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The bonus chapter from A Court of Silver Flames is not some sweeping, swoony love scene. It’s a quiet, emotionally painful look at a man wrestling with feelings he doesn’t believe he’s allowed to have. From the first page, we learn that Azriel isn’t in a place of romantic bliss—he’s in emotional torment:

“Too many wants and needs left his skin overheated and pulling taut across his bones.”

“So he slept only when his body gave out.”

This is a man haunted. Not content, not satisfied. His insomnia isn’t caused by lust—it’s caused by internal war between desire and restraint. He aches for Elain but doesn’t act on it. He denies himself even the right to imagine a future with her:

“He hadn’t gotten that far with his planning, certainly not beyond the fantasies he pleasured himself to.”

That isn’t evidence of one-dimensional lust. It’s an admission that he can’t let himself hope. The physical fantasies are all he allows, because believing in anything more feels dangerous. This is shame, not indulgence. Then the scene turns heated. Azriel has desire for Elain. No one denies that.

But look closely: it’s not casual. It’s tortured, controlled, and rooted in shame.

“It was a sacrilege for his fingers to touch her skin, tainting her with his presence.”

That isn’t lust.

Lust doesn’t think you’re unworthy.

Lust doesn’t call touch “sacrilege.”

Lust doesn’t ache and pull back and self-loathe.

His thoughts are carnal and conflicted. That’s key. When Elain leans in and gives him verbal and non-verbal consent, it nearly destroys him. This isn’t a man chasing gratification. This is a man drowning in emotion. If all he wanted was sex, he would’ve taken it. She was willing. The room was empty. No one was watching. But he didn’t. Instead, when Rhys interrupts him, Azriel steps back. He apologizes. He says “This was a mistake.”

This is restraint. This is guilt. This is not lust-driven behavior. He doesn’t resent Elain for the moment. He isn’t frustrated that it was ruined. He’s devastated because he’s convinced it can never happen again. Azriel’s training scene with Gwyn is emotionally disconnected. He notices her improvement. . He trains her like he trains others. But the tone is completely different. There’s no pining. No aching. No shame. He gives her the necklace not out of desire, but out of kindness and guilt.

“Tell her it was from Rhys.”

He doesn’t want credit. He doesn’t want it to be known that he even gave her anything. Let's not forget the Gwyn scene happened when Azriel was in emotional withdrawal. He just winnowed away from the most painful interaction he’s had.The bonus chapter is not about Elain being nothing more than a sexual fantasy. It’s about Azriel’s deep internal conflict—his desire, his guilt, and the love he believes he’ll never be allowed to act on. If you’re only reading the chapter for what he says out loud, you’re missing the entire emotional subtext. Because if anything is clear in this chapter, it’s this: He wants Elain.

@elriel-month : 𝕱𝖗𝖊𝖊 𝖂𝖎𝖑𝖑 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕿𝖗𝖚𝖊 𝕷𝖔𝖛𝖊

“𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮 𝔀𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭 𝓽𝓻𝓾𝓶𝓹 𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓷 𝓪 𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓫𝓸𝓷𝓭.”

Something I haven’t been able to get out of my head for the next book is Elain using truth teller to unmake her unwanted mating bond and choosing the male who truly sees her; who has shown, in so many tiny ways throughout the series, what love can really be like with the right person. It will be so powerful to see her take fate into her own hands, after being at the whims of those around her for so long.

@/icezimy absolutely BLEW ME AWAY bringing this art to life, and I cannot thank you enough, it turned out better than I could have imagined 💜🗡️

🎨 art by @/icezimy

✨ commissioned by me

likes, comments and shares appreciated!

An Elucien book? I'd be disappointed, but I could read it. After all, it would still be Elain's story and as much as I love Elriel, I want to read about Elain first and foremost. What's her thought process been like throughout the entirety of the series? Is she also haunted the same way Nesta was but is able to hide it better? Does she still mourn her human life or has she completely moved on? Do her powers flare in ways that she hasn't made the others aware of? These are the things that I am dying to know!

While I guess SJM could ultimately manage in convincing me to like Elucien, it would be a difficult process, especially after showing us throughout 2 books + 1 novella how much Elain doesn't want Lucien while developing a romantic bond with another man... Even if she ends up with Lucien, it doesn't change what has happened between her and Azriel:

He was the one to know what was "amiss" with her when it was supposed to be her mate.

She's exchanged charged glances with him while her mate was in the other room.

She was about to kiss (and potentially do more) with Azriel with no regard towards her mate, who was sleeping just one floor above.

How am I, as a potential Elucien, supposed to ever enjoy rereading the series when SJM has done nothing but constantly highlight Elain's discomfort around her supposed endgame and instead showed Elain connecting with another man?

Similarly, how am I supposed to potentially like Gwynriel when...

Azriel has been pining after Elain for a long time and meeting Gwyn, his supposed mate, did nothing to change that.

No matter how much time they spent together at training, Azriel still always struggled to sleep because of his need for Elain.

He bought that beautiful necklace with Elain in mind. The only reason Gwyn may have (she didn't) received it is because Azriel just wanted to be rid of it as he was hurt.

Azriel referred to Gwyn as a good distraction from his thoughts about Elain.

At this point, both Gwyn and Lucien would feel like the second choice that Azriel and Elain went for because they couldn't be with the one they truly want.

If Gwynriel was to happen then I genuinely would have no interest in reading that book. As much as I love Azriel and am keen to get into his head & learn more about him, I just cannot see myself interested in his book with anyone other than Elain. Why? Because one of my favourite things about Azriel is his relationship with Elain.

Throughout the whole series, SJM has established him as this aloof, lethal and introverted character. It's constantly repeated how much characters that aren't in the IC are wary of him due to his reputation. With Elain though? He's completely different and that's what I love.

Mor couldn't convince him to spend his time with her at Rita's for centuries. Surely if he was so in love and "obsessed" with her then he'd love to go, right? On the other hand, we have had multiple scenes where Azriel willingly offers to show Elain the garden and he even stays up with her till late at night to go over her plans for it.

She is the only person that Azriel gave TT to. In all 500 years, he's never gave it to Rhys, Cassian, Mor or anyone else. People who say it's insignificant are lying to themselves.

I don't mind Gwyn as a character, but I just don't care for her. She could die in the first chapter of the next book and I wouldn't bat an eye🤷‍♀️As such, I don't feel inclined to read a book about her as the MC. We've learned about her history and seen her deal with the trauma. We've seen her get her own found family. We've seen her journey from the lowest point in her life to becoming a Valkyrie and Carynthian (even tho she doesn't care for the title). Cool! Don't really need or want an ACOSF 2.0 where we see how Gwyn continues to train and gets out of the library. Again...

Anyways, the point to all of this is:

I don't want Elucien, but there is a small chance that I could like it if SJM wrote them accordingly

Happy Elriel Month everyone! For today's prompt, @acourtofquietdreamers and I collaborated on this commission and we are so happy we got the chance to work with the talented @lynx_illustration again!

Her work always blows us away and she did a phenomenal job bringing the prettiest in Prythian to life 🩷

There's something so beautiful about two people who seem so different on the outside being drawn together so effortlessly. In this piece, we wanted to showcase the beauty created when light and dark blend together.

Elain and Azriel representing light and dark is one of the many reasons they make such a complimentary pair. While Azriel can help Elain embrace the darkness, Elain can show Azriel he's worthy of the light he's craved since he was a young boy trapped in a dark cell.

༻𐙚༺

𐙚 art by @/lynx_illustration

𐙚 commissioned by me and @acourtofquietdreamers

𐙚 @elriel-month | Death and the Maiden

༻𐙚༺

₊⊹ Shares, saves, likes, and comments are kindly appreciated!

₊⊹ Please do not repost.

₊⊹ Please no negative ship war commentary.

Show me where she has it. Or even alludes to having it.

"Gwynriel are gonna fall in love"

Show me where Gwyn says she wants Azriel or even remotely shows romantic attraction to him. She blushes for one person in that book and it's Rhysand, not Azriel.

"Azriel gave the necklace to Gwyn"

Really... or did he give it to Clotho and verbatim say "if you see Gwyn would you give this to her...if there's another priestess here who might appreciate it, give it to them. But I'm not taking it with me when I leave."

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆’𝒔 𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒚 ‎‧₊⋆*.⊹ ˖

Happy New Year! We have been saving this artwork for so long and are incredibly excited to finally share 🥹 This piece is a celebration of the past and the start of something new. Thank you for being here in this amazing community and for the memories we’ve been able to create! Here’s to an amazing 2025 and hopefully some upcoming news about the next ACOTAR release soon! 🥳

To Emma, thank you for pouring your love and talent into this piece. It was an absolute joy to work with you! Elain and Azriel hold such a special place in our hearts and we adore imaging such a vibrant celebration of their characters and their love and seeing it brought to life. Thank you so so much again!

❥ Art by @/emmagilletteart on insta

❥ Commissioned by me, @starswhogaze, @wollfking and @duskwhisperer!

Please do not repost!

𝑯𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔

Quinlar and Elriel Parallels

Azriel is old and set in his ways. He likes PEACE AND QUIET--something that Feyre picked up very quickly. He is not out there, clubbing and drinking. He likes his music and mostly he likes solitude and calmness. He doesn't seek to be ChAllEnGed! His whole life is a challenge. He's been challenged in unimaginable ways, since he was essentially a baby. What he wants and needs isn't someone to give him lip (Gwyn) or drag him to do things he doesn't want to do (Mor), but someone who would love and nurture him. He's never really had a HOME.

You know who he found to be a kindred spirit? Nesta! Nesta, who likes music and solitude and dirty novels. You know what they have in common besides their personalities, which are aloof, a little angry, a bit haughty and generally tired/annoyed? Elain. Elain is the one who loved Nesta no matter what, and who came to love Azriel too. You know whom Nesta loves? Elain. So does Azriel.

Imagine Gwyn, being stuck with someone like Azriel? Or someone like Bryce, ending up with Azriel?

All he does is basically rolls his eyes at them and shushes them. There might be some level of admiration for these girls, who went through a lot in their lives, from him, but beyond that, Azriel is bored with them and they'd be bored with him. Instead, he listened with rapt attention to gardening plans.

Frankly, Gwyn would fit someone like Cassian a lot more--if we are talking personalities. And it would be Emerie who'd fit Azriel, if we are being honest.

Gwyn and Bryce are similar in many ways, but the one person they aren't similar to at all is Elain.

Maybe, just maybe, Azriel needs someone to cling to him. Out of love and desire, and not necessity. Because she wants him, even when she knows she shouldn't. Maybe, he wants to be wanted, and not challenged. Maybe he wants to be needed, and not lied to and hoodwinked. Maybe he wants to be desired, and not kept in limbo for centuries.

But she didn't...

If SJM wanted Elain and Lucien to be together, she would have left out, "love would trump even a mating bond"...

But she didn't...

If SJM wanted Elain and Lucien to be together, she would have removed all the awkward and extremely uncomfortable moments between them...

But she didn't...

If SJM wanted Elain and Lucien to be together, she would have made Lucien's POV next with Elain's book...

But she didn't...

If SJM wanted Elain and Lucien to be together, she would have written the books entirely different...

But instead, Azriel was written in the books every step of the way with Elain...not Lucien.

SJM did exactly what she intended to do.

She wants Elain and Azriel to be together.

Not a princess, or a Lady, or a priestess, not Mor, or his High Lady, or a warrior,

Elain.

Elain didn’t need to be a Valkyrie, a Starborn, a fighter, a queen, a princess or lady Death. She wasn’t trained by Illyrian warriors. She didn’t know about the best way to handle a weapon.

She was just Elain.

And she was given Truth Teller by Azriel.

and the posts were so certain about gwynriel happening, so I thought that maybe I’d missed a couple of chapters when I was reading. And I went down a rabbit hole, looking for evidence of the ship, because it didn’t make sense to me at all. Then I found out that there was a bonus chapter. Then I read the bonus chapter. Then I laughed because I realised how crazy delusional people are for basing a whole ship off of what is absolutely nothing.

The interactions between Gwyn and Az show nothing. Like it’s genuinely the most delusional ship.

The fact that I had to find A BONUS CHAPTER, stuff that doesn’t even matter to the main plot of the series, to understand where on earth a ship came from really says it all. That bonus chapter just gave us more insight to some of the characters and how they were coping after the war and stuff, nothing hectic because it could not exist and we’d still understand everything without it. That chapter just confirmed what we knew from the start, that Az and Elain are going to get together. But even without that chapter, there’s evidence of ELRIEL.

Eris, insults and slut shames Mor in public, in front of all Seven Courts. Unprovoked.

Tries to drown Feyre on the ice lake.

Fandom: OMG. HE. IS. SO. SEXY. A dreamer!! A feminist king who loves his mother!

Azriel:

Beats the shit out of Eris for insulting Mor

"Be careful how you speak about my High Lady"

"I am getting her back"

Rescues Mor. Rescues Feyre. Rescues Elain. Rescues Gwyn. Protects Nesta. Trains priestesses.

💀💀💀

Elain throughout whole ACOSF being foreshadowed as a spy:

“She scanned Elain from head to toe, wondering if she'd been taking lessons in stealth either from Azriel or the two half-wraiths she called friends.”

“She nodded toward Azriel. “I think she's got you beat for secret-keeping.”

Gw*n: can’t keep a secret even for one night

🤭🤭🤭

“Azriel rescued Gwyn from Sangravah, it was so romantic how he saved her.”

But he didn’t really know who Gwyn was then, so he was going there to save all the priestesses not just Gwyn.

“You don’t understand, he went feral when he saw what had been done to her! It was total mate behavior!”

When he saw what was done to Gwyn? Only Gwyn? Not the 3 corpses that were also there? Not her sister’s beheaded body in the temple? Those things couldn’t also have explained his behavior?

“He gave her his cloak and carried her out of the temple!”

And moments later handed her to Mor. Like Azriel and Mor have done many times on rescue missions. Was there at least some heart warming language used for the rescue? Like he cradled her to his chest? Refused to set her down?

“He broke protocol by slaying ALL of Hybern’s men! He’s supposed to keep some alive!”

So if Azriel was ok breaking protocol “for Gwyn” in this situation. Why didn’t he break protocol to go save her in the Blood Rite?

“That’s different! The Blood Rite is an Illyrian tradition, he couldn’t break those rules! If he did the Illyrian’s would have hunted down and killed Gwyn!”

Gwyn …. Who lives in Velaris … In a library under the sworn protection of the most powerful High Lord … that the Illyrian’s serve.

“Well it doesn’t matter anyways, he totally has a savior complex. But Gwyn is his mate and can help him fix that!”

But why would you think they are mates? They aren’t especially drawn to each other, with one notable and suspicious exception.

“Omg he rescued her! Then he trained her!”

But weren’t there other priestesses at these trainings? What about Emerie and Nesta?

“HIS CHEST SPARKED! IT SPARKED! THAT MAKES THEM MATES BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER EXPLANATION FOR SPARKING!!”

But what about like sparks of magic? And there are other uses for the word -

“YOU’RE JUST MAD THAT HE DOESNT WANT USELESS ELAIN ANYMORE! THE BONUS CHAPTER ENDED ELRIEL!”

“HIS CHEST SPARKED! IT SPARKED! THAT MAKES THEM MATES BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER EXPLANATION FOR SPARKING!!”“But what about like sparks of magic?And there are other uses for the word-“👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Feyre & Tamlin- Acotar

Lorcan & Aelin- Kingdom Of Ash

Lidia & Irithys- Hofas

Cassian Finding out Nyx has wings-Acosf

I wasn’t going to write this because I usually can’t be bothered to care about the friendship among these three but if their fans are so obsessed with over analyzing Feyre’s relationships…why can’t we?

One of the main reasons people love to say that the Valkyries are better than than IC is because they would never choose anyone over Nesta but the problems lies in the fact that…they have no one to choose over her.

Let’s break it down.

Gwyn has no one in her life right now. No family and no close friends outside of the Valkyries. I mean you can say that she’s friends with some of the priestesses but close friends? The same can be said for Emerie. She has a family but an abusive one. She is an outcast in her community, runs her shop alone, and like Gwyn has no friends outside of the Valkyries.

Their friendship with one another isn’t even treated as important as their friendship with Nesta. Because of this they look less like a trio and more like Nesta and Gwyn//Nesta and Emerie.If one of them is mad at Nesta who are they going to go to? The other person in their group who also is friends with Nesta and has loyalty towards her? Y’all say that Gwyn and Emerie would never put anyone over Nesta and does that include one another? Is their loyalty and friendship towards Nesta more important than the one they have with each other? In canon it sure is treated as such.

Praising the Valkyries because they would never put anyone above Nesta is not only a void point because they have no one to put above her, but it’s also reinforces the toxic view a lot of Nesta fans have when it comes to her relationships. They don’t want her to have friends, they want her to have followers. They want undying loyalty and turn a blind eye to the obvious shitty writing when it comes to Gwyn’s and Emerie’s relationships outside of Nesta because them lacking those relationships means that Nesta will always have that undying loyalty.

A problem that people have with the Valkyries is they aren’t their own characters when you really think about it. A lot of their characterization surrounds Nesta. And that’s why Nesta’s fans have zero problem with them. Whereas when it comes to the Inner Circle they are their own people before they are Feyre or Rhys’ friends. They have multiple people who are important to them instead of their lives just revolving around this one person. Their relationships with one another is equally as important as their relationships with Feysand.

Gwyn and Emerie are less characters and more like tools for Nesta’s healing journey. All confirmed when, after hearing about how Nesta abused her sister, Emerie of all people went on to say she’s absolved of any fault. Emerie, who is a victim of familial abuse herself, thought it was her place to forgive Nesta’s abuse towards other people. You genuinely want me to believe that some of the things these girls do weren’t written with the sole intention of healing Nesta?

They are not their own people. That’s why it’s easy for this fandom to self-insert onto Gwyn and blatantly ignore Emerie. They don’t have a big enough presence in these books to force you to pay attention to who they actually are. Without Nesta they kind of just fade into the background. You can hate or love members of the IC but at the end of the day you see them.