cold air.
“Admit it,” Azriel murmured. “Just once. Speak the truth that you keep on running from.”
Eris’ hands curled into fists at his sides. His chest felt too tight. The air thrummed like a heartbeat that didn't belong to him.
Eris kept his eyes shut, as if darkness might steady him. It didn’t. If anything, it made Azriel’s presence sharper — the warmth of his breath, the faint brush of his thumb, the way the wards thrummed like a second heartbeat beneath Eris’s skin.
He hated how easily Azriel unravelled him.
Hated that he wanted him to.
“I don’t…” Eris tried again, but the words tangled in his throat. He had faced down assassins, traitors, his own father, yet this, this simple truth, felt like a blade pressed to the softest most human part of him.
Azriel didn’t push. Didn’t demand. He simply waited, steady as stone, patient as shadow. That patience was what undid Eris most of all.
“You don’t have to say it,” Azriel murmured, voice low enough that the storm nearly swallowed it. “But stop pretending you feel nothing.”
Eris’ eyes snapped open, anger flaring, but not at Azriel, never him, but at himself. At the way the truth clawed at his ribs, desperate to be acknowledged.
“You think this is easy for me?” Eris hissed, stepping back, but Azriel’s hand followed, fingers curling lightly around his jaw, refusing to let him retreat into the safety of distance.
“No,” Azriel said. “I think it terrifies you.”
The honesty in Azriel’s tone, that quiet, unadorned, without judgement knowing, struck deeper than any accusation could have.
“Of course it terrifies me,” Eris whispered, the admission ripped from somewhere raw. “Everything I touch burns. Everything I care for is taken. And you-”
He cut himself off, jaw tightening.
Azriel’s expression softened, shadows drawing close around them like a shield rather than a threat.
“And you think I’m something fragile?” Azriel asked, a faint, incredulous huff escaping him. “Eris, I’ve walked through a darkness that would break most people. I’m not afraid of your fire.”
Eris looked away, rain slipping down his cheek like a tear he refused to shed.
“You should be,” he said quietly.
Azriel stepped closer, so close their chests brushed with each breath. “I’m not.”
Eris’ throat tightened painfully. He wanted to shove Azriel away. He wanted to pull him closer. He wanted to stop feeling so exposed under that steady, unflinching gaze.
“You don’t understand,” Eris said, voice cracking despite his best efforts. “If I let this happen. If I let you happen.. I don’t know what I’ll become.”
Azriel’s hand slid from his jaw to the side of his neck, fingers warm against the cold rain. Not possessive. Not forceful. Just.. grounding.
“Maybe,” Azriel spoke gently, “you’ll become someone who finally stops carrying everything alone.”
Eris let out a shaky breath, one that fogged faintly in the cold air between them. The storm still raged around them, but somehow it felt further away now, more muffled, distant, as though Azriel’s presence had carved out a quiet pocket of calm in the universe just for the two of them.
He huffed a laugh, low and incredulous. “You make it sound so simple.”
Azriel’s thumb brushed lightly against his skin of his hand. “It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
Eris lifted his gaze, meeting Azriel’s eyes properly this time. There was no judgement there. No pressure. Just a steady, unflinching certainty that made something in Eris’ chest loosen.
“For someone who thrives in shadows,” Eris said, voice steadier now, “you’re annoyingly good at dragging things into the light.”
Azriel’s mouth twitched, the closest he ever came to a true smile in Eris' presence. “Someone has to keep you honest.”
Eris rolled his eyes, but the gesture lacked its usual bite. “Careful. I might start thinking you enjoy being here.”
Azriel didn’t look away. “I wouldn’t be standing in the middle of a storm like this for anyone else.”
The words landed with surprising warmth, settling into Eris like embers catching on dry wood. Not overwhelming. Not frightening. Real.
He straightened a little, shoulders squaring as if remembering he was a High Lord, one who had survived far worse than the possibility of wanting someone or having a life he could be truly proud of.
“Well,” Eris said, a faint, wry smile tugging at his lips, “if you insist on haunting my borders every month, I suppose I can stop pretending I don’t look forward to it.”
Azriel’s shadows curled in, pleased. “That’s a start.”
but! i'm back with questions. Firstly, how are ya doing? october treating you well?
i was thinking... and would u prefer something more like a straightforward fic or do you like time skips?
big argument? happy ending?
andddd favorite color?
see you soon,
ur favorite santa!
Helloooo
Honestly, my bad too. Life has been busy!
I'm so good! October is my favourite month (birthday and Halloween) so it's been smooth sailing
Hmmmmmm I'm honestly happy to go with the flow and whatever your mind comes up with, not fussed on either really! Butttt I do love me some angst so arguments/fall outs would be my preference on that one!
I absolutely love your previous answers. You're perfect.
I love angst and crack and all the good stuff
but...
we're here again
with more questionsss
firstly, how are you?
next! do you wish for something holiday themed, if so which holiday? modern au or prythian or anything else? ANDDDD if you had to choose between Eris and Azriel's power, which would you want to have?
FROMMMMM, YOUR SANTA (your personal, fanfictional, random asking, santa!)
Hello!
Ahhhh!! I love you already, let's be besties x
I am so good rn, how are you doing??
Hmmm I'm not overly bothered about holiday themed fics, like they're cute but I just love raw angst and crack, so I'm giving you full reign with that one.
Modern AU is cool, I love the idea of Modern AU Az and Eris with their hot af tattoos, brings, motorbikes or whatever, but also cannot beat a classic Prythian style fic either.
In terms of powers, Az all the way - give me a shadow bending daddy powers all day longgggg x
Azriel x Vanserra!Reader, Tamlin x Vanserra!Reader
Summary - Dragged from Autumn’s shadows into the light of a High Lords’ gathering, you’re forced to confront old scars, dangerous politics, and the ghosts of those who left you behind. But when fire and fury collide, it’s the quiet blooms and shadows who fight to set you free.
Warnings - angst, mention of torture and parental abuse, protective, slight fluff but mostly buckets of angst and pain, sadness
A part of you should have known it would come to this. It was naïve of you to believe any different. You knew that now.
Somehow you believed that even with Lucien gone, and being the only daughter brought into the autumn line, that you would have been spared the same torment that had found your brothers.
It had always been worse for you. Thick, jagged lines of grey slithered over your skin, down your arms and across your torso, and even a certain spot on your right cheek. Beron had forbidden you the mercy of long sleeves as he had allowed your brothers. Instead, he paraded you in gowns chosen solely to frame your disfigurement, smirking when whispers followed, planning the next lash of his whip whenever you fell out of step.
Ever since Lucien had left for the Spring Court, it had been you against the world. No allies bar your mother, but even she couldn't stop him. Eris consoled you when it went dark, coming to your rooms in the dead of night to tend to whatever Beron had inflicted a mere hour or two before; he would whisper his empty promises of creating a better world before slipping away again.
None of your other brothers bothered to see you, not seeing the need to risk themselves by appearing sympathetic to your afflictions.
You weren't even sure if Lucien knew of it, of how bad it had gotten since he left. Lucien was your twin, and had been your best friend until he was called by the Spring Court, leaving you behind. He had never written, never asked. You had forced yourself to forget the warmth of his face, because remembering hurt too much. Rumours said he had found a home in Velaris now. How nice for him.
Mornings were spent in the libraries, tucking yourself into the farthest corners where you prayed Beron would never find you. Afternoons were meant for lessons, for horse riding and hunting in the forests. Then the evenings... well, you went to sleep each night begging whatever gods were listening to end your suffering.
You were sure that no one would miss a child of Beron.
It had been one of the rare occasions where the High Lords of Prythian would be forced to come together, to keep up appearances. And for the first time, Beron had commanded you be present, if only to show the others just how brutal he could be. He had ordered his staff to scrub your skin until it cracked and dress you in a wine red and gold gown, a beautiful garment until you realised that it had only been chosen to display the scars that ran over your arms and back. You were there to be a symbol of his cruelty, to remind others of his nature.
The journey to Spring had been long, but you were thankful to be placed in the carriage like some sort of ornament whilst Beron and Eris rode ahead. It was a singular kindness, even though you were sure Beron had only allowed it to keep you out of his sight, the image of you had always disgusted him.
Yet a part of you was quietly, shamefully thrilled. You hadn't stepped beyond the confines of Autumn in an age, never once seen the world that stretched past its wards bar the land of Spring. In your sleep, you wandered there instead, dreaming of Velaris, where golden valleys unfurled beneath a jewelled night sky; of palaces bathed in fading sunlight; of shores where the sand kissed the endless sea. Even Spring had found its way into your dreams, its breezes sweet with blossoms, its air tinged with gentle chill. And Winter with its towering castles of ice and hills wrapped in snow.
There was an entire world beyond Beron’s reach, and you had been kept from all of it. Just a glimpse, you thought. Just a taste of freedom before you were locked away again. That would have been enough.
The Spring Court was the last place that the Inner Circle had ever wished to be. Even if it was in the name of peace.
It was too bright. Too tainted with memories and dreams that many wished to forget. Mainly Lucien and Feyre.
None of them had known what to expect as the High Lords and their entourages began to arrive, all muttering the pleasantries and wishing for the day to end so that they could retire to their overly bloom-filled rooms. The gardens were spectacular, none of them could deny that, but, since the war and everything that happened before it, Spring had felt hollow.
"Waiting on Beron. As usual," Rhys had mused as he glanced around in disgust, his arm curled around Feyre's side to keep her grounded. He had told her that she didn't have to attend, but she refused to stay behind in Velaris, a High Lady was meant to be seen, especially in the place that had threatened to swallow her.
Feyre gleamed in her pale blue gown made from sheets of pure starlight, her crown shimmered in the Spring sun. "I read something about the Autumn line a few days ago," Feyre began, her eyes scanning the growing crowed and landing on Lucien with a slight frown, "There is a girl in their line, supposedly."
Not wanting to alert Lucien to the topic, Mor rounded the side of her High Lord and Lady with a bleak smile. "There is. Her name is y/n. She is Lucien's twin."
A genteel breeze swept through the grass, rustling fallen leaves and the odd pebble against the ground. Feyre couldn't recount Lucien ever speaking of a sister let alone a twin, and wondered why in all her time with the Inner Circle and their loathing of Autumn, had this girl never been brought up.
"It's because she is the only one we don't despise, Darling. But she is also the only thing we cannot save," Rhys spoke softly, voice low and calming, with a sadness in his voice that made Feyre's heart clench.
The cool threading of Azriel's shadows flew over her limbs as he approached. "She was the one who alerted us of your location the day Cassian and I saved you. Without her, Night and Autumn would have gone to war."
"How did she-"
"Eris," Azriel interrupted with a flare of his siphon. "He doesn't do anything without telling her. She doesn't do well without him around."
Feyre frowned. "What do you-"
Before she could ask the question, ask what Azriel meant, ask why she was kept a secret... the gates to the manor groaned open, and the Autumn Court carriage rattled into the courtyard with Beron and Eris riding on their steeds at the helm. The horses and the carriage came to a halt, and they could all see the shadow of you inside smoothing down your skirts and adjusting your sleeves.
Beron dismounted with a sadistic grin, one that made fire curl in Mor's belly and darkness cloud Azriel's vision. In all of his years of knowing you, he had always watched you from afar, had his spies look out for you in the smallest of ways. If he couldn't get you out, then he could at least provide some comfort.
The carriage jolted to a halt behind him, the horses stamping against the flagstones of the Spring Court’s courtyard. You smoothed your hands down your skirts again, as though that would hide the scars Beron had chosen to bare, as though silk and trembling fingers could undo what his hands had inflicted.
The door opened.
Sunlight poured into the carriage first, almost blinding you, before Beron’s shadow fell across it. His smirk was a blade as he extended a hand, not to help you, but to drag you into the light. To show how far his cruelty could extend. You ignored it, stepping down carefully on your own. The marble was warm beneath your slippers, too clean, too bright.
They were already waiting.
The Inner Circle stood to the right, a dark, formidable wall against Spring’s bloom. Feyre’s gaze darted to you first, it was sharp, assessing, her mouth parting in a flicker of something like shock. Rhys at her side radiated calm power, his violet eyes cool and unreadable but fixed firmly on Beron with flared nostrils. Cassian and Mor shifted subtly closer to Feyre, their presence protective even in repose, while Amren leaned forward slightly, her silver gaze cutting straight through you. And Azriel. Azriel stood half a step back, shadows curling restlessly at his feet, his eyes pinned on you with an intensity that made your breath stutter.
Azriel had never seen you up close, not since you were both much smaller. You had been one of the few people who hadn't been scared of him or his shadows, you had always been kind; he should have known that it was because of the demons at your door. They made him look like the tooth fairy.
Across the courtyard, Tamlin himself descended the manor steps, his golden hair catching the sun, his jaw taut as he glanced from you to Beron.
But it was Lucien who broke first.
He froze, every muscle in his body seizing as he caught sight of you like he had forgotten your existence. The colour drained from his face, his russet eye wide, the gold one glowing as though it couldn’t quite comprehend what it was seeing. His lips parted, but no sound came.
Beron noticed, of course. He always noticed.
“Ah,” he said loudly, gesturing lazily toward you as if presenting a prized horse. “You remember my daughter, don’t you, Lucien? She’s grown into such a fine reminder of what happens to those who disappoint me.”
A ripple of unease swept through the gathered company. Feyre’s hands clenched at her sides at the sight of you, hunched inward and eyes glued to the ground. You looked so tired, so defeated, and nothing like the girl Rhys and his sister befriended all those years ago. Cassian’s wings twitched at Beron's words, his body angling toward you. And, Eris, mounted still on his horse, looked straight ahead, his expression carved from stone.
Lucien’s breath came fast, shallow. He pushed to the forefront of the Inner Circle. “What… what have you done?”
Licks of hatred covered your skin, thick lashes coloured your back, thin slices from knives glided down your arms. And your face... it was clear that Beron had broken a few things there over the years that even your fae healing had struggling to fix. But despite it all, you were still beautiful, you were still the only thing that could match the beauty of Rhys despite him being of the darkness and you of the fire.
Beron chuckled, cruel and cold as he curled a commanding hand around your bicep. “Done? I’ve disciplined her. Just as I would have disciplined you, had you stayed. Every mark, every scar, consider them yours, filth. You left, and she bore the cost of it.”
The words hit like a lash, the silence that followed louder than any roar.
Lucien staggered a step forward, fury sparking bright in his hands, his magic barely contained. “You monster-”
“Careful,” Beron cut in smoothly, eyes gleaming with triumph. “Would you strike your father here? Before all of Prythian? Or will you stand there, impotent, while the world sees what your absence has wrought?”
Your stomach twisted, bile rising in your throat. The weight of every gaze pressed against your skin, each scar bared in the sunlight. Just as Beron wished.
And then, softly, almost imperceptibly, the Inner Circle moved.
Azriel moved.
He had grown, which was to be assumed considering all of the years apart. He towered over most, his shadows dancing along the ground as they moved to you. His eyes were warm and laced with a kind sort of death, and you remembered every hushed word and wish that had ever been voiced between the two of you.
Cassian shifted closer to Feyre. Mor angled herself toward you. Rhys’s shadows of power stretched across the stone, brushing faintly against your leather riding boots. And Azriel, without a word, stepped forward until his broad shoulders blocked part of Beron’s view of you, his wings rose to shield you from view, his shadows curled protectively at your back.
A wall. A shield. A haven.
Public. Deliberate.
Beron’s smile faltered, just slightly.
And then Tamlin broke the moment, striding forward with golden authority, slipping an arm carefully yet protectively around your shoulders. His jaw was tight, his grip firm, but his voice was cool as steel when he spoke.
“That’s enough. This is Spring, Beron. You will not use her as your spectacle here.”
Tamlin ignored the fury in Azriel's gaze as gasps whispered through the assembly. Feyre’s eyes softened. Lucien looked as though he might shatter. Tamlin turned, guiding you gently but firmly away, his warmth shielding you from the dozens of eyes that still burned at your back.
His arm stayed steady around your shoulders as he guided you up the steps of the manor, his body angled to shield you from the stares that still clung like claws to your back. The great doors closed behind you with a weighty thud, cutting off the courtyard’s murmurs and the echo of Beron’s laughter.
Inside, the air was cooler, scented faintly with roses and sun-warmed stone. The silence pressed around you, but it wasn’t suffocating, not like in Autumn. Here, it was softer. Almost protective.
Tamlin steered you into a smaller parlor off the main hall, the kind of room built for comfort rather than grandeur. Pale green walls, a low fire in the hearth, windows thrown open to let in the gentle breeze. The stark opposite of Beron’s chambers of iron and shadow.
“Sit,” Tamlin said quietly, his voice gentler now, as though he feared startling you.
You obeyed, sinking into the edge of a settee, your fingers worrying at the folds of your gown. The scars Beron had insisted be bared still burned under the weight of memory, of every eye that had traced them moments before.
Tamlin crouched before you, his broad frame folding gracefully, bringing him eye-level with you. His hands braced on his knees, but not too close, never too close, not without permission.
“You shouldn’t have had to endure that,” he said, his voice roughened with barely contained anger. “Not in Autumn. And certainly not here. Not ever.”
You stared at him, at the way the firelight caught the gold in his hair, at the sincerity etched in every line of his face. Tamlin had always seemed larger than life, all sharp edges and golden power, yet here he was, quiet, grounding, speaking to you as though you weren’t a weapon or a wound, but a person.
For a long moment, you couldn’t speak.
He didn’t press. Just waited.
Finally, you whispered, “Why are you doing this?”
Tamlin’s eyes softened, the weight of unspoken years filling the space between you. “Because you deserve someone who will. Because I couldn’t protect you then, and I’ll be damned if I don’t try now.”
Your breath stuttered. The words shouldn’t have carried such weight, but they did.
Tamlin hesitated, then reached out, slow, deliberate, his hand hovering just above yours on the cushion. “May I?”
The question unraveled something in you. You nodded.
His hand covered yours, warm, steady, and grounding. No force, no command. Just presence. Just care.
The hand remained there, just laying atop your own without moving. It was as if he was letting you know there were people who cared for you, who thought of you, who saw you.
But none of them came to save you.
Because deep down, you were sure that you weren't worth it.
He studied your face for a long moment, as though memorizing every detail, and then his voice dropped to something almost confessional.
“You asked why I’m doing this,” he said softly. “It’s because I always have. Even when you didn’t know it.”
Your brows furrowed, but he pressed on, his thumb brushing once, gently, against your knuckles.
“The first time Beron brought you here, you couldn’t have been more than twelve. You hid behind Lucien, eyes too big, too wary. But when Lucien was called away, you wandered the gardens alone. You found me by the roses. Do you remember?”
A ghost of a memory tugged at you, of the boyish face, the sun on the roses, the way he’d spoken to you as though you were worth listening to. You swallowed hard, whispering, “I remember.”
Tamlin’s lips curved faintly, bittersweet. “After that, I couldn’t stop noticing you. Every time you came here, I looked for you. I saw you flinch when Beron’s hand twitched. I saw the way you squared your shoulders even when you were breaking inside. I wanted to step in a hundred times, but…” He trailed off, his jaw tight. “I told myself it wasn’t my place. That it would only make things worse.”
His eyes burned with regret as they searched yours. “But I still watched. Always. Every visit, every gathering. I made sure you were never left alone in those halls for too long. I followed at a distance. I… I cared, even when I shouldn’t have.”
Your chest ached. You hadn’t known, hadn’t even imagined it. And the way he said it, with the rawness and quiet desperation, it felt like stepping into a memory of something that never was, but could have been.
“Tamlin-”
He shook his head, cutting you off. “I don’t say this to make you uncomfortable. I just… I want you to know you’ve never been invisible. Not to me.”
The silence stretched between you, filled with unspoken things. His hand lingered over yours, his golden-green eyes softened, open in a way few ever saw.
For a moment, it felt like something fragile and dangerous was blooming in the space between you. A possibility. A what-if.
And then the door creaked.
“Y/N?”
Lucien’s voice, rough, and hesitant, cut through the shield of quiet. You stiffened, Tamlin’s hand slipped from yours just as your twin entered the room. His golden eye found you instantly, widening with relief and devastation all at once.
Tamlin rose smoothly, masking whatever had just passed between you, but his gaze flicked once to Lucien, sharp with warning, before he inclined his head and stepped back.
Lucien stood frozen in the doorway, his chest heaving too fast, his hand white-knuckled against the frame as though it alone kept him upright. His gaze flicked between you and Tamlin, lingering a moment too long on the space where Tamlin’s hand had just rested over yours.
“I…” His voice cracked, rougher than you’d ever heard it. “I didn’t think he’d actually-” Lucien broke off, shaking his head, eyes closing briefly before snapping back to you, burning. “Y/N… what has he done to you?”
You stiffened, the question pressing too heavy, too late. Your lips parted, but no answer came.
Tamlin shifted where he crouched before you, his broad shoulders angling ever so slightly, as though he meant to shield you from Lucien’s stare. His voice was calm, but it carried steel. “She doesn’t need interrogation. She needs space. Time.”
Lucien’s jaw tightened, fire flickering faintly in his eye. “She needs her brother.”
The word cracked through the room, sharp and aching. Your hands clenched in your lap.
Even within the confines of your shrouded life, you had heard enough to know of the fallout that had occurred between Tamlin and Lucien, and of the tales of them and Feyre. You knew more than any of them thought you did, but you were good at keeping those cards to your chest.
Tamlin glanced back at you, grounding, then rose slowly to his feet.
“I’m not leaving her,” he said quietly, but with an edge that commanded no argument. His presence was steady, anchoring, the weight of golden power subtle in the air.
Lucien flinched, but didn’t look away from you. He took a tentative step closer, as though approaching something fragile that might shatter. “I barely recognised you out there,” he admitted, his voice raw. “Not because you’ve changed. But because I couldn’t reconcile the sister I left with… with the one Beron paraded before us.”
Your throat ached. You couldn’t look at him.
Lucien raked a hand through his hair, frustration and grief twisting across his face. “I need you to know I didn’t want to leave. That it wasn’t a choice. But gods, Y/N…” His voice cracked. “Seeing you now, like this... I don’t know how to live with it.”
The words struck something jagged inside you, too tangled, anger, grief, longing, betrayal. You trembled beneath the weight of them, while Tamlin lingered close, silent, watchful, his steadying presence a shield you hadn’t asked for but couldn’t bring yourself to push away.
Something inside you snapped.
“You don’t know how to live with it?” Your voice tore from your throat, sharper than you’d meant, but you couldn’t stop it. “You left, Lucien. You walked away. You got to start over, find new friends, a new family, a mate. You weren’t here. You didn’t live it.”
Lucien flinched, but he held his ground. “I didn’t have a choice!”
“You always had a choice!” Tears burned your eyes, hot and blinding. “You were my twin! You were supposed to be my other half. My everything. The one I swore to face the world with. And the second it got hard, the second he turned his hand on me, you were already gone.”
Tamlin shifted forward, hands half-raised as though ready to steady either of you, his presence a grounding weight between the storm. But neither of you looked at him, you were locked on each other, the words tumbling too fast, too jagged.
Lucien’s voice cracked, rising with your own. “I thought leaving would make it better! That if I wasn’t here, he’d stop using you to punish me!” His fists clenched at his sides. “I thought he’d spare you-”
“He didn’t!” The sob ripped through you, shattering the words. “Every whip, every scar, he made sure I remembered you weren’t there. He made me pay for you!”
Lucien staggered as though you’d struck him, his face breaking open with horror. “Y/N…”
Your chest heaved, the sobs coming too fast now, sharp and choking. “Do you know what it’s like to pray every night that someone will come? To beg the Mother, the Cauldron, anyone, that maybe you would come? And then to realize you never would?”
The silence that followed was brutal, splintered only by your ragged breaths. Though, you continued. Unable to stop the words flowing past your lips.
"Do you know how awful it is to wish it had been you? Do you know of the guilt that tore me to shreds every time I wished you were there to take every punishment instead of me?! Do you know what it's like to be so broken and wish pain on the only person you loved to give yourself a moment of respite?!"
Lucien’s eyes shone wet, his lips parting soundlessly. Then, finally, a broken whisper, “I failed you.”
Tamlin moved then, stepping in before the weight of the words could crush you further. His hand settled lightly on your shoulder, not restraining, just steady. His voice was low, even, cutting into the storm without feeding it. “Enough. This isn’t healing, it’s tearing both of you open.”
But the ache, the rage, the grief, you could feel it trembling in your bones still, the pieces of yourself scattered at your feet.
And Lucien, your twin, your other half, looked like he was shattering too.
Author's Note - I am looking at making this into a series potentially so let me know what you think x
Summary - Eris knows that he is your mate even if you don't, and the one thing he refuses to lose is you, his mate who is half-goddess and half-death.
Warnings - war, blood, angst, fluff, swearing, feminine rage
Word Count - 9974 (yay!)
Eris was trying to keep it together.
Just another minute.
Just another minute until I can throttle her.
The war tent at the far end of the battle camps was a world apart from the high palaces and jewelled halls the High Lords were used to. Canvas walls rattled with the wind, the scent of horses and smoke drifting in from the fields beyond. Here, strategy and fear mingled like an old poison, and no luxury could dull the gnawing terror that Hybern held the cauldron, the one weapon that could unravel everything they fought to protect.
Your absence had not gone unnoticed. Not by anyone. Helion was the first to ask where the illustrious, untamable creature had wandered off to, and Eris had felt a small, bitter smirk curve his lips at the grip your reputation had over every High Lord in the room. Even Rhysand, who dared almost nothing, had learned the last time he’d tested you: you were untouchable.
To attend a war council without your presence beside him felt like an unbearable embarrassment. Eris had no idea where you’d gone. All he knew was that you had excused yourself the night before from his tent. He had assumed you were resting. But now, hours later, not even a trace of your wolf, Kalin, had lingered in the camp. The air felt hollow without you.
Until the tent flat opened.
Feline grace. Black-scaled second skin clinging to every curve. A smudge of dirt on your cheek, the only imperfection against your otherwise unbroken poise. The High Lords froze, and Eris felt something inside him shatter and ignite at the same time.
"You did what?" Rhys leant forward in his rickety wooden seat, unbelieving of the statement that had flown from your mouth, eyes wide with surprise as they scanned over your unharmed body.
"I went to scout the Hybern camp last night," you repeated plainly, crossing the tent to take your reserved seat beside Eris. The storm in his eyes mirrored his restrained fury.
The uproar was immediate. Helion’s tone was all chastisement, Cassian’s all threat, and Rhys’ sharp question carried barely masked fury. You, of course, only smirked, chin propped against your hand, daring them all to lecture you as if you hadn’t carved empires bare with a glance.
Eris said nothing. His silence was more dangerous than any of their scolding. He sat rigid, nostrils flaring as the rage warred with the relief clawing through his veins. His panic had nearly undone him, but you, wicked, reckless you, were whole.
Still, his hands trembled beneath the table.
Eris was trying to contain his fiery rage, his nostrils flared with each breath he drank into his lungs whilst the panic subsided, which it did as soon as he knew that you were truly unharmed. "You alone could turn the tide in this war, y/n," Cassian spoke up, his voice low and dangerous, and Eris resisted the urge to scoff, "You were reckless. You should have told us, one of us could have gone with you."
The history between the Night Court and yourself wasn't exactly the prettiest.
Once upon a time you had been a key member of Rhys' Inner Circle, acting as the thread that bound the courts together as well as the demonic protector of the land, but it all ended once you had decided to side with Eris on a certain matter, and there was no going back once blood had been drawn. But such things didn't mean that they didn't still care about you, or you them.
Rhys had likened you to walking death. It was meant to be a joke to diffuse the tension but everyone knew that he was right, that war was in your blood and battle forged part of your soul. No one could stand up to you and win. Not even the High Lord of the Night Court.
"You would have just slowed me down," you told your former brother with a smirk, resting your head atop your hands with your words soft yet unyielding, almost seductive in the way they carried weight effortlessly. Even Rhys and Azriel had learned not to challenge you. "Well? Do you want to learn what I know or not?"
There had always been a stoic grace to your words, they were unyielding yet soft, almost sultry. Whenever you spoke, the entire universe listened with bated breath. That's what made Eris fall in love with you long before he realised that you were mates, though, you were none the wiser to the news.
Reluctantly, Rhys gestured for you to speak, and you did, outlining the enemy’s arsenal, the poisoned weapons, the scope of Hybern’s forces, and how to deploy their armies to minimize casualties. When your report was done, you rose, wiped your hands on your trousers, and slipped from the tent, leaving Eris burning behind you.
Feeling the eyes of the room upon him, Eris thinned his lips into a forced smile and quickly followed after you, spying you entering your tent from across the clearing with your wolf, Kalin, in steady tow.
He allowed his lips to curl into a snarl as he paced across the camp, not caring about the whispers and parting bodies as he passed through.
The moment your back was turned, he entered, ignoring the crackle of the camp around him. His hands caught your forearm, yanking you against his chest. “Did you know what you were doing when you left me last night?” His voice was low, dangerous, his eyes molten with fury.
“Take the mask off when you speak to me,” you said, withdrawing your arm with gentle defiance. “Yes. I did know.”
Anger, panic, love, all three tore at him until his voice cracked into something raw. "You—” he started, but you cut him off, dipping your hand into the tub of water and heating it with magic until it steamed.
“I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself, Eris.”
“You may be part god, but that doesn’t make you invincible.” His gaze followed every motion, every exhale, every hair escaping your braid. You had been by his side for years. You knew him in ways no one else ever would, and he knew you, stripped of all titles and fables, for what you truly were.
You had been by Eris' side for two hundred years. You had broken down every barrier, ravaged every secret, and sat with him in the pits of his darkness until he realised that you were his light and let you in.
Eris was happy to say that you were the only one who truly knew him, and that's because you were the only one who sought to understand him in ways no one else had ever bothered to.
And the same went for you, Eris saw you for what you were and not for what you were said to be.
"You also forget that I'm part death too," you turned to him, leathers loosened and ready to peel off your skin, and part of your usual icy demeanour cracked under his gaze of worry and anger, probably because he was reeling at the possibility of the enemy getting their hands on you, or worse, losing you completely.
Eris’s jaw clenched as he fought to contain the desperate swell of desire and fear in him. “I can’t live without you,” he admitted quietly, glancing to where Kalin slept, oblivious, atop your cot. “Part of me wants to send you away, to keep you safe if—”
"There won't be a court to protect if we lose," you told him softly, and he knew then that the same thought had crossed through your mind too, the possibility of sending you away to defend his people, to be the last and most formidable line of defence. "I'm fighting, and we'll win because of it."
Eris used to hate that uptight smugness, but that was before he knew you, before he knew what horrors you could unleash without blinking. He soon came to admire the confidence.
Raking his fingers through his fiery red waves that you had cut two evenings before, Eris sighed, knowing that the conversation wasn't going anywhere. He noticed the exhaustion in your eyes, the desperate need to just bathe and sleep before you slaughtered thousands, and he couldn't bring himself to scold you further. Instead, he took a step forward, wrapping his fingers around the back of your neck and pulling your forehead to meet his lips in a chaste but meaningful embrace.
"Sleep," he told you, pulling away and smiling down upon you softly, "How about we have dinner tonight, just you and me? It could be the last time."
Finding the softer side of you shining through the abyss, you nodded gently, "I'll come and find you when I wake up." It was a dismissal of sorts. Eris dipped from your tent, leaving you to strip and climb into the searing heat of the tub to scrub your body clean until your skin split, just like you had done before every fight.
The sun was dipping below the horizon by the time you woke, and Kalin was resting her furry head on your side, breathing deeply with eyes dancing about the tent in an effort to protect you from any unwanted guests.
A chill had taken hold of the air, a familiar one which told you of what was coming. Perhaps it would be the last chance you'd have to spend with Eris. War tinged your tongue, the lingering metallic taste coating the inside of your mouth, usually it would cause you to salivate, but not this time. This time it made fear and ire settle deep within your gut.
Slipping into a loose but comfortable forest green dress, you left your tent with Kalin following close behind you, sticking to your calves like glue and baring her teeth at any male, or female, that she didn't recognise. That was until she caught the scent of someone and had no choice but to follow it.
"Kalin," you hissed, beckoning her back to you, and you shouldn't have been surprised when she didn't listen, she was just as stubborn as you were.
That beast of nightmares was tied to your soul by some other-worldly power, as long as you lived then so did she, but you would go on if one day she met her end. She had been by your side, through all the good and bad, since the beginning of your time.
Mumbling curses under your breath, you pinched the bridge of your nose and followed after her, following the large indented imprint of her paws in the dirt all the way into the shrouded forest at the edge of the camp and finding her, tail wagging and all, being doted upon by Azriel.
The wolf turned to you eyes wide and tongue flopping over her razor sharp teeth, and all you could do was raise an eyebrow and scoff at her. Azriel had always been her favourite. He had always been your favourite too.
In a different life, you were sure that you and Azriel would have ended up together, maybe not as mates, but something as close to that as possible. It was hundreds of years of longing glances and ghosting touches, of intimate silences in the shadows, inside jokes and soft smirks, and even softer words. Azriel was heart-broken when you left the Night Court, despite his bonds with the rest of the Inner Circle it was obvious that you were the one he connected to the most.
Azriel glanced over his shoulder at you, eyes softening and wings relaxing at his shoulders, and it only took a couple of seconds for his shadows to realise that it was you that stood there, flying out to greet you by swarming over your cheeks and shoulders, shivering at the cold they found on your skin. A home away from home almost.
"I should have known who she was searching for the moment she ran off," you spoke as you approached, running your fingers along the fur on her head and scratching between her ears.
The Shadowsinger sat atop a rock within a deep set clearing, surrounded by trees and fallen logs, listening to the wind and the quaint chirps of animals nearby. It was a moment of reflection, a moment of calm for the raging storm that would claim more names than either of you wanted to admit.
Sighing, you took a spot beside him, your thigh brushing against his and shoulder becoming blanketed by the wing he had draped around you. Despite your affiliations, the respect and love between you and Azriel was something no one or nothing would ever be able to take away.
"We miss you," he told you softly, voice full of contemplation, as though he had been sat there thinking of how different life could have been, of how you could have been standing at his side on the battlefield as his friend, or maybe something more. "Even if Rhys is too stubborn to tell you to your face, we miss you."
It had been ugly, the breakup between you and your former family.
During your years playing politician, you had become close with Eris, more so than any other High Lord. There was a mutual understanding between you, and you saw things that no one else wished to ever notice. The moment you stood up for Eris over Rhys was the moment your time within the Night Court came to an end, an ugly, bloody, and bitter end that you walked away from unscathed, unlike Rhys and Cassian.
You could feel his eyes on the side of your face, and you could feel his slight grin when he witnessed Kalin rest her head on your thighs. "I'd be lying if I said that I didn't miss you too."
A moment passed between you, a wordless moment, "Doing nothing with you was always better than doing something with anyone else." Azriel was scared, even if he didn't want to voice it. "Do you think that if you had stayed in Velaris then we would have been something?"
"Perhaps," you told him truthfully, turning your head to meet his hazel eyes that brought you infinite serenity, "But that isn't the life that we were meant to live." Taking Azriel's hand in your own, you squeezed his digits and smiled, leaning into his comfort and resting your head on his shoulder, "Maybe in another lifetime, another world, we'll find each other and have the love that we wanted."
"Is it wrong of me to wish for it?"
You shook your head softly, breathing in his scent of cedar and night-kissed mountains, "It's never wrong to wish for what you want, even if that means staring death in the eye and begging on your knees."
There was so much more that he wanted to say, you sensed it, but instead Azriel simply craned his head to the side and kissed your forehead tenderly, scrunching up his brows and allowing his lips to linger there so that the taste of you would seep into him, so that he could carry you into battle with him without being able to see you.
"I should go. Eris is waiting for me," Azriel hummed at your words, his wing shifting from your shoulder to allow you to leave. Clambering to your feet and taking a couple of steps back toward the camp, you halted, feeling the wind brush over you shoulder, and turned back to Azriel once more, "I'll see you tomorrow, or in the next life."
The camp felt quieter when you returned to it, the faint aromas of roasting meats and sounds of laughter dying on the withering embers of the fire pits that were dotted about the space.
It seemed that it wasn’t only you who felt the darkness coming, such a deathly chill was enough to make any form of happiness die, and it wouldn’t have surprised you if the High Lords of Prythian were to blame for the eerie calm that had taken hold of the camp. Part of you wanted to believe that the men and women had retreated to the farthest reaches of the camp to continue their revelries, mother knew that they deserved it, they could all be dead come dawn.
The eerie calm didn’t halt your movements however, the darkness of the looming night knew better than to attempt to deter you from what mattered, or rather, who.
Without marking your entrance as you usually did, you entered Eris’ tent, dress flowing and skin tinged with the scent of Azriel that Eris noticed immediately, narrowing his eyes at you before turning his attention back to the candles he was lighting with the flame at his fingertips. “You had a long sleep.”
Rolling your eyes at his taut tone, you ushered Kalin into the tent who instantly made herself at home in the makeshift bed in the corner, a sign that Eris was thinking of her as usual despite being terrified of her when they first met. “We were on our way a little while ago, but Kalin scented Azriel.” It had never served you well to lie to Eris, the cunning fox always saw right through you, how, you never knew, but in a way it was refreshing to be seen for what you were beneath the mask of tales and power. “It was a short conversation. A moment of friendship before death stares us in the face.”
Eris couldn’t argue with that, he was all too aware of the friendship and potential yet fleeting relationship you and Azriel had once shared, you had told him about it the moment he scented Azriel on you a month into moving to the Autumn Court, and he understood it, it was hard to truly leave a life behind that you had lived for centuries.
As time went on, you started seeing the Shadowsinger less and spent more time with him, the letters were less frequent, and you slowly began to rid yourself of the gifts you had once adored with the light in your heart, but there had always been a couple that you couldn’t bear to part with. The jewel around your neck was the tell-tale stone that showed everyone where you had come from, a simple gift from Azriel from one winter solstice over a hundred years ago.
“If anyone is going to survive what’s coming then it’ll be you, y/n.” Eris turned to face you once more and you took a moment to examine his tent, the perfectly placed cushions on the floor and a low sat table full of meats and vegetables, and pie which was your favourite, then you noted the candles lining the room and the thick blankets set in a basket by the door.
“And you,” you told him, fingers brushing against a burnt orange petal that felt like velvet under your touch. Eris cocked his head toward you, brows furrowed in question, “There’s no world where I’d leave you behind, or let you die. I am death incarnate, there are bargains that I can call upon, beings that I can summon from the darkest depths of hell itself,” your eyes snapped to meet his. “You’ll be safe.”
Everyone knew better than to question where you had come from.
Some theorised that you had come from another world, one brimming with power and wonders untold, and others hissed that you were the Queen of Hel, the only thing that death didn’t dare to even glance at. Eris knew that you were old, older than any of the High Lords, that you superseded any living being, but you had an immortal beauty laced within you that made you look the same age as Feyre.
Lore depicted a goddess roaming the expanse of Prythian and the worlds and lands beyond it, a demi-goddess made of rage, fire, and darkness, Eris was sure that the histories were speaking of you, but you never confirmed it, and you never denied it either.
“Will you sit with me?” Eris extended a hand to you, eyes dragging over your clean and moisturised skin, and felt his heart sing at the weight of your hand in his, using him to lower yourself to the ground and sit upon one of the many large pillows scattered about the floor.
Eris found his eons old place beside you, knees brushing together and candlelight flickering against both of your faces. If anyone saw a High Lord and a Goddess sat cross-legged on the floor without a care in the world then you were sure that they would have a few choice words to say, but the beautiful thing was how natural it all was.
"Do you remember the night that we first met?"
Pausing your motion of reaching for the plentiful dishes scattered over the tabletop, your arms fell back to your sides, and you sighed, "Why do I feel like you're reminiscing like we're going to die tomorrow?"
Eris rolled his eyes, "Just answer the question."
There was something about remembering things that had gone that you didn't like, even considering your grand age, you never dwelt on the past for too long. "Yes, I do. It was the first time I had been to Autumn, Rhys practically had to drag me there," you recounted with a soft sparkle in your eyes, "You wore a suit of molten gold and white, and your hair was messy and falling over your face, probably because you were so in your head about it all."
"You've always been able to see right through me."
Scooping a mound of vegetables onto your plate, you shrugged, "Call it an occupational hazard."
Ignoring your quip, Eris continued, unable to take those eyes of bronze off of you for a single moment, "I remember the exact moment that I saw you. Rhys has always commanded control of every room he's ever in, but when those doors opened no one even glanced to him. All eyes were on you and that gown you wore, the one of pure starlight that made you shine in the light of a thousand fires."
"Is that the moment you knew you needed me in your life?" Sarcasm had always been a strong suit that Eris had learnt to brush aside daily.
"No, actually," you found his eyes, and then his lips quaking into a smirk as he cast his mind back to remember. "It was when I heard your voice telling Rhys to go and fluff his feathers instead of pecking his nose into your business. Anyone who could talk to the most powerful high lord in our history deserves a place in my life."
Eris beamed at the purity of the laugh that escaped from your lips, so ferocious that your shoulders shook, "I wasn't wrong, he doesn't know how to keep that nose to himself."
"I know," he said as your laughter calmed into an ebbing lake of fleeting joy, "You chose me over them."
"I'll always choose the right path, no matter who is in the way," your shoulders dropped slightly, "I still love Rhys, like a brother, even if he won't admit the same, but I'll never be the one to stand idle in the face of right and wrong."
"I know. That's one of the reasons that I love you."
"One of?"
"Yes. One of."
In a way, you knew to not push Eris further because you weren’t as oblivious as you appeared to be. There had always been love between you, a love he would attempt to make apparent and one that you would push aside in fear of hurting him, in fear of letting him get too close to then only lose him when your life outlasted his own.
Having Eris close, even as just your closest friend, was better than not having him at all.
And disregarding your own feelings and desires, and that constant need to always be by his side, was the only way to protect him, and once the war was done, you’d planned to force him into finding another to marry whilst keeping your despair of the fact as hidden as you possibly could.
A Goddess of Death was never meant to be a lady of any sort and Eris deserved better than you, so if you had to sit and watch it unfold for the rest of your days then you would, happily.
“Are you scared of death?” Eris pressed, eyes raking over the side of your face once he noted how your eyes had glazed over with the silence of thoughts you had left him to follow.
Humming softly, you pulled your attention from the depths of your mind to him, tilting your head slightly in contemplation. “Death is an old friend of mine, I could never truly be afraid of it. But what does scare me is leaving this place and never seeing it, or you, ever again.”
“But you’re an immortal,” Eris leaned in, his warm breath spreading over your skin and sending shivers through your bones.
“Well, that’s not exactly true,” you glanced to him through your lashes, with fingers lazily pushing the food around on your plate with the golden plated fork between them. “I just age incredibly slowly, it’s as though I’m frozen in time. The only reason the fae believe that I’m immortal is because I have never been harmed in my long life, but I am very killable if you know how to do it.”
Eris rested his head atop his kneecap, his digits toyed with the ankles of his trousers, “Did you have a life before this, or have you always been this way?”
Frowning, you tried to remember the speckles of the dreams that graced your nights, orbs of laughter and a love so whole and sure that no darkness would have been able to touch it. “I think I did, but so much time has passed that I can’t remember it. I’m not even sure that I can tell you when I stopped being her and became what I am now, or what caused it.”
It wouldn’t surprise Eris if it turned out that you weren’t even from his world. There had always been something completely awing about you, and even though you looked like one of them, you didn’t sound it, or move in the same way as they did. It was other-worldly, it was magical.
“Do not be afraid of death, Eris,” you spoke to him gently, “For even in death there is life, and in that life, the path will lead to me.”
“How do you know that?”
With a raised brow and sparkling eyes, you let out a soft chuckle, “I think you underestimate the influence that I have down there.”
Even with death looming, the crooked upturn of your lips was the only thing Eris could think about. “Oh, is that right?”
If there was anything that made your infernal knees go weak, it was that wicked smile that Eris adorned like the finest of suits, showing his gleaming and perfectly straight teeth, and causing the corners of his eyes to crinkle softly.
“I told you that I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” you found yourself becoming breathless as you spoke, noticing how he inched closer every passing moment until his nose was basically brushing against your own. “Don’t do this.”
The sharpness of your collarbone gleamed in the candlelight, and Eris was aching to touch you, that golden, untethered thread reaching out in hope that it would grasp onto its other half with no avail, because you were clueless of it.
"We could be dead come dawn," Eris' voice was low and brimming with desire and desperation, of the need to have a taste of the thing that haunted him every day and night, of the thing that possessed his mind every moment.
Not stopping Eris from closing in further, enjoying the sensation of having him so close, you sighed, "Which is exactly why we can't," you snapped your gaze to him, finding his orbs swimming with that molten bronze that had you so captivated, "It'll only make it that much harder if-"
"If I do die?" Eris finished, wrapping a loose tendril of your hair around his index finger and looking at you like you were the only shining thing in a starless night sky. "Wouldn't it be the most beautiful goodbye?"
With your body jolting, like it had realised what was being offered, and what the outcome of the war could be, you snapped to your feet, causing Kalin's dark eyes to fall upon you with concern. "I'm not saying goodbye to you. I won't."
Eris stood, approaching your vanishing body cautiously as you began your slow retreat out of the homely tent he had carefully curated to make you feel like you weren't in the middle of a war camp. "Y/N, I didn't mean that. Please stay."
With as much emotion as Eris had ever seen in the whole time he had known you, you shook your head with glazed eyes and subtly wobbling bottom lip, "I can't."
You stupid fool.
Eris was reaching for you, appearing glorious in his relaxed attire and a collar just parted enough for you to spy the muscle that lingered beneath.
All he ever wanted was for you to know that he was your mate, a lowly High Lord being forever destined to walk by your side. The bond had snapped the moment you had chosen him over your own family, over the people you had spent hundreds of years beside and protecting. No one have ever chosen to defend him, to stand by his side, but you had, and he knew that he would choose you in every life that he walked upon because of it.
Before he could utter another word, you had disappeared, the hem of your gown sweeping from his sight alongside the tip of Kalin's tail as she padded after you.
Eris had on opportunity, one night to spend with you before death stared him in the face and threatened to take him, and he spent that opportunity by propositioning you for goodbye sex.
He raked his hand over his face with a anguished groan, and kicked the leg of the table without flinching when his foot went through it and send the meal and wine cascading to the ground. A perfect ending to a horrifically spent evening.
Knowing that going after you would only make the situation worse, Eris stripped to his briefs and glanced to himself in the mirror, counting the thin scars that coursed over his skin from the whip of his father. All he could think about as he clambered into his cot was that all he could wish for was that he survived the day to come, just so that he could tell you that he was the one destined to be by your side for eternity.
Even in death.
Morning had come around too quickly.
The clashing of armour and swords against shields was what caused Eris to rise, squinting at the pale golden sunlight that trickled through the thin cotton roof of his tent.
A stale scent captured the air, mixed with the aroma of ashen candles that had burnt throughout the night, and Eris' nose curdled at the smell. He knew that it wouldn't exist if he could only just control himself, instead the room would smell like petrichor and fresh rain during the early morning sunrise. It would smell like you, your scent had always lingered in his lungs, tainted them in a sense.
From the melancholy echo coursing beyond the doors of his sanctuary, Eris knew that war was looming and had settled into the souls of his soldiers, and he knew there was little he could do to make it go away.
His mind was on you. On the being with a façade of shadow but a heart as mighty as they came. He wondered where you had gone. Had you returned to your tent? Had you ventured out again?
Eris was considering the latter option given that he couldn't feel you.
There had always been a certain tingle that kissed his skin whenever you were within the vicinity, it felt like crackling logs on a fire, pricking his surface with their embers. It made him feel alive, and without it, he felt as though life itself was slipping from his grasp.
Upon rising from his cot, dressing, and stalking out into the camps, did Eris realise that you had indeed vanished. Into thin air. Into some kind of putrid abyss.
Unfortunately for him, he wasn't the only one who had noticed your absence.
It was a well-known fact that you alone had the power to turn the tide in any war with a single thought or lift of a finger, and your abandonment caused minds to spiral into believing that you had left because you knew too well that they were going to lose.
Whispering eyes followed Eris through the camp, ones wondering how he would react to see his second in command missing from her tent, with no trace of where she had ventured to. Though, other eyes watched eagerly, if only to spy the upcoming fire that would erupt between Eris and the Inner Circle of the Night Court who were lingering outside of your tent with tight lips and desperate eyes.
It was Cassian who thundered up to Eris first, grabbing him by the collar and bringing him so close to his face that it would only take a single bite to tear his ear from the side of his head.
"What did you do?" Cassian had always thought of you as a little sister despite your differences, and no amount of blood spilled between you would ever deter him from thinking of you as such. "Azriel told us that she was on her way to you when she left him last night. Now she's gone. What did you do?"
"She's gone?" Eris knew it already, knew it from the moment he woke only minutes ago, but hearing it confirmed was another pain entirely. Eris glanced to the opening of the tent, unable to place your scent or Kalin's in the air.
Rhys stalked ahead then, placing a commanding hand on Cassian's shoulder, causing the Lord of Bloodshed to drop Eris from his grip and take a step back. "You know that she is our only certainty of survival, don't you?" Rhys' voice, as dark as a starless night, asked.
Eris nodded.
"Then you know what will happen if she does not return to us."
What have you done?
Rhys' snarl settled and he went to turn away, to re-join his family and form some kind of plan to ensure their victory when Eris all but blurted, "She's my mate."
Pausing where he walked, Rhys turned, eyes wide and brimming with disbelief, "Does she know?"
"No," Eris told them truthfully, "I always wanted her to find out on her own, I'd never take that from her. Last night, the possibility of losing me to death became real and it scared her. She left me before I could even try to stop her."
Sniffing the air softly in search of the confirmation he needed, Rhys' eyes softened slightly, understanding what it was like to have a mate and have them be so clueless to it, and the pain it brought. "Her scent lives on you."
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
Rhys scanned Eris, from the roughness to his hair and eyes, to the perfectly put together cotton clothes to lay beneath his armour. "Well, at least that answers my worry."
"What does that mean?"
Rhys rolled his eyes, almost playfully, and tilted his head toward Eris, finally knowing that he knew something that Eris did not about you. "She'll be back. If what you say is true, that it was clear that she's scared of losing you, then she'll be back."
"How do you know that?"
The High Lord of the Night Court chuckled darkly, inhaling the salt tinged air deeply into his lungs, and sighed, "Y/N has ventured into the depths of Hel to raise the legions of the dead. We're all going to be just fine."
From that feline glint in Azriel's hazel eyes that were downcast toward the ground, Eris felt a shiver course down his spine, it was one of half relief, and the other half was full of terror when thinking of the nightmares that his y/n would raise from the world below.
He didn't need to ask how Rhys knew, or Azriel considering his plateaued stare. They had known you for much longer than he had, and whilst part of him hated the thought of anyone knowing you better than he did, it also made him happy that you had been surrounded by a family that did care so much.
It was something he had taken from you.
"She truly doesn't know?" Azriel asked with a furrowed brow, mind swimming with dying possibility.
It made sense. All the years Azriel had struggled to comprehend why it was so easy for you to jump to Eris, choosing Eris over him, over all of them.
"No. I don't think that she does."
Azriel smiled faintly, feeling the warmth of his shadows curl around his arms in comfort, "She has always been drawn to you since the moment you met. On some level, she knows."
They left then. Cassian with a snarl. Rhys and Azriel with knowing yet excited eyes. Feyre in silence alongside her sisters. And Mor who spared Eris a single icy glance before she tore herself away and followed after Amren who was waiting for her only a few feet away.
After a few moments, Eris dipped under the open lip of the tent entrance, stepping into your comfort and feeling your essence wrap around him like a cloak on the coldest of nights. All of your weapons were gone, no doubt accompanying you on your journey into the darkness alongside Kalin who was nowhere to be seen.
Though the scent of you lingered in the air. It was faint and delicate, like it would only take one gust of wind to carry you away for eternity. Eris had always adored your scent, of petrichor and musk with hints of lavender, alluring but completely fitting.
Eris moved to your cot, spying the tossed aside blankets kissing the ground, and he balled his fists up in them as he sat, bringing them to his nose and inhaling the scent of you so deeply that he hoped the scent would imprint on his soul, so that perhaps his soul would find you in the next life if he couldn't have you in the present one.
They were losing.
Bodies lay strewn across the fields that surely wouldn't grow any form of flower in the next thousand years. Blood soaked the ground, staining what little shards of grass survived and burying itself into the dirt.
It had been monstrous.
And you hadn't arrived yet.
The absence of you had been screamed across the fields. Rhys and Azriel were screaming in your name into the decaying wind whilst Cassian was cursing it, and others were beginning to believe that you weren't coming at all.
Eris could not accept that you would abandon them all. Abandon him. So he fought.
The High Lord of Autumn was formidable on the battlefield, cutting down any foe that made the mistake of getting in his way. A mixture of dust, dirt, and blood coated his face but did not stain the bronze of his armour, and his hair swept across his forehead with every swipe of his sword.
Onslaughts on enemies thundered in from every direction, the magnetic pulsing and explosions from the Cauldrons power wiping out hundreds of men with a single blow. Not even Rhysand's power could match it.
When another one of his men dissipated to ash before his very eyes, Eris was beginning to lose all hope.
Maybe you weren't coming to save them. Perhaps the Lords of Hel had decided to keep you locked away.
The air turned magnetic once again, more intensely than Eris had ever felt before, which could only mean that the Cauldron was aiming for his legion east to where Rhys and the Inner Circle fought. Rocks and pebbles quaked by the force of it, and Eris was sure that he felt the ground beneath his feet cracking and splintering.
Part of him wished that the ground would swallow him whole just so that he may have a chance to see your face for one last time on his descent into the depths. Where every road and fire-bending river would lead to you.
Eris closed his eyes, not able to watch his entire legion perish, not able to watch that ball of power wipe him from the earth. He closed his eyes and found you lingering in the darkness, extending a wishful hand toward him with hair falling down your back in perfectly messy waves, like you had just awoken from a deep slumber and wanted to walk around the gardens encapsulating Fir Manor.
Though, when the final moment of his beating heart didn't come, Eris opened his eyes once more, slightly broken at the fact that it wasn't you stood before him, but intrigued to know who the male with snow white hair and ice blue eyes was.
The male craned his head to the side, capturing Eris' eyes within his hypnotising gaze, and smirked where he stood, a sphere of pulsing and deadly power struggling between his palms. "Our Queen sends her regards."
Our Queen.
And as though as the male with the white hair could hear his thoughts, he grunted, crunching that sphere of power into dust that drifted to the ground, and pointed west to a place where the blood soaked dirt had parted and all manners of darkness and shadow spilled.
It wasn't hard to find you, not when his soul had began to sing from the mere knowledge that you were near. His entire being felt you, sought you out, and almost cried when you appeared.
Black scaled armour clung to your figure, and a low pulsing hum of onyx light beat at the centre of your chest; on your head was a crown of what appeared to be silver, but what Eris knew to be the ashes of your fallen brothers and sisters, and your sword was unsheathed with the tip dragging across the floor.
Two hounds snarled at your side, they were creatures of mist and shadow with hungry blood-tinged eyes that widened with delight at the amount of flesh ready for them to tear apart.
I told you that I would raise Hel for you.
Eris shivered at the sultry tone of your voice within his mind, and when he found you once more, he found you staring back with an understanding glint in your darkened eyes.
That's when he realised what surrounded him. Beasts of untold power circled him, and Eris didn't wish to know what they had been or done in their past lives to warrant appearing so putrid. The beasts didn't look at him, they simply stared out into the battlefield and hunched over on all four of their limbs, towering over Eris and locking him within their protection.
All Eris was able to do was watch.
He watched as you lifted a single finger and decimated half of the Hybern army, devouring them in bouts of black mist, and what was more amazing was that you didn't even stumble afterward. Instead, you launched into the attack, flanked by your hounds born from the depths of Eris' nightmares, and tore down anything that dared to face you.
You had killed more soldiers in twenty seconds than the entire forces of Prythian had in hours.
In the wake of your warpath, thousands of shadow beings rose from the splintered ground, rose from the imprints of your feet in the dirt, and joined in the slaughter, grouping together and mowing down legion after legion with little effort at all.
It wasn't possible to kill something that was already dead.
A clap echoed across the field, passing through Eris and shaking his bones, and once he had recovered, he saw no enemy left standing.
The male stood before him scoffed, "Show off," he muttered under his harsh breath, "She just always needs to make people know how powerful she is, doesn't she?" And when he turned with an expectant raised brow, did Eris realise that the ice-eyed man was talking to him.
"It's in her blood," Eris spoke, desperately looking for you as your shadow beings devoured the bodies that littered the ground.
"That it is," the male replied with a smile.
"You know her differently to the rest of us," Eris noted aloud, feeling a chill course down his spine when the male turned to fully face him. There were too many similarities between the man in front of him and you, from the dimpled creases at the corner of your eyes to the tips of your noses. Even your lips help the same cupids bow.
The male looking at Eris knowingly and nodded, "She was given two choices. Never see me again or become their Goddess of Death, their Queen and always be able to find me. My sister has walked this world for too long," the male smirked slightly and continued, "I'm glad that she found you, Lord of Autumn. And for what it's worth, I couldn't have wished for a better mate for her than you."
Eris inhaled sharply, "You know?"
The male hummed gently, turning his body to spy his sister disposing of the last of the groaning bodies by setting her hounds upon them.
"You reek of her. Luckily for you she's so absolved to being alone that she hasn't realised it yet. She's not in tune with that side of her emotions."
Eris went to answer, he went to open his mouth but couldn't find the words, not when another cry hurtled through the air. The sound made your ears twitch, and your whole body moved with it, going rigid with wide eyes.
It was only a moment later that you took off running, recognising the cry instantly and fighting to get to it. Eris wasn't that far behind you, not being able to stand the thought of having you out of his sight again.
When he had finally caught up with you thanks to your inhuman speed, and all he saw was you ripping a sobbing Feyre off of the body of Rhysand.
He watched as you lay your hand over his unmoving chest and glanced in his direction, not to him, but to the male you had sent to protect him who brushed past Eris' shoulder and joined you kneeling on the ground.
"He won't be pleased if you do this," he whispered to you whilst Feyre and Azriel were trying to ask you what you were doing, to ask you what part of yourself you were going to give up for it.
"I think he owes me a favour or two anyway," you glanced to him wickedly and urged him to place his hands on Rhys' arm, "Consider the debt repaid."
"Wait-" the male asked you, his eyes swimming with doubt but also with adoration, "What will you give? Everything comes with a price y/n, you know that."
Moving your gaze to Eris, you felt a smile tug at the corners of your lips and a the beginnings of warmth try to spread within your chest, "They can take my immortality, I think that I'm ready for the next part."
A wave of dark energy washed over them all, knocking the crowd that had gathered to their knees. The energy surged, crumbling the ground beneath where you knelt until there was nothing holding you back from the vortex of shadow circling beneath.
One moment you were there, pouring your power into Rhys alongside your brother. The next, the vortex swallowed you whole.
The hours crawled by.
Rhys had been restored. Feyre was safe. Even Amren, impossibly, had been brought back from the brink.
It was a cruel, aching parallel. Eris sitting once more in the war tent, but this time the space beside him was hollow. Only yesterday, he had fumed at your absence, convinced you’d slipped off to do something reckless, furious that you might stand him up. Now, he found himself clinging to a different hope entirely, that you hadn’t traded your life for Rhys’, that you hadn’t been swallowed by the cost of the magic you wielded.
“I didn’t know she could do that,” Helion murmured at last, his usually golden voice dulled with disbelief. His russet eyes were fixed not on the maps scattered before them but through them, as though they might still hold some answer. A smear of dried blood streaked down his cheek, an afterthought compared to the shock lingering in his expression.
Eris didn’t reply. He couldn’t. His gaze hadn’t moved from the tent’s entrance since the moment you vanished. Every shift of canvas in the wind, every hurried footstep outside made his heart leap and falter in the same breath. He was waiting for you, waiting for that familiar saunter, for the grin that infuriated and entranced him in equal measure, for the inevitable quip that you had meant for it all to unfold exactly this way.
But the door remained closed.
The tent was heavy with silence. Not the tense, crackling silence of strategy, but the hollow kind that followed after hope had bled out of the room.
Cassian leaned against the edge of the table, knuckles white where they gripped the wood. Azriel stood off to the side, shadows curling tighter than usual, his hazel eyes trained on the floor as if he, too, couldn’t bear to look at the door. Rhys sat with Feyre’s hand clutched desperately in his, their bond a lifeline, but even victory seemed dimmed by the echo of your absence.
Eris’s chest ached with each passing moment. He told himself he would not beg the Mother, would not whisper desperate prayers to gods he had never believed in. But still, his thoughts betrayed him.
Bring her back. Let her walk through that door. Take me instead if you must.
Every minute without you was a blade twisting deeper.
The tent flap stirred once, only a soldier, reporting movements at the border. Eris nearly snarled at him, a flash of his fury breaking loose before he forced it back down.
And then-
The air shifted.
It was subtle at first, a faint pressure, the way the hairs on his arms lifted as though the world itself held its breath. The soldiers outside went quiet. Azriel’s head snapped toward the entrance, his shadows stilling like startled birds.
When the canvas finally parted, it wasn’t your grin that met them, nor the irreverent spark in your eyes.
It was silence.
You stepped into the tent slowly, every movement deliberate, as though the weight of what you had done still clung to your body. Your armour was battered, dark stains marring the scales, and your braid had come loose, strands falling against your face. Kalin padded at your side, fur streaked with ash.
Alive.
Whole.
Changed.
Eris was on his feet before he knew it. The chair scraped violently behind him, but he didn’t care. His chest seized, relief crashing into him so violently it left him dizzy.
“You,” he breathed, the word breaking apart like it had been clawing its way out of his lungs for hours.
Your eyes found his, steady, weary, and threaded with something older than either of you, and for the first time since dawn, he could breathe again.
“You really thought I’d leave you to deal with all of this alone?” you said softly, a faint curve of a smile ghosting your lips, though your voice trembled beneath the effort.
It wasn’t the grin he had been waiting for. But it was you.
And it was enough to undo him completely.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
The war tent was still, caught between the aftermath of victory and the ghost of loss. Feyre let out a shaky exhale, her hand tightening in Rhys’ as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Cassian swore softly under his breath, a sound of both relief and awe. Even Azriel’s shadows fluttered uncertainly, hovering as if they wanted to reach for you but could not.
But Eris didn’t hesitate.
He crossed the space in a few long strides, every muscle taut with the urgency of someone who had waited far too long. His hand caught your shoulder, then your arm, then your waist, as if he couldn’t decide which part of you to hold onto first, afraid that if he let go of one, you’d slip away.
“You reckless, impossible creature,” he rasped, voice breaking, forehead nearly colliding with yours. “Do you have any idea what it was like, sitting here, thinking you’d-” His words fractured, swallowed by the sheer force of his relief.
You let him hold you, steady against his shaking frame. Your hand lifted, fingers brushing the line of his jaw, grounding him. “I told you I was capable of looking after myself,” you murmured, though your voice was softer than it had been before, less sharp edge, more weary warmth. “I told you that I wouldn't leave you.”
“I didn’t believe you,” he admitted, voice rough with honesty. “Not this time. Not after what you did.”
Behind you, someone cleared their throat, Helion, perhaps, or Cassian, but Eris didn’t turn. His flame-bright eyes were locked on yours, daring anyone to come between you now. The others seemed to sense it, one by one slipping from the tent, until only Azriel lingered at the edge of the shadows. His gaze lingered on you a moment longer, heavy with things unspoken, before he too vanished into the night.
And then it was just you.
Eris exhaled shakily, as though he’d been holding his breath since dawn. He pressed his brow fully to yours, his grip fierce at your waist. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he whispered, the words trembling between plea and command. “Don’t make me sit there and wonder if the next time I see you will be your body dragged back from the field. Don’t-” He stopped, shaking his head as if the thought itself was unbearable.
Your lips curved, faint, tired, but real. “You’re terrible at hiding when you’re scared,” you said quietly.
He gave a broken laugh, one hand rising to cradle your cheek. “I’m not scared of anything, except losing you.”
Your heart stuttered at the rawness in his voice. Stuttered. As if the ice within you had finally melted.
For all his arrogance, his venom, his flame, here he was, undone, terrified, clinging to you like you were the only real thing left in the world.
Eris’ hands lingered on your waist, thumbs brushing over the curve of your hips as though he could anchor himself to you. His chest rose and fell in rapid, uneven breaths, and his eyes, molten and unrelenting, bore into yours.
“I…” he began, his voice breaking on the single word, then faltering as if the truth itself was heavier than he could bear. “I don’t know how to say it… not in a way that doesn’t scare you, or make you walk away from me.” His fingers tangled in the strands of your hair, holding you still. “But-”
You tilted your head, searching his bronze-gold eyes, heart tightening with the quiet, desperate hope that the words you both had danced around for centuries were finally about to come.
“You’re my mate,” he said, raw and unguarded, the words spilling out like fire over dry kindling. “I don’t just… I can’t just want you. I need you. Every part of me, every part I thought I could control is tied to you. You’re it. You’ve always been it, whether you knew it or not, whether I knew how to admit it or not,” His voice cracked, thick with emotion. “You’re my mate, Y/N. And I can’t stand here for another moment without you knowing that.”
Your chest tightened, and for a long minute, neither of you moved. You could feel the pulse of his heart under your palm, strong and steady, and it both terrified and comforted you.
“I…” you said softly, tracing a line along the curve of his jaw with your thumb. “I knew.”
Eris blinked, as if the simplicity of your words struck him more violently than the confession he’d just made. “You knew?”
You nodded, a faint, sad smile tugging at your lips. “Deep down. Always. Even when I left the Night Court, even when I walked away from everything I knew, I always knew that this, us, was meant to be.”
Eris’s eyes shone, molten bronze flecked with gold, glimmering with unshed tears that he refused to wipe away. “You knew,” he repeated, voice raw. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was afraid,” you admitted, stepping closer until your foreheads touched, breath mingling. “Afraid that if I admitted it, I’d lose you. Afraid that you’d try to protect me from everything that I was, and I couldn’t let that happen.”
"Was?"
Nodding, you brushed your fingers against his cheek, feeling the tidal wave of emotions you had skilfully held back for centuries hit you.
He cupped your face in both hands, thumbs brushing over your cheekbones. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” he whispered, lips so close you could feel the heat radiating from them. “I will never let anything, let anyone, take you from me. Not the wars, not the skies, not Hel. Death itself would weep at the thought of it.”
You felt the tension in his body melt slightly, the weight of centuries of restraint and fear finally breaking. You leaned into him, pressing your lips to his briefly, tasting the tang of smoke, dust, and relief that clung to him from the battlefield. “Then we fight together,” you murmured, your hands threading through his hair. “Everything. Always.”
Eris’s laugh was broken, uneven, but it vibrated with joy, relief, and something deeper, older than either of you. “Together,” he echoed, tilting his head so that your lips met again, longer this time, full of promise and surrender. “Always.”
For a moment, the endings of war outside didn’t exist. The world was reduced to the heat of your bodies pressed together, the quiet pulse of life between you, and the unspoken knowledge that whatever came next, you would face it side by side.
And in that moment, the bond that had always existed, unseen but undeniable finally named itself.
You smiled against his lips, fingers brushing along the scars and edges of his face, as if mapping every inch of him you had ever loved. “I’ve waited for this,” you whispered. “All my very long life.”
“So have I,” he replied, voice husky and low, a vow, a promise, and a warning all at once. “It's us. Forever."
"Until the darkness takes us?"
"I don't think that it would dare."
The tent was quiet except for your shared breaths, for the faint, steady rhythm of two hearts finally acknowledging what had been true for eons. Outside, the war quietened, but inside, in the small corner of existence, you and Eris were finally whole.
I loved the crossover series, the ballad of storm and shadow. It was literally one of the most entertaining things I've read in a long time. Was wondering when you will be continuing the series?
Hello!
My bad for the awful reply - but the next part is up! Hope it's not been too long, but the other parts are tagged if you need a refresher x
If you remember this fic you wrote (absolutely OBSESSED). Can I request something really angsty: reader has disappeared because she’s a star and the ones who took her want to experiment on her for her powers or something, I can just imagine how azriel would burn the world for his mate and the utter angst of his feelings
Hiiii!
Thank you so much - sometimes it's so needed x
AND YES!! I can absolutely do that, I loved that fic so much so would love to go back to it. Will do my best to get it up by the end of the week x
Hello my love. I am so glad to see your brilliance back in action! You’ve been missed and I hope you are doing much better angel. As always the chapter was phenomenal🩵
Hello my angel!
Thank you so much! It's been such a long road but I'm so glad to be here x
And thank you! I honestly thought that it was going to be a bit meh considering I haven't written in yonks but knowing that you love it makes me so happy x
Series Summary - Rhys had been content in taking the darkest secret of his family to the grave, but when the threat of Hybern increases, he has no choice but to send a message to another world and pray to the Mother that his call is answered.
Warnings - mentions of pain, mentions of death, mentions of torture, angstttt, sadness, fluff
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six
This is a crossover series, some aspects will differ from that in the books.
Physical attributes are described in this fic, it is essential to the storyline of the character
"I'll give you two days before I question your reckless motives," Azriel had whispered into Y/N's hair as he carried her through the halls, his hold was impossibly gentle, as though he feared that she may shatter in his arms.
There were no words strong enough to describe what he had felt the moment that her voice reached his ears in that dining room. Relief had struck him like a tidal wave, his entire body reacting to the sound and stripping him of all restraint. But that relief had been swiftly replaced by fear when his eyes had found her, so pale, clutching at her side, barely standing as her wings dragged limply behind her
A soft, pained chuckle slipped from her chapped lips. Without realising what it was doing to Azriel's soul, Y/N nuzzled into the curve of his neck as though she were seeking shelter.
That warmth evaporated the moment Azriel carried her into her chambers. Y/N's sharp intake of breath cut through the silence when her gaze fell on the figure sprawled across the bed. “Oh. Right. Yrene.”
Azriel froze mid-step, tightening his grip around her. “Is she… dead?” The thought of it didn’t rattle him nearly as much as it should have. He was already calculating where he might hide the body, even considering placing Y/N in his own bed and feigning some kind of accident.
Y/N clicked her tongue as if she could hear the thoughts tumbling through his mind. “She’s not dead, Az.” A slight smirk pulled at her lips. “No need to get the shovel out just yet. I only drained her. Sometimes I can’t control it. My body must have gone into survival mode. She’ll be fine in a few hours.”
"I can move her to her rooms if-"
“No. Leave her. She hardly ever gets to rest with the sheer stupidity running through this cadre.” Still nestled into his embrace, Y/N tilted her head to him, a faint smile tugging at her mouth. “Can I come with you?”
Azriel’s heart nearly betrayed him, but he managed a steady nod before turning down the corridor toward his own chambers. A sliver of nerves gnawed at him, what if she hated what she found in there? Rhys certainly wouldn’t be happy with the thought of Y/N sleeping in Azriel’s bed, but Azriel couldn’t bring himself to care.
He held her a little tighter and pushed open the door with his boot, cringing at the disarray. Books lay scattered across the oaken floor. The chairs before the ashen fire were piled with training leathers and discarded towels.
Y/N, however, seemed utterly unbothered.
In an instant her arms were hanging over his shoulders, her chin resting in the curve where his shoulder met the base of his neck. "It's so pretty," she whispered, eyes darting about the tapestry-lined walls and the stained glass skylight that lingered overhead, "It feels so warm in here."
Azriel faltered. No one had ever described him, or anything belonging to him, as pretty or warm. Mor had once insisted on redecorating the place because she’d found it too dreary.
Reluctantly, he set Y/N down, ensuring that she was steady before moving about the room in a flurry of embarrassed tidying; folding towels, gathering leathers, straightening piles. He avoided the circle of books strewn across the floor until her voice called softly, “What have you been reading?”
For a moment he considered lying. But when he turned and found her wide eyes and gentle smile, he changed his mind. He placed one of the books carefully in her hands. “Mostly war tactics. But this one is about our history. Maybe you’d like it, while you’re on strict bed rest.”
"Excuse me?"
Y/N's wings trailed the floor as she turned, watching the flex of his arms as he made the bed with brisk precision. Then he was in front of her, taking her small hands in his. “You heard me,” he smirked. “Bed rest until I say otherwise.”
“You cannot be serious.”
He plucked the book from her grasp, letting his fingers brush against the flutter of her pulse before setting it on the bedside table. “Call it revenge.”
Sighing, Y/N lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, defeated. Her fingers lingered over the silk sheets and her lashes flickered up to him. “Fine.”
The comfort felt dangerous, wrong to enjoy, but Azriel’s scent wrapped around her in a way that unravelled her defences. He coaxed Y/N gently back against the pillows, lifting her legs onto the mattress with practiced ease. To him, it looked effortless; to her, it felt like his every touch might unravel him.
"I didn't mean to leave you like that," she murmured, voice softer than before and edged with guilt, "I know how much you struggle to sleep."
Azriel stilled, his chest tightening. "How did you know that?"
A simple shrug met his eyes, her fingers ran over the top of the sheets, “Like calls to like, I suppose.”
He tiled his head. “I didn’t realise you struggled yoo.”
“Not in the way you do. But I know exhaustion when I see it.”
Azriel craned his head to the side to examine her, from the soft curl at the ends of her hair to her skin that was slowly returning to its regular hue. Perhaps it was selfish of Azriel to not believe that he was the only one who struggled at night. But then again, he didn’t know anyone else who ever had really. “In what way, then?” Azriel sat beside Y/N on the bed, a slight smile on his face at the sight of her willing her wings away to accommodate him.
There was a pause, a space of hesitation as the air became taut, as Y/N struggled to decide whether or not Azriel could be trusted. “I have night terrors,” she looked away, almost embarrassed, “It’s childish I know, but I’ve never been able to escape them.”
Words failed him. He leaned closer, close enough to feel her warmth, though he didn’t dare pull her nearer. He couldn’t when she was being so open.
"What is it that you dream of?" Azriel asked quietly.
Y/N pondered the thought, wondering which answer to give that wouldn't make her seem or feel lesser than, until she gave in. “My mother. Now that I’m free of her influence, I see what she took from me. I don’t know what was worse, losing my mind or the torture. Maybe they were the same.”
Her fingers toyed with the silk beneath her, and Azriel marked the tell, vowing to remember it.
"Is that how you got this?" Azriel reached a finger to the scar that started just behind her ear, the tip of it grazed the scaled flesh lightly, but recoiled when Y/N flinched, "I'm sorry. Did that hurt?"
The corners of her lips twitched softly, and she shook her head softly with a genteel exhale. Within a moment, Y/N had leaned back into that touch, her chin tilted in his direction, "No. I'm just not used to being touched with... such care."
With a furrow of her brow, Y/N's hand moved to Azriel's, taking it in her fingers and turning it in the light. It took a few fleeting seconds for Azriel to realise that she was admiring his scars with her graceful yet utterly lethal eyes. They met his own in silent question, not to urge or demand, but to cautiously query.
For once, Azriel didn't feel the need to hide them away. He didn't fear her eyes on them or the thoughts running about in her pretty little head. He felt safe.
"My brothers," Azriel began, clearing his throat and doing his best to ignore the heat prickling at the base of his neck, "They set them on fire. They never particularly liked me or enjoyed my company. One day they decided to see what would happen if they mixed an Illyrian's healing with oil and fire."
A gasp passed through Y/N's lips, but her fingers didn't leave his marred flesh, not for even a moment.
"My father's men found me, but not quick enough to save them."
Y/N didn't know what to say, or what to do. The silence was thick but void of tension, Azriel stared at his hand resting in her own, and she knew he was feeling defeated. Without needing to think about it, Y/N leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder so that he could smell the scent of morning rippling from her body.
Under her breath, faint enough for it to be a whisper, but also just loud enough for Azriel to decipher, Y/N uttered, "Beautiful."
The word lingered in the air. Beautiful.
Azriel’s breath stuttered, his body going taut. No one had ever spoken of his scars that way. Not once in centuries. Beautiful.
Her head rested against his shoulder, so light he wondered if he only imagined it. The scent of Y/N curled around him like the first rays of dawn, filling the cracks he had long since stopped tending to. His hand twitched, aching to lift, to cradle her face, to brush his thumb over the curve of her cheek.
But the thought alone made his chest constrict.
No matter how much he wished to touch her, to feel her. He couldn't allow himself to. He couldn't allow himself to want her. Not when wanting meant losing. Not when she was from another world and had no wish to stay in Prythian. Not when he was the cause of her near-death, all because he fell asleep.
Perhaps Lorcan and Aedion had been right all along.
His shadows whispered their protest, curling restlessly around him, but still he pulled away. Slowly, carefully, as though disentangling himself from something far more perilous than any war.
The moment his touch vanished, Y/N flinched. Her heart clenched, her hand aching with the ghost of his fingers as she watched him wipe his palms against his trousers, his eyes fixed firmly on the floor.
“I should leave you to rest.” His voice was low, rough. Azriel lingered in the doorway, shadows shifting around his shoulders. For a heartbeat, his gaze found hers again, catching the shimmer of sadness there, the way her fingers twisted in her lap, her body curling inward. “I’ll come by later. To check on you.”
She could not summon words, not when her throat felt too tight. All she managed was a single nod, eyes dropping to her pallid skin, the lifeless hue of it. Perhaps that was why he had recoiled, why he had stepped away so suddenly.
The door shut with a soft click, and he was gone.
She waited. Waited long after the moon had climbed high into the sky, long after the stars had begun to scatter their silver fire across the night. But he did not return.
And when at last she closed her eyes, it was the nightmares that came to keep her company.
By morning, Azriel was cursing himself for the way he had left her. The memory gnawed at him with every passing hour. He told himself it was better this way, that distance would protect her, that keeping away would save her from the weight of him. But the truth was crueller, he had walked away not for her sake, but out of fear of his own happiness.
With shadows heavy at his heels and dark bruises beneath his eyes from yet another sleepless night, he had flown to the House of Wind at dawn. He had gone there with one purpose, to find her, to offer an apology, to make it right.
But when he arrived, the room was empty.
Still, Y/N lingered there. The air was thick with her scent, that quiet blend of mountain rain and smouldering wood, wrapping around him until his chest ached. He stepped further inside, his shadows whispering at the walls.
A book lay open on the bedside table. The covers were rumpled, the pillows unfluffed, as though Y/N had only just risen. And upon the blankets, delicate and stark against the dark silk, rested a single feather.
“Looking for my queen?”
The voice caught him off guard. His shadows hadn’t warned him, too consumed by thoughts of finding Y/N, too distracted by the gnawing need to set things right.
Azriel spun on his heel and found Aelin leaning lazily against the doorframe, her golden hair plaited over one shoulder, sharp eyes glinting with amusement as they studied him.
“Yes,” he said at last, the single word rough as his shadows slipped back around him, whispering against his ears.
Aelin pushed off the frame with an easy grace, a faint grin tugging at her mouth as she strolled into the room. “She’s at the training grounds. Cassian apparently drank himself half to death last night and thought it wise to challenge Rowan to a duel.”
Azriel’s jaw tightened. Cassian couldn’t possibly be that reckless.
Aelin inspected her nails with deliberate disinterest before flicking her gaze back to him. She caught the dark circles bruising his eyes, the way his shoulders seemed weighed down, the restless pull in his stance as if being kept from Y/N was a punishment all its own.
“Come,” she said smoothly, already moving toward the hall. “I’ll take you to her.”
It was all Azriel needed.
The clang of steel and the roar of voices reached Azriel before the training grounds came into view. Shadows rippled eagerly at his shoulders, darting ahead to scout, but even without them, he could hear the commotion; Cassian’s bellowing laughter, Rowan’s clipped curses, and the gasps of onlookers too entertained to intervene.
Aelin strode at his side with a feline sort of grace, utterly unbothered. “Told you,” she muttered, the corner of her mouth curling.
They emerged into the courtyard just in time to see Cassian swinging a sword far too recklessly for the state he was in. Rowan dodged with the grace of a king, expression carved into irritated calm, though the white flame dancing along the edge of his blade betrayed his thinning patience.
“Cassian,” Azriel growled under his breath.
But his rebuke died on his tongue the moment he saw her.
Y/N stood at the edge of the sparring ring, one hand resting against her side as though steadying herself, the other shading her eyes against the harsh morning sun. Her wings hung loosely at her back, not quite drooping, but still weary. The faint smile curving her lips as she watched the absurdity before you was soft, fragile in a way that made Azriel’s chest constrict.
He had told himself he’d only needed to apologize. That he only needed to explain. But now, seeing her bathed in sunlight, drenched in silver silk, alive and breathing, that fragile thread of restraint inside him frayed to the breaking point.
Cassian lunged sloppily due to his clearly still inebriated state, nearly tripping over his own feet, and a ripple of laughter echoed through the gathered crowd. Rowan arched a brow, sidestepped with infuriating ease, and sent the General sprawling onto the dirt with a single flick of his boot.
The spectators erupted, jeering and cheering all at once.
Y/N laughed, really laughed. And the sound of it, the sight of her lips parting in unguarded delight, cut Azriel to pieces.
He hadn’t realized until then just how much he’d dreamed that sound.
But the moment her gaze slid past Cassian’s prone form and landed on him, your laughter faded. Her smile faltered, her posture shifted, shoulders curling inward, hand slipping from her side to fidget with her fingers again. Embarrassment shadowed Y/N's features, as if she still wondered if she alone had been the reason he had pulled away.
Azriel stopped cold, every instinct in him warring. To go to her, to explain, to tell Y/N it wasn’t her, it had never been her. But his body betrayed him, rooted in place as shadows coiled tighter around him, urging and pleading all at once.
Aelin, ever observant, slowed her steps just enough to glance at him, the faintest hint of a smirk playing on her lips. “Well,” she drawled under her breath. “Looks like the real duel’s about to start.”
Cassian groaned from the dirt, Rowan’s boot planted firmly between his shoulder blades. The crowd roared with laughter as the Illyrian General sputtered curses about unfair advantages and cheap tricks.
Rowan merely sheathed his sword and muttered something about wasting his morning as he sauntered to Aelin, placing a chaste kiss to her forehead.
The sparring ring began to clear, the crowd dispersing with loud chatter and pointed amusement, leaving Cassian flat on his back and grinning like a fool despite his humiliation. He waved off Nesta’s sharp words as she appeared at his side, arms crossed and eyes blazing, and promised he’d been just warming up.
Azriel barely heard any of it. His attention was fixed on Y/N.
She had turned from the commotion, slipping quietly toward the archway at the edge of the grounds. No fanfare, no goodbye, just a soft retreat, and an even softer nod to Rhys on her exit, wings tucked close as though she wished to vanish entirely.
Before he could think better of it, Azriel followed. His steps were silent, shadows spilling ahead to curl into the cool stone of the passage. He found her standing near one of the tall windows that overlooked the mountains, arms braced against the sill as she leaned forward slightly, drawing in the morning air.
Y/N didn’t turn when she spoke. “You didn’t come back.”
The words were quiet, but they struck sharper than any blade. Especially considering that he could hear her pain in them.
Azriel froze, shadows writhing like restless smoke at his back. “I… I thought it best if I gave you space.”
She glanced over her shoulder then, eyes catching his, and the faint sadness there nearly brought him to his knees. “Space,” she repeated, the word clipped, almost bitter. “Right.”
His hands twitched uselessly at his sides. He wanted to reach for her, to feel her skin running across his own. Saints, he wanted it so badly his chest craved with it. But he forced himself to stay where he was, every muscle taut with restraint.
“I was wrong,” he said finally, the admission rough in his throat. “About leaving."
Y/N studied him for a long moment, the silence stretching between them. Then she pushed away from the sill, wings rustling faintly as she straightened. “Then why did you?”
Azriel’s mouth opened, but no words came. He could not tell her the truth, that he feared how much he wanted her, that the thought of losing her before he ever truly had her would destroy him. He could not confess that his own guilt had chained him, convinced him he was unworthy of the fragile light she carried.
So he said nothing.
And her expression shifted, just barely, disappointment flickering, followed by something colder. Y/N shook her head, lips pressing into a tight line, and moved to step past him.
His shadows flared, curling in agitation, and before he could stop himself, Azriel reached out. His fingers brushed her wrist, just enough to halt her. “It wasn’t you,” he said, softer this time, desperate. “It was never you.”
She froze, glancing down at where his hand lingered against her skin. For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Then, carefully, Y/N slipped your hand free. “It feels the same either way.”
Azriel had seen the shields he had somehow broken down throw themselves back up right before his eyes. The crunch of gravel sounded as she walked away, but he couldn't stop staring after her as she joined back with Yrene and disappeared inside.
The House of Wind was quiet when Azriel finally made his way back, shadows from the moving sun draped heavy across the halls. Most had gone about their days, the fire in the hearth burned low. Cassian sat sprawled on the couch, a glass of amber liquor in hand, his dark hair damp from a much needed bath. He didn’t look up when Azriel entered, but a smirk tugged at his mouth.
“Took you long enough.”
Azriel frowned. “For what?”
Cassian swirled the glass lazily. “To come brood at me instead of in the corner of your room. Shadows carry whispers, brother. You’ve been pacing like a caged beast all day.”
Azriel said nothing, only dropped into the armchair opposite him, wings dragging against the floor in quiet defeat.
Cassian let the silence linger, sipping his drink. Finally, he arched a brow. “This about her?”
Azriel’s jaw clenched. He didn’t answer, but the muscle ticking in his cheek was response enough.
Cassian leaned back with a sigh, setting his glass down. “What did you do?”
“I left her.” The words were sharp, spit out like glass shards. “I left her when she needed me, when we were getting somewhere. And when I went back-” He cut himself off, running a hand down his face. “She thinks it’s her fault. That she did something wrong. That there is something wrong with her.”
Cassian’s smirk vanished. He sat forward, forearms braced on his knees. “And why did you leave?”
Azriel’s throat worked. Shadows writhed, whispering secrets he couldn’t bear to voice. He stared into the dying morning fire that Yrene had probably lit, she had been complaining that Velaris was too cold for her. “Because I wanted too much.” His voice was low, almost broken. “And wanting her means losing her. It always has.”
Cassian was quiet for a long while. Then, simply, “That’s bullshit.”
Azriel’s head snapped up, brows furrowed.
Cassian shrugged, unbothered by the glare. “You think pushing her away will hurt less? You think keeping your distance will save you from losing her? Losing her because you’re too much of a coward to try hurts worse.”
“Cass-”
“No.” Cassian’s tone sharpened, rare steel beneath it. “I’ve watched you bleed for centuries, Az. Watched you drown in shadows and tell yourself it’s safer there. But she isn’t the one you should be protecting from this, you are. You’re protecting yourself. And in the process, you’re hurting her.”
The words landed heavy, a blow he couldn’t deflect.
Azriel leaned back in his chair, shadows curling tight around him like armor, though the edges frayed, thinner than ever. “I don’t know if I can give her what she deserves.”
Cassian studied him for a long moment, then leaned back with a snort. “Maybe not. But I’ll tell you this, you walking away? That’s the one thing she doesn’t deserve.”
Azriel didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The truth of it pressed down, suffocating. He sat there in silence, the fire crackling low, Cassian’s words echoing in his skull until they became indistinguishable from the whispers of his shadows.
And for the first time in a long while, Azriel wasn’t sure which voice he feared more.
Y/N sat curled on the edge of the bed, knees pulled tight to her chest. The moonlight streamed through the high windows, painting her skin silver. Sleep hadn’t come, not really, every time her eyes closed, she saw the look on Azriel’s face when he pulled away, the sudden emptiness where his hand had been.
The door creaked open, and Aelin slipped in without knocking. Behind her, Manon stalked in with the silent grace of a predator, silver hair catching the moonlight, Yrene trailing last with a healer’s quiet concern.
“You’re sulking,” Aelin announced, plopping herself down onto the foot of the bed.
“I’m not,” Y/N muttered, though her voice was raw.
Manon arched a brow, arms crossed, leaning against the wall. “You smell like rejection.”
Y/N’s head snapped up, heat rushing to her cheeks. “Excuse me?”
“She’s not wrong,” Aelin added lightly, smirking when Y/N glared. “Something happened with Azriel, didn’t it?”
Yrene, ever gentler, perched on the edge of the mattress. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.” Her tone was soft, but her eyes, wise and steady, urged honesty.
For a long moment, Y/N said nothing. Her fingers twisted the blanket, wings curling close to her body. Finally, she whispered, “He pulled away. Like I’d done something wrong. And now I can’t stop thinking… is it because of who I am? Because of my blood? My torments?"
Silence filled the room, thick and heavy.
Then Aelin snorted. “Oh, please. Azriel pulling away has nothing to do with you and everything to do with that thick skull of his.”
Manon pushed off the wall, her golden eyes glinting. “If he’s a coward, that’s his weakness. Not yours.”
Yrene reached for Y/N’s hands, prying them gently from the twisted blanket. “Listen to me. You didn’t do anything wrong. Azriel… he carries more weight than most," Yrene stated, as if she herself has felt it pouring from him. "Sometimes that makes him stumble. But don’t ever mistake his hesitation for your inadequacy.”
Y/N swallowed hard, blinking against the sting in her eyes. “Then why does it feel like I’m too much? Or not enough?”
“Because,” Aelin said bluntly, “you care. And that’s terrifying to someone who’s spent his entire life convinced he doesn’t deserve it.”
Manon’s mouth curved into something sharp, predatory. “If he can’t see your worth, break his nose. Problem solved.”
Aelin laughed. Yrene gave Manon a long-suffering look. But Y/N… Y/N cracked the faintest smile.
“You’re not the problem,” Yrene said firmly, squeezing her hands. “Don’t let him convince you otherwise.”
For the first time since Azriel left, Y/N’s chest loosened, just a little. The ache didn’t fade, but it dulled under their presence, their fierce, unyielding faith in her when her own faltered.
She wasn’t sure what the next day would bring, or whether Azriel would ever stop running from the ghosts in his mind. But for the night, she wasn’t alone.
Yet when silence returned and the others had left her to rest, the stillness of the room seemed too deep. Too heavy.
It started as a pulse, low and thrumming in her veins. Not her heartbeat, but something darker, older. Perhaps it was the after effects of the poison. She could feel it now in the quiet, no longer masked by distraction. It had lingered since the moment she had been plucked from the skies, clinging to her blood like a parasite. She’d thought that she was healing. She’d been wrong.
Her fingers trembled as she pressed them to her skin. Heat bled beneath her touch, too sharp, too alive. It wasn’t just lingering, it was changing. Twisting.
Whispers stirred at the edges of her mind, oil-slick and curling, not her mother’s voice this time but something far more yearning. Something that wanted her hollowed out, remade.
She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing a breath past her chapped lips. But the air felt thick, cloying, as though the poison had seeped into the very shadows of her room. And in the darkest corner where moonlight failed to reach, the air rippled. The floorboards creaked softly, as if under unseen weight.
It wanted more.
When she lay back at last, pulling the covers up to her chin, Y/N kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling. She didn’t dare look at the darkness gathering near her bed that speckled at the edges of her vision. Didn’t dare acknowledge the slow, deliberate way it seemed to be watching her.
She knew one thing with a clarity that left her cold.
That something unforgiving and ancient was attempting to reshape the very atoms that made her what she was was.
And whatever it was willing her into… it wasn’t done yet.
Author's Note
I'm backkkkk!!
Apologies if this is a bit rough, just getting back into the swing of things and knew I had to get this out for you guys x
First things first, I owe a huge apology to everyone who has been waiting for me to start writing again.
Without going into too much depressing detail, I’ve been extremely ill over the last year, and I’ve been trying to come back and do the odd thing but it hasn’t exactly been the best whilst being in recovery, so for that reason I did have to take somewhat of a hiatus and literally drop from the face of the earth 😭
It’s been so amazing to see my works being recognised through this difficult time in my life though, all the likes and follows and reposts and shares flow in everyday and it’s really made me feel so happy and special 🥹
I was trying to return and pick up where I left everything, but the stuff I was drafting just didn’t feel very ‘me’ so never left the draft inbox.
Buttt I’m so happy to say that after such a long recovery process and giving myself the time I’ve really needed, I’m ready to make a full on comeback into the wonderful world of fanfics ❤️
With that being said, if there is ANYTHING any of you would want to see updated/continued, or anything you’d like to request, please please please let me know.
It might take a minute to get back into the groove but I’m so ready for this you have NO idea 💫
Summary - Azriel is completely besotted by you, his mate who astounds him daily, but how does he feel when he realises the pain you've been carrying is beginning to impact you more than he could ever fathom.
Warnings - mentions of death of a loved one, mentions of depression, weight loss, angst, fluff
The changes were so small that he didn't even realise it. So small that over time it didn't seem that you had changed at all.
If there was one thing that Azriel appreciated about you, it was that you never asked too many questions or fretted too much when he would have to go away. Each time he would return to you, he would hear the music drifting from the open white-shuttered of your shared home, and he would spy your silhouette drifting about within it, dancing idly as you baked whatever it was that Nyx had requested from you.
No questions were ever asked as soon as he stepped inside, drinking in your scent of citrus and fresh rain; you would move to him, treat in hand, and bring it to his lips in knowing that he would tell you of his travels if he wanted to, and most of the time the tales weren't ones that you wanted to hear anyway.
Azriel knew of your innocence, he knew that your world revolved about baking and reading, and that anything outside of that sometimes terrified you.
That's why everyone was so surprised that Prythian's most talented baker was the mate of the one and only Shadowsinger.
Though, Cassian had been rather excited by it, but only because it meant free treats for him, not that you ever made him pay regardless.
The changes had been so small, so small that Azriel was kicking himself for not realising sooner, for not realising how much the light of his life was dimming every passing minute.
Azriel knew you too well. He knew how passionate you were, and how much you put others before yourself constantly, choosing to care for the world before tending to yourself. It was a tiring thing, you had admitted that much to him, but it wasn't something you would ever want to end.
The truth of it was hidden rather well behind the stacks of cakes for the orphanages and treats for the local schools.
You were drowning.
Pain suffocated you, your chest ached and panged with forbidden wishes, and instead of facing it, instead of talking and seeking help, you pushed on as if it had never happened at all.
But no one could deny that the hole left within you by the death of your mother couldn't be soul-crushing.
One day Azriel had come home and you were struggling to find anything that fit your frame, everything feeling rather baggy on you compared to the weeks before. Azriel had made Feyre take you shopping and that was the end of that.
Then the restless nights came whilst Azriel was away on one of his many trips, and you had sought out Madja for some sleeping tonics, dismissing the sunken in eyes for a busy occupation. You had told Azriel the same, and he had accepted it without really thinking any deeper.
Another time, Nesta had complained to him that they hardly ever saw you anymore unless you were with him. Nesta was missing her co-conspirator for the book club, and Feyre was missing her closest friend. Then there was Nyx that Feyre had admitted had began crying for you, thinking that you had left forever.
"I'm worried about her, Az," Feyre told him one evening after he had returned from yet another mission, bouncing Nyx in her arms who was fussing and crying for his favourite auntie once he had seen Azriel, believing that you would be with him.
Rhys had entered the room at the words, eyes solemn with agreement as he took the fussing child from his mates arms, "Something is wrong, you're right." Rhys shushed Nyx, resting his chin atop the childs' head in an attempt to calm him down.
It broke Feyre's heart to see Nyx so upset, but was broke her even more was the possibility that you were suffering in silence and feeling that you had no one to turn to. "I've noticed things. Little things. Spread over so much time that you wouldn't really recognise them unless you were really thinking about it."
The thought that something was perhaps wrong with you made Azriel want to flock to you immediately, to take to the skies and find your embrace as soon as he possibly could; but he had to listen, he had to hear what he had missed.
"She's lost weight, Az. I've had to take her shopping three times since spring," Feyre began, hands on her hips and foot tapping against the floor, more the centre herself than anything, "Unless she's with you then we don't see her anymore, I've gone from speaking to y/n every day to hardly muttering a word to her all week. She hasn't been reading her books, and she's had Penelope go to the house to pick up the all cakes rather than take them to the shop herself. Madja said she hasn't been sleeping, she has to get her assistant to take tonics to her every few days."
Upon thinking about it, of the countless garments he had found strewn in charity boxes, of the empty bottles of tonics in the bathroom, and of the pure surprise in everyone's eyes when they would see you... Azriel felt absolutely useless.
"How- How did I not notice this? How did I not feel this?"
Feyre smiled at Azriel sadly, sympathetically, and spoke, "Y/N has always had the strangest ability to hide every negative feeling she's ever had."
Azriel struggled to pinpoint it, struggled to follow the trail back to where it all started. And, as if though he had read his mind, Rhys concluded, "It was after her mother died. She never stopped working, it must all be catching up with her."
The love between you and your mother had been unfathomable, no one in the continent had seen such a bond, not even between mates. It was as though you were twin flames, more sisters and best friends than mother and daughter, and the day she left the world had been the worst day of your life.
Your mother had been the embodiment of grace and kindness, and had been a firm believer that a little bit of kindness every day would make the world a better place than yesterday.
Even after the funeral, you never stopped, Azriel had warned you to slow down and take your time, but you were steadfast in your decision to carry on her legacy by making the world a better place. So, he had left you to it, and had believed that you were healing, but he couldn't have been more wrong.
"I have to go." Azriel muttered with his eyes on the open doors, he moved to them with precision, stepping between the panes and unfurling his wings only moments before taking to the skies.
Returning home made everything feel much more real.
There was no sweet smells drifting from the windows, no golden light that your silhouette that your frame would dance against, and no smell of citrus or rain. The home felt empty, and cold, devoid of love and life and happiness.
"Love?" Azriel called softly as he poked his head around the door, noticing the disarray of your usually picturesque home.
Blankets had been thrown haphazardly across the sofas, the fire clearly hadn't been lit for days, and the kitchen counters were pilled with dirty dishes and failed bakery creations; the scent of stale goods drifting about the room.
Empty bottled of tonics were scattered atop the coffee table, some half drank, and others empty and on their sides; some had even made it to the hand-stitched rug and shattered on the surface.
How long had he been gone?
A thin slit of light reflected against the wall at the top of the stairs, and the sound of gently lapping water echoed softly about the house.
Azriel couldn't stop himself from following it, and the closer he got to you, the more he felt your sadness settle into his veins.
He knocked on the door once. Nothing.
He knocked again, a little harder. Nothing.
"Angel?" Azriel announced his entrance, stepping into the usually bright bathroom that was illuminated by only a few well-placed candles.
It was like he didn't exist, it was like he was a ghost and you couldn't see or hear him.
There you lay in the tub, hair strewn over the edge with skin glistening in the candlelight, and eyes watching the Sidra drift on by. Azriel knelt at the edge of the tub, dipping his fingers beneath the surface and grazing against your freezing cold skin despite the scorching waters, and you hummed at the contact.
With his other hand, Azriel gently turned your face to meet his, and the vacant glare in your eyes made his heart splinter. How had he missed this? How had he not realised how much you were suffering right before his eyes?
"Can you hear me, my love?" Azriel cooed, gaining your attention, and in that moment it was as though you had only just realised that he was in the room with you.
With a furrowed brow and voice rasped from days without nourishment, you asked, "You're home? It's only been two days."
That struck him like a tonne of rocks. "Y/N," Azriel tried not to gasp, turning his expression from surprise into something more adoring, "I've been gone for a week."
"A week?" The look in your eyes almost had him sobbing, the mixture of embarrassment and disillusionment finding a bed inside of you. "Oh."
Azriel moved a strand of your drying hair from your face, tracing his finger down your check and over your shoulder, "Tell me what's wrong, y/n. Everyone is so worried about you."
"I didn't want that," you spoke with a voice void of any emotion.
"I know, Angel," Azriel sighed, "We just want to help you. I know the hole of your mother will never disappear, I know how much you adored her, but maybe, together, we can make it a little bit smaller."
The ebbing Sidra suddenly became more interesting. A cold swoop encased Azriel’s palms as you turned away, setting your head back upon the tubs edge. “Don’t say that,” you spoke in a pained whisper, “Don’t wish it away.”
“Wish it away?”
A hum escaped you, and Azriel took a much needed moment to examine you. He noted the purple that had settled beneath your eyes, the way your collarbone seemed to be sharper than usual, but what hurt him the most was that far away desire in your eyes, a desire with no light or warmth.
“Wish her away. I won’t love anyone like I loved her,” the water rippled as you faced him once more, “Everything I adore has the unique fate of abandoning me. Even you.”
Abandoning you? Azriel could never-
Although, he hated to admit that he had never really taken into account how it must have felt for you to lose the last bit of your family, to only then have to face the nightmares of potentially losing him too.
If anything happened to Azriel, well, he refused to think about what you would turn into.
Azriel rose to his feet and began peeling his clothes from his body, his skin tingling as it made contact with the chilled yet humid air of the bathroom. Without needing to be asked, you leant forward, making room for him to nestle himself behind you and curl his around your frame.
A kiss fell upon your shoulder, “I’m sorry, y/n,” his voice splintered, “I’m sorry that I haven’t been here, and for leaving you when you’ve been needing me more than ever before.”
Your mate had always been magnificent in every possible way, but what he was best at was wiping every worry and inkling of pain from your soul.
“I’m going to tell Rhys that I’m standing down from my position for awhile,” his finger worked small circles into your back as he spoke, moving from your shoulders and into your scalp, “What kind of mate would I be if I couldn’t ensure the safety and happiness of the love of my life?”
Tear brimmed orbs found him, fingers curled around his wrists, “You would really do that? For me?”
Azriel smiled slightly, laying his forehead against yours, “You should know by now that I would do absolutely anything for you.”
“You’ll stay?”
“Mhm,” he sounded, pressing gentle kisses to whatever skin he could reach, “We’ll get through this together, no matter how long you need, or how you need to process it all. We’ll do it all together. How does that sound?”
And for the first time in what Azriel knew to be weeks, a smile cracked across your lips despite the sadness held within it, and if the sun were shining then beams of light would have caressed your skin carefully.
But, he supposed the cascade of moonlight against the surface of the Sidra was enough to promise a better day. As your mother used to say, kindness would bring a more beautiful tomorrow, and Azriel intended to make every tomorrow brighter than the one before.
A/N
Honestly it’s been WAY too long since I’ve posted 🥺
If it’s any consolation I do have like 17 drafts going atm, two of which are for the fox and the fawn and a ballad of storm and shadow 🥺
absolutely loved the goddess and the reaper and can’t wait to start reading the ballad of storm and shadow 💜 I think I’ve read all your azriel fics and they’re all incredible! thank you for sharing your stories with us :)
Aw thank you!
I really LOVED writing The Goddess and The Reaper, and The Girl Who Cheated Death is another absolute favourite of mine! I'll be working on A Ballad of Storm and Shadow next week so will (hopefully) have more incredible updates to share xx
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