Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the woods just inside the confines of the Middle, Azriel finds a puzzle.

More aptly, Azriel finds you, bathed in the glow of the sunset, iridescent snowflakes from the first snow delicately falling to your shoulders, your hair, the tip of your nose.

There’s magic on the wind carrying your scent, something different he cannot place, tang of petrichor sitting on the tip of his tongue.

Strange, beautiful creature, the shadows whisper. He’s inclined to agree.

Strange indeed.

For a moment, he thinks of Bryce. He remembers her entrance into this world, her stories of her home, things both he and Nesta have no concept of. The star on her chest.

She is of no threat to us.

That’s not for you to decide.

He slips into the caliginous wisp curling around his shoulders, a shroud of darkness allowing him a closer look, just as a persistent huff at the edge of his mind pulls his attention.

Where are you?

Working.

Working where?

South. There’s a snort.

One-word answers, how sufficient. You’re not a pariah. Come home.

Once I’m finished.

The conversation eclipses his focus until you slip on the frozen riverbank and he tenses, gaze swinging to where you’ve caught yourself with a squeak, one hand behind your back, palm slicked with mud. 

His wall falls entirely, distracted, and Rhys' curiosity piques. 

Who is that?

No one. I’ll report to you later. With that, the conversation ceases, Azriel’s walls of tenebrific smoke rising to block out the irritated hiss of his brother.

The edge of the Middle is considered somewhat safe, though not without risk, a perplexing fact that spurs him closer for a better look as you rise from the river, frozen blades of glass crunching under the sole of your boot. Your ears are pointed, limbs elongated, both markers of High Fae, but something unknown still lingers, a natural, earth rich sillage left in your wake. Your hips swing from the effort of pushing up the bank, backpack in hand, and the sway distracts him. It’s hard to ignore the shape of you, the weight of your breasts, the pert bow of your top lip. Gods, at full height, you barely reach his shoulders, and his body reacts in a way that’s out of his control.

Rhys’ warning is ice between his ears, a wound still fresh even though it's old. If you need to fuck someone, go to a pleasure hall and pay for it, but stay away from her. 

He’s long let her go, but the command from his brother still sits bitterly in his stomach, along with untended desire. That's all this is, misplaced salacity.

Still, even your calves draw his eye.

Lovely little female, the shadows croon. He grits his teeth and falls into step behind you, cautiously allowing inky tendrils to sprawl across bramble laced ground. One licks too close, just barely caressing the edge of your heel, and you freeze.

So does he. An unnatural stillness falls over the wood, culminating into a quiet so loud it shatters as you fix wary eyes on the space where he stands. He holds his breath, ice crystal laden cirrus clouds parting overhead, drawing back the curtain on a star filled night sky, silver light shimmering across fallen leaves. 

The night's splendor shines on you like a blessing from the Mother herself. 

You blink, lips parted, quizzical, anxious expression bringing your brows together. “Hello?”

You can’t… you can’t see him, can you?

Your reaction puzzles him. How is it you are out here, in the Middle, so brazenly, so recklessly, calling out to a place filled with such sinister, monstrous magic and monsters?

You tilt your face to the break in the clouds, downy white snowflakes sticking to your eyelashes and dotting your cheeks in such a way it’s seraphic. The shadows, his shadows, vibrate with frenetic, enchanted energy.

Beautiful, they coo as they reach for you, nearly finding the bend of your neck before he snaps them away.

You shift the backpack hung from your shoulders and take one last look around, confused, until you shake your head, spinning on your heel to head into the forest. The urge to follow you is too great, your presence here is now a riddle requiring answers, if not for his own curiosity, then for the safety of the Night Court, his family. Who knows who you are, what you are, what your business is in this place-

Shadowsinger. Nuala’s whisper halts his pursuit. The fox is here with news of Koschei.

With one more long look at your retreating back, he reluctantly steps into a pocket of a shadow, leaving the Middle and its new mystery for another time. Soon.  

Azriel does not like surprises.

In fact, he prides himself on rarely ever being surprised, at least in Velaris.

So to stumble upon you at the Palace of Bone and Salt, to see you in the midday sun, boots and muddied cloak replaced by a plum stained linen dress, hair pinned up in various places off your neck and holding a large canvas bag at your side, stops him in his tracks. He falls behind Cassian and Nesta without a single word, slowing his steps to mimic how you drift through the stalls and storefronts, nodding and smiling to others as if you belong here. As if this is your home. The wary look in your eyes from the other day has been replaced by a radiant, celestial glimmer, one drawing those around you closer, and something squeezes around his heart at the sight.

Our sweet girl.

Stop it.

“Az?” Nesta turns, noticing his absence, Cassian following suit almost immediately.

“Sorry,” he replies smoothly, running a hand down the buttons of his shirt. Even from paces away, the scent of your skin fills his nostrils, dampened wood from rain and freshly fallen fruit. Foolishly, his gaze lingers too long, long enough his brother notices, and breaks out a broad grin.

“See something you like?”

Cassian plants himself directly in your path, pretending to look on absentmindedly, perusing a stall piled with fresh cuts of meats. You try to move around him, but the flow of bodies stalls your momentum, and you nearly trip over your feet, giving Cassian an opportunity to reach out and steady you.

“I’m sorry!” You grip the straps of your bag, righting yourself after recovering from the stumble, and Azriel closes his eyes, resisting the urge to pinch his brow.

“That’s alright. I’m Cassian,” he grins, extending his hand. There isn't a male, female, or child in this place that does not know them, but the introduction is polite, at the bare minimum. At its depth, it's a way for his some time insufferable brother to stick his nose in a place it doesn't belong, and when you don’t reciprocate, he breezes right past, ignoring the awkwardness of your refusal. “This is Nesta, and Azriel.” Azriel inclines his head, and you look from Cassian to him, before settling on Nesta.

Most in Velaris look away from Nesta, like they’re staring at a star so bright it hurts their eyes, but not you. You meet her head on, studying curiously, and her lips quirk to the side in a barely-there smile.

“Ignore him. He’s an oaf sometimes.” She playfully nudges Cassian with an elbow, and you relax slightly. His brother doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone however, and clears his throat.

“This is the part where you tell us your name. It’s customary.” You’re taken aback for a second, a micro-expression of unease no one else tracks save for himself before recovering with a tepid smile.

Your name rings like a bell, a chime of music, strings and key perfectly played in harmony. The shadows sigh.

“Do you live around here?” Cassian pushes, and teeth sink into your bottom lip.

“Yes, I- I work at Moonflower.”

“The apothecary?”  

“That’s the one.”

“Maybe we’ll see you there sometime. Nesta’s always in need of a new elixir.” She raises a brow at her mate, who flashes Azriel a mischievous smirk.

“Oh, I work in the back.”

“You’re the apothecary.”  They're the first words he's said to you, and they're wrong. They slip off his tongue too cold, too calculated, and he doesn't miss the way you frown in confusion.

“I’m an alchemist, but… yes.” Your voice is a shade above a whisper, quiet beneath the bustle of the market, and his eyes meet yours, circling in your inescapable gaze like a spider in a web. Cassian coughs, breaking his reverie. “I uh… I should get going, I’ve got a lot of work to do. It was nice to meet you all.” He wants to disappear into the crowd of the market after you, but he dreads the weight it would carry with his brother, the unrelenting questioning and pestering it would produce. 

“You too!” Cassian hollers, and then faces him with a wide grin. “Well, she’s-“ Nesta smacks the middle of his chest, and Azriel glowers.

“Don’t.”

He finds you again in the Middle, same backpack and boots, diligently picking through a patch of chartreuse moss. He swallows his scowl. Why are you out here alone, again? It frustrates him. Why put yourself in such danger?

He's struck by a fantasy, one of you with your pants pulled down your ankles and bent over his knees, sweet cries filling the room as you take your punishment for such recklessness, his open palm raining smack after smack down onto your ass.

Madness. He shakes the vision away, coming to stand at your side.

“Hello.” You whirl, startled like a rabbit.

Nice, the shadows groan, and his wings flex.

“H-hi.” Music again, a melody on the breeze, and shadows flutter around his shoulders, scrawling across the ground to where you kneel. He orders them back, wielding a sharp-edged command that cuts, but they stray farther, stretching for you, carefully floating across your forearms.  

He’s stunned, briefly, and then gathers his wits, yanking them away. They’ve never, never behaved this way. Born for him from desolation, tamed from darkness incarnate, he’s shaped them into obedient spies, tools spread across Prythian, ethereal wisps capable of things others cannot comprehend. Always in service, always compliant.

You look up with a little bit of wonder in your eyes, pretty little smile tugging at your mouth. He should say something reassuring, something kind or friendly to ease you, but such sentiment fails him, and he scowls, snapping at you instead. “Why are you out here by yourself?” Your face falls, effectively chastised like a child who’s been caught in a cookie jar.

“I’m… I need things. Ingredients.”

“And you need to come out here to get them?”

“The plant life is more vibrant here, more uh, c-concentrated? The magic is stronger. It’s hard to explain…” 

“The Middle is a dangerous place.” He replies flatly.

“Oh, I don’t have problems here. I never travel too far from the boundary.” You glance at your bag at the edge of the clearing, eager for an escape he imagines, though he’s not willing to let you go.

“You’re quite far from Velaris.” You nod, but offer no explanation, and he raises an eyebrow.

“I winnowed.” You rock back on your heels and stand, shuffling closer to your backpack. He doesn’t move to stop you, just stands in the center of the moss patch, studying your every move. “I've got to get back,” you explain, offering him a nervous smile, one he doesn’t deserve, or return. You wilt. 

It strikes a chord in the pit of his stomach, and in a last-minute moment of weakness, he sends a shadow to ride the coattails of your winnow, issuing a stark warning to reaffirm the mission.

Observe and report to me. Do not make yourself known.

Always.

Our sweet looks beautiful tonight, the shadows report in a whirlwind of excitement, and he pauses mid cut as the male in front of him whimpers, twisting, trying break free from the chains.

That is not worthy of a report. He blatantly ignores the possessiveness, the pet name. For now.

She’s going to Rita’s with a friend. He bites down on the inside of his cheek. Her dress is blue. Cobalt.  

Why are you reporting this?

We’re acting as instructed.

This is a futile information, he chastises, and the answer is resounding silence as he shakes his shoulders and turns back to his prey, the crying, bloody Fae strung up by his wrists.

“Where were we?”

Outside of Rita’s, Azriel lurks in darkness.  

His family is inside, unaware he’s in the alley, tucked away from prying eyes. He’s freshly showered, blood scrubbed out from beneath his fingernails, blackened door in his mind firmly shut and locked away, just like its twin in the dungeon.

It’s been too long since he’s gone out, always choosing to slink away just before the conversations turn to plans, separating himself from Mor, and Elain, distancing himself from scrutiny or worse, pity.

Tonight, he couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t shake the idea of you here, so close, so tangible.

He slides from the shadowed pocket, and Fae step around him, eyes going wide and inclining their heads as a sign of respect. 

Respect. A joke. The city cannot fathom what he has done in his lifetime, and if they did, respect would be the furthest thing from their mind. 

He dons his mask, cold indifference, severe gaze, and slips inside.

Cassian knows he’s here before he’s in view. A brother’s intuition, an instinct that has served them well in battle and elsewhere, since they were young.

Tonight, he greets Azriel with a wide, knowing grin, dragging his gaze to the other side of the room and Azriel has no choice but to follow, spotting the obvious immediately.

You.

You’re perched at a table, legs crossed, smiling, laughing, holding a too full glass of wine. The dress is cobalt blue silk, delicate lace stitched on the hem, thin straps exposing your neck, your clavicle, your back. For a moment, he imagines his mouth on those places, he dreams about what you might taste like, how smooth you’d be against him, the contrast of his ruined hands and your satin skin.

His cock throbs, sense and composure momentarily slipping away before he regains control.

The shadows sigh. Our beautiful girl.

Stop calling her that.

Why? She is beautiful. And she is ours.

“Az!” Feyre is delighted, trying to wave him over. He’s always had a soft spot for his High Lady, endlessly impressed by her resilience, her love and commitment to both his brother and the Night Court, her kindness. “It’s been so long,” she teases as he slides into the seat at her left, pointedly ignoring Cassian’s smug expression.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been busy with work.”

“We miss you. You haven’t been at dinner in weeks.”

“It’s true,” Mor says softly at the other side of the table, brows creased in concern. He gives her a small, reassuring smile, one he hopes conveys the truth. It’s not your fault. She visibly relaxes.

“So, Az,” Cassian stretches, too big for the booth, arm coming around Nesta and tugging her close. “What brings you out this evening?” Fucking. Hel.

“I’ve missed you all.” It’s not a lie, not exactly, even if he’s been keeping his distance, it doesn’t change how he feels about his family, how he loves them in his own way. How it’s easier sometimes, to love others from afar, how envy has infected his lungs and every time he takes a breath, he wonders why the Cauldron chose not to give him what his brothers have. A bond. Love. 

At night, when he’s alone in his bed, he accepts the truth, the reality of being unworthy, of being a bastard, of being malevolent and repulsive. It was so easy with Mor, to long for someone so beautiful, so close to his heart but still unattainable, to dream of himself as a male one could love, could be proud of, a love who would choose him, again and again, even if it wasn’t true. Even if he knew for a long time, it would never be true. A fantasy like Mor is an easy escape from the nightmare in his head.

And Elain. Elain. A vision with big doe eyes and caramel hair, a beautiful girl whose life was lost, and a new, confusing one was born in its place.

A perfect obsession.

She too, was a dream. Something to cling in the longest hours of the night when sleep wouldn’t come.

But he was a monster, and he was undeserving.

Not true.

Feyre catches his eye and gives him a warm, knowing look. “I’m happy to see you.”

“As I am you.”

You’re drunk.

He doesn’t need the shadows to confirm it, it’s clear from across the room. You teeter on the edge of the stool, giggling, radiant in the wash of dim lighting.

He’s not the only one who notices. Around you, other males watch from the corner of their eye, letting their gazes sweep from head to toe, lingering too long on your breasts, the curve of your waist. A male brushes his hand across your shoulder, another offers to buy you a drink. Rage curls in his stomach, jealously flooding his veins with vigor.

They’re touching her. The shadows are frustrated, hissing and snapping angrily, rattling around him like a black cloud.

I know.

His teeth might shatter from the amount of pressure coming from his clenched jaw.

The male following you out the side door at the end of your evening is the straw that snaps him in half. He abandons the table, his family, slipping away into the crowd as Feyre calls his name.

“Let him go.” Cassian rumbles on the last wind of a chuckle, and he loses the parting words as he pushes the door wide, cool Velaris air stinging his cheeks.

“No need to run off.” The male’s arm is slung around your waist, your face twisted into a sour swirl of intoxication and discomfort. Incendiary anger licks up his spine, flames violent and desperate to lash out. "Let's go back inside, have another drink." 

“No,” you straighten, but both Azriel and offending male catch the liquored wobble in your voice as you hold your jacket to your chest. “No, thank you.” He tugs you closer.

“Come on, I can-“ It’s all Azriel can stand. He’s gone in one moment and by your side the next, fingers digging into the male’s arm.

“She said no.” You look up into his face, eyes wide and unfocused, but he doesn’t miss the way you relax with relief, like you’re happy he’s here. Happy, an emotion rarely felt by those who encounter the Spymaster, happy like you’re soothed by his presence. It’s unfamiliar to him, just another suprise dealt by your hand. The male’s eyes go comically wide, blood draining from his face, sputtering something Azriel is deaf to. He's too focused on the pulse rapidly fluttering beneath your jaw. “Are you alright?”

“I’m… yes.” You lurch, half stepping back, half stumbling, and he steadies you. When you don't pull away, the shadows chirp. 

“You’re drunk.”

“Yup.” You punctuate the single syllable with a hiccup, inky tendrils curling around your wrist, petting, soothing. He braces for your fear, the uptick in your heartbeat, shallow respirations, but they don’t come.

You giggle instead.

The shadows preen and purr with glee. Our girl.

His shreds of control are slowly slipping away, deteriorating in your presence, and he lets the mask fall away to reveal a small smile. You suck in a sharp breath. “Are you sure you’re okay?” You nod rapidly, but your balance is still askew. “You’re too drunk to winnow.”

“I wasn’t going to. I live a few blocks that way.” You nod to the east and then pivot to the west, unsure. “Or that way. I’ll know once I get to the street.” He frowns.

“You’ll walk?”

“Well, yes. That’s what those of us do if we don’t have those.” You point at his wings, gaze lingering before you look away sheepishly.

“I’ll walk you.” You blink, surprised, confused, just as he is. The words were not planned, they appeared, conjured from the cold air, pushed from his mouth by some unknown force.

There’s a twist beneath his ribs, a small piece of him rapidly stretching and spreading, pulling him apart to make more room.

“What? I- I can walk fine, I’m fine.”

“It’s cold.” His voice is soft, softer than he’s ever heard, and it must be enough to quiet your protests, because you purse your lips and relent with a sigh.

“Alright then.”

It’s odd, to want to know another, to want to understand another outside his family. This throbbing ache, freshly blooming in your presence, is different compared to the festering desiderium he’s held for Mor, for Elain, the pining turned fetid, foul in its taste across his tongue, infatuation, obsession, anything to avoid focusing on the darkness constantly closing in around him, the black tar filling his lungs, drowning him. He was born, molded, embraced by the bleakest parts of this realm, and there’s not enough water in it to douse the rage and disgust burning in his soul. His people are monsters, and so shall he be. 

The shame of it all, punctuated by his infatuation with Elain, the necklace debacle, is fire in his veins, but the iridescent halo shining onto your shoulders from your porch light quells it somehow, gentles the heat. “How often do you visit the Middle?”

You give him a sheepish look. “Often, lately. I’ve lost my main supplier.” 

“Why is that?” The Sidra saturates the breeze, briny and sweet, teasing your dress into a flutter at your knees, his shadows hovering over your skin, craving to cloak you in their darkness, shield you from wandering eyes.

“Most of my plants and powders come from the Spring Court, and I can’t really afford the… inflation.” Inflation is a polite way to put it. Tensions between Spring and Night have resulted in rising costs of goods, and total derailment of trade in some cases.

She’s worried her words offend you.

“That’s understandable.” He tames his voice, and your shoulders relax by a fraction. “Still, it is a long way from home, if anything were to happen.” An understatement. The Middle holds horrors most cannot comprehend, wicked creatures that would love nothing more than to prey on and devour something as lovely as you. He still cannot wrap his head around the fact that you frequent it in the first place. Even the bravest, strongest of Prythian do not. 

“I can handle myself.”  He wants to protest, wants to ask if you truly know what lurks in there. “Mostly.” You add as an afterthought, little hiccup, little giggle, fingers fumbling for the door handle. The hair on the back of his neck stands stiff.

“Mostly?”

“It’s not like I haven’t run into trouble,” you’re vague, shrugging it off, and his gut clenches.

“What kind of trouble?” The breeze turns to wind that whips, cold with the sting of frost. 

And then you roll your eyes.

It’s so… bratty. His wings twitch, lightning rolling through membrane like a storm on the sea.

Wild one, the shadows chirp.

Too wild, maybe. “How old are you?” You lift your chin with a sniff.

“One hundred and two.” So young.

The High Lady just turned twenty-three, the shadows remind him drily.

Fair.

“So… did you walk me all the way home to hold me hostage on my front step in the cold?” His laugh is a surprise. It comes deep from his chest, a genuine rumble in his ribs, more authentic than the half smiles and nods he’s been giving others for years.

“If I was holding you hostage, you’d know.” He murmurs, stepping into your space, tracking the dilation of your pupils, the quiver in your bottom lip. Normally, these reactions would insinuate fear, but you don’t smell of it. You smell like desire, like you’d succumb to him, bend for him, arch for him. “Are you cold?” Goosebumps erupt across your shoulders and down your arms, and he dips close, closer than he has any right to. He has no right to you. No right to such a strange, beautiful creature, a mystery by all standards. He who deals in death, who poisons all he touches, would stain you. He'd drag his scarred, marbled fingers under your silk dress and taint you. 

“Y-yes.” He catches the scent then, the damp foliage from fresh rain crushed under heel, soaked moss at the roots of an ancient tree. It jolts him back to reality, mask settling into its rightful place across his face.

“What are you?”

“What?”

“You’re High Fae… but there’s something else.” Hesitance flickers in your eyes, and you pull away, creating distance. Good. He needs it. You confuse him, cloud his judgement, sowing uncertainty he’s not used to.

And every time he looks at you, his chest aches.

“Nothing important.” He cocks his head.

“Is that so?” You shrug.

“I’m a half-breed.” He hides his disgust at the term, but it doesn’t change the rage it ignites, the disdain.

“Half what?”

She barely knows you; she has no reason to trust you, the shadows sulk, unhappy with the turn of events as you take the last stair and open your door, turning to for one last look at him. 

“I’m not a threat, Azriel.”

Truth.

“Any news?”

“No.” The silence is long suffering, and after he offers nothing further, Rhys sighs.

“Azriel-“

“I have work in Dawn this coming week, leaving tomorrow. I expect to be gone for a full seven, even eight days. I’ll report back once I’m home.”

“Okay.” Azriel’s shield is wall of shadow impenetrable by most, and even though the relationship between them is strained, his brother would never force his way into his mind.

If you need to fuck someone, go to a pleasure hall and pay for it, but stay away from her. 

Or maybe be would. 

He was given an order; orders are meant to be followed, something Rhys’ own father instilled in him early on, and though it's been months, it's still too bitter in the back of his throat. Rhys’ father ordered him. Often. Treated him as one would treat an object to be used, a weapon to wield. Azriel was defined by the shadows, for his usefulness, not for who he truly was. 

He had never been on the receiving end of this manner of treatment from Rhys, and he could not deny that he had trouble stomaching it. 

“Where have you been staying? Your townhouse?” He schools his features, smothering the annoyance at what he knows must be common conversation between his brothers.

They’re worried about you. Cassian misses you at the House of Wind.

We’ve cohabited for over five hundred years; some distance is not going kill him.

“Yes, wanted to give Cass and Nesta some space.” The lie is as flimsy as they come, because he doesn’t care. He needs space. “They’re quite loud.” That isn’t a lie, at least. Rhys studies him.

“Where are you, Az?” It's not a literal question. He and his brother share many things, but the strongest strings are knotted tight around each other’s darkness, bonds forged in agony, in rage, in revenge. There are parts, pieces of each other that match, heinous, wrathful pieces hidden away but never healed. When Rhys asks where he is, it’s to know how deep he is in the gloom that never leaves.

“I’m here.” It’s short, be he cannot give anything more. Cannot give more to the High Lord, Rhys, his brother, the one he has given everything to. The one he has been most loyal to above all. The one who would treat him now, as his father did. 

He pities Rhys, in a way, something he’s never held for him in the past, but now… now is different. Rhys is different, his stakes have never been higher. A mate, a son, a realm on his shoulders, he's struggling, in his own way, and the collected High Lord is few and far between these days, in his place a reactive, high-strung male he doesn’t always recognize. He’s not sure Rhys recognizes himself either. 

“You won’t get too far?” At the root of it, no matter how turbulent this time between them may be, the bond of brotherhood is the strongest of them all, holds them fast to one another, keeps them close, even if one strays.

And so, Azriel assures him, the words gritted through his teeth. His rage is a tangible thing, a living breathing thing but no matter how angry he may be, Rhys is still his brother, even in these iterations. The realm changes, scales tipping back and forth, but the brothers remain steadfast through times of peace and battle.  “I won’t.”

He’s to leave for Dawn this afternoon, but for some reason, he finds himself at Moonflower’s front door.

It’s early, half of Velaris still waking up, and the shop is clearly closed, though it doesn’t matter to him. He knows you’re here, sodden gorse and peeled bark drifting on the morning breeze from a large back window. For some unknown reason, it soothes him to know it, to be able to account for your whereabouts.

He pulled his shadows back from surveillance, convinced he would leave you alone, let this rest-

but he still flew here this morning.

It bothers him, this magnetism, the draw towards your presence.

You’re a mystery needing to be solved, that’s all.

“Shadowsinger,” your head cocks. “What brings you here so early?”

“I wanted to ensure you won’t be visiting the Middle this week.” Your brows knit together.

“I uh… no. I won’t need to go for another two weeks, I think.”

“I’ll accompany you next time.” His patience with this situation is wearing thin, but his agitation with himself spills out onto you. 

“That’s not-“

“It’s not a request. You’re endangering the Night Court.” You smother a flinch.

“I’m not, I swear, I’d never do anything to hurt anyone.”

“That remains to be seen.” He’s the Spymaster now, cold and unfeeling, but you’re still not scared. “Your refusal to disclose what makes up the other part of the half-breed in you is reason enough.” He uses the term as a weapon, and it hits his target, as always. Azriel never misses. You wince, glancing down at the floor, shoulders slumping a tad before you right yourself. The barb stings because like Rhys, like Mor’s mother and countless others, you’ve faced the abuse, the vitriol, the torment from those who would crush you beneath their feet if they could.

It hurts, a whip lashing across his cheek, bleeding him for the pain he’s causing you. A consequence, another mark on his soul. You lift your face again, the emotion gone, and you nod.

“Okay then.” An overwhelming urge to reach for you comes over him, to tug you into his chest and shield you with his wings, hide you away from all the ugly, terrifying things in this world-

Including himself.

He shoves it to the side, buries it where it belongs, where the light doesn't touch, and nods. “I’ll be away this week but when I return, I’ll come by.”

He doesn’t say goodbye, and smothers the urge to get one last glimpse of you, even though he wants to. 

There’s dirt beneath your fingernails.

You’ve been digging around in the same riverbed for almost an hour now, rifling through rocks and silt, bottom half of your body soaked and muddy, again. “There we are,” you murmur plucking an iridescent onyx stone from the marl and placing it in your bag. 

He has… so many questions.

And he’s afraid to admit to himself he finds you… enchanting. Clever, beautiful, kind. He wants more, wants to soak you up, dance to the harmony of your voice.

Ask, the shadows encourage. Talk to her.

He’s been standing on the bank a few paces away for some time now, leaving you to your foraging, but never letting you get too far away. You haven’t said more than ten words to him, and he hasn’t pushed you. The disgrace of the last time the two of you spoke still weighs heavily on his shoulders, another tally in a long list of transgressions. 

Try.

“How does it work?” Your head snaps up.

“What do you mean?”

“Your work. Moonflower sells elixirs and potions, but they’re an apothecary, and you’re an alchemist.”

“Well, I am an apothecary too. Contraceptive tea doesn’t make itself,” you give him a mischievous smile before turning serious. “Magic binds better to precious metals. I transmute and mix them together, then pair them with salts or chemical compounds found in herbs and plants. One complements or enhances the other.”

“You’re putting metal in them?” You shake your head.

“No, I extract the minerals from the metal after transmutation and infuse the elixirs. I can make everything from contraceptive tea to…” You trail off, lips pressing into a thin line.

“To?”

“Poison. Faebane.” He hears your heart flutter, pulse ratcheting upward as you give him a cautious look, and every muscle in his body tenses.

“Who do you make it for?”

“I’m not sure, I received an ongoing order request signed and sealed by the High Lord years ago, and I’ve been producing it ever since.” You stand, brushing your hands off on your thighs, mud caked in the lines of your palms, head tipped back to peer at him. “It’s picked up by one of the Wraith sisters each month.”

Does she know? The shadows don’t answer.

“I like them,” you continue, making your way up the bank, “Cerridwen even gifted me a hooded shawl last Solstice. It’s beautiful. I wear it often.”

“I see.”

“I think the Faebane is for the Spymaster,” you peek at him coyly, mouth quirked to the side in a small smile. “Who is also the Shadowsinger, right?” He fights to his expression neutral. 

“You know.”

Of course she does. Our sweet is very clever.

“I thought… maybe. I wasn’t sure.” He’s beginning to worry about your instincts. First, he discovers you’re spending time out here in the Middle, alone, and now, he learns you’ve suspected he’s the Spymaster, Rhys’ torturer, this whole time.

“It doesn’t concern you?” He blurts, incredulous. You should fear him. You should be terrified and disgusted. You should be smart enough to recognize his rotten, tainted soul.

“No. I make poison, after all.” You shrug. “I don’t make judgements of others.” Guilt twists like a knife.

“What I said the other day, about being a half-breed…” You wave your hand, trying to brush him off.

“It’s fine.”

It’s not, the shadows hiss. You hurt her.

He pulls up short, turning to face you. “It was cruel, and I am sorry for it.” He’s locked in your gaze, the rest of the woods, this place, Prythian disappearing as he loses himself in you. He hears it again, the mellifluous harmony of a grand orchestra, notes and chords playing together in an intoxicating paragon, richer, more potent than any wine, each one building upon the other, creating a song that draws him in, urges him to reach for you, cup your face and hold you there so he can memorize every refraction of light in the kaleidoscope of your eyes. “I-“

“It’s okay,” your hand brushes his, and he tenses, preparing for the recoil, the disgust, but it never comes. Your touch is gentle, fingers slipping between his, silk on scars sliding together seamlessly. He wants to push you away, wants to tell you not to touch him because you’ll dirty yourself. He’s a monster and you’re something else, something winsome and full of wonder, something not for him. “I forgive you.” You forgive him. He almost laughs at the absurdity. Forgiveness, as if that’s something he could ever earn, as if there was a way to seek and find it. As if he even wants it.

From many it would mean nothing but from you… it’s different. It's a balm, cool water over a burn, sunlight shining down on him in a dungeon. 

You don’t look away, and you don’t let go. You hold him there, in front of you, gentle and patient, but unyielding. The throbbing ache that’s become ever present beneath his ribs grows, and it drags him close, a magnetic pull he can’t fly away from leading him straight to you. It’s a power strong enough it could bring him to his knees at your feet, his entire existence whittling down to the sound of your breathing as he carefully cradles your face.

“Azriel,” your whisper is music, heartbreakingly beautiful, a hauntingly familiar melody he may have been hearing all his life and had been none the wiser to. A siren's song on the sea. Captivating. Intoxicating. He strokes his thumb across your cheek and falls away into it, pressing his mouth to yours, drinking you in. The kiss is careful at first, a delicate question posed between two with one waiting for an answer, and when it comes, it comes with a symphony, ambrosian and endless, unleashing a warmth unlike he’s ever felt through his chest.  He shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be marring you like this, staining you, but he cannot stop, and when you tug him close, lips parting to allow his tongue past your teeth and find yours, you cling to him, the purr of a whimper building in your throat. 

What is he doing? He's snapped out of the spell. Your throat bobs with a swallow, and you turn your attention to your bag, mindlessly fidgeting with the collection of flora and rock in the bottom, avoiding his eyes. Embarrassed. Shamed by him, rejected by him. 

No! the shadows lament. “We should keep going, if you have more things to find?” You nod, looking past him towards the woods.

“Right, yeah.”

“Your dagger is loud, by the way.” It's the first thing you've said in thirty minutes, and it's strange, like you. 

“What?”

“The dagger,” you motion to where Truth-Teller is strapped to his thigh, “it’s magic is loud. I can’t imagine what I’d find if I-“ Something cracks in the woods to the north, far enough away to echo, close enough to raise his hackles, spread his wings, and he grabs your wrist, pulling you into his side. The forest groans, turning malicious, wicked power crawling through the brush towards the river.

Leave. He curls a wing around you as a shield.

“What-“

“We’re leaving.” There have been lesson learned here, too many times, and he’s not about to risk you. He conjures a pocket, a corner of star flecked shadow, and tugs you into it, leaving the Middle behind.

He decides to sleep at the House of Wind.

It’s a shield, a technique to combat his desire to be close you. If he’s close to Cassian, to Nesta, if he’s here, he’s not there, with you, where he dropped you off at your doorstep, where the two of you lingered before you disappeared into the house. He’s not battling his instincts, his need to sit on the roof and keep watch.

He’s here instead. Where he should be.

Cassian grins from his spot on the couch at the sight of him, Nesta casually looking up from her book. “Out with your witch again?” He pulls up short, blood turning frigid, freezing through the veins in his wings all the way to his heart. “You didn’t know?” Cassian’s head swings towards her.

“I thought we discussed waiting for proof, Nes.” Azriel shoots him a murderous glare.

“Having discussions about my life, then?” It’s a small rock in an ocean at this moment, but it adds fuel to the roaring fire of rage curdling his stomach. Nesta raises an eyebrow. 

“No,” his brother protests, “I thought- Nesta suspected something, but I didn’t want to tell you until we knew without a doubt.” He emphasizes the last few words, and she shrugs.

“She’s a witch, or at least, partially. The power is unmistakable. She has that smell, too. Old trees.” She's lost for a second, in a memory, silver fire crackling and then gone, and he knows she knows, where you've been, where he's followed. You don't just smell of old trees, you smell like the Middle.

The shadows coil around his shoulders, peeking out at Nesta like she’s personally offended them.

It’s not what you think.

You knew? And kept this from me?

He’s rarely, if ever, is so irascible, but this information ignites an anger so fierce his siphons hiss and glow cobalt blue, power straining against his control, desperate to be unleashed.

“What are you going to do?” Cassian shouts at his retreating back, and he caresses Truth-Teller’s hilt.

“Find out for myself.”

Your words pound in his head like a drum.

“The magic is stronger. It’s hard to explain…”

“Oh, I don’t have problems here. I never travel too far from the boundary.”

His mind spins as he flies through the night, shooting across the sky fast enough for the wind to prickle at his cheeks. A witch.

Witches are dangerous creatures. They’re power hungry, desperate to collect as much magic as this realm will allow, and then use it as they see fit, whether it be for good deeds, or evil ones. This unpredictability combined with their thirst for young blood, a compulsion fueled by the corrupted core of their stolen magic, makes them a threat.

Makes you a threat.

Your house is small, but comfortable. A narrow townhome nestled in a row of others with wide plank wooden floors and variations of dark colored paint on the walls, cozy and calm. Bookshelves overflowing, large worn velvet couch, bundles of herbs on your living room table, in your kitchen. You have an assortment of mugs, mismatched wine glasses and china, clothes haphazardly draped over chairs. To someone who doesn’t know you, it would seem messy, but to him, it’s fitting. It makes sense.

It's the only thing that makes sense in this moment. The rest of it, his ignorance, the disobedience of the shadows, his blindness, all bear down upon him. He failed to recognize a threat to this Court, his family, he allowed himself to be distracted, again, by a female, he succumbed to an enchantment, a bewitching. The strange pull he felt towards you, the music in his head, the throbbing behind his ribs, all a spell set upon him, by you.

You’re stunning in your sleep. Wrapped in sweet dreams, lashes feathered against your skin, rolled onto your side. You’re only wearing a nightshirt and underwear, the curve of your hip visible from where your sheets are half kicked off. Lovely.

He lets you linger in a last moment of peace. If you wake before he’s ready, he doesn’t know what magic he’ll face, what creature he’ll truly encounter, and he wants to hold onto to this, to you, before it all changes.

He brushes your cheek with the backs of his fingers and that thing inside him weeps, something agonizing trying to claw its way forward, but he buries it deep.

By the time you’re awake, it’s too late.

“Azriel?” Your voice is weak, confused, and you blink blearily at your surroundings, stone wall, stone floor, small light at the roof of the chamber that’s too far away. He keeps the space lit by fae lights instead, flickering and low, illuminating the space just enough to see him, and a table in the corner.

You're trapped in Faebane cuffs and chained to the floor. Fragile, weakened by your own creation. 

When you become fully aware of your surroundings, you thrash, fear thundering in your heart. “What is this?”

“Thought you might like to see how the product of your hard work is used.” You tug at the cuffs to no avail, and then look up at him with eyes so sad, so frightened, it stops him in his tracks.

Why does this feel so wrong?

Think, Shadowsinger. The shadows beg but he banishes them, still enraged by their betrayal.

“I don’t know what’s happening.” He shrugs. Casual indifference, cold regard. The Spymaster, the torturer.

“No?”

“I haven’t done anything, I haven’t, I swear.” He bends shadow over your eyes, marring your sight, plunging you into darkness and you gasp, twisting and turning, looking for the light you won’t find. “S-stop.”

“You’ve been keeping something from me, haven’t you, little half-breed?” He mocks you with it, drenches it in disdain, and you shake your head weakly.

“I haven’t… I swear, I ju-just wasn’t ready-“

“To tell me you’re a witch?”

“I’m not!” You cry, and he covers your mouth with insidious tendrils, cutting off your airway. You can’t see, you can’t breathe, and your panic is ripe, flooding the room, its acrid scent making him nauseous.

The gag holds for a minute or two, and when he releases, you slump over, gasping. Truth-Teller burns in his hold.

“Tell the truth, and it’s over.” Please.

“There’s n-nothing to tell.” Frustrations mounts and he cuts you off, this time for longer, long enough he registers the slowing of your heart, the lack of tone in your muscles. Shadows wrap around your throat, pressing on your windpipe so hard you’re whistling, slow leak of air turned tea kettle as you try to breathe.

He allows you a moment, and then resumes, pushing you to the edge, walking a slow, measured circle around you like a wolf stalking prey. There’s a pull deep inside him, something tugging at him, a desperate plea he does not understand.

Please. Stop this.

He releases, you relent. Finally. “It’s my mother,” you rasp, tongue darting out to lick your lips, “she- it was her. She was a witch, and my father is Hi-gh Fae. He had an affair, and then banished her to the Middle. It’s wh-where I was born. Everyone would b-be so afraid of me if they knew, but I’m not- I’m not a witch. I’m ju-ust a half-breed." You’re sobbing now, each heave increasing the agony inside him, broken, raw sound echoing throughout the chamber. His mother’s face flashes in his mind and his stomach flips as he breaks out in a cold sweat. “I use that side of my to make things. Th-the alchemy, that’s all it’s good for. It’s not even that strong, I swear.”

Truth.

It’s all truth. Every word. Every broken, desperate, frightened word.

He is a fool.

He pulls the shadows from your face and you stare at the floor, small against the stone until you finally look up at him, cheeks soaked, eyes-

Something snaps.

Threads of brilliant cobalt blue spin from him, each string plucked in celestial succession to create perfect harmony, and the shadows sing. They sing for you, they sing to you, they sing the song he should have known all along. They sing of the path laid before him, the bridge that would carry him to you, the chords and notes coming together in a crescendo of souls, a blazing bond sealed by fate.

Mates.

The threads stretch and strain, the music rising, but your side, your part, is missing. It’s dark, thickened by bramble and bracken, sharps and flats, lost to him in this moment.

This moment, where he has broken you. Tortured you.

He feels it all. Your terror, the agony. The sense of hopelessness overflowing and soaking the threads. 

“I-“ He falls to his knees, shadows twisting around the cuffs to unlock them, “I’m sorry.” You’re trembling, curling in on yourself and he wants so badly to pull you into his arms, to hold you close, wrap himself around you and beg for forgiveness. He wants to promise he’ll protect you; he’ll care for you; he’ll keep you safe. He’ll be worthy of you. He’ll fix this.

But how can he after what has been done. After what he has done. 

“I w-want to go ho-ome.” The words are covered by sobs, and his hands shake as he gently takes hold of your shoulders, pulling you out of the dungeon and back into your bedroom.

He stands there, helpless and lost as you crawl away from him into your bathroom, the handle locking with a resounding click. The bond is alive and open on his side, your distress and fear and despair radiating down into Azriel, the strength of your emotions ripping him apart.

You don’t want him here, that much is clear.

Cassian is still awake when he returns, and his brother ripples with shock at the sight of him.

He knows how he looks.

Crazed. Devastated. Possessed.

“What happened?” He lurches forward, still dressed from evening training, siphons gleaming, scanning for a threat, a fight, a reason for Azriel’s agony.

He’ll find none. Only Azriel is responsible for this horror.

As always.

“She…” He can’t say it, can’t force the words. Can’t accept the truth, the terrible, painful truth. “She’s mine.” The blood drains from Cassian’s face. “She’s mine.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“I- I didn’t… I didn’t get very far but I still… I still-“ He chokes on it. “She was so scared, Cass. She never… she was never afraid of me; from the day we met. She always, she looked at me differently. She trusted me. She… held my hand.” Cassian’s eyes slipped close. When they reopen, they’re determined. Strong.

“You’ll fix it. I know you will.” Azriel doesn’t hear him.

“I don’t deserve her, or this bond. When she realizes, she will sever it, and she’ll be right to. I have never been worthy, and the Mother knows. That’s why this happened.”

“That is not true. You made a mistake, and you were trying to protect your family, your court. She will understand… in time.”

“How?! How could anyone understand this? Excuse it?” He yells, and a door down the hall opens, Nesta appearing in the room, sharp and assessing.

“What’s going on?”

“Go back to bed,” Cassian growls, and though she glares, she listens. “Az, listen to me. It will be alright. You can fix this, you can.”

“I don’t know how.”

“You will figure it out, and we will support you, we’ll help in any way we can. It will be okay.”

“She will never forgive me.”

“And you’ll never know that until you try.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair and then fisting it at his side. “This is Nesta’s fault.”

“Cassian,” Azriel snaps, patience shredded. “Not everything is your mate’s fault, for fucks sake. Stop projecting your guilt over your own transgressions onto Nesta. I’m sick of it.” Silence falls between the brothers, and after a long moment, Cassian nods.

“I deserved that,” he eyes him cautiously, “what do you want to do?” He needs silence. Solitude. Cassian knows, but he’ll still say it out loud, if only to make it clear. Don’t follow me. Don’t send others to check on me.

“I need to be alone."

Chapter Text

The fly amanita has been eluding you. It’s speckled red cap is usually so easy to spot, but you’ve been trudging through the woods all day, turning over logs and peering around tree trunks to no avail. You’re getting closer and closer to the break in the forest, the one bordering a large meadow rich with wildflowers, the one you hardly venture to unless you’re truly desperate for something specific.

You’re seriously considering it when something dusky red catches your attention from the corner of your eye, and you breathe a sigh of relief as you spot the healthy patch of fungi. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” you sink to your knees, digging down to the roots. The soil is wet, freshly damp from a recent rainstorm, and it sticks to your fingertips. “Such a pain in-“

Magic scrapes at your skin. Long gruesome fingers of something unseen try to clutch at you, drag you away, and your power surges to meet it, beating it back to the gloom it calls home. You shudder. The magic from your mother's blood, the gifts the Middle grants you, are enough to keep you safe, protect you from most things in this place, the ones nefarious and full of malice, but that does not mean they do not try. 

You exhale, breathing freely in the crisp winter breeze whispering through the trees, rustling the deadfall into small vortexes that spin across the wood, twisting upward in a delicate dance of changing seasons. You lift your face to the sun just as the wind turns dark, smoky grey, and then explodes in a burst of ink, onyx spilling around the mushrooms, wisps snaking through the stems towards your knees.

You swat them away.

Azriel.

You grit your teeth. Don't think about him, don't think about him, don't think- 

A shadow brushes against you like a feather, and you hiss. 

Azriel.

The male who tortured you. Used you. Gained your trust to hurt you. Suffocated you until you thought you were going to die, until spots appeared in your vision and your heart slowed. The male that hurt you, in more ways than one. 

Fooled into falling for a ruse, you believed it meant something every time your heart thundered when he was near, how your magic crooned for him, tried to reach for him, touch him. The pain you saw in him, over and over again, a mirror to your own, led you to believe in a fairy tale that never existed, a stupid notion about two halves of a whole, only for it to crumble and reveal manipulation and lies.

And after it all, whatever he gleaned from you he must have determined to be inconsequential, since no one has shown up at your door to haul you away for execution. No one came to imprison you, or banish you, or torture you, again. No one came to take you away from your home, your life, like you were expecting.

He did it for nothing.

The shadows are an ever-present reminder.

Ever. Present.

They collect in the corners at work, they trail along the ground as you run your errands, go to dinner, visit your only friend in the city.

Thankfully, they seem to stay out of your house, though in the middle of the night, it’s not so easy to tell.

You shoot them a glare. “Run back to your master and leave me alone, for the hundredth time.” You have no concept of a Shadowsinger’s magic, or an Illyrian’s, no idea if the shadows see, or hear, or speak. Their presence frustrates you, and his hoarse attempt at an apology that night still haunts you. Why does he not just come to speak with you? Explain himself? Justify his actions?

It’s been weeks, and still nothing. Silence from the Spymaster. Your rage that was once all consuming is starting to cool, leaving a mess of confusion and pain in its place. 

You need to let it go, you must, but the music persists, faintly there in the back of your mind, a melody you can’t forget.

It’s a double-edged sword, one that slices and stings. You see him in your nightmares, and your dreams. In the dark, you hear his voice, cold and calculating, pacing around you in a suffocating circle, and in the sun, you see him in the Middle, ablaze in a mist of brilliant blue, brushing his lips against yours.

You’ve grown familiar with how a room changes when one of the Wraith sisters arrive. Shadow rolls in like a fog, dissipating as they materialize, grey gossamer turning to smoky quartz, taking shape as a beautiful female, her eyes iridescent like black pearls. 

Rarely, do the twins ever come together. 

Today is the exception. 

Cerridwen gives you a half smile, gaze lingering on your clothes. “If I made you a new frock, would you throw this one out? It’s nearly in tatters.” You huff.

“This is my work frock; it’s supposed to be a bit messy.”

“It’s not messy, it’s falling apart.” She raises an eyebrow, and Nuala places a slender hand on the stack of brown paper wrapped packages on the table.

“How are you?” The question is loaded, expectant, and they watch you, analyzing every second of whatever is showing on your face.

“I’m fine.” Are you? The lie is so painfully obvious, and they exchange a look. 

“Azriel,” Nuala begins cautiously, “has asked if you would be open to seeing him.” You freeze.

“I..”

“In a public place of your choosing, in the city.” The very idea tips you off balance, blindsides you. Could you do it? See him? 

“With a third party, if you would like.” Cerridwen adds. Maybe this is your chance at closure, an opportunity to put it to rest. “Take some time to decide, and we’ll-“

“No, no. I’ll do it.” You scramble to think of a place where you’ll feel safe, somewhere you’ll be among many, and not few. “Is… Rose and Thorn okay? It’s in the Palace of Thread and Jewels.” They nod.

“Of course. And a third party?” You shake your head. Something in your soul assures you no chaperone is needed, and you allow it to guide you. “Very well.” Nuala waves her hand, wisps of storm clouds floating around her fingers-

And then Wraith sisters are gone.

He’s there before you.

Seated at a table outside, elegant and sculpted, an exquisite, eldritch beauty accentuated by strong, chiseled lines. His skin glows golden brown in the warm bath of the sun, flecks of caramel and green, honey and oak painted together like a priceless landscape in his irises. His wings are tucked in a tight formation at his back, but even in restraint, they shudder, their membranes more unique than a snowflake, more delicate than a spider’s web.

He’s almost too stunning to look at. The beauty of a god. A prince of shadow, shining in winter’s glow.

Suddenly, you’re very self-conscious, fighting the urge to pick at the frayed threads of your dress, too aware of how faded its once emerald green is, how fast your heart is beating, anxiety and pin pricks of fear cascading up your spine, coupled with an undeniable longing that shakes you to your core.

An ocean tide too strong drags your eyes to his, holding you captive in its current, the two of you suspended, floating, woven together in a melody, same song you’ve been hearing, feeling, all this time, elusive, empyreal notes harmonizing across your soul, your magic. The heat of the patio, magic humming in the air producing the equivalent of a warm spring day, urges you out of the cold and towards the table, meeting him where he stands, so tall he towers over you. 

“Hello.” Your stomach flips. This is suddenly harder than you imagined, and you’re being torn in two, afraid and yearning, two sides of a coin. His eyes gentle, and he moves back a fraction, giving you space. You manage to clear your throat.

“Hi.” You can’t look away, and finally, after a second turned eternity, he motions to the chair.

“Would you like to sit?”

“Sure.” The words are stiff, like your back, and you hold yourself rigid, hands clasped together in your lap.

“Thank you for coming, I… I know this was a lot to ask.” You nod, unable to make your mouth move. “Are you well?”

“Yes.” You’ll need more than one syllable answers to get through this, and you fight against the vice squeezing in around you, trying shake loose the battle raging in your blood. There's a need to protect yourself, fortify yourself... and another, one humming a song of wonder, of desire, a song you don't know the words to. He takes a deep breath.

“There’s nothing I can say to excuse what I did, and I know you have no reason to trust me, but I-“

"What you did? You tortured me, you terrorized me. You made me feel like I was dying. and I... why did you… why did you waste your time tricking me into thinking you were… we were… it was all fake.” Your voice breaks, and his eyes flash with despair. “You tricked me into trusting you, letting you get… close,” you study the tabletop, fingertips tracing loops in the woodgrain, trying to maintain your control. You can’t let him see how badly it hurts; how awful it is to know whatever you thought was happening between the two of you wasn’t real, how he's shattered your own trust in yourself. How could you not see the deceit? How could have fallen for such a blatant deception? How could you allow yourself to be hurt like that? These are the questions keeping you from sleep as they toss about in your mind, scolding you, chastising you for allowing yourself to be so weak. Stupid. “Why waste all that time if you were just going to do it? The act itself was... it was terrible but the manipulation, the lie that came with it, feels worse somehow.” Your cheeks heat with shame, mortified at the tears now blurring your vision, and his hand twitches, almost jerks towards yours before sliding away.

“There are no words in any language, anywhere, to tell you how sorry I am. I would spend a lifetime earning your forgiveness, if you’d let me.” Everything you want to fight back with, the words you wish to bury him with, die on your tongue as you stare at him with wide eyes. “I don’t deserve to see you or ask for a moment of your time. I don’t even deserve this chance you’ve given me today but… nothing was a trick, it was not fake. I was a fool.” You know you should say something, but still nothing comes, and there’s a rising uneasiness emanating from his, shadows shivering around him in a halo. “I would ask you to strike a bargain with me.” What?

“A bargain?” He nods solemnly, face set with resolve, foreign limerence weighed down by sorrow reflecting in his gaze.

“Allow me to spend some time with you, to show you how sorry I am, to prove how real it was, and in return, I will owe you a debt.” You fight to keep your face blank, smothering an outward ripple of shock. Maybe he’s gone insane.

“You… the Spymaster of the Night Court… would owe me a debt.” You chew on it, toss it around between your cheeks, try to digest the enormity of it. A debt could be anything, it’s a favor, a wish, a request that must be granted, no matter what it is. You could ask that he drink a vial of poison, and he’d have to do it. Could ask him to leave Pyrthian, and he’d have no choice. Most importantly, you could ask him to leave you alone. Forever. “And if I asked you to never speak to me again?” He winces.

“That would be your right.” This is a bad idea. Your magic trills, vibrating with a strange yearning, again guiding you away from the rational choice and into an agreement.

“I will see you once a week for a month, and in return, you will owe me a debt,” you extend your hand, “and swear not to harm me.” You add hastily, expecting him to refuse, or attempt to change the terms, but he meets you with zero hesitation.

The magic hits you like a gale force wind, wild and too strong, planting itself in your skin to push ink to the surface.

A tree.

The roots sprawl around your wrist, twisting upward into a trunk and then outward into branches, spreading wide until they’re nearly touching on the inside of your forearm. He snags a finger under the cuff of his shirt to reveal the tattoo’s twin, the concrete vow between the two of you plain as day.

What did you just do?

You’re taking advantage of the first meeting. Having a second with you, a powerful, formidable second, gives you an opportunity to trek into a more dangerous, more unstable part of the Middle in search of a rare mineral.

You’re also using it as punishment, irritated with the small twinge of guilt growing in your side. He strides along at your side silently, shadows skittering ahead across the forest floor, disappearing and reappearing at will, as if they’re scouting and reporting.

“Will you tell me where we’re going?” He finally asks, cocking his head to the side as you stop for a moment to catch your breath. He’s not winded at all, of course, and you’re starting to regret this choice, while also trying to avoid staring at him. Every time he moves into your line of sight, your palms sweat and you remember how his laugh sounded on the steps of your house, how he earnest he was when asking you questions. You remember the kiss, and the way his mouth felt upon yours. You remember it all, and butterflies take flight in your belly. 

But being alone with him in a dangerous place such as this, is also a stark reminder. A reminder of the last time you were alone with the Spymaster, truly alone, and how it ended. 

“There’s a cave a bit from here where a very rare crystal grows. Its mineral compound is a key piece to a specific elixir.” His lips twitch into a small, barely there smile, reading between the lines.

“You’ve brought me along for back up.” You smirk.

“You didn’t say what spending time together had to entail.” You shift your backpack. “It's just past this bog up ahead.” He stops short, eyes sharp, tensing.

“A bog?”

“Yes. You know… like a swamp?”

“Of Oorid?” You blink.

“You know the Bog of Oorid?”

“I’ve been there.” Now it’s your turn to scrutinize him. Could you have underestimated this male, again?

“Why?” You shiver. You’ve visited the Bog before, twice, and left each time with a new scar, a new nightmare.

“We were looking for something.” We? Questions brew in the back of your mind, so many of them they’re hard to contain, but you’d hate to appear too interested in him and his adventures.

“Did you find it?”  He nods and says nothing. Fine then. “It’s not the Bog of Oorid, just a boring swamp. C’mon.”

You withhold a key piece of information regarding the swamp.

It’s quite hateful, if you’re honest, and a small part of you weeps at your own vindictiveness, but the vengeful side feels too smug, too satisfied.

“It’s this way.” You take the lead, stepping into the ankle-deep muck. “Sorry, you’ll have to get a bit dirty.” The trees here are warped, bent to the undertow of the swamp, stripped of their life, yet still thriving, flourishing in the inert, foul water. Wicked, and greedy, they creak and coo, relishing each cursed step Azriel takes. Your magic crests, drawing up through the Middle, and you smile to yourself as the mud reaches mid-calf. Right about now-

He hisses.

“Are you alright?” You call innocently over your shoulder, now paces away, reveling in the sound of him fighting against the sludge's hold. When he doesn’t answer, your heart quickens, and you turn.

He’s shaking his head, wings flared at his back, muscles flexing beneath his leathers, trying to work himself free, and you bite your tongue to keep from telling him it won't work.

The swamp is a collector, a keeper of things, admirer of the rare and unusual. You’re sure it’s never ensnared an Illyrian before.

“Careful,” you sing, “struggling makes it worse.” He’s knee deep but surprises you when he breaks a leg free and takes another step, cobalt blue siphons beginning to gleam, shining into the dark green stagnant water and pockets of mire. Interesting.

“Clever little witch.” He's amused, reverent, and you're irritated by his reaction. “How does it not trap you?” Keening echoes through your soul, frantic and tortured. It’s reaching for something, crying for something, steeped in a distress you don’t understand. An incessant tugging, the faint sound of a melody. A chiming of bells, ringing, and ringing, and ringing. You steady yourself with a deep breath.

“I ask it not to. My magic comes from the Middle, like my mother’s. It makes things... more amenable to me.” You make it sound far worse than it is to spook him, but he only watches you with interest, keen eyes dissecting you from the inside out.

“And will you ask it to release me?” 

“Maybe.” You shrug. He sinks farther, now trapped to his mid-thigh, and your pulse races. You had planned to leave him here, trap him here until you came back, but your magic is clawing at you, heart trying to beat out of your chest, fear and panic colliding with an instinct buried so deep, it can’t be cut out or ignored, an instinct trying to push you into his arms, pleading with you to help him. It hurts, trying to fight it is like trying to swim against a current, your muscles screaming at the struggle, your power thrashing in your veins. The music is no longer a delicate, enchanting thing but a symphony flowing into a fortissimo, brass and strings and keys digging into your soul.

It's too much, your heart pounds in your ears, magic shredding your restraint.

It's too much, and you long to go to him. 

Release him, you command the swamp, and it tightens its embrace, a lover clinging to another, refusing to relent.

Is this not for me?  

No. He is mine. Release him. Now. You press onward, urging the swamp to relax, it’s reluctant acquiesce bringing you a relief so strong you have to hold yourself steady. It recedes, and the two of you stand face to face, chests heaving. You don’t understand what’s happening to you, what this war that rages in your magic, your heart, your entire being means.

He closes his eyes, the shadows receding, disappearing entirely as he takes a long, measured breath, his hand pressing against his ribs, still deep in the dredge of the fen. 

"Are you alr-" 

“Is there anything else I should be aware of, before we continue?” He cuts you off, the heat radiating from his body coming in waves, and you push against the pull.

“No.” You croak. He inclines his head.

“Very well. Lead the way.”

“Why don’t you winnow here?” You're seated on a rock outside the mouth of the cave. The trek itself is the most dangerous part of this task, and the crystal retrieval was uneventful. Boring, even, as you walked side by side with Azriel in silence, contemplating the unexpected amount of remorse over the swamp settling in your stomach like lead.

“I don’t winnow to most places in the Middle if I can help it.”

“No?”

“You never what will be waiting for you, or what you will discover, when you arrive.” You take a bite of your apple and sneak a glance at him. “You’re not angry. About the swamp.”

“No.” He’s preternaturally still, but rife with intensity, alight with an ache you can’t describe.

“Why?”

“I deserve far worse from you.” You say nothing, because what can you say? It’s true.

But if it’s true, why does it feel so awful?

You stand abruptly, eager to separate yourself from this situation, this confusion and confliction. “I should get these back.” Winnowing from the Middle, at least, is a perfectly safe option, and you’re eager for the escape now.

“Next week?” Your head is pounding, limbs twitching like your body has a will of its own, and suddenly you’re drained, magic and will quickly depleting. He steps closer, brows knitted together in concern. “Are you okay?” No.

“Y-yeah. I’m going to… I’m going to go.” He frowns.

“You look ill.”

“I’m just tired. The swamp takes it out of me.” You lie weakly with a halfhearted smile that lacks conviction, and before you can do something stupid like reach for him, you draw on your power, giving him one last look. “Next week.”

You’re at the Palace of Bone and Salt when it happens.

The market is packed to the brim, overflowing, most caught up in the approach of Winter Solstice. It’s still weeks out, but all are always eager to celebrate the city’s favorite holiday. Boughs of holly and evergreen, ribbons of red and green decorate the square, twinkling fae lights nestled high and low. You’re looking for bone marrow, but can’t help loitering by the chocolatier’s stall, his perfectly crafted confections artfully arranged in pyramids stretching far past your head. He catches your eye with a smile. “Would you like to try anything?”

“Oh, no, but thank you. They always look so lovely.” He pulls a pink chocolate swirl from the collection that’s caught your eye and holds it out to you.

“On the house then, for Solstice.”

“Thanks so-“ Your gratitude is stolen by a groan, one rattling upward from beneath your feet, the entire market rumbling so violently the stalls creak, their goods tipping to the side.

A quake.

They’re rare, but not unheard of. The mountains breathe, stretching and straining, the plates they’re built upon occasionally shifting and realigning, all of it causing Velaris’ foundation to shake. These things you know, but you’ve never experienced it firsthand, and you didn’t expect such… force.

The shopkeeper dives beneath his counter, others running in every direction through the market, panic and fear permeating the air. They’re looking for cover, afraid the second and third story buildings may come crashing down on their heads, while others try to outrun it, sprinting away as fast as they can manage.

It’s pandemonium. Everyone is being tossed around, marble and wood falling and rolling, and you’re frozen, rapidly trying to weigh the options, decide what to do when something catches your eye.

A child.

She’s standing in the middle of an aisle, screaming for her mum, and without hesitation, you snag her around the waist to tuck her into your chest, covering the back of her head as you curl into a ball and huddle beneath the counter of the first stall you see.

That’s where you stay, for the next ten minutes. Curved over this little girl who can’t be more than two, holding onto her as tight as you can to quell her screaming, trying to calm her. Things fall on you, something scrapes the side of your face, and it stings, but you don’t let go. You can’t.

You’re somewhere else in your mind. In the Middle as a child, running as fast as you can to the boundary, trying to get to safety as your mother howls. Claws scratch down your back, blackened, putrid magic tries to drag in the bowels of the forest, all while horrid shrieking and crying fills your head. The boundary is too far, and you fold yourself into a hollow, a damp, muddy nest inside the base of a tree where you hold your breath and sit really still, just like you were taught.

The quake ricochets around you, but the screeching in your ears is not from this time, this moment. It’s from then, you and this small child in your arms now the same, scared, alone, and crying for your mothers.

Even once the rumbling stops, you don’t move. Too afraid it will start again and you’ll be caught in the open, you wait. The sticky, festering sap of the memory clings to your synapses, refusing to let you go, embedding itself beneath your skull like it needs to live there, as if you could ever forget. There are moans from the injured, confusion and worry from those who took shelter, but multiple voices rise over the din of everyone else, giving instructions, looking for the wounded and those who need help immediately.

“- was right here, but she let go of my hand… there were too many-“ a frantic female’s voice echoes over through the market, and her terror is met by a kind, reassuring voice.

“We’ll find her.” The girl in your arms makes no attempt to free herself, still shivering in your hold, clinging to you with all her might, and you stay rooted to your spot.

There’s a brush of magic against your mind, a gentle caress that probes the dense sedge wall, and you push it away, opening your eyes to see a beautiful female crouched in front of you. “Hello.” The High Lady. The little girl finally moves, wriggling against you.

“Mara!” Her mother calls, rushing over and scooping her into her arms, sobbing. She looks her daughter over and then holds her tight before trying to approach you. “Thank you, thank you,” she’s reaching for your hand, trying to squeeze it in a manner of gratitude, of love, but you can’t move, still grappling with the noise ringing in your head. There’s more conversation, more of the High Lady’s voice, patient and gentle, and another’s, deeper, heavier.

“-shock, maybe?”

“-go get him,”

“Cassian-“ The second voice is enough to startle you back to yourself somewhat, and you carefully stretch your limbs, crawling out from under the counter and away from them, standing up on your own two feet. The High Lady holds her hand out as if you steady you. “Easy. You’re hurt.” Hurt? You instinctively touch your face, fingers coming back stained crimson. You need to get out of here, need to get as far away from all of this as you can. You’re still trying to right yourself, convince yourself you’re here, not there.

“Maybe you should sit down.” The other one, the big Illyrian who you met in this very place months ago, watches you with concern. You’re shaking, lungs expanding, searching for as much air as they can find, warm trickle of blood falling over your lips and down your chin. Pain registers slowly, no longer isolated to your face, but in your side too, and when you press your hand to your ribs, wet fabric squishes beneath it. More blood.

“Let's get you to a healer,” the High Lady tries, motioning to your head, your side, and when you don’t respond, she frowns, glancing at her companion. The wailing is finally quieting to a point where you can properly think, but words still won’t come, and she’s about to say something else when shadows swirl around the three of you, and Azriel drops from the sky.

Azriel. Your heart sings his name, and the double-edged sword cuts to the quick, opening you up to a strange spark in your chest.

He looks… awful. Insane, even. Wide eyes find you, his wings stretched into a defensive position, shadows spread around him in a dark cloud, and his fear is so palpable you swear you can feel it. All you can do is stare at him as he frantically takes you in, focus never wavering, even as he speaks to those at your side. “What happened?”

“We found her under here,” Cassian points to your hiding spot, “protecting a little girl. We think she’s in shock.”

“She needs a healer.” He grits, hands flexing and relaxing from flat palm into fist, repeatedly.

“We know.” The High Lady angles her body between you and the Shadowsinger. “Az,” her voice is serious, with an undercurrent of authority, “maybe you should back-“

“You need a healer.” He ignores her, and you shake your head. You need to get out of here, to get somewhere safe where you can try to rip out the rot of these memories still nipping at your heels. 

“I need to go. Home, I need to go… home.” I need to go home? That’s the best you can come up with? Cassian snorts, and Azriel says your name, an edge of dominance cutting through the haze of your mind. The blood loss is making you woozy, and the ground is unsteady, continent turning over as you start to feel sluggish. Your vision grows blurry, and then there’s a hand on your cheek.

“Look at me, it's okay.” Azriel murmurs, and you try. You do. There’s something about his touch, the texture of his hands that soothes you, comforts you, but the world is falling away, and darkness is taking you, tugging you into the lull of sleep.

You curl your fingers into his shirt, a last-ditch effort at staying upright, at staying awake, looking up into a never-ending swirl of hazel, green moss and bright umber drenched in panic.

They’re the last thing you see before everything goes black and you slip under.

Chapter Text

Fear.

It slams into him, shakes the bond so violently he almost drops out of the sky, forces him off course over the jagged peak of Illyria, urging him to follow the intensity of your panic towards Velaris. Gone is his assignment, his contact awaiting his visit, his work. One objective rises above it all.

You.

The Palace of Bone and Salt is in shambles, but he hardly notices. Somewhere it registers in the back of his mind there’s been a quake, there are injuries, damage, but none of it matters.

The only thing that matters is his mate in front of him, trembling, eyes wide and glazed over, blood trickling down your face and blooming across your ribs. There’s a roaring sound between his ears, dread and rage and agony all compounding into a mounting explosion, and for a moment, he worries he might level the city for its crime of harming you.

Feyre is tense, and Cassian watches him warily. “What happened?”

“We found her under there,” he points to a dilapidated merchant’s stall, his stomach roiling at the sight of it, heavy stone counter cracked in half, wood and glass scattered across the ground, “protecting a little girl. We think she’s in shock.”

Not shock. Trapped in memories.

There’s a haunted look in your eye, a flicker of nightmares.

His brave girl.

He holds himself at bay, holds himself back from shooting into the sky with you cradled to his chest, carrying you as fast as the wind will allow to Madja, or pulling you into a cloud of shadow so he can arrive uninvited in her living room.

“She needs a healer.” His jaw has never been clenched so tight. The smell of your blood is making him sick.

“We know,” Feyre tries to reassure him, but at the same time angles her body to block his path. Cassian shakes his head, because he knows, just as Feyre should, standing between a male and his mate is a very bad idea. He loves Feyre, but his affection for her is nothing compared to what he feels for you, and her behavior in this moment, is reckless. “Az,” she tries to caution him, tone pitching low, serious, “maybe you should back-“

Remove her, the shadows snap, she is in our way.

“You need a healer.” He pretends she doesn’t exist, pushes his anger as far away as he can manage, and addresses you instead. You shake your head.

“I need to go. Home. I need to go… home.” Cassian snorts. Azriel wonders if it’s possible to break his jaw in one punch.

You’re slipping, unsteady on your feet, going somewhere in your mind he cannot follow and his panic ratches upward as he says your name and you don’t respond.

“Feyre,” Cassian murmurs, “step back.” She stiffens, but listens, and he surges forward, unable to keep away any longer.

His heart sings as he cups your cheek. It’s the first time he’s touched you since his hands brought you harm, and he chokes on a breath as you lean into his touch, satin against scars. “Look at me,” he soothes, trying to draw you back to the present, but it’s a losing battle. You’re going to pass out, and you’re scared, he can read it all so clearly, scared to slip away in the dark, scared to succumb to the nightmare in your mind. “It’s okay.” I’m here, he wants to scream, you’re not alone. You fist his shirt and blink like you’re trying to clear the fog from your head, but it’s not enough.

In one moment, you’re here, you’re with him.

And in the next, you’re collapsing in his arms.

Time is so fickle.

There’s not enough of it now. For so long, his existence was a plague, an endless agony rife with shame, a life undeserving. He dreamt, multiple times, of falling out of the sky and into the Sidra, sinking to the bottom and letting the cold water fill his lungs. He never wanted more, not truly. He had no need for time.

Now, it’s all he wants. More time for more chances to tell you how sorry he is and kneel at your feet, beg you for forgiveness. More time to know you. To love you. Time to learn your likes and dislikes, what makes your nose wrinkle, what adds a skip to your step. Time to take you flying, to trek through the forest with you on an endless scavenger hunt, watch as you bite your lip and furrow your brow at Moonflower’s worktable.

If the Mother would give him another chance.

If you would.

Time is fickle, because for months, he’s begged it to slow down, and now, he’s pleading with it to speed up, bring him to the moment where you wake.

Madja assured him you would make a full recovery within a day or two. She left a healing salve for the gash in your side, and some sleeping draught in case you were too uncomfortable to rest. You were exhausted, she told him, far weaker than she was comfortable with, body and magic wrung dry.

“Try to get her to eat something,” she said, “and then make sure she sleeps. She needs it. A lot of it.”

The guilt is insurmountable. It chews away at his insides, burrows itself deep beneath his skin like a disease, rotting his flesh and mind. All he sees is your face, terrified, tormented, first in his dungeon and again, in the Palace. He sees you shuddering amongst the ruin, eyes rolling back in your head, collapsing in his arms. He can still hear your gasps, your pleas from that night, the steady thump of your heart slowing as he took your air, again and again. It’s these memories, these moments igniting in his chest, pain so visceral it aches, the agony of his mate’s suffering tearing him apart from the inside out. No matter the end of his story, of yours, there will always be this cordolium within him, this stark regret plaguing his every step. You’re so beautiful it possesses the power to break him, a strange, beautiful creature, breathtaking from the tip of your nose to the depths of your mind, and he’s a monster, lurking in your nightmares.

A beauty, and a beast.

You whimper and twitch in the blankets, hands fisted, limbs stiff. “Shhh,” he strokes the apple of your cheek. He's been able to settle you somehow, lull you back to peace thanks to the music spinning between your soul and his, threads knitting around the frail, fledging bond, pushing you to take comfort in him as you rest. It's more than he could ever ask for. “You’re okay, sweet girl. You’re safe.” Your sleep has been fitful, at best, and he wonders if he’s the one haunting you, or something else.

He's still in the chair beside the bed when you begin to blink groggily, trying to get a grip on your surroundings. You’re clouded with confusion, echoes of apprehension strumming down the bond, and he meets it, tempering it with reassurance in hope it reaches the other side. “Hey,” he murmurs, holding perfectly still like you’re a small animal and he’s the predator determined not to spook you as you push up onto your elbows with a groan. “Careful. The wound in your side is pretty raw.”

“Where am I?” you croak, and he reaches for the glass of water waiting on the table.

“My house. I didn’t think you’d take kindly to me breaking into yours.” Mostly true. He can’t deny there’s a warm hum of satisfaction purring in his chest at having you here, in his bed, safe within his walls, and he was too unsettled by the thought of bringing you to the River House, or the House of Wind, even though Feyre tried to insist.

Over the course of his life, Azriel’s loyalty, his dedication to his family, his court, has been instinctual, engrained in him down to the core, and his drive to protect his loved ones, Velaris, has been one of his defining features for centuries.

But this instinct has now shifted to you, and you are still an unknown to his High Lord.

“You brought me to your house…” You glance around, unsure. He knows how it seems. A venomous trap laid by him to ensnare you, to hold you here, by his side, forever. A way to feed poison into your veins, stun you, paralyze you, so he can steal you away, shield you from the world.

“You needed a healer, and rest. This was the logical option." You hold his gaze. It’s one of those instances, one of many, where there’s nothing else but you and him, nothing else that matters, nothing that even comes close. He wishes they could last forever. “I had to make sure you’re okay.” He braces for your wrath, the tart, sweet contrast of a raspberry, pinching the pockets of his cheeks and rolling across his tongue. He had a taste of it in the Middle, with the swamp, and now he craves it. Your fight, your cunning. Clever witchling. 

Your expression sours at the salve. “How bad is it?”

“A piece of marble crushed your ribs, and the jagged edge ripped your skin open. Madja says you’ll be healed in a day, but your body is exhausted and slowing the process. She left a sleep tonic, if you need it.” He murmurs, walking the line of too much and too little delicately, desperate to avoid crushing this fragile truce.

You shift, wincing, small yelp slipping free from between your teeth, and he stills you, brushing his hand along your arm before he can stop himself. “Easy.” The touch is electric, a live wire arcing through the room, crackling in the air, and he draws away out of fear, worry he’ll startle you. “We should get you home,” he says softly, and you nod. He won’t try to force it, push this farther. You won’t be comfortable here, and he’s cradling this burgeoning peace, fanning its flame, encouraging it to grow, trying to keep from ruining it. Working at something he's not sure he can achieve. 

“Yeah I… I think that’s a good idea.” You sit up slowly, leaning to one side to alleviate the pressure on your ribs. “How far is it? To my house?” He frowns.

“Far. We’re on the other side of the city. Do you think you can winnow?”

“I don’t know.” You try to wriggle closer to the side of the bed, but it’s fleeting, and your shoulders slump with defeat.

“I can take you, if you’d like.” You glance at his wings.  

“With those?”

“No, I wouldn’t fly with you in this cold.”

“With the shadows then.” You look down at your lap, and the weight of his choices crash like a wave upon his shoulders. The last time he took you through shadow, it was to the chamber, and then back. He swallows.

“It’s the quickest way.” You fix your gaze across the room, sweeping over his dresser, the nook lined with bookshelves and overstuffed velvet chairs, the chest of weapons on the opposite side. Charcoal grey drapes frame the floor to ceiling windows, aquamarine and citrine refracting through the stained-glass onto the deep, nearly black, green walls and polished wide plank wood floors.

“This is your room.” Your fingertips glide across the sheets, black satin, and his cheeks grow hot. 

“Yes.”

“It fits you.” Your lips tilt into the thinnest crescent moon, something akin to a tiny smile, and optimism soars in his heart.

You hold out your hand, the tattoo a mirror to his, the ink and magic of salvation, his contrition, the thing he now bows to, idolatrously.

Without it, he’d be lost.

You take a long, deep breath and uncurl your fingers, opening your palm. The small sliver of trust knocking his entire existence askew.

The meaning of this-

This trust you deign to place in him now, when you’re vulnerable, when your magic is feeble and your physical strength is sapped, is an infinitesimal gift, divinity defying all.

Unworthy. Another thing you’re giving him that he’s unworthy of.

The threads sing, weaving notes together, highs and lows, one side of a fugue, one side still waiting.

Your throat bobs with a swallow, and you graze your fingertips against his. “You’ll take me home then?”

He’s not sure he can leave you here.

She’s in pain, the shadows bemoan as they carefully flutter at your ankles. You’re too fatigued to notice, too busy contemplating the stairs with trepidation. Climbing them is a daunting task, one he fears you may fail. You’re hurting, completely exhausted, and he’s powerless. He can’t fix it or take it away, like everything else that’s happened. Your eyes are nearly dead, drained, and the shadows flitter around you anxiously. She cannot hold herself up.

I know.                                                                  

“Can I help you up the stairs?” You shake your head vehemently, and like you’re trying to prove something, attempt to take the first step on shaky legs, gripping tight to the banister like it will keep you steady.

Your knees give out immediately, and his self-restraint vanishes. He lifts you into his arms, cradling you against his chest, petrichor and oakmoss flooding his senses, and you don't even flinch. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs, “let me help.”

“I’m tired,” you whisper, voice smaller than he’s ever heard, and he tightens his hold.

“I know. Let’s get you into bed, alright?” Weak limbed and limp, you slump against him, giving yourself over. More trust, more of these things he does not deserve. 

“Madja said your bandage won’t need to be changed before you’re healed, so you won’t have to worry about that tomorrow.” He carefully guides you back against your pillows, trying to ignore how caring for you, holding you, being here with you ignites a swath of feelings in him, possessiveness, protective instincts, obsession. Devotion. The rage, the hatred, the darkness haunting him slips into silence, drowned out by the music, the melody overtaking all.

“Okay,” you mumble, trailing off into a yawn as you squint at him. He wants to stay right here, sitting on the edge of your bed, his hip against your thigh, the neutral, barely there contact chasing off the stygian sullenness waiting to welcome him back to its embrace.

Don’t push it.

He stands. You follow the movement, head tipping back, exposing your throat. Such a vulnerable place, one he greatly wants to drag his lips across. “I’ll let you sleep.” He says instead, stifling the pleasure surging in his blood at the way your eyes track him. He swears he seems a flicker of sadness there, but it’s gone before he can truly process it, hold on it, commit it to memory. When you don’t say anything else, he nods, drawing a sable shroud around his shoulders, readying to step into-

“Azriel,” he freezes, catching your gaze, “thank you.”

“Of course.” He’d do anything for you, little witch. Anything you asked.

“I’ll see you next week?” There’s a tinge of trepidation on your tongue but it’s not fear. It’s uncertainty. His lips lift into a smile, a genuine one, one that only exists around you.

“Next week.”

He’s summoned almost immediately, and arrives in Rhys’ office to find an audience of his brother and Feyre, Amren, Cassian. The only one missing is Mor.

He quiets himself. Hides everything inside, pulls the shadows close, reinforces the walls around his mind. “What is it?”

“What is it?” Rhys hisses, anger flashing through the room’s thickened fog of magic. “What is it?” Azriel slips into the mask, the one he perfected long ago, and crosses his arms. A mirror image of the father he hated.

“Your mate is a witch.” He looks to Cassian, who shakes his head. He didn’t do it, didn’t betray the secret, this turbulent reality.

It was bad enough they discovered he had a mate in the first place, but disappearing for two weeks, without communication, has its consequences, and he has a hard time denying Feyre anything. When she asked where he had been, what had caused him to leave so suddenly without word, everything came out.

Almost everything.

“She’s not a witch, her mother was.”

“So she’s only half a witch,” Amren says drily, rolling her eyes. The shadows rumble, rankle with rage. 

“I could smell it, Az, but she’s done nothing wrong. We don’t want to interrogate her.” Feyre looks at him with sympathy, and he only regards her with that same cool stare. Rhys who appears to be of a different mind, snarls at him.

“You will bring her to me, immediately, and I will determine what kind of-“

“No. She is none of your concern.” He will not play this game. He will not give Rhys a single second with you, if this is his intention.

“She is a witch, living in my Court!”

“And do you not trust my ability to evaluate a threat?” It takes everything, everything he has, to keep his tone measured. Cassian’s eyes dart between the two of them and then clears his throat.

“He tortured her, Rhys.”

“I don’t care,” he snaps, “he is blinded by a mating bond.” He turns his attention back to Azriel, raw power crackling through the air between them. “You will bring her to me, or I will retrieve her myself, and you will not like what happens if I do.”

The room explodes in shadow. Midnight closes in from all sides, climbing the walls, crawling across the floor.

The bond thirsts for battle and blood, for his brother’s head, and Azriel’s vision tunnels, soaked in crimson, in wrath, malevolence worthy of a smote god.

Amren stands. Cassian takes a step forward.

“You would threaten my mate? Is this what we’ve come to?” He’s descended past reason now, encased in an icy coffin of fury, and his siphons gleam, the killing power inside him salivating at the potential for violence. For destruction.

His people are monsters, and so shall he be.

To protect you, to protect his mate, he’d become anything, a brute, a nightmare, it makes no difference.

“Az, let’s-“

“Cassian.” He seethes, refusing to take his eyes from Rhys, “while you may be more amenable to how your mate is treated by our brother, I am not.” Guilt flashes in Rhys’ gaze, and a breath catches in Feyre’s throat with a small, strangled sound.

“This is ridiculous. Just bring the girl and be done with it.” Amren snorts, casually inspecting her fingernails to appear as if she’s unaffected, but Azriel knows better. The shadows know her heart, her truths, how she mourns the loss of what she once was, how she loathes the fact that she’s High Fae. How she’s all too aware of her weakened state, hiding behind her posturing and assumed infinite wisdom that's slowly becoming irrelevant. Like her.

“Amren. Shut up.” Cassian bites out, his siphons casting a rubied glow around the room, mixing with Azriel’s cobalt blue, painting them together into deep purple hues.

“You will never touch my mate, Rhys. Never.” His brother’s face sparks with surprise and then his lip curls.

“Or what?”

“Rhys!” Feyre whips towards him, horror and disappointment settled into the furrow of her brow. “This is enough.” She looks at Azriel. “We trust your judgement Az, of course we do, and Rhys forgets I met her in the Palace saving a child’s life.” She hisses, her own power pulsing between the brothers, creating a physical barrier.

It’s not wrapped tight to Azriel, but to Rhys.

It seems his brother has been outranked.

We can break it, the shadows croon.

No.

This is his family, dysfunctional as it may be, as tumultuous it may be, they are still his.

Rhys is still his brother. His High Lord.

“Let’s take a breath, cool off.” Feyre coaxes, nudging at the fortress of Azriel’s mind. Go. I will speak to him.

Don’t bother.

He will listen to reason, just… give it some time.

He spares Rhys one more glance as his wings flex and shakes his head. “I am disappointed in you, brother. I had hoped by now you would have learned from your mistakes.”

He expects another challenge of some sort. “No swamp today?”

“No swamp.” You lead him to your workspace in the back of Moonflower, a light, airy space with shelves and shelves full of herbs, flowers, plants growing from glass jars, and hunk of rocks, precious metals, strips of steel haphazardly tucked beside them, all chaotic, all disorganized. Like your home, it’s fitting. “I figured you could hang out with me while I work.” It’s a trial in its own way, daring him to protest, to vanish, to be bored by you, disinterested.

He won’t. He’d never.

“What are you making?” The table is full of stuff. Books, a mortar and pestle, a brass scale. There’s a long, sharp knife next to a thick stalk of something purple that smells like lemon, flanked by two glass beakers, and a heaping pile of salt. A raised metal circle holds a sphere over open flame, its contents a cyan rich liquid just on the cusp of a boil.

“Today I’m trying to finish a batch of contraceptive tea, and a cleanser.”

“A cleanser?”

“It’s an elixir that pulls poison from the body. All the healers in Velaris keep it stocked. Works well for a hangover too.” You bless him with another smile, the second one today, and he tucks it away for when sleep struggles to come and he needs something to cling to.

You pin him with assessing eyes. Anything could roll from your tongue, a question, a request to fulfill the bargain, a demand to never see him again, and the precipice is agony. He wonders if this is how it would be to fall without wings, drop out of the sky and plummet towards the mountains, jump from a cliff and crash into the sea. Would his heart pound the same, lungs scream the same? Would he experience peace, the same he feels in your presence, would his past flash before his eyes, would his family, or you? Conflict shivers from behind your walls towards him, twisting through the bond. “You owe me an explanation, and while I… I do need to hear it, desperately... there are other things that weigh on me. The fact that you know well enough about me but I know very little about you." You draw a pattern through the heap of salt, suddenly distant. It passes, and you blow out a long breath. "Azriel… who are you?” He frowns.

“I am… the Shadowsinger, the Spymaster, I’m-“

“No. What are you, if not those things, the Shadowsinger, the Spymaster. Who are you?”

“I…” the answer doesn’t come and there’s suddenly a nest of cotton muffling sound and thought, spinning tangled webs throughout his brain. Who is he?

“I'm clever,” you lift your nose and smirk, tracing the rim of the glass beaker to make low whistle tones, “and a friend. I make a very good honeysuckle whiskey cocktail, and I love to read. I’m a hunter too, of fungi and moss, the occasional crystal. I'm an alchemist, I balance nature and magic. I’m a daughter.” Your voice hitches on the last word, vowels pulled apart at the edges, longing lingering on your lips. It pains you. Another puzzle in the long list of surprises, another riddle you’ve posed without an answer, a truth he struggles to find. “Try,” you whisper, ever watchful.

“I’m a bastard.” It’s the first thing that comes to mind, the stain upon his life since the day he was born. “And an Illyrian,” a brute, a monster, “I’m exceptionally skilled at causing pain and killing. I am warrior, a fighter. I have turned suffering into art. I am…” he doesn’t look at you. You’re the only thing capable of making him feel real fear, fear of your pain or suffering or anguish, the fear of your rejection, the fear of your disgust, and he can’t bring himself to see it on your face. “I am alone.” He braces for the pity, the same sharp sympathy given to him by his family.

“Well. Those are awful.” His gaze snaps to yours. You’re aggravated, and curious.

Always curious, our girl.

She is, isn’t she?

“You’re a brother, aren’t you? And an uncle?” He nods. “So, not alone. And you’re a bastard, probably mocked for it, hurt for it, but here you are, so I imagine you’re perseverant, strong. Strong in the physical sense too.” You peek at his shoulders, his arms, traveling down his chest before redirecting your attention to his face, somewhat abashed. “U-um, you’re-“

“Clever. Like you.”  

“Clever, like me. Brave too, I think, and probably devoted, loyal, considering your line of work.”

“Yes,” he whispers, symphony rising, notes colliding with perfect pitch, ringing in ears, a celestial rhythm waiting for the crescendo to match.

“Loved.” It’s a blazing star shooting across the sky, a buttery sweet sentiment melting in his mouth, loved.

“You didn’t list it for yourself.”

“Because it didn’t belong.” Loved? You don’t consider yourself loved?

“Why?”

“Because there is no one left. I am a good friend, a great one, but my secret prevents others from being a good friend to me. You cannot be loved if you are not known, not truly.” It crashes into him, the severity of your words. You cannot be loved if you are not known, not truly.

Is he known? Truly known? Is he loved? 

Molten silver bubbles over from the sphere to a beaker, polychrome and pearl trickling down the sides, sizzling into a powder at the bottom. “Ah!” You jerk away from the table, bringing your hand to your chest, and he goes cold, shadows vibrating.

“What?” He’s around the corner and in front of you immediately,  

“It’s nothing, the silver just dripped on me.” You burned yourself. His chest tightens. 

“Let me see.” He cradles your hand in his, shadows quivering around your fingertip as he pulls you over to the tap. He turns the handle to the right temperature, cool but not cold, before putting your blistered skin under the spigot. If he’s fast enough, he can stop it from scarring, stop it from marring your lovely skin, prevent it from being with you for the rest of your life. “How does that feel?”

“Good.” You’re not looking at the water splashing down into the copper sink, or the burn. Instead, you're studying him, contemplating, considering.

“Do you have any cream here? Or maybe one of the salves you make...” He trails off, trying to think about what he’s seen in the shop out front, but everything he means to ask dies in his throat when you wrap your other hand around his.

“I’m okay, Azriel.” Right. Of course you are. It’s a small burn, not even the width of your fingertip. Suddenly, he feels very, very foolish, exposed, and he ties a cloak of obsidian around his shoulders, pulling the tendrils down around his forearms.

“Sorry, I-“

“I know.” You caress the shadows curling around his elbow, dancing through them with grace, inspecting, studying. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” you whisper, and his throat tightens.

“There is nothing wrong with you. Nothing.” You shake your head.

“There is… there has to be because I should you hate you, shouldn’t I?”

“You should.” You should do more than hate him, you should fear him, detest him, run from him.

“But I don’t. I don’t hate you, I’m not scared, and I don’t think it’s the safety net of the bargain. I don’t… I don’t understand it. I’m not frightened of you, but I am… I’m frightened of this.” Your palm flattens over your heart. He should tell you; he should confess-

but then he could lose you.

“I should tell you to leave, but all I want to tell you is you’re not alone.” He tries to dig his heels into the ground against the magnetism dragging him downward, farther and farther until he’s holding your face, nearly nose to nose, counting your breaths, each speck in your irises. Decision and indecision hums down the bond, an endless tug of war you fight, a battle he wants so badly to win for you. You push up onto your tiptoes- 

and then crash your lips to his. 

It’s hungry, lush, teeming with life like your beloved forest. You unknowingly push it all through the bond, desire, confusion, worry, each feeling a chord, a note, trying to complete the song. He’s losing himself in it, veering off the path and diving headfirst into the unknown, too incensed to think for a moment before he wrests his discipline back into place.

Stop.

Control.

He rests his forehead against yours as he draws a measured breath.

His. He’ll show you what it means. To be his.

“You are perfect,” he presses a ghostly kiss to the corner of your mouth, “brilliant, kind, brave. You are far more than I deserve, a blessing I never knew could exist. A goddess I would worship my entire life.” An endless pool of hesitance and longing eddies in your eyes, a paradox he knows too well, and he prepares to step away, disappear, run. 

But you reach for him with a whisper.

“Worship me then.”

Fervor. Frenzy. It all explodes, detonates through him to you, whipping down the bond again and again, madness ebbing at the edge of his mind.

His. His, his, his.

The two of you collide, and he’s rough, unintentionally, but it’s met blow for blow in a distorted dance, hands, fingers, mouths everywhere, his tongue against yours. It’s not enough, your touch under his shirt, traveling up to his shoulders, a leisurely stroll becoming a hectic sprint, encouraging him, knitting your fingers in his hair, nipping at his jaw. He plucks the ribbon tying the neckline of your dress together, your breasts spilling out into his hands.

“Azriel,” you’re whimpering, rolling your hips against the thigh he’s nudged between your legs, shivering as drags his thumbs across your nipples and follows with his teeth, sharp for the sweet, “don’t tease.”

Wild one.

The shadows sweep everything off the worktable, and he lays you back, hiking the skirt up over your belly, dragging soft kisses on your skin beneath your navel as he spreads your knees wide, wide enough to accommodate his shoulders, exposing a pair of black panties, weeping pussy waiting for him underneath.

He has no patience and twists his fingers in the hem, tearing the fabric away from your body. “Cauldron,” he murmurs, running his knuckles up and down your seam, enjoying how you shiver each time he teases a little pressure against your clit. “Look at you-  beautiful everywhere.” Dawn in a drizzle, your scent makes his mouth water, and his cock aches, painfully heavy. This is not about him, it’s about you, as all things are now.

He'll have plenty of time, he prays, plenty of time inside you, plenty of time to bury his cock in your slick, warm cunt. 

He kneels. Kneels at the altar, kneels for you. This is veneration, the cleansing of his soul. He’ll make himself worthy, through fire, through ash.

You, you, it’s all you.

The bond is insatiable, it shrieks like a banshee in the night, his side slamming against yours again and again, hungry and hunting, trying to crash through the sky-high brambles blocking its path.

His. His. Hishishishis-

“Azriel,” you whimper, practically vibrating, fidgeting on the table, fingers gripping the edge. You go taut as he pulls your thighs over his shoulders and leans in to finally put his mouth on you, tasting, flicking his tongue over your swollen pearl. He’s too broad between your knees, the width of him leaving you completely exposed, every nerve ending on display, every drop of dew ready for him to drink. The size difference is startling, pleasing, and he rumbles his approval into your cunt, tracing your clit with a pointed tongue.

He wants to make you come so badly, but the fiend in him wants to play. “Can you take a finger?” You manage to rasp out a yes, and he feeds you one, unable to look at away at how you clench around it, pressing up past the knuckle, making you sing for him. “That’s it,” he works slowly, pushing and pulling as you arch on the table, toes curling against his shoulder blades, digging into his flesh, “good girl.” You’re tight, tight enough a second finger fills you, tight enough you squeak a little when he kicks them upward, searching for the spot, the one likely to make to go limp.

“Az,” you tug at his hair, and he kisses your pussy, mouth soaked, almost drowning in silken sap, fresh rain, salted earth, the strange and beautiful taste of you.

“Just a bit more,” he finds the textured velvet space and strokes, pinning your hip to the table with his free hand. “There it is, be still,” he croons, pleased when you listen, stammering something like yes and please, panting between syllables. Your nails scratch against the wood, walls clutching his fingers as you writhe, greedy, insatiable, wild as nature intended you to be.

He circles your clit with his tongue and your knees instinctively try to jolt closed, but he shakes his head, correcting you, commanding or coaching, lines too blurred to tell the difference. “Keep your legs open, sweet girl, nice and wide for me so I can make you come.”

 “P-please, please.” Your spine arches and you grip the hand on your hip tight, rising to the crest of the wave he knows is about to crash down. He balances you there, just on the swell, pushing harder on the spot inside you, listening to the way your breath catches. “Ah, fuck, it’s t-too much-” you kick your feet and hiccup, head rolled to the side, eyes wide and brighter than the full moon, tears starting to gather on your lashes.

He'll eat you alive, lick you clean right to the bone, inhale you. Swallow you. Keep you inside himself forever, keep you safe and sheltered. Hidden away.  

“I know, I know,” he coos. Normally he’d make you wait, drag it out until you were a mess far past this while he edged you into madness, but now is not the right time, the right moment.

Still. His blood yearns for it. For your tears, for the way you’d cry as he bounced you on his cock, as his body buried yours into his mattress, as he split you open, fucked you full of his cum.

But for now, this will have to do.

“Poor thing. Does it ache, sweetheart? Do you need to come?”

“Y-yeah, I need it please… I need… I need you.” I need you. If this is all he gets, if this is all he’s earned and it crumbles afterwards, he’ll hold onto those words, treasuring them with his last breath. I need you. He kisses your thigh and then sweeps over your clit, licking and lapping, coaxing your release until you break apart, clapping a hand over your mouth to smother your strangled scream. He praises you- my good girl, look at you, did so well, so perfect- and wrings every last drop of it from your body, only rising from between your legs once you’ve stopped twitching.

Your face is slack, sloped in a small delirious smile, and he licks his fingers clean, kisses the inside of your knee. “Are you with me?”

“Mhmm.” You try to hop down and end up stumbling forward, face planting directly into his chest. His arms come around you on instinct, cupping the back of your head, cradling it, skimming his nose along your hair and breathing as deep as he can, filling his lungs with forest and fauna, fresh snow in the twilight of the first winters day.

Don’t let go, don’t.

Everything in him is warm, at peace. Idyllic.

Your hand creeps across his thigh. “I can…”

“No,” he pulls your fingers to his mouth and presses a kiss to each one, slowly, savoring, “not today.”  An easy smile spreads across his face at the sight of your blown pupils, swollen lips, but the bond thrums with confusion, unease.

“Do you not want me to…”

“I want to have you in any way conceivable, witchling,” he strokes your cheek, “but not here.” Your worktable is in shambles, and as if you forgot, you grimace and huff, pulling away. “I can help-“

“No, it’s fine.” The things scattered to each end begin to arrange themselves, finding their rightful places, glass beakers and molten silver, crushed bundles of herbs and finely ground powders all returning to how they were as if nothing ever happened, tinge of damp foliage and peeling birch rolling around you in a cloud.

“Neat trick.”

“It’s not a trick,” you protest, affronted, and his stomach drops.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“ The side of your mouth quirks playfully, and he closes the gap, curls an arm around your waist as you place your palms on his chest, laughing. Just the brief sound of your happiness might kill him, stop his heart. He finds the curve of your ass instinctively and squeezes, kneads the flesh hard enough you suck in a sharp breath.

“Little brat.” He could take you right now. He wants to. Flip your dress up all over again and bend you over the table, pressing your cheek to the wood and kicking your legs open. You’d still be wet, wanting, pussy swollen and tight, milking his cock as he made you come on it until you couldn’t hold yourself up any longer.

Not now.

This, whatever this is, this step forward, this rebuilding of what could have been, is fragile, so incredibly tenuous it terrifies him. A small light trying to swell in a sea of sombrous fog, fighting for a chance to shine.

Anything could snuff it out.

“Our next… meeting won’t be until the very end of next week.” The sun is setting over the city, bathing it in a spectrum of opalescence orange-gold streaked with violet, it’s beauty paling in comparison to the brilliance of yours.

“Why?”

“I’m travelling.”  A ripple of tension cascades along his spine. He planned other things for this conversation, hoped to broach the subject of the Solstice ball and ask you to accompany him, but now…

“Where?” The bond rumbles in apprehension, echoing from both sides, his wings rustling in response.

“Spring.” Absolutely not.

“No.” You glare at him.

“I wasn’t asking for your permission.”

“I’m aware.” He should soften his tone, tread carefully, but the monster inside, the one fused to the bond overrides sensibility, caution, showing his true colors. Brute. Bastard. Illyrian.

“I-“

“I’ll go with you.” Balance. You sigh.

“I am fine on my own, Azriel.”

“I know.” But he’s not. “As you said earlier, I still owe you an explanation.” That gives you pause, your scrutiny harsh and piercing, more lethal than the fine point of a blade.

Finally, you acquiesce with a nod. “You do.”

“Let’s use that time for it then.” Please. He’s always pleading, digging a deeper hole, dragging himself across broken glass.

The bond is tightrope, one strung from his soul to yours. He tugs it towards his side, trying to drag yours from the vadon, flush your indecipherable thoughts free from the forest of your mind.

Eventually, your hard-bitten expression turns conciliatory and though you cross your arms in front of your chest, you bite out an agreement, teeth gnashed, defiance glittering in your gaze.

“Fine.”