The cursed firebird and spell-cleaver
The lovely fawn and death
A bird of flame and a lord of fire. I wondered if they'd found each other yet.
Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two.
“I’ll go,” Lucien repeated, rising to his feet. “To find this sixth queen. I will find Vassa. This eye can see things that others... can’t. Spells, glamours... Perhaps it can help me find her. And break her curse.”
From the shadows near the entrance to the tent, Azriel said, as if in answer to some unspoken debate, “I’m getting her back.”
Mor said, “It will be—very dangerous.” A half smile curved Lucien’s mouth. “Good. It’d be boring otherwise.”
Nesta said, “Then you will die.” Azriel only repeated, rage glazing that stare, “I’m getting her back.”
Vassa still remained inside, chatting with Lucien animatedly.
Azriel and Elain remained in the sitting room, my sister showing him the plans she’d sketched to expand the garden in the back of the town house.
“Jurian isn’t an exile,” I said. Vassa, yes. Lucien, two times over now.”
Feyre smiled. “Elain was the only one who guessed. She caught me vomiting two mornings in a row.” She nodded toward Azriel. “I think she’s got you beat for secret-keeping.”
I supposed that if she only had until dawn before turning back into that firebird, she wanted to make every minute count. Lucien, surprisingly, was chuckling, his shoulders loose and his head angled while he listened.
He chuckled, unable to suppress the impulse. "No wonder you didn't want me to open it in front of everyone." Elain’s mouth twitched into a smile.
“I think he’d have been crowned king by now if it wasn’t for Vassa.” A twitch of the lips, a spark in that russet eye.
Elain smiled again, ducking her head. Azriel mastered himself enough to say, “Thank you.” I’d never seen his hazel eyes so bright, the hues of green amid the brown and gray like veins of emerald.
“Not for long—not if Vassa has anything to do with it.” “You sound like an acolyte.” Lucien blushed, “She’s got a foul temper and a fouler mouth.”
I couldn’t tell if she was looking at his blue Siphon or at his scarred skin beneath as she breathed, “Beautiful.” Color bloomed high on Azriel’s golden-brown cheeks.
“He’s still at the lake,” Lucien said carefully. Lucien had been there, Cassian recalled. Had gone with Nesta’s father to the lake where Vassa was held captive.
Azriel stiffened. “I know. I helped rescue Elain, after all.”
Cassian could have sworn flames rippled across her blue eyes. Both Jurian and Lucien stared at her, the former’s face utterly unreadable, and the latter’s pained.
Rhys was frowning, Cassian and Mor were both grimacing, and Azriel... It was pity on his beautiful face. Pity and sorrow as he watched my sister.
BONUS
“And Jurian and Vassa?” “At each other’s throats, as they like to be,” he said, a tad sharply. She wondered what that was about and for the life of her couldn’t read it.
Azriel offered her a small smile that Elain quickly looked away from. Cassian tucked away his puzzlement.
