LemonDrop

The cell door crashed open. Torchlight stabbed into her eyes, making her cry out—her good eye burning, her ruined eye a pit of raw nerve endings screaming in her skull. "Up!" A woman's voice sliced through the darkness. Razor-sharp. Ice-cold. Terrified. Sara.

Through the hellscape of fever, Rhaella recognized her. The pregnant slave from the fields. The one who'd walked like a ghost, silent as shadow, desperate to keep her unborn child alive one more day.

Her belly jutted obscenely now. Stretched to breaking point. She staggered rather than walked, spine curved backward, face contorted, one hand clawing at her lower back, the other white-knuckled around a sloshing bucket.

"I SAID UP," Sara hissed when Rhaella couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. "Lord Nolan wants you alive, which means I clean your filth. So move before I—"

The threat hung in the air like a blade.

Rhaella's muscles spasmed as she tried to rise. Her arms buckled. She crashed back into the putrid straw, a sound like a dying animal tearing from her throat.

"Disgusting," Sara snarled, slamming down the bucket. Water sprayed across the floor. "Worthless. Pathetic."

She seized Rhaella's arm—nails gouging into weeping burns—and wrenched her upright against the stone.

Rhaella's vision exploded into fragments. The world heaved. Bile surged up her raw throat though her stomach was a shriveled, empty husk.

"Don't. Move." Sara's command cut like a knife as she plunged a rag into the water. The water was ice. The rag was sandpaper. "This will be agony."

It was.

Sara's nails dug into Rhaella's burns as she scrubbed, each stroke a deliberate punishment that tore fresh screams from Rhaella's raw throat. The rag came away black with filth, red with blood, yellow with infection.

"I can't believe they're making me touch you," Sara spat, her eyes wild with hatred. "A child-killer. A monster."

"I didn't—" Rhaella choked out.

Sara slammed her palm over Rhaella's mouth so hard her head cracked against the stone wall. "SHUT UP!" she screamed, spittle hitting Rhaella's face. "Everyone knows what you did! Helped that old man butcher his own daughter! A twelve-year-old! Anna's blood sprayed across the walls while you watched!"

"They should have burned you alive," Sara hissed, ripping the bandages off with a wet, tearing sound that made Rhaella convulse. The wounds beneath were a nightmare—black-edged, weeping yellow pus that reeked of decay.

Sara retched at the smell but attacked the wounds with the rag, scrubbing until fresh blood poured down Rhaella's side.

Rhaella bit through her own tongue. The coppery flood filled her mouth as she swallowed her screams.

"Anna is a good girl," Sara snarled, voice breaking. "She—"

A violent spasm doubled Sara over. She shrieked, clutching her swollen belly as her legs gave way. Her face drained of all color, eyes bulging with terror.

"Are you—" Rhaella gasped through the blood in her mouth.

Sara's only answer was a primal moan. She clawed at her stomach, fingernails leaving red crescents on the stretched skin. When the contraction passed, she wrapped Rhaella's wounds with bandages pulled so tight they cut off circulation.

But Rhaella saw it clearly now—the way Sara's body betrayed her with each movement. The unnatural angle of her spine. The fluid darkening her dress between her legs.

Something was catastrophically wrong.

“Sara—”

“Shut up.” Sara slammed a cracked bowl of scalding broth against Rhaella’s trembling hands. “Drink. They want you alive.”

Rhaella’s fingers rattled like bones in a gauntlet; she tipped the bowl toward her lips and spilled half of it down her chin. Sara snorted, yanked it back, and strapped it to Rhaella’s mouth, tipping too hard. Hot liquid splashed into her nose. She choked, her chest convulsing.

“Pathetic,” Sara spat, voice low and vicious. “You can’t even sip on your own. They should let you bleed out. Mercy’s more than you gave Anna.”

The broth was ash—warm water haunted by the ghost of sustenance. But Rhaella’s body seized it gratefully, starved for warmth. She swallowed despite the fire tearing at her throat.

Sara bent to cringe at the tattered bandages, ripping them away with rough fingers—then froze. A strangled gasp broke from her as she clutched the damp stone wall, her face draining of color.

“Sara—” Rhaella rasped, burning with fever, each breath a razor against her ribs. “Something’s wrong. You have to—”

“I said shut up!” Sara’s teeth ground together, but now a tremor shook her words. “Don’t pretend—don’t pretend you’ve ever mattered.”

The trapdoor above slammed open. Boots thundered across cold stone. The air snapped like a drawn bowstring, crackling with a magic so vast it felt as though the dungeon itself might buckle. Rhaella’s own flicker of power hissed in reply, feeble as a dying ember.

Voices—urgent, clipped.

“—told you there’s only prisoners here—” Lord Nolan’s panic seeped down, a high, tight tremor.

“Then a quick search won’t hurt,” replied a deep voice, rich with mountain winds and ancient storms—a confidence that filled the hall like daylight. “The High Lady demands assurance.”

Illyrians. Myth made flesh. Blades at their hips, armor hammered by generations, eyes like sharpened flint. They spilled into the cell, an avalanche of silent power. Even the torches guttered.

Sara’s eyes flickered to Rhaella, wide with raw terror or wild pleading—it was impossible to tell which. “Don’t,” she whispered, throat raw. “If they see you… if they know… they’ll kill us all.”

Her legs collapsed. Rhaella lurched forward, bloody wounds screaming as she caught Sara’s elbow. The world tilted so violently she thought she might drown in the darkness at the edges of her vision.

“The baby…” she croaked. “It’s coming—now.”

“No!” Sara’s scream cracked like ice. “Not—too soon—”

A contraction clenched Rhaella’s body like iron bands. She tore a scream from her throat, muffled it with her hand, but the sound shattered the silence, ricocheting off the walls, driving every soldier to a sudden, breathless halt.

All at once. Utter stillness.

The deep voice cut the hush like a blade. “What was that?”

Lord Nolan stumbled: “Just… the prisoners. They cry out—it’s nothing.” His words tumbled, terrified. Behind him, the Illyrian war drums of magic thrummed, waiting.

"That wasn't someone sleeping." Another voice. Different. Darker. Wrapped in shadows even in its tone. Soft but somehow more terrifying than the first. "That was someone in pain."

Footsteps. Coming closer. Coming down into the dungeons.

"Please," Lord Nolan's voice, begging now. "There's nothing down there worth—"

"We'll determine that." The deep voice. Final. Absolute.

Sara moaned again, low and desperate. Trying so hard to stay quiet but the pain was too much. Her water broke with a gush, soaking her ragged dress and pooling on the stone floor in a spreading puddle.

"No no no," she whimpered. "Not now. Please not now. They'll kill us. They'll kill my baby—"

Rhaella looked up at the cell door. At the two guards who'd been stationed there—young men, barely past twenty, whose faces had gone white with terror.

They could hear the Illyrians coming. Could feel the power radiating off them as they descended the stairs. Could understand with perfect clarity that they were about to die.

One of them rushed into the cell. The younger one. The one with shaking hands and wide, panicked eyes.

He grabbed Sara. Clamped his hand over her mouth to muffle her cries.

Sara's eyes went wild. She tried to pull away, tried to scream around his palm, but she was trapped between the pain of labor and the guard's desperate, terrified grip.

Something inside Rhaella snapped.

Rage. Pure and absolute and burning hotter than any fever. Hotter than the iron they'd used on her. Hotter than anything she'd ever felt.

She'd watched Anna die. Had stood there covered in blood while a girl was murdered by her own father in the name of mercy.

She would not watch Sara die. Would not watch this baby die. Would not let fear and cruelty and desperation destroy one more innocent thing.

The magic inside her—dormant for so long, buried so deep she'd thought it was dead—roared to life.

Not light this time. Not butterflies or gentle sparks or pathetic distractions.

This was power. Raw and furious and desperate and vast.

The air in the cell went electric. Charged like the moment before lightning struck. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in an instant. Frost formed on the stone walls in delicate patterns that spread like crystallized fury.

The torches in the corridor flickered. Dimmed. Then blazed so bright they turned white-hot, then blue, burning with a light that had nothing to do with normal fire.

And up above—

Silence.

Complete and total and suffocating silence.

Every Fae in the building had felt it. Had felt her. Had felt the surge of ancient magic from something that should not exist. From power that predated the Wall and the wars and everything anyone thought they knew.

"What in the Mother's name—" The deep voice. Shocked now. Almost awed. "Did you feel that?"

"Yes." The shadowed voice. Sharper now. More focused. Like a predator that had just scented prey. "Coming from below."

"There's nothing below," Lord Nolan said, and his voice had gone high and thin with panic. "I swear to you, there's nothing down there but—"

"We're going down there." Not a request. Not a question. A statement of absolute fact.

"You can't—the treaties say—"

"The treaties say we have the right to investigate reports of Fae-blooded individuals being held against their will," the deep voice said, and there was steel in it now. Cold fury. "And that magic we just felt? That wasn't human. That wasn't normal. So we're going down there. And you're going to get out of our way."

"But—"

"Now."

Footsteps on the stairs. Descending rapidly. Purpose in every step.

But Sara was moaning again—a sound of pure agony that couldn't be contained no matter how hard the guard pressed his palm to her mouth. The baby was coming whether she wanted it to or not. Whether it was safe or not.

The magic was still blazing inside Rhaella. Still flaring like wildfire. Responding to her rage, her desperation, her absolute refusal to let another innocent die.

"Let her go," Rhaella said. Her voice came out ruined. Raw. But there was something in it now—something that hadn't been there before. Power. Authority. The voice of someone who could make you obey. "Now."

The guard looked at her with wide, terrified eyes. Saw something in her face—in her violet eye that blazed with power, in the way frost was spreading from her across the floor—that made him understand with perfect clarity that he was in danger.

He released Sara like she'd burned him. Stumbled back toward the door.

Sara collapsed to her knees in the spreading pool of her water. Sobbing. Gasping. Contracting so hard her whole body convulsed.

Rhaella crawled toward her despite the way her body screamed in protest. Despite the way her vision swam and tilted. Despite the infections and burns and fever that should have killed her days ago.

"Sara," she said softly, and her voice was steadier now. The magic was sustaining her. Giving her strength she shouldn't have. "Sara, look at me."

"Get away from me," Sara sobbed. "You killed that girl. You're a monster. And now they're coming and they'll kill us all because of you—"

"I'm going to help you give birth to your baby," Rhaella said, and the words were steady despite everything. "So you can hate me after. But right now, you need to listen to me and push."

Another contraction hit. Sara screamed—couldn't help it, the pain was too immense, too overwhelming.

And above—

The voices went quiet again. Then footsteps. Faster now. Running down the stairs.

"Shit," the guard at the door whispered. "Shit shit shit—they're coming—"

The door at the top of the stairs exploded open.

Not opened. Exploded. Torn off its hinges by raw power and sent flying into the corridor where it shattered against the stone wall.

Light spilled down. Not torchlight. Not even normal Fae-light. This was radiance that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, that pushed back the shadows with absolute authority.

And then—a figure.

Tall. Massive. Broad-shouldered and built like violence given form. With wings—gods, wings—that spread so wide they scraped both walls of the narrow stairwell. Massive wings of leather and claw and membrane that caught the light and seemed to glow with their own inner fire.

An Illyrian warrior.

He descended the stairs with lethal grace, each step purposeful, and the power radiating off him was suffocating. Overwhelming. The kind of power that made you want to kneel or run or simply stop existing because surely nothing mortal was meant to be in the presence of something like this.

His eyes swept the corridor. Taking in everything with brutal efficiency. The cells. The torture implements still hanging on the walls—the whips and knives and irons that had tasted so much pain. The blood stains on the floor that had been there so long they'd turned black. The shackles. The chains.

The evidence of systematic brutality.

His face went hard. Cold. Deadly.

A face that had seen war. That had dealt death. That would deal it again without hesitation or mercy.

"There's someone down here," he said, his voice carrying back up the stairs. Deep and rough and absolutely furious beneath the control. "Multiple people. And—" He stopped. His nostrils flared, scenting the air. "Blood. Fresh blood. Birth. And—"

Sara screamed again. A sound of pure agony that echoed through the dungeons like a death knell, reverberating off the damp stone walls until it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

The warrior's eyes locked on their cell. On the rusted iron door the guards had left half-open, its ancient hinges groaning with each subtle movement.

Another figure appeared behind him on the stairs. With wings that seemed made of shadow themselves—not leather like the first warrior's, but something darker, as if pieces of midnight had been sewn together with starlight thread. His face was carved from stone, beautiful and merciless, bearing scars that whispered of ancient tortures. Those hazel-gold eyes swept the dungeon with lethal precision, ancient and haunted, like autumn leaves preserved in amber for a thousand years.

The first warrior moved.

Gods, he moved.

Fast. So impossibly fast he was just a blur of motion and wings and lethal grace. One moment at the stairs, boots planted on worn stone. The next in front of their cell, the displaced air crackling with power that smelled like thunderstorms and pine.

The guard—the one who'd grabbed Sara, his fingers still bearing the red imprints of her flesh—tried to slam the door shut. Tried to—

The warrior caught it. One hand shot out, fingers like iron bands around the edge. He ripped it clean off its hinges with a screech of tortured metal that made Rhaella's teeth ache and her skull vibrate. Threw it aside like it weighed nothing. Like it was paper. It crashed against the far wall, leaving a spiderweb of cracks in the ancient stone.

And then he was there. Standing in the doorway. Wings flared to their full, terrifying span, the membranes so thin light filtered through them in places, revealing a network of veins like dark rivers. Power radiated off him in waves that made the very air shimmer and warp, distorting the torchlight into fractured rainbows.

Taking in the scene with eyes that missed nothing.

Sara on the floor, writhing in labor. Her nightgown soaked through with sweat and torn at the hem. Blood spreading beneath her—too much blood, far too much blood, the color all wrong. Not bright arterial red but darker, almost black in the dim light, viscous and thick with clots.

Rhaella beside her, her hands already covered in blood and birth fluids, the crimson liquid drying in the creases of her palms and under her broken nails. She tried desperately to help while her own body swayed like a sapling in a gale and her vision tunneled to pinpricks of light. Frost spread from her touch across the stone in delicate, crystalline patterns that resembled ferns unfurling.

The guard backed into the corner, hand on his sword, the metal scraping against the scabbard with a tremulous ring. His face had gone the color of curdled milk, eyes wide as saucers, looking like he wanted to disappear entirely into the rough-hewn wall behind him.

“What—" The first warrior's voice shredded the air like jagged glass, raw with barely contained fury that made the torches flicker and dance along the damp stone walls.

Behind him, the shadowed warrior froze midstep, every sinew and tendon locked as if encased in glacial ice. Time itself had snapped around him—the world unmade and remade in a single, savage heartbeat that echoed in the hollow chamber of his chest. His wings trembled minutely, shedding motes of darkness that dissipated like smoke.

Rhaella lay sprawled on the filthy dungeon floor, vision swimming in fever-bright pain, crimson-tinged sweat beading on her forehead. But through the haze, she felt him—his hazel-gold gaze burning into her like molten iron fresh from the forge. The air between them crackled, pregnant with something primordial and ancient, and her magic fluttered in her veins like a caged bird, confused, desperate, reaching.

Sara's scream—high and guttural—cracked the silence like lightning splitting an oak. She thrust, back arching off the stone, a violent eruption of viscous blood and cloudy fluids and wrongness spilling across the floor in a steaming pool. The metallic scent of iron flooded the corridor, mixing with the mildew and despair.

Rhaella lunged forward, catching the newborn in trembling, bone-thin hands. So small, impossibly fragile, its skin gleaming sickly alabaster beneath the harsh orange torchlight, blue veins visible like rivers on a map. She drew the rusted guard's knife—its edge notched and pitted—with fingers that shook like autumn leaves in a gale, severing the purplish cord with a sawing motion. Dark arterial blood spattered her forearm in a constellation of droplets. With impossible gentleness, she wiped the child's face clean of viscous gore, revealing features still scrunched from the trauma of birth.

The baby hung limp as wet parchment. No cry. No flutter of life beneath the translucent skin. Its lips stained cornflower blue, tiny chest utterly still beneath the cage of undeveloped ribs.

“No,” Sara’s voice broke into ragged sobs as she reached out, her palms slick with her own blood. “No—my baby—please—”

In the doorway, the first warrior's jaw shattered with tension. His rage exploded into visceral horror as he beheld Rhaella.

Her flesh wasn't merely wounded—it was a battleground.

Whip lacerations had carved canyons across her back, the edges blackened and festering. Her skin bubbled where they'd pressed white-hot metal, peeling away in wet, suppurating sheets. Infection devoured her from within, yellow-green pus weeping from wounds that would never heal. Her skeleton threatened to tear through paper-thin skin, each rib a knife's edge beneath translucent flesh.

One eye—once grey as winter storms—stared sightless, the pupil a milky cloud beneath a web of burst vessels, the socket ringed with mottled purple bruises where fists had systematically shattered the delicate orbital bone—while her remaining eye blazed with such violent violet magic it scorched the air around it, reality itself warping under its pressure.

"Mother’s tits," he choked out, voice flayed raw. "What did they do to you?"

Rhaella's arms convulsed as she clutched the lifeless infant to her concave chest. She wrenched its head back, fingers frantically clawing at its nostrils, its blue-tinged lips, hunting desperately for breath. Nothing. A silence so absolute it screamed. "Breath," she commanded, her voice splintering like bone.

"Please, breath—" She slammed her forehead against the infant's, her skull vibrating with desperation. Deep within her core, she ripped open the cauterized wound of her power—that same savage inferno that had erupted when Sara's screams tore through the dungeon. That primal, world-breaking force. She seized it with bleeding mental fingers, her consciousness fracturing under its weight.

The air didn't just convulse—it ripped apart.

Not gentle light. Not dancing illusions. This was raw, primeval life-force tearing through the veil between worlds.

Her lungs heaved, sucking in magic that scorched through her veins like molten steel. She exhaled it into the baby's motionless lungs, slammed it into its silent heart.

Breath. Live. Breath.

A cataclysm of ancient power detonated from her core—an invisible tsunami that could have shattered mountains, drowned kingdoms, extinguished stars.

It hammered through the fortress with such violence that stone cracked and mortar turned to dust. Every Fae within miles dropped to their knees as their marrow liquefied, as their tongues blistered with the taste of pure creation, as their magic convulsed and hemorrhaged.

And in the corridor—the second warrior made a sound that shredded reality.

Not a gasp. Not a sob. A primal howl of recognition that had been trapped in his soul for centuries, finally ripping free.

His shadows exploded outward, a tsunami of living darkness surging toward Rhaella with such desperate hunger they left claw marks in the stone, in the air itself, in the fabric of time.

Through vision swimming with blood, she saw his face drain corpse-white, then flood with such violent anguish it was almost madness. His breath tore from his lungs like it was being ripped out with hooks. His fists clenched until bones cracked and black blood leaked between his fingers.

The first warrior's eyes snapped to him. Saw something there that made his own immortal heart stutter. Understanding crashed across his features with such force he staggered back. "Oh fuck," he breathed, voice splintering. "Az. Az. Is she—"

But whatever he was going to say shattered into oblivion as—

The baby's lungs convulsed. Expanded with a violent snap. Contracted with primordial force. Its blue-tinged mouth wrenched open in a desperate, ravenous gasp for air.

Then—a sound erupted from the infant's throat that cleaved reality itself. Not a cry—a primal howl that had existed since the first creature dragged itself from ancient seas.

The sound impaled Rhaella's soul, obliterating the frozen wasteland inside her. It wasn't just high and thin—it was raw, feral, alive.

The sound detonated through her blood like chain lightning, searing proof that in this nightmare of stone and iron and endless agony, life could still claw its way from death's throat. That her mutilated, desecrated flesh could birth something beyond screams. "My baby," Sara's scream tore from her ravaged body, blood-drenched fingers clawing the air, her entire frame seizing. "My baby, My baby—" Rhaella lurched forward to deliver the child. Tried—

Her vision didn't just fragment—it imploded. Catastrophic darkness devoured her world like a ravenous beast. The magic hadn't merely burned—it had incinerated her from within, a cosmic inferno consuming tissue, marrow, soul. She'd ripped out her very essence and poured it molten into those tiny lungs, and now there was nothing but a hollow void where her life had been. Nothing.

She collapsed forward, the newborn plummeting from dead fingers—

The warrior lunged. A blur of lethal speed. One arm clamped around her collapsing body, crushing her against a chest like granite. The other hand snatched the falling infant mid-air, cradling its fragile skull with battle-hardened fingers that could crush stone.

He deposited the child in Sara's desperate arms with precision, then seized Rhaella fully, holding her like she might disintegrate at his touch. His massive wings curved around them, blocking out the horror of the cell.

"I've got you," he growled, the words vibrating through his chest into her bones. "You're safe. I swear it on my fucking life."

Her vision tunneled to a single point of light. His face swam above her—bronze skin and sharp cheekbones framed by shoulder-length dark hair. Those hazel eyes burned with a fury that could level mountains, his calloused warrior's hands impossibly gentle against her broken body.

Behind him, the second warrior had finally moved. Had entered the cell on legs that didn't seem entirely steady. His face—beautiful in a severe, haunted way she'd never seen before—was frozen in an expression of such raw recognition that Rhaella felt a strange, inexplicable urge to apologize, though she couldn't understand why. The shadows surrounding him writhed and stretched toward her like living extensions of his body, curling around her ankles, her wrists, her throat—not threatening, but reverent. Possessive. As though they'd found something long lost.

His face wasn't just shattered—it was obliterated, as if someone had taken a war hammer to marble. Veins bulged at his temples, pulsing with such violent rage they threatened to burst through skin. His eyes weren't merely pained—they blazed with such catastrophic anguish it scorched the air between them, pupils blown so wide the irises were consumed by darkness. His jaw locked with such force she heard teeth crack. Every muscle in his massive frame convulsed as though his very cells were being incinerated from within. And she didn't understand why. Didn't know him. Had never seen him before.

“The bond,” the first warrior—the one holding her limp body—whispered, voice trembling as if afraid to disturb the air. “Az… the bond snapped for you. Didn’t it?”

He was mute. Only his gaze could speak—fixed on her as though she were the axis of his world, and everything else had been unmade. His jaw flexed. His throat pulsed. The shadows clinging to him writhed, coiling like wounded beasts.

“Fuck,” the first warrior hissed. “Okay—okay, we need to—”

Bootsteps roared up the stone stair, a cascade of armor and steel. Commander Torven burst into the corridor, a living tidal wave of guards in plate and mail, swords drawn, faces hardened by duty and fear. They surged forward, filling every inch of the hallway, weapons leveled as though storming a battlefield.

The first warrior snapped into position, a living rampart of muscle and steel between Rhaella and the onrushing terror, his massive wings arched like battle shields. Yet it was the warrior with shadows who truly moved. He strode onto the fractured flagstones, each footfall cracking stone beneath his boots, each breath a vow carved in ice that fogged the frigid air. Veins of midnight crawled across his bronze skin as he planted himself before Rhaella—and then his shadows detonated. A black wave surged from him, viscous as oil, sharp as obsidian blades, devouring torchlight, swallowing the corridor in bruised twilight that tasted of iron and ancient rage.

His power ripped through the dungeon like a deity of war unleashed. Stone shuddered, walls groaned and spiderwebbed with fissures. Every guard reeled, knees buckling beneath an unseen leviathan’s weight. The air thickened, each inhale a battle against a suffocating vise.

“Step away from the girl,” Torven rasped, staggering forward, voice cracking under the oppressive gloom. “Now. She’s a prisoner. A confessed murderer. You have no—”

The first warrior raised a single battle-scarred hand, ancient sorrow pooling like spilled ink in his amber eyes as he stole one last desperate glance at Rhaella's ashen face—gray as winter dawn, lips tinged blue-violet like bruised petals. "Close your eyes," he whispered, urgent yet gentle as a father with a frightened child. "Don't look. Don't listen. Please. You don't have to see this."

He pressed her frost-cold cheek against his breastplate, the metal still warm from his immortal heat. His wings—towering monuments of iron-plated gleamed obsidian and steel in the dungeon's guttering torchlight—folded around them like a living cathedral, a fortress of bone and sinew that silenced the world. The sudden hush crashed into her ears like a tidal wave, a pressure that made her eardrums ache.

"I'm sorry," he murmured into her trembling hair, voice thick with centuries of regret, his breath a ghost of warmth against her scalp. "I'm sorry you have to hear this. I'm sorry for all of it."

Darkness crept at the edges of her vision like spilled ink on parchment, bleeding inward with hungry tendrils. Her heart thrashed against her ribcage—first panicked as a trapped bird, then stuttering like a broken clockwork as if it had forgotten its own ancient rhythm. The magic hollowed from her chest left nothing but a brittle shell, thin as an eggshell and just as fragile.

She was bleeding out, life seeping from her like crimson sand through an hourglass.

Ice snakes through her veins. Sounds warped—muffled, distant, like cries carried underwater. The world grew thin and unreal; she felt herself slip beyond its edge.

Then the guards attacked.

The air didn't just split—it detonated with battle-cries that punched through her eardrums like hot iron spikes. Steel didn't merely shriek; it howled as it collided, spraying molten sparks that seared her retinas even through closed lids. Bodies weren't just slammed into stone—they were pulverized, vertebrae exploding in sequence like firecrackers.

The wet percussion of blades finding flesh became a symphony of butchery, each impact sending arterial spray that pattered against the warrior's wings like obscene rainfall. Screams erupted not like geysers but like volcanoes, primal and apocalyptic, boring into her skull until her molars fractured from clenching.

A skull didn't just crack—it detonated, brain matter and bone fragments spattering the walls in a grotesque constellation. Men didn't beg—they shrieked prayers that dissolved into animal sounds as their throats were ripped open by bare hands.

The stench wasn't just blood but the reek of opened intestines and evacuated bladders, so violently foul she heaved bile that burned like acid. The warrior's arms became not a vise but a steel trap, his gauntleted hand crushing her face against his chest with such force her cheekbone splintered beneath the skin.

"It's all right," he whispered, but his words tunneled from impossibly far away. "You're safe. I've got you. Don't listen. It'll be over soon."

But every sound hammered through her like physical blows—the wet, meaty thuds of dismemberment, the gurgling death-rattles of men drowning in their own blood, the bestial snarls of the shadow-warrior as he tore through flesh and bone. Behind them—through the cacophony of slaughter—Sara's sobs rose in pitch, the newborn's wails a counterpoint to the symphony of death.

They lived. She had saved them.

The thought flickered and died.

Everything was slipping away.

The sounds faded. Not because they ceased—she felt the tremor of each blow through the warrior’s chest—but because her mind was letting go.

She couldn’t hold on. Couldn’t process. The world spun. Tilted. Or perhaps she spun and the world stayed still. She could not tell.

So. Cold. Colder than the dungeon’s frozen stones. Colder than her fever had once burned. A cold born in the emptiness where her magic—and her life—had been.

The warrior’s arms remained. Solid, reassuring. But she could no longer feel their warmth. No leather against her cheek. No heartbeat beneath her palm.

Just distance. Just the dark.

Just noise. Violence. Death happening somewhere she could no longer reach.

Her last coherent thought shattered.

All this blood. All this agony. Because of me.

Because I used magic. Because I exist.

Even that thought unraveled.

The darkness did not crawl. It struck—violent, absolute—like a chain dragging her beneath a black sea.

The sounds ceased—not because the fight ended—she still sensed the furious tremors, the relentless wreckage—but because she could no longer hear.

The warrior’s embrace dissolved. Or perhaps he remained, and she was the only thing slipping away.

Into a silence so complete it felt as if she had never been.

Into a darkness with neither beginning nor end.

Into the endless void between heartbeats.

And somewhere in that void—

So faint she feared it was a trick of her fading senses—

A single golden thread.

Pulling her back.

Refusing to let her go.

But she could not reach for it. Could not fight the pull.

Only surrender.

If there is anything after this—

Any waking—

Any surviving—

She would find it then.

If.

The guards found her like that—a ghost painted in red, staring at nothing with eyes that had stopped seeing anything at all. A statue carved from guilt and horror, still and silent as the dead she stood among.

"She killed them both." The words came out strangled, barely a whisper from the first guard who stumbled through the doorway. His face had gone grey as old ash.

"Get Commander Torven," another snapped, his voice sharp with something that might have been fear—the primal kind that lives in the hindbrain, that recognizes predators wearing human skin. "Get him now."

Rough hands seized her arms—bruising, brutal, fingers digging into flesh already tender from old wounds. Dragged her from the room like she was nothing more than a sack of refuse, like she was already a corpse they were hauling to burial. Through corridors that blurred together into an endless tunnel of stone and shadow and the echo of her own ragged breathing. Past tapestries and windows and other slaves who pressed themselves against walls, made themselves invisible, pretended they saw nothing at all.

She did not resist. Did not speak. Could not speak even if she'd wanted to—her voice trapped somewhere deep beneath the weight of what she'd witnessed, what she'd helped create.

Because all she could see was Anna's face—burned into her vision like an afterimage. Those wide, confused eyes in that final moment before the light left them. The betrayal written there in blood and bewilderment, in the slack-jawed horror of understanding coming too late.

Papa?

And then the knife—rust and swift and final.

Rhaella's fault. All of it. She'd helped make that happen. She'd created the distraction that led them there, that distracted the guards, that opened the door to this particular hell. She'd promised mercy and delivered only horror dressed in a father's desperate love.

They threw her into a cell beneath the manor house—actual threw, bodies hitting stone with a crack that echoed. Stone walls that wept with moisture, slick and cold as a grave. No window. No light save the single torch that flickered in the corridor beyond the iron bars, casting dancing shadows that looked like reaching hands, like the dead come to claim her.

She collapsed onto the filthy straw and lay there, shaking.

Not from fear for herself. She was already dead—had been dead since the moment Garrett's blade had opened Anna's throat in a spray of arterial red. Since the moment that girl's blood had sprayed across Rhaella's face, hot and accusatory and damning.

No. She shook because she could still hear it. That wet, gurgling, terrible sound—the noise a throat makes when it's trying to breathe through blood. Could still see the light leaving Anna's eyes like a candle guttering out. Could still feel the weight of what her magic had cost—not in pain or exhaustion, but in souls. In lives ended. In mercy that looked like murder.

This is what you are, something whispered in her mind—voice that might have been her own or might have been something darker. This is what your gift creates. Death dressed up as mercy. Violence pretending to be love.

Hours passed. Or perhaps minutes. Time had lost all meaning in the dark, stretched and contracted like something alive and malicious.

Then—footsteps.

Heavy. Measured. The deliberate tread of someone who knew his own power and reveled in it like fine wine—savoring every drop, every moment of control.

Commander Torven.

He stood beyond the bars, studying her with eyes so cold they could have frozen the blood in her veins—turned it to ice, stopped her heart mid-beat. He was handsome, she supposed—if you could ignore the cruelty that lived in every sharp angle of his face, every calculating quirk of his mouth, every line that spoke of violence performed with pleasure.

A wolf in nobleman's clothing.

"Well," he said, his voice smooth as silk dragged over a blade—lovely and lethal in equal measure. "This is... unfortunate."

Rhaella said nothing. Stared at the wall and tried desperately to see anything except Anna's face. Tried to focus on the weeping stone, the dancing shadows, the scurrying sound of rats in the darkness.

Anything. Anything but that moment of betrayal.

"Two slaves dead. Throats slit from ear to ear, bodies cooling in their own blood. And you—" His gaze raked over her blood-soaked form with the clinical assessment of a man examining livestock. "—covered in their blood like some goddess of death and slaughter. Like something out of nightmare and legend."

He paused, let the silence stretch thin and taut as a wire ready to snap.

"One might think the matter settled. A slave gone mad—driven to violence by suffering or fever or simple human breaking. A mercy killing, perhaps, followed by her swift execution. Clean. Simple. The kind of resolution Lord Nolan would prefer."

She almost wished it were that simple. Almost wished he would just kill her now and be done with it—quick blade through the heart, swift drop from the gallows, anything to end this crushing weight of guilt.

But she could see the calculation in his eyes. The curiosity burning there like fever. The hunger for answers that went beyond simple justice.

"But I'm not convinced." He stepped closer to the bars, close enough that she could smell him—leather and steel and something darker underneath. Blood, maybe. Or just the particular scent of cruelty worn so long it soaks into skin. "You see, there's the small matter of how you managed to get into the eastern wing. How you passed three guard posts without being seen by men trained to watch for exactly this kind of breach. How you picked the lock on your quarters—yes, we found evidence of that little trick, the scratches on the mechanism—and crossed the courtyard during a shift change you shouldn't have known about."

Her heart slammed against her ribs like a caged bird—violent and desperate.

Not from fear of him. From fear of what would happen to the others if he thought this was a conspiracy. If he thought Tam or the other slaves had helped her—had been part of some coordinated rebellion.

They were innocent. They had to remain innocent. She would die before she let him turn his attention to them.

"And then there are the guards' reports." His voice dropped lower, more dangerous—velvet wrapped around steel. "Fascinating reading, really. They claim they saw something in the courtyard. A light. Moving on its own like a living thing. Leading them away from their posts like some will-o'-wisp out of children's tales, out of old legends about faerie lights and malicious spirits."

His eyes narrowed to slits—calculating, assessing, seeing too much.

“Tell me, girl. What kind of light moves on its own? What kind of light thinks? What kind of light deliberately lures trained soldiers away from their duties?"

Her throat constricted. Part of her wanted to confess—to end this terrible charade, to stop the lies that piled atop one another like stones on a grave. The truth hovered on her tongue, metallic as blood. "I don't—" she began, then faltered. "I can't—" Her voice emerged destroyed—raw as an open wound, barely more than breath given sound. She swallowed hard. "Maybe the moon reflecting off water," she whispered, hating herself even as the lie spilled forth. "Or shadows from their torches. Or their minds playing tricks when they should have been paying attention."

"Maybe." He smiled, and it was the most terrible thing she'd ever seen—all teeth and no warmth, no humanity. The smile of something that wore a man's face but had long since forgotten what it meant to be one. "Or maybe something else entirely. Something... impossible."

He unlocked the cell door with a key that sang against the metal—clear and bright and terrible. Stepped inside with the fluid grace of something that hunted for sport, that enjoyed the chase as much as the kill. The space suddenly felt too small, too close, the air too thick to breathe—charged with menace and the promise of pain.

Rhaella didn't scramble back. Didn't try to escape or press herself against the far wall. There was nowhere to go—the cell was barely six feet across. And part of her—the part drowning in guilt, the part that kept seeing Anna's betrayed eyes—thought maybe she deserved whatever was coming.

Anna's blood on your hands. Garrett's death on your conscience. This is what your magic brings. This is what you are.

"I've been watching you," Torven said softly, crouching before her with the fluid grace of something that hunted for sport—a cat playing with prey already caught. "Ever since you arrived on Lord Nolan's estate with those transport chains still rubbing your wrists raw. There's something about you, Rhaella. Something that doesn't quite fit into the neat categories we use for slaves. Doesn't quite make sense."

He tilted his head, studying her like she was a puzzle he intended to solve through force if necessary.

"Your eyes, for one—that violet shade. Uncommon. Striking. Some might even say... unnatural. The kind of color that shows up in old stories about bloodlines that shouldn't exist. About humans touched by things that aren't quite human."

Her mind raced even as her body remained still—frozen in place by fear and exhaustion and the crushing weight of guilt. He suspected. He'd suspected even before this—had been watching, waiting, looking for proof.

Which meant she needed to be careful. Needed to think three moves ahead the way she'd learned to think when navigating life with half her vision gone.

If she confessed too easily, he'd know she was protecting someone. If she resisted too much, he'd tear the compound apart looking for co-conspirators—would torture every slave until someone broke, until someone said something that confirmed his suspicions.

She had to give him just enough. Had to make him believe she acted alone. Had to be the only target.

"My mother had violet eyes," she lied, keeping her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands, despite the tears threatening to spill. "It runs in my family. Nothing more than an accident of birth—the same kind that gives some people red hair or different colored eyes. Just blood mixing in unexpected ways."

"Does it?" He reached out with deliberate slowness and caught her chin in an iron grip—fingers like steel bands, bruising and cruel. Forced her to look at him, to meet those cold, calculating eyes that saw too much, that stripped away lies like peeling skin from fruit. "And does magic run in your family as well?"

The word hung in the air between them like a death sentence—heavy and sharp and final.

Her heart stuttered—skipped a beat entirely before slamming back into rhythm. Part of her wanted to confess everything, to let the truth pour out like blood from a wound. To finally be seen for what she was.

"I don't—" she began, then faltered. The lie tasted like ash on her tongue, but the truth would burn others alive. She swallowed hard. "I don't have magic," she whispered, the words catching in her throat. "I'm just a slave who made a terrible choice. Who thought she could help someone and only made everything worse."

"Just a slave," he repeated, mocking—making the words sound like the lie they were. "Just a slave who somehow orchestrated an impossible infiltration. Just a slave who helped a dying old man reach his daughter in a locked wing during the most secure hours of the night."

His grip on her chin transformed into a vise, crushing until the bones beneath her skin ground together with an audible creak that vibrated through her skull. White-hot needles of pain exploded behind her eyes, her vision swimming as bile rose in her throat. "Who convinced trained guards to abandon their posts chasing phantom lights," he hissed, his face so close she could feel spittle hit her cheek. "Who moved through shadows like she was born from them, like darkness itself gave you passage."

“Garrett planned it," she gasped, the words tearing from her throat like shards of glass. Blood rushed in her ears as she clung to this half-truth. "He knew the guard rotations. Counted their steps. Timed their breaths. I just—" Her lungs seized, refusing air. "I just couldn't watch him die without—"

Her voice shattered completely, a sound like bones breaking. Something wild and primal clawed up from the depths of her chest.

"I wanted to feel human again," she choked out, tears scalding her cheeks. "Just once. Before this place hollowed me out completely. Before I became nothing but flesh with a price. Before I forgot what it meant to have a soul."

The words tore from her throat like living things, each syllable ripped bloody from the marrow of her bones.

Torven's eyes bored into hers with predatory intensity, dissecting every microexpression, every flutter of pulse at her throat. His gaze flayed her alive, peeling back layers of skin and sinew to expose the quivering meat of her lies.

She didn't hide her anguish—she weaponized it. Let tears streak through the filth on her face. Let her body convulse with genuine sobs that shook her frame like seizures. Showed him the wreckage of a girl who'd dared to believe in kindness and watched that belief birth only carnage—who'd reached for something human in a place that devoured humanity and was now drowning in the blood that choice had spilled.

"We'll see," he said finally, releasing her chin with a violent shove that sent her sprawling back into the filthy straw. "We'll see what you really are, little violet-eyed liar."

He stood with the fluid grace of a predator well-fed but still hungry.

His voice dropped to a whisper. "I have methods that make truth spill like entrails from a gutted animal. Tools that have made kings weep like infants. Ways of flaying lies from flesh until what remains is so raw even breathing becomes unbearable agony."

His smile split his face like a wound.

They dragged her from the cell—her heels scraping bloody trails across stone. Through corridors that constricted with each heartbeat, the walls pulsing inward like a throat convulsing around poison. Down stairs worn concave by generations of the condemned, where black mold bloomed in patterns like bruises and the air crystallized with the metallic tang of old slaughter. Into a chamber where terror had become a living presence—where decades of screams had seeped into mortar and stone until the walls themselves seemed to weep with remembered pain.

The interrogation chamber. The slaughterhouse. The pit.

Rhaella's mind fractured into desperate calculation even as her bowels threatened to empty—cataloguing exits that might as well be mirages, weapons mounted on walls like trophies from conquered bodies. The brazier's coals pulsed like exposed organs, casting hellish light across implements whose purposes were inscribed in her nightmares/

Hooks designed to separate muscle from bone, pincers shaped to extract fingernails without breaking them, blades curved specifically to slip between ribs without puncturing lungs. The ceiling chains hung like dead things, slick with the oils of countless victims. The central drain gaped like a throat, black with substances no water could ever cleanse.

Information was survival. Information was power. Knowledge was the final weapon of the damned.

Even now. Especially now.

They chained her wrists above her head with iron that bit deep, stretching her until her toes barely touched the floor—just enough contact to keep her shoulders from dislocating immediately, not enough to provide real support. Her infected back erupted in white-hot agony, wounds splitting open like overripe fruit, scabs tearing free. Blood trickled down her spine in warm rivulets that soaked into what remained of her filthy clothes.

Then they began.

Not with pain. Not at first.

That would come later, when she was properly prepared—flayed open like livestock. They slashed away her clothes with knives that kissed her skin, drawing beads of blood that welled crimson and dripped down goosefleshed thighs. The guards' laughter spiked with each flinch, each involuntary whimper she couldn't swallow back. Steel whispered against her throat, her inner arms, the hollow between her breasts—places where life pulsed closest to the surface. One wrong move, one twitch, and arteries would open like mouths.

She hung there, stripped bare, a carcass on display. Her ribs pushed against skin like fingers trying to claw their way out of a grave. The shadows between them deep enough to hold secrets, to harbor infection. Hipbones not just visible but obscene—jutting monuments to starvation that had carved her into something barely human. Her breasts, withered from hunger, contracted painfully in air thick with the copper stench of old death. Between her legs, their stares burned like acid, dissolving whatever remained of her personhood until she was nothing but meat awaiting the knife.

Rhaella felt something inside her shrivel. Die.

This was the point—she understood with terrible clarity. To transform her from person to object. From human being with thoughts and feelings to thing that existed only to suffer. To hollow her out from within until nothing remained but a shell that could be filled only with their cruelty and her shame.

She slammed her eyes shut. Tried to retreat into the sanctuary of her mind, into that place where pain couldn't follow, where she could lock herself away from what they were doing to her body.

"Look at her," one of the guards laughed, his voice thick with contempt and something darker. "Nothing but bones and fever. Surprised she's still breathing. Looks like a corpse that forgot to die."

Cold water hit her like a physical blow—a wall of ice that stole breath and thought.

Not regular cold. Freezing. Bucket after bucket of ice-water poured over her shaking body while the fever still burned through her blood like wildfire. While infection raged in her wounds. While her body tried desperately to generate heat it didn't have.

The contrast was agony beyond description—fire and ice warring inside her, tearing her apart from within. Her teeth chattered so hard she thought they'd crack, enamel grinding against enamel. Her muscles spasmed violently, trying to generate warmth that wouldn't come, couldn't come. The cold seeped into her bones, into her wounds—salt water finding every cut and making them scream. Into the deepest parts of her where warmth should have lived.

Still covered in Anna and Garrett's blood—dried to a rusty brown but still there, still marking her. The water turned pink as it sluiced off her body in rivers, washing away the evidence of what she'd witnessed but never the guilt. Never the memory of that moment when the knife had flashed and a girl had died looking at her father with confused, betrayed eyes.

She gasped. Shook like leaves in a storm. Tried to curl into herself—to make herself small, to protect her vital organs—but the chains wouldn't let her. Held her spread and vulnerable and exposed.

Stay strong, she told herself desperately, the words a mantra. They can't break what's already broken. They can't destroy what's already ruined.

But they tried.

Gods, they tried.

Torven entered like a nobleman arriving at court—unhurried, confident, completely at ease in this room that reeked of suffering. Rolled up his sleeves with careful precision, revealing forearms corded with muscle. Studied her shivering, naked form with clinical detachment—the way a scholar might examine an interesting specimen. No lust. No hatred. Just cold, analytical interest in how much pain a human body could endure before it stopped being human at all.

"Let's begin," he said, his voice smooth as honey poisoned with arsenic.

The hawk-faced man approached with something clutched in his scarred hands—hands that bore burn marks and old cuts, evidence of years spent wielding instruments of torture. Metal glinted in the torchlight—a grotesque apparatus of iron and leather, curved like a horse's bit but designed specifically for human suffering. For human mouths and human screams.

Understanding crashed through her skull like shattered glass, sharp and devastating.

Her mouth went desert-dry as they pried her jaw open—rough fingers forcing past her teeth, past her desperate attempts to keep them closed. Her teeth scraped against metal as they forced it between them, the taste of rust and old blood flooding her tongue. The taste of everyone who'd worn this gag before her. The taste of their fear and pain. The leather straps bit cruelly into her cheeks, digging grooves into flesh. The corners of her mouth tore—small rips that burned—as they cinched it brutally tight behind her head, pulling until the buckle bit into her skull.

Her scream died in her throat—reduced to a pathetic animal whimper that didn't even sound human. That sounded like wounded prey in its final moments.

Rhaella's lungs seized with pure, primal terror. The primitive part of her brain—the ancient animal core that lived beneath thought and reason—howled in terror as the last fragment of her humanity, her voice, her ability to speak or scream or beg, was stolen. Her body convulsed against the chains with such violence that her shoulders threatened to dislocate, joints grinding in their sockets. Blood streaming from her raw wrists where iron had worn through skin, trickling down her arms in warm rivulets.

The guards' laughter echoed like demons in a nightmare—high and cruel and delighted.

"That's better," Torven whispered, his lips almost brushing her ear in an intimacy more violating than a blow. His breath was hot against her skin. "Now no one will hear you break. No one will hear you beg. You'll suffer in silence, the way you should have lived."

The first lash of the whip split her infected back open like overripe fruit—skin and muscle parting with a sound that was somehow worse than the pain.

It carved through her back with surgical precision, each lash calculated to cause maximum pain without killing, without destroying her so completely she couldn't continue suffering. Blood ran hot down her spine, dripping onto the stone floor in a rhythm that matched her racing heart—steady drops that pooled beneath her bare feet.

She tried to scream. The sound came out muffled. Distorted. Barely human. More animal than person.

They laughed.

Again. Louder now. Finding amusement in her helplessness.

Rhaella's mind fractured. Split into pieces like a mirror struck by a hammer—each shard reflecting a different version of suffering.

One part catalogued the pain with clinical detachment—noted which injuries would heal and which would scar, which wounds would fester and which might close. Stayed analytical. Detached. Treating her own body like something foreign, something that belonged to someone else.

Another part drowned in guilt—watched Anna die over and over in an endless loop, heard Garrett's last desperate words about love and freedom, understood with crushing certainty that this suffering was deserved. Was earned. Was justice for what her magic had created.

And a third part—the part that had kept her alive through beatings and starvation and fever, the part that refused to quit no matter what—stayed focused. Stayed sharp as broken glass.

Give them a monster. Give them an abomination. Give them something so terrible and solitary that they'd never think to look for accomplices. Make yourself so comprehensively guilty that no one else could possibly be involved.

The iron came next—white-hot metal that glowed orange-red like a newborn star. When it touched her skeletal ribs, her body convulsed so violently the chains cut to bone. Her skin didn't just burn—it liquefied, bubbled, blackened in perfect negative imprints of the brand. The iron moved to her shoulder where nerve endings ignited like gasoline-soaked kindling, sending lightning through her skull that fragmented her vision into white-hot shards. Against her inner arm, the metal sizzled wetly, fat rendering beneath paper-thin skin that split and peeled back from muscle.

The smell invaded her—not just her nostrils but her mouth, her lungs, coating her tongue with the taste of her own cooking meat. Sweet-sick-acrid. Her body consuming itself. Her gag darkened with blood as she bit through her tongue.

They mapped her systematically, mathematically, the brands forming some hideous geometry of suffering across her canvas of skin. Not random torture but deliberate artistry—a visual symphony of agony composed on living flesh, each burn placed precisely where it would cause maximum pain without granting the mercy of unconsciousness.

Through it all, Torven asked his questions in that same emotionless voice—calm and measured, like he was discussing the weather or the price of grain.

What are you?

How long have you had this power?

Who else knows?

Who helped you?

And through it all, Rhaella's mind worked behind the pain. Planned. Calculated. Built the story that would save the others even as her body was destroyed.

The fever raged hotter—infection spreading from her back into her blood like poison through water. She could feel it—the slow corruption creeping through her veins, turning her body septic from the inside out. Feel her organs beginning to fail. Feel death approaching with patient, inexorable steps.

She was dying. Had been dying since the whipping. Since before that, really—since the moment she'd agreed to help Garrett, since the moment she'd made that butterfly, since the moment she'd been born with magic in her veins.

This was just the final act. The closing scene of a tragedy that had been written long ago.

But even dying, even like this—naked and burned and broken and barely human anymore—she could still protect them. Could still make her death mean something beyond simple suffering.

The cold water came again—shocking her system, pulling her back from the grey edge where unconsciousness waited. Making her gasp and choke around the gag, water forcing its way up her nose, into her lungs.

Her lips were blue. Her skin mottled with cold and blood loss. Her body shutting down by inches, systems failing one by one like candles being snuffed.

Through it all, one thought kept her anchored. Kept her conscious when unconsciousness would have been mercy.

Don't let them find the others. Don't let your magic touch anyone else. Let it die with you. Let this end here.

Hours passed. Or perhaps minutes. Time dissolved into nothing but pain and cold and the muffled sounds of her own suffering—whimpers and choked sobs that barely made it past the gag.

Until finally—finally—when she was barely conscious, barely human, barely anything at all—

Torven crouched before her.

"You're strong," he said quietly, and there was something almost like admiration in his voice. "Stronger than I expected. Most break within the first hour. Start babbling anything we want to hear just to make it stop." He paused, studying her ruined face. "But everyone breaks eventually. Everyone has a limit. Everyone has that point where the body simply can't endure anymore and the mind shatters rather than face another moment of suffering."

He reached up with careful hands. Unstrapped the gag with movements that were almost gentle.

Rhaella's jaw ached as it came free—muscles cramped from being forced open for hours, joints grinding as she tried to close her mouth. Her tongue was swollen, thick as leather. Her throat raw as if she'd been screaming for days.

“So I’ll ask you one more time,” Torven’s voice sliced through the stifling air like a dagger. His ice-blade gaze bored into Rhaella’s skull. “I want the truth. Not for your sake—you’re already gone. The infection will claim you in days, if not hours. But for the others in this compound. For every slave who might hide the same… abomination.”

He leaned in so close she could count the salt-gray flecks in his eyes and taste the rancid wine on his breath. “What are you?”

Rhaella’s eyelids were swollen nearly shut, vision reduced to smeared shadows and slivers of color. Before her stood this beautiful torturer who’d spent hours carving her flesh with surgical precision, as if sculpting a masterpiece of pain.

Torven stalked to the door, each booted step reverberating through her broken bones. He paused, hand on the latch, voice dripping with false courtesy. “It’ll make the flames so much more satisfying. They say Fae-touched flesh smokes sweeter than oak. We’ll test that theory.”

The door slammed behind him like a thunderclap.

The guards yanked her chains apart without mercy. She collapsed onto the blood-slick floor, a discarded husk. Her bones rattled against the stone in a sickening crack. A wet thud echoed.

They hauled her back to the cell by her arms, heedless of the crimson trail she left in their wake, heedless of the crunch when her skull met the stairs. This task was nothing but filthy labor to them. They flung her into straw like rotten carcass.

Naked, trembling, burned, and broken beyond repair, Rhaella lay in the filth. Her body screamed in a thousand registers—sharp stabs of fresh burns, the low drone of infection, the constant hum of exhaustion and blood loss. Her mind splintered further with every ragged breath.

And yet, she had succeeded.

She’d become their monster—utterly alone, entirely to blame. She’d shielded the others, drawn every suspicion, every consequence onto herself.

Inside her, magic flickered weakly—guttering like a candle in a hurricane, dying with her.

She closed her eyes and begged for mercy. For fire. For oblivion. For the cries of guilt to burn away in a roaring pyre.

But in the black behind her lids, Anna’s face hovered—soft, accusing, haunting.

And Rhaella understood with crushing finality.

Death would not be escape. It would be the threshold to a deeper torment.

But at least the others would be safe. At least her magic would die with her. At least that much would be right.

Seven days.

Seven days of darkness so absolute it became a living thing—pressing against her skin, filling her lungs, seeping into the hollow spaces where her soul used to live.

Seven days of cold that went beyond temperature, beyond discomfort, until it became a state of being. Until she couldn't remember what warmth felt like. Couldn't remember if she'd ever been warm at all.

Seven days of the slow, agonizing dissolution of everything she'd once been.

They kept her in isolation. Alone in the suffocating dark with only her thoughts for company—and her thoughts were terrible companions. No light except the torch in the corridor that burned at intervals she couldn't track, time stretching and contracting like something alive and malicious. No sound except her own ragged breathing, the wet rattle in her chest that meant the infection was spreading, and the drip-drip-drip of water down stone walls that echoed like a heartbeat.

No touch except the rough hands that threw scraps of moldy bread into her cell once, maybe twice a day. She'd stopped being able to tell. Stopped being able to care.

Time had become meaningless. Reality had become negotiable.

Rhaella lay in the filthy straw, naked still—they hadn't even given her that small dignity—covered only in the dried blood that had turned brown and flaky on her skin and the thin layer of grime that had accumulated over days of neglect. The burns on her body had begun to fester, the flesh around them turning colors that didn't belong on living tissue.

Green. Purple. Black at the edges. The wounds on her back had gone from infected to something catastrophic—something that smelled sweet and rotten all at once, the stench of her own body eating itself from the inside out.

The fever raged. High enough to make her hallucinate, to make the walls breathe and the shadows reach for her with grasping hands. Then it would drop, leaving her shivering so violently her teeth cracked together. Then up again, a vicious cycle that was slowly cooking her brain in her own skull.

She drifted in and out of consciousness like a swimmer in a riptide. In and out of nightmares that felt more real than waking—because maybe they were real. Maybe this was hell. Maybe she'd died and hadn't noticed and this was her eternal punishment for the sin of having magic she never asked for and using it to help create horror.

Anna's face. Always Anna's face. Those wide, betrayed eyes that would haunt Rhaella until her last breath—which would probably be soon, probably be measured in hours now rather than days.

Sometimes she hallucinated. Saw her mother standing in the corner of the cell, watching her with eyes full of disappointment. Saw Thalia in her blue dress, the fabric pristine and beautiful except for the blood spreading across it like ink in water, reaching out with hands that dissolved into light and shadow before they could touch.

The magic inside her had gone completely silent. Not dormant. Not sleeping.

Dead.

Or dying, like everything else in her.

She was glad. Fiercely, savagely glad. Glad it would end with her. Glad it wouldn't spread to anyone else like a disease. Glad that when she finally burned—and she would burn, Torven had promised her that with something like religious fervor—it would take this curse with it. Would cleanse the world of one more abomination.

One less wrong thing in a world full of them.

On the seventh day, the corridor outside exploded with voices.

Not just voices—weapons being drawn. Flesh striking flesh. Curses that could strip paint from walls.

"—explicitly told you to be discreet—" A voice she didn't recognize, each syllable a blade slashing through the air.

"—can't muzzle every goddamn soldier who—" Defensive. Desperate. Terrified.

A sound like bone meeting stone. A gurgle. Then, "—have DOOMED us all, you incompetent bastard—"

Footsteps hammered toward her cell—not walking, RUNNING—metal-tipped boots striking stone like war drums, each impact reverberating through Rhaella's broken bones as death itself charged toward her.

Rhaella didn't move. Couldn't move. Her body had stopped responding to her commands somewhere around day four, had given up on the pretense that she had any control left at all.

The cell door crashed open with a violence that made her flinch despite her paralysis.

Torchlight spilled in, blinding after so long in darkness. Like staring directly into the sun. She turned her face away, whimpering at the pain of it, at the way it felt like needles driven into her ruined eye.

"She's still alive?" someone breathed, and there was genuine shock in the words.

"Barely." Torven's voice, tight with something that sounded almost like fear—and Torven didn't fear anything, which meant whatever was happening was bad. "I told you to keep her breathing."

"We did." The hawk-faced man sounded defensive, almost sullen. "Gave her food. Water. Not our fault the bitch wouldn't eat."

"Get her up. Now."

Rough hands grabbed her arms—too rough, fingers digging into infected burns and making her gasp. Hauled her upright like she was a sack of grain instead of a person.

Rhaella's legs wouldn't support her weight. Hadn't supported weight in days. She collapsed, would have hit the stone floor face-first if they hadn't been holding her.

The world spun violently. Tilted at angles that shouldn't exist. Went gray at the edges, then darker, then gray again as her heart struggled to pump blood to her fever-cooked brain.

"Careful, you fools," a new voice snapped. Cold. Authoritative. The voice of someone used to being obeyed without question. "Lord Nolan wants her alive."

Through the gray haze threatening to pull her under completely, Rhaella saw him.

Lord Nolan himself. Tall and broad, dressed in fine clothes that probably cost more than every slave on his estate combined. Steel-gray hair swept back from a face that would have been handsome if not for the coldness in it—the absolute absence of empathy or compassion. Eyes like chips of ice that looked at her and saw not a person but a problem.

The man who owned this estate. Who owned all of them—owned their labor, owned their bodies, owned their very lives like they were cattle or furniture.

Who had ordered her family burned for the crime of being too educated, too proud, too much. For daring to teach their children to read. For having books. For thinking themselves equal to their betters.

Hatred tried to spark somewhere in her chest. A weak, guttering flame that wanted to be rage but couldn't find the fuel.

It guttered out before it could catch.

She had nothing left. Not even hate. Hate required energy she didn't have. Required the will to live long enough to act on it.

She was hollowed out. A husk. A shell with nothing inside but ash and guilt and the slow, creeping certainty of death.

"Commander Torven," Lord Nolan said, his voice clipped and sharp as breaking glass. Each word precisely placed, surgical in its coldness. "Explain to me—in precise detail—why one of my slaves is in this condition when I gave explicit orders for restraint."

"My lord, she possess Fae magic. She created light constructs to—"

"I don't care about her crimes." Lord Nolan's eyes raked over Rhaella's broken body with undisguised disgust and something that looked almost like fear—though what did he have to fear? He was lord here. He was untouchable. "I care that one of your idiots was bragging about it in a tavern in Ironmere. Bragging to anyone who would listen—and believe me, people listened—about how we captured a girl with Fae blood. About how we're going to make an example of her."

Silence fell like a stone into deep water.

Absolute. Suffocating. Pregnant with terrible implications.

"My lord?" Torven's voice had gone very quiet. Very careful. The voice of a man who'd just realized he was standing on the edge of a cliff in the dark.

"The story spread," Lord Nolan continued, and each word was a nail in someone's coffin. "Reached the wrong ears. Traveled north, all the way to Ironmere, then beyond. And now we have a situation that could destroy everything we've built here. Everything we've worked for. Everything we are."

"What kind of situation?"

Lord Nolan turned his ice-chip eyes on Torven, and Rhaella saw something she'd never seen before in the commander's ace.

True, bone-deep terror.

"The kind where Illyrian warriors are asking questions in Ironmere," Lord Nolan said, his voice dropping to something soft and deadly. "The kind where the High Lady of the Night Court—Feyre Archeron herself—has apparently taken a personal interest in reports of Fae-blooded individuals being held in human territories."

The temperature in the chamber seemed to drop twenty degrees.

Rhaella's fever-addled mind struggled to process the words through the haze of pain and delirium.

Illyrians.

She'd heard stories. Whispered tales from older slaves who remembered the war. Brutal winged warriors, where the Fae ruled with power beyond mortal comprehension. Warriors who could tear through stone with their bare hands. Who flew like birds of prey and fought like demons incarnate. Who served the most powerful High Lords in existence and showed no mercy to those who threatened their courts.

The Wall had fallen. She knew that much. Three years ago, the magical barrier that had separated Fae and human lands for five hundred years—that had kept humans safe from Fae cruelty and Fae safe from human hatred—had simply... vanished. Shattered. Destroyed during the war with Hybern that had nearly ended the world.

And now the territories were trying to figure out how to coexist. Treaties being negotiated by people who still remembered when they'd been enemies. Trade routes being established across borders that had once been absolute. A fragile, tentative peace held together by nothing but the mutual exhaustion of two peoples who'd bled too much and couldn't bear the thought of more war.

Everyone knew it could shatter at any moment. One wrong move. One broken treaty. One incident that was too egregious to ignore.

And apparently, this was that incident.

But the High Lady of the Night Court...

Feyre Archeron.

Even here, even in this forgotten corner of the mortal lands, everyone knew that name. The human girl who'd become Fae. Who'd helped defeat the King of Hybern when he'd tried to enslave the world. Who was married to Rhysand, the most powerful High Lord in Prythian's history—the Lord of Night and Dreams and Darkness itself.

Who was now, apparently, asking questions about a half-dead slave girl in a forgotten estate.

About her.

"Illyrians," Torven repeated, and there was something new in his voice. Something raw. Something that might have been terror barely controlled beneath layers of military discipline. "Here? In the mortal lands? That's a violation of the treaties. They can't just—"

"They're not here officially," Lord Nolan cut him off with brutal efficiency. "Yet. They're in Ironmere, asking questions. Gathering information. Being very, very careful to stay within the bounds of the new treaties—they're not threatening anyone, not throwing their weight around, just asking. Politely. Which makes it so much worse because it means they're serious. It means the Night Court is taking this seriously." His jaw clenched hard enough that muscles jumped in his cheek. "But if they find evidence that we've been enslaving and torturing someone with Fae blood? If that information reaches the High Lady through official channels?"

He didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to.

Everyone in the room understood.

The implications crashed through Rhaella's fever-soaked mind like thunder.

The treaties were fragile. So fragile. Built on the promise that humans would no longer be enslaved by Fae—would be treated as equals, with rights and protections under Fae law when in Fae lands. And in return, Fae would be treated with basic dignity in human territories. Would not be hunted. Would not be enslaved. Would not be tortured or killed simply for existing.

It was a compromise no one was happy with. Humans still remembered five hundred years of being prey. Fae still remembered being driven from their ancestral lands and trapped behind a Wall.

But it had prevented another war. Had created space for healing, for tentative cooperation, for the possibility that maybe—maybe—they could find a way forward that didn't involve oceans of blood.

"You want me to kill her," Torven said flatly, and there was something almost like relief in his voice. A simple solution to a complex problem. "Dispose of the body where no one will ever find it. Make her disappear."

"No." The word cracked like a whip, sharp enough to make everyone in the room flinch. "If she disappears and they find evidence she existed—and they will find evidence, Commander, they have Fae with gifts for tracking and truth-seeking and gods know what else—it will look like we murdered her to cover our tracks." Lord Nolan's hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. "Worse, it will look like we're hiding something. Like we have more Fae-blooded individuals hidden away somewhere. Like this is a pattern, a practice, a system. They'll tear this estate apart stone by stone. They'll interview every slave, every servant, every person who's set foot on this property in the last decade. They'll use magic—truth magic—to rip answers from people's minds. And when they find out what we've done, what we've been doing..."

He didn't finish. Everyone could fill in the blanks.

Execution. At best. More likely, something worse—something creative and terrible that would serve as a warning to every other human lord who thought they could get away with brutalizing the Fae.

"Then what do you suggest, my lord?" There was an edge to Torven's voice now. A challenge poorly disguised. "If we can't kill her and we can't keep her, what exactly are we supposed to do?"

"We move her," Lord Nolan said, and his voice had gone cold and calculating—the voice of a man who'd survived decades of politics by being smarter and more ruthless than everyone around him. "Somewhere they won't think to look. Somewhere far enough from the estate that even if they do investigate here—and they will investigate—they'll find nothing. No evidence. No witnesses who saw anything. No convenient body that raises more questions than it answers."

He paused, letting that sink in. Letting them understand the full scope of what he was proposing.

"And we make it look like she escaped. Like she ran away during the chaos after the murders she committed—and yes, she did help commit murders, we have that much to work with. We paint her as a dangerous criminal who fled into the wilderness. Anything but the truth. Anything but what actually happened in that interrogation room."

Torven was quiet for a long moment. Thinking. Calculating risks and benefits and angles.

"The old watchtower," he said finally, slowly, like he was working through the plan even as he spoke. "In the western woods, near the border with Greymarsh territory. It's been abandoned for years—since before the Wall fell, back when we actually needed watch towers along our borders. Remote. No one goes there anymore. No trails leading to it that aren't overgrown. No reason for anyone to even look there."

"Perfect." Lord Nolan nodded sharply, decisively. "But not tonight. Too risky to move her in the dark when we don't know where the Illyrians are, how far their search has spread. We wait until first light. Move her at dawn when we can see if anyone's watching the roads."

"My lord, every hour we wait—"

"Every hour we wait is an hour we use to prepare," Lord Nolan cut him off. "Get a someone here. Now. Tonight. Someone who can stabilize her enough that she doesn't die on the journey.”

He looked at Rhaella's broken form with cold assessment.

"Clean her up. Bandage her. Make her look less like we've been systematically destroying her for a week. And for gods' sake, give her something for the fever before her brain cooks completely and we lose any chance of using her." His voice went even colder. "She needs to be functional, Commander. Able to speak. Able to answer questions in a way that won't immediately expose us as liars. Do you understand?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Good." Lord Nolan turned toward the door, then paused. "We move her at dawn. Have horses ready. Take the back roads through Greymarsh forest—longer route, but less chance of being seen. And Torven?”

"My lord?"

"This girl could either save us or destroy us. Everything—everything—depends on how we handle the next few days. Don't fuck this up."

Then he was gone, his expensive boots clicking away down the corridor with the finality of a judge leaving the courtroom after pronouncing sentence.

The guards stood frozen for a moment, processing what had just happened. Understanding that their lives now depended on keeping this broken girl alive.

"Fuck," one of them finally breathed. "Illyrians. The Night Court. The damned High Lady herself—"

"Shut your mouth," Torven snapped. "You heard Lord Nolan. Harrow—ride to Ironmere. Find Mira the hedge witch. Bring her back here now. Tell her Lord Nolan will pay triple her normal rate for immediate service and absolute discretion."

"Yes, Commander."

"The rest of you—get her cleaned. Carefully this time. She needs to survive the night."

They moved with new urgency. Fear made them efficient. Made them almost gentle.

Rhaella hung between the guards as they dragged her from the cell, her mind struggling to make sense of what she'd just heard through the fever.

Warriors from the Night Court. Asking questions. Looking for her.

Thank you for reading this incredibly difficult chapter. I know it was heavy, both to read and to write.

Rhaella's suffering serves a purpose in her journey, but I want you to know that light is coming. Her story doesn't end in that cell. Sometimes we have to walk through the darkest valleys to understand how precious the sunlight is on the other side.

Please take care of yourselves. Drink some water, pet your cat, hug someone you love, or do whatever helps you decompress after heavy content.

Three days since the whipping. Three days since they'd flayed her back open and left her to either heal or die. Three days of forcing her broken body through duties that would have been difficult even whole.

The quarters reeked of despair. Of unwashed bodies and infected wounds and the particular stench of souls slowly giving up. In the darkness, slaves breathed—wet, rattling sounds that spoke of lungs filling with fluid, of bodies surrendering piece by piece.

Rhaella drifted in and out of consciousness. Fever dragged her down into nightmares that felt more real than waking. Thalia's blue dress, soaked in blood. Kian's hand reaching, reaching, always just out of reach. The butterfly made of light and magic and foolish, impossible hope—dissolving into nothing.

The door groaned open. Marta's heavy footsteps echoed through the quarters like a death knell.

Through barely-open lashes, Rhaella watched the overseer pull on her coat—that symbol of her betrayal, her willingness to brutalize her own people for a scrap of power. Marta moved with purpose toward the door, off to report to the guards. To tell them which slaves were breaking, which needed to be beaten back into submission, which were already too far gone to be useful.

The door slammed shut. The lock scraped home.

Trapped. But alone.

For now.

Rhaella let herself sink back into the fever, let it pull her under like dark water—

Cold steel kissed her throat.

Her eye—the one that still worked—snapped open.

Old Garrett loomed over her like death itself. All jutting bones and papery skin stretched too tight over skull. The knife in his gnarled hand shook, rusted metal catching what little moonlight bled through the cracks in the walls.

"Don't scream." His voice was barely a breath, cracked and desperate. "Please, girl. Please don't scream."

Rhaella's heart slammed against her ribs so hard she thought they might crack. Around them, every slave had gone perfectly, preternaturally still. That particular kind of stillness that meant they were awake and aware and choosing—as they always chose—to see nothing. Do nothing.

Survival meant blindness. Survival meant cowardice.

Survival meant watching while someone pressed a knife to a girl's throat and doing absolutely nothing about it.

The rust on that blade could kill as surely as the edge. Especially pressed against the thin, vulnerable skin where her pulse fluttered like a caged bird.

"I saw you." The words tumbled out in a rush of desperate whisper. "In the woods. With the boy. I was gathering herbs and I saw you. Saw you make that... that thing. That light."

Every drop of blood in Rhaella's body turned to ice.

No. No, no, no—

"You're one of them. Or you've got their blood in your veins. Their magic in your bones." His whisper dropped even lower, meant only for her. "I don't know which and I don't care, but I saw what you can do."

"Garrett—" Her voice came out ruined, thick with fever. "Please—"

"I'm dying." The knife trembled. His whole body shook with it—not just fear, but weakness. The weakness of a body that had been worked to the bone and beyond. "Feel it in my lungs. In my marrow. Won't last another winter. Maybe not another month. Maybe not another week."

She could see it now. Really see it. The gray pallor of his skin. The way each breath rattled in his chest like stones in a jar. The smell—gods, the smell. Not just unwashed flesh but something deeper, something rotten. The smell of a body eating itself from the inside out.

The fever made everything swim and blur, but through it, she saw him with terrible clarity. Saw the desperation carved into every hollow of his wasted face. Saw the way his hands shook not from malice but from a body that had nothing left to give. From muscles that had been worked until they tore. From bones that had carried too much for too long.

He wasn't a threat.

He was a dead man still breathing. A father with everything to lose and nothing left to bargain with except this rusted knife and her terrible secret.

"My daughter." His eyes shone with tears that caught the moonlight. They tracked down his hollowed cheeks in silver streams. "Anna. Twelve years old. Lord Nolan keeps her in the eastern wing. With the house slaves. I haven't seen her in two years. Two years, and she's just across the estate but she might as well be across the gods-damned sea."

Something cracked open in Rhaella's chest. Not the strange warmth—not that mysterious power that lived in her bones—but something else. Something human and raw and bleeding.

She knew that grief. Knew it intimately. Had felt it tear through her when they'd ripped her family away.

"I see her sometimes." The whisper broke completely, splintered into something that was barely sound at all. "From across the courtyard. She's grown so tall. Her hair—she wears it in braids now, like her mother used to. And I can't... I can't even wave. Can't let her know I'm alive, still fighting. They'd punish her if she acknowledged me. Beat her for the crime of loving her father."

Rhaella's throat worked against the knife. The blade was still there, still pressed to her skin, but somehow it didn't feel like a threat anymore. Just a prop in a tragedy. A desperate man's last gambit when he had nothing else left to play.

"I don't understand what you—" she started, keeping her voice to the barest whisper.

"Your magic." The knife pressed harder for a moment, then eased, as if he'd forgotten he was even holding it. "Use it. Help me get to her. One last time before this wretched body gives out. Just... just let me tell her I love her. That I never stopped trying to get back to her. That I never stopped fighting."

His voice shattered on the last word. Broke into a sob he tried desperately to swallow, to muffle, to hide from the others who were definitely awake and listening and choosing not to care.

And Rhaella understood.

Understood with a clarity that cut through the fever like a blade. Because she'd never gotten to say goodbye either. Never gotten to tell Thalia she loved her, that she was sorry, that she'd tried. Never gotten to tell Kian he was the bravest little boy she'd ever known. Never gotten to thank her parents for hiding her in that cellar even though it had meant their own deaths.

"I can't—" she started, her whisper soft as breath.

"You can." But there was no force in it now. Just raw, bleeding need. "I saw you. If you can make light take shape, you can do something. Create a distraction—I don't care what. Anything. Just help me get to the eastern wing. Help me reach her without the guards seeing."

The fever pulsed behind her eyes in waves of heat and cold. Darkness pressed in from all sides, thick and suffocating.

But through it all, she saw Garrett clearly. Saw the father underneath the slave. The man underneath all the suffering and degradation.

"And if I can't?" She had to ask. Had to make him understand. "If I don't have the strength—if the magic won't come—"

"Then I tell Commander Torven what you are." The knife shook violently now. But his voice was hollow. Empty. Like he knew he wouldn't—couldn't—actually do it. Like he knew this was his last card and it was nothing but a bluff. "Tell him you've got fae blood. That you can make magic."

He wouldn't. She could see it written in every line of his face. He was desperate, yes. Dying, yes. But he wasn't cruel.

"You won't tell." Her voice came soft but certain. "You're not that kind of man, Garrett."

The knife clattered to the floor.

He collapsed beside her pallet like a puppet with cut strings, folding in on himself. Great shaking sobs tore out of him—quiet, muffled into his hands so the others wouldn't hear, but devastating in their intensity.

"Please." The whisper was ragged, shredded, barely holding together. "Please. I'm begging you. I'll owe you everything. My life, my death, my gods-damned soul. Just... just let me see my little girl one more time. Let me tell her I love her. Let me say goodbye."

Rhaella sat up slowly. Every muscle screamed. Every nerve shrieked. The world tilted dangerously and she had to press her palm against the wall to keep from falling.

Around them, slaves pretended to sleep. Pretended they heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing.

Survival meant blindness.

She looked at Garrett—really, truly looked at him. At this man who'd held a knife to her throat not out of malice or madness, but out of love so desperate it had nowhere else to go. Out of the terrible arithmetic of a father who would risk anything—everything—for one last moment with his child.

She thought about Thalia in her blue dress, laughing in the summer sun.

She thought about Kian reaching for her as he died, blood bubbling from his lips.

She thought about her mother's heart simply stopping because the world had become too cruel to endure.

And she thought about Tam—sweet, broken Tam—laughing when the butterfly had circled his head. That moment of pure, impossible joy in a place designed to beat all joy out of them.

"Garrett." Her voice was soft but steady despite the fever. Still barely more than a whisper. "Look at me."

He raised his head. His face was wet with tears, devastated, destroyed.

"I'll help you."

The words hung in the darkness between them like a vow. Like a promise. Like a death sentence.

"You—" His voice broke. "You will?"

"Yes." She reached out, touched his shoulder. Felt bones underneath skin, sharp enough to cut. A dying man. A desperate father. "I'll help you see Anna. I'll help you say goodbye."

"Why?" The question came out strangled, hushed as a prayer. "Why would you risk everything for me? I just held a knife to your throat. I threatened you—"

"Because I know what it's like." Her throat tightened. Each word was carefully measured, quiet enough that only he could hear. "To lose everyone you love and never get to say goodbye. To spend every single night wondering if they knew you loved them. If they understood why you couldn't save them."

She swallowed hard. The fever made her eyes burn. Or maybe those were tears.

"Because you're not a bad man, Garrett. You're just a father who loves his daughter. And if I can give you one moment—one last, impossible moment with her—then maybe... maybe that means something. Maybe that means we're still human despite everything they've done to try to make us less."

Garrett's face crumpled. He grasped her hand in both of his, held it like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the world.

"I don't deserve this." The whisper was nearly inaudible. "Don't deserve your kindness. Your mercy."

"None of us deserve any of this." She squeezed his hand. Kept her voice low, intimate, meant only for him. "But we're still here. Still breathing. Still capable of love and sacrifice and hope. They can't take that from us unless we let them."

She took a shaky breath. Let it out slowly, carefully.

"But I need you to understand something. I used everything I had making that butterfly for Tam. The magic—it has a cost. It drains me. Hollows me out. And I'm already..." She gestured at herself. The fever. The infected wounds. The starvation that had whittled her down to bone and sinew. "I'm already running on nothing but spite and stubbornness."

"I know—"

"Let me finish." Her voice was gentle but firm, each word soft but clear. "If I try this and fail, we'll both be caught. They'll torture us for answers. They'll want to know why you were in the eastern wing. Why I was helping you. And then Torven will figure out what I am and..."

She didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to. They both knew what happened to slaves with fae blood. They both knew about the pyres.

"I understand." Garrett's voice was steady now. Resolved. Still hushed. "I'm dead anyway. A month at most. Probably less. But you—you're young. You could survive this. Could escape someday, maybe. I know what I'm asking you to risk. I know I'm asking you to trade your life for my moment of peace."

"Do you?" She held his gaze, whispered the words with quiet intensity. "Because I need you to really understand. If we do this—if we try this impossible, insane thing—there's no going back. Everything changes. For both of us. Maybe for everyone here."

"I understand." He nodded frantically. "And I'm asking anyway. Begging you. Because she's my daughter and I'm her father and I need her to know I never stopped loving her. Never stopped fighting to get back to her. I need her to know that even when I'm gone, even when I'm dust, I loved her more than anything in this gods-forsaken world."

His voice cracked on the last word—quiet, but so raw it hurt to hear.

Rhaella closed her eye. Thought about all the reasons to say no. All the practical, sensible, survival-based reasons to refuse this madness.

Then thought about Thalia's blue dress floating in the wind.

Thought about Kian's last word. Sister.

Thought about her mother's broken heart.

Thought about Tam laughing at a butterfly made of light and impossible hope.

Thought about what it meant to be human in a place designed to strip every scrap of humanity away.

"Alright." She opened her eye. Breathed the word into the darkness like a benediction. Like a promise. Like a prayer. "We'll try. Tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow—" He looked stunned. Like he'd expected her to refuse. Like he couldn't quite believe she'd actually agreed to this beautiful, terrible thing.

"The guards change shifts at midnight, you said? Ten minutes where the eastern wing has blind spots?"

He nodded frantically, the motion barely visible in the dark. "Yes. The head housekeeper retires to her quarters. The night guards haven't started their rounds yet. It's the only window. The only chance."

"Ten minutes." She laughed softly, without humor, the sound barely there. "To cross the courtyard, climb three flights of stairs, find your daughter, say goodbye, and get back here before anyone notices we're gone?"

"I know exactly where she sleeps. Second door on the left, third floor. I've memorized every step, every shadow, every hiding place."

Rhaella's mind worked through it with feverish intensity. The distances. The guards. The thousand ways this could go catastrophically wrong.

"I'll need to rest tomorrow." She touched her burning forehead, her whisper thread-thin. "This fever—I need to break it or I won't have the strength for magic. Won't be able to pull enough power to help you."

"I've got herbs." He pulled a small cloth bundle from inside his shirt. "Feverfew and willow bark. I've been saving them for months. Take them tonight, rest tomorrow. I'll cover your duties where I can. I'll tell them you're too sick to work."

She took the bundle. It was warm from his body heat. Precious. Worth more than gold in this place.

He was giving it to her. Giving her his only chance at relief from his own pain.

"If we're caught—" She had to say it, each word careful and quiet. "I won't tell them about the knife. About the threat. I'll say I offered to help. That I begged you to let me do this."

"No—"

"Yes." Iron in her voice despite the fever, despite the whisper. "You're dying anyway, Garrett. But if they think I coerced you, if they think this was all my idea, maybe they'll just kill you quick instead of torturing you first. Maybe they'll give you that mercy, at least."

His eyes filled with fresh tears. "You're a good girl. Too good for this wretched place. Too good for this world."

"I'm a slave who can do magic and is stupid enough to use it." She tried to smile. It felt wrong on her face, foreign. "Go. Before Marta comes back. We'll talk tomorrow."

He nodded. Scooped up the rusted knife with shaking hands and tucked it away. Paused at the edge of her pallet, looking down at her like she was something holy.

"Your family. The ones you lost. They'd be so proud of you."

Then he was gone. Shuffling back to his pallet like a ghost, like he'd never been there at all.

Rhaella lay back down with excruciating care. Every movement sent fresh waves of agony through her ruined back. The fever pulsed behind her eyes in rhythm with her heartbeat.

She opened the cloth bundle with shaking hands. Crushed the dried herbs between her fingers and chewed them dry—bitter as ash, bitter as regret, bitter as all the terrible choices that had led her here.

Across the room, Marta's breathing remained steady and deep. Asleep or pretending.

Either way, she hadn't intervened. Hadn't cared enough to stop what was happening right under her nose.

Rhaella pressed her palm to her chest. That mysterious warmth—that strange, terrible power—was quiet tonight. Dormant. Sleeping.

Tomorrow she'd need it to wake. Tomorrow she'd need to coax it back to life, ask it to help her do something monumentally stupid. Something impossible.

Help a dying man see his daughter one last time.

Help a father say goodbye to the child he loved more than his own life.

The herbs worked quickly, pulling her down into real sleep instead of fever dreams. Her last conscious thought was a prayer to gods she didn't believe in anymore, gods who had abandoned them all to this hell:

Let me be strong enough. Just for one more impossible thing. Just for this.

Then darkness took her, gentle and complete.

Morning came too soon, too cruel.

Marta's boot nudged her ribs hard enough to bruise. "Up. Kitchen duty. Now."

Rhaella dragged herself upright through sheer force of will. The fever had broken—not gone entirely, but diminished. Manageable. The herbs had worked their small miracle.

She caught Garrett's eye across the quarters. He looked worse in the harsh light of day. Gray as a corpse. Wasted. A dead man who hadn't stopped moving yet.

He nodded once. A question burning in his eyes.

She nodded back. An answer. A promise6.

Tonight.

Tonight they'd try the impossible.

And if they failed—when they failed, because what else could happen in a place like this, in a world this cruel—at least it would be for something that mattered.

At least it would be for love.

The midnight bell tolled across the estate like a death knell, its iron voice carrying across stone and suffering.

Rhaella pressed herself against the cold wall of the quarters, waiting. Her heart was a war drum in her chest, so violent she could feel it in her throat, taste it on her tongue—copper and fear and desperate, foolish hope.

The fever had retreated, but it had taken something vital with it. Left her hollowed out. A husk held together by nothing but stubborn will and a promise she was beginning to regret.

Beside her, Garrett trembled like a leaf in a storm. Not from fear—though that threaded through him too—but from anticipation so acute it was almost painful to witness. From hope that had nowhere else to live except in this one impossible moment.

"The guards are changing now," he whispered, his breath hot and quick against her ear. "We move. Now."

She nodded. Drew in a breath that rattled through her ruined lungs.

Reached down, down, down into the depths of herself. Searching for that warmth. That power. That terrible, beautiful gift that marked her as other. As wrong.

Found only cold.

Endless, yawning cold where the warmth should have been.

No. No, gods no—

Panic clawed up her throat with razor talons. She tried again, digging deeper, scraping the bottom of her soul for even the smallest spark of what she'd felt before. That strange, impossible heat that had let her shape light into wings and give a dying boy one moment of wonder before the dark claimed him.

Nothing.

Emptiness.

The well was dry.

"I can't—" The words came out strangled. "I can't find it—"

"You have to." Garrett's hand closed around her arm, fingers digging in with desperate strength. "Please. You promised."

She had. She'd promised. And Rhaella had been raised to understand that promises—real promises, the kind sealed in blood and desperation—were binding. Sacred. Unbreakable.

She closed her eyes. Blocked out the world. Thought about Tam's face when he'd seen the butterfly—that pure, untainted joy breaking through years of suffering like dawn through storm clouds. About the way he'd laughed, bright and clear and alive, for the first time in gods knew how long.

Thought about Garrett, dying by inches in this place, never seeing his daughter again. Never telling her he loved her. Never explaining that he hadn't abandoned her by choice.

Thought about Anna, growing up thinking her father had stopped caring. Stopped fighting. Stopped loving her.

Something flickered.

Deep, deep down where her power lived. Barely there. An ember in a sea of ash.

But it was something.

It would have to be enough. Would have to be everything.

"Stay close to me," she breathed, opening her eyes. "I don't know how long I can hold this."

They slipped from the quarters while Marta snored in her corner like a beast in its den. The lock had been easy enough to pick—Garrett had stolen a bent nail weeks ago, had been planning this, preparing for this one desperate gambit with the single-minded focus of the doomed.

The courtyard stretched before them like an ocean of moonlight and shadow. Too much open space. Too many angles where guards could spot them. Too many ways this could end in screaming and chains and fire.

Rhaella pressed her palm flat against her chest. Felt for that ember with desperate, grasping need.

Please. Just once more. Just this one last time and I'll never ask again—

The warmth stirred. Sluggish. Reluctant. Like something dragged from deep sleep.

She pulled at it. Coaxed it with gentle mental touches. Begged it with everything she had.

Her vision blurred at the edges. The world tilted dangerously. She had to lock her knees to keep from crumpling to the stones.

Then—

Light.

It sputtered from her fingertips like a candle in a gale. Weak. Pathetic. Nothing like the radiant, perfect thing she'd made for Tam.

But it was there. It was real. It was hers.

She shaped it with trembling hands, trying to remember how it had felt before. Trying to recreate that sense of knowing what the magic wanted to become. That partnership between will and power.

Wings. She needed wings. Needed flight. Needed distraction.

The light flickered, nearly guttered out. She gasped, nearly lost her grip on it—

Then it cohered. Barely. A butterfly made of gossamer light and desperate prayer, so faint she could see straight through it to the stones beyond. So fragile that a strong wind might unmake it entirely.

It hovered in her cupped palms, trembling like her heartbeat given form.

"Go," she whispered to it, pouring what little strength remained into the command. "Fly. Lead them away from us. Please."

The butterfly lifted from her hands. Wobbled drunkenly. Nearly tumbled back to earth.

Then caught the night breeze and drifted across the courtyard on wings of dying light. A pale ghost in the darkness. A will-o'-wisp leading fools to their doom.

Shouts erupted from the guard posts. "What in the Mother's name is that?"

"Over there—by the stables—some kind of—"

"Move! Move!"

Boots on stone. Running. Blessed, beautiful sound of them running away.

"Now," Garrett's voice cracked like breaking ice. "While they chase shadows."

They moved.

Rhaella's legs felt like they'd been filled with water instead of bone and muscle. Each step was a monumental effort, a small war won. The world kept trying to tilt sideways, to drag her down into the hungry dark.

Garrett half-carried her across the moonlit courtyard, his dying body somehow finding reserves of strength neither of them should have possessed. Desperation was a powerful thing. Love even more so.

The eastern wing rose before them like a palace compared to where they'd come from. The walls here were painted—soft colors that spoke of wealth and comfort. There were carpets on the floors, thick enough to muffle footsteps. Tapestries on the walls. Windows with actual glass instead of boards and bars.

House slaves lived better than field slaves.

But they were still slaves. Still property. Still nothing in the eyes of the people who owned them.

"Second door on the left," Garrett whispered, his whole body trembling now like a tree in a storm. With anticipation. With terror. With love so fierce it was almost violent.

He pushed the door open with shaking hands.

The room beyond was small but impossibly clean. Three pallets instead of twenty, with actual blankets instead of bare straw. A window with real glass that let in silvered moonlight. A shelf with—gods—with books.

Luxury beyond imagining for someone like Rhaella.

A gilded cage for the girl who slept within.

And there—

There—

A girl.

Twelve years old, maybe thirteen. Sleeping curled on her side in a tight ball, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around herself. Dark hair woven into two neat braids, exactly like Garrett had described. Exactly like her mother used to wear.

Even wasted from hunger, even with the pallor of captivity on her skin, she was beautiful. Heartbreakingly so.

Garrett made a sound—a broken, desperate noise that was half-sob, half-prayer, all anguish.

He stumbled to her side on legs that barely held him. Fell to his knees beside her pallet with a muffled thump.

"Anna," he whispered, reaching out with hands that shook so badly he could barely control them. "Anna, baby girl. It's me. It's Papa."

The girl's eyes snapped open.

Rhaella watched from the doorway, her own body swaying with exhaustion. Watched this moment she'd risked everything to create. This reunion she'd promised.

This mercy she'd thought she was giving.

Anna stared at Garrett with eyes that were dark and flat and empty.

No recognition flickered there. No joy. No relief.

Just blankness. The kind of blankness that came from a soul that had learned to retreat somewhere deep and unreachable where pain couldn't follow.

"Anna." Garrett's voice cracked completely, splintered into raw sound. "It's me. It's your papa. I came back for you. I finally came back."

The girl sat up slowly, moving with the careful, measured motions of prey assessing a predator.

Moved back. Away from him.

Pure, instinctive fear flickered across her delicate features—there and gone in a heartbeat, but devastating in its intensity.

The kind of fear that came from learned experience. From beatings that came without warning. From isolation so complete you forgot what kindness looked like. From understanding that any interaction with adults—especially men, especially authority—meant pain.

"Don't—" Her voice was small. Damaged. A fragile thing that had been broken and badly mended. "Please don't hurt me. I'll be good. I'll work harder. I'll be quiet."

Garrett went absolutely rigid. Every muscle locked. Every breath stopped.

"I won't hurt you, baby. I would never—" His hands trembled in the air between them, not quite touching, afraid to frighten her further. "I'm your father. Don't you remember? Remember how I used to carry you on my shoulders? How we'd—"

"I don't know you." The words came out flat. Mechanical. The voice of a child who'd learned that showing emotion only invited more pain. "Please leave. If the mistress finds you here, she'll—she'll say I let you in. She'll beat me. Please just go."

"Anna, no. No." Tears carved rivers down Garrett's hollowed cheeks, catching the moonlight. "You're my daughter. My little girl. I held you when you were born. Your first breath, I was there. I taught you to walk. I sang you to sleep every night. I—"

But she wasn't listening. Wasn't truly seeing him. She'd pulled her knees tight to her chest, made herself small, made herself invisible. Every line of her young body screaming warnings: danger, threat, protect yourself, disappear.

Flinching at every movement he made, as if expecting a blow.

"Please go away," she whispered, and her voice was so broken it hurt to hear. "Please. I'll scream if you don't go. I'll—"

"What did they do to you?" Garrett breathed, and the anguish in those words could have shattered stone. "Baby, what did they—"

He stopped. Understanding crashed over his features like a wave.

Two years. Anna had been in this wing for two years. Separated from him. From everyone she'd known. Isolated. Beaten when she cried. Beaten when she spoke out of turn. Beaten when she looked the mistress in the eye. Beaten until she learned to be silent, still, invisible.

Beaten until she forgot what it felt like to be loved.

Rhaella's chest constricted with understanding.

They'd broken her. Not with brutality alone, but with absence. With the removal of everything warm and human and kind until only this shell remained. A girl who'd forgotten her own father's face. Who'd learned that survival meant trusting no one, showing nothing, being nothing.

Anna didn't remember him. Or maybe she did, somewhere deep down, but couldn't afford to acknowledge it. Couldn't afford to hope that this stranger might be real, might truly care, because hope hurt worse than anything when it was ripped away.

"Baby," Garrett whispered, and his voice was nothing but ruin. "My little girl. What have they done to you?"

Anna's eyes went blanker still. Retreated somewhere so deep that nothing could touch her. That place the mind went when even the present moment was too much to bear.

Rhaella had seen that look before. On slaves who'd been broken so thoroughly they simply... stopped. Stopped feeling. Stopped hoping. Stopped being anything except what they needed to be to survive another day.

"I'll give you a moment," Rhaella whispered hoarsely from the doorway, though speaking cost her nearly everything she had left. "I'll watch the corridor."

She turned away, granting them privacy for whatever could be salvaged from this beautiful, terrible ruin.

Behind her, she heard Garrett talking. Soft. Desperate. Trying to reach his daughter through the walls she'd built.

"I'm so sorry," he was saying, words tumbling out like prayers. "I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you. I tried, Anna. I tried. I fought them. I begged them. I would have traded my life for yours, would have done anything—"

"Please stop talking." Anna's voice was utterly dead. "I don't know who you think I am, but—"

"Your mother's name was Beth. She had a birthmark on her left shoulder, shaped like a crescent moon. You were born in spring, early morning when the sun was just rising and the world smelled like rain and new grass. You had my eyes—your mother said you had my eyes and her stubborn spirit. She died bringing you into this world and with her last breath she told me to love you enough for both of us. And I tried, baby. I tried so hard—"

A pause. Long. Painful. Endless.

Then, so quiet Rhaella almost missed it: "Papa?"

The word was so small. So broken. So full of confused, terrified, impossible hope.

"Yes." Garrett's voice dissolved completely. "Yes, baby. Yes. It's me. It's really me. I've been looking for you. Every day. Every single day I've been trying to find a way back to you—"

Rhaella's vision blurred with tears. She pressed her palm flat against the wall to stay upright, her legs threatening to give out. The magic had drained her completely, hollowed her out until she was nothing but skin stretched over empty space.

Behind her, soft crying. Father and daughter, finally recognizing each other across two years of isolation and suffering. Finally—

"You left me." Anna's voice cracked. "You left me here. I waited. I waited for you to come get me and you never came. The mistress said—she said you didn't want me anymore. That I was worthless—"

"No. No." Garrett's voice broke on a sob. "They separated us, baby. I couldn't—I tried to get to you. I've been dying trying to get to you. You were never worthless. You were everything. You are everything—"

"They hit me when I cried for you," Anna whispered, and the words came out mechanical again, distant. "They hit me until I stopped. Until I forgot how to cry. Until I forgot what you looked like. I forgot your face, Papa."

Movement behind Rhaella. Shifting.

Garrett had his arms around Anna now, pulling her close against his chest. She was stiff in his embrace, unused to touch, unused to comfort. But she wasn't pulling away.

One hand cradled her head with infinite gentleness, fingers threaded through her dark braids.

The other hand—

The rusted knife flashed silver in the moonlight.

"I love you," Garrett whispered into Anna's hair, his voice breaking on every word. "I love you more than life. More than breath. More than anything in this cursed world. And I won't let them hurt you anymore. I won't."

"Papa?" Anna's voice was confused, muffled against his chest. "Papa, what are you—"

The knife moved.

One swift, sure motion across her pale throat.

No—

Blood.

So much blood.

Hot and dark and arterial, spraying across the clean walls, the nice carpet, the glass window. Painting everything red. Painting the whole world red.

Anna made a sound—a wet, gurgling, terrible sound. Her hands flew up, clutching desperately at her throat, at the gaping wound that poured her young life out onto the floor in pulsing rivers.

Her eyes—gods, her eyes—

Wide. Confused. Betrayed.

Looking up at her father. The man she'd just remembered. Just recognized. Just begun to trust again after two years of forgetting what trust felt like.

The man who was killing her.

"Mercy," Garrett breathed, pressing his lips to her forehead as she struggled and choked. "This is mercy, baby girl. I promise. They'll never hurt you again. Never make you feel worthless again. Never beat you again. You're free."

Anna's legs gave out. She crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.

Garrett went down with her, cradling her against his chest. Kept the knife pressed to her throat—making sure, making it quick, making it as painless as he could manage with a rusted blade and shaking hands.

Her blood soaked his shirt, his hands, his face.

She died staring up at him. Died with that terrible question burning in her dimming eyes: Why? Why would you—

The light left her.

Rhaella couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but watch in frozen horror as the girl went limp in her father's arms.

Then Garrett shifted Anna's body gently to the floor. Arranged her with tender care, like he was tucking her into bed. Smoothed her braids. Closed her staring eyes with bloodstained fingers.

"She's free now," he whispered. "Finally free. No one can hurt her anymore. No one can break her anymore. She's at peace."

Then he turned the knife on himself.

No hesitation. No pause. No prayer.

Just one swift, practiced motion across his own throat.

The same wound he'd given his daughter.

The same mercy.

"We'll be together," he said, the words bubbling through blood. "Be with your mother. Be free."

Then he collapsed forward onto Anna's small body.

Father and daughter. Together at last in the only peace this world would allow them.

Dead.

Rhaella stood frozen in the doorway.

Blood everywhere. On the walls. On the floor. On the window where moonlight turned it silver. On her hands where she'd reached out—tried to stop him—failed, failed, FAILED—

Hot and sticky and everywhere. In her nose. On her tongue. Soaking into her clothes, her skin, her very soul.

She'd done this.

She'd helped create this.

This was what her magic had wrought. This was the mercy she'd promised. This was love in a world so thoroughly poisoned that death was the only gift a father could give his child. The only protection left.

Murder made holy by desperation.

The butterfly's light had long since died, dissolved back into nothing.

Just like them.

Just like everything good in this godforsaken place.

Just like hope itself.

Rhaella opened her mouth. Tried to scream. Tried to do something, anything—

Nothing came out.

Her voice had fled. Her body had locked. Her mind had simply... stopped.

She just stood there, swaying on her feet, covered in their cooling blood while the bodies grew still and somewhere in the distant dark, guards shouted and morning crept closer with its inevitable, terrible consequences.

She'd promised to help a father see his daughter one last time.

She'd kept that promise.

And this—

This horror. This atrocity. This mercy that looked like murder and felt like love—

This was the result.

This was what her power was for.

The magic inside her curled up tight and cold, recoiling from what it had helped create. Or maybe that was just her soul, trying to retreat to that same nowhere-place where Anna's had lived.

Trying to escape the truth.

That sometimes, in places like this, mercy wore the face of violence.

That sometimes love meant letting go in the most permanent, irreversible way.

That sometimes the only way to save someone was to free them from a world too broken to allow them to truly live.

Rhaella stood in the spreading pool of their blood, unable to move, unable to think, unable to do anything but exist in this moment that would haunt her for whatever remained of her wretched life.

And when the guards finally came—when they found her there, painted in red, standing over the bodies—

She didn't run.

Didn't fight.

Didn't even try to explain.

She just looked at them with eyes as empty as Anna's had been and waited for whatever came next.

Because nothing they could do to her could be worse than what she'd just witnessed.

Nothing could be worse than understanding that she'd helped make this happen.

That her magic—her gift—had led to this.

All of it.

The whispers of "witch" that had followed her mismatched gaze since childhood had fallen silent after Gerrin Nolan—Lord Nolan's third son had beaten her face until bone cracked beneath his fists.

She'd refused when his hands wandered beneath her serving apron at his twentieth nameday feast. The village healer had packed the socket with herbs for days, fingers trembling as infection crept outward in angry crimson lines. Now the eye caught only vague shadows, like looking through murky water at the bottom of a well.

The shift was threadbare gauze against the knife-edge of winter, its yellowed fabric worn translucent where it clung to her skin. Punishment for asking for water yesterday, a single cup to ease her parched throat.

Rope sawed into her wrists where old scars had never healed. The post was slick with others' blood. Still, she lifted her chin, trembling, and held onto the last scrap of herself that hadn't been beaten away.

Seven days since real food. Her ribs showed through skin stretched tight. Thirst had swollen her tongue, cracked her lips to bleeding.

Around the yard, the other slaves stood frozen—faces empty, eyes fixed on dirt. They'd been roused from their work and herded here to witness.

A reminder. A warning.

Old Garrett at the pump, his back a map of twenty-three years' scars. Little Elara with her broom and bruised arms. Marcus at the forge, hammer frozen—a soldier sold for gambling debts. Sara leaning on her stick, pregnant with her third. The first two hadn't survived winter.

They'd learned the same lesson.

Survive by disappearing. Become stone. Feel nothing.

"Stock does not question orders." Lord Nolan's voice drifted from the dais, smooth as oil, twice as slick.

Lord Nolan sat in his carved chair, picking at honeyed figs. One of the few mortal lords who'd survived Hybern's invasion, the war, the aftermath. His estate squatted in the borderlands—territory so remote even the fae ignored it.

Here, he ruled like a king over suffering. His silk doublet was the color of blood—deliberately chosen, Rhaella thought. His rings caught the morning light, each one worth more than she could earn in ten lifetimes.

Behind him, Eldric, already drunk. Gerrin, who'd taken her eye, watching with familiar hunger. Young Bram, fourteen, learning.

She'd said the boy was too weak to haul stones. Tam—eight, coughing blood—would die without rest. Twelve lashes for mercy. Nolan's favorite number. Enough to break. Rarely enough to kill.

The executioner adjusted his grip. Gregor. Once a slave, now Nolan's instrument.

Better to hold the whip than receive it.

The second strike split her back to the spine. Flesh peeled away in ribbons, hot blood cascading down her legs. She severed her own lip, copper flooding her mouth, drowning the scream clawing up her throat.

Three. The whip found raw meat, burrowing deeper. White bone gleamed in the wound.

Four. Lightning detonated inside her skull. Her body betrayed her—jerking, spasming, begging for mercy her mind refused.

Five. The world collapsed to needle-points of agony in suffocating blackness. Someone was making animal sounds. Her.

Six. Reality shattered—her consciousness fragmenting into jagged shards that cut as they fell.

Seven. Ropes flayed her wrists to exposed tendons. Her fingers died, curling inward like poisoned insects.

Eight. Something primitive ignited beneath her sternum. Not pain—rage. Molten. Feral. Ancient.

Nine. Their laughter penetrated the thundering in her skull. "Three silvers she pisses herself before twelve!" Coins struck stone like teeth hitting floor.

Ten. Her knees exploded. Ropes bit deeper as they caught her full weight.

Eleven. She hovered above her mutilated body, connected by a fraying thread. Just her hammering heart and that inferno beneath her ribs screaming. Live. "Enough." Nolan sounded bored. "What's the lesson if she dies?" The whip dripped crimson onto stone. Gregor coiled the leather, flecks of her skin caught in its braids.

Marta slashed through the ropes with a knife. No gentleness—she was overseer now, position earned through calculated cruelty. A slave who'd learned survival meant becoming the master's weapon.

Rhaella crashed face-first onto stone. Teeth shattered on impact.

"Up." Marta's boot nudged her ribs—not a kick, but not kind either. "Move, or I'll have you back on this post tomorrow."

Rhaella dragged her head up, fighting against the darkness that wanted to claim her. Her good eye found the others. Garrett looked away, shame and relief warring on his weathered face—relief that it wasn't him this time. Elara's chin trembled, tears cutting clean lines through the soot on her cheeks. Marcus gripped his hammer until his knuckles blanched, jaw working with words he could never speak.

They were all she had. The closest thing to family.

Her real family was butchered. Thalia—screaming as they dragged her into the barn during Hybern's raid. Her fingernails left bloody tracks in the dirt. They took turns. Hours. When they finished, they cut her throat and left her sprawled like broken porcelain, blue dress shredded, eyes still open. Seventeen.

Kian—lunged at them with a pitchfork. The soldier laughed as he ran him through. The sound of steel puncturing lung. The wet gurgle. His fingers twitched toward Rhaella as the light drained from his eyes.

Father's skull crushed beneath a war hammer. Mother lasted longest, her screams turning to whimpers until her heart simply gave out as they dragged Rhaella away in chains.

Three years. The nightmares never stopped.

Except for the others here. The ones she tried to save.

She simply breathed.

In. Out.

Each breath an act of defiance.

Dawn broke like a bone. Marta's nails dug into Rhaella's shoulder, finding yesterday's bruises with unerring precision.

"Up. Kitchens, then stables. One slow step and I'll have your skin decorating the post by noon." Pain detonated through Rhaella's body—not waves but explosions, each breath igniting fresh agony. Around her, the other slaves dragged themselves upright, their eyes vacant holes in skull-tight faces, moving like marionettes with half-cut strings. The bandages had become part of her during the night. Blood crystallized, flesh and fabric fused into a second skin. Without warning, Marta seized the edge and ripped. The sound—wet, obscene tearing—was drowned by the copper-bright burst of agony. Rhaella's scream clawed up her throat, only to die strangled behind clenched teeth. "Fucking bite this or bite your tongue off." Marta jammed a leather strap between her teeth, the taste of old sweat and someone else's blood flooding her mouth. Her fingers dug into the raw meat of Rhaella's back, smearing something that burned like fire into the wounds. "Infection means maggots. Maggots mean the pit. Your choice." She wasn't helping. She was preserving inventory. Marta had learned the mathematics of survival. Dead slaves couldn't work, sick slaves slowed production, and Lord Nolan's ledgers required bodies that functioned.

Mercy got you killed. Cruelty kept you breathing.

Rhaella nodded, jaw clenched. Seven days without real food. She could count every rib.

I should've run when I could. When I still had the strength. Throw myself on the mercy of whatever fae patrolled find me.

The thought arrived unbidden and bitter as wormwood. She pushed it down deep, locked it away with all the other dangerous thoughts that could get her killed.

In the kitchens, she hauled water from the well until her shoulders screamed in their sockets, muscles tearing under strain they weren't meant to bear. She scrubbed pots alongside Elara and young Willem until her knuckles split open and bled into the gray wash-water, turning it pink. The heat radiating from the massive cooking fires made the world tilt and swim, her vision fragmenting at the edges. Twice she had to grip the stone counter with white-knuckled desperation just to keep from folding onto the floor.

"Steady now," Elara whispered, her young voice threaded with fear. Her dark eyes kept darting toward the cook—a heavy-set woman with a face like curdled milk and hands quick to strike. "They're watching."

They were always watching. That was the lesson you learned first in Lord Nolan's keep, the truth that got carved into your bones. Someone was always watching, waiting for you to falter, to fail, to give them a reason.

Around midday, the cook tossed them each a heel of bread gone hard as stone—the kind that could break teeth if you weren't careful. Rhaella ate hers in three desperate, graceless bites, barely registering the taste of ash and sawdust. Her stomach seized around the meager offering, simultaneously grateful and furious, cramping hard enough to steal her breath.

By the time she finished choking down the last dry crumbs, the weak winter sun had climbed higher through the narrow kitchen windows, casting wan light that did nothing to warm the frigid air.

She found Tam in the stone-paved laundry yard, his small frame struggling with wet linens that seemed determined to drown him, the heavy fabric tangling around his thin arms.

His entire face transformed when her shadow fell across him, lighting up like someone had kindled a flame behind his eyes. "Rhaella!"

"Let me help." She took the wicker basket despite her back's immediate howl of protest, despite the lightning that forked down her spine with each movement.

Tam was eight—small for his age, painfully thin, with tangled brown hair that hadn't seen a proper comb in months and eyes that had witnessed far too much. Eyes that still remembered fire and screaming and the smell of burning thatch, the day Hybern's forces swept through his village like a plague.

His parents were here too, somewhere in the estate's vast network of suffering. Separated. Lord Nolan preferred it that way—families torn apart were less likely to organize, to resist, to hope.

"You took the whip because of me," he said quietly as they walked toward the clotheslines, his voice barely louder than the wind. Guilt sat heavy in those few words.

"I took the whip because cruelty requires no reason, Tam. It feeds on itself." She reached high to hang a damp sheet, breathing through the lightning strike of pain in her shoulders, stars bursting across her vision. "You did nothing wrong. Nothing. Do you hear me?"

They worked in companionable silence broken only by the distant hammering from the forge, by crows calling their harsh commentary from the frost-covered battlements. When the basket finally emptied, Rhaella glanced around the yard with practiced caution. No soldiers visible in the immediate vicinity. The yard drowsing in thin, watery sunlight that promised no real warmth.

"Come," she said, making her voice light despite the exhaustion dragging at her bones. "Help me gather kindling for the fires. The fresh air will do us both good."

A lie. But sometimes lies were the kindest things you could offer.

They slipped through the narrow postern gate—an old servants' entrance mostly forgotten—and followed the worn path into the skeletal woods beyond the keep's walls. Lord Nolan never worried about runners.

Where would they go? Three days' hard walk through treacherous terrain to reach the nearest town, and everyone knew the magistrates there turned a blind eye to Nolan's activities.

The lands to the north lay open now—the Wall destroyed during the war.

But that didn't mean safety. Prythian's courts had their own concerns, and remote mortal estates like this didn't warrant their attention.

The fae had won their war and gone home.

Better the devil you knew than the devil with pointed ears and immortal power.

So you stay. And you break by inches instead of all at once.

The forest sprawled bare and hostile, picked clean by years of desperate hands. But her father had taught her to see what others missed—useful plants hiding in plain sight, hidden paths, small mercies in hard places.

She found blackberries tucked against a fallen log, half-hidden beneath frost-brittle leaves. Small, half-frozen, bitter with cold—but her mouth flooded with want at the sight, saliva gathering painful and sharp.

"Here." She picked them with trembling, careful fingers, giving most to Tam. "Slowly now. Make them last."

He crammed them into his mouth with the desperation of the chronically starving, purple-dark juice staining his chapped lips, running down his chin. Rhaella ate hers one at a time, forcing herself to go slow, savoring each tiny burst of sweetness even as the bitter fruit scraped her empty stomach raw and made it cramp with confused hunger. The woods tilted dangerously. She pressed her palm flat against rough bark, breathing through the dizziness that threatened to drag her down.

"You're pale," Tam said, and fear sharpened his young voice. "Really pale. Should we go back?"

"Just tired." The smile felt like a wound reopening. "Keep walking. We still need kindling."

They moved deeper into the skeletal trees, gathering fallen branches in companionable silence. Tam worked with the focused intensity children brought to tasks when they needed distraction from harder thoughts.

After a while, he spoke so quietly she almost missed it. "I heard my mama singing yesterday."

Rhaella's hands stilled on the branch she'd been breaking. "You did?"

"From the house." His voice went smaller. "She was in one of the upstairs rooms, singing while she worked. I was in the courtyard hauling water and I heard her. Just for a moment, before the overseer yelled at me to move faster."

He sat down abruptly on a fallen log, his small shoulders hunched. The kindling spilled from his arms, forgotten.

"I wanted to call out to her. Wanted to so badly it hurt." His words came faster now, spilling out like he'd been holding them back for too long. "But I knew if I did, they'd beat her for it. They'd say she was distracting me from work. They'd—"

His voice cracked. He pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to hide tears that came anyway.

"I haven't spoken to her in four months, Rhaella. Four months. And my papa—I don't even know where they have him. The fields maybe? Or the quarry? I don't know if he's even still—" He couldn't finish the sentence. The possibility was too terrible to speak aloud.

Rhaella's throat tightened. She lowered herself carefully beside him, ignoring the screaming protest of her back. "Tam..."

"Sometimes I forget what they look like." The confession came out raw and ashamed. "Mama's face—I know her, but it's getting fuzzy. Like she's slipping away even though she's right here. And Papa—I try to remember his voice, the songs he used to sing, but it's all mixed up with screaming now. With the sounds from that day."

The day Hybern's forces came. The day they burned his village and took everyone who survived.

"They're here," Tam whispered fiercely, angrily swiping at his tears. "They're here and I can't even see them. Can't talk to them. Can't—" His small body shook. "What if they think I've forgotten them? What if they think I don't love them anymore?"

Something cracked open in Rhaella's chest. Not the strange warmth—not yet—but something older. More human. The pain of understanding exactly what he meant.

She thought of Thalia's blue dress, of Kian's last word, of her mother's broken heart.

Of never getting to say goodbye.

Of never getting to say I love you one more time.

"They know," she said softly, reaching out to squeeze his thin shoulder. "Parents always know, Tam. Your mother heard you hauling that water. She knows you're working hard, trying to survive. And your father—wherever he is—he knows you're thinking of him. Love doesn't forget, even when everything else gets fuzzy."

"How do you know?" He turned to her with eyes too old for eight years. "How can you be sure?"

Because I'd give anything to have my family still alive, even if we were separated. Because at least then there would be hope.

She couldn't say that. Couldn't put that weight on him.

Instead, she cupped his face gently, wiping away tears with her thumb. "Because love isn't something you can beat out of people, no matter how hard they try. It lives in the small moments. In the sound of your mother's singing. In the memory of your father's voice. In the fact that you're still here, still fighting, still hoping. That's love, Tam. That's proof."

He leaned into her touch like a plant toward sunlight, desperate for any scrap of warmth in this cold place.

And Rhaella made a decision.

A reckless, dangerous, beautiful decision.

"Come here." She said softly, pulling back. "I'm going to show you something."

He looked up at her, confused. "Show me what?"

The world kept tilting, kept trying to swallow her whole. She knelt carefully in the frost-brittle grass, each blade like a tiny knife against her raw knees. Her ruined back screamed with every movement, the half-healed wounds cracking open beneath crude bandages. Black spots danced across her vision like malevolent butterflies, threatening to carry her consciousness away.

"Something your mother would want you to see," she whispered to Tam, her breath forming delicate clouds between them in the bitter air. "Something that will remind you that there's still beauty in this world, even here where the stones weep with suffering. Even now when winter has stripped everything bare."

"I don't understand," Tam replied, his small face pinched with confusion, eyes wide and trusting beneath a tangle of unwashed hair.

"You will." She held out her hand—fingers cracked and bleeding, nails broken to the quick. "But you must swear—on your mother's songs , on your father's love—never to speak of it. Not to them, not to anyone, not even to the other slaves who share our chains. Do you understand?"

His eyes went huge. He nodded with a solemnity that belonged to adults, not eight-year-old boys. "I swear. I swear on everything."

He came to her immediately, trusting in the way only children could still manage.

She cupped her trembling hands together, holding them close to her heart. It hammered against her ribs—wild, frightened. She hadn't done this in months. Not since Hybern's soldiers came for her village with fire and swords.

The gift—the curse, the power—had always been with her. Not inherited, not learned. Just hers.

They'd made her promise to hide it. To never let anyone see. To bury it so deep it might as well not exist.

She didn't know where it came from. Didn't understand why she was the only one in her family who could reach for this power and feel it answer. She only knew that when she called, something inside her responded—something that felt simultaneously part of her and utterly separate, like a second heartbeat waiting beneath her own.

Her hands shook. She closed her eyes and reached for that quiet place deep inside—the place where strange warmth lived coiled like a sleeping serpent, where something vaster than pain waited in the darkness. She thought of Tam's loneliness, of his mother's stolen songs, of all the beauty this horrible place had tried to beat out of them.

She breathed slowly into her cupped palms, the air between her fingers warming with each exhale. No words. No incantations. Just breath and will and desperate want. The warmth in her chest flared suddenly fierce, like embers catching in dry tinder, and she felt that presence—that mysterious other—turn its full attention toward her like the sun breaking through storm clouds after days of darkness.

Light bloomed between her trembling fingers, seeping through the cracks like molten gold.

When she opened her hands, a butterfly rested there on her palm, its body no larger than her smallest fingernail.

Not real—no earthly insect could glow like captured starlight, could shimmer with colors that had no names in any human tongue. Iridescent blues deeper than midnight skies melted into violets that pulsed with their own heartbeat, edged with a silver so pure it hurt to look at directly. Its delicate wings moved with liquid grace, folding and unfolding as if tasting the winter air, paper-thin yet somehow substantial.

Each movement sent ripples of luminescence cascading across its impossible form, leaving ghost-trails of light that lingered for heartbeats before fading.

Tam's sharp intake of breath was the only sound in the silent forest.

The butterfly lifted from her palm on wings that caught the weak sunlight and transformed it into something transcendent. It circled once, twice, three times around them—a spiral of living light that turned the dead winter woods into a cathedral.

"It's..." Tam couldn't finish. His young face was transformed, lit from within by wonder so pure it hurt to witness. His mouth hung open. Tears tracked down his cheeks—not grief now, but something else entirely. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

The butterfly landed on his outstretched finger.

He went perfectly still, barely breathing, as if afraid to disturb this miracle. Light reflected in his wide eyes—violet-blue radiance turning them luminous.

For one perfect, suspended moment, there was no pain. No hunger. No slavery or suffering or loss. Just a boy and a butterfly made of impossible light, and between them, a connection that transcended words.

The butterfly's wings beat slowly, hypnotically. Tam started to laugh—a sound of pure, untainted joy that seemed impossible in a place like this. The kind of laughter that belonged to children who'd never known fear or cruelty. Who'd grown up safe and loved and free.

"How?" he breathed, not looking away from the glowing creature. "How did you—"

"I don't know." The truth, raw and vulnerable. "I've always been able to. But I've never understood it. Never known where it comes from or what it means."

The butterfly lifted from his finger. It danced through the air between them, weaving patterns that left trails of fading light. Then it spiraled upward toward the bare branches, higher and higher until—

It dissolved. Simply came apart like morning mist under sun, light scattering into a thousand tiny sparks that faded one by one into nothing.

Gone. The last mote of light winked out against the slate-gray winter sky, leaving only the ghost of its radiance imprinted on their retinas.

But the memory of it remained. Burned into both of them like a brand against skin—a secret warmth in the hollow of their chests where hope had nearly died. Proof that beauty could exist even here amid frost-rimed stones and the constant reek of fear, even now when their world had narrowed to survival measured in breaths between lashings.

Tam turned to her with eyes streaming silver in the weak afternoon light. "Thank you," he whispered, his voice cracking like thin ice over deep water. "Thank you, thank you, thank you—" His small hands clutched at her tattered sleeve, fingers trembling with emotion too vast for his narrow shoulders to contain.

"Never," he swore with fierce intensity, jaw clenched so tight she could see the muscles working beneath his dirt-streaked skin. "It's our secret. Forever and always, until the stars fall or the chains break."

She squeezed his bony shoulder—felt the fragile bird-bones beneath her palm—and sent him scurrying off toward the smoke-belching kitchens with both bundles of kindling clutched against his chest. She had the stables next—had to keep moving despite her body's betrayal, despite how the ground kept shifting beneath her feet like the deck of a storm-tossed ship.

As she crossed the frozen courtyard, that mysterious presence pulsed again beneath her ribs. Stronger now than before. More focused. Watchful in a way that felt almost sentient.

She shivered violently, and not from the bitter cold seeping through her thin shift.

The stables were dim and rank with the accumulated smells of old hay and horse-sweat, manure and leather and unwashed animal bodies. Rhaella mucked out stalls on pure instinct, her body moving through familiar motions while her mind drifted somewhere between waking consciousness and the edge of collapse.

She didn't hear Commander Torven approach until he spoke, his voice cutting through her fugue state like a blade.

"Witch."

Ice flooded her veins in a rushing torrent, cold enough to burn. She spun with graceless haste, nearly dropping the pitchfork she'd been using. He stood framed in the stable doorway, backlit by weak afternoon sun, his silhouette predatory and wrong. Wine-scent rolled off him in nauseating waves—not enough to make him drunk, just enough to make him dangerous.

Torven had been one of Hybern's loyalists, a true believer in their cause even after most had abandoned it. When the war turned, he'd slithered across enemy lines with practiced ease, offering Lord Nolan his particular talents. Breaking slaves. Maintaining order. The methods he'd perfected serving Hybern's cruel vision. Nolan, seeing the darkness in him and recognizing its uses, had accepted eagerly.

"Commander." She dropped her eyes immediately to the hay-strewn floor, made her voice as steady and neutral as possible.

Don't let him see your fear. Don't give him that power.

He stalked closer, each boot crushing hay with a sound like breaking bones. "You were in the woods today. With the boy."

Her heart died in her chest—a full stop that left her lungs burning for air. When it restarted, each beat felt like a hammer against raw flesh. "Gathering kindling, sir. For tonight's fires."

"I see." He circled her—a predator tightening its orbit before the kill. His shadow fell across her three times as he completed his circuit, each pass stealing more of her warmth. "And what treasures did those woods yield to you?"

Rhaella kept her gaze fixed on the filth beneath her feet, counting straw to keep from screaming. "Nothing but sticks for the fire, sir. And a handful of withered berries even crows wouldn't touch."

"Berries." He halted so close she could count the pores on his nose, smell the wine fermenting in his sweat and something underneath—the stench of putrefaction, of something rotting from within. "How... convenient."

She swallowed the stone in her throat. Each breath shallow enough to avoid touching him with her chest. Every sinew in her body drawn bowstring-tight, waiting for the first blow to land.

His eyes flayed her open—winter-pale, glass-sharp, hunting for the lie beneath her skin. The silence between them thinned to a razor's edge that pressed against her throat.

"You know what they whisper about fae blood?" His voice scraped lower, a knife against stone. "It sleeps in veins for generations until it wakes. Starved dogs bite hardest, they say. Pain calls to power."

Her blood crystallized to ice shards. "I don't understand, sir."

"No?" He seized her chin, fingers digging into bone. "That violet eye. Wrong on a human face. Makes me wonder what corruption runs in your line. What filth the fae left festering when we drove them behind the Wall five centuries past."

"I'm just a slave, sir. Nothing more."

"Perhaps." He straightened, shoving her backward. "But if you're something more—if you've got their blood waking up inside you—Lord Nolan will know. And he'll either sell you for a fortune to the highest bidder, or kill you before word spreads and brings trouble to his door."

He left without another word, his footsteps fading into the gathering dusk.

Rhaella stood frozen in place, gripping the pitchfork until her hands went completely numb, until she couldn't feel her fingers anymore. Her entire body shook with terror she couldn't show, couldn't release, couldn't afford to acknowledge.

Touched by their kind.

She'd heard the stories. Mortals with fae blood, diluted by generations. Before the Wall went up five hundred years ago, the fae had ruled these lands. They'd taken mortal lovers, created children. Most of those bloodlines had died out or gone dormant over centuries.

But some awakened. Usually during times of great stress.

Her violet eye had always been unusual. Her mother claimed it was a family trait. But her mother's eyes had been grey her father's brown, Thalia's hazel, Kian's brown.

Only Rhaella had mismatched eyes—one violet as twilight, the other grey as winter mist—marking her as something not quite belonging to either world.

And now this awareness. This strange sensation that pulsed and flickered like something trying to wake after a very long sleep.

No.

She couldn't be. Couldn't afford to be. Fae blood meant attention, and attention meant death—either at Nolan's hands or sold to collectors who paid fortunes for interesting specimens.

She had to bury it. Had to pretend. Had to survive.

Author’s Note: Thank you for reading. This was a heavy chapter to write, but it marks a turning point for Rhaella’s strength and survival. If you made it this far.

What do you get the Shadowsinger who has everything?

A man who speaks in silence and shadows. He moves like smoke and kisses like fire. I’ve known him for centuries, been mated for a decade, and loved him with every part of my being. Throughout our long lives, we’ve exchanged gifts for more than half of that time. Now, I find myself unsure of what to give him.

I lie sprawled across our bed, groaning into a pillow still scented with Azriel’s cologne, dark and deep, like night, fresh air, and something unmistakably him. The kind of scent that fills your lungs and never really leaves.

I flipped onto my back, stretched my limbs across the mattress in dramatic frustration, and started mentally listing every gift I’d given him over the years, as if retracing the past might spark inspiration.

Our first Solstice together, I gifted him a dagger forged from pure Dawn Court light, crafted to mirror Truth-Teller in shape and balance, but where his blade absorbed shadows, mine shimmered with sunbeams. The way he smiled, though it hurt. That smile stayed with me for weeks.

In the second year, I gifted him a stone of observation, rare and sensitive to shadows, one that sang to them. Cassian had to carve it from the side of an Illyrian mountain with gritted teeth and a string of curses I still quote, but Azriel’s shadows had purred like cats in the sun.

The third, a complete set of ancient books, tomes he’d been collecting since childhood. I’d traded a merchant more gold than was remotely reasonable for the final volumes. Watched him run his scarred fingers over the cracked spines as if they were spun from starlight.

After that, I gifted weapons, maps, surprise estates, and weeks in isolated cabins with nothing but silk lingerie and a roaring fire between us. Solstices spent tangled under furs. Vacations disguised as missions. Even a god-damned riverboat experience, which ended with my head in a bucket.

Now, nothing.

Absolutely. Stars-damned. Nothing.

I rolled over again as morning light spilled in golden ribbons across our sheets. Our bedroom glowed warm and soft, and I could already feel the gentle tug of our mating bond, quiet and constant in my chest, the fluttering reassurance that Azriel was on his way home.

Two days until the Solstice.

Two days until he walks through that door with a gift so thoughtful, so him, it’ll make me laugh, cry, and want to drag him straight to bed, and I have nothing.

I gazed at the ceiling of our estate, a haven perched just above Velaris, gifted to us by Feyre and Rhys. Sitting in the bend of the mountain like a secret spoken between worlds. The sort of place you fall in love with every morning, just like I fall more and more in love with him each passing day.

Birdsong drifted in through the open windows, blending with the gentle flow of nearby streams. I sat up, running my fingers over the still-warm side of the bed Azriel had left days ago. Our room faced a wall of sheer-draped windows, offering a view of our blooming estate, garden beds, and tall trees heavy with blossoms of peace, love, and protection.

Inside, the fire crackled in the white-stone hearth. The walls were lined with Feyre’s artwork and soft, sentimental gifts we’d exchanged over the years. Three doors led to rooms we filled with our life together: a bathing chamber with a sunken tub big enough to swim in, a closet that could house a small family, and Azriel’s office, overflowing with files, weapons, secrets, and an organisational system that defied all logic.

I leaned back against the carved headboard, frowning. Maybe a new garden? Elain could help with forget-me-nots, maybe another olive tree for love and endurance, but our gardens were already a jungle of memories and meanings. It would feel too cheesy, too safe, not enough.

Still scowling, I dragged myself out of bed and got ready for the day. Morrigan would arrive soon, sweeping in like a storm made of beauty and mischief. She was on a mission to shop for a lover she refused to name. I bathed, dressed, and sat in the living room waiting, trying to quiet the slow-simmering panic beneath my calm.

Maybe I’d find something in Velaris, perhaps fate would save me.

Even as Mor and I roamed the sparkling streets of Velaris, nothing clicked. I considered a new weapon. A cooking class. A rare spice. A romantic week away, but none of it was right.

All I could think about was what Azriel would give me.

Because his gifts are never just gifts. They’re stories. Layered with memory, edged in thoughtfulness, soaked in a quiet, breathtaking intimacy. He watches. He listens. He remembers. His gifts are reflections of how he loves, silent, fierce, and utterly unwavering.

Here I was, standing in the heart of the most stunning city in all the realms, surrounded by shop windows dripping with enchantments and wonder, without a single clue what to get him.

By midday, Mor had bought three pairs of shoes, two scandalous dresses, and something from the “private” section of a boutique that had me blushing for her. Meanwhile, I was still giftless and spiralling into an existential panic.

We passed another glittering storefront, and I groaned.

“If he gives me something poetic again, like a star chart of the sky the night we met, or an enchanted music box that hums the sound of our bond, I swear I’m going to scream.”

Mor just smirked. “You love it, and you know it.”

“I do,” I muttered darkly. “That’s the problem.”

Just as the sun dipped low and gilded the rooftops in gold, I saw it.

A shop with a single item in the window, and the moment I saw it, I knew.

The bell chimed as I pushed through the door. A stern-faced woman greeted me with an unimpressed stare, but I didn’t care. I paid what was far too little gold, and then Mor and I winnowed home just before dusk, shadows curling like curious cats at our heels, nosing through the gossip we brought back.

Azriel’s shadows greeted us at the edge of the estate, brushing against my cloak like loyal, but nosy, spies.

I crouched, cloak still wrapped around me, and narrowed my eyes at the nearest wisp of shadow.

“Alright,” I said in my most threatening voice, “if any of you squeal to Azriel, I swear to the Mother, I will salt every shadowed corner of this estate. You won’t find peace for weeks.”

They stirred as if laughing, a soft swirl across my cheek and through my hair, whispering back in Azriel’s voice, low and affectionate and smug.

“I’m serious,” I growled. “I know your favourite hiding spots. I know what makes you purr. You keep this secret, and I’ll enchant the bath always to be the perfect temperature when you hover in the steam.”

A long pause.

Then the shadows disappeared, scattering in what I hoped was a silent agreement.

So, I waited, and waited.

Solstice morning dawned golden and frost-kissed. 

I was already in bed, silk and lace clinging to my skin, the nightgown he liked best. I heard the crunch of boots on the path outside, then the heavy steps racing up the stairs.

Azriel burst through the door just after sunrise; wings flared wide, shadows coiled tight to his skin like they were holding something in.

He scented the air like a male on the hunt.

“You bribed my shadows,” he said flatly, eyes narrowing. His mouth twitched.

I reclined back against the pillows like temptation incarnate. “Would I do that?”

“Yes.” He leaned in, nose brushing mine.

“Well,” I purred, “then you already know not to trust them.”

He huffed a quiet laugh, then kissed me slowly and deeply, tasting of snow, pine, and something warm beneath it all. Something that’s mine.

We exchanged gifts, shared laughs, blushes, and smouldering glances. One of Azriel’s gifts was a hand-woven, enchanted tapestry that shimmered like starlight, capturing the very moment our mating bond clicked into place.

I nearly cried into my cocoa.

Another gift was a collection of dresses I knew wouldn’t stay on for long, and a set of candles meant to heighten the atmosphere. My cheeks warmed as I met Azriel’s smirking gaze.

Then he opened his smaller gifts: his favourite bath salts, a new holster designed for his blades, and some custom knives. He was pleased.

“I saved yours for last,” I said, rising. “It’s in the solarium.”

He followed, shadows flickering with poorly concealed glee.

In the centre of the sunlit solarium sat a massive ribbon-wrapped box.

It wobbled slightly, then a sound escaped the box.

Maa.

Azriel froze.

“Is that—?”

“Open it.”

He shot me a look, equal parts suspicion and disbelief, then stepped forward and slowly lifted the lid.

A baby goat popped its head out. 

White, fluffy, with big blue eyes and a velvety black nose.

It bleated sweetly and immediately began chewing on Azriel’s siphon.

Azriel stared in silence.

You got me a goat.”

I cleared my throat. “His name is Woolly. He likes dried figs, and he snores.”

Azriel blinked again.

Woolly bleated cheerfully and began chewing the ribbon. 

“You got me a baby goat,” he repeated, as if his brain had taken a rest.

“I’ve run out of ideas, Az. You have blades made from starlight, books older than Velaris, and maps of entire forgotten realms. So, I got you someone to keep you company when you’re brooding and I’m not home.”

Woolly headbutted Azriel’s leg with unfiltered devotion.

Az crouched, scooped him up, and, Mother save me, smiled.

Neither the polite public smile or the rare smirk of amusement.

A genuine smile. 

Soul-deep and eye-crinkling. The kind of smile that made our bond sing.

He stood again, Woolly snug in his arms as he’d always belonged there.

“This,” Azriel murmured, gazing down at the fluffy creature nibbling his leathers, “is the best gift you’ve ever given me.”

“You’re joking.”

He kissed me. 

“I love him, and the fact that you bribed my shadows to keep it secret?” His grin turned wicked. “You’re devious.”

I arched a brow. “You’re just now figuring that out?”

He pulled me close with one arm, Woolly squirming between us.

“You’re perfect,” he said.

Woolly bleated, and Azriel, the most feared man in the Night Court, cooed back.

It had been a few weeks since Solstice, and Woolly had fully integrated into our lives, as much as any goat could.

He had a favourite cushion in Azriel’s office, his enchanted fleece-lined coat for winter walks, and had even learned how to nose open the pantry door in search of figs.

This morning, I wandered out into the garden with a steaming cup of tea, stretching beneath the soft winter sun. The air was crisp, the sky a pale blue brushed with clouds. I followed the stone path that wound between the trees, trailing my fingers along lavender bushes that had somehow survived the frost with a bit of Elain’s magic.

In the centre of the garden, Azriel crouched beneath the broad arms of our ancient olive tree. Woolly stood loyally beside him, munching contentedly on a clump of grass, his little tail wagging with unbothered joy. Azriel’s siphons glinted in the soft sunlight, his leathers catching just enough gold to make him look like something out of a dream, or maybe a daydream I’d never quite woken from.

He was speaking quietly, so softly that I had to hold my breath and step closer, pressing into the shade of a nearby tree trunk to listen.

“I’m telling you,” he murmured to the goat, voice warm with amusement, “she’s not going to appreciate you eating her flowers.”

Woolly gave a thoughtful bleat.

“I know you enjoy them,” Azriel sighed, “but you can’t eat all of them. That’s not a compromise, that’s sabotage.” His shadows swirled lazily around him and Woolly as if they, too, found this exchange thoroughly entertaining.

Another sound, this one higher in pitch, an argument.

Azriel leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Do you think she’d like a garden fountain? Or would that be too much? Maybe those singing wind chimes Cassian found in Adriata...” He exhaled, gaze drifting to Woolly, like the goat might offer some advice.

Woolly turned and began chewing on the leather strap of Azriel’s harness.

Az didn’t stop him.

I stood there, caught mid-step, my heart softening, melting, and filling with more love than I knew how to hold. The most feared male in the Night Court, the blade in Rhysand’s shadows, the spymaster of legend, whispering secrets to a baby goat in our garden.

I stepped into the clearing, unable to stop the smile from tugging at my lips. “You two having a heart-to-heart?”

Azriel looked up, completely unashamed. “He’s a very good listener.”

Woolly bleated as if he agreed.

I crouched beside them, slipping smoothly into Azriel’s side. 

“And to think, I was worried he was a ridiculous gift.” 

Azriel wrapped one wing around me, warm and protective, pulling me close. 

“He is ridiculous,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to my temple. “And perfect.” 

We stayed like that a bit longer, just the three of us, beneath the branches, surrounded by gentle laughter, stubborn blooms, and the sort of nonsense that only exists in the spaces between deep love and shared life. 

Her head pounded as she stared at the documents. After years immersed in the historical field- starting with historical study, then historiography- her work had become too… stagnant for her. She loved what she did, of course, but her job had become less about discovering great historical finds and more like gathering fractured accounts. 

She was happy, she truly was, but being with Azriel these past few months made her greedy. She wanted more. Maybe it was the Spymaster rubbing off on her, but she was itching for something big, something that would shake her field. 

The library had quieted around her. Hours ago it had buzzed with soft voices and rustling of robes. Now, it was still and deathly quiet, with the priestesses away at evening service. The hours had slipped away unnoticed. 

She sighed as she closed the 3 books scattered in front of her. She’d sworn to Azriel that she would leave before the priestesses even left for last service. Though the shadows circling her seemed content to let her stay, she knew better than to test her mate’s patience. 

Just as she began to rise, she heard the familiar rhythm of Azriel’s footsteps.

“Yes, I know Az,” she called before even looking back at him. “Don’t worry, I am pissed at myself too. Didn’t even get to the work I had wanted done today,” she groaned as he entered the reading nook she had settled herself into early that morning. 

He laughed quietly as he brought his hands to cradle her face, brushing his thumbs along her cheekbones as he kissed her forehead. He laughed a little harder when she whined before finally kissing her on the lips. 

Footsteps echoed nearby. She pulled back quickly, but Azriel only grinned before tugging her back in. His arms locked around her waist as he kissed her, reminding his mate of their agreement: no more hiding. 

As the sounds of the priestesses’ footsteps disappeared, along with a few shocked gasps and giggles, the two of them broke apart. She looked at him in confusion. 

“We made a deal, did we not?” He asked.

“Yes, but that was only in front of your family-”

“And what do you think will happen when a few priestesses stumble upon us like this? While their gossiping is mostly harmless, it is rampant. I’d kind of like to see how quickly it makes it to Nesta, and whether or not she tries to say anything.” Azriel reasoned. 

She narrowed her eyes at her mate but didn’t argue. He wasn’t wrong. The library might be sacred, but it was also a pressure cooker of whispered scandal. One that no one escaped unscathed. 

As the two walked back out of the library, Clotho beckoned the two to her desk. 

At least have the decency to pretend you are trying to hide any dalliances in the library. Her pen scribbled. 

Azriel’s face lit up in amusement, while his mate’s was cast in embarrassment. As the latter began to apologize profusely, Clotho waved her hand in dismissal before her pen began to write again. 

The priestesses needed something new to discuss, many find comfort in silly gossip. By dinner they will be making lists of baby names. 

The couple blushed a deep crimson at that. Azriel inclined his head in a silent goodbye, taking his mate’s hand and squeezing it tightly before the two walked back to the House of Wind proper. 

The sitting room in the House of Wind was light and buzzing, alive with laughter and heated by the well fed hearth. 

Like the rest of the room’s occupants, the Night Court’s historiographer and her Spymaster mate were drunk. 

Neither were big drinkers typically. Azriel claimed growing up alongside Rhysand and Cassian had meant he had consumed more alcohol before the age of 200 than most fae did in a lifetime. These days, he preferred to keep his wits about him more often than the rest of his family. His mate shared similar sentiments, only getting drunk for special occasions. 

But tonight had in fact been a special occasion. 

Mor had returned from a month-long stint in Hewn City. While Rhysand typically never encouraged her to stay more than a few days at a time, the two had recently launched quite the campaign to uproot the rot embedded in the Court of Nightmares, a feat that warranted longer and longer visits each time. When she’d come home that very afternoon, the exhaustion and haunted look etched into her face had worried her family. 

What had begun as “just a nightcap” had quickly spiraled into a full-blown celebration. 

After several bottles of expensive wine and a few decanters of something suspiciously strong and equally as vile tasting, the entire Inner Circle was comfortably drunk. 

Azriel’s mate had curled into the corner of one of the plush couches with a wine glass in hand, her cheeks flushed and eyes glassy, the room spinning at borderline nauseating speeds. Next to her, Azriel slouched lower than anyone had ever seen him, his normally rigid frame nonexistent as he melted into the cushions. He was dressed in loose linen pants and a button up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, an elegant but far more relaxed departure from his usual Illyrian leathers. Even his shadows seemed drowsy, coiling like cats around his ankles

“She then told him to fuck off,” Cassian howled, halfway through a story that had been going on for far too long, “after he complimented her speech!”  

Azriel’s mate snorted into her drink, too inebriated to be embarrassed, “He sounded surprised that a speech on the importance of historiographical methodology could be interesting,” she protested. “It was rude of him to think otherwise!”

Azriel’s low laugh warmed her insides, “Always the peacekeeper,” he murmured, teasing. 

“Oh please, you know you love it,” she shot back, nudging his shoulder with her own. 

Mor raised an eyebrow at the interaction. “Az, is that a blush on your face?” 

“How drunk are you, Azriel?” Feyre added, her tone steeped in amusement. 

Azriel swirled the amber liquid in his glass as he drawled, “Somewhere between a lot and very.”

Everyone chuckled, but their eyes soon zeroed in on the look he gave the female tucked against his side. The way their hands brushed one another, the way Azriel leaned in every time she laughed, closing his eyes as if to savor the sound, even the way his shadows curled protectively around them both.

Cassian rolled his eyes dramatically at the pair, “Mother above, the tension between you two makes me sexually frustrated.” He groaned

Azriel didn’t flinch. Based on the absolute torture he’d endured every night in his bedroom in the House of Wind, unable to sleep because of the noises Cassian and Nesta had been making, he knew that to be a lie, so the Shadowsinger didn’t dignify his brother’s words with a response. 

“Not everyone has to be as vocal about their feelings as you are, Cassian. Don’t force Azriel to be what he is not.” Nesta said coolly. 

Azriel gave her a look of mock offense. “I’ll have you know, I’m very vocal about my feelings. It’s not my fault you’re all too dense to notice.”

His mate dissolved into a fit of giggles she tried to hide with her wine glass, only to end up amplifying the noise with the action. “Oh yes Azriel,” she gasped, “you are so vocal about your feelings, especially last night: ‘Oh Gods, fuck, your mouth feels so good on my-” 

A scarred hand clamped over her mouth with lighting speed. 

Azriel looked mortified- for all of two seconds- before both of them collapsed into wheezing giggles on the couch. 

Soon the laughs were the only sound that could be heard in the room as the rest of the Inner Circle fell into shocked silence. 

Mor blinked, “Did she just-”

“Oh she definitely just-” Feyre whispered. 

“Are you two…” Rhysand began, also unable to finish his sentence. 

“Inside joke.” Azriel said halfheartedly. The pair agreed they wouldn’t outright say anything, nor outright deny their relationship, but they hadn’t actually been asked a question.

His mate nodded, face beet red but grinning wickedly, “Very inside.”

The two descended into wheezing laughter once more, the rest of the room soon joining in, albeit confused. 

Amren was the only one who didn’t laugh, watching the pair carefully over the rim of her glass.

While the conversation attempted to pick back up, nothing stuck. The rest of the Inner Circle watched the secretly mated pair, hovering around the edges of realization, circling it like buzzards but never quite landing on the truth.

Through it all, Azriel’s shadows curled protectively around him and his mate as their bond remained hidden in plain sight.

The next morning Cassian groaned as he unceremoniously dropped into the chair across from Rhysand in the High Lord’s home office, rubbing his temples and whining with the drama of a dying male. 

“Whatever was in those decanters tasted like regret and death,” Cassian muttered. 

Rhysand, who looked only marginally more functional, snorted without lifting his gaze from the reports in front of him. “And yet you drank 5 whole glasses.” he replied dryly. 

“I was recouperating from a day of torture,” Cassian justified, “Nyx has been weaponizing flowers, spreading their poisen throughout my own home. I am not safe anywhere thanks to that child.” 

Footsteps sounded down the hall, halting the two’s conversation. Azriel had traded in his relaxed attire from the night before for his usual leathers. While his High Lord and general looked like they felt everybit of the alcohol they consumed last night, Azriel remained composed and unbothered, every inch the formidable Spymaster. 

“Its not fair he gets to look like that.” Cassian groaned. 

Azriel raided an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Good morning to you as well, Cas.”

Rhysand finally glanced up, a curious expression on his face. “You’re up early. I didn’t think I’d see you till tonight when I found these reports on my desk. I figured you’d be occupied nursing a hangover.” 

“I had things to take care of.” Azriel responded. 

Both Cassian and Rhysand perked up.

“Like what?” Cassian asked with the subtlety of a battering ram. 

“Moving out.” Azriel glanced between them, trying to read their expressions. When the two didn’t say anything, Azriel gave in, “I bought a house.”

Rhysand dropped the reports he had been shuffling in his hands. “You… what?”

Azriel leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. “It's on the outskirts of Velaris… quiet, private, beautiful views.”

Cassian sat up straighter. “Wait- you bought a house? You don’t even like decorating your own room.”

Azriel gave him a look. “I like silence, and hate paper-thin walls.”

“This is slander,” Cassian said turning to Rhys in defense, “Nesta and I have been extremely respectful-”

“You cracked the plaster above my bed.”

Rhysand snorted.

Cassian gaped. “So you dropped a fortune to move out just because of us?”

“I also value my own space, and privacy.” Azriel’s tone was mild, but firm. He was starting to get irritated at the endless questions. 

“You are barely home as it is,” Rhys said, narrowing his eyes. “What’s the point of buying an entire house, unless…” he trailed off, eyes sharpening. A beat passed, then another. Rhysand’s eyes flicked towards Azriel’s face. He tried to read his Spymaster’s microexpressions as he had done for centuries.  

“You’re not living alone,” he finished. Not a question.

So Azriel didn’t answer. 

Cassian and Rhysand looked at each other, then back at Azriel. Cassian’s face lit up when he realized exactly who his brother’s new “roommate” was. 

“So that's where all the ‘inside jokes’ came from, why you two were so comfortable last night.” The general reasoned. Azriel had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. They were so close and yet so far. 

The High Lord’s face became ashen as he looked at his brother, as if realizing all too late that something had shifted beneath his feet without him even noticing. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” He asked, not hiding the hurt from his tone. 

Azriel didn’t miss a beat, “You don’t listen.”

This time, the silence was deafening. 

As the tension became a bit too unbearable, Azriel coolly shrugged his shoulders, “You may all come by in about two months. Give us time to finish some things.” 

“Are you hosting a housewarming party, Azriel?” Rhysand asked incredulously, choosing to push the lingering sting of Azriel’s silence down. 

“Something like that.” Az responded. 

She had been working all night on her research paper. Originally, it had been pretty straightforward as far as these things went, that was until she stumbled upon two drastically different accounts of the same battle documented by two soldiers on the same side, not far from the other on the front lines. 

And yet every modern interpretation she could find blindly aligned with one or the other. No one questioned the contradiction. Not historians, not theorists, nor any other scholars who had lended their two cents. 

Sighing, she realized she wasn’t going to finish the project anytime soon, though she had to admit the thrill of such a discovery had brought enough motivation to continue working until dawn. Azriel, her mate of many months now, was away on a mission and wasn’t due back until dinner the next day anyway. 

I should probably ask Rhysand about this, she thought. But it was late and while he most likely would have been up at this time a year ago, Nyx had ruled the High Lord and Lady’s schedules, constantly requiring all their attention just to make sure he hadn’t shifted into the form of a beast or rearranged Velaris’ stars… again. Though they loved their prince, the Dreamers of the Night Court hadn’t appreciated the impromptu redecorating of their beloved skies. 

She also simply didn’t want to see Rhysand, still bitter about how he treated Azriel at family dinner those few months before when the Shadowsinger had tried to tell his family about his mating bond. 

So instead, the Night Court’s beloved historiographer called someone else. 

While late night calls weren’t usually welcomed from the ancient fae female, nor were any calls at any time of day for that matter, Amren was rather thankful for the chance to leave the River House. Ever since Nyx had crowned his Aunt Amren as his favorite person ever, she had been borderline imprisoned at Rhysand and Feyre’s home just so they could get a few hours of work done, or (and this was far more vital for the sake of their court) shower. 

Still, in typical Amren fashion, she couldn’t let her gratitude be known. 

“You called me away from a glass of very old and very, very expensive wine while I watched the latest episode of The Toddler Tyrant.” Amren teased. 

“Nyx sprouted daisies again?”

“Out of Cassian’s ears this time,” Amren answered, breezing past her into the study. Cassian’s suffering at the hands of a toddler had been entertaining at first, but after a while his torment went from hilarious to pathetic. 

The historiographer gestured to the scrolls spread across her desk, “These are accounts of the same battle, the same side, same front, yet completely different outcomes. And yet every major historical interpretation aligns with one or the other, like no one bothered to question the discrepancies.”

Though she displayed disinterest, Amren slinked closer to the papers. “That’s war, girl. No one remembers it the same way. Memory makes fools of us all.” 

“Except these accounts were written during the war. Not years later. They were created mere hours after the battle in question. The first account claimed the general abandoned his troops, choosing to flee like a coward. The second swore he died protecting them. Both can’t be true.”

“Both could certainly be true, or rather, true to the writers. Maybe what one saw as a cowardly flee from the battle, the other saw end in a valiant death. Personal bias that led both to arriving at their own differing yet truthful conclusions.” 

The more she thought about it, the more Amren’s words rang true. While this was a huge oversight in the historical field, it did lend itself to the widespread pattern of historical memory corrupted by the silent biases of the narratives they choose to listen to. “Everyone’s so caught up in what they want to see, they can’t recognize truth, even when it’s parading around in plain sight.”

Amren smirked, “History repeats itself.” Before she stalked off. 

As she watched Amren leave, her words echoed in her head.

History repeats itself.

She thought of the different accounts of the battle again: two soldiers, one truth fractured into two. Everyone so caught up in their own perspective they were blind to what was marching right in front of them.

Just like them. Just like her and Azriel.

She looked down at the scattered scrolls on her desk and saw something else for the first time. Not confusion. Not contradictions. Just… love, interpreted differently by each witness. 

She thought of the soldiers. One grieving, one bitter, both clinging to their own truths. Both were so sure they knew what happened. 

Just like Cassian, swearing she and Azriel were dancing around their feelings. 

Just like Nesta, insisting Azriel wasn’t the type to share what he felt.

Just like Rhysand, who couldn’t see beyond the brother he used to know. 

She sat back down and wrote one sentence, one that would jump start her greatest project yet. 

“We mustn’t only question the historical accounts we see, but our reasons for believing them.” 

She dipped her quill in ink, turned to a fresh new page and wrote her new working title. 

The Battle for Truth: Perception, Memory, and What We Choose to See

Azriel had been nonchalant about it. 

When he and his mate arrived at dinner, he oh-so-casually mentioned the two were hosting a party at their home. A housewarming party, as his family had assumed it was, and a party to celebrate the historiographer’s finished project, one she hadn’t even let Azriel know the details of. 

Not one of them had suspected a mating ceremony at the center of it.

The sun was beginning to dip behind the Sidra as the Inner Circle arrived at the couple’s home. 

The house was nothing like they had expected. Elegant, but also warm in a way only a home that was truly lived in, truly cared for, could be. The group stopped their various conversations as they tried to take in every detail they could. 

The first sign something was… different came when they made their way to the garden. Dozens of candles flickered to life, illuminating the stone walkway. Golden lanterns swayed gently in the trees. A long table stretched beneath the stars, draped in silver and blue linens and set with the finest of dishes. At the end of the garden stood an archway, draped in silk, glowing with candlelight, and unmistakably ceremonial. 

"Are we… early?" Feyre asked, glancing around in search of the hosts. 

Before anyone could answer, the sound of footsteps came from behind them. As they turned, the Inner Circle was met with a surprising sight. 

Azriel caught their attention first, dressed in an elegant navy suit softened by silver detailing. No armour, nor shadows to be seen, just… Azriel. 

But it was the female next to him that stole their breath. 

She stood beside him in a gown of lighter blue, embroidered with constellations that seemed to shift when she moved. Her eyes scanned the space, looking at the faces of her family, and for a moment, her nerves were evident. 

It was only then, when the two walked to the center of the garden and faced their friends, not hiding the ribbon that laced their hands together, deliberate and unmistakable, that realization struck.

“Oh-” Mor breathed.

“-my gods,” Cassian finished, slack-jawed.

Feyre blinked rapidly. “Wait. This is—?”

“You two are—?” Rhysand’s voice cracked mid-sentence.

“Mated,” Azriel confirmed, his voice clear and calm, his hand wrapped tightly around hers. “The priestess left just before you all arrived.”

There was a long pause, almost comically long, but long enough for the couple to start to sweat as they awaited further reactions.

Then Mor let out a loud, disbelieving sound and clutched her chest as if she had been physically wounded. “You traitors! You beautiful, deceiving traitors! How long have you both been…” she trailed off before finding her words, “When did the bond snap?”

The two turned to each other, smiling, before replying in unison, “A while ago.”

“Around half a year.” Azriel added.

Cassian’s head slowly turned from Azriel to his mate and back again. “Are you kidding me?” he said, scandalized. “How come none of us knew? How come I didn’t know? What kind of brother am I?”

“A dramatic one,” Amren deadpanned. “And apparently, an oblivious one.”

Feyre looked between them, mouth parted in shock. Then a slow, radiant smile bloomed on her face. “You’re mated,” she whispered to herself, trying to register the words. “You’re both actually mated.”

At that, Feyre launched herself at the couple, hugging Azriel’s mate first, then Azriel, her eyes glinting with tears. “I’m so happy for you,” she said, breathless. “You both look… I don’t know… lighter, happier.”

Nesta crossed her arms and raised a brow. “Well,” she said coolly, “that explains why the priestesses keep asking me questions about you two and giggling when I looked at them like they were crazy. They asked if you were pregnant last week. I thought they had been hexed.” Though her tone was cool and indifferent, her eyes betrayed her affection.

That earned laughter from the rest as the couple looked at each other with deep blushes on their faces. 

It was only Rhysand had remained quiet, far too quiet, his violet eyes fixed on the two of them. And then, without a word, he walked forward.

Azriel’s body went rigid, ever so slightly. But his mate didn’t flinch, didn’t look away.

Rhysand stopped just short of them, looking between the pair.

“I missed it,” he said finally, voice low. “I pride myself on seeing everything, knowing everything, but I completely missed this.”

There was no accusation in his words, but something raw in his tone. No anger, nor judgment. Just the sad realization he hadn’t known his brother as much as he thought. 

He looked at Azriel’s mate then, and whatever tension had been between them for the past few months softened. “I’m sorry,” Rhysand said. “To both of you. I was too busy thinking I knew everything that I missed what was right in front of me.”

Azriel’s mate gave him a gentle nod, filled with forgiveness and understanding. 

There was a moment of anxious silence, till Amren smirked behind her wine glass and muttered, “Finally.”

The tension shattered. 

Laughter rippled across the garden, followed by a chorus of overlapping questions, but Azriel only looked at his mate.

They had decided to do the ceremony part alone, just the two of them, a priestess, and Clotho acting as witness, under the promise she was allowed to give any and all details to the other priestesses to gossip over. 

But the celebration was for their family who had, however obliviously, been with them for their entire relationship.

That night, the Inner Circle celebrated under lantern light. The house echoed with laughter, shadows trailing around the garden and dancing to the music.

When the guests had finally gone, after having to be forcibly kicked out, Azriel and his mate sat on the floor in their study.

She sat nervously next to her mate, looking down at their hands still bound together with ribbon. She had promised they would get to that part of the night after she showed him one last thing.

She turned to the coffee table and picked up a leather-bound book. The cover was a dark blue and as she turned to the first page, Azriel recognized her handwriting. She handed the book to her mate who took it in his free hand. 

The page was opened to the dedication, written in her neat script, reading:

To the ones who taught me that truth is rarely singular, that memory can be messy, and love, like the historical work I dedicate my life to, can often be found hidden in plain sight. 

To Azriel, who saw the truest version of me and waited until I was ready to see her too. 

Azriel stared down at the page, tears lining his eyes. His shadows brushed the edges of the paper, like they too were reading it. 

“It’s not about us,” she quickly murmured, “not technically. It’s about conflicting battle accounts, probably less exciting but-”

She tried to swallow down her nerves, looking to their joined hands for strength. 

“But it’s always been about us, in a way. About how people miss things that are right in front of them, because they’re too busy holding onto the story they think they already know. That’s what those accounts taught me. Two people, on the same side, in the same moment, seeing two completely different truths. They can both be wrong and right. Just like some others we know.” She teased.

Azriel leaned forward, pressing his lips to her forehead. “You’re brilliant,” he whispered against her skin. “And I love you.”

“I know,” she whispered back, angling her head till her lips were just a breath away from his, “but you should say it again.”

“I love you.” He answered before kissing her deeply. 

While the bond between them hummed, everything around them grew silent and still, like the shadows and stars themselves had stopped to listen.

The wilds did not treat her kindly. But then again, they were never known to be kind. They were thick with dread and rot, Koshei’s reign seeping through every root. Once, she had walked through forests that bloomed at her touch. Now, they recoiled, green turning black beneath her every step.

Even though Koshei had been dead for a century now, his death magic still lingered in her veins—in the tattoo that now marred her skin like a scar, in the way the trees seemed to whisper warnings as she passed. 

She tried to stick to old paths, ones that had already turned barren beneath her, but they still did not welcome her. Stones shifted beneath her boots. Branches sagged, gray-limbed and brittle, as if bowing under the weight of her presence. Under the weight of what she had done.

Each step she took left ruin in her wake. Petals curled. Grass withered. A trail of blackened soil marked where her feet had passed, and still she walked—slowly, steadily—toward the crumbling shrine she’d found years ago. The only place the rot didn’t spread quite as fast. As though the stone, ancient and solemn, held a memory of who she used to be.

She was wrapped in layers of thick green wool, gloves pulled high over her wrists despite the early summer heat. The hood cast shadows over her face, not that anyone ever saw her now. Not that anyone ever should.

She’d buried her name long ago. Left it somewhere in the snow outside Velaris, the night she made the bargain.

But she still remembered his.

Azriel.

His name lived in her like marrow. She tried to forget it. The way his blood had soaked her hands. The way his shadows had curled around her ankles, gentle as breath, even as his eyes fluttered shut and she felt the bond lock into place—quiet and devastating.

He hadn’t known. He never had the chance to.

That was the point.

She had bargained with a god of decay, gave up everything she was so the male she loved could live. She never thought she’d survive it. Never thought she’d walk out of that battlefield, her gift twisted into something monstrous, her hands cursed.

Now, everything she touched died.

And still, she kept breathing.

Still, she dreamed of him.

Still, she walked through a forest that hated her, carrying the unbearable ache of a bond that only went one way.

Until today.

Because today, the forest paused. It’s whispers ceased, as though it was holding its breath. She felt it first through the soles of her boots, the low hush that fell over the trees. Then her own heartbeat, rising. Then something more—an itch between her shoulder blades. A pull in her chest, like a string finally going taut.

Her breath caught.

The shadows moved.

And she knew he had found her.

Her eyes widened just a fraction, her hand reaching for her chest. She couldn’t let him see her like this.

So she hid, just as she always did—within the fading trees, behind gnarled, rotted trunks—and she watched. 

She saw his shadows before she saw him. They furled in like clouds of dark mist, low to the ground. He walked within them, silent as the night, his own eyes searching. Azriel eyed the rot that seemed embedded into the land, inhaled the death that wafted in the air. But he didn’t stop to analyze. 

His gaze was set on the shrine and the sigils that glowed cobalt blue upon it. His gloved fingers traced the etchings, breath hitching in his throat. He recognized the curling loop of her name hidden within them, and it made his blood run cold.

A name that hadn’t been spoken in a century. A name that had become a scar on his heart.

He hadn’t said it aloud since the day they lost her. Not even to himself.

Azriel pulled his hand back slowly. His shadows were already crawling outward—low to the forest floor, quiet, curious. They moved like they did when they sensed something almost familiar. Not danger. Not an enemy. Rather, something his shadows knew was missing.

He turned, scanning the trees. There was no breeze, no birdsong. Just the stillness of a forest that held its breath.

And then—a hitch.

The smallest sound. A breath drawn too sharply, a heartbeat out of rhythm with the woods.

His shadows paused. One tendril curled around the edge of a rotted trunk, brushing against the hem of a dark green cloak.

He said nothing at first. Just… looked.

Even hidden in shadow—even after all these years—he knew.

He knew the shape of her. The way she stood like she was always bracing herself. The way her magic, once golden and warm, now sank into the earth like poison.

Azriel’s voice came softly. Like a blade being drawn.

“I thought you were dead. We all did.”

He didn’t move—didn’t dare. He just stood there, staring at the hollow between the trees where he could see the slightest glimpse of a boot.

She stayed silent even as her heart pounded in her chest, her eyes welling with tears.

“I shouldn’t have come,” he admitted. “I was following the rot. The way it spreads like—” He stopped himself. The words felt cruel now.

His voice softened. “But I didn’t expect it to feel like you.”

That made her flinch.

She pressed her back to the tree, clutching the edge of her cloak like a shield. She had imagined this moment a thousand times. In dreams, in nightmares. She’d imagined him furious. Grieving. Confused.

But she hadn’t imagined this.

Azriel sounded… lonely.

She shut her eyes. Her breath trembled in her chest. The bond, ever present, pulsed weakly under her ribs like an old wound that never healed.

He didn’t know.

Of course he didn’t. And he could never.

Because if he knew—if he felt it now—it would destroy her. Because it wouldn’t be real. He’d think it was some cruel twist of the Cauldron, some pity-thread tugged too late.

So she stayed quiet.

Azriel sighed through his nose, and something in it was so heartbreakingly tired.

“I just wanted to know,” he said, “if you were still breathing.”

A pause.

Then he turned—slowly, deliberately—and walked back to the shrine.

He didn’t see the way her hands shook. Didn’t hear the ragged breath she bit down. Didn’t feel the bond quiver with every step he took away.

But she watched. She saw the way his wings drooped; the effort it took for him to keep them from dragging on the forest floor. The shadows still searching around him, not with suspicion—but with something softer. Familiar.

He didn’t leave. Of course he didn’t.

Azriel wasn’t the kind of male who walked away from ghosts.

He stayed near the shrine, tracing the sigils with a gloved hand. His presence was like a balm to her soul. Yet, even as the bond tugged her closer, begging her to run into his arms, she couldn’t move. She refused to.

She didn’t save him just for him to die by her own wretched hands.

Her throat tightened. Her gloved hands curled into fists.

She heard him speak again—quiet, like he was willing the wind to carry his words to her.

“I know you’re there.”

She swallowed thickly. A shadow brushed her ankle, curling around it. She took a shuddering breath. She could keep hiding. Let him think it was just grief. Just memory.

But he deserved more than that. He’d always deserved more than what she gave him.

So she stepped out.

It was only one step. Her hood still drawn, her hands still hidden. But it was enough. Azriel’s breath caught audibly.

He turned, and for the first time in ten years, his eyes met hers. He didn’t say anything at first. Didn’t move. Didn’t run. Just… looked.

Like he was afraid to blink.

Her voice came thin and brittle. “You weren’t supposed to find me.”

Azriel shook his head slowly. “Then you should’ve hidden better.”

She let out a broken sound—a laugh, or maybe a sob. She didn’t know.

“I’m not who I was,” she whispered. “Not anymore.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

He took one step closer. Carefully. Like approaching a wounded animal.

“I don’t care.”

She blinked.

Azriel’s voice didn’t tremble when he said, “You’re alive. That’s all I care about right now.”

The bond pulsed beneath her skin. But still—he didn’t feel it. And she said nothing. She couldn’t risk losing this moment, not even for the truth she so desperately ached to speak into existence.

She didn’t mean to lead him to her.

She meant to keep her distance. To stand in the shadows, let him see her just long enough to prove she was breathing, and disappear again before the rot remembered it could devour everything she loved.

But then Azriel moved—just a few steps, never closer than she could tolerate. His shadows followed her, not him. They brushed her wrist, the hem of her cloak, the edge of her gloves. They didn’t recoil.

She said nothing as she turned toward the shrine. He fell into step behind her.

The earth beneath her blackened, dead things curling inward as she passed. But when she reached the ancient stone and laid a hand upon its mossy edge, the rot didn’t spread.

Azriel said nothing, though she could feel his gaze fixed on her back.

“This is the only place it doesn’t follow me,” she murmured.

His voice was gentle. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it remembers who I was. Maybe the magic here is stronger than mine. Or maybe… maybe this is where the gods go to forgive things.”

She didn’t know why she said that. Maybe she just wanted someone else to say it was possible.

Behind her, Azriel exhaled like he was steadying himself. “I remember these sigils. You used to draw them in the sand outside the House of Wind. I never knew what they meant.”

She nodded, one hand still on the stone.

“They’re meant for old magic,” she said. “The kind that bargains. The kind that takes more than it gives.”

Azriel was quiet for a long time.

Then, softly: “Is that what happened to you?”

She flinched.

When she turned, her hood slipped just enough that the edge of her face was visible in the dying light. He stepped closer without thinking—half a foot between them, his eyes searching hers.

“I can’t be near people,” she whispered. “I destroy things. I can’t control it. I—”

Her voice broke.

“I tried to save you.”

The words were out before she could stop them. Her heart lurched. Not the whole truth. Not the bond. Just the first crack in the dam.

Azriel’s expression didn’t change—but something in the air did.

A pull. Sharp. Low in her ribs. For one heartbeat, she thought—No. No, not now.

But it faded just as quickly. A flicker. A whisper.

Azriel blinked once, brows pulling slightly together. He looked at her like he felt something, too—but didn’t know what it meant.

She stepped back instinctively. “Don’t.”

He followed.

“I don’t care about the rot,” he said. “I don’t care what bargain you made. I care that you’re here. That you came back.”

“I didn’t come back,” she said, almost choking. “I was never meant to be found.”

He reached out—not to touch her, but to be closer. His shadows swept between them like a tide.

“Too bad,” he said gently.

She froze.

“I already found you.”

The words lingered like mist between them. She hated how warm they made her feel.

Azriel stood a foot away now, close enough that the edge of his shadows brushed her boots like a question. The silence stretched. His gaze searched her face, trying to understand something she hadn’t spoken aloud in over a century.

“What happened to you?” He asked, quieter this time.

Her stomach twisted.

“I told you,” she said, voice flat. “I made a bargain.”

“You said you tried to save me,” Azriel murmured, hazel eyes gazing into hers with a kindness she hadn’t seen in years. 

She looked away as she felt that familiar knot rise up in her throat. Her eyes squeezed shut as a shaky breath left her lips.

“Please don’t make me say it.”

Azriel’s voice softened further. “Why not?”

Her hands trembled. Her gloves were old, worn thin in the fingers. Her magic pulsed underneath, black and ruinous.

“Because if I say it out loud,” she whispered, “I’ll never come back from it.”

Azriel didn’t move. But she felt something shift in the air—again. That pull. That ache in her chest, like a violin string plucked once and left to ring.

The bond.

Cauldron, not now.

She turned her head away. “You should go.”

“No,” he said, firm but not unkind. “I won’t. You don’t have to tell me everything. But I won’t leave you here. Not again.”

Not again.

The words undid something in her.

“I was the only healer left,” she said suddenly. The confession slipped out like blood from a wound. “We were losing. I was trying to save too many at once. And then… and then you went down.”

Azriel stiffened.

She didn’t stop, even as tears blurred her vision. She had to look away—she couldn’t see his face.

“Your chest was open. Your wings were shredded. There was too much blood. Too much. I knew I wouldn’t reach you in time. And the bond—” she swallowed hard—“it snapped.”

He blinked.

“What?”

“I felt it,” she whispered, voice quivering. “And I knew—I knew you never would. You were dying. I couldn’t let you go.”

Azriel stared at her.

She shook her head violently, stepping back. “Don’t say anything. Just—don’t.”

But his shadows surged suddenly—not menacing, not cold. Just startled. His breath hitched.

The air thickened.

A hum between them. Low. Old. Alive.

His hand lifted slightly, like his body was reacting before his mind could.

And the bond flickered again. Harder—like a heartbeat. Like a second heart awakening under the first.

She gasped softly, turning away with a hand clutched to her chest.

“I traded my magic,” she said hoarsely. “To Koshei. To keep you alive.”

A sad laugh bubbled from her throat. “I thought I wouldn’t survive—I wasn’t supposed to. But now look at me. I’m a walking plague. Everything withers away at my touch.”

She swiftly wiped her cheeks, destroying the evidence of her sorrow. He stepped closer.

“Not everything.” 

She glanced up just as a shadow curled around her arm. It was content to be there, unburned, unafraid. 

“I’ll hurt you,” she murmured, her voice so small—so certain.

Her gaze was wary as she watched him step closer, the toes of his boots tapping against hers. It made the blood freeze in her veins.

“I don’t think you will.”

And then his hand lifted, cupping her cheek—she expected the rough leather of his gloves, but all she felt was the warmth of his palm, scarred and steady.

Her eyes widened. She flinched, ready to bolt, but he wouldn’t let her.

“Am I withering?” He whispered, voice barely a whisper. “Am I rotting?”

Azriel’s lips brushed hers like the sweetest lullaby. 

The bond pulled taut in her chest. She leaned into his touch, breath catching, eyes fluttering shut. His thumb swept against her bottom lip in a gentle caress.

“Open your eyes, my mate.”

She did. And beneath her boots, the earth bloomed. Soft green shoots curled from the blackened soil. Tiny buds unfurled like hope from ashes. Flowers—violets and blues—burst into being where decay once reigned. A laugh fell from her lips and he swallowed it with his own.

His hand slid around her neck, pulling her into him as though anchoring himself to the world again. She clutched his tunic like he might vanish if she were to let go.

The bond glowed around them like a thousand fireflies at dusk. The sigils on the shrine flickered once, then faded to rest.

It had been 3 months since the Spy Master of the Night Court and Velaris’ Head Historiographer had stopped dancing around their feelings, 2 months since the mating bond had snapped between the two, and approximately 1 hour since they decided to tell their family. 

“They will be excited for us, my love.” She cooed, trying to fix the perpetual frown that adorned her mate’s face. “They will be annoying of course, they always are,” she grumbled, “but they will be happy. And they will finally stop worrying about whether or not you are going to die alone.” She teased, combing through Azriel’s hair as she tried to push it back, a style he hated but she absolutely loved. 

“I don’t see why we have to make it a thing.” Azriel replied, fixing his hair the second her hands left his head.

“A thing? You mean our mating bond? The one you prayed for every single day of your 500 year long life? You don’t want to make telling the most important people in your life into a thing?” 

“I just thought… maybe a surprise mating ceremony would be better.”

“Azriel, how do you think that will play out? ‘Surprise, we are mates and this is our mating ceremony! But don’t make it a big deal, we don’t want it turning into a thing!’” 

“Well, at the end of the ceremony we will disappear and go on vacation before they can say anything. That way they have time to cool down and we get to have a nice relaxing time together without their antics.” Azrel justified, or at least tried to.

The small smile that adored his lips while thinking about said vacation instantly dropped when she started laughing at him. 

“And what do you think will happen when we get back? If they don’t manage to crash our honeymoon just to get answers, then there will certainly be hell to pay when we come home. And I promise, it will end up being a much bigger thing than if we just told them tonight at dinner.” 

Azriel grumbled in response. She was right, of course, but it didn’t mean he looked forward to telling their family. He wasn’t ashamed of her, nor of the bond between them, how could he be? But Azriel never liked attention, it’s why his work was so perfect for him. But his family… they were nosy. They would make it a big deal and while, quite frankly, it was a big deal, Azriel wasn’t looking forward to the show. 

Fortunately for him, the Inner Circle was also far too obtuse at times, though this time it wasn’t really their fault.

Feyre and Rhysand had recently discovered that Nyx could Winnow. This happened about a month prior when Feyre went to wake her son up from his nap and found his cradle to be empty. After 45 minutes of panicked searching alongside Rhys, Mor, Elain, Lucien, Cassian, Nesta, Azriel, and a few of the priestesses, Feyre found her son in the arms of Amren, who had discovered him in front of her apartment door an hour prior. 

Baby Nyx loved his aunt Amren more than anyone else, much to the chagrin of his parents and the rest of their family. 

In the past month, various wards had been implemented to stop the High Lord and Lady’s child from disappearing again, but they have also had to deal with the various other abilities that seemingly manifested since. 

When Azriel and his mate finally made it to dinner, Cassian had one eyebrow and an already healing burn, Mor was missing a couple inches of hair that had seemingly been singed off, both Feyre and Rhys had eyebags like never before, and a very content Nyx was sat on the lap of a gloating Amren. 

“I hope we didn’t miss all the fun!” the historiographer joked, hoping to lighten the tense mood in the dining room. 

“Oh, you missed the show, but I’d be more than happy to recount the details for you.” Nesta spoke up, cackling when she looked at her one-eyebrowed mate who hadn’t stopped pouting since the incident. 

As the two late comers sat down and started to eat, the tension in the room didn’t cease. In fact, it seemed to get worse every time Nesta broke out into giggles when looking at Mor and Cassian. 

After far too many seconds of painful silence, Azriel received a kick on the leg from his mate. Looking at her, she hissed what he assumed to be a few “encouraging” words about him growing a pair. 

After taking a deep breath, Azriel cleared his throat, gaining the attention of the entire table. 

“We have been meaning to talk to you all about something. Now, I know things around here have been… rather tense. But hopefully this good news will-”

“One second-” The High Lord interrupted as a note appeared before him. Upon reading the missive, he groaned before passing it to Feyre, the letter eliciting the same reaction from her as well. “Madja got us in touch with a healer who specializes in High Fae child development. He says that this thing with Nyx is normal at this stage, especially with powerful parents, and that the powers displayed might not even stay. It's like the Mother is testing which abilities Nyx will have, and we haven’t even gotten to the worst of it yet.” Rhysand grumbled, his hand going through his uncharacteristically unruly hair. 

“Well when the two most powerful fae in Prythian love each other very much…” Mor started. 

“They curse the rest of their family by creating the most vengeful baby the world has ever seen.” Cassian hissed. After a kick on the shin from Feyre, and a smack on the chest from Nesta, he quickly added, “Not that we don’t love you Nyx. You are the light of all our lives and blah blah blah.” After an additional glare from Rhys, Cassian yelled: “He can’t even understand me! It's not like he knows what I am-” the general abruptly stopped talking when his salad caught on fire, causing the baby on Amren’s lap to start laughing. 

After the Shadows made quick work out of putting out the fire, Azriel spoke up once more, “As I said, I know you all have a lot going on right now-”

“No kidding.” Nesta interrupted. “I keep having to fight the camp lords to allow my Valkyrie to compete in the Blood Rite and I swear every time I bring it up they find new ways to make our life harder.” 

“I am sorry to hear that Nesta, but like Azriel said I think this news will-”

“The Illyrians are a backwards group that won’t respond to being asked to change their ways. I keep telling Rhysand he needs to be harder on them.” Azriel interrupted his mate. She would have been more upset had she not known how sore of a subject Illyrians and their beliefs were for her mate. 

“Azriel, we have discussed this before. You are letting your hatred of them get in the way of logical thinking. They won’t respond to abrupt changes either, you need to let me do my job.” Rhysand argued. 

Before Azriel could argue back, he felt a supportive squeeze on his hand from the female beside him, gently guiding him back on track. “Look, I am not here to discuss Illyria. If you all could just stay silent for a moment then-” 

Fire seized Cassian’s shoulder, most likely in response to the lighthearted glares he had been sending his nephew. While the leathers protected his skin from the heat, a chunk of his long brown locks had not been as fortunate. 

“Alright, clearly this isn’t working out for Nyx. It’s past his bedtime anyway, maybe we should call it quits.” Feyre spoke up, sending an apologetic look to Cassian. 

“If you all would give me just a moment-” Azriel started.

“Look, it's been stressful around here for us, Az. I promise I will listen to whatever shit you need to complain or argue about another day.” Rhysand interrupted. While the silence that followed would have given Az the opportunity to correct his brother’s, rather rude, assumption, his mate stopped him before he could speak up. 

“You know what, you’re right, tonight isn’t the night for any family discussions. We wouldn’t want to bother you all with our lives. Have a good night.” In the many years Rhysand had known the Head Historiographer of his court, and the many years since they had become friends- almost family, he had never heard her speak in such a tone. But before anyone else could get a word in, her and Azriel had disappeared into the shadows. 

Back at her apartment, Azriel watched as his mate, seething in anger, paced in front of the fireplace. 

“I cannot believe he really insinuated all you were trying to do was argue or complain when you specifically said it was good news! What a childish, egotistical, brat!” 

“My love, he is going through a lot with Nyx right now-”

“That does NOT give him the right to talk to you like that! If he were to speak to Cassian that way, Nesta would have bitten his head off. I mean how many times had he lost it when Nesta and Feyre fought? Gods, I should have really laid it on him. It is totally unacceptable that he-” Her impassioned rant was suddenly cut off by an equally as passionate kiss. 

Suddenly, she couldn’t have cared less about what the High Lord had to say. All that existed in that moment was her and her mate. 

When the two separated, all negative emotions had been depleted, the only care being the golden string that attached one soul to the other.  

“How about this,” Azriel spoke, still breathless from the kiss the two had shared, “We can make a game out of it. We tried telling them, how about now we just make it as obvious as possible without explicitly stating anything, and see how long it takes them to figure it out.” He suggested.

“And if they are truly too obtuse to catch on?” She asked.

“We can give them the time it takes to plan a proper mating ceremony. If by then they still haven’t figured it out, then we can go with my original plan. That way they can’t be upset because it would be their fault for not catching on, and we get to have fun.” 

“A part of me kind of hopes they don’t catch on now.” She giggled. 

“Oh, trust me, unless we spell it out for them, they won’t know a thing.” Azriel replied. 

But the withering look quickly morphed from malicious to lighthearted. The Illyrian kissed his teeth and looked away, over your shoulder. “I don’t know how you even talked me into this. I’m never letting you do this again.”

You hummed and plucked another hair, this time from underneath the tail of his dark brow, toward the side of his face. His nose twitched, the only sign of his discomfort. You smoothed your thumb over the irritated skin to soften the sting, not noticing hazel eyes deepen, tracing the lines of your face. “I deeply apologize, your Highness, I didn’t mean to offend.”

The male scoffed, a small smirk curling at his lip and about to retort something witty no doubt when a low whistle sounded from the doorway behind you two. 

Startled, you ripped out another hair as you turned to glance over your shoulder, rendering a yelp from the male below you before he poked his head around your frame, too. 

Cassian was standing there with a wolfish grin, arms crossed and his own full brow raised high. 

“Well, well… and what do we have here?” he inquired. 

Azriel shifted uneasily beneath you. 

“We were just—“ 

“Oh, I—“

You and Azriel shared a flustered look before you looked back at the Illyrian by the door. 

“Eyebrows! I’m just helping Az tame these… wild brows… is all,” you explained, suddenly very aware of your place in the male’s lap. 

Cassian only grinned wider. “Oh? That all?” 

A pillow from the chaise you two were sat on suddenly sailed over your head, smacking the male in the chest. He didn’t budge so much as an inch, unbothered. 

“Yes,” Azriel hissed, his arm on your waist tightening. “That’s all.” 

“Okay, well, if that’s the case, can I go next?” Cass requested, the devilish rogue. “If salon Y/n is taking new clients, that is.”

Before you could think to reply, Azriel did for you. 

“She’s fully booked,” he said, his words and eyes equally full of ice. “Now fuck off.” 

Cassian let out a mix between a snort and a laugh, his brow and both his raised up high before he slipped out of the door and back into the hall. 

You turned back to Azriel, amused. 

The male rolled his shoulders back, wings fixing into place with them. You shared a look before he nodded at you and closed his eyes, turning his chin up so you could continue your work, choosing not to acknowledge the interruption at all. 

You chuckled and went back to work, thankful the male needed much more grooming before you’d have to remove yourself from him. Unbeknownst to you, Azriel felt the exact same. 

If the price of you sitting in his lap and showering him with your undivided attention was a few measly eyebrows, he’d gladly let you pluck every single one.

He didn’t meet your eyes as he held a hand out to help you up, and you felt a little guilty for making him uncomfortable, knowing all too well it’s not always fun to feel such nervous embarrassment. You accepted his hand after a moment, his skin warm and rough against your own. You were about to apologize once he pulled you up, but Azriel dropped your hand, glancing at you briefly before moving away, and you lost the nerve to even acknowledge your foolish lapse in judgment.

You bit your lip, looking down at your boots as you wished the mountain would just fissure open and swallow you whole. “Y/N,” Azriel’s soft voice snapped you from your simmering mortification. His cheeks were still red when you met his eyes, but there was a faint, bashful smile on his face that made your stomach flip. “Thank you.”

You had to fight the grin that immediately wanted to bloom on your face, and simply nodded your acknowledgement as Azriel turned away, unwrapping his hands, your training apparently done for today. Your previous embarrassment morphed into pride, as you replayed the interaction over and over in your head. Nesta glanced at you curiously as you sat next to her to stretch, but you ignored her gaze as you glanced back at Azriel, who was now speaking with Cassian as if nothing had happened. His gaze suddenly met yours, his cheeks still tinged pink, and you smiled softly, shaking your head as you looked away again. You had made Azriel blush, and you had every intention of doing it again.

~ ~ ~

“Have you eaten yet?”

Azriel stood in the entryway to the sitting room you had wandered off to with Nyx, a plate of food in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. You smiled softly, shaking your head before looking back at Nyx, who was starting to get fussy. His eyes were tired and heavy, and you knew it was only a matter of time before he either passed out in your lap or started wailing as he fought off sleep. “I told Feyre I would watch him while she ate,” you said softly, fingers tickling at Nyx’s stomach, making him giggle.

Azriel moved closer, sitting the food and wine on the table next to you. “Let me take him,” he offered softly. “Go ahead and eat.” The food smelled amazing, and you were starving, but you hated to just pass Nyx off to him. 

Azriel sat next to you on the couch, the cushions jostling beneath you. He held his hands out to Nyx, a soft smile on lips. “Do you want to come sit with me?” he cooed, and your heart nearly exploded as Nyx happily launched himself from your lap and into Azriel’s arms.

Azriel laughed softly, catching Nyx easily, and bouncing him in his lap. He glanced at you, nodding toward the plate. “It’s going to get cold.”

You bit your lip, fighting back the stupid smile that wanted to engulf your face, and instead took a sip of the wine before picking up the plate. You ate quietly while Azriel sat beside you with Nyx, his happy giggles slowly dying down as exhaustion crept up on him. At some point, Azriel had coaxed Nyx to lay on his chest, and the little babe had quickly fallen asleep. When you looked over after setting your empty plate down, Nyx’s cheek was squished against the shoulder of Azriel’s sweater, his wings drooping around him to rest on Azriel’s chest.

It was possibly the most wholesome thing you had ever seen, and a million rogue butterflies were swarming your stomach as you watched them. Azriel was too engrossed with Nyx to notice your attention, his fingers rubbing gentle circles on his back. Azriel’s face was softer than you had ever seen, his usual stoicism long gone while he held his nephew.

“You’re really good with him,” you said softly, your awe seeping into your voice.

He startled a bit, his hand pressing into Nyx’s back as his eyes jumped to yours. A pink hue slowly crept across his cheeks, and your heart fluttered at the sight. He didn’t really respond, though. He just gave you a tiny tight-lipped smile before looking back down at Nyx.

“I mean it, Az,” you whispered, shuffling a little closer. “That boy adores you. Clearly.”

The color on his cheeks only darkened, but his shadows pulsed excitedly before one ventured out to snake around your wrist. Azriel’s eyes went wide when he saw it, and the shadow promptly left you. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“I don’t mind them,” you answered honestly. His shadows were now circling over Nyx, and you couldn’t understand why he would think they would ever scare you when they could be so gentle—when they were a part of him.

The two of you sat in silence for a bit, watching Nyx snooze peacefully on top of Azriel, the air in the room warm and calm. Eventually, you reached for your empty plate and glass, and stood up from the couch. Azriel tracked your movements, and when you turned to face him, he was already looking at you.

His cheeks were still a faint pink, the color making your mind wander back to training last week. His eyes were soft as he beheld you, and you had to fight your own blush from creeping up your cheeks. You lingered longer than you should have, standing there awkwardly with your hands full, but you didn’t want to leave Azriel. He was so stunning, so calm, and you knew it would be a long time before you saw him so unreserved again.

Your friends’ laughter from the living room faintly reached your ears, and you reluctantly took a step back from Azriel. “I should probably go socialize a little bit,” you said with a sigh and a teasing smile. “If you don’t mind?” you then asked, gesturing toward Nyx.

“Not at all,” he said softly.

You nodded, looking down at your hands. You held up the empty plate, then said, “Thank you for bringing me dinner.”

He simply smiled, and it was a small one at that, but it still made your stomach flip. You returned it, and then moved to the hallway, reluctantly leaving the beautiful shadowsinger with a babe sleeping on his shoulder.

~ ~ ~

You loved Velaris.

Truly, you thanked the Mother every day for leading you here, for Rhysand taking you in as a refuge when Cesere was attacked. You weren’t even a priestess, you were simply an Autumn Court female that had taken sanctuary at the temple, but that didn’t matter to Rhysand. You were just as much of a victim, and Clotho had let you reside with the other priestesses in the library once you arrived in Velaris.

You never felt entirely content, though, living in a mountain with only books to occupy your time. You also didn’t have the courage to leave said mountain—not until you befriended Gwyn, who befriended Nesta, and then pulled you along with her to training. Your life changed for the better that first day of training. You felt whole. For the first time in your life, you felt settled. 

The shadowsinger across the street from you had more to do with that feeling than anyone. You couldn’t explain why you were so enamored by him, so drawn in by his presence. You didn’t even like to acknowledge it, really. It only left you flustered and anxious about possibly losing the person who had quickly become a pillar in your life. You were positive that if that pillar came crashing down because you weren’t careful, you wouldn’t survive it. You clutched the piece of cloth you kept stuffed in your pockets, the familiar fabric soothing your anxious thoughts.

Your fears didn’t stop you from wanting him, though. It didn’t stop you from admiring him from afar, or even occasionally letting those admirations slip through your lips. He deserved to hear them, anyway.

He was just so kind. You had never witnessed a kindness quite like his, never been privy to such gentle care and respect. You had to ignore the warmth that bloomed in your chest every time his kindness was directed toward you, because he was kind to everyone. 

For fuck’s sake, you were currently watching him help a meek and embarrassed female fix her booth that had toppled over in the market square. His shadows collected stray jewels and baubles that had scattered on the ground, pushing them into a neat pile next to the female. You could tell Azriel was making every effort to appear smaller, less intimidating somehow, despite the leathers and siphons adorning his body. His wings were tucked in tight, and his shoulders were relaxed, his posture slightly slouched as he handed her things.

You saw his lips move softly as he said something that made the female smile slightly, her shoulders relaxing. Your heart clenched at the sight, an irrational jealousy igniting in your core as you watched her cheeks turn red, and Azriel smiled at her. You averted your gaze back to the jewelry in your hand, the owner of the booth you stood at clearly growing impatient with your dallying. 

You smiled sheepishly at the older male, setting the necklace back down on the velvet tablecloth. You glanced back at the booth across the street, a confusing mix of relief and disappointment twisting inside you when you saw the female sitting alone, and Azriel long gone.

 “Were you really not going to say hello?”

You spun toward the familiar voice, your heart racing as you met Azriel’s eyes, who was now standing only inches away from you. You swallowed hard, unsure how to answer. Were you going to say hello? Likely not, but you were too embarrassed that you had been watching him for the last five minutes without any true reason.

He didn’t wait for you to answer before he handed you a paper box. You frowned at the familiar blue container that came from the very bakery you were planning on visiting today. 

Azriel reached forward and opened it after watching you stare at it for far too long. “Had I known you were coming to the market today,” he said as he revealed the chocolate croissant, “I would have suggested we come together.”

Your lips parted as you looked at the fresh and luscious pastry, your mouth instantly watering. You picked it up and took a bite, the chocolate like heaven on your tongue. You hummed in appreciation as you ate the treat, muttering your thanks between bites.

Azriel laughed as he guided you into the busy street, his hand between your shoulder blades as the two of you meandered through the bustling market. When you reached a less populated area, his hand fell away, and he asked, “What are you doing out today?”

You held up the now empty box, swallowing the last bite of your pastry. “I was going to get one of these,” you answered. “So thank you for that. I guess now my mission is moot.”

Azriel laughed, his shoulder briefly brushing yours. “We can always go get another.”

You grinned. “You’re full of good ideas today.” You thought back to earlier, then said, “I saw you help that female.”

“Yeah,” was his simple response, and you could tell he was a bit bashful about it.

“That was kind of you, Az.”

He shrugged, not really accepting your compliment. “She needed help.” A passing faerie bumped into you, sending you stumbling into Azriel. They murmured a rushed apology when you glared at them, and Azriel steadied you by your waist. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you huffed, straightening your shirt. You tossed the empty box in a garbage bin as you kept walking. “What was she selling?” you asked, desperately trying to forget about the juvenile jealousy you felt when you watched him smile at her.

“Handmade jewelry. She said she just opened a storefront a few weeks ago, and was hoping a booth would garner some attention. I told her I would have to bring you by,” he said, completely nonchalant.

Your brain stuttered. “Me?”

He glanced at you, his brow furrowed. “Yeah?” he said slowly. “Why not? I thought you liked handmade things.”

You shook your head. “No—I mean, I do—” You paused, and Azriel’s expectant and confused expression made you falter. “That would be nice,” you said instead. “Thank you.” 

“Of course,” he said lightly, his confusion still clear. 

You felt even more ridiculous for your earlier jealousy, and you didn’t feel like having him prod you anymore, so you diverted the conversation to an entirely different topic, albeit not very smoothly. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about your tattoos.”

Azriel raised his brows. “My tattoos?”

You nodded, eyes roving over the swirls of ink that you did genuinely find fascinating. You lifted a hand to run your finger over one of the lines, his skin warm from the afternoon sun. You swallowed hard as you pulled your hand away, realizing you needed to actually ask him a question about them. “What do they mean?” you asked. 

He looked a bit reluctant to tell you, but before you could assure him he didn’t have to share, he said roughly, “They’re Illyrian.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” he huffed out. “The only reason I don’t hate them is because I got them with Rhys and Cass. They’re supposed to stand for luck and glory. I only got them because we had just survived the Blood Rite, and they insisted we mark ourselves with their symbols just to spite them.” A small smile had creeped onto his face. “Which was convincing.”

You smiled hesitantly. “Well, I’ve always liked them.”

“Yeah?”

You nodded, then traced the ink again. “They’re beautiful. Intricate. And it doesn’t matter if they have Illyrian origins, they’re yours. You got them with your brothers to celebrate your survival. That’s what they mean to you.”

His cheeks were dusted a faint pink, and pride surged in your chest. Your fingers trace the ink all the way down to the scars wrapped around his forearms, and you glance at him before following them down to his wrist, and then his palm. You thread your fingers through his, squeezing tightly. “Every mark on our skin tells a story. Our story. That’s never something to be ashamed of.” You brushed your thumb over the back of his hand, and his cheeks were now red, his eyes wide with awe. “It’s beauty in its rawest form.”

You tugged on his hand, knowing he wouldn’t have a response to that, urging him to keep walking with you. “And by the way,” you hummed, making Azrial turn toward you again, “I happen to quite like the story yours tells.”

His blush crept up to his ears, and you smiled to yourself triumphantly, loving every second that you got to see Azriel flustered. Every second that you saw him faced with compliments that he should always hear, that you wished he would learn to accept. You were worried he might drop your hand when he just stared at you for a moment, the silence charged and heavy around you. Instead, he squeezed your hand, and kept walking side-by-side with you, eventually murmuring the softest, “Thank you.”

~ ~ ~

“Can I ask you something?” you hummed, leaning forward on the counter, your head propped up in your hand.

Azriel smiled softly, amusement dancing in his eyes. He was across the counter from you, his back leaning against the granite that was faintly illuminated by the moonlight spilling into the kitchen. “What’s that?” he asked.

You hesitated, but your earlier conversation with Nesta was playing on a loop in your head, and your curiosity was eating at you. Your whole body was warm just thinking about it again. The wine running through your veins probably didn’t help, though it certainly gave you the courage to finally ask, “Is it true you can orgasm from someone touching your wings?”

Azriel choked on the tea he was sipping on, setting the mug down a bit harshly on the counter, the liquid sloshing over the rim. He coughed for a minute, his shadows fluttering around him in concern, but eventually he met your eyes. His own were wide as he asked you with a rasp, “Who told you that?”

You shrugged sheepishly, admitting, “Nesta might have mentioned it.”

He muttered something that sounded like “Mother help me” as he looked up at the ceiling, running a hand over the back of his neck. 

The movement made his leathers stretch over the muscles of his arm, and the heat that bloomed in your gut pushed you to ask, “Have you ever…?”

Azriel’s cheeks were pink as he looked back at you, the moonlight making the color across his skin even more pronounced. He gaped at you for a moment, but he eventually admitted, “Yes.”

You didn’t know how to respond to that. A small part of you withered up at the admission, something acidic swirling inside you. You selfishly wanted him to say no, that he had never shared that part of himself with another. Which was insane, given he was over five centuries old. Of course, he had explored that with a lover.

He stepped closer to the island you sat at, his face softening. “Not often, though,” he added quietly, shocking you by elaborating. “I haven’t in a very long time. I was young, and curious, and—” He paused, shaking his head. His cheeks were still an adorable red, but his voice had regained its steadiness as he said, “It’s very vulnerable, to let another person touch your wings.”

You smiled softly, the wine finally making you a bit sleepy. Azriel had brought you home from Rita’s awhile ago. First you had insisted on tea before bed, and now you were pestering the poor male about his sex life of all things. You blamed Nesta for planting the seeds of curiosity in your mind, and Mor for plying you with far too much wine. At least you got to see him blush again, even if that wasn’t your outright goal tonight.

“I should probably go to bed,” you murmured quietly, pushing your mug away from you. You had barely drank your tea, and Azriel definitely noticed, but he was polite enough not to say anything. You met his eyes, his hazel irises unnervingly alluring as they simmered with something new, something you had never seen in Azriel’s gaze. You swallowed hard, and stood up from your stool. “Goodnight, Az.”

His throat bobbed, his jaw clenching briefly as he looked you over, then bid you a quiet goodnight. You didn’t linger, and you most definitely did not think about his lips, his eyes, or his wings as you laid in bed, waiting for sleep to claim you.

~ ~ ~

“Well you two are a sight for sore eyes,” Nesta drawled from beside you, her gaze sweeping up and down the two Illyrian warriors that had just appeared in the living room. 

They were caked in mud, covered from head to toe. Even their wings were covered in it, their normally elegant and translucent membranes now an opaque brown. Cassian undid the tie holding his hair back, shaking out the strands and sending a mixture of wet and crumbling mud flying all over. You ducked your head as Nesta scolded him, but he simply grinned at the two of you.

His eyes glinted as they locked on his scowling mate. “Won’t you come help clean up?” he asked innocently.

She scoffed, but stood up nonetheless, leaving her book on the table. “Only because if I don’t we’ll be finding remnants of your filth for days.” Cassian’s grin widened as he reached for his mate, but she quickly side-stepped him. “Don’t even think about it,” she growled, walking down the hall. Cassian quickly followed after her, disappearing from sight.

You swallowed hard, then looked back at Azriel. He smiled sheepishly at you, turning his palms outward. “I probably reek right now,” he said with a bit of a huff.

You smiled softly, shaking your head. “Not really—” Your words got caught in your throat when you did catch a scent of something far more alarming than dirt. “Are you bleeding?” you asked worriedly, sitting up straight.

Azriel winced. “I might be. Whatever the hell was in the bog scraped my back when we—”

“Your back?” you cut him off in alarm. You stood up, moving toward him. “Are your wings—”

“They’re fine,” he assured, his eyes watching you with a softness you had never seen before. You swallowed hard, feeling a bit embarrassed for your reaction. You stopped a few feet away from him, not sure what to do now.

His lips tipped up slightly before he nodded toward the hall. “I should probably clean myself up.”

“Do you need help?” you rushed out before he could move far.

Azriel froze, his eyes going wide. Mortification crawled up your spine, realizing that was an absurd offer. Azriel had been doing this for five centuries. He surely knew how to clean his back and wings himself. Cassian had asked Nesta for help, sure, but she was his mate—

“Yes,” he said softly, and your mind stalled for a minute. He had mud smeared all over his cheeks, but you were fairly certain you could see a flush creeping up his neck and to his face as he cleared his throat, then said again, “Yes. Please. I—It would be helpful to have someone else clean my back. If I’m still bleeding, it’s probably because the wounds are caked with mud—but I could call Madja if—”

“No,” you cut off his rambling. You had never seen Azriel stumble so much over his words before. It was endearing, but you also didn’t want him to second-guess asking you for help. Your offer was genuine, and you wanted him to know that. “I want to help.”

His throat bobbed as he studied you for a moment. His shadows were peeking out from behind him, as if they were being held back from exploring. “Thank you,” he said softly. Not for the first time, you wished it wasn’t so difficult for him to accept help, but you were honored that he was taking yours.

You followed behind him quietly as he led you to his room, pushing open the door for you before shutting it gently behind him. You tried not to ogle too much at his room, but you would be lying if you said you weren’t at least a little bit giddy that Azriel was letting you see more of his life.

He was so private and reserved. You weren’t oblivious. You knew that him letting you into his room meant something, but you also weren’t delusional, and you weren’t going to let this warp your mind into thinking this was more than it was. This was Azriel, trusting you as his friend, to help him with something personal, vulnerable, and you would be damned if you screwed that up.

“What do you need me to do?” you asked softly, slowly dragging your gaze from Azriel’s oversized bed to meet his eyes.

He stared at you for a moment, and you shifted a bit under his gaze. “Az?” you asked again softly.

He blinked, then shook his head a bit. “Sorry, I—” He paused, closing his mouth, then said instead, “Let me clean up a bit first, okay?”

You nodded, biting the inside of your cheek. Azriel’s eyes stayed glued to yours as he gestured toward the bed. “You can sit down,” he said softly. He finally peeled his eyes from yours, and you had to blink a bit to regain your bearings. 

You stayed put until he disappeared into the bathing room, noting that he left the door open. Your chest felt a little tight as you sank slowly onto the edge of his bed, which was somehow infinitely more comfortable than yours. You dragged your fingers over the black duvet, the fabric soft to the touch. You had to repress the urge to wrap yourself in the downy cover, to fully immerse yourself in Azriel’s scent. You pulled your hand back to your lap, feeling a bit insane. 

Despite his dark bedding, his room was….comfortable. It wasn’t bright by any means, but it was cozy. He had soft faelights scattered throughout the room that cast the room in a calming glow, and he had plush blankets thrown over the back of the chair sat in the corner. The case of books next to the chair called to you, and you nearly gave in to snooping through his collection when his voice startled you from your thoughts.

 You walked tentatively to the threshold of the bathing room, but you didn’t look inside. “Do you want me to come in?” you asked nervously. You closed your eyes, clenching a hand around those nerves and pushing them down. You were going to help Azriel without making a fool of yourself. It was fine. You were fine. You wanted to help him.

You could hear the amusement in his voice as he answered, “If you still want to help.”

You swallowed hard, steeling your nerves as you stepped inside, but they quickly melted to goo when you saw him still in the bath. Your breath caught in your throat as you took in his wet and bare skin, the Illyrian tattoos you were always so fascinated by winding around his arms. The bath was filled with bubbles and steam that concealed anything…intimate, but you still felt like you were on the precipice of doing or saying something very stupid as you neared him.

He smiled slightly at you, the mud cleared from his face to reveal his pink tinted cheeks. You would like to think that your presence caused the flush of his skin, but it was likely the heat of the bath. You folded your hands in front of you, awkwardly standing a few feet away from him. “What do you want me to do?”

He pointed to a bottle and cloth on the stool beside you, water falling from the arm he raised. “Just make sure it's clean, please. Then rinse it with that tonic from Madja. It should heal fine on its own.”

You nodded, mind steadying now that you had a clear task. You picked up the cloth and sat the bottle on the ground, dragging the stool so you could sit behind Azriel. “Just the one scrape then,” you asked absentmindedly as you inspected the rest of his back. There were a few scratches and bruises littered across his skin, but there was only one wound still bleeding.

“Yeah,” he said softly, then huffed a low laugh that didn’t sound all that amused. “It’s embarrassing, really.”

You frowned, dipping the cloth in the somehow clean water—likely thanks to the House. You rang it out before pressing the cloth against his skin. “It’s not embarrassing,” you said softly. Your ministrations were gentle over his wound, wiping away at invisible dirt, because really he had cleaned it well on his own. He didn’t say anything back, and when you switched the cloth for the tonic, you asked, “Why would a wound be embarrassing?”

“It’s not just that,” he said, voice low. “I—I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. I don’t need your help.”

You stilled, the cap to the bottle clutched tight in one hand while the other was about to pour it over his wound. You tried not to let the words sting, tried to put yourself in Azriel’s place. You lowered the bottle to your lap, then asked softly, “Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” he answered, though it sounded strangled. “I don’t.”

You sat with that for a minute, then moved so you could face him, kneeling at the side of the tub. Azriel’s eyes were conflicted as he met yours, and you noticed that his shadows had been sequestered away somewhere. “It’s okay to want someone to help you,” you started gently. 

He looked so vulnerable in front of you, naked and wounded in a tub of water, giving you free access to his back, trusting you enough to let you so close to his wings. It made your heart clench. “Even if you can do something yourself, that doesn’t mean you always have to.”

He stared at you silently, and you started to feel a bit silly, doubting that those were his true worries. He nodded, though, a small acknowledgement of your words that you knew meant a lot from him right now. You smiled softly, and his eyes brightened a bit, even if he didn’t return the gesture. “Can I finish what I started?” you asked, standing up from your position to reclaim your seat on the stool.

Azriel hummed his agreement, and you didn’t waste any more time before you poured the inky liquid over his wound, trusting Madja’s creations even if it looked disgusting. Azriel tensed as the liquid seeped in, and you mumbled an apology as you recapped the bottle. Eventually, he relaxed, and you watched the liquid run down his back and into the water. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Anytime,” you hummed, setting the bottle on the counter next to you, hoping your nonchalance would keep him from freaking out again.

Your eyes snagged on some brown smudges still scattered across one of his wings, and you bit your lip before saying, “There’s still some mud on the back of your wings.”

Before he could even respond, you asked, “Do you want me to clean them?”

That was apparently the wrong question to ask because Azriel visibly tensed, and you noticed his shadows start to creep out from the corners. Your mind flashed back to your drunken conversation with him last week, and your face immediately went hot. “Or not,” you rushed out, fumbling to rectify your mistake. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t even thinking about—nevermind. I mean, not nevermind, because I will gladly clean them if you want me to—but if—”

“Y/N,” Azriel’s quiet voice cut you off, and your lips immediately clamped shut. He turned his body so he could meet your eyes, and you realized he had relaxed again. You wished you could say the same about yourself. “I would appreciate that,” he said quietly.

Your lips parted as you processed his words, and you realized this was him asking for the help he wanted, not necessarily needed, just like you told him to do moments ago. You swallowed hard before nodding, then picked up the wet cloth you had dropped. “Will it hurt?” you asked, feeling stupid and out of your depth. And nervous. You were incredibly nervous again.

“No,” he said, flaring his wings out a bit more for you to reach. “Just be gentle.”

You nodded even though he couldn’t see you, and you clutched the cloth tight in your hand, struggling to lift it toward his delicate membrane. Azriel must have sensed your hesitance, because he turned his head slightly, a small frown on his face. “Y/N,” he said quietly, “You don’t have to.”

You bit your lip, while your heart was trying to fly straight out of your chest. “It’s not that,” you whispered. “It’s just—I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. After our conversation last week—”

Azriel blanched and then swore under his breath. He shifted more so he could better face you, some water sloshing over the edge of the tub. “That’s not—touching my wings—” He shook his head. “It’s not always sexual. I wasn’t trying to take advantage—I swear to the Mother—”

It was your turn to blanch, and you cut him off hastily, “I never thought that.” Azriel’s mouth snapped shut as he stared at you with wide and frazzled eyes, and you were sure your expression mirrored his. “That never even crossed my mind, Azriel,” you said more softly. “It’s just…it’s intimate, right? You’re trusting me, and I don’t want to fuck up.”

Azriel’s shoulders relaxed, his face softening. “It is intimate,” he agreed quietly. “And you don’t have to wash my wings for me. I can do it.” You started to protest but he cut you off with a pointed look. “But if you want to, there’s nothing to fuck up—unless you stab me in the back,” he hummed and you rolled your eyes.

He smiled softly, and you couldn’t help but return it. Your nerves had abated, now just a slight undercurrent thrumming in your veins in anticipation of touching Azriel again. It was silly, to be excited to touch him. He was trusting you to help him, as his friend, and you needed to focus.

You motioned for him to turn around, and said, “Okay, Shadowsinger.” He raised his brows and you grinned, but he did turn his back to you, flaring his wings out again.

You dunked the cloth in the water again, and asked softly, “Ready?”

He nodded, and you didn’t waste any more time hesitating or second-guessing if this was okay. He told you it was, and there was no sense in prolonging this. You brought the cloth to the delicate membrane, gently dragging it over the smudge of mud he missed. Azriel’s muscles rippled across his back at the contact, and you paused. “It’s okay,” he assured, though his voice was rough.

You didn’t question him. You kept cleaning his wings, moving slowly from one spot to the next, meticulously cleaning the thin but powerful membrane. Your fingertips sometimes brushed against the soft skin, but you didn’t dare outright touch him, no matter how much you wanted to.

“I’ve always thought your wings were beautiful,” you murmured, moving to the last smudge of dirt near the base of his wing. Azriel’s breath caught in his throat, but you kept speaking, “I mean, Illyrian wings in general are, but when I met you—” You dragged the cloth slowly over him, the dirt long gone, but you weren’t ready to pull away. “I was just in awe. Of a lot of things, really, but your wings are just stunning. They were practically glowing in the sun when we first met. And they shimmer in the moonlight—”

“Y/N,” Azriel rasped, and you pulled your hand away to move in front of him. He didn’t meet your eyes, but his face was flushed crimson, and for a brief moment you relished in putting that blush there. There was no doubt it was because of you, because of your words, and you were glad. Azriel deserved to hear these things, to hear such reverent compliments.

“I think you should leave.”

Just like that, your heart fell, and you scrambled to catch it, but it was no use. It slammed into the pits deep in your soul, and any warmth that was slowly seeping through you immediately iced over. You didn’t hesitate to drop the cloth in the water and stand up, to back away from Azriel and remove yourself from this mortifying situation.

“I’m sorry,” you rasped, and Azriel’s head did snap up to face you then. His lips parted as he looked at you, but you shook your head, taking another step back. “I’m sorry,” you said again. “That was—it was inappropriate.” Who were you to think it was your place to tell him such things? To so blatantly awe over him while he allowed you to help him with something so vulnerable? You felt sick.

You had enjoyed pushing him and prodding him over the last few weeks, delighting in the blush that seemed to arise more and more often in your presence. Now you questioned if it was because you made him uncomfortable, and not because he was flattered or flustered. You didn’t stay a second longer. You bolted out of the bathing room, out his bedroom, ignoring the tendrils of shadows licking at your heels as you moved aimlessly through the halls, until you shut yourself away in your room, begging the ground to swallow you whole.

~ ~ ~

It had been a week since you saw Azriel. Since you royally embarrassed yourself in front of him. It made your skin itch every time you thought about it, wishing you could claw the memory right out of you.

Today was his birthday. You stared at the little pile of gifts you had collected for him sitting on your desk, wishing you hadn’t fucked everything up and could just give them to him. You were fairly certain that you were the last person Azriel would want to see tonight, but you also knew you couldn’t skip out on his birthday dinner without facing an interrogation from the rest of your friends. Cassian would be here any minute to take you to the River House, so you shoved aside your humiliation and aching heart to slip on your shoes, and sighed before opening your bedroom door.

You nearly screamed when you saw a figure leaning against the wall across from your room, your heart rate only calming when you realized it was Azriel. Then it started racing for an entirely different reason.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, voice sounding gravelly.

He pushed off the wall to move closer to you, and your grip tightened on the door. “Picking you up,” he replied, his voice calm and cool, like nothing had changed.

Your mouth went dry as he stopped only a foot in front of you, his shadows sneaking out to curl around your ankles. He didn’t pull them back. “Why?”

He frowned a bit. “It’s my birthday.”

“I know,” you said hurriedly, not wanting him to think you forgot his damned birthday. “I know that. I meant—Cassian said he—”

“I told him I would pick you up,” Azriel said simply.

You blinked at him. “Why?”

Azriel finally showed some hesitation, his throat bobbing before he answered, “We need to talk.”

Now? He wanted to talk now, before you had to sit through a dinner with his entire family for his birthday. They were your friends, of course, but they were his family, and you were still so unsettled after last week. You were still so mortified by giving into your emotions, letting your impulses take over you when you were with him last time. You had tried telling yourself that it really wasn’t that big of a deal. Sure, you might have gushed over his beauty, but it’s not like you kissed him. 

Your heart was not convinced by that logic, though.

Azriel placed a gentle on your waist, and your eyes dragged from his touch up to his eyes. There was something hesitant in his gaze, an uncertainty you had never really seen in him. He nodded behind you. “Can I come in for a minute?”

It took you a second to process his request, but eventually you nodded, stepping back to allow him in.

He smiled softly, but you couldn’t return it. You were too anxious, watching the male you had grown embarrassingly infatuated with move around your room with curious eyes. His gaze snagged on the pile of wrapped gifts on your desk, and your face immediately heated when he looked at you.

He seemed to debate saying something, then decided against it, much to your relief. 

“What did you want to talk about?” you asked softly.

He took you in quietly, his observant gaze making you even more self-conscious. You rubbed at your arm, shifting on your feet, and his face softened. He took a step closer, and you held your breath, ignoring the surge of emotion that rose in your chest.

“No one has ever made me feel the way you do,” he said quietly. His words rattled through your core, stealing your breath and knocking all sense from your mind. “And last week, what you did for me? I’ve never felt so comfortable with someone, never trusted someone so implicitly, and it terrified me.” He took in a ragged breath, running a hand through his hair. “I was scared, and I pushed you away, and I’m sorry. To just ask you to leave after you helped was–” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable,” you whispered, failing to really comprehend what he was telling you.

Azriel immediately moved closer to you, stopping only inches away. “You have never made me uncomfortable, Y/N,” he said, picking up your hand. “Since the day I met you, I’ve been drawn to you. I would catch myself wondering about you, asking about you, before you ever even came to training. Then when I actually got to know you, when you became my friend, it took everything in me not to cling to you.”

His thumb brushed over the back of your hand, his skin rough against yours. His touch was so gentle, so comforting, and you wanted to drown in it. You wanted to fall into him, to beg him to hold you and let you melt against him. “I thought you needed a friend, more than anything, and I wanted to give that to you, but these last few weeks have felt different. I could have been reading things wrong, but—”

“You haven’t,” you cut him off, meeting his surprised eyes shyly.

“I haven’t?”

“No,” you said sheepishly. “I—I’ve always been drawn to you too,” you admitted quietly. “But last month, at training, when I told you your eyes were pretty?”

Azriel nodded, a small smirk pulling at his lips. “I remember.”

“Of course you do,” you muttered, feeling embarrassed now. “Well, you blushed when I told you that, and I loved it. You always made me feel flustered. I felt like I was always the one blushing and floundering for words around you, and it just felt good to know that I had the same effect on you.”

Azriel’s smile widened a bit, but he let you keep rambling, “So I kind of started pushing you a bit more. I wanted to make you blush, but I also thought you deserved to have someone tell you nice things. It became more about that, really. I just, I’ve always thought those things, I just started to let myself say them. Last week I was a bit more overbearing, I guess—”

“You weren’t,” Azriel said softly. His eyes were bright as they looked at you, and you wanted to swim in his irises. His beautiful irises that had fully captivated you, and were the reason you were even in this current situation. His cheeks were tinted pink, and it made your stomach flip.

“You’re blushing now,” you whispered, a bit breathless.

He somehow moved even closer, making your breath hitch. He picked up your other hand, squeezing them both tight. “I know,” he murmured, his eyes glued to yours. You had to tilt your head up to meet his gaze. “You seem to have that effect on me.” One of his hands moved up to cradle your jaw, and electricity shot up your spine. “Is it too late to ask for a gift for my birthday?” he asked, voice low and warm and intoxicating.

You swallowed hard, staring up at him with wide eyes. Your lips parted as your gaze flicked down to his, then back to his eyes. “Depends what it is,” you breathed out.

He moved his face even closer, his lips so close to yours, his breath warm against your skin. “A kiss?”

Vulnerability laced his voice, and it made your heart clench. You easily closed the little remaining distance between the two of you, his lips against yours utterly electrifying. You never wanted it to end. He kissed you like you were a gift, like you were precious, and he wanted to savor every second with you. His lips were just as soft as you thought they would be, and you wanted more.

You tugged at his sweater, loving the feel of the soft fabric in your hands in lieu of his usual leathers. His hand squeezed your hip, tugging you closer. His tongue brushed against your mouth, and when you gasped, opening your lips for him, he pulled away. You whined slightly, the sound escaping your lips as his thumb brushed your cheek. His voice was breathless as he said, “We’re going to be late.”

You pressed your lips to his again, and he indulged you for a moment, before pulling away again with a soft chuckle. “We can continue later,” he murmured, his lips barely brushing yours. Your forehead fell to his chest, his sweater still clutched in your hands.

“Is this real?” you asked, voice muffled by his chest.

Azriel’s arms wrapped around you, pressing you even closer to him. “It’s real,”  he hummed quietly, squeezing you as you nuzzled into him. His shadows brushed your cheek, and you smiled softly, certain you were glowing from the inside out.

~ ~ ~

You knew Azriel deserved to spend his birthday with his family, surrounded by love and laughter, but you selfishly wished the two of you could have hid away for the night. You didn’t think it was entirely fair that you spent the entire day thinking you had ruined your friendship, only for him to show up and kiss you, and then drag you to family dinner. It was fine. Truly, it was. It was his birthday, and he deserved to celebrate.

You were just feeling very discombobulated and flustered as you watched him from afar, your sole company the cookies piled on a platter on the kitchen island. You chewed on one absentmindedly as Azriel smiled at Nyx, laughing as the little boy wiggled and giggled in his grasp. He passed the boy to Feyre, and Cassian swooped in to place another drink in his hand.

He was happy, and it was beautiful to see. He seemed more relaxed than you had ever seen him, and it made your heart glow to see him grin and laugh with his brothers. You could deal with this moment of limbo for a bit if it meant he got to have this.

“Az seems chipper,” Nesta hummed as she walked into the kitchen.

You sat your cookie down, spinning on your stool to follow her around the island. “He does,” you said lightly, glancing back at him. When you looked back at Nesta she had a smirk on her face. “What?” you asked.

“I have never seen him so…free. Happy,” she told you.

“It’s his birthday.”

She rolled her eyes. “It is,” she agreed. “But you can’t tell me that Azriel cares that much about his birthday. He’s had over five centuries of them.”

You didn’t know what to say to that. You turned to look over your shoulder again, watching Azriel laugh as Cassian tells some story, his eyes crinkling in the corners. “That,” Nesta said, “is pure joy.”

“Yeah,” you agreed softly. “It is.”

“Why exactly are you hiding in here with the cookies?” she asks.

Nerves quickly turned in your stomach. “I just—” You what? How the hell could you possibly explain what you were feeling right now? “I don’t want to suffocate him.”

Nesta looked you up and down, her lips turning into a small frown. “Everyone knows there is something between you two.” Your eyes widened, your lips parting, but she didn’t let you speak before she said, “And I promise you, that male wants you in there with him more than anyone else. You wouldn’t be intruding or overstepping, or whatever lies you’ve been telling yourself all night.”

You swallowed hard, once again turning to watch him. He was just…captivating. Everything about him just left you awestruck, his presence alone making you feel warm and giddy. “I think I love him, Nesta,” you admitted softly, your words barely more than a breathy whisper.

She came around to place a hand on your shoulder. “I know,” she said, her voice equally quiet. “I’m fairly certain that love is requited.”

Before tonight you would have denied it. You would have scoffed and told her to fuck right off with planting cruel and fruitless hope in your heart. Azriel had kissed you, though. He came to you, and opened up a little sliver of himself just for you. It could have just been lust, you supposed, but you didn’t think it was. There was too much between the two of you for it to just be…superficial. Even thinking about it made your stomach sour.

“Go on,” Nesta urged. “Go celebrate with him.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, hesitation and nerves still anchoring you to your seat. You nearly sprung right out of it when something brushed against your neck, though, and relief flooded you when you saw a tendril of shadow. Nesta laughed as she walked away to sit back down with her mate. The shadow fled back to Azriel, circling his ear slowly. Azriel turned to face you, his eyes locking with yours from across the house.

You smiled softly, your nerves immediately melting away when he matched your smile. His gaze lingered for a moment, before he slowly dragged his attention back to his conversation with Cassian. Nesta’s words swam around in your head, and with one last deep breath, you pushed yourself from your stool to join the rest of your friends in the living room.

Your approach was slow, and you debated where to go, but you knew you wanted to be near Azriel. You actually wanted to steal him away for yourself, even if just for a moment. You rounded his side, and leaned down to press a kiss to his cheek, his skin soft beneath your lips. His head immediately snapped to you when you pulled away, and you grinned when you watched his face go red.

You sat on the arm of his chair, your frame so small compared to his that you could rest your head on his shoulder if you wanted. You leaned in close again, and his hand rested on your thigh as if to balance you on the chair. “Happy birthday, Az,” you whispered in his ear. “Can you come with me for just a second?”

His hand squeezed your thigh as he looked at you with wide eyes, his nod almost immediate.

“You look a little flushed, Az,” Rhys drawled from the chair across the room.

Cassian’s laugh was near booming as he exclaimed, “Look at him blushing!”

Azriel’s gaze instantly hardened, but there was no hiding the red coating his cheeks and ears. He pulled you up with him as he stood, his hand resting on the small of your back, the weight settling and electrifying all at once. 

“You should see him at training, Rhys,” Cassian went on. “Y/N is my hero. I’ve never seen Az come undone with just a look until she came along.”

You actually had no idea what he was talking about. Sure, you had started making him blush with your little compliments and touches, but…had there been more than that? “Fuck off, Cassian,” Azriel growled as he steered you away from your friends’ prying eyes and ears. He led you outside to the gardens, the moonlight casting a faint glow on everything.

The light made his eyes shimmer, and you smiled softly at the sight. “I’m sorry about them,” Azriel muttered, but you could tell there was some reluctant amusement behind his words.

You grinned softly, placing a light hand on his chest. “It’s fine,” you said. “I’m sorry for pulling you away from them.”

Azriel’s eyes softened, and he brought a hand up to brush your cheek. “I’ve been plotting my escape with you for the last hour.”

You laughed, leaning into his touch. “You can’t be serious.”

“Very.” He grinned, then slowly leaned down to press his lips to yours, stealing the breath from your lungs. Your body melted into him, his hold the only thing keeping you upright as he kissed you desperately. Lovingly.

You reluctantly broke away, laughing when he tried to follow after you. “I did actually have something to give you,” you told him.

He leaned back in for another peck, and then another, the two of you smiling against each other. “You are more than enough,” he hummed happily.

Your body flushed at his words, your heart doing somersaults in your chest. It all felt so surreal, but after Nesta’s little talk, after you admitted you loved him, you had decided you needed to show him this. 

You pushed away slightly to reach into your pocket, then paused. “Your real gifts are at the House, but—”

“So that pile of presents was for me,” he said, his grin teasing.

You rolled your eyes. “Yes,” you admitted with a huff, then continued more softly, “But I wanted to show you this.”

Azriel immediately turned more serious at your tone, watching as you pulled the tiny square of fabric from your pocket. You unfolded it for him to reveal the jagged edges, the true size no bigger than your palm. The fabric was as dark as the night sky, the shade blending seamlessly with the shadow that passed over your open palm.

His eyes were wide as they moved from your hand to your face. “What—”

“It’s from your cloak,” you rasped, unexpected emotion clawing at your throat as you looked at it. “From the night you saved us at Cesere.” You bit your lip, hesitating a moment before telling him, “I watched it get caught on a broken column, and I grabbed the strip left behind before Mor winnowed us to Velaris. I don’t know what compelled me to do so, but I’ve carried it with me since.” 

You squeezed the fabric in your palm, your eyes drifting back to Azriel’s, his eyes now shining in the moonlight. “It became my reminder that there is good in this world. That there is always hope, even amid terror and destruction.”

Azriel kissed you, both of his hands coming up to grip your face. It was so brief, but so passionate—so reverent—it left you dazed. His forehead rested against yours, his hands still cradling your face, as he rasped, “I love you.”

Your lip wobbled as his words washed over you. “I love you, too,” you replied, voice watery.

And he was at his limits.

Not the normal limit, like when Cassian got a little too rowdy or Rhysand smirked a little too much. No. This was a whole new brand of suffering.

Since the moment you were thrown into the Cauldron, he had kept his distance—watching, waiting, giving you space to adjust to your new life, to the Night Court, to him. Knowing how difficult it was for your sisters, knowing that maybe you needed time to grieve what you lost.

But you—you seemed fine.

You smiled, you laughed, you trained with Cassian and traded insults with Rhys, you asked Mor endless questions about the best places to visit in Velaris. You were fine.

Except Azriel knew that wasn’t true.

Because he felt it—the crackling in the air whenever he was near you, the way your emotions bled into his own, even when you weren’t looking at him. The bond—the one you were blissfully ignorant of—was there, thrumming between you.

And it was killing him.

Because you didn’t know.

You were testing him in ways he never thought possible.

Which was why you were currently sitting across from him at the dining table, casually eating a pastry, completely unbothered by the fact that every time you so much as breathed, the bond between you screamed at him.

“I was thinking,” you said, licking a crumb from your finger, completely unaware of the way Azriel’s eyes tracked the movement, “maybe I should go to the Winter Court for a while. Just to clear my head, see more of Prythian, you know?”

Azriel’s fork snapped in half.

You blinked at him. “You okay?”

No. No, he was not okay.

“You can’t,” he said, voice tight.

Your brows knitted together. “What do you mean, I can’t?”

“You can’t just—” He took a breath, ran a hand through his hair. “You can’t just leave. You belong here.”

You scoffed. “I belong nowhere, Azriel. That’s kind of the problem.”

He exhaled sharply. “You belong with me.”

“Excuse me?,” your expression twisted in confusion. “Why are you being so weird about this?”

Azriel exhaled sharply through his nose. He had planned to do this delicately, to ease you into it, to find the right words—

That plan was dead.

“You’re my mate.” he rasped, voice strained.

“…Okay?”

Silence.

Azriel just stared at you. His mind short-circuited so violently that his shadows actually stopped moving.

“…Okay?” he repeated, his voice an octave higher than usual.

You shifted on your seat. “Yeah? You seem really stressed about it, though.”

His eye twitched. His shadows twitched. Everything twitched.

Cauldron boil him, you had no idea what it meant.

He inhaled sharply, his wings flaring slightly. “Do you understand what that means?”

You folded your arms. “Is it, like, a fae kink? I mean, I don’t judg–” You tilted your head, raising an eyebrow. “Why do you look like you’re about to have an aneurysm?”

A FAE K—?

He had seen battle. He had been tortured. He had infiltrated enemy territory and survived things that would make even Cassian cry. But this? This was what was going to kill him.

“I—No,” he choked, rubbing his temples like he could physically press the stress out of his skull. “It’s not a kink. It’s a bond. The mating bond.”.

You hummed, swishing the tea in your cup thoughtfully. “Right. So, like… what does that mean, exactly?”

“You don’t know,” he whispered to himself. “You don’t know. No one told you.” He let out a breath that sounded like a mix between a groan and a whimper. “I’m going to kill Rhys.”

His shadows curled and twisted like they were also on the verge of a complete breakdown. “It means we’re soulmates. Destined. Bound by the Cauldron itself. You’re mine.”

You blinked. “I what?”

“You. Are. My. Mate,” he repeated, slower this time, as if you were a particularly dense trainee.

You tilted your head. “So… like an arranged marriage?”

Azriel made a sound that was somewhere between a snarl and a sob. His hands were shaking.

“No,” he gritted out. “It’s deeper than that.”

You frowned. “Like a super intense best friendship?”

“I—NO.”

You hear someone wheezing, barely holding their laughter in—then, moments later, a crash followed by a yelp.

You turned just in time to see a figure darting away, a blur of wings and siphons.

Cassian.

Azriel’s shadows had found him eavesdropping—and, judging by the way he stumbled, they had made sure he regretted it.

Azriel’s eye twitched. He’d deal with him later.

“Was that…? Is he okay?” you asked, glancing toward the door.

Azriel exhaled sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He’ll live,” he muttered, clearly deciding that his brother’s suffering was not his current priority.

Instead, he turned back to you, inhaling deeply, speaking very slowly. “The bond ties our souls together. It means you’re meant to be with me. It’s why you feel drawn to me.”

Your face scrunched in thought. “Oh.” A pause. “I do feel really attracted to you.”

Azriel’s heart stopped. His wings tensed.

Finally. Finally, you were understanding—

“I thought it was just, you know… female hysteria.”

Azriel.exe stopped working.

You gestured vaguely. “Like, I figured I just had a stupidly big crush on you. Thought maybe it was the trauma or the near-death experience. But the mating bond? That makes so much sense.” You laughed, shaking your head. “Wow, I really thought I was just—”

Azriel inhaled sharply. Fine. If words weren’t getting through to you, maybe this would.

He reached deep into himself and gave the bond a firm tug.

You gasped. A shiver shot down your spine, warmth curling in your chest like liquid sunlight. Your breath hitched, and—Cauldron damn him—you gasped, eyes going huge and then giggled.

Azriel felt his soul crack in half.

You blinked at him, eyes wide with wonder. “Wait, what was that?!” Then, catching the look on his face—his pinched expression and the slight tension in his shoulders—, you gasped again, pointing at him accusingly. “Was that you?!”

Before he could respond, you beamed, wiggling excitedly in your seat. “Oh my gods—do that again. That tickled.”

Azriel was going to pass out. Or throw himself off a balcony. Maybe both.

“I—” He pinched the bridge of his nose so hard it nearly bruised. “You—You don’t just have a crush on me. That feeling? That’s the bond. The Cauldron literally forged us for each other.”

Your smile faltered and you squinted at him. “Are you sure?”

Azriel’s grip on reality was slipping.

“Yes.”

“…Huh.” You sipped your tea. “Neat.”

Azriel’s vision blurred. He was on the verge of blacking out.

Cassian’s laughter echoed from the hallway.

Azriel snarled. “Go away, Cassian.”

More laughter. Then a whispered, “I cannot wait to tell Rhys.”

Azriel inhaled so sharply his chest ached. He turned back to you, shadows writhing. “You do understand what this means, right?”

You smiled. “Of course I do.”

Azriel exhaled in relief.

Then—

“Anyway, as I was saying—I think I’d still like to visit the Winter Court and maybe then the beaches in Summer.” You smiled dreamily. “I could get a nice tan. A little vitamin D never hurt anyone, right?”

Azriel dropped his head onto the table so hard he thought he might develop a second brain injury to match the first one you’d unknowingly given him.