Busy Falling For The Villain

Welcome to irisandink!

Enter quietly—the shadows notice everything. You may call me Beck, if you so choose. By day I steady heartbeats; by night I break them on the page. A nurse in daylight, a storyteller in the dark; writing is the pulse I keep for myself.

This space is for the dreamers, the romantics, the ones who love their fiction a little bruised around the edges. If you enjoy slow-burns that scorch, emotional depth, and worlds you can fall into and forget to climb back out of…you’ve found your place 🤍

I’m a long-form, prose-first writer with zero chill. I will probably end up breaking my own heart writing before I break yours.

✒️ What you’ll find here

• ACOTAR, especially my sprawling, emotionally ruinous series The Bond That Breaks

• immersive, novel-length prose

• soft moments tucked between storms

• romance that unravels, claws, and heals

• worldbuilding humming with secrets and spellwork

• characters who love fiercely and break beautifully

Masterlists

ACOTAR:

The Bond That Breaks

(full fic, chapter by chapter, including extras, outlines, and lore)

a glimpse into the shadows you’re entering:

• slow-burn yearning with teeth

• a refused mating bond and the fracture it leaves

• found family, fragile trust, and aching regret

• political intrigue, court games, and dangerous alliances

• trauma carried quietly, power born from emotion

• desire sharp enough to wound

• a love story that splinters before it binds

The Quiet Claim

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You woke with the sense that something had been left unfinished inside you. A thought, a sentence, an ache—still lingering, still raw.

Light seeped into your room in thin, hesitant bands, the House keeping the faelights low as if afraid of startling you. The air was warm, a soft, steady heat rising from the stone floors in a way that made the blankets feel unnecessarily heavy. You swallowed against the dryness in your throat and pushed your hair out of your face.

It fell back immediately—loose waves slipping through your fingers, unruly and soft in the way it only ever was when sleep had tugged you under too deeply to care. You stared at it, briefly considering the effort it would take to braid it, to smooth it into something you could hide behind.

You didn’t have that kind of strength this morning.

The journal sat open on your bedside table, last night’s ink catching faint gold from the dim lights. You didn’t have to open it. You knew exactly what you had written.

I almost wrote your names on a lantern today.

You pressed your lips together until they hurt. The sentence still felt dangerous, as if saying it—even silently—might conjure memories you weren’t ready to face. The war-torn outskirts of your village. The silence after the screaming. The desperate, useless way you had searched for them. The Cauldron dragging you under before you could find their faces.

You closed the journal softly, carefully, as though it contained something fragile that might break further if handled too quickly.

Your breath shook on the exhale.

“All right,” you whispered to no one. “Enough.”

Your feet slid to the warm floor, and you crossed the room slowly, choosing each piece of clothing not for appearance but for comfort. Black leggings, soft from wear. A loose sweater in a cool grey. The cardigan Mor had insisted you needed—a deep dusky purple that wrapped around your body like a hug and smelled faintly of the Sidra wind.

You shrugged into it, letting the sleeves fall over your hands. The bracelet rested against your wrist—a band of imperfect knots and dyed thread, the texture slightly raised against your skin. You touched it absently, tracing the shape of each knot. Your magic warmed faintly beneath your fingers, blooming in a soft, instinctive glow before settling back into quiet again.

Not threatening. Not flaring. Just…present.

You drew in a slow breath, steadying yourself before opening the door.

The hallway greeted you gently, faelights brightening by degrees, the House sensing your mood and adjusting itself around you in that way you were still learning how to accept. The scent of cinnamon drifted upward from the dining level, carried on warm air currents.

You descended the stairs with one hand along the carved railing, your footsteps barely making a sound. Voices carried to you before you even reached the archway—Cassian’s loud, uncontainable laughter, Nesta’s frost-edged responses that somehow made him laugh harder, Feyre’s calm voice threading between them like a ribbon.

Safe. Warm. Home.

And yet your heart trembled a little anyway.

You paused at the entrance to the dining room, fingers curling into the sleeve of your cardigan. The room glowed with early light—soft winter sun pouring through tall windows, catching on steam rising from kettles and bowls. Feyre sat with her sketchpad open, several lantern designs already inked in confident strokes. Elain was surrounded by little piles of ribbon, humming under her breath as she tested colors. Rhys lounged beside Feyre like a man who had never once taken anything seriously, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Cassian spotted you first. “There she is!” he crowed. “The woman who works more hours than the sun.”

You rolled your eyes as you stepped in. “The sun doesn’t reorganize salve cabinets at two in the morning.”

“And yet she shines!” he said, gesturing broadly.

“Cassian,” Nesta warned.

“What? I’m being supportive.”

“That’s the problem.”

Mor scooted aside so you could sit beside her, hip bumping yours. She smelled like spiced wine and something glittering.

“Morning, sweet thing,” she murmured, brushing a crumb off your shoulder. “You look like you had a night.”

You didn’t ask how she knew. Mor always knew.

“I’m fine,” you said softly. Her hand found your thigh beneath the table, a comforting weight.

“Drink,” Nesta ordered from across the table, sliding a small cup toward you. You sniffed it. Strong. Herbal. Bitter.

“Is this…medicine?”

“It’s tea,” Nesta said, which was not an answer.

Mor grinned. “Drink it before she decides to make you two.”

You obeyed.

Conversation swirled easily around you, warm and familiar, tugging you along like a current you didn’t mind being swept into. You sipped your tea, letting the warmth settle into your bones. For a few minutes, you managed to forget the heaviness in your chest.

Then the air changed.

A subtle pressure. A quiet shift. Your magic stirred under your skin, rising like mist. You knew who it was before he entered the room.

Azriel stepped through the archway with that impossible stillness, shadows coiling around him like the suggestion of movement. His hair was slightly tousled, as though he’d dragged his hands through it without thinking. His leathers fit him with that effortless precision that made you acutely aware of your own breathing.

He gave a soft greeting—low, controlled, carrying a rasp that made something in your chest tighten. He did not look at you. Your fingers tightened around your cup.

Elain lifted a ribbon. “Azriel, do you think this shade will catch the river’s light during Solstice? I’m torn between the blues.”

He stepped closer, voice quiet. “It will catch. It’ll look like starlight when the lantern tilts. The Sidra holds light better than most rivers.”

You swallowed and looked down at your hands, ashamed of the ugly twist of feeling that moved through you.

The table moved around you, laughter, small arguments, the bright normalcy of shared morning. You joined where appropriate, murmured responses, soft smiles, the tiniest laugh at Cassian’s dramatic reenactment of nearly being crushed by falling swords.

And through it all, you felt him. Not looking. But aware. Not near. But close, his shadows drifting, withdrawing, drifting again.

You focused on eating. On breathing. On surviving the next hour without splintering at the seams.

Cassian nudged your shoulder. “After breakfast, I’m dragging you up to the training ring.”

“You can’t drag me.”

“I absolutely can. I’ve dragged larger people.”

Nesta sipped her tea. “She’ll judge your form.”

Cassian winced. “She already does.”

You managed a smile.

When breakfast finally wound down, you rose with the others, the cardigan slipping around you like a shield. You caught—just barely—Azriel’s gaze brushing over the loose fall of your hair. A single heartbeat. Then gone.

Mor joined you on one side. Nesta on the other. A quiet flanking you didn’t ask for but didn’t question. The House brightened your path as you climbed the stairs toward the cold, clear air of the training level.

Behind you, at the table’s end, Azriel watched your retreat. He didn’t mean to. He didn’t look long. But he looked. And the shadows at his heels whispered something he pretended not to hear.

⸻

The climb to the training ring always left your lungs tingling, the air thinning into something sharper the higher you went. Cassian insisted the altitude was “good for the soul,” which you privately interpreted as: “Cassian enjoys watching people suffer.”

Today, though, the cold bit a little less fiercely. Or maybe the cardigan helped. Or maybe the warmth of breakfast still lingered under your skin. The House had given your boots a fresh warming enchantment before you left, and every step felt steadier than it should have.

Cassian bounded ahead, all wings and enthusiasm, turning every few paces to shout encouragement that no one asked for.

“Keep up, sweetheart!”

You rolled your eyes. “Some of us don’t fly.”

“That sounds like a skill issue.”

Nesta smacked the back of his head as she passed. “Shut up.”

Emerie already waited at the top, arms crossed, face flushed from the cold. The two Illyrian sisters stood beside her—the older one tall and hawk-eyed, the younger leaning into her side for warmth. Both straightened when they saw you.

“Look who finally got dragged out into the sun,” Emerie called, and before you could respond, the older sister cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted:

“IT FITS!”

The sound echoed across the stone.

You froze for half a second, then laughed, startled and warm, lifting your wrist as she jogged the short distance between you. She seized your hand in both of hers, eyes shining, and held up her own wrist beside it. Matching bracelets. Right down to the smallest, imperfect knot.

“It fits,” she said again, quieter now, breath puffing white in the cold. “I wasn’t sure if—well. You know.” She gestured to the weaving. “My fingers aren’t as good as they used to be.”

“It’s perfect,” you said honestly. And it was. Warm. A little uneven. Loved.

The younger sister grinned up at you, cheeks pink from wind. “We worked on them together. She kept redoing my knots.”

“I did not,” the older said, scandalized.

“You absolutely did.”

Emerie snorted. “I watched her do it. Twice.”

The older sister shoved her lightly. “Traitor.”

“And proud of it,” Emerie returned.

Nesta joined your little circle—not smiling, but her eyes softened in a way you’d learned to recognize. Approval, quiet and steady. You turned your wrist again, examining the bracelet as if seeing it anew under the winter sunlight. The colors looked richer out here, deeper. The knots caught the light in irregular little shadows.

“I love it,” you said.

The older sister’s face changed—subtle, but unmistakable. A kind of protectiveness settled there, unexpected and fierce. She brushed a thumb over your knuckles as if sealing something, then released your hand with a gentle squeeze.

“You’re one of us now,” she said simply. “We look after our own.”

Something wobbled in your chest—warmth, gratitude, grief, all tangled until you couldn’t separate them. You managed a soft smile and nodded once.

“Thank you,” you whispered.

The wind stirred, cold and thin, and the older sister shifted slightly, putting herself between you and the gust without seeming to think about it. It was such a small gesture. It hit like a blow.

You didn’t have long to process it.

A faint rush of air swept over the training ring—the kind that only ever meant wings, large and powerful, cutting through wind. It grazed the back of your neck like a passing shadow. You didn’t turn. You didn’t need to.

You felt it before you heard anything at all—that subtle change in the atmosphere, that prickle of awareness along your skin, your magic lifting like a startled bird.

Azriel had arrived.

You kept your eyes on the sisters, steadying your breath. The older one was still speaking—something about drills, about returning to training soon, about gratitude they didn’t know how to repay—but you could feel him across the ring. A quiet, heavy presence. Shadow-wrapped. Too still. Too aware.

And for a few seconds—just a few—you let yourself pretend he wasn’t there.

Azriel landed at the far edge of the training plateau with barely a sound, wings folding in with the automatic precision of long habit. The wind at this height was sharper—thin, cold, edged in frost—and it caught on his leathers as he straightened, the scent of stone and steel settling around him.

He meant to look for Cassian first. He always did. But his shadows tugged—subtle, persistent—and his gaze followed that pull before he could stop himself.

You were standing near the western railing, your shoulders wrapped in a cardigan that shifted like soft twilight around you. Your hair was down today, loose waves catching sunlight in a way that made it look almost weightless, as if the cold wind didn’t dare disturb it.

The two Illyrian sisters were with you—one on each side—Emerie and Nesta anchoring the small circle. Their laughter drifted across the plateau, thin and bright in the cold.

He didn’t need to be close to see the softness in your smile. He didn’t need to hear the words to know the moment was warm. But what held him—what rooted him to the icy stone—was the sight of the older sister lifting her wrist beside yours.

Two bracelets. Not one. Not a simple thank-you. Not a gesture of gratitude.

A matched pair.

The same uneven knots. The same dyed threads. The same hand—hers—woven into each one.

Azriel’s breath hitched in his throat, so slight it barely stirred the air. He had watched her place the bracelet on your wrist yesterday. Watched the way you’d gone still beneath her touch. Watched the small, startled smile you’d tried to hide.

But he had not known—

He had not known she made one for herself.

He had not known she meant it as something claimed. Shared. Bound. He had not known it was a pair.

His shadows drifted forward without his permission—thin lines of darkness curling toward the scene across the plateau, drawn like smoke toward warmth. He forced them back with a silent command, but they hovered restlessly at his ankles, betraying him.

The older sister said something to you—quiet, firm, her voice carrying even over the wind. It wasn’t the words that struck him. It was the way she angled her body toward you, shifting out of instinct to block the chill sweeping across the stone. A small gesture. Protective. Natural. As if she had done it before. As if she might do it again. As if she had the right.

Azriel’s fingers curled reflexively at his sides, the leather of his gloves creaking faintly. He barely registered Cassian’s footsteps until a hand clapped onto his shoulder.

“There you are,” Cassian said, far too loud. “C’mon, brother. I need you to look at these recruits before they stab the wrong things. Namely each other.”

Azriel didn’t move at first.

Cassian followed his line of sight and grinned, entirely too smug. “Ah. You’re watching them.”

Azriel’s jaw tightened. “I’m watching the group.”

Cassian laughed. “Sure.”

Azriel turned away before Cassian could say anything else, letting himself be herded toward the sparring ring. But even as he walked, he felt the weight of that image pressing against the inside of his ribs—your soft smile, the older sister’s matching bracelet, Nesta’s approving nod, Emerie’s easy pride.

A small circle. Warm. Close. Protective. And you, in the center of it, looking like you belonged there.

Cassian shouted a correction at a recruit, then tipped his head toward your group again. “They’ve taken to her fast.”

Azriel kept his eyes on the sparring forms. “She’s kind to them.”

“Kind?” Cassian huffed a laugh. “They don’t give those bracelets for kindness.”

Azriel felt something in him go still. A deep, quiet kind of stillness that felt like stepping onto thin ice.

Cassian continued, oblivious. “That’s a sister-knot. Haven’t seen one of those in years. Not outside the camps, anyway.”

Azriel’s breath went thin.

Cassian nudged him. “Oh, come on. You saw it, didn’t you?”

“…I saw her put it on yesterday,” Azriel said carefully. “A gesture of gratitude.”

Cassian snorted. “Gratitude? That was gratitude. This—” He jabbed his chin toward the matching bracelets. “This is something else.”

Azriel didn’t trust himself to look. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He kept his gaze on the recruits, on the movement of their blades, on the shape of their stances—

“Old Illyrian tradition,” Cassian went on. “It’s not a casual thing. You don’t give those to strangers. Or healers. Or…anyone, really. Not unless you mean it.”

Azriel’s shadows twisted tightly around his boots.

Cassian lowered his voice—not out of secrecy, but out of reverence.

“It means they’ve claimed her,” he said. “As kin. As one of theirs.”

Azriel’s hand tightened around the hilt of the dagger he hadn’t realized he’d been touching. Kin. The word struck something raw and unguarded deep inside him, splitting through him with the quiet precision of a blade.

Cassian clapped his shoulder again. “Good for her. She deserves that.”

Azriel said nothing. He couldn’t. He felt—not anger, not jealousy. Not anything so simple. Just a tightening in his chest. A sudden, unwelcome awareness of the distance between where he stood and where you were.

A soft sound carried across the plateau then—your laugh.

Azriel went still. The wind shifted. You tucked your hair behind your ear. Your bracelet glinted in the sunlight. And beside you, the older sister stood just a little closer, shoulders angled in a way only Illyrians understood.

Cassian kept talking. Nesta kept correcting stances. Recruits kept sparring. But Azriel—

Azriel felt the ground tilt beneath him. And the worst part? He didn’t know why. Not yet.

By the time Cassian finally released you from the training ring, your hands were half-numb from the cold and your chest ached from trying so hard not to feel everything at once. The older Illyrian sister had hugged you tightly before she and her sister left—tightly enough that you could feel the knot of her matching bracelet press into your skin.

“You’re one of us,” she’d whispered again, softer this time. “Remember that.”

You’d nodded because it was easier than speaking, easier than letting anything in your throat tremble. Easier than letting the wrong emotion spill into the open air where Azriel still lingered at the periphery of the ring like a shadow pinned in place.

He didn’t approach you. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even glance long enough for you to catch his eye. But you felt him when you walked past. Like a cold current brushing over your skin. You made yourself keep going.

Mor found you before you even reached the stairway down the mountain. She materialized beside you like sunlight cracking through clouds, looping her arm through yours without asking, without warning.

“You’re freezing,” she said. “And don’t argue. I can feel it.”

Your laugh came out thin. “Cassian believes in exposure therapy.”

“Cassian believes in inflicting his hobbies on other people.” Mor wrinkled her nose. “Come on. You’re coming with me. Velaris needs to see your pretty face today.”

You started to protest, but Mor was already pulling you toward the House, chattering about bakeries and the new artist who worked with enchanted ink and the way the river smelled like cinnamon this time of year. You let yourself be guided, let yourself sink into the cadence of Mor’s voice, let yourself pretend warmth could be borrowed just by walking beside her.

The city was bright in that winter way—light scattering off frost, streets bustling with Solstice decorations being strung between window frames. Children darted past, shrieking laughter, hands full of sweetbread dusted with powdered sugar.

You smiled. You even let Mor buy you one. It tasted like your childhood—like festival days and your father’s hands dusted white with flour, like your mother humming at the stove. For a moment, the sweetness almost hurt. You didn’t say anything.

Mor didn’t push. She talked enough for both of you, effortlessly filling silence, giving you cover. And gods, you were grateful. Grateful for her brightness, for her warmth, for the way she seemed to sense exactly when your thoughts drifted too far inward and tugged you back gently with a story or a joke or an arm around your shoulder.

At one point, when a soft gust of cold wind hit, she tugged the sleeve of your cardigan down to cover your wrist—the one with the bracelet. Her fingers brushed the woven knots, lingering for just a second. She didn’t say a word. But she understood. Of course she did.

⸻

The sun was beginning to set by the time you returned to the House, the sky washed in pale lavender and rose-gold. Mor kissed your cheek, saying something about going to check on Feyre, and disappeared down a hallway with a flash of light.

You stood alone in the entry for a moment, letting the quiet of the House settle around you. It felt different tonight. Not cold, exactly. Not warm, either. Just…listening.

You wandered toward your room on autopilot, exhaustion pooling behind your ribs, the day pressing into your bones. But when you reached the top of the stairs, you stopped.

Azriel was there. At the far end of the hallway. Half-turned toward his room. A few feet from the shadows pooling like spilled ink around his boots.

He looked up at the exact moment your breath hitched. Just a flicker. Just a glance. But enough to catch you—and hold you—in place.

Your heart lurched painfully, stupidly, as if it recognized something your mind had learned to avoid. You lifted a hand in greeting before you could think, a small, polite motion.

He froze. Not visibly. Not to anyone else. But you knew the difference between his stillness and everyone else’s.

He didn’t return the gesture. Didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just watched you for one breath too long before turning away, disappearing into his room, the door closing with a soft click that felt like a fault line sealing shut.

You exhaled shakily and kept walking.

⸻

You didn’t write a letter that night. Couldn’t. The ache in your chest was too layered—old grief and new warmth, longing and fear and something else you couldn’t name. You sat on your balcony instead, wrapped in blankets, watching frost gather along the railing as the wind brushed loose strands of your hair across your cheeks.

Your fingers found the bracelet without meaning to. Traced the knots. Felt the uneven weave. Felt the weight of belonging. Felt the sting of everything you’d lost.

The breath you let out trembled. You didn’t fight it this time. Not all grief had to be swallowed. Some of it was gentle. Some of it stitched you back together in strange, unexpected ways.

You closed your eyes and let the wind move around you like a lullaby. The House dimmed the lights of your room behind you, as if giving you privacy.

He didn’t mean to stop in the hallway. He didn’t mean to look at you. He didn’t mean to freeze when he did.

But the sight of you standing there in the fading light, hair loose, cheeks flushed from the cold, the faint glint of that bracelet threading through the cuff of your sleeve—

It had struck him like a blow. The ones you never see coming.

He’d barely made it into his room before the tightness in his chest became unbearable, before his shadows flooded the space like they were trying to steady him, anchor him, understand him. They couldn’t. Neither could he. He sat on the edge of his bed long after the sun set, staring at nothing, jaw clenched hard enough to ache.

The House murmured as it shifted the wards—soft, distant, like breathing. And somewhere on the balcony down the hall, he felt you.

Not through a bond. Not through magic. Just through something he didn’t have a name for yet. Something that would ruin him long before he ever admitted it.

He closed his eyes.

He did not sleep.

Hello, my little suns 🖤 I took an unexpected hiatus (mostly school related), but we are back now. I hope that you did not miss TBTB too much (and if you did, do not fret. It is back and on a regular schedule now.)

If you would like to be added to the taglist, let me know 🖤

Safe, Said the Shadows

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You woke with the distinct feeling you had been trying to climb out of a dream for a very long time. For a moment you stayed where you were, cheek half-buried in the pillow, watching the soft blue-grey wash of early light across the ceiling.

The House had dimmed the faelights to the faintest glow, little points of amber in the corners. The rest of the room was shadow and suggestion—the outline of your wardrobe, the curve of the window, the familiar slope of the alcove bench.

Your heart was beating too fast for someone just waking up. You dragged in a slow breath and let it out, then pushed yourself upright, covers sliding off your legs. Your hair spilled forward in loose waves, half-twisted from sleep, falling into your eyes. You shoved it back with trembling fingers, and a cool drift of air slipped through the room, nudging the strands away from your face as if the House were trying to help.

“Thank you,” you murmured, voice rough with sleep. The faelight nearest the bed brightened a little, like a pleased blink.

You sat there a moment longer, feeling it; the quiet, coiled awareness just beneath your skin. Your magic didn’t feel hot this morning. Not like it had in the sitting room. It felt almost folded. Like a letter left in your pocket. Always there, the weight of it changing the way your clothes hung, even if no one else could see it.

You flexed your fingers. Warmth pulsed once across your palms, a soft thrum along tendon and bone, then subsided. Waiting. You chose not to think about it.

The House had left clothes at the foot of your bed again. Not healer’s robes, but a soft, charcoal sweater and a mid-length skirt the color of river stone, with thick knit stockings folded neatly atop them. You smiled despite yourself. Someone, somewhere in the veins of this place, had decided you were going to be warm today. And not work.

Not that you'd let that stop you.

You pulled them on, the skirt brushing your knees, the sweater falling loose over your hips. Your hair you gathered back from your face and twisted into something that might, at a generous angle, be called a knot, though several pieces escaped immediately to curl around your temples.

“Close enough,” you muttered.

On your way out, your fingers hovered over the leather spine of your journal on the bench. You didn’t open it. The last line you’d written felt too close to the surface of your mind already.

I wish you could see Velaris. You would have loved the lights.

Not today, you told yourself. Not before you’d even started the day.

The corridor outside was cool and very quiet. Your footsteps sounded small against the stone as you made your way down through the House, past tall windows haloed with frost at the edges, the faelights brightening ahead of you in a soft chain.

The closer you got to the healing wing, the more you felt them—the wards humming faintly through the stone. Usually it was like background noise, the familiar thrum of a city’s heartbeat. Today it pressed just a little more insistently against your senses, a low vibration at the base of your skull that you would have sworn hadn’t been there a month ago.

You passed beneath the main arch into the wing and felt that hum slide over your skin like a cat brushing against your legs. Your magic gave a small answering stretch before you could stop it.

“Too early for that,” you whispered, more to yourself than anything else.

The smell hit you then: tinctures and boiled linen, sharp herbs and the faint iron tang that never entirely left a place where blood had been. It grounded you in a way nothing else could.

Madja was already there, of course. She stood over a table of dried plants, sorting them into little ceramic bowls with the ruthless efficiency of someone who had been doing this longer than most people now alive had been breathing. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, spectacles perched low on her nose.

“You’re late,” she said without looking up.

You glanced instinctively at the clock on the wall. “It’s seven-fifteen.”

Madja clicked her tongue. “That is what I said.”

You washed your hands at the basin, letting the water run hot over your fingers. The warmth inside your skin met it halfway, and for a moment it felt like two currents colliding. You focused on the familiar motions until your heartbeat slowed into something more manageable.

When you turned back, you realized you weren’t alone with Madja.

Two Illyrian women stood near the far cot, hands clasped in front of them, wings tucked in tight. Thick wool cloaks hung open over leathers that didn’t quite fit right yet—the kind issued to new trainees. You recognized them immediately.

“Good morning,” you said, as gently as you could, wiping your hands.

They straightened a little, eyes brightening. The younger one ducked her head, her dark plait slipping over her shoulder.

“We didn’t mean to be in the way,” she said. “Madja said we could wait.”

“You’re not in the way,” you replied. “Are you here for follow-up?”

The older sister nodded, shifting her weight. “They said we should come back. Make sure it healed right.” She hesitated, then added, “You fixed it faster than anyone thought you could.”

You gestured to the cot, smiling softly. “Sit, then. Let me have a look.”

She eased onto the edge, unlacing her sleeve to reveal a forearm that had once been a ruin of torn flesh and bruised bone. Now, the skin was whole. A pale, shiny scar mapped a path along the outside, but the muscle under your hand felt strong and knit.

Your magic rose the moment you touched her, a soft, eager rush up your arm. You guided it along the old wound, checking for weak spots, places where healing had gone too fast or uneven. It found none. It lingered there anyway, like it liked the feeling of mended flesh.

You kept your voice even. “Any pain?”

“Only when Cassian makes us hit the dummies too hard,” she said, trying for wry and mostly managing it.

A corner of your mouth lifted. “That will do it.”

The younger sister shifted closer. “We wanted to say thank you,” she blurted, as if she’d been holding it in the whole time. “Properly.”

“You already did,” you said, surprised.

She shook her head. Strands of hair escaped her braid, curling damply against her cheek. “No. We said words. We didn’t know if we’d see you again. But now we’re here, and you’re here and…” She glanced at her sister. “We just wanted you to know we remember. That’s all.”

The older one nodded, gaze steady on your face. “My sister would have died without you.” Her tone didn’t tremble. That made it worse. “We won’t forget.”

Your throat felt thick for a moment. You swallowed against it.

“You did the hard part,” you said softly. “You kept her steady.”

They exchanged a look at that, something that passed between them too quickly for you to read. Then the older one slipped her sleeve back down and stood.

“We’ll get out of your way,” she said. “There’s training.”

“Tell Cassian,” Madja called without looking up from her herbs, “that if he breaks my patients again, I will make him my assistant for a week.”

The younger sister choked on a laugh. “Yes, Madja.”

You watched them go, a small, quiet warmth unfolding low in your chest. When you glanced down, you realized your hands were faintly flushed, as if someone had held them in hot water for too long.

Madja’s gaze flicked up just once, catching your fingers.

“Running warm today,” she muttered. “Try not to set anyone on fire.”

“I’ll do my best,” you muttered back.

The morning settled into its usual rhythm. Patients came and went, a steady tide of small injuries and stubborn ailments. A jar rattled once on a high shelf when you reached for it—rolling an inch toward your fingers before you touched it. A bandage roll unspooled itself halfway across the table when you turned your back. You rewound it swiftly, heart thrumming, pretending your skin didn’t prickle with the sense of being watched by something that lived inside you.

By the time Cassian barged in, the air in the wing had taken on that particular thickness it got when everyone had been breathing the same recycled worry for too many hours.

He had a recruit slung half under one arm, the poor male’s face caught somewhere between mortification and pain. Cassian looked entirely too cheerful.

“He flew into a tree,” Cassian said. “At speed.”

“I was dodging a spear,” the recruit protested weakly.

“You were dodging common sense,” Cassian replied.

Nesta followed them in, a storm cloud in human form, a book tucked under one arm and a small cloth bag dangling from her fingers. She took one look at the recruit and said, “Idiot,” in a tone of such bored finality that he seemed to deflate.

You tried not to smile as you beckoned them toward the nearest cot. “Up,” you said to the recruit. “Let me see.”

He obeyed with the resigned air of someone who knew he had made at least three poor decisions in the last hour. His shoulder was already swelling, the joint pushed slightly out of place. You set your hand carefully over the joint, felt the angry strain of stretched ligaments, the misalignment of bone.

Your magic rose sharply, eager at the taste of damage. You pulled it back to a gentler flow, coaxing rather than flooding, easing the joint back into place with a practiced, steady push. The recruit hissed through his teeth. Nesta did not look away from her book.

“You’re fine,” she said. “I’ve had paper cuts that hurt worse.”

Cassian snorted. “That’s because you attack your books.”

“I respect my books,” she said primly. “They’re just not fragile.”

You bit down a laugh as you finished your work, the last of the swelling already starting to recede under your palm. When you stepped back, the recruit rolled his arm experimentally and blinked.

“That’s...better,” he said, wonder creeping into his voice. “Thank you.”

“You’ll be sore,” you warned. “No flying drills tomorrow.”

Cassian pulled a horrified face. “You’re killing me.”

“I’m saving you from more paperwork,” you replied, patting his shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

Nesta stepped forward, and you jolted a little when you realized she was holding the cloth bag out to you.

“Tea,” she said. “For headaches.”

You took it carefully, fingers brushing the back of her hand. “Thank you.”

She shrugged one shoulder, eyes dropping to her book again. “If you fall over, you’ll be useless,” she said. “That’s all.”

Cassian’s grin softened around the edges. You pretended not to notice.

The recruit left. Madja grumbled something about reckless Illyrian bones. Cassian and Nesta drifted out in their own orbit of bickering and affection, leaving you with a half-lulled quiet and the faint smell of whatever Nesta had tucked into that little bag.

You didn’t have long to enjoy it.

The door banged open again, though this time with considerably more grace. Mor swept in like a sunbeam with arms, a length of evergreen garland over one shoulder and a roll of colored ribbon under the other. Feyre followed with a wooden box in her hands, the edges of it carved with small stars. Elain came last, balancing a tray that smelled like honey and spice and warmth.

“Look what we brought you,” Mor sang, as if she were delivering contraband.

“I brought organization,” Feyre said dryly, setting the box on the nearest table.

“I brought bread,” Elain added, as if that were a kind of magic in itself.

The room felt instantly warmer, and not just because the garland smelled like pine and the tray was steaming. Mor beelined for you, dropping the ribbon roll on a clear spot and reaching up to tug playfully at a loose piece of your hair.

“Look at you,” she said. “You do own something that isn’t a healer’s robe.”

You swatted halfheartedly at her hand. “The House is conspiring with you.”

“As it should,” she replied loftily.

Feyre opened the box, revealing neat stacks of narrow wooden lantern frames, each one waiting to be assembled. Thin parchment squares lay tucked beside them, along with bundles of fine ribbon—the kind that would catch the light when it bobbed along the river.

“We’re finishing the lantern work today,” she said, glancing up at you. “More this year than usual. For more names.”

There was a quiet there, under the words. You heard it and didn’t ask.

Elain placed the tray down and moved to untie one of the bundles of ribbon. “We thought…” She hesitated, then smiled at you, soft as always. “We thought you might like to add some. If there’s anyone you’d want to remember.”

You hadn’t known you could go from warm to hollow that quickly. The shape of two names sat heavy, the grief wrapped around your ribs. Your fingers tightened on the edge of the table. The ribbon blurred in your vision for a heartbeat.

“Anyone at all,” Feyre said gently. “There’s no limit.”

You forced your throat to work. Forced your lips to shape something that wouldn’t alarm them.

“I don’t…” You cleared your throat. Tried again. “I don’t have any names.” The lie tasted like iron.

Elain’s eyes softened with a kind of sympathy she thought appropriate—loneliness, perhaps, or the ache of being new to a place where everyone else had history. Feyre’s hand found your arm, thumb brushing once, grounding.

Cassian, who had drifted back in at some point, clapped a hand over his heart. “Then we’ll light a dozen for you,” he said. “Whole sky for whoever-you-don’t-have.”

You managed a weak smile at that. It probably fooled everyone but one person.

Mor had gone very still, eyeing you carefully. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t step in, didn’t cut the moment, didn’t push. But her eyes were on your face with a keenness that made you want to look away.

You did, eventually. You made some excuse about checking the stores before Solstice. Something about bandages and ointments. Feyre let you go with another squeeze to your arm. Elain pressed a piece of honey bread into your free hand. Cassian made a joke about hiding extra lanterns behind Rhys’s back.

The moment thinned, stretched, looked away.

You stepped out of the healing wing and into the cooler hallway, the air immediately feeling too big around you. You took one breath, then another, and headed for the nearest door that would lead you outside.

The House didn’t fight you. It opened the path like it understood.

You needed air. That was all.

Air, and a place to hold your grief where no one could see it.

The door onto the front steps swung inward on a sigh of cold, and you slipped through, the sound of voices from inside fading behind you as the winter bit gently at your cheeks.

You stood there, arms wrapped around yourself, looking out over the city and the faint shimmer of the wards, and tried very hard not to think of blank lantern ribbons and names you couldn’t bring yourself to write.

Azriel wasn’t looking for you.

He told himself that more than once as he moved along the upper walkway, the cold biting clean through the thin layer of sweat still drying on his skin from drills. His shadows kept close to him against the winter wind, circling low at his heels like restless dogs.

He should have gone straight inside. He should have kept walking. He should have returned Elain’s soft, grateful smile to his thoughts, the one she’d given him moments earlier as she pressed a parcel into his hands.

But the city had gone quieter in that particular way it sometimes did before snow, and when he lifted his head to check the wards, he saw you. Standing alone on the front steps. Wrapped in your coat, arms drawn tight around yourself, that loose piece of hair the wind kept tugging free.

Your shoulders had a line to them he didn’t recognize—too still, too tense, too careful. He paused. He didn’t mean to. Didn’t intend to let his feet still or his shadows lift their attention from the walkway. But his body recognized something before his mind did, the way it sometimes did in battle: danger not to him, but to someone else.

He took half a step forward before forcing himself to stop.

Your head dipped toward the city, toward the shimmering river of lantern lights winding through the streets as Solstice crept closer. The wards pulsed faintly underfoot, responding to emotion as much as magic, and something in him tightened at the way the pulse seemed to echo the aching hollow across you.

He wasn’t supposed to look. He wasn’t supposed to linger. Rhys would have teased him mercilessly if he realized Azriel had hesitated over anyone like this. But you exhaled—slow, quiet, like someone trying to keep the sound from breaking—and his shadows stilled. Entirely.

Then they felt it. Before he did. A shift in the air behind you. Two signatures, familiar ones.

Azriel’s head snapped up just as the Illyrian women from the camps approached you. His pulse hitched. He stayed in place, not moving, not interfering, only watching. But every shadow he possessed lifted, drawn to the recognition in the women’s voices.

“We heard what they asked you,” one of them said gently as they reached you. “About the lanterns.”

Your spine went rigid. Almost imperceptibly, but Azriel saw it. You tried for a small smile, one he knew all too well. Something polite to cover something sharp.

The women didn’t buy it.

Before he could think to turn away, the older one reached for your hand. Slow. Careful. Giving you a chance to refuse.

You didn’t.

Azriel felt that echo in his chest again—an ache, maybe. Something he didn’t have a name for. He tried to breathe through it.

“If you don’t have names,” she murmured, “you can use ours. We’ve lost too many friends this year.”

The wind brushed your hair across your face as your breath hitched. Azriel had to lock his knees to keep from moving. Then, softly, the one still grasping your hand slipped something over your wrist.

A bracelet. Woven. Knotted in an old Illyrian style. Dyed thread in colors that meant protection, remembrance, honor.

Azriel’s heart stopped. Illyrians did not gift lightly. They did not gift outside their ranks unless the meaning ran deep. He knew the weight of those knots, the quiet oath woven into every strand.

He couldn’t drag his eyes from you. You looked down at the bracelet with something bright and devastated flickering across your face, and his chest went tight enough to hurt. Then your magic stirred. Not bright, not dangerous, just a soft flare beneath your skin, warm enough that the air itself seemed to shift around your hand.

The younger one inhaled sharply. Not in fear. In something that sounded an awful lot like wonder.

“You feel safe,” she whispered.

Azriel’s shadows recoiled. Not in rejection, but in recognition. His pulse thundered once, hard, as if his body wanted to answer for him.

You thanked them softly, voice thick, and when one of them leaned in to hug you, you let her, embracing her back. Your hair slipped loose again, brushing your cheek, and the sight of it—so gentle, so unguarded—did something uncomfortable to his breathing.

He stepped back. Not far. Just enough to vanish into the corner of the path, shadows cloaking him out of instinct.

He wasn’t hiding. He was retreating. Because he didn’t know what the tight, twisting feeling in his ribs meant. Didn’t know why seeing you receive an Illyrian gift felt like someone had reached inside his chest and rearranged something. Didn’t know why your grief—quiet, private, unseen by everyone but him—had hit him harder than anything in weeks.

He just knew he couldn’t stand there a second longer. Not without giving something away.

He turned sharply and disappeared into the walkway, steps fast, breath uneven. But the image followed him.

The bracelet, brightly colored around your wrist. Your magic flickering warm. The way you stood alone on the steps before anyone reached you, as if the world had gone quiet and left you in it.

Azriel scrubbed a hand over his face. This wasn’t his business. You weren’t his responsibility. He didn’t owe you his attention, his worry, or whatever the hell this feeling was curling hot and unwelcome in his chest.

But the truth pressed up against him anyway. He couldn’t unsee any of it. Not the bracelet. Not the grief hidden behind your careful mask. Not the way something in him had recognized you in that moment with a clarity that frightened him.

His shadows quivered around his boots. He didn’t tell them to stop.

⸻

The House was silent by the time Azriel reached his room.

Not quiet. Silent. That particular hush the wards fell into only when everyone inside was asleep or trying very hard to convince themselves they were.

He stood with his hand on the doorknob for a full minute before turning it. His shadows slipped inside ahead of him, scouting the corners, brushing the walls, but not out of habit. Out of agitation. They were wound tight, anxious in a way he almost never felt from them.

He shut the door behind him and leaned back against it, letting his head fall against the wood with a soft thud. For a long moment, he didn’t move. He just breathed. Slowly. Deliberately. Like he was calming himself after a fight.

It didn’t work.

The bracelet lived behind his eyes, as vivid as if it had been burned into his vision. So did you. Standing alone on the steps, hair slipping loose over your face, grief tightening your posture in ways no one else would have noticed.

His jaw flexed. He pushed off the door and paced. Not gracefully, not quietly. His steps were too sharp, too clipped, as if he were trying to outrun something he’d carried in with him. His shadows followed, restless as a storm front, circling his ankles, flicking at the hem of his shirt, brushing his wings in short, agitated bursts.

“Enough,” he muttered.

They stilled. Not obedient, not chastened. Just like they were waiting, listening.

Azriel scrubbed a hand over his face and dragged it back through his hair until he could feel the slight sting against his scalp. He didn’t know what he was feeling. That was the worst part. He could identify every type of pain in existence. He knew how to map a wound. He knew how to dissect fear. He’d lived long enough to recognize longing, anger, despair, guilt.

This was none of those. This was—

He stopped pacing. He stared at the wall as if it held answers.

This was something sharp and quiet and unwelcome. Something that had curled low beneath his ribs the moment those Illyrian women slipped the bracelet onto your wrist and held onto you as though you were one of their own. Something that had scraped against his breath when they’d called you safe.

And something that had dragged at him when your expression had cracked for that brief, unguarded heartbeat. He’d wanted to go to you. To say something, do something. He didn’t know what. He didn’t like that.

Azriel turned toward the window, pulled the curtain aside, and stared out into the night. The Sidra glimmered faintly, lantern lights reflecting off the surface even from this height. Snow threatened the horizon, a low smear of silver-blue clouds over the mountains.

You were somewhere in the House. Probably asleep. Or trying to be.

He felt that knowledge like a thread pulled taut. His shadows moved again, drifting toward the door, nosing under it, testing the air in the hallway. His chest tightened.

“No,” he said softly.

They froze, mid-lilt. He shut his eyes. He didn’t check on people. He didn’t hover. He was careful with boundaries, yours most of all. You’d been kind to him since the moment you arrived in this Court, gentler with him than most, but never pushing. Never prying. Never asking for anything he wasn’t willing to give.

You didn’t deserve him standing outside your door like some restless, overprotective—

His jaw clenched. He pushed the shadows away from the threshold. They retreated, slow and unhappy, curling back around him in thin ribbons. He sat on the edge of the bed, braced his elbows on his knees and pressed his hands together hard enough that his knuckles whitened.

Your face kept rising in his mind. Not the healer’s calm you usually wore. Not even the soft smile you gave others so easily. The version he’d seen today. The version you’d tried to hide. He’d never meant to witness that. Some things were supposed to be private. He knew the shape of that kind of grief too well to intrude on it.

He exhaled, long and quiet. He should have walked past, should have ignored it. He should have let the moment belong to you alone. He didn’t know why he hadn’t.

His shadows flicked against his wings, gentle this time. Almost comforting. He opened his hands. A faint tremor ran through them. He ignored it.

He undressed slowly, mechanically, boots one at a time, gloves placed neatly on the nightstand. His siphons glowed faint blue in the low light before dimming.

Routine. Order. Control. It had always worked before.

He crawled into bed and lay on his back. The ceiling stared back at him. The House was silent again. Silent enough that he could hear the soft hum of the wards woven into the stone.

And then something shifted. Not loudly. Not visibly. Just a faint ripple through the magic threaded into the walls.

Not danger. Not even alarm. Something more akin to distress.

His breath caught. It didn’t come from the mountain. Not the city. Not the wards outside. It came from inside the House. Close. Too close.

Azriel’s eyes snapped open. His shadows rose instantly, alert, sweeping the space around him, scanning, searching. They tasted the air. They whispered the impression back to him—

You.

Not screaming, not crying, not in any outward physical pain. Just...overwhelmed. Emotions drawn in too tight, breath too quick, pulse uneven enough that the wards whispered it to anyone sensitive enough to feel it.

He sat up so fast the blankets tangled around his hips. His feet touched the floor. His hand hit the bedpost. And then he froze.

For a full, agonizing breath, he stayed there, half-standing, muscles locked, caught between instinct and restraint.

He shouldn’t go. He shouldn't. He knew that. You were strong. Capable. Fiercely private with your grief. And whatever you were feeling wasn’t danger; it was memory. Like something from the past had its hooks in you. A wound that you hadn't let anyone see, anyone touch.

He exhaled, shaky. His fingers slowly loosened on the bedpost. He didn’t move toward the door, didn’t go to check on you. He stood in the dark, jaw tight, chest aching with something he still refused to name, and let the House settle around him again.

But he didn’t sleep. Not even when dawn broke pale and silver over the mountains. Not even when the shadows finally lay still. Not even when your heartbeat softened again into steadiness.

Azriel lay awake in the dim quiet, staring at the ceiling as the wards hummed low and steady around the House, one thought circling him like a predator he couldn’t outrun:

Something was changing. In you. In him.

And he was already too late to stop it.

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The Echo Beneath The Skin

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You woke with the sense that the night hadn’t quite let go of you.

For a moment you weren’t sure why. The ceiling above you was the same pale stone, faintly lit by the last glow of the faelights. The air carried the familiar chill of early morning, edged with the clean scent of the river drifting up from far below. Your blanket lay in a soft heap around your waist, warm where your body had been, cool where you’d kicked it away.

Then you flexed your fingers. The warmth was still there. Not the fever-bright thrum from the sitting room, not the too-hot rush from the night before. This was quieter. A smoulder rather than a flare, sitting low beneath your skin like embers covered in ash. Awake. Waiting.

You exhaled slowly, watching the faint cloud of your breath dissolve in the dimness.

The House stirred around you as if in answer. The faelights brightened a shade, casting a gentle amber over your room. The floor warmed beneath where your feet would fall before you even moved them, like it was bracing to catch you.

“Good morning,” you murmured, and your voice rasped in a way that made it sound like an apology.

You swung your legs over the side of the bed, sinking into the warmed stone, and sat there a moment longer than you needed to. Your head ached faintly behind your eyes, the dull sort of ache that came from sleep heavy with dreams you couldn’t quite remember. Your magic felt…attentive. Not agitated. Not calm. Simply listening.

You made yourself stand anyway.

The House had left out a soft sweater for you at the foot of the bed—dark blue, sleeves a little too long, the kind Mor favored. Leggings lay folded neatly beside it. Someone, or something, had finally taken the hint that you couldn’t live in healer’s robes every day for the rest of eternity.

You smiled despite the heaviness in your chest and tugged the clothes on, letting the knit fall loose over your hips. You braided your hair over one shoulder by the small alcove bench, fingers brushing the leather spine of your journal without opening it.

Not yet.

You weren’t sure you wanted to see what you’d written to them last night, in the bleeding edge of exhaustion and stupid, aching honesty.

The corridor outside your room was quiet. The House brightened the faelights in a soft trail as you walked, coaxing you toward the dining level with the smell of tea and something sweet. Your steps echoed faintly down the stairwell, accompanied by the muffled hum of voices.

You paused just outside the archway and took a breath, smoothing your hands down the sweater as if that would press whatever was too visible back under your skin.

Then you stepped in. The world met you with warmth and noise.

Cassian was already at the table, somehow managing to occupy twice as much space as his actual body required. He was arguing with Nesta over the correct way to slice bread, which seemed to involve more jesting violence than the task justified. Nesta sat with her spine straight and her hair braided back, completely unmoved by his theatrics, though the faintest hint of amusement touched her mouth when he wasn’t looking.

Mor was perched on the edge of a chair, one leg tucked under her, gesturing dramatically with half a pastry as she told Feyre some story about Rita’s and an unfortunate set of stairs. Feyre listened with her chin propped in her hand, eyes bright, a slow smile spreading as Mor hit the climax.

Rhys lounged beside her, entirely too pleased with himself for someone who looked like he’d only just stopped drafting decrees. Elain slipped in from the terrace with a small vase in her hands, filled with something delicate and pale blooming despite the chill.

And at the far end of the table, half in the shadow of the tall window, sat Azriel.

His plate was mostly untouched. A mug of something dark steamed gently near his hand. He sat very straight, as if rigor alone could keep him awake, shadows lazily curling and uncurling along the back of his chair.

He looked up when you entered.

It was quick. A flicker. The kind of glance most people wouldn’t notice. But his eyes caught yours for a heartbeat, just long enough for you to see the subtle shift in his expression, the slightest easing around his mouth.

Then he looked away, as if nothing had happened.

“Morning,” Mor called, catching sight of you. “There she is. Our resident miracle worker.” Her gaze swept over you, from the loose braid to the sweater to the lack of healer’s robe. She grinned. “The House has excellent taste.”

You tugged at the hem, cheeks warming. “Good morning.”

You took your usual place halfway down the table, where you could see the balcony and the glittering line of the Sidra beyond. A mug of tea appeared by your elbow a moment later, steam curling in the cool air. You murmured your thanks to the House, earning a pleased flick of faelight in response.

Mor leaned over to kiss your cheek in greeting as she snagged another pastry. Her hand brushed yours for the briefest moment. Her eyes dipped to your fingers.

“Sleep okay?” she asked, light as ever, but the question slipped between words like a blade between ribs.

“Fine,” you said automatically.

Mor looked at you a fraction too long for that to be entirely believed. Then she smiled, bright as sunshine, and let the conversation sweep her up again.

You wrapped your hands around the mug and tried not to notice how your palms made the ceramic feel warmer than it should.

Breakfast spun itself out in familiar lines—Cassian stealing food off Nesta’s plate and getting stabbed with a fork for his trouble, Rhys making some smug comment about court politics that earned him twin eyerolls from both Mor and Feyre, Elain quietly arranging her flowers in the middle of the table. The warmth of it sank into your bones, slow and hesitant, like your body didn’t quite trust that you were allowed to relax here.

Solstice came up the way weather did: inevitable and lightly argued.

“Just one,” Feyre was saying, tapping her finger on the table. “We agreed. One tree. Not three. The House doesn’t need one in every room.”

“The House disagrees,” Mor countered. “The House respects the sanctity of festive excess.”

A plate beside you shifted slightly, as if nudged by invisible hands. You tried not to laugh.

Cassian shrugged innocently. “I’m just saying, the more trees, the more surfaces for hanging things. Swords, decorations, Illyrian commanders—”

“You’re not hanging from the ceiling again,” Nesta cut in, voice flat. “Last year you broke two beams and a candelabra.”

Cassian put a hand to his chest. “That candelabra attacked me.”

Rhys’s lips curved. “The candelabra was stationary.”

“Emotionally, it was aggressive,” Cassian insisted.

Elain’s soft laugh slipped out, warm and bell-like. “It did fall very dramatically.”

Solstice, you thought. You remembered frost on the windows of the apothecary back home. The way your mother would wrap a shawl around all three of you and squeeze onto the worn little bench outside to watch the first snow fall. No gifts, not really. Just a loaf of slightly sweeter bread if there’d been enough coin that week. Your father taking your cold hands in his and breathing on them until you could feel all ten fingers again.

You remembered their faces in the glow of your old world’s small hearth and something inside your chest gave a quiet, painful twist.

“Will you help me with the river lanterns?” Feyre’s voice cut gently through the noise, turned toward you. “We’re doing more this year. For… everyone Velaris has lost.”

Your throat tightened.

You smiled before the ache could show. Soft. Practiced. The kind you were very good at offering when you didn’t trust your voice.

You nodded.

“That sounds beautiful,” you said, and it almost didn’t crack.

Feyre smiled back, accepting it for what it was. Rhys’s gaze flicked between the two of you, but he didn’t push.

“First Solstice with us,” Mor said, bumping your shoulder lightly. “We’re going to make it ridiculous.”

You made a sound that was close enough to a laugh if you didn’t count the hollow echo of it.

Your fingers tightened around your mug until your knuckles pressed white against the ceramic.

Azriel’s eyes were on you.

You felt it, even without looking. A prickle along the side of your face, the awareness of being watched and weighed and seen. The silence around him sharpened. His shadows stilled.

You couldn’t bear it.

“I should check supplies in the healing wing,” you said lightly as you rose, smoothing your sweater. “If Solstice is coming, people will find new ways to injure themselves.”

Cassian grinned. “That’s a threat.”

“It’s a prediction,” you replied, managing something wry. “You leave stairs and wine in the same house, and patterns emerge.”

They laughed. The sound followed you to the doorway, warm and easy and genuine.

You slipped out before anyone could notice that your smile dropped the moment you turned away.

If anyone watched you go—if Azriel’s gaze tracked you until you vanished around the curve of the hall—you didn’t see it.

⸻

The healing wing felt oddly empty that morning.

The beds were made, sheets tucked with Madja’s uncanny precision. The tall windows let in pale light that made everything look sharper, brighter edges on the cabinets, colder gleam on the metal instruments. The familiar smell of herbs and tonic greeted you as you hung your satchel on its hook and rolled up your sleeves.

The warmth in your hands hadn’t faded.

You washed them thoroughly anyway, scrubbing until the skin reddened. The water ran clear. No light leaked out, no gold, no shimmer. Just the ordinary drip of liquid into the basin.

“Late,” Madja said mildly from her desk.

You glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s barely past eight.”

Her spectacles slid down her nose as she peered at you over the rims. “Late,” she repeated, then flicked a hand toward a chart. “Sprained wrist. Tripped over his own ego on the training ring.”

The patient—young, wide-eyed, and built of pure Illyrian panic—sat rigid on the nearest cot, cradling his arm. You smiled, gentle, and reached out.

Your magic surged to meet you.

Not explosively. Just first. Before you’d consciously decided how much to use. It flowed up, eager as a hound lurching on its leash. You wrestled it down to something more appropriate for tendon and muscle, guiding the warmth into strained ligaments and stressed bone. The boy hissed softly as the heat sank in, then blinked in surprise at the easy relief.

“Better?” you asked.

He twisted his wrist cautiously. “Yes. Thank you.”

You nodded, stepping back. The buzz in your hands lingered, stronger than it should have been for such a simple thing.

Madja watched you over the top of her file. She didn’t say a word.

Patients trickled in and out as the morning wore on. Minor training injuries. A cook who’d cut his thumb in a rush. A painter with cramped fingers. You patched and soothed and worked, moving from bed to bed with the familiarity of routine.

Your magic came quickly every time. Too quickly. You kept your hands steady. Kept your breathing even. Kept your face calm enough that no one had reason to ask questions.

At one point, as you turned to retrieve a jar from a high shelf, the glass rattled violently in place and slid an inch toward the edge. You snatched it before it tipped over, heart lurching. The air still shimmered faintly where your hand had been. Like heat on stone. Like wards humming.

You set the jar down carefully. Behind you, in the doorway, Mor leaned one shoulder against the frame, watching you. Her gaze flicked to the jar, then to your hand, then back to your face.

“You’re in demand today,” she said lightly. “I had to bribe the House with the promise of future cake to get it to tell me where you were.”

The words were easy. The eyes weren’t.

“I’m just working,” you replied, smoothing your palms down your robe. “It’s what I do.”

“Mm,” Mor said. She pushed away from the door, striding into the room with her usual effortless grace. “Well, I need you to do something else, for at least an hour.”

“Mor—”

“Ah,” she cut in. “Before you say ‘I’m needed here,’ Madja already said you’re no good to her if you fall asleep standing up. Her words, not mine.”

As if on cue, Madja grunted from her desk. “Go. Before you start trying to heal paper cuts out of boredom.”

You opened your mouth, then shut it again. You were tired—sore around the edges in a way that rest hadn’t quite fixed. The idea of leaving the wing made your chest flutter uneasily, like you were abandoning something important. Like if you weren’t here, someone might need you and you’d miss it.

Mor must have read that thought on your face. Her hand found your forearm, fingers warm and steady.

“You know they survived a few centuries without you,” she said gently. “You’re allowed to walk in the sun.”

You let out a breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. “Just an hour.”

“That’s all I ask,” she said, and tugged you toward the door.

⸻

The city was softer than yesterday.

Clouds had drawn thin veils over the sharp blue sky, turning the light diffuse, like it was filtered through milk. Velaris still thrummed, but gently, a hum rather than a buzz, with shopkeepers rolling out awnings and children darting between stalls, their laughter echoing down the cobbled streets.

You’d pulled your sweater back on before leaving, wrapping your cloak over it. Mor had fussed with the collar until it sat just right, then declared you presentable enough to be seen with her.

“Not that you weren’t before,” she’d said as you both stepped through the winnow onto a quiet street by the Sidra. “But if I don’t at least make you put on something that doesn’t smell like ointment, the city will start spreading rumors that I’ve lost my edge.”

“Perish the thought,” you murmured.

Mor looped her arm through yours as you walked, steering you toward the market square. Your boots scuffed softly against the stone. The river gleamed to your left, its surface catching the light in small, patient flashes.

“Solstice decorations are starting,” Mor observed, nodding toward a cluster of fae hanging lengths of evergreen over a doorway. “Soon this whole place will look like a tree exploded.”

You smiled faintly. “That sounds…festive.”

Mor glanced sidelong at you. “That sounded like someone describing a funeral as ‘a nice gathering.’”

You tried to muster something warmer, but the knot in your chest only tightened. The smell of pine, the hints of spice and sugar from nearby stalls. It all reached back into your memory and wrapped cold fingers around the throat of it.

Your voice came out softer than you meant. “I’m just…not used to it, is all.”

Mor didn’t press. She changed the subject with the ease of long practice. She dragged you through a jewelry stall, insisting you try on earrings she had absolutely no intention of letting you pay for. She bought pastries the size of your hand and buttered them for you while you protested that you’d already eaten. She told you an outrageous story about Eris that made your skin crawl and laugh at the same time.

But she never stopped watching you. Not obviously. Not in a way that smothered. Just, checking. Measuring the set of your shoulders, the way your smile dipped when Solstice came up in passing, the too-careful way you spoke when people mentioned family gatherings and traditions.

At one point, she slowed your pace near the river, where the path opened wide and the water ran close enough to touch if you leaned over the low wall.

“You know,” she said, biting into her pastry and squinting thoughtfully at the far bank, “you’re allowed to not be excited.”

You looked at her, startled. “About…?”

“Solstice,” Mor said. “The noise. The expectations. The whole ‘everyone be happy at the same time’ madness.” Her mouth quirked. “It’s overrated.”

“I’m not unhappy,” you said quickly. Reflexively.

Mor’s gaze softened. “I didn’t say you were.”

The river slid silently by, catching the washed-out sky on its surface.

You exhaled, breath frosting faintly in the air. “I just don’t…have the same memories as everyone else, I suppose.”

“Mm,” Mor hummed, not filling the quiet. Not demanding more.

You offered it anyway, because it felt rude not to, because the words pressed so hard against your teeth sometimes that keeping them in felt worse than letting a few slip past.

“We didn’t have much,” you said. “Back home. For Solstice.” The word tasted strange. Mortal, somehow, even though it was the same one they used here. “Sometimes we had enough for sweet bread. Sometimes we didn’t. We’d sit outside and watch the snow until our fingers went numb. My parents would pretend they weren’t cold.” You huffed a small breath. “We didn’t need decorations. Just…being together was enough.”

Mor was still beside you. Thoughtful.

You shook your head, forcing a smile. “It’s silly. I’m lucky to be here. To have this. I just—I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else by…not being excited enough.”

Mor’s arm tightened around yours. “You couldn’t ruin it if you tried.”

You glanced at her. “You don’t know that.”

“Oh, I do,” she said. “Trust me. If anyone here can ruin Solstice, it’s Rhys. Or Cassian. Or Az if he glares too hard at the decorations.” She tipped her head against yours briefly. “You being quiet isn’t ruinous. It’s just honest. They can survive a little honesty.”

You swallowed. The ache in your chest didn’t vanish, but it shifted—less like a blade, more like the sore spot left behind after one was removed.

She didn’t ask you for more. You didn’t offer more. The moment settled between you like a small, fragile thing.

“Come on,” Mor said after a while, voice bright again. “If I get you back to the House without buying at least one ridiculous thing, Cassian will say I’m losing my touch.”

She tugged you toward a stall glittering with tiny glass baubles, each one catching the dim light and breaking it into small, stubborn stars.

You didn’t realize you’d paused in front of a set shaped like little suns until Mor followed your gaze.

She didn’t comment. She just bought one and tucked it into your cloak pocket without saying anything at all.

⸻

By the time you returned to the House, the day had tipped fully toward afternoon. The sky outside the high windows had gone pale, the light stretched thin across the mountains. The House greeted you with a rush of warm air and the comforting crackle of a fire somewhere down the hall.

You parted ways with Mor at the landing, promising you’d try not to fall asleep sitting upright in a chair again.

She kissed your temple and said, “If you do, I’ll just bring you a blanket.”

The words stayed with you as you walked the long corridor toward your room. You didn’t make it that far. They found you first.

You heard them in the small sitting room halfway down—voices low, chairs scraping, the rustle of paper. It was meant to be a quiet space, all low couches and shelves of forgotten books, a place for lingering rather than talking.

You stepped in to find Feyre and Elain at the table beneath the main window, Nyx bundled in a bassinet nearby, sorting through small, hand-carved wooden lantern frames. Rhys leaned against the mantel, hands in his pockets, watching his mate with a look that made you feel like an intruder even when he wasn’t saying a word.

Feyre looked up when you entered. Her smile warmed. “Perfect timing,” she said. “We were just talking about lantern designs.”

“For the river,” Elain added, fingers gentle as she arranged the little frames. “We thought…more names this year. More lights.”

Your throat closed.

“Only if you want to,” Feyre added quickly. “You don’t have to help. I just thought—” She hesitated, searching your face. “I thought you might like to be involved.”

You walked closer, drawn despite yourself. The little frames were delicate things—simple, elegant, awaiting parchment and paint and the names of the dead.

You picked one up, running your thumb along the smooth edge. For a moment, your mind filled the empty panels with script you hadn’t written. Names you hadn’t spoken aloud in far too long.

You set it down carefully.

“I’d like that,” you said, and the words were honest, even if they scraped on the way out.

Elain’s smile was soft and sympathetic in a way that made you feel flayed. She didn’t know. She couldn’t. And still, somehow, she looked at you like she understood what it was to lose the shape of your life all at once.

Rhys’s attention brushed yours, like a hand hovering just above your shoulder. You felt the question there, held back—Are you alright?—and the deliberate choice not to speak it aloud.

You gave them the same soft smile you’d been practicing all morning.

“I might need help,” you said. “I’ve never made a lantern before.”

Feyre’s eyes brightened. “You’re talking to the right person,” she said, nudging Elain.

Elain flushed faintly, ducking her head. “I…may have started without asking permission.”

On the table near her elbow, a few completed lanterns sat—simple and beautiful, each painted with small, careful details. Stars. Leaves. Little clusters of lavender.

You touched one with the tip of your finger and felt the world tip strangely in your chest. For a second, you were eight again, watching your mother’s hands thread dried flowers into twine to hang across the apothecary window, pretending it was decoration and not desperate hope that people would see it and come in.

Your nails bit into your palm.

“Well,” you managed. “I’m in good hands, then.”

Feyre squeezed your forearm lightly as she brushed past, heading toward the door. “Dinner in an hour,” she said. “Don’t let Elain work you too hard.”

“I won’t,” Elain promised. Then, once Feyre and Rhys had gone: “You don’t have to stay if it’s too much.”

You looked at her, surprised. “Too much?”

She looked down at the half-assembled lantern in front of her. “It hurts,” she said quietly, tracing the edge with her fingertip. “Thinking about why they’re needed. Sometimes I have to…stop. Before I fall apart in the middle of a room full of people who are excited about celebration.”

You swallowed. Something in you loosened at that, just a little. Enough to let you sit down, to pick up a brush, to let your hands move in small, careful strokes while your chest ached and your magic hummed and the world turned gently toward night.

⸻

You didn’t mean to find him alone.

You’d meant to go straight back to your room after dinner, to let the warmth of the meal and the steady hum of conversation sand down the sharp edges of the day. But the House nudged your feet a different direction when you weren’t paying attention, and your mind was still wrapped around lanterns and snow and the way Mor had tucked that tiny glass sun into your cloak pocket.

You thought you were headed for the balcony. You stepped instead into the quieter corridor near the training atrium, where one of the smaller sitting rooms opened onto a view of the mountains.

Azriel stood there, halfway between the window and the doorway, like he’d started to leave and then forgotten how.

His leathers were unbuckled, wings half spread as if he’d just come in from the cold and not decided whether to take them off. His hair looked slightly mussed, like he’d run a hand through it one too many times. Shadows clung closer than usual, gathered around his boots and the line of his shoulders.

He hadn’t heard you. Or if he had, he hadn’t reacted to it.

You could have turned around. You could have backed out the way you came, let the House redirect you to safety. You did not.

“Long day?” you asked instead, voice softer than you’d intended.

Azriel’s head turned. For a heartbeat his eyes were sharp, distant, the way they were on patrol. Then they focused fully, and you felt again that subtle shift, that barely visible easing at the edges.

“You could say that,” he said.

You stepped further into the room, letting the door whisper shut behind you. The air here felt cooler, touched by the mountain drafts that never quite surrendered to the House’s warmth.

He watched you, gaze flicking briefly to your hands before returning to your face. “You left quickly last night.”

You curled your fingers into your palms.

“I didn’t want to be in the way,” you said, choosing each word with care. “Madja hates when I loiter after a job’s done.”

It was a deflection. You both knew it. The moment Elain had stepped into that room, you’d felt like a piece in the wrong place on someone else’s board.

Azriel’s jaw flexed, barely. “You’re never in the way.”

You almost believed him. Almost.

“The House told me you were out with Mor today,” he said after a beat.

“Does it tell you everything?” you asked, trying to make light of it.

“Only when I ask,” he replied. There was no heat in it. Just honesty. His shadows shifted restlessly, like they wanted to contradict him. “Did you…enjoy it?”

There was something cautious in the question, like he was afraid of stepping wrong in a space he couldn’t see clearly.

“Yes,” you said. That, at least, was true. “She made me eat an obscene amount of pastries, though.”

One corner of his mouth tugged up. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was close. “Sounds like Mor.”

Silence stretched for a moment, not entirely uncomfortable, not entirely easy. You crossed your arms loosely, more to have somewhere to put your hands than out of any real defensive intent.

“Solstice preparations have begun,” he said finally, as if he needed to name the thing lurking at the edges of both your minds.

“So I’ve heard.”

He watched you. His eyes were sharp, but there was something cautious under the scrutiny, like he was trying to read a language he didn’t speak.

“You went quiet,” he said, almost an accusation and almost a question.

You swallowed. “It’s…a lot,” you said. “The noise. The excitement. I’ll adjust.”

It was easier than saying: I don’t know how to be happy about a celebration that reminds me of everything I lost.

His gaze flicked to the window, to the snowy peaks beyond, then back. “Your hands were shaking,” he said quietly. “At dinner.”

Your pulse stumbled.

“I’m fine,” you said. The lie tasted like iron.

He studied you for a long moment. Then he nodded, the movement minute.

“Okay,” he said softly.

You didn’t know if he believed you. You didn’t know if you wanted him to. One of his shadows crept forward then, slow and curious, slinking along the floor until it brushed the toe of your boot. You looked down, startled.

It retreated the instant your gaze touched it, slipping back behind his ankles like it had been caught doing something it shouldn’t.

Azriel’s expression flinched almost imperceptibly. He hadn’t meant for that to happen. The embarrassment in his eyes was sharp and brief, and threaded with something like regret.

You forced a small smile, made your voice light. “They’re braver than you are,” you said. “I don’t think you’ve come that close voluntarily.”

His eyes shot up to yours, something raw flashing across his face.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, and there was something about the way he said it—rough, like it had been dragged from somewhere deep—that made you feel suddenly, terrifyingly naked.

“You won’t,” you said quietly.

He looked at you a moment longer. Then, as if afraid he’d say too much if he stayed, he inclined his head.

“Get some rest,” he said. “Madja will hunt me down if I keep you on your feet past midnight.”

“You’re more afraid of Madja than you are of ancient monsters,” you replied.

“Madja is scarier,” he said without hesitation.

You almost laughed. Almost. You stepped aside to let him pass. His shoulder brushed the air an inch from yours, shadows trailing like cool smoke as he moved into the hall.

You didn’t see the way he looked back once, just before the doorway swallowed him.

⸻

You tried to write that night.

You lit a single faelight by the alcove bench and pulled your sweater tighter around you, though the House kept the air warm. The glass sun Mor had bought you sat on the sill, catching the faint glow and throwing it back in soft little reflections across the stone.

Your journal felt heavier than it had yesterday.

You opened to a fresh page and stared at the blank expanse until your eyes blurred.

Ink pooled at the tip of the pen when you finally touched it to paper.

I wish you could see Velaris, you wrote. You would have loved the lights.

That was as far as you got.

The memories rose too fast—the apothecary, the cold, your father’s laugh, your mother’s hands, the way their faces had crumpled when the war came crawling over the horizon. The letters you never got to send. The goodbye you never got to say.

You closed the book before the ink dried.

“Not tonight,” you whispered. To them. To yourself. To the House.

The faelight dimmed in sympathy.

You slid under the covers and lay on your side, watching the faint shadow of the glass sun on the wall until your eyes finally closed. Your magic hummed beneath your skin, no longer pushing, no longer flaring—just a steady, low current you couldn’t quite turn off.

Sleep dragged you under in fits and starts, more like drowning in shallow water than slipping into deep rest. Somewhere between one breath and the next, the House pulsed.

It was subtle. A shift in the wards that almost no one would have noticed. A quiet tightening, a recognition—like two notes almost, almost finding harmony.

You turned in your sleep, fingers curling against the sheet, and did not wake.

Azriel snapped upright in bed, heart pounding.

For a disorienting moment he didn’t know why. The room was dark but familiar—the sharp outline of the wardrobe, the glint of metal where his blades hung in ordered rows, the faint glow of faelight under the door. His shadows crowded close around him, agitated, edges bristling like they were startled.

“What,” he said quietly into the dark, “was that?”

They didn’t answer in words. They never did. They only pressed against him, restless, pulling his focus downward, as if something beneath them, beneath the stone, beneath the House itself, had shifted.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, bare feet silent on the floor. The wards pressed against his senses—a low, humming awareness. He’d slept under them for years. He knew their song.

Tonight, there was a new note in it.

His eyes dropped, without conscious thought, to the floor. To the direction of your room.

His jaw clenched. “No,” he muttered to himself. “You’re imagining things.”

Maybe he was.

He scrubbed a hand over his face and crossed to the window, shoving it open enough to let the cold night air bite his lungs. The city stretched below, quiet and glittering. The sky was clear. No danger. No threat. No excuse for the way his chest felt too tight.

His shadows curled against the glass, whispering in a language even he couldn’t fully translate. He stood there a long time, until the chill sank deep enough to numb his fingers. Until his heart slowed, if not fully calmed. Until the wards settled back into their usual, steady thrum.

Only then did he close the window and return to bed. He lay awake long after, eyes on the ceiling, listening to the House breathe.

Somewhere below, you slept fitfully, and he didn’t know why knowing that unsettled him more than any nightmare ever had.

If you’d like to be added to the taglist, let me know 🖤

Hello! By now, you all have discovered ‘The Bond That Breaks.’ Welcome, little sun 🖤

This is a story that accidentally grew teeth, claws, political intrigue, thirst, heartbreak, and more chapters than anyone (including the author—hi, that’s me!) expected. Also renamed myself, but that’s neither here nor there.

Before you continue, here’s what you need to know:

1. This fic is going to be LONG 🕯️

Not “oh, this is a chunky one-shot” long. No. We’re talking arc-based, 70+ chapter, actual novel-level long.

If you’re here for:

• worldbuilding

• emotional ruin

• slow-burn tension that physically hurts

• dark magic

• darker romance

• character arcs that take TIME

…then settle in. You’re in the right place.

2. This is a healing story AND a hurting story. There will be:

CW/TW can be found on the Masterlist (<- found here.)

• panic attacks

• trauma

• grief

• political danger

• near-death experiences

• magical evolution

• feral violence

• emotional miscommunication

• consequences

• and the messy reality of loving someone who doesn’t know how to love themselves yet.

But also:

• found family

• softness

• devotion

• comfort

• little moments that feel like home

• and an eventual romance that’s worth the burn.

3. This is a SLOW-BURN, DARK ROMANCE.

Again. Please check the CW/TW found on the Masterlist (<- found here.)

Meaning:

• jealousy

• obsession

• possessiveness

• a feral Azriel arc (you’ll know when we’re there)

• morally questionable “gray/black” decisions

• and enough tension to require a fire extinguisher.

There will be intimacy, but it’s a slow ascent. Not immediate spice. Explicit scenes will come later in the story, handled tastefully, safely, and consensually.

This story walks the line between dark magic and darker longing. There is ruin here. There is tenderness. There is obsession, violence, grief, and the kind of devotion that remakes you from the inside out.

Not smut. Not fluff. Not gentle.

A slow descent into a bond neither of you can break, and a rise toward something tender, earned, and devastating.

Enter carefully, little sun.

Some stories burn.

4. And above all?

Thank you for being here. For reading. For hopefully loving this story as much as I’m loving writing it. For screaming, crying, kicking, and feral-thirsting right along with me.

And to the Azriel girlies?

•

•

•

Good luck.

When The Night Stirs

previous | next | masterlist

You woke with your hands too warm.

Not in the way blankets trapped heat or dreams curled around you, but in the way a fever simmered. In the way magic sometimes did—soft, restless, as if it were pacing just beneath your skin and waiting for you to do something about it.

You lay there for a long moment, eyes on the ceiling, letting the quiet settle.

The House had dimmed the faelights overnight, reducing them to faint amber glows in the corners, like the last embers of a fire reluctant to die out. Morning pressed around the edges of your curtains in pale strokes, cool and hesitant. The air held that early-day chill, the kind Velaris was famous for just before the light climbed fully over the mountains.

When you flexed your fingers, the warmth pulsed again. A soft thrum. Not painful. Not bright.

Just…present.

You turned your palms up, inspecting them in the muted light. No glow. No halo. No crack of light beneath the skin. Just your hands, familiar, imperfect, and bearing the small mortal scars they’d always held. You exhaled slowly, curling them into fists just long enough for the warmth to settle.

The House coaxed you toward the edge of the bed with a gentle warming of the floorboards. When your feet hit the ground, the temperature eased immediately, as if saying: Come on, sweetheart. Up.

You dressed slowly—leggings, soft tunic, healer’s over-robe, boots that wouldn’t slip on polished stone. When you reached for the little alcove bench to braid your hair, your fingers paused on the leather-bound book waiting beneath the cushion.

Not now, you told yourself. Not when the day hasn’t even begun.

But your hand lingered on the spine all the same.

⸻

The corridor was still dim when you stepped out. The House brightened the faelights by the stairs in a soft cascade, guiding you gently toward the healing wing.

Madja was already there. Of course she was.

“You’re warm today,” she said, eyes sweeping you in a single, cutting assessment before returning to her files. “Warmer than usual.”

“I’m fine,” you said, washing your hands in the basin by habit.

“That wasn’t a question.”

Your mouth twitched despite the unease coiling under your ribs. Madja rarely asked questions she didn’t need answers to—and she never wasted time digging if she thought you weren’t ready to speak.

"Burn," Madja said, jerking her chin toward him. "Kitchen apprentice. Too curious about boiling sugar."

The boy couldn't have been more than sixteen. He watched you with flushed cheeks and wide eyes, torn between embarrassment and pain.

"It hurts," he said unnecessarily.

"I'd be worried if it didn't," you replied, gentle as you stepped closer. "May I?"

He extended his hand, fingers splayed. Angry, reddened skin marched over his palm and up his wrist, glossy with some hastily applied ointment that smelled like old fat and panic.

You set your palm just beneath the injury, not touching at first. Letting your magic reach out the way you'd been taught: careful, searching, following veins and capillaries, feeling where the flesh had blistered and where it was merely angry.

When it was done, the boy flexed his fingers with wide eyes. “Thank you,” he breathed.

“You’re welcome,” you said lightly, hoping your voice didn’t betray how your pulse hammered in your ears. Madja didn’t comment, but she watched you.

Not suspicious. Just…measuring.

The morning moved in its usual rhythm—patients, vials, tinctures, small injuries, bigger ones. Your magic answered every call with an eagerness that made your palms tingle. Not visible, not alarming, just…enthusiastic. Too ready. Too warm beneath your skin.

Twice, an item slid toward your hand before you touched it. No one noticed. But your breath caught each time.

Around midday, Cassian arrived with a recruit from the training ring who looked like he’d lost a fight to a well-placed elbow.

Cassian grinned like he was doing you a favor. “He needs stitching. I need moral support.”

“You need supervision,” Nesta called from behind him, her voice dry as winter air.

Cassian preened. “She loves me.”

Nesta didn’t bother looking up from her book. “I tolerate you.”

You mended the recruit’s eyebrow with quick, steady magic. Cassian, miraculously, kept quiet, though his gaze lingered on you longer than it usually did.

“You good?” he asked softly when the recruit left.

You blinked. “What?”

“You just seem…I don’t know.” He shrugged one huge shoulder. “A little stretched.”

Your chest softened. “Long morning.”

He nodded, accepting that without pushing. “You know if you fall over, I’m dragging you to bed like a sack of flour, right?”

Madja threw a rolled bandage at his head. He caught it. Grinned. Left the room before she could throw another.

The afternoon slowed. Feyre drifted in to check on a minor injury from training, Rhys behind her. His power brushed your shields lightly—soft, respectful—but he didn’t push when he felt your fatigue.

“You’re pacing yourself,” he murmured. Not approving. Not disapproving. Simply observing.

You nodded, not trusting your voice.

⸻

Velaris turned gold, then lavender, then dusk. Madja waved you off early, muttering something about not needing you fainting into her patients.

You stepped onto the balcony off the healing wing and let the cool air hit your face.

The Sidra wound silver through the city. The roofs glowed like embers. Someone laughed nearby; someone opened a window and spilled faint music into the street.

You braced your hands on the balcony railing and shut your eyes.

Breathe in. Count to four. Hold. Out, steady, to seven.

This city breathed.

You had learned to breathe with it. But today every inhale felt tight.

Cassian found you there, pastry in hand, wings catching the last of the light.

“Hey,” he said softly, bumping your shoulder. “You’re hiding.”

“I’m breathing.”

“Same thing,” he said with a grin. But then his voice gentled. “You sure you’re okay?”

The question slipped under your guard because it wasn’t about magic. It wasn’t even about Azriel. It was about seeing you.

And gods, that almost unraveled you.

You nodded. “Just tired.”

Cassian accepted it because he trusted you to come to him when you were ready. He left after a few jokes and half a pastry shared between you. His wings vanished into the deepening sky.

You lingered, watching the lights flick on across Velaris one by one like stars being lit by hand.

When the wind grew colder, you stepped back inside. The House brightened the faelights in a slow gradient, guiding you up the stairs.

⸻

You walked the quiet hallway back toward your room, boots soft against the stone. The House dimmed the lights as you passed, warming the air just enough to ease the chill from your skin. By the time you reached your door, the hush had settled deep and velvety, thick enough that you felt it across your shoulders.

Inside, the familiar comfort of your space wrapped around you: folded blankets, the faint scent of lavender, the half-moon window glowing with starlight. You brushed your hair out slowly, waiting for your heartbeat to steady.

And that was when someone knocked.

You looked up as the door creaked open and Feyre peeked in, wearing an expression halfway between amusement and exasperation.

“Sorry to invade,” she said, stepping in and crossing her arms loosely. “But there is a big Illyrian baby who is being dramatic about an injury.”

Your eyebrow quirked. “Cassian?”

Feyre snorted. “Please. Cassian only thinks he’s dying when Nesta threatens him. No, this one insists he’s gravely wounded and refuses to let anyone else touch him.”

Your stomach flipped. “Azriel?”

She raised a brow. “Do you have another Illyrian in mind?”

Feyre shrugged, leaning casually against the doorframe. "He got clipped on patrol. Roof tile, we think. Or a particularly vindictive chimney. He's being vague." Her eyes warmed. "It's not life-threatening. Just dramatic."

Relief washed through you, followed unpleasantly quickly by irritation at yourself for the force of it.

"I can send for Madja," you said. "She's used to patching him up. And Cassian."

Feyre's grin turned distinctly feline. "Madja tried. He refused her."

You blinked. "He what?"

"He refused her," she repeated lightly. "And Rhys. And me. He said-" She paused, clearly savoring the moment. "''Can you ask her instead?'"

Your throat went dry.

“You don’t have to go,” she said quietly. “But he trusts your hands. More than he realizes, I think.”

You nodded, because it was either that or let your voice crack. “I’ll help him.”

Feyre squeezed your arm once—warm, reassuring—and led you downstairs.

⸻

The House dimmed the sitting room to a soft glow, faelights flickering low along the walls. The fire crackled quietly in the hearth.

Azriel sat on one end of the couch, leathers half-unbuckled, shadows curled around him like wary animals. His hair was damp at the ends; his shirt was pulled aside enough to reveal a rough linen wrap around his ribs.

He looked up when you entered. Something in his shoulders eased—just a breath, just a shift—but you saw it.

“Sorry,” he murmured as you approached. “I know it’s late.”

“It’s fine,” you replied, sitting a handsbreadth away from him. “Feyre said you were dying.”

Cassian laughed from across the room. “He stubbed his ribs on a roof tile.”

Azriel shot him a look. Nesta didn’t bother looking up. Feyre simply passed behind you with the faintest smirk.

You reached carefully for the edge of his bandage.

“I’m going to take a look, okay?”

He nodded. When your fingers brushed his skin—warm, taut with tension—your magic leapt like a struck match.

Bright. Hot. Too fast. Too eager.

The air shimmered faintly. Azriel’s shadows recoiled, tasting the flare with a hiss of surprise.

He inhaled sharply. You ripped your hand back instantly. The magic snapped inside you like a whip. Your breath stuttered. Your hands trembled violently.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” you whispered, staring at your palms as if they might glow. “I didn’t—I don’t know why it—”

“Hey.” Azriel’s voice dropped low, steady as bedrock. “Are you alright?”

You swallowed hard, forcing your voice steady. “Yeah. It just surprised me. Let me…try again. Carefully.”

He nodded once. “I trust you.”

The words hit something fragile inside you. Hard.

You placed your hand over the bruise again, slower this time. More controlled. The magic still came readily, but you held it tighter, channeling it only into the injury.

The bruise lightened. The cut knit closed. His breath eased.

When you pulled back, the tremor in your hands had faded to a faint buzz.

“Thank you,” he said.

You forced a small smile. “Try not to pick fights with rooftops.”

Cassian snorted. Nesta turned a page. Feyre hid a smile behind her cup.

And that was when Elain stepped into the room.

She paused, taking in the scene: you seated close beside him, your hand still hovering near his ribs, the faint warmth of healing lingering in the air.

“Oh,” she said softly, cheeks pink. “I—I came to bring salve. Feyre said he was hurt.” Her eyes landed on Azriel’s now-unmarred skin. Then on you.

You stood quickly. Too quickly.

“It’s handled,” you said, voice thin. “I was just finishing.”

Elain smiled, gentle and guileless. “You’re always so quick. Thank you.”

Her kindness bruised something inside you.

“I should go,” you murmured.

Azriel looked up, just for a moment, but said nothing.

You slipped past Elain and out into the hall. The air felt colder beyond the sitting room. Quieter. Heavier.

You walked without thinking, up stairs washed in soft faelight, past familiar walls, through comfortingly narrow corridors.

Your room greeted you with its soft glow. The half-moon window framed a sky scattered with stars. You sank onto the alcove bench and pulled the journal from beneath the cushion. The pen felt too heavy tonight. You opened to a blank page. You didn’t date it.

You never did.

I’m still here.

Ink caught slightly on the downstroke.

I’m tired. I wish I could tell you everything. I wish you were still the people I ran home to when the world felt too loud. Today my hands won’t stop shaking. I don’t know why.

Your breath wavered.

Someone I care about trusts me with his wounds. I don’t know what that means, and I don’t know what to do with the ache it leaves afterward.

A blot of ink fell. You wiped it away.

You rested your forehead briefly on your knuckles.

“Goodnight,” you whispered, though you weren’t sure who you meant it for.

The House dimmed the lights around you.

You crawled into bed, exhaustion finally tugging you downward; heavy, warm, inescapable. As you drifted, your magic rested uneasily under your skin, awake even when your mind wasn’t.

Somewhere deep in the House, the wards pulsed once. A quiet ripple. A recognition.

You did not wake.

⸻

Upstairs, Azriel lifted his head sharply, shadows rising around him like startled birds. His hand stilled on his buckles. His eyes shifted toward the floor—toward your room—without knowing why.

The feeling faded. But it left a mark.

Azriel slept badly that night.

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Where The Light Bends

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The House woke gently that morning, as if it sensed the weight behind your eyes. A soft warmth pooled along the floorboards when you swung your legs out of bed, coaxing you into motion rather than jolting you from sleep. You dressed slowly, fingers a little clumsy as you braided your hair back from your face. The faint smell of mint salve still lingered on your hands despite the late-night wash, threaded with the ghost of wind and leather that you kept telling yourself you imagined.

You didn’t remember climbing into bed. You remembered the hallway, the faelights, the way exhaustion pulled you sideways like a tide. After that, only warmth. Only breath. Only a low voice telling you the world could wait.

You shook the memory off before it could settle too deeply.

⸻

The dining level was already alive when you stepped out of the stairwell, though “alive” was generous. It was more a collection of clashing energies clinging to their morning rituals: Cassian muttering valiantly at a pan of eggs that had chosen violence; Nesta sitting at the far end of the table with the serene composure of someone who watched towns burn and was unimpressed; Rhys reading something over Feyre’s shoulder and pretending he wasn’t; Mor humming happily as she arranged pastries in a way that suggested she’d stolen half the tray.

Your footsteps were quiet enough that only Cassian noticed at first. He grinned as he looked up—big, bright, and warm enough to cut through the thin morning chill.

“You’re up,” he said, stirring something with the enthusiasm of a man who believed force equaled flavor. “Good. I made this!”

Nesta didn’t look up. “Don’t eat it,” she advised, lifting her tea to her lips, before looking back at Cassian. “She actually needs to live.”

“It’s perfectly edible,” Cassian scoffed. The pan hissed. Something inside it protested.

You smiled, sinking into your usual seat, angled toward the balcony and the sharp blue sweep of Velaris far below. The sunlight had just begun to warm the stone, turning it gold along the edge. You let your hands curl around the steaming mug the House offered, grateful for the familiar weight.

Footsteps approached from the garden terrace, light and unhurried. Elain entered with a small woven basket cradled in her arms, the scent of rosemary and winter rose drifting in with her. Her cheeks were flushed pink from the morning air, and her hair was braided loosely over one shoulder, threaded with a sprig of something pale green.

“Morning,” she said softly, passing Nesta to set the herbs near the window where the light was strongest.

Cassian smiled at her. Rhys murmured something kind. Feyre asked what she’d picked. You looked down at your tea.

Elain’s voice was gentle as snowfall. And yet the sound still made something inside your ribs tighten, a reminder of things you never meant to feel.

The sound of wings—a low whisper, a shadowed draft—brushed through the room an instant before he appeared. Azriel stepped in like the morning finally decided to manifest a sharper edge. His shadows entered a beat ahead of him, curling low along the stone. He moved toward the table quietly, seamlessly, almost without disturbing the air at all…until he saw Elain.

Something eased in the line of his shoulders. Barely noticeable. Except you noticed everything these days, against your better judgment.

She offered him a warm smile. “Good morning.”

Azriel dipped his head. “Morning.”

Nothing else. Nothing improper. Nothing dramatic.

But still enough to ache.

You wrapped your hands tighter around your mug, hoping the warmth would steady the breath that suddenly felt too thin.

He took the seat opposite Cassian, diagonal from you; not close, not far. His plate stayed empty for a moment, his gaze flicking briefly across the table. It lingered on you for half a second, unreadable in the way only Azriel could be.

And then—so subtle you almost missed it—one of his shadows drifted along the floor, brushing near the leg of your chair before slipping away again, disappearing under the table like it had merely gotten lost.

Your heartbeat did something strange. Quiet. Hollow. Familiar. Cassian noticed the movement. His eyes flicked to Azriel, then to you, then back, an eyebrow lifting with a curiosity he was too polite to voice. For once.

Nesta, on the other hand, simply watched. Sharp. Still. No judgment, just understanding far beyond what she should be able to glean.

You forced a soft smile at her. She held your gaze for a moment, then looked away, as though granting you the dignity of privacy.

Breakfast unfolded gently after that. Feyre asked about your schedule for the day; Rhys made a dry comment about the state of Cassian’s eggs; Mor pressed a pastry into your hand the moment you finished your tea. You let yourself breathe, let the warmth of the room settle into your bones the way sunlight settles into stone.

And for a while, the ache dulled enough to forget. At least until you stood to take your plate to the basin and felt the faint tremor return to your hands—just a waver, just enough to make the porcelain clink too sharply.

Azriel’s head snapped up.

Not with alarm, just focus.

As if the sound pulled him by an invisible thread.

You steadied the dish quickly, plastering on a polite, tired smile. “Just a bit clumsy this morning,” you murmured.

Mor was at your side before Azriel or Cassian could move. “Clumsy, my ass,” she said cheerfully, plucking the plate from your fingers. “You’ve been cooped up in that healing wing for days.”

You opened your mouth to protest. Mor raised a finger, silencing it.

“Nope,” she said, bright and immovable. “No arguments. You’re coming with me today.”

You blinked. “Where?”

“Anywhere that isn’t here,” Mor said, looping her arm through yours with a flourish. “Or the library. Or the infirmary. Or those creepy alcoves where you sleep sitting up. Honestly, I’m shocked you haven’t fused with a cot yet.”

Feyre laughed softly. Nesta hummed in agreement. Cassian made an undignified snort.

And Azriel—

He froze mid-step as he moved toward the hallway, shadows pausing with him. He didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even breathe too deeply.

He just…paused. Half a second. Barely a heartbeat. And then he continued walking, disappearing into the stairwell without a word.

Mor didn’t notice. Cassian didn’t comment. Nesta pretended not to see.

But you did. You always did.

⸻

Mor didn’t give you time to argue.

Within minutes, you were back in your room with her hovering like an overexcited bird of prey while you swapped your healer’s tunic for something softer—leggings, a long sweater the color of deep twilight, boots that wouldn’t slip on cobblestone. The House helpfully produced a cloak when Mor eyed your bare hands and made a disapproving noise.

“See?” she said, fastening it at your throat before you could reach. “Even the House agrees with me. You need air.”

“I get plenty of air,” you replied, which was mostly true. Hallways had air. Stairwells had air. The open terraces where you sometimes leaned against the railing and breathed until the shaking in your hands stopped; they had air.

Mor rolled her eyes. “You inhale recycled anxiety. It doesn’t count.”

You didn’t bother trying to explain that the work helped. That having something to do with your hands kept the thoughts away. Mor would only look at you with that sad little softness around her mouth, and you’d feel like you’d broken something just by being honest. So you let her loop her arm through yours again, let her tug you toward the landing balcony. The House opened the doors before you reached them, faelights brightening in a line like a path.

“You could have asked me to walk,” you said, eyeing the sheer drop beyond the railing.

“And listen to you wheeze halfway down the stairs?” Mor snorted. “Absolutely not. We’re winnowing. Hold on to me.”

You tried not to stiffen as her magic wrapped around you, bright and spinning and warm as summer sun reflecting off glass. It was different from shadows, different from Rhys’s velvet-dark, different from the raw golden flare that lived somewhere deep in your memory. Mor’s power felt like stepping through a beam of light, eyes watering, lungs catching, and then the world twisted out from under your feet.

You landed on solid stone with your stomach a half-second behind you. Velaris opened up around you like a blossom.

You exhaled slowly, forcing your shoulders to unknot. Morning in the City of Starlight was always softer than you expected—people moving at an unhurried pace, shopkeepers sweeping stoops, the river cutting a calm silver path through the heart of it all. Banners stirred lazily in the breeze. Somewhere, someone laughed, and music floated faintly from an open window.

It still felt strange sometimes, that the world could hold this and everything you’d seen on mortal soil at the same time.

Mor watched you for a beat, reading more than you said. “Come on,” she said lightly. “I need your opinion on something very important.”

You arched a brow. “Life or death?”

“Shoes,” she said gravely. “So yes.”

You huffed a quiet laugh despite yourself and let her lead you down the street.

They noticed you here, the people of Velaris. Not in the way they noticed Rhys or Feyre or even Cassian. But in nods, in small smiles, in the way a few merchants glanced at the satchel you’d insisted on bringing and asked, now and then, if you were heading to the clinic today. You stopped once to check a boy’s scraped knee, the golden warmth of your magic flickering just enough to knit skin, to ease his tears. His mother thanked you so profusely you flushed and fumbled with your cloak until Mor rescued you with a practiced deflection.

“She likes helping,” Mor said. “If you embarrass her too much, she’ll stop and then I’ll be forced to stage a coup.” The woman laughed. You managed a smile, still feeling the faint tingling in your fingertips.

The magic hadn’t taken much. Almost nothing at all. Still, it left a ghost of warmth behind, like you’d plunged your hands briefly into sun-warmed water.

You shook it off and kept walking. Mor dragged you through two clothing shops, one jewelry stall, and a tiny bakery that you suspected she’d actually built this entire outing around. You let her chatter wash over you—gossip about Court politics, a story about Cassian nearly knocking over a tower of training spears, a muttered snide remark about Eris that made your skin crawl in a way you couldn’t quite name.

“And then,” she was saying, pastry in hand as you walked along the Sidra’s low wall, “Rhys said if Cassian doesn’t stop ‘borrowing’ his coats, he’s going to start dyeing them pink.”

You made a small, horrified sound around a bite of flaky crust. “He wouldn’t.”

“Oh, he would,” Mor said. “And Cassian would wear them out of spite. So really it’s a lose-lose for everyone’s eyes.”

You were still laughing when it happened. It was small. So small you might have missed it if it hadn’t been for the jolt in your chest. A breeze picked up along the river, tugging at your cloak. Ahead, a cluster of children shrieked with delight as they chased each other, one of them veering dangerously close to the edge of the embankment where the stone dropped down in a sheer face to the water below.

You saw the trajectory in an instant. Saw the way the boy’s foot slipped on a patch of damp moss. Saw his arms pinwheel. You reached out without thinking.

The magic leapt before your hand did. It burst from your chest in a rush—hotter, brighter than it had any right to be. Not the gentle, contained glow you were used to summoning into your palms, but a sharp, invisible pulse that rippled out across the space between you and the child.

The air shimmered. For a heartbeat, you saw it—a faint golden veil, like sunlight catching dust motes, flaring into existence between the boy and the drop. He hit it as if he’d collided with a firm, unseen wall. Stumbled. Flopped backwards onto the stone with an indignant ‘oof’ instead of plunging headfirst toward the river. His friends howled with laughter. One offered him a hand up. Another shouted something about cheating.

They hadn’t seen it. None of them had seen it.

But you had. You stood frozen, heart pounding against your ribs too hard. The glow lingered at the edge of your vision, thin as mist, then broke apart, dissolving into the morning air like it had never been there at all.

Your breath stuttered. There shouldn’t have been a barrier. You didn’t know how to make barriers. Your magic knew wounds, knew torn flesh and fading heartbeats and the soft pathways of veins beneath skin. It mended. It soothed. It coaxed. It did not shove. It did not harden. It did not…deform the world like that.

“Hey,” Mor said quietly beside you.

You realized you’d stopped walking. Your hand was still half-raised, fingers curled as if you’d meant to catch the boy with your own grip. Mor followed your gaze to the children. To the ledge. To the place your magic had been.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger—never in anger—but in the sharp focus she rarely let others see.

“You saw that too,” you said before you could stop yourself. It came out more like a plea than a question.

Mor was silent for a long moment. The river whispered past. Somewhere behind you, a door opened and closed. The scent of cinnamon and yeast drifted from the bakery.

“I saw something,” she said at last. “Like heat on stone. Or…like when the wards hum at the edge of the city.”

You swallowed. Your throat felt too tight. “It shouldn’t—”

“Hey.” Mor shifted to stand in front of you, her free hand coming up to rest lightly on your arm. “You just stopped a kid from cracking his head open. I’m not going to complain about the method.”

“That’s not what I—” You broke off, pressing your lips together until they stopped trembling. “It felt wrong.”

Mor tilted her head, studying you. Then she gentled her tone. “Or it felt new.”

You hated how that made something cold curl in your stomach. New meant unknown. Unknown meant out of your control.

You’d had enough of that to last three lifetimes.

“I’ve never done anything like that,” you admitted, voice low. “I don’t…I don’t know what that was.”

Mor’s gaze drifted past you for a moment, to the faint shimmer still echoing in the air if you squinted just right. You knew she could feel magic in ways you couldn’t; you saw the way her shoulders straightened, the way calculation flickered behind her bright eyes.

“Wards react to certain people,” she said slowly. “Certain kinds of power. Helion’s, for one. Rhys’s. Others.” Her fingers squeezed lightly at your arm. “This felt a little like that.”

Your stomach dropped. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

Mor laughed softly, the sound more gentle than amused. “I didn’t mean it to scare you. Just…don’t write it off as wrong because it’s different.”

You looked back at the boy, who was now back to running, completely oblivious to the fact that his world had almost cracked. “It didn’t feel like healing,” you said.

“No,” Mor said. “But maybe it’s related. Boundaries. Barriers. The difference between letting something through and keeping it out—those are lines too. Just…playing with them from another angle.”

You stared at her. “Have you been secretly studying magic theory?”

“Absolutely not,” she said at once. “I leave that to Rhys and Helion and other people who like to brood over dusty tomes. I just pay attention.” She smiled then, brightening like she’d made a decision. “We’re not going to solve this standing on a riverbank while I’m holding a half-eaten pastry,” she declared. “So here’s what we’re going to do. You…” She poked your shoulder. “Are going to stop glaring at your own hands like they betrayed you. And I…” She lifted the pastry in a small salute. “…am going to find an excuse later to drag Rhysand into a conversation about city wards without mentioning your name.”

You blinked. “Mor—”

“I won’t say anything you don’t want me to,” she promised. “But if the magic in this city is starting to hum around you, we should probably make sure it’s humming the right tune.”

That cold coil in your gut shifted. Not gone, not really. But softer. Less like dread, more like wariness with room for something else to grow around it.

Trust, maybe.

You dragged in a slow breath and nodded. “Fine. But if he starts brooding at me more than usual—”

“I’ll personally tell him to stop being dramatic,” Mor said. “Now come on. There’s a shop two streets over that sells little glass stars, and I’ve decided you need one.”

“For what?” you asked, falling into step beside her again.

Mor shrugged. “You spend all your time patching everyone else back together. Seems fair that you get something that catches the light for once.”

You didn’t have an answer for that. So you let the conversation drift to lighter things, letting Mor’s chatter pull you along as the streets brightened and the chill burned off the stone.

Still, as you walked, you couldn’t quite stop yourself from glancing at your hands. They felt the same. Looked the same. No crackling light, no strange marks, no lingering glow.

But every time you passed beneath one of the city’s unseen wardlines, you felt…something.

A brush. A flicker. A shiver beneath your skin, like the perimeter of Velaris was tasting your magic in return.

It was probably nothing. You told yourself it was nothing.

And if, high above the river on one of the terraced streets, a figure wrapped in shadows paused to watch you walk with Mor—if his eyes narrowed just slightly as the wards hummed under his feet, as if answering an unheard note from below—well.

You didn’t see that part. You just kept walking, unaware of the way the world had already begun to lean, tiny degrees at a time, toward the storm waiting on the horizon.

⸻

By the time Mor delivered you back to the House, the sun had dipped behind the Sidra’s glittering line, leaving the stone halls washed in lavender dusk. The air inside felt warmer than the city had—still, familiar, scented faintly with cedar and candle smoke, like the House had been waiting for you to step back through its doors.

You slipped your cloak off near the landing balcony and hung it on its usual hook. The House dimmed the faelights automatically, softening the gold to something gentler, as if it sensed the weight hanging from your shoulders as well as you did.

Your feet carried you without thinking toward the small alcove off your room, the one with the cushioned bench beneath a half-moon window. You’d never asked the House to build it. One day it was simply there, as if it had grown from the wall for your sake alone. Your satchel thudded softly against the bench as you sank down, fingers still tingling faintly from where Mor had held your arm.

You should have been exhausted. You were exhausted.

But your mind wouldn’t still. Every time you blinked, you saw the shimmer again; the golden veil that had flared into existence between the boy and the river. The way it had responded before you even lifted your hand. The way it had dissolved like breath fading on a cold morning.

You pressed your palms together until the tremor quieted.

Not wrong, Mor had said. Just new.

You weren’t sure that made you feel better.

The House settled around you like a held breath. A soft breeze drifted through the crack of the window, carrying the mingled scent of riverwater and the faintest trace of night-blooming flowers from the rooftop garden. It was enough.

You reached beneath the bench for the slim leather-bound book tucked into the hollow there. Not a journal—journals demanded clarity, order, reflections you didn’t always have the heart to face. This was different. Softer. Older.

A place to speak to ghosts.

You opened to the last unfilled page, the paper cream-colored, slightly textured beneath your fingers. The tip of your pen—inked earlier in the week—hovered just above the first line.

You never addressed the letters formally. You never needed to.

I’m still here.

The words came slow, careful. You breathed them into being.

Mor took me out today. I think you’d like her. She’s loud in the best way, like Mama when she dropped things in the apothecary and pretended she meant to. Feyre says Mor lights up every room she walks into. She’s not wrong.

You paused, pen tapping once against the margin.

A boy almost fell into the river. I don’t know how to explain what happened. My magic…it moved on its own. Not like healing. Not like anything I’ve done before. It felt too sharp. But no one was hurt. Mor said not to worry.

A lie. Mor had said don’t panic yet. But it would only frighten them, wherever they were, so you smoothed the truth into something gentler.

The House is warm tonight. I wish you’d seen this place.

Not the glamour, not the wealth—

but how it held people. How it held you. You swallowed hard as you wrote the next part.

I thought about the river at home today. How cold it was in winter. How you’d shout when Papa tried to cross the rocks and slipped every time. I miss that sound. I miss you both.

Ink blurred slightly at the curve of one stroke. You wiped it with your thumb before it could stain the next line. A soft knock interrupted the stillness—not at your door, but the sound of the House gently tapping the shelves behind you, as if reminding you to breathe. The faelight nearest the window brightened just enough to read without straining.

You let your pen rest. For a while, you just sat with the book open on your lap, gaze unfocused, listening to the deep quiet that settled over the House in the evenings. The fire in the distant common room crackled, soft and steady. A draft stirred the corner of your curtain. Somewhere above, wings—large ones—passed by the high windows.

Azriel returning, probably. Too late for training, too early for patrol. You didn’t let yourself imagine why your pulse quickened at the thought.

You closed the book gently, fingers lingering on its worn cover. “Goodnight,” you whispered—not to the House, not to the empty room, but to the memory of the people you’d never gotten to say it to properly.

The House dimmed the light in response. You took that as enough.

You set the book aside and leaned your head against the cool stone wall, letting your breath fall into a slow, even rhythm. Your hands, resting in your lap, still tingled faintly with the echo of that strange golden pulse, as if your magic weren’t finished speaking.

As if it had only just begun.

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The Taste of Morning

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The return to Velaris came at first light.

Rhys’s magic carried the worst of the wounded through the air, bundled in cloaks, pale faces pressed against his wards of heat and wind. You rode in silence with the others, watching the Illyrian peaks sink behind you, their edges still stained red by the fires that hadn’t gone out.

The air grew softer as you neared the Sidra. By the time Velaris rose ahead, its towers veiled in rain and light, the smell of smoke had faded. What lingered was harder to wash away.

Cassian landed first in the courtyard of the House of Wind, calling for blankets and cots. Nesta was already directing the others before her boots hit stone. Rhys disappeared toward the healer’s wing with two of the younger females in his arms, power rippling behind him as Feyre met him at the archway.

You moved on instinct. The courtyard became a triage line, warm light pouring from the arches, the sound of voices cutting through exhaustion. You didn’t remember dropping your satchel, only that your hands found motion again: checking pulses, whispering calm, weaving gold light through ruined wings. Madja arrived mid-chaos, her robe half-tied, hair escaping its braid. “You were supposed to rest, girl,” she muttered, but her eyes softened when she looked at you. “Never mind. Keep going.”

You nodded and turned back to your work. The first female you healed blinked against the brightness of your power, tears spilling over when she realized she could breathe without pain. “You’re safe now,” you murmured, though the words felt fragile, untested.

Azriel passed through once, silent, efficient, carrying another stretcher with Cassian. His shadows slipped ahead of him, dimming the faelights, and for a moment your glow caught against them like two halves of a pulse. He didn’t speak, didn’t need to. Just a glance across the noise, steady and unreadable, before he vanished again into the storm of movement.

⸻

By the time the last patient was settled, the courtyard smelled of rain and antiseptic. The sky had brightened to silver, the kind of light that made everything look clean even when it wasn’t.

Madja touched your shoulder. “You’ve done enough for now. Go breathe.”

You tried to protest, but your voice cracked on the first word. So you nodded instead and stepped out into the morning. The city below was waking, market bells faint in the distance, water running from the eaves in thin streams. The Sidra shimmered, calm and mercilessly beautiful. For a moment you just stood there, letting the sound of it fill the hollow places the mountains had carved out of you. Behind you, someone landed lightly on the stones. You didn’t need to turn to know the sound.

Azriel’s voice was quiet. “Rhys said they’ll be staying here. Until they’re strong enough to choose where to go next.”

You nodded. “Good.”

“They asked for you.”

That made you look back. His expression hadn’t changed, but something in his eyes had softened.

You managed a small smile. “I’ll check on them before I leave the wing tonight.”

He inclined his head, wings shifting slightly in the wind. “I’ll tell them.”

The words were nothing, really, but they settled somewhere deep, like warmth finding its way back into cold skin.

You turned toward the House, the scent of herbs and smoke still clinging to you. Late morning light spilled across the stones, thin and gold, catching the last traces of shadow as they slipped away.

The halls of the House blurred as you walked. Every sound was muffled, softened by the ringing in your ears, the echo that always came after too much healing. The light in your hands had dimmed hours ago, but its ache still pulsed under your skin, a reminder that you’d poured out more than you had to give.

You meant to find your room, or a bath, or something resembling stillness, but the world kept tilting. By the time you reached the healer’s wing again that evening, your knees were shaking.

You sat on the nearest bench, pressing your palms together until the tremor stopped. The smell of herbs and steam filled the corridor. Somewhere deeper inside, Madja was barking orders, her voice steady as a metronome. Everything was under control now. You could stop.

You just…couldn’t seem to make yourself move.

A shadow passed over the marble. Then another.

“Madja said you hadn’t eaten.”

Azriel’s voice was low, careful. He set something beside you, though you didn’t look to see what. You were too busy watching the way the fading sunlight fell through the faelight windows, slicing warm gold into the dark.

“I’ll get to it,” you murmured. He didn't respond, but the shift in his posture told you that he didn't believe you.

You smiled faintly. “Yesterday was longer than I expected, is all. I promise I'm not intentionally starving myself.”

He didn’t laugh, but you could feel the ghost of it in the air. He sat beside you without a word, elbows on his knees, wings half-open to catch the light. The scent of wind and steel wrapped around you, sharp and clean.

You tried to say something, thank you, maybe, but the world swayed instead. The next thing you knew, his hand was on your shoulder, steadying you.

“You’re shaking,” he said quietly.

“It happens.”

“How often?”

You meant to answer, but your voice caught on a breath that wasn’t quite steady. “When I use too much. It’s not dangerous. Just...empty.”

He studied you for a long moment. Then, with a softness that didn’t fit his reputation at all, he took your hands between his, gloved, warm, solid. “Then don’t sit here alone while it happens.”

You almost pulled back out of instinct, but the warmth was too welcome, the steadiness too rare. Your fingers trembled once, then stilled beneath his.

“Better?” he asked.

“Worse,” you whispered, because it was suddenly hard to breathe for an entirely different reason.

That earned the smallest curve of a smile. “Good.” The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was heavy, certain, full of everything neither of you knew how to name. After a while he said, softer still, “You can’t pour yourself empty every time you heal. You’ll vanish.”

“I’m fine.”

He shook his head, still holding your hands. “You were fine before dawn, too.”

You exhaled slowly. The tremor in your palms had finally stopped. His touch lingered, steady and unassuming, until the light through the windows shifted and the warmth between you was the only thing left that felt real.

You hadn’t realized how much the silence in the hall had thickened until it felt heavy in your chest. The light had softened to that in-between hour when the faelights dimmed and the evening . His hands were still wrapped around yours, steady, patient, like he was holding you in place so the world wouldn’t keep tilting.

“I’m fine now,” you murmured, though the words came slow.

“I’ll decide that when you can stand without swaying.”

You meant to roll your eyes, to tell him that you’d survived worse, but the laugh caught somewhere halfway. The warmth of his gloves, the rhythm of his breathing, pulled at something low in your body.

You didn’t notice yourself leaning until your shoulder brushed his arm. You blinked, meaning to apologize, but the movement made your head spin.

“Hey,” he said softly. Not reprimand, just surprise. He shifted slightly, careful, so that the line of his body caught yours before you could fall the rest of the way, the leather cool against your face.

“Sorry,” you murmured, eyes closing. “Didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t,” he said. “You’re exhausted.”

You could have moved. You could have straightened. Instead you stayed, breathing in the faint scent of smoke and wind that clung to him. His wing adjusted, slow and deliberate, curving just enough to block the draft spilling down the corridor.

Neither of you spoke after that. His thumb brushed once against the back of your hand, absent-minded, almost questioning. You didn’t answer, but you didn’t pull away either.

The sounds of the House filled the quiet; distant footsteps, Madja’s muffled voice, the soft hum of the faelights dimming overhead. Time blurred until you couldn’t tell if minutes or hours had passed.

You thought you might have drifted for a moment, half-asleep, because when your awareness returned, his hand was still around yours and the world felt…still. Balanced again, the way it had on the mountain.

You didn’t move. Neither did he.

And for that small, impossible span of time, the House of Wind seemed to breathe with you.

⸻

You woke to warmth that didn’t belong to you.

For a heartbeat, the world stayed soft, the kind of half-dream where you can still pretend you’re safe. Then the ache in your shoulders returned, and you realized where you were.

The corridor was dim now, faelights low and golden. The House was hushed for the evening. Your head was still resting against something solid, your fingers tangled in warmth that moved when you breathed.

Azriel.

You froze.

He was sitting exactly where he’d been, head tilted back against the wall, eyes closed but not asleep. One wing was half-unfurled, the curve of it still shielding you from the draft that crept through the hall. The faint rise and fall of his chest brushed against you.

You must have been out for hours. Mortification came fast and sharp, burning through the leftover fog of fatigue. You sat up too quickly, the motion making the world tilt again. “I—sorry,” you said, voice hoarse. “I didn’t mean to—”

He opened his eyes, slow, unfocused for half a breath before finding you. “You needed rest.”

“That’s not the point,” you muttered, rubbing at your face. Your cheeks were on fire. “You shouldn’t have had to sit here.”

“I didn’t mind.”

That only made it worse. You couldn’t look at him, at the quiet steadiness that didn’t fit the mess in your chest. “Still,” you said, grasping for composure, “it’s…it’s unprofessional.”

His brow lifted slightly. “We’re not on duty.”

“That’s not helping,” you whispered.

A small pause. Then, gently, “You were shaking when you fell asleep.”

The words stole what breath you had left. You didn’t remember that part—the way he must have felt it, the moment your body gave in.

“I’m fine now,” you said, too fast.

He didn’t argue, but the corner of his mouth softened like he almost smiled. “Then I can leave.”

He rose smoothly, shadows following, folding away from the light. You expected him to walk off without another word, but he hesitated, one gloved hand braced against the wall. “Try not to heal anyone tonight.”

You managed a faint laugh. “I’ll do my best.”

“Good.”

He started to go, and the emptiness that followed him was louder than the quiet had been.

When he was gone, you pressed your palms to your face and let out a slow, mortified breath. Friends, you told yourself. He’s your friend. Nothing more.

But your skin still remembered the shape of his warmth, and no amount of reasoning could make it forget.

⸻

The House was asleep, or pretending to be.

You sat at the long worktable in the healer’s wing, a single faelight burning low above the pages of Madja’s ledger. The ink had started to blur somewhere between the lists of tinctures and the tally of clean bandages, but you kept your quill moving anyway.

Working helped. Usually. Tonight it only made the ache behind your ribs sharper. Every time you blinked, you saw the camp again—the bandages, the snow, the way the light had caught on ruined wings. And when that image faded, it was replaced by the warmth of a shadowed hallway and the weight of a shoulder you hadn’t meant to lean on.

You groaned quietly and pressed your palms over your eyes. “Hopeless,” you muttered. The House, ever meddling, made a sound somewhere above you.

“I don’t want to hear it,” you told it. The air stayed obediently still after that. You pushed back from the table, intending to fetch more herbs from the storage shelves, but the movement sent a wave of dizziness rolling through you. Overuse, again. You’d stretched your magic past comfort earlier; now it was stretching you back. The light that answered your call when you reached for it was thin and trembling.

“Just one more,” you whispered. “Then I’ll stop.”

The soft glow spread across your palms as you touched the last patient’s report, a girl whose fever hadn’t broken. You could feel the edges of her pain through the parchment, faint as a heartbeat. The magic pulled at you, hungry for something to heal.

“Madja’s going to have my head,” you said under your breath.

“You’re not wrong.”

You startled so hard the light flickered out. “Gods—do you ever knock?!”

Azriel stood in the doorway, half in shadow, bare forearms crossed over his chest. His voice was quiet, but the faint amusement threading through it made your pulse stumble.

“I told you not to work tonight,” he said.

“I’m not working.”

He glanced at the papers, the faint scent of magic still in the air. “You’re terrible at lying.”

“Occupational hazard.”

He stepped inside, the soft sound of his boots nearly lost under the hush of the wing. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

“I’m fine.”

“Again with that word,” he murmured.

You tried to focus on the ledger, but your vision blurred for a second. “I just needed to make sure the fever’s not worsening.”

He came closer, stopping on the other side of the table. “Madja’s keeping watch. She’ll wake you if anything changes.”

“I wasn’t tired.”

“That’s a lie too.”

You sighed, dropping the pen. “Why are you even here?”

His brow lifted, just slightly. “Because I knew you’d do exactly this.”

You wanted to argue, but your body betrayed you, another tremor in your hands, smaller but obvious. He saw it. Of course he did. He moved around the table, and before you could protest, he reached for your wrist. The touch was careful, light enough that you could have pulled away, but you didn’t. His thumb traced over the pulse there, counting beats.

“Still too fast,” he said quietly. “You’re spent.”

“Azriel—”

He met your eyes, shadows curling faintly at the edge of his shoulders. “Let it go for one night.”

There was something in his voice that wasn’t command, but closer to plea. It stripped away the little defenses you’d been piecing back together since you’d woken in that corridor. You exhaled slowly, feeling the tremor leave your body inch by inch. “If I stop moving, I’ll start thinking.”

“I know,” he said. “But think here.”

He released your wrist only to point to the bench beside you. “Sit.”

You hesitated. Then, with a sigh, you did, the faelight flickering as his shadows curled closer. Neither of you spoke after that. You sat there side by side in the half-dark, your magic dimmed, his shadows quiet, and for the first time all day the House didn’t seem to breathe at all.

The silence between you stretched thin, comfortable and not. You meant to thank him for staying, but the words tangled somewhere behind your teeth. So you said the next thing that came to mind instead. “Does it ever stop feeling heavy?”

He turned his head toward you, one brow lifting slightly. “What?”

“All of it.” You gestured vaguely; the wing, the endless cycle of pain and mending. “The things we see, the things we can’t fix.”

He leaned back against the wall, shadows shifting lazily behind him. “No. You just learn how to carry it without letting it show.”

You huffed a soft, humorless laugh. “That sounds like denial dressed up as wisdom.”

“That’s exactly what it is,” he said, a faint smile ghosting over his mouth.

You looked at him then, really looked, at the deep-set calm that never quite reached his eyes. “That must be exhausting.”

He glanced down at his gloved hands, flexing them once. “It’s safer.” The word lingered in the air.

“Still,” you said quietly, “you can’t pour yourself empty forever.”

His gaze flicked up to yours, and for a moment neither of you breathed. The faint gold shimmer of your magic reflected in his eyes, turning them softer, almost warm. “And what about you?” he asked. “How much do you have left to give?”

You tried to laugh, but it came out cracked. “Enough for tonight.”

“Liar,” he said gently.

That earned him a tired smile. “You’re too perceptive for your own good.”

He didn’t answer, just watched you until your eyelids began to droop.

“Azriel,” you murmured, half-asleep already.

“Hmm?”

“You don’t have to stay.”

“I know.”

But he didn’t move.

Your head tipped toward him, too heavy to hold up anymore. The bench creaked softly under the shift of weight, and when he caught you this time, it was slow and careful, like he’d known it was coming.

Azriel waited until your breathing evened out.

You were still sitting upright, your hands limp in your lap, lashes fluttering as if you were still arguing with yourself even in dreams. The faint trace of light still clung to your skin—dimmed but not gone—and the sight of it did something to him he couldn’t quite name.

He should have woken you. He told himself that more than once. Instead, he sat there another minute, listening to the faint sound of the House settling around you both, the whisper of faelight dimming to match the hush.

“Stubborn,” he murmured under his breath. The word came out softer than he intended.

You didn’t stir.

Finally, he stood. The bench creaked, shadows shifting to make room for him. He moved quietly, but something about this felt different, more deliberate. When he slipped an arm beneath your knees and another around your back, you sighed in your sleep, leaning instinctively into the warmth. It shouldn’t have undone him the way it did.

You weighed almost nothing. Still, he held you carefully, like movement itself might wake you. The faint pulse of your magic brushed against his chest where your head rested, gold flickering faintly through his leathers. It didn’t burn—it felt like the opposite, like light remembering how to be gentle.

He carried you through the quiet halls, the echo of his boots swallowed by shadow. Every turn of the staircase brought a new thought he didn’t want. How you’d looked in the snow. The way your hands had shaken when you were trying to be brave. The sound of your laugh earlier, small, exhausted, but still trying. By the time he reached your door, the ache in his chest had sharpened. He pushed it open with a nudge of his boot, shadows slipping ahead of him to light the candles with faint flame.

Your room smelled like lavender and something softer, something he couldn’t name. He set you down on the bed as if the world might break if he wasn’t careful. You murmured something unintelligible, turning toward the warmth, and one of his shadows followed the movement, curling protectively at your side before fading.

He brushed a stray lock of hair from your face, gloved fingers barely touching your skin. The light from the candles caught on his knuckles, gold and black together, like balance. For a moment, he let himself look. Really look.

Then he straightened, drawing in a slow breath. His shadows gathered close again, as if to keep him from reaching out a second time.

“Sleep,” he whispered. “The world can wait.”

When he stepped back into the hall, the door closed softly behind him, the shadows trailing after like smoke. But long after he’d gone, the faint warmth where he’d touched you stayed.

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Cold Air, Quiet Wings

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The summons came before dawn.

You’d been restocking tinctures by faelight, the glass jars clinking softly together, when shadows slipped beneath the infirmary door. They reached you first, curling around your wrist with familiar warmth.

Rhysand requests your presence.

Madja’s pen didn’t even pause. “Go on, girl. They wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

⸻

Now, you stood in the courtyard of the House of Wind, the air thin and sharp with cold. The sky hadn’t yet decided between night and morning, pale pink bleeding into the indigo stretch ahead. Cassian stretched his wings, membranes catching the faint light like oil on water. Rhysand stood beside him, Nesta at his shoulder, and Azriel a quiet silhouette against the cliff side, half in shadow, half in dawn.

You clutch the strap of your satchel, leather creaking beneath your fingers. The Illyrian camps. You’ve heard about them for months in low, uneasy tones; old habits, old cruelties, wings that never healed right. Madja had said it gently when she pushed the bag into your hands: you’re the only one I trust to see what they won’t show us.

Cassian grins when he notices you. “Our healer’s here! You ready to freeze your pretty hands off in the mountains?”

You smile, faint and practiced. “Define ready.”

He laughs, wings flaring once in the wind. “That’s the spirit.”

Rhys turns then, voice carrying easily over the gusts. “We’ll fly most of the way, stop near Windhaven. Stay close once we’re there, the males still bristle when outsiders meddle.”

You nod, though the thought of flying earns a nervous twist in your stomach. You don’t have wings. You’ll be grounded while they move like storms above you, and there’s a strange kind of vulnerability in that, standing among creatures made for the sky when you’ve only ever walked.

Azriel steps closer, the faint hum of his shadows softening the edge of his voice. “You’ll fly with me.”

It isn’t a question.

The ground tilts a little at the idea. You’ve seen him in flight before, black wings carving through the night like a blade, but being carried by him is another thing entirely.

“Just try not to drop me,” you murmur, an attempt to ease the nerves coiling low in your stomach.

The corner of his mouth twitches, almost a smile. “Wouldn’t dare.”

Cassian whoops something irreverent behind him, and Nesta swats at his arm. Rhys just smirks. You, however, can’t seem to breathe right until Azriel bends slightly, one arm braced for you to step closer. You do, his armor cold against your palms, but the warmth beneath it is startlingly real.

“Hold on tight,” he says, and you swear you can almost see the faint making of a smirk on his lips. Almost. You do that, too.

When his wings catch the wind, the air rushes up to meet you. The city falls away in a blur of silver and stone, and the world opens into sky. You tuck yourself closer against his chest, every heartbeat too loud.

The flight was short, but it felt endless. Wind tore through your hair, cold and biting, and you could feel the strength in every movement of his wings: measured, precise, made for endurance. When the mountain peak rose ahead, his voice found your ear through the rush.

“Almost there.”

And what felt like moments later, your boots touched down on hard-packed snow. The cold air bit deep, sharp enough to make your eyes sting.

The camps stretched out below the ridge: tents scattered like scars, fires flickering low, the echo of metal striking metal in the distance. The smell of smoke and frost. Azriel steadies you before stepping back, his wings folding neatly behind him. “Welcome to Illyria,” he says quietly.

You adjust your satchel, breath clouding in the air. “It’s colder than I expected.”

He huffs a soft laugh. “That’s because no one ever tells the truth about this place.”

And when you look at him—really look—you wonder if he was talking about the weather at all.

⸻

The wind was the first thing to welcome you. It hissed between the tents, carrying the scents of smoke and blood and something older, pride curdled into fear.

Cassian landed ahead of you, wings flaring to full span in a way that made the nearest males look away. Nesta settled on the ground beside him once he let go, her eyes cold and bright, taking in every detail without a word. Rhys arrived a heartbeat later, and even his calm presence couldn’t smooth the unease that rippled through the camp.

Azriel’s shadows drew closer as you followed him down the slope. Every sound here seemed sharper: the rasp of whetstones on blades, the coughs of exhausted soldiers, the crack of a training staff against armor. A group of males stopped what they were doing when they saw you, their stares lingering a little too long.

Cassian’s tone cut the air clean. “Where’s your commander?”

No one answered at first. Then a tall male with a scar across his cheek stepped forward. His wings hung stiff, half-furled, scars laddering across the membranes. “General,” he said, voice low. “We weren’t expecting… visitors.”

“Good,” Cassian replied. “Then you haven’t had time to hide anything.”

The tension between them hummed like drawn steel. You felt it pressing against your ribs. Rhys’s voice was even, quiet enough that it forced everyone to listen. “We’ve had troubling reports. I thought I’d see for myself.”

The commander’s jaw ticked. “Reports.”

Azriel didn’t move, but his shadows did, thin wisps curling around the commander’s boots like smoke. “You know what kind,” he said.

You stayed a step behind, careful not to speak out of turn. But then a sound reached you from somewhere deeper in the camp. Faint. Wet. A broken sort of crying. You turned your head before you meant to.

Between two tents, you saw her. An Illyrian female, younger than you’d expected, seated on the ground with her back to the wind. Her wings, gods, her wings were ruined. Not from battle. The edges were too clean. The blood too fresh. Someone had bound her shoulders in rough bandages, but the stains were spreading, dark and heavy against the snow.

Your stomach dropped. Madja had warned you what to expect. She’d said, if you find one who’s been clipped, you treat the pain first, not the pride. But no warning was enough for this.

You moved before you realized it, slipping between the tents. The girl flinched when your shadow fell over her. “I’m here to help,” you said softly, kneeling. “It’s all right.”

Her breath hitched, sharp with disbelief. “You’re… from Velaris?”

You nodded. “I’m a healer there.” When you reached for your satchel, a male’s voice barked behind you.

“Leave her.”

Azriel was there before you could even turn, standing just outside of your periphery. The temperature of the camp seemed to drop ten degrees. His shadows rose like a living thing, swallowing the light around his boots.

The male froze.

Cassian’s voice joined seconds later, low and lethal, “Who did this?”

No one answered. The silence was worse than any confession.

You pressed your hands gently to the girl’s shoulders. Her skin burned with fever. The scent of infection was already curling beneath the copper tang of blood. The girl whimpered when you peeled back the soaked bandages. You bit the inside of your cheek to keep your expression steady. The cuts weren’t just cruel, they were precise. Surgical. Like someone had known exactly what to slice to keep her grounded forever.

Cassian swore under his breath. Nesta’s knuckles went white. Azriel crouched beside you, the black of his wings filling your peripheral vision.

“Can you help her?” Your eyes flicked to him, but his were trained on the stumps where the young girl’s wings had been, hazel darkened into something somber looking.

“I can heal her,” you whispered. “But I can’t give her back what they took.”

Rhys finally spoke, voice like the edge of glass. “Find whoever did this.”

Cassian’s wings flared. Nesta moved beside him, eyes blazing. Azriel stood last, slow and deliberate, the faint tremor of his shadows the only sign of what lived under his calm. You kept working, your hands steady even when your breath wasn’t. Snow began to fall, quiet and relentless, covering everything in white. The girl clutched your wrist once, desperate.

“You’re safe now,” you told her, though you weren’t sure anyone was. When you finally looked up, Azriel was still there, watching, not you, but the blood in the snow.

⸻

The worst of the shouting had faded by the time you reached the tents set aside for the wounded.

The air inside was warmer, but it didn’t feel kinder. Smoke and antiseptic clung to the canvas, and the low moan of wind found its way through every seam. Someone had built crude cots from planks and spare leathers. The smell of infection rode the air in waves. You could tell, before anyone spoke, that no true healer had been allowed here. Too many wounds left open. Too many bandages tied too tight.

You set your satchel down, the clink of glass louder than you meant it to be, and began the quiet work of making a space to save what could still be saved. A basin of snowmelt. Cloth, clean as you could manage. The golden hum of your power, faint at first, then steadying.

The first female they brought to you wouldn’t meet your eyes. Her hair was matted, the veins in her wings dark with infection. She flinched when your fingers brushed the torn edges, and you realized she expected pain.

You kept your voice soft. “This will sting, but it won’t last.”

Her breath shook. “They said… they said it was an honor.”

You didn’t answer. You let your magic do what words couldn’t, pouring warmth into cold flesh, easing the tremors, coaxing life back into what pride had broken.

Light gathered around your hands, pale gold, gentle as breath. It spilled across the cot, reflecting in her wide eyes.

One by one, others came. A young girl with bruised ribs. A matron whose wings had been clipped years ago but never properly healed. A quiet line of women who looked at you like you were a story they didn’t quite believe in.

By the time you stopped, your hands were trembling from overuse. The air was thick with the scent of blood and herbs, but something cleaner threaded through it now, the smell of magic, bright and stubborn.

When you finally straightened, the canvas rustled. A shadow had fallen just inside the doorway.

Azriel.

He didn’t speak. He only watched as you rinsed your hands in the basin, the water turning pink, then clear again. The light from your palms faded slowly, reluctant to leave.

“They’ll need real care,” you said, still not looking up. “In Velaris, if possible. Where Madja can help.”

“Rhys will see to it.” His voice was low, almost lost beneath the wind. “You did good work.”

You almost laughed. “It doesn’t feel like work. It feels like trying to hold the world together with my hands.”

A pause. Then, quietly, “You do that more often than you know.”

When you finally looked at him, his expression was unreadable, but the shadows had drawn closer around him, as if they couldn’t decide whether to hide him or keep him warm. You dried your hands, fingers brushing the edge of your satchel.

“There are more outside. Some will let me help. Some won’t.”

He nodded once. “Then I’ll make sure no one stops you.”

And he did. All afternoon, as the snow kept falling, he stayed near the entrance, silent and immovable, while you worked beneath the thin canvas light, your magic spilling across the dark like a promise you weren’t ready to break.

⸻

The night deepened until the camp was more shadow than shape. When you stepped outside, the cold felt cleaner than the air inside the tent. Snow whispered against the canvas, and for the first time all day, the sounds of pain had gone still.

Azriel stood a little way off, a dark silhouette at the edge of the firelight, the outline of his wings etched sharp against the stars. You watched him for a moment before speaking. “You don’t have to stand guard the whole night.”

His head turned slightly. “Someone should. This place…” He glanced back toward the tents. “It doesn’t deserve trust.”

You moved closer, wrapping your shawl tighter. “I’ve gathered that.”

He studied you in the low light, the faint lines of exhaustion around your eyes. “You shouldn’t have to see things like this.”

That pulled a quiet laugh from you, one that barely reached the air. “I see things like this all the time, Azriel. You forget what I do.”

“I mean,” He stopped himself, searching for words. “You’re not from a world like this. You shouldn’t have to keep walking into our kind of cruelty.”

You hesitated. There was no accusation in his tone, just weary certainty. You wondered what he’d think if he knew the truth, if he’d still try to shield you then, or if he’d see how little of your innocence the Cauldron had left untouched.

“There’s more cruelty in the mortal lands than you’d probably think.”

He looked at you for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether that was defiance or confession, but you didn’t elaborate. You just turned your gaze back to the snow, watching how it caught in the firelight. He nodded, but you could tell he didn’t understand the weight beneath your words.

Snow gathered on his hair and shoulders, but he didn’t seem to feel it. The wing closest to you shifted slightly, not quite touching, just enough to block the wind. The gesture felt unthinking, instinctive.

“Rhys will want to move the injured back to Velaris in the morning. You should rest before then.”

You nodded, though your gaze stayed fixed on the mountains, the black ridges cutting the horizon, the faint flicker of torchlight from the lower camps. “I’ll try.”

When you turned to go, his voice followed you, quiet enough to almost be mistaken for the wind. “You did good work today.”

You looked back at him, something small and fragile catching in your chest. “So did you.”

He didn’t answer, and you didn’t expect him to. The shadows around him stirred once, brushing faintly across the snow like a living thing, before settling again. Far below, the campfires burned small and red against the snow. Azriel’s shadows drew close around him, and the faint gold light of your magic faded against the cold, and for a breath, the world felt balanced. Two quiet forces holding the night together, unaware of the storm waiting to break.

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"What do you do when you're chosen for someone, but not chosen by them?"

Read an important author note here 🖤

⚠️ Content Warnings & Reader Advisory: This is a story about love that wounds before it heals. About a bond refused, a heart that breaks, and the slow, merciless path to forgiveness.

Contains: psychological trauma • panic episodes • dissociation • suppressed memories • grief and complicated mourning • abandonment wounds • emotional neglect • self-worth fracturing • bond-induced distress • magical volatility • violent magical injuries • blood, gore, and bodily harm (no self-inflicted harm) • cursed constructs • death-magic residue • predatory fixation (supernatural) • stalking (interrogation-aligned purposes) • interrogation scenes (canon-aligned) • torture ramifications • political coercion • manipulation and surveillance • rare-magic targeting • near-death experience • terror response • dark obsession • possessiveness (mutual, slow surrender) • morally gray decisions • morally black decisions • alcohol as emotional numbing • feral violence (Azriel-coded) • unhealthy coping mechanisms • romantic/sexual tension • consensual sexual content (late, intense, emotional) • dominant/submissive power play (consensual, earned) • kink elements (introduced slowly) • dark romance themes: ruin-me tenderness, “I’d burn the world for you,” dangerous devotion, and the slow unmaking of emotional walls.

For readers who crave the ache of a slow burning dark romance—the kind that splinters before it softens, and loves you back only after it’s destroyed you first. For the ones who learned that love is not gentle—

but still reached for it anyway 🔥

You were Made to heal. He was born to destroy.

When a mortal-born Made healer with evolving magic joins the Night Court, she expects to find purpose, not a mating bond with the Shadowsinger who looks at her like she’s the one mistake he can’t afford to make. So he refuses it.

And the refusal doesn’t break the bond—

it breaks you both.

Now your magic is changing. The Courts are watching. Day and Dawn whisper your name. And every danger circling you pulls Azriel closer to the one truth he’s terrified to face:

He never didn’t want you.

He just didn’t want to want you.

And even more dangerous: He’s already yours.

*If you’re an auditory person, I’ve also compiled a Spotify playlist that helped inspire this idea/that I listen to while I write. If you’d like it, here it is 🖤

ACT I - The Breath Before Winter

Chapter Zero - Smoke and Light

Chapter One - The Sound of Breathing

Chapter Two - Cold Air, Quiet Wings

Chapter Three - The Taste Of Morning

Chapter Four - Where The Light Bends

Chapter Five - When The Night Stirs

Chapter Six: The Echo Beneath The Skin

Chapter Seven: Safe, Said The Shadows

The Sound of Breathing

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You wake to quiet.

Not peace, just the thin, familiar hush that comes before sunrise, when even the wind over the Sidra hasn’t quite remembered how to move. For a moment you don’t know where you are; the smell of smoke clings to the inside of your lungs, the phantom taste of iron still on your tongue. It takes a long breath to separate dream from memory.

The House is breathing with you.

Every creak and sigh in its bones is one you know by heart now. The air is cool against your skin, scented faintly with the herbs you hung to dry last night: lavender, willowbark, crushed mint. The sheets twist around your legs; your hands are clenched in the fabric like you were still trying to hold someone together.

You lie there until your heartbeat slows. The smoke fades. The world becomes itself again: marble floors, soft faelight, the echo of wings somewhere in the distance. A familiar comfort and a reminder both. Velaris is safe tonight, and safety is still something you don’t quite know what to do with.

On the table by your bed, a pot of cooling tea waits untouched. Madja had pressed it into your hands before she left the infirmary yesterday, muttering something about rest. You’d promised her you’d sleep. Technically, you did.

You swing your legs out of bed and sit there for a while, elbows on your knees, forehead against your palms. The nightmares don’t scare you anymore; they just leave you hollow. You used to think that was healing, learning to live with the ache. Now you’re not sure.

Somewhere above, wings brush air again—deep, measured, unmistakable. You don’t have to look to know who it is. The sound threads through your ribs anyway.

You whisper to the empty room, “I’m fine,” because saying it aloud makes it sound closer to true.

Then you rise, reach for your healer’s tunic, and let the morning light find you. It pours across the floor like water, pale gold and soft. The kind of light that feels undeserved.

You walk through it anyway.

The House is already awake when you are, soft thuds and the faint hum of faelights stirring in the halls. Morning here never really begins, it just stretches out of the night.

You pad barefoot across cool stone, a shawl thrown around your shoulders. The corridors of the healer’s wing smell of eucalyptus and soap, faint traces of the evening’s work still clinging to the air. Somewhere below, the kitchens are waking, the sharp scent of coffee rising through the atrium. You could ask the House for a cup, but you like walking, like hearing it breathe.

The stairs open into a long veranda, the city spread out below. Velaris at dawn is always the same: roofs catching pale gold light, the Sidra running silver and quiet. You lean against the railing, watching mist drift off the river. For a moment the calm almost feels real.

A flutter of wings breaks the stillness. Cassian, already circling above the training ring. He’s been up since before dawn, as always. You raise a hand in greeting when he notices you; he swoops lower, grinning, shouting something you can’t hear and probably don’t need to. His joy is loud enough without words.

You smile despite yourself and turn back toward the infirmary. Madja would arrive soon, and there would be work: supply inventories, follow-ups on minor injuries from last night’s patrols. The rhythm of it soothes you: the counting, the lists, the smell of alcohol and herbs. It’s easier than thinking.

When the first patients arrive, you’re already moving, sleeves rolled, hair tied back. Your voice stays gentle, hands steady. By midmorning, your dream feels far away, until a shadow crosses the light spilling through the window. A cool draft, a whisper of wings.

You don’t turn. You just say quietly, “Good morning, Azriel.”

A pause. The faint rustle of wings folding. His voice, low and even: “You should ask the House for warmer clothes.”

You glance over your shoulder, meeting the ghost of a smile that never quite reaches his eyes. “And deny it the chance to scold me for not doing so? I’d never.”

He huffs out something between a sigh and a laugh, and the tension in the room shifts, not gone fully, but softened at the edges. He doesn’t stay; he never does. The moment passes like the shadow of a cloud, and the light finds you again.

The morning stretches into a blur of motion. By the time the sun clears the peaks beyond the Sidra, the healer’s wing hums with quiet purpose, apprentices moving between cots, the rustle of linen, the muted clink of glass. You fall into the rhythm easily, hands steady, voice even. The air smells of antiseptic and lavender. The pulse of magic in your palms feels calm today, warm, obedient.

Madja arrives with a brisk nod and a tray of vials balanced on one hand. “You’re early again,” she says, which is her way of saying thank you.

You smile faintly. “Bad habit.”

She squints at you. “Bad dreams?”

You shrug. “Same ones.”

“Then we’ll keep you busy.” She sets down the vials. “Busy is better than haunted.”

You nod and reach for the ledger. The rest of the morning passes in a steady rhythm: poultices, stitches, bandages, low murmured words that draw the pain away and leave only warmth. The little things that hold the world together.

By midday, the sunlight has deepened to gold. You’re wiping your hands when Mor’s laugh rings through the corridor like a bell. It’s too bright for the quiet of the infirmary, but no one ever tells her that.

“Look at you,” she says as she sweeps in, tray of pastries in her hands and sunlight following in her wake. “Still working while the rest of us are pretending to be civilized at lunch.”

You raise a brow. “Pretending being the key word?”

“Obviously.” She thrusts the tray toward you. “Eat before Cassian comes and steals the good ones.”

You take one, the sugar flaking against your fingers, and follow her to the veranda. The air is cool; the scent of river water and pastry sugar blend strangely well. Mor leans against the railing, eyes half-lidded against the sun.

For a while, neither of you speak. It’s enough just to exist in the quiet together. Then she says softly, “You’re glowing again.”

You glance down at your hands. The faint golden shimmer that always clings to your skin when you heal hasn’t faded completely. “Can’t seem to help it,” you say.

“Don’t,” she answers. “Velaris could use a bit more light.”

She bumps your shoulder gently. You smile, and for a moment, you almost believe it.

The wind shifts; from somewhere high above, wings beat the air again, steady, distant, familiar. You don’t look up. You just sip your tea, pretending you can’t feel the way your heart changes tempo with each pass of shadow over the sun.

By late afternoon the light softens, gold thinning into silver. The work slows, apprentices tidy the shelves, scrub the stone tables until they shine. You record notes in Madja’s looping hand, the ink still tacky against your fingers when the door at the end of the ward opens.

Azriel again. No armor this time, just black leathers worn soft from use, hair damp from flight. He moves like quiet itself, the room bending to make space for him. Madja doesn’t even look up. “You’re early.”

“Cassian sent me ahead,” he says. “Patrol report.”

He hands her a sealed parchment. When she takes it, his eyes flick briefly toward you. He doesn’t mean to linger, but they do.

Madja hums. “Nothing urgent, I hope.”

“Minor injuries. Some spell residue on the northern ridge.”

You look up at that: spell residue means healers, not soldiers. “Anyone sick?”

“Not yet,” Azriel answers, and that’s the closest he ever comes to reassuring. “But you might want to keep watch.”

Madja waves a dismissive hand. “Always do. Go on, Shadowsinger, let the girl breathe.”

He hesitates, just long enough for you to notice. Then he nods and leaves, the door closing softly behind him. His scent, night wind and cedar, lingers a moment longer than he does. You realize you’ve stopped writing.

Madja gives you a look that knows more than it says. “You’ll ruin the page if you keep staring after him.”

You flush and force your pen back to the ledger. “I wasn’t—”

She chuckles. “Of course not. Finish up. You’ve done enough for today.”

You obey, though your hands don’t quite stop trembling until long after the ink has dried.

When you finally leave the infirmary, the House is already dimming its lights. The sky outside is an indigo wash over the city, the Sidra catching starlight like molten glass. You walk the familiar path to your rooms, fingers brushing the smooth stone of the balustrade. The air smells of rain, though the clouds haven’t opened yet.

Inside, you set your satchel down, unlace your boots, and let yourself breathe. Quiet returns, soft and dense as snow. You think you’re alone, until the faintest movement catches your eye. A shadow shifts against the wall near the balcony, too patient to be wind.

You don’t startle anymore. You just murmur, “You could knock.”

Azriel steps into the lamplight, the faintest smile pulling at his mouth. “The House said you hadn’t eaten.”

“I told it I wasn’t hungry.”

“It told me that too.”

A pause. He holds up a small plate and sets it on the table between you. “Madja asked me to make sure.”

You study him in the dim light. He looks tired in the way people do when they don’t sleep, the hollowness hiding behind the calm. You don’t ask why. You just say, softly, “Thank you.”

He nods once, wings folding tight, and turns to leave. You don’t stop him, but the ache of what’s unspoken hangs heavy as his shadows.

When the door closes, you stand there for a long while, the plate untouched, listening to the wind drag itself across the balcony. Outside, night blooms over Velaris. Somewhere above, wings cut through the dark again.

And you, for reasons you don’t care to name, whisper a prayer to no one at all that he’s flying safely.

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Smoke and Light

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The world burns in silence first.

No screaming, no clash of steel; just the slow, hollow thunder of magic collapsing on itself. You taste it before you hear it, the metallic tang of power gone wrong, the air heavy enough to choke on.

Your hands are slick: blood, soot, someone else’s life slipping through your fingers. The wards you’ve been whispering to all night tremble and die one by one. Sparks fall like dying stars across the ruined field, and the ground shudders beneath another distant blast. You can’t tell if the shaking is the earth or your body.

You were told to leave hours ago. You didn’t.

You couldn’t.

A child had been screaming somewhere beyond the smoke; soldiers had been dragged past you, half-dead, begging for a healer. So you stayed. Bandages, tinctures, shaking hands, your whole life reduced to the simple act of holding things together while the world fell apart.

Then comes the sound that doesn’t belong to mortals: a crack, like the sky splitting open. Power tears through the air in ribbons of light and shadow. Hybern’s forces, the Fae lords, everything blinding and wrong colliding at once. You hit the ground. You can’t tell which side you’re on anymore.

The smoke curls into your lungs, thick as tar. Every breath hurts. Somewhere nearby, someone shouts your name—your mother’s voice, maybe—but it’s swallowed by the roar of magic. You reach for her and feel only air.

There is no sky now. Only fire.

You crawl toward what you hope is the edge of the field. Toward light. Your fingers dig into soil slick with ash and blood. Your heartbeat stumbles, then steadies in defiance, one, two, three. You think of your mother’s hands, warm and smelling of lavender, of your father pointing at stars that never existed, naming them after stories he made up to make you laugh. You think, just for a moment, that if you keep remembering, you might stay alive.

Then the light finds you.

It’s not the Cauldron yet. It’s Helion, all gold and fury, cutting through the chaos. His power sears across the battlefield, searching. When it touches you, you feel everything: the heat, the ache, the grief, the unbearable relief of being seen. You try to tell him to help the others first, but the words don’t come.

Your body gives out before your will does.

The last thing you see is sunlight breaking through the smoke, spilling across his outstretched hand. The last thing you hear is his voice, raw and urgent—

“Hold on, little sun.”

And then the world tilts, and the light swallows you whole.

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