After escaping a life of chains, Maslynna seeks sanctuary in the radiant city of Velaris, trying to rebuild herself from the ashes of her past. Divided between two worlds, she must learn to balance grueling shadow training under Azriel's watchful eye with the delicate, unfamiliar art of becoming a healer. But peace in the Night Court is fragile, and as unsettling dreams begin to warp her reality, Maslynna discovers that her greatest battle isn't surviving her physical trauma-it's choosing who she must become when the shadows of her past threaten to reclaim her.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
So I finally finished the chapter that has had me stumped for the past *counts on fingers and toes* thirteen weeks! Don't ask me why I couldn't just skip it and write other chapters bc thats just not how my brain works lol
But I have the outline pretty much done, and Bound by Dreams is going to be 50+ chapters. I j u s t finished chapter 09, so I want to crank out a few more to give myself some breathing room and then start posting again. I'm super excited to start writing the next chapters, so I hope to start posting again starting in August.
The sound of waves crashing against the shore enveloped her, the sun warm and baking the tiny grains of sand and bits of broken shell into her skin as she sculpted a fortress fit for a princess.
Her hands were small and dainty, grasping at some driftwood that would serve as her drawbridge.
Two pairs of feet stopped in front of her. "A palace meant for a queen!" Her mother's voice was tender. "Is it big enough to share?"
Maslynna beamed up at her mother, slapping away tendrils of hair that were swishing in the ocean breeze. The sun was directly overhead, and Maslynna could barely make out her mother. Her hair was the exact shade of Maslynna's, braided masterfully over her shoulder.
She smiled down at Maslynna, and she couldn't help the love that poured into her chest. Her safe place. Her rock. Oh, how Maslynna wanted to be just like her when she grew up.
Her mother was kind and patient. She was strong. She was the smartest person Maslynna knew.
"Yes!" Maslynna chirped, her voice bright enough to rival the sun. "You can stay in the west wing. It has a garden for your plants and plenty of storage so you don't have to worry about having to throw away anything because you ran out of space."
Her mother gasped. "All for me?" Her mother knelt and pointed to part of the sandcastle. "This section right here?"
Maslynna tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded, anxiously awaiting her mother's appraisal.
"I love it!" she said, scooping her daughter into her arms. "How did I get so lucky to have such a loving child with a great eye for detail?"
Maslynna tucked her head underneath her mother's chin and inhaled her scent: Rosemary, thyme, with a hint of something citrus. It calmed Maslynna even during the worst of her nightmares or Briallyn's bad moods.
"What about me?" His voice was rich and smooth, not one she had ever heard before, but she knew who it belonged to.
Her father.
She peered up at him, but the sun was casting a large shadow over her father, obscuring any details.
Maslynna giggled. "You'd live with mommy!"
Her mother laughed, the sound warm and musical, echoing off the rolls of the tide. "That sounds lovely."
Gentle hands pulled her up, her toes spreading in the sand as she looked down at her sandcastle. Her home built for her and her family to live in. To make enough memories for a lifetime before starting her own family.
"How about we cool off in the water?" Her father asked, tucking a wild strand of her hair behind her ear. "Last one in sleeps in the barn for a month!"
Squealing, Maslynna took off, kicking up sand as she barreled towards the water. The salty air filled her lungs, arms pumping hard enough she imagined she was one of the gulls about to lift off.
Chancing a look over her shoulder, she saw her mother and father behind her, walking hand-in-hand, a smile radiating off both of them.
When she looked forward again, a wave surged into her, sending her stumbling backward.
"You have to dive into the wave." Her father's hand wrapped around hers. "Try it again, with me. Ready?"
Pushing back the hair plastered on her face, Maslynna nodded, eyeing the next wave rolling towards her.
Her grip tightened on her father as she sucked in a breath and let him lean her into the wave until she dove into the middle of it.
His hands wrapped around her waist to keep her from being pulled with the current, then shoved her past the water's surface and high into the air.
Maslynna shrieked with laughter, the air rushing past chilling her skin while the sunlight worked to warm it. Goosebumps erupted across her arms as her father caught her.
"Again!" She yelled. "Again! Again!"
Her father picked her up and swung her back and forth, counting to five, before tossing her towards her mother, who had met them in the water.
She landed with a splash.
"Mom! Did you see how far I flew?"
"I did!" her mother exclaimed, splashing water at her.
Maslynna grinned wickedly and splashed back until the sun had settled over the horizon; all three of them were drenched, and the saltwater stung their eyes.
"Maslynna, look," her father bellowed, pointing towards a wave rushing towards them. It was larger than any wave she had seen all day. "Remember what I taught you?"
She nodded, determination settling over her features as she turned to face the rogue wave. "Dive into it."
Her vision was blurred by the water in her eyes, but she could feel the pride of her father's gaze on her. She would make him proud by how quickly she had mastered her dives.
"Ready?" Her father's voice boomed over the roaring of the wave.
Maslynna was trembling with anticipation.
"Set," now her mother's voice chimed in from beside her.
"Go!" Maslynna yelled, diving straight into the waves' curl.
The water was cool as it rushed past, twirling and spinning her until she had no idea which way was up.
Maslynna kicked out, her lungs burning for air, but her small legs felt suddenly heavy. Too heavy.
The muffled roar of the ocean bled into a deafening howl. It wasn't the tide anymore. It was the sound of iron cell doors slamming.
The water bubbled around her, the temperature no longer cool but boiling. It felt almost familiar.
Just as quickly as the water turned scalding, it shocked her body as it turned icy.
Miraculously, she had broken the surface, lungs rejoicing as she gulped down breath after breath, the water rough and crashing over her unrelentingly.
"Mom!" She shouted. "Dad!"
The sky no longer housed the sun; the skyline was an inky black that blended in with the water, disorienting her.
A wave pushed her down, her legs kicking to drive her back up, arms breaking the surface, reaching for anything to anchor herself to.
"Mommy! Daddy!" She screamed, the water sloshing into her mouth, causing her to sputter and choke. "Help me!"
Another crash of waves beat down on her; the liquid that slid down her throat was thick and bitter, tasting sharply of rust, copper, and the distinct taste of soured meat.
She opened her eyes beneath the churn, but the ocean had curled into an unyielding, pitch-black abyss. There was no sand. No shore. No sun to chase.
Her small reprieves from being pulled under had her screaming for help and scanning the water for any sign of her mother and father.
"Mom!" She yelled, and for a heartbeat she thought she heard her mother calling to her in the distance.
She spun to where she had heard her mother, but could see nothing but ancient jagged mountains surrounding the water.
She began to swim hard in that direction, certain her mother was fighting the waves just as desperately to reach her.
She kicked her legs fast, her muscles exhausted and aching in protest with each paddle.
The water began to calm until it was placid, the only ripples on the surface coming from Maslynna's desperate attempts to reach her mother.
She could see the shoreline but could not make out anything other than sparse, twisted trees adorned in nothing but moss, scattered around crumbling ancient ruins.
With renewed determination, she pressed her arms and legs harder, urging them to take her to the shore. What may have been minutes stretched into what felt like hours, and she did not think she had gotten any closer to the shore.
"Mommy!" she cried, hot tears streaking down her face. "Daddy! Help me, please!"
But she knew deep down they were not coming. That she was alone in this place.
The water was dark enough that it should have been able to reflect the night sky off of its surface, but instead the darkness of this place swallowed any light except for glimpses of moonlight between wispy clouds.
Her muscles spasmed as she kicked forward again, her body suddenly too heavy to stay afloat.
Her head went under, and with what was left of her energy, she wiggled towards the surface, hoping it was just enough for one more breath. It wasn't. The tainted water filled the space where air should have been.
Her lungs began to burn, and she kicked and kicked but was unable to get herself back above water. She clawed upwards, fingers stretching toward the pale shimmer of the surface. It looked close enough to touch. It wasn't.
Her chest convulsed. The urge to breathe became unbearable.
Mommy.
The thought drifted through her mind as her arms slowed.
Daddy.
No answering voice called her back. Her vision began to shrink.
No familiar hands wrapped around her waist and lifted her high above the waves.
No one came.
Her arms drifted to her sides. The water no longer felt cold. It didn't feel like anything. Darkness crept inward from the edges of her vision until only a small circle of moonlight remained above her.
Azriel had seen war. Had gutted men with his bare hands. Heard the final rasp of breath leave a body more times than he could count.
But nothing—nothing—had ever sounded like Feyre's screaming.
It was primal and splintering. The kind that hollowed you out from the inside. He stood just outside the bedchamber, shadows coiling wildly at his feet like they, too, sensed what was coming. The scent of blood filled the air, thick and metallic, clinging to the walls like death.
Elain opened the door. Azriel and Cassian entered, taking their places on either side of Rhysand.
His brothers’ faces were pale. Blank. Their hands clenched and unclenched at their sides.
Madja’s voice snapped through the chaos. “She’s losing too much blood, and I can feel the babe’s heart in distress.”
Azriel’s knees shook at her words as he reached for Rhys’s trembling frame.
“There’s nothing we can do,” the healer said, voice bleak. “Cutting the babe out of her will kill her.”
The tension in the room crackled as Nesta and Madja exchanged words, Rhysand shooting Feyre’s sister a look.
“An incision along the abdomen, even one carefully made, is an enormous risk. It’s never been successful.” She dried her hands on her apron, as if she had given up. “And even with Feyre’s healing abilities, the blood loss has weakened her—”
And then Feyre’s voice, barely a whisper, “Do it.”
Rhysand stepped to the bed, his voice laced with pain. “Feyre—”
“The babe likely won’t survive,” Madja said, softer now. “It’s too small yet. We risk both of you.”
“All of you,” Cassian added quietly, face twisted in helpless fury.
“Do it,” Feyre said, voice louder. A mother’s command.
Azriel’s throat burned. The sheer, brutal force of a mother’s love gripped his chest, made his bones ache. The ultimate sacrifice—choosing her child’s life over her own.
His gut twisted at the thought of Feyre dying. At Rhysand, dying with her. His High Lord and High Lady. His friends. His family.
Madja came up to the High Lord and said lowly, “Go into her mind to take away the pain.”
Rhys nodded, slipping into her thoughts, Feyre’s face softening, her expression smoothed as if asleep.
And so Madja began working.
Azriel held his breath as Madja lifted the knives in her hands, slicing across Feyre’s abdomen.
He couldn’t look. He turned his face into his arm, trying to block out the wet, sickening sounds, the gasps, the choking silence.
Madja worked quickly. In one heartbeat, she held the scalpel, and in another beat, she was handing a silent babe to Mor.
Azriel couldn’t take his eyes off the babe. Wouldn’t until he saw a twitch of its wings, a scrunch of a nose.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the room as Mor cradled the bundle in her arms. Too small. Too silent. Too still.
And then Madja muttered a curse under her breath, and Rhys was screaming, a sound Azriel had never heard from his High Lord, but a sound he was all too familiar with on the battlefield.
Grief.
He and Cassian lunged for their brother, Siphons blazing as they hauled him away from the bed so Madja could try and save Feyre.
He swallowed bile down. His entire body shaking. He could feel Cassian trembling beside him, both of them anchoring a male who no longer seemed to know what to do with his grief.
Azriel had never hated himself more than keeping his dying friend from his wife.
So this is what helplessness feels like, Azriel thought. Not on a battlefield. Not in torture. Here.
Nesta approached the bed, donned in the Mask with the Harp in her hands. She held a hand up to Rhysand, eyes blazing with a magic Azriel had never known before.
And then she plucked a string.
In a breath, she was across the bed, laying over Feyre, whispering into her sweat-damp hair.
“I give it back,” she whispered, over and over, like a prayer. Like a spell.
Azriel stood frozen as small tendrils of light floated from Nesta, one toward Feyre, the other to the babe in Mor’s arms.
Rhysand rushed for the bed as Feyre’s eyes fluttered open.
“I love you, too,” she said to Nesta.
A heartbeat later, the most beautiful sound Azriel had ever heard cracked through the room.
The babe in Mor’s arms let out a piercing wail as she carried him over to his mother.
Cassian let out a shaky breath. Azriel stood frozen, chest tight, throat closed.
He didn’t cry. He couldn’t cry.
But the sight in front of him, Feyre alive, the babe screaming, nearly brought him to his knees.
His shadows slid over his boots, curling against his calves.
A silent comfort.
One he couldn’t bring himself to ask for.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The scent of blood had faded. The shadows calmed.
And Feyre was alive.
She lay in bed now, pale and exhausted, but breathing. Rhys sat beside her, one hand wrapped around hers, the other gently cradling her face.
Cassian stood near the foot of the bed, holding the tiny bundle of swaddled life—Nyx—against his armored chest like the babe was made of glass.
The room was quiet, save for the occasional sleepy grunt of the newborn.
Nesta appeared in the doorway, eyes red, face still streaked with dried tears.
Cassian must have seen the question in her eyes, because he moved to transfer Nyx into Azriel’s arms.
Azriel didn’t move at first. He stared at the tiny form. Then, reluctantly, extended his arms. Cassian passed Nyx to him, and Azriel nearly winced at the weight of it. The fragility. His scars burned beneath his gloves.
The baby squirmed then let out a soft, contented sigh.
Azriel held him stiffly, awkwardly, like a weapon he didn’t know how to wield. And yet, something bloomed in his chest. Warm and aching. Near the place that tugged when—
No.
Az swallowed hard. He looked at Feyre, whose eyes were on him now. Tired, but clear.
“I need to tell you something,” he said quietly, careful not to jostle Nyx. “Both of you.”
Rhys’s eyes narrowed faintly. He shifted, alert. “Go on.”
Azriel’s voice was low and steady. “There was a spy. A female shadowsinger working under Briallyn. I’ve known about her for some time.” He paused. “Her name is Maslynna. I thought she was the enemy. I was wrong.”
Rhys’s face gave nothing away. “Explain.”
Azriel looked down at the baby again. “She asked me to help her. I—I didn’t believe her. Not at first. But I think she was being used—controlled. She wasn’t serving Briallyn willingly.”
Rhysand stood from the bed, hands tucked deep in his pockets. “You waited until now to tell us?” His tone was cold.
Azriel nodded, rocking the slumbering babe in his arms. “I had no proof. Only instinct.”
Rhysand took a step towards Azriel. “Why are you telling us this now?”
“With Briallyn dead…” Azriel began, but his voice trailed off.
Feyre smiled softly. “You want to go get her.”
Azriel stopped his rocking and nodded ever so slightly.
“And you want to bring her here?” Rhys asked. “To Velaris—after this?” He said, motioning to Feyre and his son.
Azriel’s throat worked. “I do.”
Rhysand exhaled deeply. “Reports are saying Nesta’s power reverberated all the way to the continent. The castle is in near ruins. What makes you so sure she’s even alive?” His tone wasn’t meant to be cruel, but wary and guarded.
Azriel shrugged and looked back at the babe in his arms. “I just know.”
He didn’t notice the look Feyre and Rhysand shared.
At their silence, Azriel looked up and saw they were communicating mind-to-mind. His heart felt heavy at the tick in Rhysand’s jaw. He knew he should have told Rhys the first time he saw her. But he still didn’t believe he had made a mistake by keeping it hidden.
Rhysand shook his head softly. “It’s Feyre’s call,” he said after a moment.
Feyre turned her gaze to him, soft but steady. “Go,” she said, arms extending out for Nyx. “She’s not safe on the continent. Bring her here. If she means to harm us, we’ll know. But if she doesn’t… then she deserves a second chance.”
Azriel exhaled. The knot in his chest loosened, just slightly.
He stepped forward and carefully handed Nyx to Feyre. The baby made a sleepy sound and nuzzled into his mother’s chest.
Azriel looked between them.
“Thank you,” he said, making his way to the door to leave.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The wind bit at his skin, the cold sharper than steel.
Azriel flew like a phantom through the night, so fast the stars blurred above him.
He didn’t look back.
Didn’t think of Rhys. Or Feyre. Or the child he’d cradled in his arms only hours ago.
Only her.
The place where the wards had snapped the moment Briallyn died. Where the pull in his chest had turned violent, like a tether yanked taut, demanding: go, go, go.
And now—there.
The castle rose on the horizon, a dark wound on the earth.
Smoke curled from shattered towers. Firelight flickered against broken stone. The wards had fractured like glass, jagged, dangerous, and dying.
He could taste blood in the wind.
Azriel’s wings tucked in. His shadows sharpened. And he descended into the ruins of hell.
The castle groaned, the structure weakened and threatening to collapse in on itself.
His boots echoed down crumbling halls as the wind screamed through shattered windows. Firelight danced across blood-slicked stone, but still, nothing from his shadows. No trace of her. Only that aching throb deep in his chest.
He had started his search from the top of the castle and worked his way down. His shadows whispered the throne room was the only room on this level accessible, and there was company.
His shadows seemed on edge, coiling around him. Azriel unsheathed Truth Teller and stepped into the shadows.
A middle-aged man dressed in armor stalked towards a woman, sword drawn as he cornered her. Azriel was too far away to make out what the man had said, but as his sword cut at the woman’s fabric and exposed her chest to him, Azriel knew the man's intentions.
Jakobe, his shadows sang, Briallyn’s general.
Disgust settled deep in Azriel’s stomach. He had lived through enough battles to see how some men took advantage of the helpless, finding and stealing pleasure in the chaos of collapse.
Go, Azriel thought to his shadows. Do it.
The shadows vibrated in glee as they swept towards the general, his lips pressed to her neck as his hands groped her chest as the woman pleaded, tears streaking down her soot-covered face.
From the mortal's perspective, the general had stumbled and slipped, but it had been enough time for the woman to slip away and flee.
Azriel turned to continue his search as the castle groaned, deeper, the walls shaking as another part collapsed. He knew his shadows could handle holding the general off until the woman was safe, but he needed to find Maslynna before the rest of the castle tumbled down.
Fists shaking, Azriel was starting to lose his composure. He had searched the entire castle but the dungeons. All entrances were blocked, and he couldn't risk blowing out the debris with his magic without bringing down the rest of the castle.
Opting to search the kitchen for a secret entrance, he turned the corner and froze.
A figure leaned against the wall at the far end of the corridor, one hand clutching his ribs.
Azriel approached slowly, shadows curling low around his boots.
The old man looked up, face pale, blood staining the side of his tunic. His mouth twitched into something like a smile. “I knew you’d come.”
Azriel didn’t draw a weapon. He only asked, voice quiet but sharp with urgency. “Where is she?”
The old man’s throat bobbed. “Still in solitary. When the castle fell,” the man clutched his chest as he was overcome with a coughing fit, blood splattering against his fist. “I tried to reach her, but the lower wing collapsed.”
Azriel’s eyes narrowed. “Is she alive?”
The old man swallowed. “I think so.” The mortal human pushed off the wall, wobbling slightly. “I can take you. The main corridor’s blocked, but there’s a tunnel behind the armory.”
Azriel gave a slight nod. “Lead.”
They moved fast.
Down narrow halls choked with dust and ash. Through a passage that reeked of sulfur and spilled magic. Azriel kept close behind, eyes scanning every corner, every shift in stone.
His guide didn’t speak again until they reached a broken stairwell.
“She’s down here,” he said quietly, voice barely audible as he passed a set of keys to Azriel. “There used to be wards. She couldn’t use her shadows. Could barely speak. I think Briallyn may have drugged her with faebane as well. She didn’t want her seen.”
Azriel’s stomach twisted in rage.
He helped the man climb down slowly, then slipped past him once they reached the lower hall.
The stones here were darker. Older. The walls wept with moisture and rot. Only one door remained intact: iron bound, half buried in rubble.
Azriel stepped toward it. His shadows stopped him. But something else, something deeper, tugged him forward. He unlocked the door as he reached for the handle, Siphons glowing faintly in the gloom.
Inside, the world stood still.
The cell was dark and cold. The kind of cold that can steal a life in the night.
A chill swept down his spine as he stepped inside, eyes sweeping the shadows until they caught on a figure in the far corner.
Maslynna.
She lay half-slumped against the wall, legs tangled beneath her, arms limp in her lap. Her hair was matted with blood. Her eyes were barely open.
She was nothing but skin and bone, and Azriel wasn’t sure he wasn’t looking at her corpse.
His shadows stirred, but not out of alarm. They curled toward her gently, brushing against her skin, relaying that she was alive, but barely.
He crossed the cell in three steps and set to work on removing the chains binding her hands and feet, Azriel noticing for the first time the scars that marred her pallor arms. Azriel gritted his teeth, hands shaking as he fumbled with the locks.
He had done this. He had left her to be tortured and nearly starved to death because he refused to hear her out. To believe her.
Her head lifted at the sensation, and Azriel could have collapsed in relief.
“Azriel?” Her voice was raw and hoarse.
“She’s dead,” he said, his voice smoother than how he felt.
Maslynna gasped and scrambled, arms and legs flailing to get up. But he knew she was too weak, too malnourished, if the trays of rotten food just out of her reach were any indication of how she was treated down here.
Another pang of guilt nestled into his chest, squeezing his lungs and heart.
She stared up at him, but her eyes were unfocused, and she swayed where she sat. “Are you sure?”
He stood; the Siphons on his gauntlets glowed softly, their light reflecting the deep bruises along her wrists. Her gaze flicked to his palm.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
Her lip trembled.
Slowly, painfully, she raised her hand and slid it into his.
Their fingers closed, and Azriel helped her to stand, a sigh leaving her lips as she shifted her weight to lean onto him.
But then she saw a movement from the shadows.
Kian stood in the doorway, bloodied and worn, watching her with eyes full of things unspoken.
Maslynna reached out her free hand toward him, palm shaking.
“Kian,” she whispered.
He didn’t move forward. Just offered a crooked smile.
“You don’t need me,” he said. “Your life’s not here anymore. It never was.”
She shook her head weakly. “Come with me.”
He stepped back a pace. “You have to go. Live. Be safe. Be free, Maslynna.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “What about you? Will you be safe?”
The old man smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “Of course I will.”
She whispered, “Thank you.”
Kian gave her one last nod as a matching tear raced down his face.
And Azriel, still holding her hand, winnowed them out.
Hiya! So this concludes book 1 of the Bound series. I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. :)
Prologue for book 2, Bound by Dreams, will be published at 08:45 this morning, so if you are interested in following along with Maslynna's journey to the Night Court, be sure to head over there! I have a few chapters written for book 2 already, but it'll be a bit before I start posting regularly. I can send out an announcement when I have a better idea.
Thank you all so much for sticking with me through this, and I hope you all have a great day!
“My spies got word that Eris has been captured by Briallyn. She sent his remaining soldiers after him while he was out hunting with his hounds. They grabbed him and somehow, they were all winnowed back to her palace. I’m guessing using Koschei’s powers,” Azriel said to the group.
Cassian grumbled and made his way to the door, his thoughts clearly already with Nesta, thrown into the Blood Rite.
Azriel stepped in front of him. “We have to get him out.”
He sympathized with his brother—he really did. Azriel knew how the pain of not knowing could twist in your gut and fester.
That’s why he wasn’t above using Eris as an excuse to act.
He hadn’t been able to contact Maslynna in weeks, and he knew Briallyn was behind it—but had no credible reason to go looking without getting too close to the palace or drawing suspicion from the rest of the group.
Now he did.
The Inner Circle briefed quickly as Azriel and Cassian tapped their siphons, armor humming with power as they prepared for the mission ahead.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Azriel and Cassian circled the terrain as close to Briallyn’s palace as they dared. Azriel’s shadows curled low to the ground as he surveyed from above. The air was still.
Cassian said nothing, glancing toward the fortress every so often, his mouth drawn tight.
Azriel kept his expression neutral, eyes sharp as they tracked the movement below. They’d seen nothing yet. No sign of Eris. No sign of Briallyn.
No sign of Maslynna.
A few hours into the watch, Azriel dropped down to speak with a traveling merchant off the palace road, cloaked in shadows. The human merchant flinched at the sight of him, his face paling as Azriel’s shadows twisted around him like a storm.
He kept it brief. “I’m looking for a red-haired fae male.”
The merchant trembled. “One of the soldiers dragged him into the castle the night before last. Rumor has it he’s being moved, though.”
Azriel’s voice dropped lower. “Was there another fae female with them?”
The merchant shook his head quickly. “No, there wasn’t.”
Azriel returned to where Cassian was pacing.
“We’ll wait here until they leave the palace,” he said shortly. “Then trail them from the cloud cover.”
Without another word, he launched himself back into the sky, wings slicing the wind as he made another pass around the perimeter.
“Where are you?” he asked into the shadows.
There was no reply.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
They waited.
One day bled into the next.
The terrain never changed. The skies stayed gray. The cold grew sharper, biting through even Illyrian leathers.
Cassian kept busy, checking weapons, scouting alternate routes, and muttering to himself under his breath. But Azriel… Azriel watched.
Hour after hour. Wings tucked. Shadows low. Always facing the palace.
It had become infuriating. Nobody came in or out of the walls. It was as if the place had become abandoned overnight.
At night, he didn’t sleep. He sat in the trees, shadows drifting out into the dark like searchlights, trying to find her. To feel hers.
Nothing.
Not even a whisper.
For three months he hadn’t received word from her. He was unsure if his messages were even able to reach her.
He didn’t let Cassian see the toll it took. Didn’t let his voice crack or his hands shake. But he was unraveling, thread by thread.
She had asked him for help.
Begged him.
And he had walked away.
Even now, Azriel couldn’t justify it. Not really. Not when the memory of her bloodied throat and trembling voice refused to leave him.
He told himself she was dangerous. That she was too close to the enemy. That trusting her was a mistake.
But the truth was simpler.
He’d been afraid.
Afraid she was telling the truth. Afraid of what it would cost him to believe her.
So he left her.
And now…
He caught himself staring at the frost-covered stones outside the gate, as if willing her to walk out.
And then—movement.
“Four fucking days,” Cassian hissed as he came up to where Azriel was monitoring the castle.
Azriel reached for his dagger, sharpening it to distract his thoughts. “It seems you’ve forgotten how much of spying is waiting for the right moment. People don’t engage in their evil deeds when it’s convenient for you.”
He smirked as Cassian groaned. “I stopped spying because it bored me to death. I don’t know how you put up with this all the time.”
His shadows gathered at his feet. “It suits me.”
“I know I’m being impatient. I know that. But you don’t really think we shouldn’t go up to that damned palace and peek inside?”
Azriel’s stomach churned.
His brother had no idea how badly he wanted to do exactly that. All logic fled the longer he imagined what punishments Briallyn might be inflicting on Maslynna.
“I told you: their castle is too heavily warded, and full of magical traps that would trip up even Helion. Beyond that, Briallyn has the Crown. I have no interest in explaining to Rhys and Feyre why you died on my watch. And even less interest in explaining it to Nesta.”
Cassian just stared at the palace. “You think she’s alive?”
The question had Azriel frozen, because he knew how heavy it weighed.
“You’d know if she’d died,” he reached out a hand and tapped his brother, right over his heart. “Right here—you’d know, Cass.”
“There are plenty of other unspeakable things that could be happening to her,” Cassian’s voice was thick with guarded emotion. “To Emerie and Gwyn.”
Anger shot through Azriel at the insinuation, shadows deepening, and his siphons blazed as his magic roared. “You—we—trained them well, Cassian. Trust in that. It’s all we can do.”
And that, Azriel realized, was exactly why the thought of Maslynna being alone, helpless at Briallyn’s mercy, had him nearly sick.
But he didn’t get the chance to linger on the thought.
The castle doors opened.
Eris rode at the front of Briallyn’s party.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Cassian muttered a curse beside him, but Azriel said nothing.
His eyes scanned every face in the group. Every cloak. Every step.
No Maslynna.
His shadows stretched wide and thin across the ground, searching.
And still… nothing.
He didn’t let himself react. Not outwardly, at least. But his stomach turned to stone.
If she wasn’t with them, then where was she?
They had been moving eastward for three days now, Azriel and Cassian following from high above, cloaked in cloud cover.
The further they went, the stranger the land became.
The trees grew older, sparser. The air thinner.
No roads. No markers. No paths.
It was dusk when the party slowed to a stop. A lake spread below them like dark glass, ancient and unmapped.
“I’ve never been here before,” he said. “It feels like an old place. It reminds me of the Middle.”
Azriel landed just beyond the tree line, shadows swimming across the earth in uneasy waves as they began tracking the group on foot.
“Over here, Cassian,” a familiar male voice called.
Azriel turned and saw Eris with Nesta’s dagger angled into Cassian’s ribs.
“Honestly, I’m disappointed in Rhysand,” Eris said casually. “He’s become so bland these days. He didn’t even try to look into my mind.”
Azriel focused on Eris, casting his shadows out. “You can’t win this,” he said, his voice cold as death. “You’re a dead man walking, Eris. Have been for a long time.”
His shadows stretched thin as they searched, his ears straining for their whispers when Briallyn’s voice suddenly called to them from the lake’s shore.
They followed the hunched figure, Azriel’s jaw locked.
“Out with it, then,” Cassian said beside him.
The hood of Briallyn’s cloak was drawn back, and Azriel’s breath was knocked from him as the material fell to the ground, revealing there was no body beneath it.
A disembodied voice snaked its way from the lake before a shadow floated over its surface, its edges shifting and contorting until it took on the figure of a man.
“Just an animated kernel of magic.”
His stomach dropped. It wasn’t Briallyn. She’d planned this.
“Who are you?” Azriel asked, patience wearing thin.
“Koschei,” Cassian whispered beside him.
Azriel’s siphons flared. “Where is Briallyn?” he demanded.
The shadow man hummed, “I spend so many months preparing for you, and you don’t even wish to speak to me?”
Azriel’s shadows coiled around him, whispering that Maslynna was not here. He felt his stomach sink.
“Let Eris go, and then we’ll talk,” Cassian said, arms crossed at his chest and confident.
But the figure, Koschei, ignored him. “You fell for it rather easily. Though you took your time making contact. I thought you’d rush in for the kill, brute that you are.”
Azriel side-stepped to Cassian and breathed, “Run,” before darting to grab Eris.
He grabbed hold of the Autumn Court heir and shot into the sky, turning back in time to see Cassian frozen mid-strike.
“Cassian!” Azriel yelled, shadows hiding behind his extended wings as they hovered in the air.
“You can take him now, Briallyn. You have plenty of time before dawn,” the man in the lake said.
Azriel watched as the old crone emerged from behind the trees, the Crown perched atop her head. Nothing but hatred shown in her black eyes.
Azriel shot back down to make a run for his brother, Siphons encapsulating him and Eris as he drew closer to Briallyn.
But it was too late. The queen had reached Cassian already, and the two vanished.
The silence they left behind was worse than the yell Azriel never had time to give.
He dared one last look at Koschei, face drawn tight, eyes filled with cold fury as he winnowed back to Velaris with Eris in tow.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Down here, time meant nothing. It bled into itself; cold, dark, unmeasured.
A small part of her was proud of how easily she'd slipped back into survival mode. That quiet, detached place she'd spent so much of her last mortal life clinging to.
The rest of her was too twisted with grief to function.
Maslynna knew she had been down here for weeks, at least. Her mind replayed the last few months, searching for anything she could have— should have—done differently.
She hated herself for how it all played out. For Ada's death. The death of the farmer. Her mother...
The hatred in Azriel's eyes at the bluff.
She deserved to rot down here, but with how cold it was, she would never truly rot.
She heard it before she saw it, the faint creak of a door opening somewhere down the corridor, followed by the slow, measured sound of footsteps. Unhurried and intentional.
Maslynna groaned, wrists and ankles heavy with the weight of the chains that rattled against the floor. She dragged herself upright until her back pressed against the wall, breath shallow, body aching.
The footsteps stopped outside her door. Keys jingled. A locked turn.
The door opened with a low groan, and golden light spilled across the stone floor like fire.
Briallyn stepped inside with a smile like frostbite.
"You've looked better," she said coolly, eyes sweeping over Maslynna's form as she placed a tray of food just outside of reach.
Maslynna swallowed, her throat dry as dust. "Hello, Briallyn."
Briallyn crossed her arms, lips pursed. She didn't speak at first, just stood there, letting the silence thicken like smoke.
"Do you know how long you've been down here?" she asked at last.
Maslynna shook her head. "I don't know."
"Guess," Briallyn urged, slumping lazily against the cell wall like she had all the time in the world.
Maslynna closed her eyes, sleep tugging at her. She didn't care.
Briallyn exhaled sharply through her nose and pushed off the wall. "Must you always ruin my fun?"
Maslynna cracked one eye open and took a deep breath.
"Today is Winter's Solstice," Briallyn said curtly. "Wasn't Solstice your mother's favorite holiday?"
Maslynna let out a breath. "Merry Solstice, then. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
The queen stalked forward, her claw-like fingers wrenched into Maslynna's hair, jerking her head up. "You have the nerve to speak to me like that?" She hissed. "After everything I did for you?" She released her with a shove, Maslynna's head falling forward. "How ungrateful."
Maslynna gave a bitter laugh. "I never ask for your help."
Briallyn stilled. Something flickered in her expression. Offense, maybe. Perhaps something darker.
"You ungrateful, useless wyrm." She spat, voice low and trembling with restraint. "I saved you from your worthless life. I gave you power. I gave you purpose."
Maslynna smiled, small and cold.
She pulled her knees to her chest, leaned her head against them. "Is that what you tell yourself?" She said softly. "Because I remember that night going very wrong for you... and your plans for me."
Briallyn's jaw twitched.
She took a step forward, then another, each one deliberate, as if pacing back her own fury.
"I should've let you rot," she said, voice like ice cracking. "But I saw the potential. I thought I could shape you."
She crouched before Maslynna, head tilting.
"And I did. You were obedient. Desperate. Full of lovely little cracks I could pour myself into... until you weren't." She said coldly.
Maslynna said nothing.
The queen stood and turned to grab the tray of food she had brought down and threw it against the wall.
"You know, I almost stopped the meeting." She smiled maliciously. "Almost. But I was curious to see how it would unfold." She ran her hands down her gown. "With the Night Court Spymaster."
She looked at Maslynna for a reaction. When she didn't get one she continued.
Briallyn's smile was slow and gleaming. "I never intended to keep you alive."
Maslynna blinked.
"Oh yes," Briallyn purred, happy to have garnered something out of Maslynna. "Once I have the Dread Trove, I'll no longer need a conduit. Or a weapon. Or a pathetic little girl clinging to the scraps of a life she couldn't control.
She leaned in, voice a whisper of silk and venom. "You'll die the moment I'm made whole. And I'll use that power to restore my youth, my beauty, my reign."
She stood, dusting off her hands as if the admission cost her nothing.
"I've already been working on the final piece," she said with a shrug. "Turns out I didn't need you after all."
Maslynna's shadows stirred, slow, uncertain. Like they hadn't heard her correctly.
Briallyn turned, glancing at a syringe in her hand. "Enjoy the rest of Solstice. Consider this your final season." She said as she shot the needle into the side of Maslynna's neck, her vision going fuzzy.
Briallyn walked out.
The door slammed behind her with a finality that echoed through the stone.
Maslynna sighed, head heavy against the back of stone.
Her shadows faltered around her as if they grew too heavy to float.
Real, shuddering fear seeped into her bones at the image.
And somewhere beneath that, deeper, colder, something shifted.
Not rage. Not sorrow.
Resolve.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
There was only one place Azriel wanted to be.
The wind stung as he flew to the training ring at the House of Wind, muscles coiled tight, begging to be worked out.
His mind raced.
Why should Rhys get a say in who he is with? Why did they have to honor the mating bond between Elain and Lucien? Why couldn't Rhys, for once in his life, just mind his own damn business?
Azriel landed hard in the ring, boots thudding against the stone.
He made his way to the weapons rack without hesitation, grabbed a javelin, and hurled it at one of the dummies across the ring.
The metal tip struck dead center, where the heart would be.
The javelin quivered in the dummy's chest. Azriel didn't bother to retrieve it. He just stood there, breathing hard, fists clenched at his sides.
Lucien.
He hadn't done anything wrong. Hadn't tried to claim Elain. Hadn't even looked at her the way Azriel had tonight. And still... Azriel hated him for it. For the fact that he existed. For being chosen by the Cauldron when Azriel, silent, loyal, obedient Azriel, was left with—
He stormed across the ring, yanked the javelin free from the dummy's chest, and tossed it behind him without looking.
Azriel dropped to his knees. Fists landing again and again, punch after punch into the dummy's core. His teeth clenched, breath snarling from his lungs.
He could still feel Elain's skin cradled in his hand. The soft curve of her voice when she spoke to him. The way she never truly said no... but never said yes, either.
And yet, she wasn't his.
With a final crack, the dummy's head snapped from its shoulders. Azriel rose, panting, and launched onto another target.
Quick punches. A left hook. A brutal kick to the ribs. He let it all out.
It wasn't until the dummy spun back that he shoved it away, that she appeared.
Maslynna.
The thought of her tore into him. Sudden and uninvited.
The image of her out in the Boge. Her eyes when she looked at him across the shadows.
That moment at the ridge when she said, "I thought you came here because you figured something out."
Azriel drove his fist into the dummy's side, breath shuddering.
It was all manipulation. A performance. She was trying to undermine him on Briallyn's behalf. He told himself that night after night.
But what if she wasn't?
What if she meant everything she had said?
That she actually had been reaching for him—not as an enemy, but as someone trying not to drown?
He spun, elbowing the dummy's head clean off its hinge.
His shadows twitched. Tense and uneasy.
He hated this, the feeling of not knowing. Hated that she still had access to him. That no matter how far he flew, how many times he told himself she was lying, she still got in.
"I'll do anything. I'll work for you. Completely. Just... believe me."
He didn't.
But he also couldn't stop thinking about how sad she looked when he walked away.
Azriel shoved the next dummy hard enough to knock it over.
What if she were under Briallyn's control? What if everything had been carefully orchestrated?
And if it wasn't?
He bent low, breath ragged, the cold seeping through his leathers. His knuckles throbbed, the skin split.
She hadn't had the same vacant look on her face as the Autumn Court soldiers.
"Damn it," he muttered under his breath.
His shadows curled around him. Restless. Not hostile, but concerned.
And beneath that, a flicker of something else. It sparked, faint, weak, like a dying ember.
He reached for it. "Maslynna."
Nothing.
Azriel swore under his breath, fists clenched at his sides.
If she were in danger, he couldn't feel it. And that made everything worse.
Maslynna didn’t send her confirmation to Azriel until after breakfast, when there was still no word from Briallyn.
She knew it was not a blessing.
Briallyn was normally impulsive, so she knew it meant the queen was preparing something. Something cruel.
But Azriel’s message had planted a dangerous seed of hope.
She couldn’t mention the blood oath. Not to him. Not to anyone.
She’d tested the boundaries in her cell, whispering half-truths to the stone. Even thinking of the oath too clearly had made her throat seize. Speaking of it sent a stabbing pain through her mouth so sharp she couldn’t form words.
She was bound. Muzzled.
But if Azriel had a plan, she had to meet him.
The walk to the bluff was crisp, the autumn air sharpening into a quiet winter freeze.
The sky was the color of old iron, bruised and pale. The wind howled off the bluff, bitter and constant, slicing through Maslynna’s cloak and stinging the skin beneath. Her fingers curled tighter into her pockets, trying to preserve what little warmth she could find.
There was no shelter here, just stone and sky and endless wind.
She bounced on the balls of her feet, fighting the cold seeping into her bones, when a blur of black slammed down into the ground in front of her.
A blade gleamed, pressed cold against her throat before she could blink. His arm pinned her to the cliffside wall, eyes burning, face twisted in fury.
“Are you proud of yourself?” Azriel growled.
Maslynna blinked, air returning in stuttering bursts. “What do you mean?”
His voice dipped, lower and sharper. “You thought you could play me with your pathetic little act?”
“What act?” She rasped. “What are you talking about?”
“Was this all a part of the plan?” His face was inches from hers as he snarled. “Get me close so she could use the Crown on me?”
Her eyebrows furrowed. She tried to move, but his grip tightened. “I don’t understand. What crown?”
He sneered. “She hasn’t been wearing a new one lately?”
Realization cracked through her like lightning.
“She has,” Maslynna said slowly. “But it’s just a crown—“
“It’s not just some crown.” His blade bit into her skin, a flash of pain blooming across her throat. “It’s a weapon. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Maslynna scoffed, breath fogging the air between them. “I didn’t think anything of it! She’s a queen, she has crowns.”
His voice was colder than frost. “So you are stupid.”
His words cut deeper than steel, like all the jabs he had thrown at her in the dungeon. He had an uncanny ability to hit every one of her nerves.
She shoved him, fury exploding out of her as her shadows surged with her. Azriel stumbled back, caught off guard by the force of it.
“You think she tells me anything?” She snapped.
Azriel’s stance didn’t shift. His shadows coiled behind him like storm clouds. “And I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Yes.” Her tone was sharp and final.
“How? With the Crown she has the ability to control those around her.” His tone was lethal. “How do I know you aren’t under her control right now?”
Maslynna’s chest heaved. “You don’t. You have to trust me.”
He didn’t answer. Just watched her, cold and unreadable, his dagger still drawn.
“If I was under her control—of the Crown—do you think I would be here?” She took a step towards him, not missing the way he took two steps back, his dagger moved into a defensive position.
“You’re afraid of it.” She chanced another step towards him, her foot frozen mid-air as he moved to put more distance between them.
Maslynna sighed and receded, hands tugging at her scalp, deep in thought. The pieces had started to come together. The Mask and the Harp weren’t some ordinary heirlooms as prized possessions as Briallyn had claimed, but were connected to the Crown.
Maslynna wondered….
Her voice dropped, brittle and small. “Is the Crown like the Harp?”
Azriel froze, wings flaring wide as they caught the wind. “How do you know about that?”
“I was there,” she said. “When Nesta and Cassian retrieved it.”
The shadows around him rippled with barely confined fury. Azriel shook his head in disbelief, a cruel chuckle slipped from him as he fingered the dagger at his hip. “So many secrets you keep.”
“I didn’t know that was the mission until after I arrived and saw it.” Her voice broke. “I think she’s trying to make me get them. One by one.”
Azriel pinned her with a look. “And are you doing it willingly? If you’re not under her control?” he asked.
“I worked for her. But I don’t anymore.” She took a step forward, desperate. “In Autumn Court, I told you—“
“You won’t leave," he said curtly.
“I can’t leave!” She cried, voice torn from her. “I thought you came here because you figured something out. Because you could help.”
Azriel turned his back. “You thought wrong.”
Maslynna stumbled after him, her heart sinking low into her belly as her boots scraped against the stone. “Please. I’ll do anything.” She grabbed hold of his arm, begging him not to leave. “ I’ll work for you. Completely. Just… believe me.”
He shook her off. “I don’t.” His tone was final.
“Azriel, please!” She yelled.
Azriel barely paused, hating that he did so. He looked behind him, Maslynna coming to a stop a few feet away, her arms wrapped tight around herself, dark hair ripping in the wind. She looked so broken, but there was something burning behind her eyes.
Azriel shook his head and vanished. Gone like smoke, like a shadow at dawn. Like he’d never been there at all.
Maslynna stood in silence, chest heaving as she stared at the spot where he disappeared. The sting along her throat was warm and slow.
Then she grabbed the nearest rock and hurled it into the cliff wall. It exploded on impact, shards scattering.
“Bastard,” she hissed.
Her shadows lashed out in jagged bursts, striking stone, clawing through soil. She paced the bluff, her fury a storm in motion. Her fists clenched until her fingers ached and her arms shook.
“Fucking bastard.” This time, louder.
She wasn’t sure if she meant him or herself.
She kept walking. Fast. Like if she moved fast enough, the humiliation might not catch her.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The throne room doors creaked open as Maslynna stepped inside without being summoned. She didn’t bow.
Briallyn sat poised atop her throne, spine straight, hands resting like claws on the carved arms.
She didn’t smile.
“Rough morning?” The queen asked softly. “I didn’t summon you yet, but nevertheless, I am pleased you are here.”
Maslynna stood in front of the dais, hands balled into fists, chin tucked in tight to her chest. She heard Briallyn talking to her, but her mind was distant, not registering in her head.
“I couldn’t risk my temper getting the better of me. Strangling you with my bare hands. Or flaying you alive. The temptations were endless,” she said with an amused chuckle.
Maslynna said nothing.
“You failed me, Maslynna.” Briallyn’s voice was silk stretched tight over a blade. “What is your excuse this time?”
Maslynna met her gaze, calm and cold. “Nesta Archeron and Cassian retrieved the Harp first.”
Briallyn’s fists slammed into the throne’s armrest with a crack that echoed through the chamber.
“I know. I saw it,” she said, voice clipped.
Briallyn stood in one fluid motion, descending the stairs with slow, deliberate steps.
“But why,” she hissed, “did you not kill them to get to it?”
Maslynna didn’t answer.
Silence filled the space, sharp and heavy. Jakobe’s cough echoed through the tension.
Briallyn’s lip curled in disgust. “You aren’t my only spy, you know.”
Maslynna raised her head slightly, her eyes dead and empty.
“And they have reported back the most interesting information.” Briallyn began to circle her, slow and predatory. “You’ve been meeting with the assassin from the Night Court. The one who also has shadows.”
She stopped in front of Maslynna, hands clasped at her waist. “Tell me, Maslynna, where do your allegiances lie?”
Maslynna stared at the queen.
She had no energy left to answer the queen. She would take whatever punishment came.
The sting came fast—Briallyn’s palm cracking across her cheek, her head snapping with the force of it.
“Take her away,” her voice rang out in command from the gods. “Not to her dungeons. To solitary confinement. No food. No water. No visitors. A week.”
The guards seized Maslynna’s arms. Still, she didn’t flinch. The throne room doors slammed shut behind her.
Briallyn watched with cold satisfaction as she was dragged away.
“Let the silence remind you what happens when you forget who you serve.”
The Autumn Court moved around her. Silent and stealthy, moving as one. They formed a tight circle around her, expressions barren of emotion.
Her head whipped around as they closed in on her, backing away from one side only to edge closer to another group of men.
They said nothing as they drew within her reach, until she had no choice but to stand shoulder to shoulder with them before the sensation of falling hit her.
It started in her stomach. A sharp downward pull before it surged into her throat as shadows swarmed her so densely she could not even see the soldier in front of her.
The world vanished.
No air. No light. No sound. Only the sensation of her bones being crushed, as if her body were turning in on itself so tightly she might implode.
Her lungs screamed as the air was ripped from them. Burned raw. The tang and metallic taste of blood filled her mouth as time fractured.
Then, they slammed back into existence.
One heartbeat ago, she was at an encampment in Autumn Court. A heartbeat later, she was standing at the base of a mountain, its stones ragged and black as onyx, a large cave mouth yawning just ahead.
Her legs felt heavy as she sagged onto the grass, her body screaming at her that something was wrong.
Her shadows coiled around her, just as unnerved.
“Where are we?” she asked, her voice nearly stolen from her by the gusts of wind whipped around her.
The crashing waves against the cliff were her only answer.
She looked between the men and the cave mouth, her curiosity piqued even as the eerie feeling in her stomach settled deeper.
Her feet moved before she could think, following the faint trail to the stone archway that framed the entrance.
She glanced back once.
None of the men had followed.
The cave was freezing. The damp air settled into her bones with a chill that felt almost alive.
Her feet carried her down a narrow walkway, the walls stained black, thick with damp. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling, pooling along the edges of the floor as the staircase twisted into a tight spiral beneath her.
She reached a low-lying chamber that forked into three passageways. Left and right led to narrow, adjacent rooms that were tight and suffocating. Ahead, another set of stairs descended into blackness.
She paused.
The space ahead was as pitch-black as Briallyn’s eyes.
Maslynna moved to turn back, to head to the room on the left, when a thrumming began in her chest.
It wasn’t pain.
It was a pull.
Her hand gripped the wall, steadying herself as the feeling surged, low and resonant, like a pulse beneath the stone itself. She didn’t think.
She just followed.
The stairs curved tighter as she descended, her fingers trailing the damp stone, her shadows twitching with unease.
Something was down here.
Something ancient—calling not with words, but with instinct.
She had nearly reached the bottom of the stairs, the air growing thicker with the weight of ancient magic and something older. Something hungry.
She froze, and her shadows slid around her, cocooning her in them.
Across the room, movement flickered. Steel clashed. Sparks flew.
And then she saw them.
The red-siphoned Illyrian male from the Bog was there with a female, swords drawn and brows furrowed in concentration.
“What are you?” A chilled, bodiless voice called out.
“A witch,” the female breathed. “From Oorid’s dark heart.”
Maslynna's stomach soured at her words, her mind searching for any mention of witches in the book Kian had lent her.
“There is a name I have not heard in a long while,” the voice said. “But you do not smell Oorid’s heaviness, its despair.”
The two Fae turned slowly on their heels, circling an unseen enemy, teeth gritted, grips tightening on their blades.
“Your scent,” the voice sighed. “A pity you’ve marred such a scent with Cassian’s stink. I can barely distinguish anything on you besides his essence.”
A low growl tore from the male— Cassian, her mind confirmed, even if she hadn’t heard the name yet.
“What is it you are obscuring behind you?”
The female spun, her hand shifting to shield something behind her, allowing Maslynna a clear view of the object she had been sent to retrieve.
Maslynna’s breath hitched. Her chest thrummed in confirmation that this was the object she sought to retrieve.
Maslynna swallowed, throat dry, and took another careful step downward, her shadows tightening around her as she moved.
“Ah. I see it now. Long have I wondered who would come to claim it. I could hear its music, you know. Its final note, like an echo in the stone. I was surprised to find it down here, hidden beneath the Prison, after all that time.”
A prison? Maslynna wondered to herself, gaze darting around the chamber.
Shadows tightened once as if to answer her in confirmation. And what does Briallyn want with this harp?
She looked again and now saw that the slabs of rock she’d assumed were collapsed rubble were really just sealed cell doors.
She watched the mist shift, eyes narrowing in on it as it spoke again.
“Such exquisite music it makes. What wonder it spins. Everything pays fealty to that Harp: seasons, kingdoms, the order of time and worlds. There are of no consequences to it. And its last string… even death bows to that string.”
Maslynna drew a ragged breath. The thought of Briallyn with that sort of power… She shuddered.
The winged male, Cassian, said, “You true immortals are all the same: arrogant windbags who love to hear yourselves talk.”
The mist pulsed as it circled the two Fae. “And you faeries are all blind to your own selves.” It drawled. “Based upon the scent alone, I would say that you two are—“
Cassian let go of the female’s hand, piercing his sword through the mist before him, shouting at her to run, ripping a blazing siphon from his glove and tossing it to the female. “Go!”
Maslynna barely had time to react as the female barreled past her, feet pounding up the stairs.
Maslynna followed without thinking, grateful that the howls and cries from the cells masked her hurried steps. The sound echoed like a storm, covering her retreat as she raced after the Harp.
Halfway up the stairs, the female stopped abruptly, as if deep in thought. She turned the Harp over in her hands, face pinched in concentration.
Maslynna slowed, hand inching forward, her body thrumming with the need to touch it. The air around the Harp shimmered, a heat that seared her fingertips before she even made contact.
The female was counting the strings, brow furrowed.
Maslynna knew this was her chance. The pull was too much to ignore.
But before she could reach it, both of their heads snapped towards the cave mouth. The sound of boots against stone echoed as Autumn Court soldiers clamored in.
“Take me to Cassian,” the female whispered, plucking a string and disappearing before Maslynna’s eyes.
“What—?” Maslynna gasped, stumbling back. “Where did she go?” she asked aloud.
Back down. The shadows whispered. Cassian.
Maslynna’s gut twisted in frustration. Her legs ached, but she turned anyway, racing back into the mountain’s depths.
The Prison roared to life.
Prisoners screamed and pounded against the stone doors. The noise was deafening and thunderous. Her shadows writhed in panic as she sprinted back toward the chamber.
She had arrived just in time to see the female lifting her sword high in the air.
“Go back to your cell and shut the door,” she hissed
“I shall just escape again.” A golden-skinned male shimmered into view. “And when I do, I will find you, Nesta Archeron, and you shall be my queen,” he said with a laugh.
The female, Nesta, sneered. “No. I don’t think I will,” her blade glowing with magic.
“What are you doing?” the prisoner asked, paling.
“Finishing the job.”
Maslynna watched as Cassian drew himself from the ground and rounded on the golden male, dagger drawn.
He threw the blade with such precision and speed that it struck the golden male's chest. A scream shattered the air, his body arching as Nesta leapt, her sword singing as it cut through the prisoner’s. His body and head hit the damp stone with a sickening thud, black blood oozing from the corpse.
“The Harp,” Cassian groaned in pain. “Pick it up and let’s go. We have to get out of here.”
Maslynna stepped forward, her legs itching to move, to take it—but they refused.
“Can you even stand?” Nesta asked, supporting the male by throwing his arm over her shoulder as he swayed.
The sound of footsteps pulled Maslynna’s attention from the scene in front of her. More Autumn Court soldiers were making their way down the stairs to where they were in the prison.
Relief swelled in her chest. Once Nesta and Cassian were taken down, the Harp would be hers. She could bring it back to Briallyn.
Finally, she would do something right.
“We’re not running out of here. And we leave the Autumn Soldiers untouched. Hold on to me,” she whispered, adjusting his weight.
Maslynna bolted toward them, hands outstretched, reaching and desperate.
“The front lawn of Feyre’s house along the Sidra River in Velaris,” Nesta said, plucking a string at the male’s protest.
They vanished a second before Maslynna reached them.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
It was late when Maslynna slipped back into the castle. She knew what awaited her in the morning—what failing another mission meant.
Fear gripped her like a vice, but she willed herself to make one stop before returning to her cell.
The library archives were quiet, steeped in the familiar scent of parchment and candle wax. The hush settled over her shoulders like a worn cloak. She found Kian exactly where she expected: bent over a thick tome, ink-stained fingers turning a page with care.
“Thank you again for the book,” she said, stepping up beside him. “It was helpful.”
Kian looked up, one brow quirking, though some of the color drained from his face. “Did you encounter another monster?”
She hesitated, chewing the inside of her cheek. Her eyes flicked over her shoulder, scanning the shadows, then she leaned in.
“Do you think it’s true?” she asked softly. “That all Fae are monsters? That they’re evil?”
That question had gnawed at her since she had left the Prison. She recalled the stories from childhood, the lessons with Kian and Briallyn that had led in the early months after her turning. Tales of Night Court savagery. Or feral Fae so bloodthirsty they killed their own.
But what she had seen down in the Prison, the devotion, that protectiveness, fearlessness… what Azriel had told her in the dungeons and on the cliff, it didn’t fit.
Kian shifted, discomfort flitting across his features. “Maslynna…”
But she cut him off, her voice low and urgent. “Or are there good Fae and bad Fae, just like humans?”
His spine straightened, a flash of wariness settling into his gaze. “What are you suggesting?”
She leaned closer, her breath shaking. “What if Rhysand and his court aren’t the real monsters?” She swallowed. “What if the only monster here is Briallyn?”
Kian stared at her for a long moment. Then he closed the book with a quiet thud and said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Some questions will do you more harm than good,” he said firmly. “Be careful which ones you ask, Maslynna. And be even more careful who hears you asking them.”
He passed her without another word, his shoulder brushing hers, not with affection, but finality.
“Kian,” she called, just as he reached the door.
He paused, hand on the knob.
She asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “Do you think I’m a monster?”
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
That night, the stone floor of her cell pressed cold against her spine. Maslynna lay in the dark, staring at nothing as Kian’s words echoed like a second heartbeat.
Be careful which ones you ask.
Her shadows curled along the wall like a cat stretching.
She could sense a message was coming by the way her shadows lashed around her.
She didn’t sit up.
Then his voice came. Low and direct.
“Meet me at the western bluff. Past the outer wards. At noon.”
The shadows lingered for a heartbeat. Then resumed curling around her like smoke.
Another sleepless night left his mind reeling from the day’s developments. Unable to shake them, he reached for the blade under his pillow and the sharpening tool in his bedside drawer and began drawing the edge across the sharpening stone with lethal precision.
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking of the female from the Bog.
Her piercing blue eyes that haunted him whenever he closed his own. Not just the color, but the clarity. As if they saw through him and knew exactly which buttons to press.
The curve of her lips as she spat an insult at him, a sneer sharper than the blades he carried. She’d looked at him not with fear, but with challenge—daring him to strike first.
And then the shadows.
Not trailing behind her. They weren’t timid. They carried her scent—sage, bergamot, and birch—that still lingered in his lungs.
That unsettled him more than anything else.
Azriel’s grip tightened around the blade. His own shadows stirred, restless and uneasy.
Her correspondence had been few and far between. He had used the shadows to communicate with her every other night, and the information he had received had been nothing more than breadcrumbs, most of it useless.
Azriel was beginning to wonder if she was just as clueless about Briallyn’s plans as he was.
His shadows stirred again, not in warning, but in recognition.
A voice filtered through them. Soft. Strained. Not carried by wind or spell. Inside him.
“I need to see you.”
Azriel froze, the steel in his hand forgotten.
He instantly knew who it belonged to, even without the bite and venom from the dungeon.
“Please.” It was barely more than a whisper.
His blood turned to ice.
“I’m being sent out again,” her voice broken, as if she’d been beaten down and barely held together. “Beyond the Wall. I don’t know when I’ll be sent again. Or if you’ll even be able to reach me after.”
Azriel sat up, wings rustling behind him. His shadows skittered across the room as if trying to trace the voice’s source.
“If I don’t ask now, I’ll lose my nerve,” she whispered. “Southern ridge of Autumn Court. Dusk. In three days.”
Azriel blinked. The thing deep in his chest—the thing he had been trying to ignore for the past few days—pulled so tightly it nearly knocked the breath from him.
His voice came out steady. Quiet.
“I’ll be there."
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The fire crackled low in the throne room’s hearth, its heat meant more for atmosphere than warmth. Briallyn stood beside it, hands folded neatly before her, a fresh goblet of wine untouched at her side. The flicker of flame cast her face in shifting gold, but her expression was fixed and clinical.
Maslynna stood where she’d been told, back straight, hands at her sides, face blank. She didn’t ask questions anymore.
“You’ll leave in two hours,” Briallyn said, voice smooth as silk drawn over glass. “You’ll meet the Autumn Court soldiers, same as last time.”
No destination. No reason.
Maslynna kept her eyes low.
Briallyn approached, hand clasping Maslynna’s chin and forcing their gazes to meet. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “All you need to know, for now, is that your obedience will be… evaluated.”
Maslynna blinked once in understanding.
Briallyn eyed Maslynna, expression souring as she shoved her away with a tsk. “Don’t let me down this time, Maslynna,” she said as she walked up the dais and took her seat.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Maslynna braced a hand on one of the heavy oak doors that opened into the library. Peeking her head in, she found Kian seated at his desk, scratching notes onto a long strip of parchment.
She slipped inside and shut the door with a soft click. “You wanted to see me?” she asked, her voice uncertain.
Kian looked up from beneath his half-moon spectacles. His eyes were tired, but warm.
“I did,” he began, rising from his seat with a book already in hand.
Maslynna met him halfway, a hand bracing his arm as he started to lose balance.
“Ada told me,” his tone was soft. “About what you saw beyond the Wall in Prythian.”
Maslynna’s breath caught. Pain knotted in her throat. “She did?”
Kian nodded, turning her hands upward and placing a book in her palm. “I found this in the archives the other day. Thought it might be useful as your adventures take you beyond the continent.”
Maslynna shifted the leather-bound book in her hands, the edges fraying like old cloth.
Wards and Warnings: A Scholar’s Guide to the Creatures Beyond the Wall
Maslynna swallowed the lump in her throat. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Kian gave her shoulder a soft, weathered pat. “Be careful, Maslynna.”
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The soldiers were set to depart the next morning. Tents littered the forest clearing as dusk settled over the land, the air still and damp with the promise of coming rain.
Her stomach twisted as she stood apart from them, just beyond the treeline, wrapped in her shadows. Like the soldiers from the Bog of Oorid, the men did not speak. Nor did they eat.
She crossed her arms at her stomach, one hand drifting to the dagger at her hip.
She turned on a sharp heel, her footsteps light as she made her way to the coast. The roar of crashing waves filled her ears, pushing away the whispering in her mind about the meeting.
The wind whipped at her hair, tangling it before she could twist it back at the crown of her head. Salt stung her cheeks as she stepped closer to the cliff’s edge, peering down at the dark sea below.
“Maslynna.”
His voice came from behind her, just above the roar of the water, low and steady.
She jolted, spinning around.
Azriel stood in the shadows as if he’d always been there, half-carved from them. Dressed in black leathers that clung to him like a second skin, the soft blue of his siphons simmered across his chest and the backs of his gloved hands.
She had never noticed how intimidating his sharp hazel eyes could be.
Maslynna shifted on her feet, drawing her robes tighter around her. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me,” she said, her voice barely carrying over the waves.
Azriel blinked once, slowly, watching her as if he were waiting for something more.
When she didn’t continue, he asked, “Why are you in Prythian beyond the Wall again?”
Maslynna gave a weak shake of her head. “I don’t know yet.”
Azriel eyed her warily. “So why did you ask to meet? Do you have more information?”
Another shake of her head.
Her chest rose sharply. Then again. The words snagged in her throat, thick and unfamiliar. Her eyes burned, and she swallowed hard against it.
She would not cry. Not in front of him. She would not show just how truly vulnerable she felt.
“I—” she started, but her voice caught, cracking at the edge. She looked away for a breath, then back to his siphons, the closest she would allow herself to look at him. “I thought about what you said.”
Azriel’s brows lifted slightly. He shifted his weight, arms uncrossing, the faintest motion of attention.
“About what?” he asked.
She stared at him.
The answer was there, on the tip of her tongue, threaded into the bones of her silence. She’d thought of it every night since his voice came to her in the dungeons. Every time Ada’s voice echoed in her dreams.
But the words wouldn’t come. Not yet.
“There are others?” she asked. “Like me? That were… made?”
Azriel’s expression shifted, subtle but unmistakable. The wall behind his eyes faltered.
He took a step towards her. Small. Careful.
Maslynna took a step back. “And she’s… lied?” She swallowed down the fear boiling in her throat. “About everything?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
She didn’t respond. Just stared at him with sad, guarded eyes.
Azriel extended a gloved hand toward her. An offer. Quiet. Steady. “I can show you if you want.”
Maslynna stepped back, her gaze aflame as she turned her head away. “I can’t,” she said, voice clipped.
His hand dropped. His expression slipped back to unreadable. “Then what is it?”
Her features shifted, sorrow breaking through the cracks she’d tried to hold shut. She clenched her eyes shut, as if sheer force could keep the tears from falling.
When she looked at him again, she said nothing. But her eyes, pleading, pained, conveyed everything she couldn’t bring herself to say.
She tried. Failed. Her mouth wouldn’t move.
Her shadows stirred, then slowly pulled away from her. They drifted toward him, cautious, searching, as if sensing something shifting in the space between them.
Azriel’s own shadows reacted instantly, snapping back to coil tightly around his shoulders.
Please, she begged, a tug deep in her chest pulling tight as she choked back a cry. Please. I don’t want to go back.
Azriel didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. But something flickered in his eyes as he swallowed hard, his jaw tight. “I’ll try to come up with something.”
She didn’t remember falling asleep. Only the rough grip of Jakobe’s hand hauling her upright by the arm.
The world tilted as she stood. Her body ached with cold and hunger, muscles stiff from days of stillness. The stone beneath her bare feet felt sharper than it should.
They dragged her down the corridor without a word.
In a washroom lit by low, golden sconces, a pair of servants stripped her clothes away and scrubbed the dirt and dried blood from her skin. They never looked at her, even as they dressed her in a pale gown, soft and delicate.
It felt like thousands of blades knicking into her skin.
When they were alone, Jakobe returned. One look at her and his lip curled, but he said nothing as his eyes grazed over her body.
The throne room was just as quiet when they brought her in.
Briallyn stood by the hearth, swirling wine in a crystalline glass. Her hair was braided back, her dress a deep rust-red that caught the firelight like fresh blood. She turned when Maslynna entered and smiled.
“Well,” she said, voice light. “You look better.”
Maslynna’s throat was dry. Her voice came out raw—velvet turned to sandpaper. “I am.”
Briallyn’s brow lifted slightly, but she didn’t comment. Just took a sip of her wine and nodded once. “Good.”
The double doors groaned open as Kian made his entrance, swaying on his cane as he took his place beside Briallyn.
The queen waited until Jakobe had stepped back into the shadows before speaking again. Her tone was casual. Bored.
“There’s a man near the southern ridge,” she said, plucking a piece of parchment from Kian’s outstretched hands. “A farmer. Owes me coin.”
Maslynna remained still.
Briallyn didn’t look up as she continued, flipping the parchment over as if it disgusted her. “He won’t pay. Can’t, really. Still, I find it irritating.”
She reached for a blade, a small, curved dagger with a bone hilt, and tossed it lightly on the floor.
Maslynna didn’t flinch and watched as it slid on the pale marble to land before her feet.
Briallyn finally looked to her. “You’ll walk there. Walk back. Alone.”
A pause.
“Think of it as a lesson. We started too strongly. Loyalty muddies the blade. Emotion blunts it. We’ll begin where you have none.”
Maslynna swallowed, jaw clenching, but her face remained empty of any emotion.
Briallyn motioned toward the blade, then back to Maslynna. “Dismissed.”
Maslynna reached for the knife. The bone hilt was cold in her hand, the blade catching the firelight as it lifted from the floor. The dagger felt heavier than it should have, reflecting the red of Briallyn’s gown back at her.
Maslynna imagined it was Briallyn’s blood that stained it.
She didn’t curtsy. Didn’t thank Briallyn for the opportunity.
She just turned and walked out.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
She walked.
The knife stayed tucked in her palm, the hilt smooth and steady.
The path through the woods was half-forgotten, the grass overgrown and rooted with twisting vines. The gown dragged in the underbrush. It wasn’t made for walking. Or for killing. Threads pulled on loose thorns, snagging like small hands trying to stop her.
Her feet moved automatically. Her body followed without thought.
Somewhere behind her, the palace disappeared into the mist.
She kept going.
Her thoughts didn’t wander.
Not until the shadows returned.
They slithered through the trees like a memory. Not Briallyn’s, not commanded, but familiar. One slipped along her collarbone. Another curled around her ankle. Testing.
She didn’t react to them.
But she let them.
And then they curled gently around her wrist, light as silk, almost apologetic. Maslynna exhaled for the first time in hours. Maybe even days.
She didn’t know if they were hers. But they weren’t Briallyn’s.
And that was enough for now.
The house was nothing more than a crooked, thatch-roofed shack, slouched at the edge of a dying wheat field.
The man who lived there stepped outside when he heard her approach. He wasn’t armed or angry. Just curious.
He was older than she expected, early to mid-seventies. Lines were carved deep around his mouth and forehead. He had kind eyes. The kind that had seen too many seasons, too many disappointments.
One hand was placed on the doorframe, the other cradling a chipped wooden bowl of stew. “Morning,” he said.
Maslynna stopped a dozen paces away. She didn’t speak.
His gaze swept over her, her worn dress, mud-caked boots, and the blade at her hip. He set the bowl down slowly.
“I don’t have anything,” he said, voice raspy. “Just me and the land. If she sent you for payment, I’ve already given what I have.”
Maslynna said nothing, the weight of the knife burning in her palm.
The man’s shoulders sagged. “Please. I can pay more next month. I just need a little time.”
Her fingers tightened around the hilt as she stalked closer.
He took half a step back. Not enough to flee, just enough to brace.
She lunged at him.
The blade came down fast. Too wide. She struck his shoulder instead of his chest, and he went down with a groan that sent bile climbing up her throat. Blood spilled, sudden and violent as she yanked the dagger free.
He didn’t cry out. Just choked. Eyes wide, he brought his hands to the wound, staggering back through the door.
“Shit,” she whispered, stumbling toward him.
She brought the blade down again, driving the knife into his chest.
He writhed. His mouth opened, trying to form words. Maybe a plea. Maybe a prayer. His blood-soaked hands gripped her shoulders as he sagged.
“I’m sorry,” she cried as she brought the blade down for the third and final time, this time on the side of his neck.
He stopped moving. His breathing rattled as he slumped to the ground.
Maslynna dropped to her knees beside his body. The rug sucked in the blood like dirt takes in water. Her breath stuttered. The smell of iron filled the room. Her shadows hung back, twitching, horrified.
His eyes were still open, vacant, as the last rattle of breath of his life left him.
She reached out, blood-soaked fingers trembling as she brushed them shut.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, the words cracking as they left her mouth.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The road curved toward the ridge, but Maslynna stepped off it.
Her boots sank into the moss between the trees, the damp earth muffling each step. Her shadows followed, cautious and hesitant, as if they weren’t sure whether to comfort or contain her.
She didn’t look at them. Just walked until the world faded.
A clearing opened between trees.
She dropped to her knees in the center of it. The crash of waves against the coastline a few yards away quieted the screaming in her mind.
The air was cool here, scented with pine and sea salt, but her skin felt feverish. Her hands braced against the ground, nails digging into the moss. The blade still hung at her hip. Her boots were still bloodstained. She could still feel the man’s warmth on her fingers, the sound of the blade piercing skin and cutting through bone.
She sucked in a breath.
“I didn’t even know him.”
Another shaky breath.
“I shouldn’t have done it.”
Her shadows shifted behind her. One coiled around her wrist.
“I didn’t want to—” Her voice broke. “I didn’t…”
But she had. Because she’d been told to. Because Briallyn owned her. Her choices. Her body.
She was still hers. And she always would be.
A flash—bright and burning—of the old man’s eyes as he died. Confused. Kind. Terrified.
Maslynna doubled over and vomited, the taste of iron burned in the back of her throat.
The moss soaked it in. Her breath sawed through her chest, sharp and ragged. The shadows drew back slightly, as if stunned.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve and didn’t move for a long time.
She hated Briallyn.
But she hated herself more.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Maslynna stood before the throne again. Clean. Dressed. Blood still dried beneath her fingernails.
Briallyn lounged, wine in hand, Jakobe nearby.
“Well,” Briallyn said, eyes glinting over the rim of her glass, “that was gruesome.”
Maslynna shifted on her feet, chin tucked to her chest.
“Jakobe said it was sloppy,” Briallyn continued. “Messy. Emotional.” A slow curve to her lips. “I liked it.”
Maslynna held still, the weight of the dagger absent from her belt but still heavy in her memory.
Briallyn stood and crossed the room with deliberate grace, stopping just a few feet away.
“You’ll leave again in three days,” she said, taking Maslynna’s chin in her hand and forcing her to meet her gaze. “You’ll go with the Autumn Court soldiers behind the Wall. In their lands. We’ll brief you before you leave.”
A pause.
“Let’s see if this obedience holds.”
Maslynna nodded once.
Briallyn looked her up and down in a final inspection, then waved a hand. “Dismissed.”
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The cell was dark. Her shadows had gone somewhere. She didn’t know where.
Maslynna sat on the edge of the cot, elbows resting on her knees, head bowed into her hands. She hadn’t expected them to return. Not again. Not after what she’d done.
But the shadows came anyway.
They slipped beneath the door like smoke. No fanfare. No warning. Just a shift in the musty air stirred her into awareness.
She looked up slowly.
They circled once. Then settled near her. One drifted close, brushing the inside of her wrist like a gentle touch.
Her throat tightened. “I didn’t think you’d come again,” she whispered. Her voice was rough, cracked from disuse.
The shadows didn’t answer. They didn’t leave.
She had an idea.
Maslynna swallowed. Hesitated. Then exhaled slowly. “I need to see you.”
The words hung in the air like a confession.
A pause. The shadows stilled.
Maslynna stared down at her hands. “Please.”
Silence again. But no rejection.
“I’m being sent out again,” she said, softer now. “Beyond the Wall. I don’t know when I’ll be sent again. Or if you’ll even be able to reach me after.”
The shadows coiled tighter, listening.
“If I don’t ask now, I’ll lose my nerve,” she whispered. “Southern ridge of Autumn Court. Dusk. In three days.”
Nothing moved. Not at first.
Then, barely audible, deep from within the shadows, his voice answered.
“I’ll be there.”
Maslynna closed her eyes.
For the first time in days, she let herself breathe.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
“You can walk from here,” Azriel said flatly as he pulled them from his shadows. “The castle is just over a mile southeast.”
Maslynna stared at him and raked a hand through her windswept hair, staring down at the dirt-streaked forest floor. “And what am I supposed to tell her when I arrive alone?”
Azriel shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.” He paused and cast a hard glare at her. “You remember what I told you?”
She gave him a look. “Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
Azriel didn’t answer. He just watched her with that unblinking calm that felt like judgment.
Maslynna crossed her arms. “I still don’t understand how you think this is going to work.”
“It’s simple. Our shadows can communicate. They’ll carry messages between us.” His voice was cool, measured. “You just need to uphold your part or—“
“Or you’ll make me regret not slitting my own throat,” she cut in. “I remember.”
“Good.”
A beat passed. Then he asked, quieter now, “Is there anything else you can remember? About why she sent you out there?”
Maslynna’s jaw clenched. “No. I told you everything. She wanted to test my powers. To see what I’d do when left in a place like that. Said there was something lost. A possession of hers, and that I’d know it when I found it.”
Azriel’s eyes narrowed. “And I’m supposed to believe she didn’t tell you what you were looking for?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “How else would she know if I could truly find it? If she told me exactly what to look for, it wouldn’t be a test, would it?”
Azriel didn’t respond at first. Just stared, weighing her words. “And the other queens have abandoned her?”
Maslynna nodded.
“I want to know anything and everything,” he said, his voice as sharp and lethal as the blade strapped to his back.
“I know,” she muttered. “Can I go now?”
A chilled wind wound through the skeletal trees, the scent of moss and wet bark curling around them. The sky was a dull bruise of early morning gray, clouds stretched thin as parchment, and the only sound was the quiet, expectant hush of the forest holding its breath.
He lifted a hand and pointed towards the trees. Maslynna didn’t wait.
Her boots crunched over frost-bitten earth as she turned without another word, vanishing between the pines like a wraith loosed back into the wild. The wind tugged at her hair. Her shadows didn’t rise to meet her. They dragged behind her like a cloak.
She didn’t look back.
But he didn’t winnow away either.
Azriel stood still for a long moment, shadows coiling at his feet as he watched her go, measuring the weight of the gamble he’d made.
Then he stepped backward into the dark.
Not to help her.
To watch.
If she ran, he would lose nothing. But if she returned… he might finally have eyes inside that palace.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The forest was too quiet.
Maslynna walked with her arms locked over her ribs. The dirt beneath her boots was soft and uneven, still damp from the night’s mist, and every root seemed to rise intent on tripping her.
Maslynna didn’t stumble. Not even as her body screamed with each motion, bruises blooming under her ribs, her wrists aching where the manacles had sat too tightly. Her legs were sore from the hike through the bog, from the fight, from the fucking interrogation he’d put her through.
The air hung thick and cold, but her skin burned, not from the chill, but from the echo of Azriel’s voice.
He hadn’t even looked back when he left her.
No warning. No reassurance. Just silence and shadow and that infuriating calm of his, like she was a tool placed back on the shelf after use.
She curled her fingers into fists and kept walking.
Her shadows had been quiet since the moment they left. Not absent, just hushed. Subdued. Like they, too, had been chastened. Like they didn’t know what to say to her anymore.
The wind whispered through the branches above, and the faintest orange glow began to touch the horizon, bleeding between the trunks in quiet streaks. She smelled distant smoke, someone’s hearth fire, maybe. A reminder that the world didn’t stop turning just because she had been ripped apart.
He was just like the rest of them. Sharp. Distant. Measured down to a breath. She was expendable, and he hadn’t bothered to pretend otherwise.
She knew only a fool wouldn’t be terrified of him, but she was too angry at how easily he read her to care. She felt like a fool.
Her shadows curled tighter at her ankles, sensing the heat rising under her skin.
She kicked at a root, hard. The jolt shot up her leg, but it gave her something solid to feel.
“Why the bog? What were you sent to find?” he had asked her while she was still chained to the chair in his dungeons.
“Why were you at the bog, too?” she asked back, her voice dripping with venom.
His questions replayed in her head, looping through her thoughts like a fraying thread. She hated that they lingered. Hated it more that she hadn’t lied.
Not entirely, anyway.
Briallyn hadn’t said what the object was, only that it was lost, that Maslynna would know it when she saw it. A test. A trap.
She thought of the crown. That odd, gleaming thing Briallyn had worn the week before. New, sharp-edged. It felt wrong, somehow. She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, just more finery to distract from a decaying face.
But now…
Maslynna’s stomach twisted.
No. Queens wore crowns. Briallyn had a dozen of them. It didn’t mean anything.
Let Azriel chase ghosts if he wanted. She didn’t owe him pieces she didn’t understand. Not after that dungeon. Not after he’d pushed her right to the brink and then walked away as if none of it mattered. Still…
Our shadows can communicate.
He’d said it like a tactic. But something in the tone, low, quiet, almost reluctant, stayed with her.
Her shadows certainly hadn’t minded his. They had whispered her name to him. They had followed his voice before they ever followed hers. Now, they wrapped lightly around her fingers.
Maslynna shoved the thought away.
Through the trees, the palace rose, jagged and cold. Familiar in all the worst ways.
She squared her shoulders and walked toward it. She would lie. She would survive.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
She didn’t make it ten steps past the castle gates before they came for her.
Two of Briallyn’s guards, faces blank as always, fell into step beside her and turned down a narrow corridor. Maslynna didn’t ask where they were going.
She already knew.
Briallyn’s private chamber was warm, too warm. Fire crackled low in the hearth, casting shadows across the stone walls. The scent of spiced wine hung in the air like perfume. It was meant to put her at ease.
It didn’t.
The queen sat in her usual high-back chair, one elbow resting on the armrest, a single finger tracing the rim of her glass.
“Well,” she said, voice smooth as oil. “You’re early.”
Maslynna stopped just inside the door, posture steady. “The mission was cut short.”
“Mm.” Briallyn lifted her glass to her lips. “Pity you didn’t come back with what I sent you to fetch.”
“No,” Maslynna said calmly. “The Bog was empty.”
Briallyn’s gaze slid toward her. “And the others?”
Maslynna hesitated just long enough to sell it.
“Dead,” she said. “Most of them were taken by the creature in the water. Others died when two Illyrians showed up. I was able to save a few.”
Briallyn’s expression didn’t change, but the tension in the room shifted.
“Illyrians,” she said softly. “And how did you survive such a slaughter?”
“My shadows warned me,” Maslynna answered. “I covered myself and a few others in shadow so we wouldn’t be seen.”
A pause.
Briallyn rose from her seat, moving like a serpent as she approached. “And do tell, where are those Autumn Court soldiers you saved?”
“I killed them when we arrived back on the continent,” she said confidently. “I thought it best—”
“You’ve grown clever,” she murmured, circling Maslynna. “But not so clever that you brought me what I asked for.”
“There was nothing to find.”
Briallyn said nothing. She walked to a side table and picked something up.
The crown.
The queen examined it thoughtfully before placing it on her head. “No matter,” she said. “You’ll be sent out again soon. Stronger this time, I hope. Smarter. Less… expendable.”
Briallyn turned back and studied her for a long moment, then she smiled. “You may go. Rest. I’ll call on you when you’re ready to be of use again.”
Maslynna bowed stiffly and left the room.
She didn’t exhale until the door was shut behind her.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The gates to the dungeons creaked with a groan that made her teeth ache. The firelight flickered unnaturally bright against the stone. The rugs muffled her steps, as if trying to erase her presence.
She passed servants who didn’t look up. They never did.
But someone was waiting for her in the cell she called home.
Ada stood just inside the archway, her arms crossed loosely, eyes darting up the moment she appeared.
Maslynna tried to speak but couldn’t find the words.
Ada blinked, taking in her torn clothes, bruising, and the blood smudged on her neck. “What happened?”
“Failed mission,” Maslynna muttered, brushing past her.
She didn’t mean to sit, but her legs gave out the second she reached the bed.
Ada sat beside her slowly, the air between them heavy. Somewhere down the hall, a drop of water splashed against the cool stone floor.
Maslynna didn’t look at her. Just stared into the torch, watching the flames curl and collapse.
“I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” Ada said quietly.
Maslynna only shrugged. “Plans changed.”
A silence fell. Not strained, just final.
Ada reached out and took Maslynna’s hand. Her fingers were always cold, but her grip was firm. Grounding. It made something in Maslynna’s chest twitch.
She didn’t deserve this.
“You look like death,” Ada muttered.
“Thanks,” Maslynna rasped. “It’s always good to feel welcome.”
Ada reached under the cot and pulled out a tray. “What the hell happened?”
Maslynna shook her head, too tired to lie. “Later.”
“No,” Ada said, grabbing her arm. “Now. You’re not bleeding, are you?”
“Only internally.”
Ada swatted at her arm lightly. “That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be,” she said with a hint of a smile.
Ada bustled around the chamber like a storm in a teacup, fetching a warm cloth, a jar of ointment, and a tiny bowl of soup she must have bribed from the kitchen staff for.
Maslynna let her.
“You fuss too much,” she muttered as Ada knelt in front of her, taking her hands and dabbing at a cracked knuckle.
“You almost died on a mission in Prythian. Let me fuss.”
Maslynna swallowed a cough back. “That’s not confirmed.”
“You’re limping.”
“You’re dramatic.”
“And you’re a liar,” Ada said, but her voice was gentle. “Did you eat anything out there?”
Maslynna didn’t answer.
Ada sighed, reached behind her, and pressed a piece of dried fruit into her palm. “Chew. Or I swear I’ll start crying.”
She didn’t deserve this.
Not from Ada. Not from anyone.
“You know,” Maslynna said, voice barely more than a breath, “You’re the only one here who sees me like I’m still… me.”
Ada’s brows furrowed as she dabbed the cloth against Maslynna’s forehead. “Because you are.”
“No,” Maslynna said softly. “I don’t think I am.”
She squeezed Ada’s hand once. Then let go. “There was something in the Bog.”
Ada didn’t interrupt. Just kept gently wiping down her arms and pressing the warmth into her skin with careful hands.
“I don’t know what it was. It didn’t have a face, not really. But it spoke.” Maslynna’s throat tightened. “It used your voice. And my mother’s.”
Ada’s hands stilled.
Maslynna looked down. “It said things only the two of you would know. Secrets. Memories. I think… I think it was trying to get inside my head.”
When she didn’t go on, Ada reached up and carefully began untangling Maslynna’s hair with her fingers.
“I hated it,” Maslynna whispered. “Not just because it was terrifying. But because… it knew where to hurt me. And I was alone.”
“You’re not alone now,” Ada said.
Maslynna nodded, biting her cheek.
They stayed there in silence. Ada brushed through her hair in long, slow strokes, her breath warm against the back of Maslynna’s neck.
“You’re warm again,” Ada murmured. “You always get cold when you’re scared.”
Maslynna didn’t answer.
“I’m glad you came back.”
This time, she did. “So am I.”
Ada smiled against her shoulder. “I’ll fix you tea. The mint one.”
“Your tea tastes like weeds.”
“It is weeds,” she grunted.
Maslynna huffed and closed her eyes. “Just let me sit like this for a while.”
And Ada did. No questions. No rush.
Just warmth, steady and quiet, the kind you don’t realize you’re starving for until someone wraps it around you.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Maslynna didn’t remember falling asleep.
One moment, Ada had been brushing out the last tangles of her hair, muttering about how she was half-wolf with the way she matted when left unattended. The fire was low, the room warm, and Maslynna had been full, not just from food, but from the kind of care she’d forgotten how to receive.
She remembered Ada’s weight shifting beside her on the bed, a soft hum, and the smell of the mint balm still lingering on her skin.
Then sleep.
Her dream was quiet. Her mother’s voice humming, Ada laughing in the background. It felt like being held, like someone had pressed her into a memory just to give her a moment of peace.
Then—
A hand on her shoulder. Firm.
Maslynna startled awake, body stiff and confused.
The room was dim but still warm. The fire had burned lower, and the blanket she didn’t remember curling into was now half off her legs.
A guard stood beside her, hand retracting. Another waited near the door.
“Her Majesty summons you,” the first one said.
Maslynna blinked, throat dry. “What time is it?”
Neither answered.
She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes. Her limbs ached, but not like before, just sleep-heavy. She looked around the room, brow furrowed.
Ada was gone.
“Where is—”
The guard didn’t answer, gesturing toward the hall.
Maslynna stood with a sigh, pushing her hair back. “Fine. I’m coming.”
The throne room was too quiet.
Not the charge of quiet tension, but the sort that sank into the stone: dense, suffocating. The fire crackled low in the hearth, casting long shadows across the checkered marble. The tapestries along the walls barely stirred. Even the guards, posted like statues at the doors, seemed dulled by the weight of the silence.
Maslynna entered slowly, sleep still clinging to her. Her bare feet barely made a sound on the cold floor. She hadn’t been given time to change, still dressed in the thin shift she wore to sleep, her hair unbound and damp where it clung to her neck. She felt vulnerable. Exposed.
Briallyn stood at the base of her throne, hands clasped, smile poised.
“Good,” she said. “You’re awake.”
Maslynna stopped several feet away. Her mouth was dry. “Why am I here?”
“I’ve been reviewing your training,” Briallyn said, stepping closer, voice pleasant. “You’ve come far. You survived the Bog. Your power is growing.”
A beat passed.
“But you’re still missing something.”
Maslynna tensed.
“You don’t know how to kill.”
Her stomach churned. “I killed those Autumn Court soldiers. I can kill.”
The queen smiled sadly at her. “I don’t believe you.”
Maslynna’s mouth went dry at the words.
“I’ve watched you hesitate,” Briallyn went on. “You flinch. You falter. It’s time to fix that.”
She lifted a hand, and the doors slid open.
Two guards stepped through, dragging someone between them.
Maslynna’s breath caught.
Ada.
Kneeling at the foot of the dais, hands bound behind her back. Blood smeared along her cheek. Her head hung low, hair matted. But she looked up when Maslynna stepped closer, and even now, she smiled.
It broke something inside her.
“What—what is this?” Maslynna demanded, eyes darting from Ada to Briallyn.
Briallyn didn’t answer. She just turned and accepted the blade from a waiting guard.
She held it out, grip-first, to Maslynna.
“Kill her.”
Maslynna couldn’t move. It felt as if she were frozen in place. That her entire body had turned to ice.
“Prove you’re not soft.”
The air thinned. Her shadows hissed at her heels.
“She’s a weakness,” Briallyn said, voice like silk. “Yours. Which makes her a threat to me.”
Maslynna’s voice trembled. “This isn’t—this isn’t a test.”
Briallyn smiled. “No. This is an order.”
Ada knelt tall before her, despite the fear in her eyes. She blinked once, tears spilling down her cheeks, and nodded.
Maslynna’s heart cracked.
Ada whispered. “I’ll be okay.”
Maslynna shook her head. She couldn’t catch her breath.
Ada’s voice broke. “You’ll be okay, Maslynna. Do it.”
The sword was suddenly in her hands. She didn’t remember taking it.
Everything else fell away. The fire. The guards. Briallyn.
Only Ada.
Ada, with tears on her cheeks, and yet, she was still somehow smiling at her. Like this was okay.
Maslynna raised the sword. Her arms were shaking. Her breath came in short, shallow bursts, eyes closed tight.
And as she brought it down—
She let go.
The sword clattered against the stone floor, the sound sharp and final in the stillness.
Ada flinched.
Maslynna stared at her empty hands, chest heaving, eyes wide in disbelief at what she’d nearly done.
Briallyn didn’t blink.
Ada’s face changed, the smile fading into something softer. Not angry. Not betrayed.
Sad.
And still full of love. Still Ada.
Briallyn sighed, slow and quiet, like the ending of a performance. “Jakobe.”
Maslynna’s head snapped at his movement. “No—“ she choked. “No, please—“ she begged, stepping in front of him.
Jakobe stepped forward, already drawing his sword, shoving Maslynna aside. His footsteps made no sound against the stone.
Ada didn’t so much as glance at the general as he came to stand in front of her.
Maslynna crawled to the general, pleading for him to stop this. She stood on trembling feet, reaching for him, for his blade, when Ada called Maslynna’s name, stilling her.
Her eyes remained on Maslynna, locked and steady. “I still see you,” she whispered.
Something inside her shattered.
The blade fell in slow motion.
One second, Ada was there. Breathing. Smiling up at Maslynna. Alive.
A second later, she was dead. Her head hit the ground, rolling once before settling just inches from Maslynna’s feet.
Maslynna fell to her knees.
It wasn’t a collapse. It was a surrender.
Her palms hit the floor, her body swaying forward. A sound clawed its way up her throat, but it wasn’t a sob. It wasn’t anything human.
Her shadows curled tight around her like mourning cloth, wrapping her in silence.
Briallyn’s voice cut through the haze, unbothered. “You hesitated. And you lost.”
Maslynna didn’t lift her head.
“Take the body,” Briallyn said to the guards. “Leave the head.” She turned, voice silk soft. “For reflection. And for motivation.”
Then she climbed the steps to her throne and sat.
Behind her, the guards dragged Ada’s body away with uncaring hands.
Maslynna didn’t stop them. Couldn’t stop them. She just sat there.
Knees soaked in blood. Hands shaking. Staring down at what remained of the only person left who ever made her feel safe in that cursed place.
The throne room was quiet once more.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
She didn’t know how long she’d been in the cell.
Time passed in fragments, torchlight and darkness, footsteps and silence. The tray of food had long since spoiled. The air was cold and close.
Maslynna hadn’t spoken since that day in the throne room.
Her body ached. Her stomach twisted from hunger. But she didn’t move. Not for the guards. Not for the book Kian had left. Not even when her shadows brushed gently against her wrists, trying to coax her to breathe.
She didn’t want to breathe. Not if Ada couldn’t.
Azriel’s message came that night.
She felt it before it came. The way the air changed. The way her own shadows shifted.
She sat up slowly, weak and sore. And then, the question formed. His words echoed through her shadows, threading through her like a string pulled taut.
What’s going on? There’s been no word from you since that day, the shadows asked.
Maslynna’s lips parted. Her throat worked. She stared at the floor.
The shadows waited.
Her breath hitched. Then broke.
The words scraped up her throat like broken glass cutting its way free. “Briallyn killed her,” she said.
She blinked once. Twice. And then it hit her. Not with a scream. Not with a sob. Just a tremor in her chest, sharp and sudden.
Her arms curled around her knees. Her forehead dropped to the stone.
She cried like something inside her had split open.
The shadows didn’t leave. They stayed. Quiet. Watching.
And when they finally moved again, coiling gently around her like they were trying, in their own way, to hold her together.
The mask was safe, Azriel told himself. Safeguarded by the Inner Circle, hidden from mortal hands. For now, that was enough.
What Azriel couldn’t figure out was where the female had come from.
The group had disbanded, Cassian steering Nesta away with the excuse that she needed rest. Azriel, though, stayed behind, leaning against the wall as Rhysand paced, deep in thought. He debated telling Rhys about her, the shadow-wielding female who shouldn’t exist. A High Fae working for Briallyn, with power that felt… familiar.
He remembered the way his shadows had tugged at him mid-flight, urgent, relentless, pulling him lower through the fog until the world sharpened into focus– until he saw her.
Inexperienced, he thought. But he had to give it to her; she stood her ground when he moved toward her. Still, bravery meant nothing without training.
“Azriel?” Rhysand asked, pausing in front of him. “Is there something else?”
He kept his expression cool. “No,” he said, shaking his head, pushing off the wall. “Just thinking about what the kelpie said.” There was no reason to tell Rhysand now, not when there were still too many unanswered questions.
No, he would tell him when he could answer more questions than Rhysand could ask.
Rhysand nodded. “I need you to watch them, Azriel,” he said calmly. “But I need you to do it at a distance. I can’t risk you falling under the same spell as those men.”
Azriel’s reply was curt. “Understood. I’ll be careful,” he said, voice rough. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
Then he turned and let the shadows take him.
He winnowed back into the Bog of Oorid, the atmosphere worse than before now that he knew what sort of creatures lurked beneath its waters.
He hovered overhead, scanning the area, but the female was gone, and there was no trace of her behind the fallen tree where she had crouched in fear.
Find her, he said to his shadows.
They didn’t hesitate.
South, they whispered. She went south.
Azriel launched from the ground with a powerful sweep of his wings, the humid air clinging to his skin as he soared upward, cutting through the mist, disappearing into the clouds.
It wasn’t until nearly dawn that he found her. She was huddled in a cave on the border between The Middle and Winter Court.
Azriel eased into a crouch, Truth-Teller sliding soundlessly from its sheath as he crept towards the cave’s mouth, each step calculated, silent.
Frost clung to the cave walls.
Her shadows didn’t stir.
She didn’t know he was there. Not yet.
“Found you,” he growled, his words as cold as the ice around them, fist tightening on the hilt of his sword.
The female jolted up, an Autumn Court sword in hand, as she lunged for him. Azriel blocked the attack and used her momentum to drive a black-leathered boot into the center of her stomach.
She let out a sharp groan as her body flew backward, slamming into a jagged rock jutting from the cave wall.
Azriel walked farther into the cave at a leisurely pace, watching as she collapsed onto the cavern floor, one arm wrapped protectively around her stomach.
The female panted as she turned her face toward him, eyes sharp as daggers, teeth gritted.
With shaking knees, she forced herself to stand, dragging the now broken sword to rest on her shoulder. Then she lunged, again.
Azriel stepped aside, easily dodging her strike. Her speed was raw, her movements predictable.
He caught the dulled blade with a gloved hand and tossed it towards the cave’s mouth as he stalked deeper into the cave.
Her face faltered, just for a moment. Disbelief flickered across her features before her eyes narrowed and her upper lip curled into a snarl.
He loomed over her now, his shadows stretched wide, brushing both sides of the cave wall. He swept his eyes over her, analyzing every detail: how she braced her weight on her left side, how her breathing hitched when she shifted her ribs, and how the skin beneath her jaw bloomed with a fading handprint bruise.
His eyes narrowed.
Her shadows didn’t move.
But she did.
She surged forward in a blur of motion, ducking low as Azriel braced his arms for impact. Her foot swept his legs from under him, and he hit the stone with a grunt.
She darted past, but he caught her ankle, yanking her down with him. She clawed at him blindly, her elbow driving hard into his stomach as she writhed from his grip.
Pain flared through his chest, stealing the air from his lungs. Not from the blow. From something else. Something sharp and foreign and far too deep to be physical.
It tore through him like lightning down the spine.
His eyes widened.
He rolled onto his stomach, crawling after her when her foot slammed into the side of his jaw. He caught her leg on instinct, locking it in a vice grip as his wings flared wide and shadows swallowed them both.
When they reappeared, they stood in the dungeons beneath Hewn City, Azriel’s head spinning.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
It was easy enough to chain her to the chair in the dungeon, as she seemed to be in a daze. With the final click of the cuffs, Azriel went to his workbench, lifting a tool to the light and examining it.
“It’s warded,” he said as he heard her stir. “So don’t bother trying to escape. You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”
She raised her eyes, watching as he sharpened one of the knives and ran a finger slowly along the blade. “Are you going to kill me?” she asked sharply.
“That depends entirely on you,” he said coolly, still facing away from her. Then he turned and walked back to the female in the chair. “I have questions,” he said, voice low, steady. “And you have answers.”
The female didn’t respond. Her eyes locked on his, filled with hatred he had only ever seen in his own reflection.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She did not answer him. She only cut her eyes at him like she could draw blood with them.
Azriel circled the chair slowly, his boots echoing softly against the stone floor. His shadows slithered around him like smoke given sentience. Restless. Agitated by her presence. Or by her shadows.
“Shadow got your tongue?” he asked from behind her chair.
He noticed her hands gripping the skirts of her dress, the soil-stained fabric dark with mud.
There was something about this female that seemed so familiar. He remembered watching her as the Autumn Court arrived at Briallyn’s castle, but no, there was something else to it he was trying to place.
He wasn’t sure if the pull in his chest was magic or something far more dangerous. Either way, it didn’t matter.
“Fine.” He stopped just behind her, voice quiet and cutting. “What are you?”
The female didn’t flinch. She turned her head just enough to glare at him from over her shoulder. “What does it look like?” she spat.
He resumed pacing, each step deliberate. “How did you do it?” he asked. “How did you steal the shadows?”
She tracked him, her shadows coiling tight around her like a snake ready to strike. “I didn’t steal them,” she sneered. “I was born with them.”
He sneered back. “Then why did you try to take mine? I felt you pulling with everything you had.”
She squared her shoulders. “I didn’t know they were yours.” Her voice was lazy and dismissive. “I thought they were mine.”
“Liar.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe if they were loyal, they wouldn’t have come to me,” she said, voice like a knife in the dark.
Azriel stilled, his shadows recoiled, tightening against his spine.
But hers? Hers were now reaching for him. Tendrils of smoky darkness curled across the floor, whispering toward him. Not attacking. Just… seeking.
He didn’t miss it.
“They’re reaching for me. Even now.” His voice was low, unreadable. “Why?”
Her shadows twitched, caught in the act. Then they snapped back to her like children scolded, curling tightly around her limbs.
She shrugged off the unease, letting a cocky smirk rise to her lips. “Maybe it’s because you look so appealing.”
Azriel’s expression didn’t change.
“What?” she added, mockingly. “Not a fan of flattery?”
He stepped closer, the blade in his hand raised to her throat. “I’m not interested in games.”
“Good,” she said, cool and level. “I’m not playing one.”
Azriel’s gaze didn’t leave hers. “Where are you from?”
She leaned back in the chair, the chains rattling with the movement. “Here. There.” She shrugged. “Around.”
He didn’t smile. Azriel didn’t mind his job. He had been good at it, really. Separating himself enough to extract information without letting comments, snide remarks, or lies get to him.
But something about this female irked him so thoroughly that he felt he was losing his restraint.
It didn’t help that she was annoyingly mouthy. But there was something he was missing. It was there, right in front of his face.
He scanned the female from head to toe, cataloging everything he saw.
Dark brown hair that had a hint of lavender in the light, pointed ears poking through the loose curls. Tan skin dulled by exhaustion. Her pale blue dress stood in stark contrast to her vivid eyes.
Azriel’s gaze sharpened as it came to him.
One of Briallyn’s ladies-in-waiting.
He had watched her that afternoon, when she and her court returned from some outing. The only kind one amongst the crowd.
What had happened to her since then?
“You aren’t from Prythian, Maslynna,” he said slowly.
That made her blink, just once. Barely a flinch–but he saw it.
He knew he couldn’t reveal too much yet. If he continued to poke rather than pry, she might be more likely to slip and give up information.
“You can’t fight,” he continued, voice like ice. “Not well enough to have come from anywhere dangerous."
Her jaw tightened. Just slightly. “I seem to remember knocking you off your feet.”
Azriel’s eyes darkened.
“And getting a hit in,” she added with a mock-sweet tone. “Right in the ribs. Or was it higher? I was aiming for your smug face.”
His shadows writhed. He didn’t move, not yet, but something colder entered the room. Not power. Not rage. Just a steel-forged, simmering irritation.
“You were lucky,” he said flatly.
“Or maybe,” she said, tilting her head, “you’re not as good as your reputation.”
Azriel didn’t speak. He clutched the blade's hilt in his gloved hand tightly. She knew exactly how to provoke him.
The silence stretched, and her grin began to fade.
Then he laughed. Low. Dark.
“So tell me,” he said, voice like a blade unsheathing. “What do you know of my reputation?”
Maslynna tilted her head, feigning thought. “I know you serve Rhysand.” Her tone was all teeth. “High Lord of the Night Court. Your master.”
Azriel said nothing.
“I know you’re his little lap dog. His blade. The one he sends to do his dirty work when he’s too busy playing diplomat.” She smiled. “You and that giant oaf you run with.”
His shadows stirred, coiling tight.
Azriel took a step closer.
“Is that what your queen told you?”
Maslynna’s facade broke at that. She recovered it quickly enough that anyone else might have missed it. But not Azriel.
“I saw you spying on the Autumn Court the day they arrived. You’re not as good a spy as you think you are.”
She rolled her eyes. “And you’re not as subtle as you think you are.”
“You’re working for Briallyn.”
She didn’t confirm it. Didn’t deny it. Just tilted her head. “Is that what this is? An interrogation?”
Azriel didn’t blink. “It’s a warning.”
Maslynna’s lips curled. “Do you threaten all your enemies, or am I just special?”
“You’re not special,” he said flatly. “You’re dangerous. And reckless. And I’m trying to decide if you’re stupid, too.”
She laughed, sharp and humorless. “That’s rich, coming from the male I knocked on his ass.”
Azriel waited.
Maslynna leaned forward as far as she could. “That kick looked like it hurt.”
Azriel’s eyes didn’t leave hers. His shadows didn’t still. They coiled tighter, drawing closer to his body like blades being sheathed, waiting.
“You think that hurt?” His voice was soft. Flat. “I could show you something that would hurt.”
Her grin didn’t fade. If anything, it sharpened. “Is that what you do? Torture girls who get the better of you?”
“No,” Azriel said simply. “Just liars. Spies. Traitors.”
She sat back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other like she was settling in for a story. “You forgot ‘mouthy’.”
He tilted his head slightly. “You think this is funny?”
“I think you’re used to people breaking faster than I do.”
His shadows slid forward across the floor, not lunging, not striking. Just reminding her they were there.
“I don’t need to break you,” he said. “Just bend you enough to talk.”
Maslynna snorted, eyes gleaming. “You walk around like a legend, but you bleed like everyone else.”
He didn’t move.
“Spymaster. Shadowsinger. Wraith.” She said the titles like they were theater props. “But in the end, I knocked you down like anyone else.”
“You’re still in my interrogation chamber.”
Maslynna’s eyes sharpened for a heartbeat before softening, and that forced playful smile returned. “But if you were really that good…” she tilted her head. “Wouldn’t you have figured out who I was before now?”
His shadows shifted, low and slow, like smoke curling around a blade.
“Maybe,” she went on, “you’re not that good of a spymaster either.”
Still, he didn’t move. But the stillness was worse.
“You’re pretty bad at this interrogation thing, by the way.” She added. “We’ve been talking for how long now? And you still don’t know anything about me.”
Azriel didn’t react. Didn’t speak, at first.
Then, quietly, almost to himself: “You fight like someone who’s never held a real weapon before this year.”
He saw her smile twitch.
“Your stance is wrong. Your guard’s too open. You move like someone who was taught by mortals.” His gaze narrowed. “Or not at all.”
She said nothing.
So he kept going, voice even, clinical. “You said you were born with the shadows. But I would’ve heard of you long before now if that were true.” A beat. “Someone like you doesn’t stay hidden.”
Maslynna’s fingers twitched where they rested on her thigh.
“So either you’ve been locked away…” he stepped closer. “Or the shadows are new.”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t blink.
And Azriel smiled. “That’s what I thought.”
Maslynna didn’t speak. But she blinked, once, and her shadows twitched, recoiling ever so slightly, like they wanted to drag the truth back into her chest before it slipped out.
That was all he needed.
Azriel’s voice stayed quiet. Measured. “You weren’t born with them.” He circled the chair again. “They came to you recently. Months ago, maybe.”
Still, she said nothing.
“You’re untrained. You don’t know how to use them. Not like I do.”
His shadows moved in a slow circle around her chair, watching her the way he was, as if they were tracking prey and waiting for her next twitch.
“You’ve got power. But it’s not rooted. It doesn’t obey you yet.” He cocked his head. “And you’re terrified someone’s going to notice that.”
Maslynna’s jaw was clenched now, but she still didn’t speak.
She didn’t have to.
Azriel’s voice dipped even lower, almost thoughtful now. “Which means something gave them to you.”
He watched her for any tells. Nothing. Silence.
“You were Made.”
Her fists clenched, and he could feel the truth straining behind her silence.
Her shadows tightened like a noose, writhing beneath her skin, not in fear, not in panic. In fury.
Her hands shook against the arms of the chair, knuckles pale. Her breathing stayed even, but her eyes, gods, her eyes burned.
Azriel watched the shift with quiet precision.
She hated that he was right. Hated that he’d seen it without her giving a damn thing away. Hated that part of her wanted to scream, and couldn’t.
And so she said nothing. She just stared at him, jaw locked tight, as if silence could still be a weapon.
Azriel let the silence stretch. He didn’t press. Didn’t falter. Just watched as her entire body tensed with restrained rage.
The rage reminded him of Nesta in the months after she and Elain were Made. How they had both nearly been destroyed learning how to live with it. How they were still learning to live with it.
So he took a breath. And offered it anyway.
“I know others who were made.” His voice stayed low. Calm. “You don’t have to do this alone. Whatever she has told you is a lie.”
That broke it.
Maslynna spat right in his face. The shadows around her lashed outward for a heartbeat before collapsing back in.
Azriel remained still. Just wiped his cheek slowly, eyes never leaving hers.
She smiled. But it wasn’t a real smile. It was jagged and feral.
“You want to help?” Her voice was cold now. Razor-edged. “Kill your precious High Lord.” A breath. “And that other grunt you call a war general.” A pause. “Then fall on your own damn blade.”
Her words hung there, sharp in the silence between them.
Azriel watched her for a heartbeat. For one brief moment, a flicker in his gut, a tightness in his chest, something twisted.
Not anger. Not quite pity. Something else.
It coiled around his ribs, heavy and wrong, dragging behind every breath like a chain.
But he shoved it down.
Because what he saw in front of him, the venom in her voice, the pride in her defiance, it wasn’t survival. It was willful.
And it made him sick. He hated what it stirred in him–because she had made her choice.
He just stared at her, the weight in his chest coiled so tightly it might crack his ribs. But he refused to name it, refused to even acknowledge it.
Because she made her choice.
“I should kill you on the spot for what you’ve just said.” His voice was low and even. “But unfortunately for both of us, I have use for you.”
Maslynna didn’t gloat. Just stared back at him, her shadows wrapping tighter around her like a second skin.
Are you scared yet? His shadows whispered to hers.
Her face paled a shade in answer.
Azriel’s shadows stirred in quiet satisfaction, even as dread coiled low in his gut
“How?” She asked.
Azriel shrugged. “A hunch.” His tone never shifted. Still quiet. Still in control. “You’re going to tell me what’s happening in that palace. Everything Briallyn says. Everything she does.”
She turned her chin up at him in defiance. “And if I don’t?” The question came out smug and sharp.
A pause.
Then, quietly, “if you don’t…” He stepped closer, his voice softening to something far more dangerous. “I’ll make sure you regret it.” He leaned in enough for his breath to caress her ear like the blade he held to her throat. “That you didn’t slit your own throat in the Bog of Oorid when you had the chance.”
It had only been a few days since the Autumn Court had visited Briallyn in the mortal realm when Maslynna was summoned away from her library session with Kian.
The older man waved a feeble hand to her as she stalked out of the dimly lit room, his robes and fingertips stained in black ink. He had always been warm to her as a child, staying up late to tell her bedtime stories when sleep evaded her.
Maslynna entered the throne room, shadows swooping beneath her skirts as she walked towards the dais.
The queen was pacing, her gown a rich shade of purple, flowing elegantly just shy of the floor. Her grey hair was curled, and a thin, elegant crown was perched perfectly on her head. Maslynna noticed the beauty of it, the first layer of white gold, which was encrusted with diamonds. The points at the top alternated between tall and short, similarly cut diamonds set in clusters of three at each tip.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Briallyn snapped as she paced.
Maslynna cleared her throat. “My apologies, I was with scholar Kian. We were going over—”
“If I wanted to know,” Briallyn hissed, barreling down the steps to stand toe-to-toe with Maslynna. “I would have asked. I didn’t call you here to make small talk.”
Maslynna looked towards the crown again, a faint thrumming in her chest. She felt the shadows glide over her spine, their whispering touch soft and cooling. “Apologies,” Maslynna said. “Again.”
Briallyn eyed her haughtily before tsking. “I have need of you,” she said, walking back towards her throne and plopping down. The crown atop her aged head did not move. “Let’s call it another test. I have lost a prized possession, and I need you to retrieve it.”
Not hers, the shadows whispered.
Maslynna nodded. “Of course, your grace.”
Briallyn examined her nails. “I have ordered some of the Autumn Court’s men to accompany you, to ensure your safety, of course.”
Maslynna tilted her head slightly. “Why would I need Autumn Court soldiers?”
Briallyn grinned—a wolf's smile.
“Dear me,” she said lightly. “Did I forget to tell you this test will take you above the wall? In Prythian? No? Must have slipped my mind.”
Prythian?
Maslynna felt her stomach sink. Kian must have known. Today’s lesson had focused entirely on the differences between Marinth and the island to the west.
Briallyn was smiling to herself when she noticed Maslynna’s expression, her face souring. “This isn’t going to be a problem for you, is it?”
“No,” Maslynna could taste the lie herself as it rolled from her tongue, but she forced herself to give a polite nod. “Of course not.”
“You will, of course, have to leave rather immediately. The journey to The Middle is quite far,” the queen said in feigned dejection. “I have asked some of the men to transport you there and back. Once you retrieve my lost item, simply tell them you would like to return and they will bring you back.”
It waits, her shadows sang—low and warped, like breath through water.
“And don’t even think of trying to get information out of them,” Briallyn added sweetly. “They know this is a test and have been ordered not to help in any way. Do you understand, Maslynna?”
“Of course,” she said, giving a bow before turning on her heel to leave.
Maslynna kept her pace even, despite the urge to run. She had heard stories of what lay beyond The Wall, the sort of creatures that feasted on flesh and blood.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Briallyn called out as she just reached the double doors.
Maslynna schooled her face to indifference before turning back to her queen.
“I hope you haven’t forgotten our little promise?”
Her shadows slid around the nearly healed scar on Maslynna’s palm as Briallyn removed her glove and revealed the matching scar across her own hand.
“Do not fail me, Maslynna.”
Maslynna clenched her jaw as a sense of dread washed over her. She forced herself to curtsy once more, a well-manicured and soft smile on her face. “Of course, your grace.”
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
It had taken a week of walking for Maslynna and the men of Autumn Court to reach The Middle, where Briallyn had ordered her to seek out an object.
Maslynna had been very disoriented, and it had taken a few hours into the journey for her to realize she was no longer on the continent. As time had passed, she realized she had been drugged with something in the wine Briallyn had toasted her off with while at dinner.
She should have known better than to drink it. But to defy Briallyn would have the queen holding her chin and forcing the poison down her throat regardless. It was apparent she did not want Maslynna to remember any of the beginning of her mission.
She didn’t know what she expected for their journey west, but it certainly hadn’t been this. The soldiers did not speak, did not eat, and she was fairly certain they did not sleep.
Sitting around a campfire, Maslynna studied a map Kian had given her before she departed. If her calculations were correct, they had just entered The Middle. The Bog of Oorid, which was marked on the map, was just another day’s journey from where they now rested.
Maslynna sighed to herself, folding the paper and sticking it back into her pocket before lying down to rest as the fog grew heavy. She watched the men then, marking how they sat around various fires absently, their eyes vacant.
She propped herself up on an elbow and jabbed a finger into the side of the soldier to her right. He turned and looked at her, but said nothing.
Something watches, her shadows whispered.
Maslynna sat up and looked around at the soldiers closely.
Not them, the shadows urged. Not men.
“I have need of you, Maslynna.” She heard the queen’s voice, far off in the distance.
Not alone, her shadows seemed to yell, scattering around her in a frenzy. Not alone.
“You look so much like her,” Ada’s voice rang out, much closer than Briallyn’s.
In the blink of an eye, the soldier to her right opened his mouth as if he were to let out a scream, as a long, webbed hand with claw-like fingers curled around him and swept him from his spot.
The rest of the soldiers were on their feet in an instant as Maslynna turned in time to see a tall, humanoid shape crush the neck of the Autumn Court soldier in a single grasp.
Maslynna reached for the dead soldier's sword as she rose to her feet. The creature stalked towards her even as the men moved for it, their swords ricocheting off its thick skin.
She stepped backward, sword raised high as the creature came into the light. Its face was a mask of holes and slits, twisted tree roots, and writhing worms where its eyes should be.
“Maslynna,” her mother's voice came from the creature.
Maslynna stumbled over exposed tree roots at the sound, falling to the ground hard as the creature loomed over her, its grey-green skin slick with damp, foul-smelling water and moss.
“I love you,” her mother's voice was warped.
Maslynna screamed as it grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off her feet, the soldiers still hacking away at the creature, but it paid them no mind, its head tilting to the side as if it were examining her.
Her shadows swarmed her, coiling down her limbs like snakes, and surged outward in a blast of rage.
The creature dropped her as it was thrown backwards, and the Autumn Court soldiers ran after it, one sword piercing a slit in the neck. Her mother's scream erupted from it. Black, thick blood bubbled from the wound, the screaming becoming more of a gurgle as the creature slowly drowned in its own blood.
“What was that thing?” she demanded from the men as they cleaned the blood from their swords.
They did not answer her. To Maslynna, it seemed as if they could not hear her. The soldiers settled back into their positions on the ground, leaving a space where the crushed soldier should be.
She gawked at them in disbelief. If the men were this unfazed by these creatures, what other monsters existed out there?
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The first thing she had noticed when they reached The Bog of Oorid was how thick the air was. The sun was high in the sky, its heat scorching as she examined the area, shadows wafting anxiously around her.
The land was rich in vegetation, but there was something off about it that she could not place.
The land is not dead, her shadows whispered. It only pretends.
Her eyebrows scrunched together as she listened, eyes darting over the still lake.
“Maybe,” she murmured to her shadows as she took in the dead, leafless trees. The ground was mostly mud and dead grass.
The atmosphere of the bog left Maslynna feeling uneasy. A low-lying mist danced over the dark, placid water a few feet away, its surface as black as ink. The silence only heightened the slushing of her feet in the mud as she took a cautious step forward. She couldn’t remember if she had even heard the call of a songbird since entering the bog, let alone see any sort of animal. The realization chilled her blood as she constantly felt like she was being watched.
Maslynna walked towards the edge of the bog despite her shadows telling her to turn back, turn back, turn back.
Swallowing the fear in her throat, she leaned over the edge of the water and stared down at her image. Her skin looked too warm, too healthy for someone kept most hours of the day indoors. Her neck appeared longer than she remembered, her lips fuller. Her eyes, which were always a crisp and vivid blue, held a spark she didn’t remember. Her shadows had told her she was beautiful, but this was the first time she had the chance to see for herself.
With a shaking hand, she tucked a strand of her dark brown hair back behind the pointed ears she often played with at night. A sinking feeling settled in her stomach at the sight. She knew what had happened to her that night—not only with the increased speed, strength, and agility, but also with the shadows—they had told her all she needed to know. But seeing it, her heart ached for herself, even as a shadow curled along the sharp angles of her face in a gentle, reassuring caress.
“Is it in the water then?” she asked the men despite knowing there would be no reply. “Alright, thanks for the help,” she muttered under her breath, dragging a hand through her hair and looking out into the swamp.
She had been searching for hours by the time she decided it was time for a break and rested against a fallen tree. She had just finished the last of her water as the sun beat down on her. She hadn’t wanted to search in the water, but seeing as there was nowhere else on land for the object to be, she knew she would have to make the plunge soon if she wanted to return to the continent.
She would rest for just a minute and then resume the search, she told herself. A gentle wind blew a cloud overhead, and the cool breeze against her hot skin raised goosebumps, sending a shiver down her spine. Then she felt it.
She sat up quickly as she noticed the faint thrumming through her body. She knew it had to be the object Briallyn had sent her to retrieve, the thrumming sensation twin to the crown Briallyn had worn.
Maslynna stood and turned in the direction she felt tugging her the hardest, and she took quick steps, the desperation of the object’s pull overwhelming her.
She raced towards the pull when she heard the men moving, unsheathing their swords and getting into their battle formation. Maslynna skidded to a stop and watched them, her eyes narrowing at the sudden shift in their stance.
Then she heard it too: a low, rhythmic beating from above.
Her shadows jolted outward, scattering in frantic, uncoordinated bursts around her.
No, they whispered. No.
Maslynna’s head snapped up just in time to see a shadow moving through the clouds, a pulse of blue growing brighter as it drew closer.
She bolted for the tree where she had left her sword and heaved it onto her shoulder.
No, her shadows cried again, louder now. Desperate.
She planted her feet in the mud, locking her knees the way Jakobe had taught her. Around her, the soldiers raised their bows, arrows drawn tight, ready to strike the moment the target came into range.
The beating of wings grew louder—then softer—as the sky fell silent once more.
Maslynna had just lowered the sword when he appeared.
He was flying low, wings outstretched, the blue beacon on his leathers glowing like a signal fire reflecting off the water. His eyes swept the swamp, sharp and calculating, his jaw set in concentration, as if he too were searching for something.
Maslynna gasped, stumbling back a step. She ducked behind the tree, heart pounding. Her shadows darted skyward, flickering with impossible speed, their whispers turning to chants.
They coiled toward the sky, moving like smoke and starlight, stretching eagerly to meet the winged male as if they had known him in a previous life.
No, stay with me, she thought, trying to draw them back.
He is ours. We are his.
A name cut through the chorus then, soft and sharp like a blade drawn in silence.
Shadowsinger.
Maslynna went cold. She had heard that name before.
The Night Court’s Spymaster and its Shadowsinger. The one who walked through walls. The one whose shadows moved on their own. And her shadows— they rejoiced in his presence.
The realization made her stomach churn.
An arrow sang through the air as it struck the male’s wing.
He grunted, twisting mid-air before slamming hard into the ground. The moment his feet hit the mud, he was already moving, faster than she thought possible. She watched, wide-eyed, as he cut through the Autumn soldiers like they were made of paper, his blade flashing, his strength unrelenting.
Her shadows danced around her, giddy with excitement. One of the shadows darting along the swamp floor caught her attention, and on instinct, she reached for it, only for it to resist her call.
She reached for the shadow again, tugging harder this time, only for it to wrench free.
The realization hit like lightning.
That wasn’t hers.
Her heart faltered.
Her breath caught again, this time sharper, as the shadow turned of its own accord, unfurling like smoke and then snapping back toward the male. And just before it did, he looked up.
He saw her.
His expression didn’t shift. No shock. No question. Just certainty. And then he stalked toward her, blade still dripping with Autumn Court blood, each step through the mud slow and deliberate.
She took a step back. Then another.
And then something fell from the sky like a comet made of blood and fury.
A second winged male hit the earth with a battle cry, his armor gleaming, sword cleaving a soldier in half before his boots had fully landed.
The Shadowsinger never looked away from her. Even as his blade drove into the gut of another soldier, buried to the hilt and exiting clean through the back, his gaze stayed fixed. When he yanked the weapon free, it felt like a warning: this could be you.
The red-armored warrior followed his line of sight, brows furrowing as his eyes landed on her. He saw her. They both did.
Her shadows twisted in delight, but her spine locked in fear.
A voice in the back of her mind screamed at her: " Run! Run now! But her feet wouldn’t move.
She stayed frozen as the two males made quick, brutal work of the Autumn soldiers. Blood soaked the mud. Screams died fast.
Only three soldiers remained.
The male in red stepped forward, swinging his sword overhead. It came down with a sickening finality, severing a head clean from its shoulders with barely a grunt. Then silence.
Maslynna knew her time was close. Her mouth was dry, and she could hear the roar of her heart in her ears.
She knew what the Fae were like, especially what the assassin and war general of the Night Court were capable of, and she decided then that she would not be taken alive.
With trembling fingers, she reached for the dagger she had strapped to her thigh, her grip tight around the hilt as she brought it to her neck, the cool metal kissing her skin with a bite as she pressed hard.
She willed herself to do it. She had seen plenty of people die this way. She had imagined doing this to herself many times when she was first imprisoned. It should have been muscle memory for her to commit the act.
She peered over the log to gauge how much time she had left. The Shadowsinger stalked towards her slowly, as if he enjoyed playing with his food, drawing it out and savoring, just as the stories said.
Maslynna pressed the knife harder as she went to drag it across her skin, her hand cramping so intensely her fingers contorted unnaturally, and the dagger fell from her grasp.
The oath.
She wouldn’t be able to end her own life. Briallyn would have made sure of it. She needed Maslynna for whatever she was planning. She would ensure Maslynna would never be able to have that sort of autonomy.
Panicked, Maslynna picked up the knife, ready to attack when they reached her. She turned fast on the balls of her feet to strike first when the one in red called out to the one in blue. They spoke, low, quick, and urgent.
The Shadowsinger turned and bound the last two soldiers, but not before sending one last look in her direction.
It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.
You can hide all you want. I will find you.
The red one launched back into the sky with a second glance. But the Shadowsinger lingered a heartbeat longer. His hazel eyes locked on hers. Unreadable and sharp.
Then, with one powerful beat of his wings, he was gone.
Another month's worth of practice had proven to be worthwhile for Briallyn when it came to Maslynna's ability to wield her shadows, and the queen was all but ready to take credit for her success.
Her combat training had come to a standstill again, many of the men refusing to train with her. Briallyn had threatened the men with whippings and starvation for a time, but the tide turned when she blamed Maslynna for the mutiny.
"Can you hand me the echinacea?" Maslynna asked as she dunked a strip of cloth into a chamomile paste.
"Maslynna, please!" a middle-aged woman named Ada begged in outrage even as she handed her the metal tin. "You don't need to be fussing about making your remedies in your state."
Maslynna peered up at the woman, one eyebrow cocked. "In my state?" she asked, amused, before returning to her work, layering the cloth with sprinkles of echinacea flakes. "I'm not with child," she laughed. "I just have wounds to tend to."
Ada frowned deeply, golden brown skin offsetting her rich, honeyed eyes. "I promised your mother that I would take care of you," she said in a soft voice. "So please, let me tend to your wounds for you."
Maslynna's hands froze at the words, as if cold steel slid under her ribs. In an instant, it felt as if all of the work she had done to heal the gaping wound in her heart was ripped open again and still felt as raw as the day it was carved.
Her body was tense, her jaw ticking as she weighed her reaction. She shook her head, exhaling the anger she felt through her nose before plastering a small smile on her face.
"My mother wouldn't want me to forget what she taught me, either," she said, mustering an even tone.
She knew Ada meant well. She had been an amazing friend to her mother while she was still alive, even taking part in the birth of Maslynna when her father did not show up. From midwife to a second parent, to now the only motherly figure Maslynna had left, she could not find it in her heart to be angry with the woman, no matter how much the words stung.
Ada quietly nodded in solemn acceptance. "At least let me apply them for you," she began. "When was the last time you even sat down?"
Maslynna couldn't help but roll her eyes in feigned annoyance, lips twitching upwards. "I could ask you the same question, Ada." She handed the woman the plate packed with stripped bandages.
The older woman let out a half-sob, half-laugh at that, clearing off a worktable for Maslynna to lie on. "What are these for?" she asked, her voice just above a whisper, as she gently began to peel back the darkly stained fabric of Maslynna's shirt.
The younger woman winced, the raw skin having begun to stick to the material of her shirt. "I scared the men in training," she said quietly, just for the two of them to hear.
Ada hummed, worn hands carefully placing a strip of bandage on one of the many lashes scattered over Maslynna's back. "These should heal quickly," she said, filling the pause in conversation. "You have her gift, too."
Maslynna hissed, clenching her fists together as her eyes squeezed shut. The initial sting was always the worst part, but the cool, calming properties of the herbs would begin working soon.
Ada applied another strip, voice quiet. "She would be proud of you, you know."
Maslynna gritted her teeth together as the stinging came to a head, her shadows lapping over her body and curling around Ada's arms as if overseeing her technique. "For being turned Fae?" Her tone was mocking. "Or for getting what our queen always wanted?"
Another strip. "No," Ada started. "For overcoming everything you've gone through."
Maslynna tucked her bottom lip between her teeth to settle the quiver as a flood of emotions threatened to run free.
She sighed, shoving her grief back into its mental box, arms crossing under her chin. "She would, I know she would." She paused, the words getting caught in her throat. "I miss her. A lot."
Ada hurried from her place at the side of the worktable and knelt in front of Maslynna so she could pull her face to meet hers. Tears threatened to spill over the honeyed eyes. "You are so much like her. Don't you ever forget that."
Maslynna nodded. She could feel her face reddening, eyes hot as tears pooled at her waterline, the sadness slipping free. "I'm trying not to," her voice came out cracked as the first few tears ran down her cheeks.
Ada smoothed a hand over Maslynna's ash-brown hair and brushed away the tears with her apron. "You look so much like her," she breathed. "Every time I see you, it takes my breath away."
Maslynna could only smile faintly, whispering a thank you as Ada patted her cheek gently.
"Rest now, I'll come get you when the strips have dried."
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
"We have a special guest coming to visit the castle tomorrow," Briallyn drawled. "And as such, I believe it is time we put your shadow powers to the test."
They were in Briallyn's personal quarters after dinner, Maslynna brushing out the silky grey hair atop the queen's head.
Her ears perked at that.
"Who is visiting?" she asked, feigning indifference as she brushed out a particularly hard knot at the ends.
The queen whirled on her with hot anger flashing in her eyes. "What's the point of you being my spymaster if I have to tell you everything?"
Maslynna dipped her chin to her chest. "Yes, your Grace. I am truly sorry."
Briallyn snatched the comb from her and hit her harshly on the back of her hand, the shadows drawing closer from where they sat perched on her wall, coiling around her tightly.
"The shadows," Briallyn started, already having forgotten Maslynna's offense. "What does it feel like? To be able to wield them?" Her voice was light with wonder as she watched them dance over Maslynna's skin.
Maslynna took a second to think, searching for the answer Briallyn would most want to hear. "I wield them in your stead. If they please you, it pleases me," she said in a voice as confident as she could muster, rubbing the backs of her hands.
The queen grinned at her reflection, running her long, spindly fingers through her hair. "Tomorrow, I want you to use your shadows to spy on our guests. What they say, what they think and do, and then report back to me."
Maslynna curtsied before taking her leave. "Yes, ma'am."
"But," Briallyn called suddenly, standing from her vanity. "I need one more thing from you."
Maslynna turned from the doorway, following Briallyn to a desk where the queen held out her hands. Knowing she could not refuse the queen, she placed her palms in hers.
"I expect great things from you," Briallyn said with a childlike smile that could not hide the sinister glint in her eyes. "I like to think the cauldron led us to be here, together, to help each other succeed in our endeavors."
Maslynna raised her eyebrows at the confession, wary of where this conversation was headed. "I'm glad to be able to serve you."
"I want to ensure our mutual success with an oath of sorts," the queen continued, dropping their hands and opening a drawer. A short dagger lay atop a pile of parchment and stationery. "A blood oath, if you will."
With Fae-like quickness, Briallyn had sliced a line down Maslynna's palm before doing the same to her own. Briallyn smiled wickedly, squeezing her hand until blood pooled above the surface.
"I want you to serve me." The queen's voice was as cold as the seventh circle of Hell. "Do not lie to me. Do not betray me." She grabbed Maslynna's hand, squeezing until blood began to pool into her palm, too. "And you must always come back to me. Do you swear it?"
Maslynna's mouth was dry, and she instinctively pulled back on her hand, but Briallyn had a death grip on her, her long fingernails digging into the light tan skin of Maslynna.
"Do you swear it?" Briallyn grated out, each word purposefully punctuated.
Maslynna swallowed, heart racing, lungs filling to the brim with oxygen as she felt blood-chilling fear for the first time in months.
"Swear it to me. Now."
Her entire body screamed at her to deny. To grab the dagger and plunge it into the queen's chest. She could feel the weight of the dagger in her hand, the warm spray of the queen's blood across her face and arms.
But killing Briallyn would only ensure her own death. And she knew Jakobe would never make it quick or clean. He would take his time. Take pleasure in it, in more ways than one.
She knew Briallyn knew it, too.
Maslynna licked her lips. "I swear it," she said breathlessly, voice shaking.
Briallyn beamed as she wrapped her open palm around Maslynna's and gave a squeeze for good measure.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
The queen had ordered Maslynna to meet the guests outside the warding of the castle, calling for an early morning start. It had rained overnight, plunging the temperature to near freezing.
Her shadows danced with the billowing white puffs of breath as she bounced on her feet, rubbing her arms to fight off the cold.
Sunlight had just begun to pierce the dawn; orange and yellow rays blasted across the early morning sky as melodies from various songbirds rang out across the rolling hills.
Maslynna called her shadows to her as the sunlight edged closer, wrapping around her to keep her hidden in case the cover of darkness faded.
Her shadows floated around her, buzzing with anticipation. One shadow snaked its way around her neck and settled just above her ear.
Not alone, it whispered to her.
Maslynna blinked the sleep from her eyes and refocused, nodding to the shadows in understanding.
In the past few weeks, they had begun to talk to her, their words clipped and often enigmatic, but she was grateful they were finally beginning to trust her, just as she was learning to trust them.
It was then, in the distance, that a caravan of soldiers approached the castle. An older man with rusty brown hair sat atop a chestnut stallion.
Even from this distance, Maslynna could see the deep-seated, harsh lines that exaggerated the sternness in his brown eyes. Next to him, a younger male on a white mare with vividly red hair and amber eyes led the men past the wards and toward the castle gates.
Not men. Males. Their guests were Fae. Predators carved from something older and sharper than human bone.
Maslynna pulled her robes closer as she set off on featherlight feet, eyes glued to the approaching males as their voices became audible.
Not alone, her shadows whispered again, more urgently. Not alone.
Maslynna nodded and picked up her pace, wholly focused on the approaching court, and did not notice the winged male perched in a tree. Stone-faced, with an icy glare in his hazel eyes, his shadows swirled around him so densely he was nearly invisible. Only his siphons caught the light between the leaves.
“Get up,” a voice sneered from a few feet away, a rough kick slamming into her stomach.
Maslynna gasped, arms curling around her middle as her eyes flew open and the air was knocked from her.
The old queen stood in the doorframe, looking down at Maslynna with a face carved out of pure hatred.
Life had only become harder for Maslynna in the months since Briallyn had decided she was still useful. Instead of wasting away in the dungeon cell she still called her bedroom, her days were filled with unique ways of serving her queen.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Briallyn said. “You cannot starve yourself to get out of training. Come.”
The grey-haired female turned on her heel and began her ascent up to the main floors, a guard unlocking the chain around Maslynna’s ankle and hauling her up, a pointed dagger pressed into her back, herding her towards the spiraling staircase.
Maslynna joined the queen in the throne room, an ornate breakfast spread before the empty chairs, Briallyn at the head of the table at the far end.
Months ago, the rest of the queens had abandoned Briallyn, stating her ambitions were too wild, too volatile, and Briallyn herself, too consumed with undoing what the Cauldron had done to think logically. She was a liability to them.
Maslynna’s days consisted of combat training with the general of Briallyn’s remaining armies in the mornings and a lesson in fae and human histories with the castle's head scholar in the afternoon. The evenings belonged to Briallyn and whatever scheme she was planning next.
Maslynna grabbed the back of a chair and pulled it out from under the table, taking her place at the dining table. The chains around her wrists clinked together as she reached for a slice of buttered bread.
“What of your progress?” Briallyn asked her as the queen scraped a fork and knife against the bottom of the porcelain plate before her. “General Jakobe has mentioned that you are plateauing.”
Maslynna took a bite of the toast, chewing slowly to buy herself more time. She dropped her hands to her lap and looked to the weathered queen.
“I’ve learned all I can from him,” she said simply, voice clipped.
Briallyn’s face pinched. “All you can learn from him, or all that you are willing?”
Maslynna blinked. “He’s no match for me anymore.” She lifted the toast to eye level and studied it as if it were more interesting than this conversation. “If I’m being honest, he could learn from me.”
The queen’s hands slammed against the table, the sound cracking through the room. “Enough. If that is the case, then you are to train longer—” she huffed. “Harder. Until you learn something useful.”
Maslynna nodded absently before sinking her teeth back into the toast as the doors burst open and Head Scholar Kian staggered in, clutching his deep brown cane in an unsteady hand, a stack of books and scrolls cradled to his chest.
“Your majesty,” he spoke, bowing shallowly, his voice equally unsteady. “I am pleased to inform you, I have found more information on the nature of shadowsingers—“
“Lower,” Briallyn said.
Maslynna’s gaze flicked between the old man and the queen, who was twirling a knife lazily in her fingers. She grabbed for an apple to break the tension.
“If you wish to speak to me,” Briallyn said, voice as cold as ice. “Then you would do well to remember to bow lower.”
Kian’s throat bobbed at her words. He gently placed the books and scrolls onto the table and bent his knees.
“Lower,” Briallyn tsked.
Kian and his cane shook as the old man obeyed, knowing humiliation was the only thing standing between him and far worse.
Maslynna’s grip on the apple tightened in her lap, nails digging in and piercing the crisp green skin as Kian fought to keep his balance. With a groan, his cane slipped from beneath him, and he fell face-first onto the checkered flooring, the apple in Maslynna’s hand crushed to a pulp.
She knew better than to help him. To show empathy and to help the weak would not only be enough cause to receive her own lashing, but enough for Kian to receive one, too.
She tilted her head so that her hair fell forward, hiding her face, as Kian slowly rose to his knees, his hands grasped tightly to the end of the table to pull himself up.
His gaze met hers with a flash of understanding, and so Maslynna straightened her back and resumed examining her toast.
Briallyn snickered from where she sat. “Now that we are done with our morning entertainment, what news do you have for us, Kian?”
Kian went to sit, but Briallyn raised her hand. “No, you will stand.”
The old man looked disheartened and readjusted his grip on the table edge. “As we know, the ability to shadow-sing is incredibly rare, so not much is known, let alone understood. But according to this scroll, they have the ability to wield and control shadows, even merging into them.”
Maslynna took a shaky breath as Briallyn’s glare cut toward her.
“So what’s wrong with you?” Briallyn asked pointedly. “I hardly even see your shadows anymore. Are you hiding them from us so you can betray me?”
“No,” Maslynna said quickly. “I don’t know how to do any of that. They don’t listen to me.”
Briallyn rolled skeptical eyes over Maslynna. “Go on, Kian.”
The man nodded. “Our records are a bit dated, marking the last shadowsinger known in existence 750 years ago—”
“Yes,” Briallyn said, cutting him off. “Rhysand has a shadowsinger in his court to be around the same age himself, so 500 years give or take.”
Gods, Maslynna thought, swallowing.
She recalled her lessons with Kian in the first few weeks that were supervised by Briallyn herself. The nightmares of Rhysand, the Lord of the Night Court, and his spymaster and torturer.
“If I knew they wouldn’t kill you on sight or torture you for information, I might just as well seek out the Night Court spymaster to train you himself. Would you like that?” Briallyn chuckled, but her eyes were cold and calculating.
Maslynna hissed, teeth bared. “I’d kill him before he had the chance.” It was then that her shadows made an appearance, snaking along her arms and coiling tight.
That seemed to please Briallyn.
Briallyn was cruel and self-serving to a fault, but she seemed harmless compared to the savages Maslynna had been taught roamed the Night Court. The sadists who wanted to take and ravage the mortal lands for themselves. To slaughter and maim helpless humans for sport.
The wrinkled queen grinned wickedly, which only seemed to age her more. “Well,” she clapped. “That settles it. The first half of your training will be in combat. Then, you will move up your lessons with Kian, followed by a combination of training with your shadows.”
Jakobe walked in as Briallyn finished, nodding to the general who came to collect Maslynna for the first half of the day.
He was a tall man, just a few inches taller than Maslynna herself. He had been appointed Briallyn’s general after the other queens left, his age and experience making him the most obvious choice.
He had a long face with deep-seated lines marking along his forehead, eyes, and mouth. His brown hair had dulled and thinned over the years Maslynna had known him, but she had no doubt other women may have found him attractive in his prime.
But as his eyes raked over her body, stalling a second too long at her chest, Maslynna’s stomach coiled in disgust, and she pitied all those women who had ever been hopeful to steal the general’s heart.
“General,” Briallyn's voice was covered in ice. “Maslynna made an interesting point this morning.”
The general raised a brow as he rose from a deep bow.
“She thinks you could do well to learn a thing or two from her.”
The middle-aged man sputtered. “Your majesty,” his hands wringing together as he drew closer. “Her strength grew expeditiously, as well did her quickness and cleverness.”
The queen’s black eyes widened. “So it’s true then? If you cannot train my legions anymore, then what is the purpose of keeping you around?”
Maslynna’s mouth curved as she lifted her shackled hands, shaking them just enough so the chains clanked together. “We could try combat training without being chained for once.”
A piercing laugh erupted from the queen, and the general blanched. Maslynna’s keen hearing picked up on the thundering of his heart.
“Very well,” Briallyn said. “You are to remove her chains for training.”
Maslynna’s stomach leaped, shadows uncoiling and recoiling around her biceps. “Well,” she started as she drew back her chair and stood. “Let’s get to training.”
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
By evening, Maslynna stood before the queen with General Jakobe and Kian. The two men were at each other's throats.
Training had been an absolute disaster for the general. He had thrown every remaining soldier at her, and she had come out victorious with not so much as a scratch on her.
“How long?” Briallyn asked. “Until she is ready?”
Maslynna could feel the general looking her over. Assessing her. Judging her. Undressing her with his eyes. “A few more years, I would think.”
The queen laughed as if what he said was the most absurd thing she had ever heard. “General,” she started as she leaned forward in her chair. “We do not have a few years. She needs to be ready in a matter of weeks.”
Jakobe stood straighter. “I understand, but as we do not know the extent of her abilities, it is difficult to assess if she has reached her true potential. If we had more research, more time, I may be able to train her efficiently.”
Briallyn slumped back into her throne. “So we are wasted of your talents.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he stuttered. “I’m a mere human tasked with training this thing.” He hissed at her, jutting pointedly in Maslynna’s direction. “We need the scholars to come up with more information.”
The two men began to bicker, throwing blame on the other in fear Briallyn would find them lacking and have them released from their post, or worse, executed.
Maslynna drank in the disarray as the tension between the two men escalated. The shadows beneath her robes edged outward, flickering as the giddiness inside her swelled.
“Enough,” Briallyn said, raising a hand, causing the two men to freeze. “I do not intend to send her into battle on the front line. In due time, we may need her, but for now, she has more value in her other skills. How was it wielding her shadows today?” She asked.
Kian and Jakobe looked at each other, calling a truce. “We made some small progress today.” The captain said as the scholar nodded in agreement. “Allow her to demonstrate for you.”
The sword at her back pressed harder, forcing her to lift her gaze for the first time since entering the room. The queen looked down at her expectantly, nodding her head towards a corner at their left. Maslynna looked to where they wanted her to go before flicking her attention back at Briallyn, using her hands to pull her gown high enough to show off the chains that bound her.
“It’s faster and easier for me to move when my steps aren’t limited,” she said coyly. “I know you’re eager to see my progress.”
Briallyn nodded to the guards behind Maslynna to unshackle her feet. Maslynna thanked the man quietly as she stretched her ankles in a roll, flexing her toes as she glided to the corner, the shadows taking care to stay hidden under the fabric of her skirts.
She turned on her heel and faced out into the open throne room, drawing the shadows from the corner to cover her in a sheer veil of darkness. It wasn’t much, but some progress was better than no progress, for now.
“Very good,” Briallyn said, indicating she had seen enough and was satisfied with the results.
Maslynna pulled the shadows back and stepped forward with a subtle nod before the guards came forward and secured her once more. If the queen was happy with her training and shadows, then Maslynna was, too.
“I want you both to continue training with her. I will have use of her and her shadows soon enough.”
The two men nodded, and Maslynna curtsied for the queen before being escorted back to the dungeons for the night.
The room was the same—but not entirely. A small bed was now placed against the right wall. The material was mostly straw and a few scraps of miscellaneous animal fur, making the mattress hard and lumpy in most places, but it was better than sleeping on the floor.
She reclined in the bed, propping the matching straw pillow behind her back as she leaned her head against the cool stone. She looked at the wall across from her, where the shadows lounged idly, flickering with the flames in the hallway.
Maslynna tucked her bottom lip between her teeth as she studied them. “Thank you,” she whispered, the words barely more than breath. “For helping me today.”
A thin strand of shadow broke from the wall and curled towards her face, brushing as softly as velvet across her cheek and coming to rest on her shoulder.
The gesture unraveled something tight in her chest.
“I’m sorry for being scared of you,” she admitted quietly, voice trembling as she felt her waterline begin to prick with tears.
Shame flooded her veins as she recalled the first few days since she was Made, how she would scratch her skin raw in hopes of breaking some tie between her and the shadows, screaming at them whenever they tried to soothe her as she made herself sick.
“But, I would like for us to work together in the future.” She said, the shadows paused as if listening to her. “I don’t know what I’m doing, so I will make mistakes, but I am willing to learn if you will teach me.”
Heartbeats passed. Slowly, the shadows began to move again, swirling from the wall and to her hands, shadows swaying over her palms and intertwining with her fingers as if in acceptance.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Made by the Cauldron and claimed by a queen, Maslynna's life is no longer her own. In Briallyn's court, power is a weapon, obedience is survival, and freedom is nothing more than a distant memory. But even in chains, Maslynna learns.
Learns the rules. The weaknesses. The cracks no one else sees.
And somewhere in the shadows-someone is watching. Waiting.
And when the moment comes-she will break them all.
Hurried whispers echoed down the dungeon stairwell, high-pitched and urgent. Not the voices of the guards she had come to recognize, and yet not entirely unfamiliar.
Maslynna sat on the floor in her cell, the words the women were speaking drifting to her ears, but she did not process them. Her legs were pulled tightly to her chest, with one arm wrapped around her waist. The other rested on the stained cotton blanket they gave her when she first arrived. It did nothing to help her uncontrollable trembling.
She stared off absently, eyes gazing over towards the cell door where the shadows of the torch outside in the hallway danced on the damp stone floor as if they were calling to her. The heat of the flame taunted her frost-chilled bones.
Come closer, they seemed to whisper. Warm your skin in the flame. Dance with us.
“How can you be so sure?” one of the female voices questioned. “It worked for the two Archeron girls but not for one of us.”
Maslynna lifted her eyes as the women stopped outside her cell.
“The second sister took power, upsetting the balance of the Cauldron. I believe if we were to offer a blood sacrifice, it may be enough to restore the power and appease the Cauldron,” the one closest to the door said, peering in, her eyes bright with vengeance despite the skin surrounding them being littered with wrinkles.
“But Briallyn,” another voice started. “To restore that amount of magical power would require more blood than what a single human could sacrifice without losing their life.”
Maslynna’s eyelids drooped closed, and her head dipped to her chest, too exhausted to remain awake any longer.
The leader, Briallyn, fumbled with the lock to Maslynna’s door. The hinges groaned as it was thrown open, and the group of women rushed forward, turning their noses up at her. “Don’t think I haven’t considered that.” She snapped over her shoulder as she came to kneel in front of Maslynna.
Fingers threaded themselves through her hair, wrenching her head back hard. Maslynna groaned in pain, her eyes squinting shut as the pain ricocheted through her body, her chapped lips cracked and bled as she moved her mouth to whisper a plea.
“Quiet!” Briallyn yelled, shaking Maslynna violently. “Look at me.”
Maslynna’s face scrunched in pain. “Please,” the young woman begged, her voice so hoarse it was barely audible. “Just kill me.”
She had hoped the queen had grown bored with her and decided it was the day to end her little game, going on eighteen months.
The sound of a slap echoed off the walls, causing her to fall to her side before Briallyn yanked her back upright by her roots again. “I’ll do no such thing.” She sneered. “Now look at me!” She hissed, shaking Maslynna again.
A sob racked through her.
The fingers tightened in her hair, daring her to disobey again. Slowly, she pulled what little strength remained to open her eyes and look at the queen.
She watched through half-lidded eyes as a slimy smile cracked the queen's face in half. “Yes,” she said, running the crook of her finger along Maslynna’s cheek and the rough skin of her lips. “This should do just fine.”
“Guards,” Briallyn ordered plainly as she threw Maslynna’s head from her grasp, wiping her hands on her dress robes as she turned to leave. “Bring her to the room. It’s high time we test my theory.”
She felt hands wrap around her arms and the sound of the lock on her chains breaking free before she was pulled to her feet and dragged out of the cell.
At one point in her life, she would have fought.
She had once mourned that Maslynna.
The guards dragged her through the palace until they reached the queens who stood in a circle around a large Cauldron. Briallyn was centered at the front, sharpening a knife and pointing to where she wanted Maslynna positioned.
“Arm.” She demanded, her own outstretched, waiting for them to place Maslynna’s in her grasp.
The guards pulled back the long sleeves of her tunic before Briallyn roughly grabbed it and yanked Maslynna closer. The elder queen examined her arm closely as she gently ran the knife from her wrist up to her elbow.
“Do be a good girl and try to bleed directly into the Cauldron, won’t you?” She said contemptuously before flipping the knife over and slicing down Maslynna’s arm.
Through hazy eyes, Maslynna watched as blood beaded along her skin before running down her arm and into the Cauldron, where it swirled like smoke before disappearing.
The others in the room gasped, peering closer as Briallyn’s smile grew wicked. She laughed to herself as she stared into the roiling water, cutting deep slashes across Maslynna’s palms before shoving her to the lip of the Cauldron, metal biting her ribs.
The other queens bowed their heads in submission as Briallyn began to curse. “No!” She screamed angrily. “Again! Do it again!”
She grabbed Maslynna and began slicing in a blind fury, weathered hands strong as they shoved at Maslynna until she was pushed over the Cauldron’s edge, drifting to the bottom.
Down and down she sank until she bottomed out. Maslynna smiled to herself, choking on tears of joy as her blood continued to pour. Not too much longer, and she would leave this world, a light already starting to form in the distance and growing rapidly to reach her.
This was the promise death had given her in return for its torturous delay.
She opened her arms to embrace it when she felt a jolt at the base of the Cauldron. The vibrations of its ancient voice reverberated in her bones as it spoke.
No, she tried to say, water filling her mouth and nose. Please.
The water grew to a boil; inky darkness swirled around her, pulling her arms back to her side, tethering them there.
The black wisps seeped in from the sides, ebbing and flowing like waves as they overtook the light, chasing it away until it was nothing but the size of a lone star in the night sky.
No, she screamed, as she began to panic, kicking frantically to free herself and swim towards what remained of the light.
But they wrapped around her until she was so tightly bound she could do nothing but sink. She begged the Cauldron, asking it to please let her go, to just let her die in peace.
The Cauldron did not answer. It only repeated what it had told her, the inky forms squeezing tighter as she fought against them—against the Cauldron itself—until she had no fight left in her.
“Pull her out.” A muffled shout shortly before Maslynna was heaved out of the Cauldron and dropped onto the floor as gasps filled the room.
She was exhausted, and her body was sore.
Pain.
She felt it everywhere. She shot open her eyes and looked down at her palms, her skin now gleaming, and white markings spread across her skin where she had been forcefully cut.
“Move,” Briallyn said shortly. “Let me see her.” The queen knelt in front of her once more and put both hands on her face, forcing Maslynna to look at her. “What did you do? How did you do it?” She demanded.
“I—” Maslynna gasped, the words the Cauldron whispered replayed in her mind. “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t do anything. I thought I was going to die.”
“Liar!” she bellowed, raising a hand to strike, and Maslynna braced herself for the sting on her cheek that never came. “Wha—how are you doing that?” she asked.
Maslynna cracked open an eye and noticed all the other queens standing before her, some looking terrified and others—like Briallyn— elated at what they saw.
“Doing what?” Maslynna asked before following their gaze to the floor beneath her, where the tethers that had tied her down at the bottom of the Cauldron were swirling over her bare knees.
She gasped as they flared in the torchlight. They weren’t blotches of ink, but rather tendrils of silken shadows.
Maslynna screamed and pushed herself back, slapping her skin to brush off the shadows as they snaked over her legs. “What are these things?” she asked, her voice raised in panic.
It was Briallyn’s self-serving laugh that retrieved Maslynna’s attention, her eyes shining with a joyfulness that oozed with cruel intention. “Oh yes, I can most certainly work with this.”
