Saint Joan

Smooth as slate, Elain lowers her chin to stare ahead, to Feyre and Rhys and to Cassian and to Nesta. Azriel marks the shift in her breathing, knows she has learned enough from him these past weeks to master her feelings, but still he glances over. Not even her thin, milky veil prevents him from catching how the colour of skin alters under his gaze, but to her credit, her features remain set with all the imperious stillness of a holy lake, quiet and alluring, its secrets sunk deep.

Good.

Azriel turns away, the music growing wilder, bass groaning through the floor. A shadow curdles around his shoulder and he angles his hard profile towards a sentry who has discreetly positioned himself to the left of the doors. The sentry nods in acknowledgement but Azriel remains passive, shoulders broadening, jaw tightening. A tower of stone.

A war-like judder glances down his spine, his exquisitely cut jacket too sensual for the power raging within. Too courtly for the fighting-power three shuddering siphons struggle to contain.

Elain’s bare shoulder brushes his arm and he scraps with the urge to broaden his wings, to protect, while his hands ready themselves to claw at any who may dare to encroach.

To touch.

To harm.

Rhys turns then, taking them in, first Azriel and then Elain. They wait, wordless, staring back, while his calculated, violet gaze surges between them. Azriel sees the reticence etched into those too-familiar constellations, but knows Rhys, like them, understands it is too late to change their course.

Wicked screams of pleasure ricochet through the Hall. A knowing flicker darts across Rhys' features and Azriel is once more startled by his brother’s unwavering beauty and the confidence that oozes from him like a second kind of magic. The old rupture between them remains, Azriel’s unhealed rage a blistering fountain with no reprieve, yet in this moment he is calmed by the weight of Rhys’ presence and the dying embers of care that clearly bristle for Elain.

Rhys raises his chin, staring down his kin with that unending, royal spirit, their Night Triumphant, until the light stutters in their chests.

“Do what you must,” he tells them coolly, the steely sanction landing like a spur.

It is permission for what Azriel is about to do.

Forgiveness for all the ways Azriel fears he is about to unleash himself against the Court of Nightmares - against Elain.

Silent, shoulder to shoulder, they nod once in reply, their measured exhales mingling and staining the air white while the final vestiges of the brother slip behind the impregnable wall of their High Lord.

Their King.

Until the almighty energy of his power begins to shake the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the pillars, the polished obsidian, all of it groaning as if its very foundations are awakening.

With eyes unfeeling as jewels, Rhys turns from them, stroking a steady hand up Feyre's naked spine. A low, sultry instrument hails the arrival of the High Court to the Revels, to this putrid carnival, and a violent shudder of anticipation ripples from Elain's shoulders down to her silk-draped thighs. The sudden glance of a knuckle against the back of her hand, so brief it could be accidental, is all it takes to still her, as if she has heard Azriel’s reminder of everything to be gained, and all that stands to be lost.

The doors open. The music fades.

Under a torrent of hushed voices, some sneering, some, Azriel's shadows whisper, notably reverent, Feyre and Rhys commence their broody procession, their General and his warrior-mate stalking in before them like two beautiful, bristling shields.

Elain makes to follow but Azriel’s warm, strong hand grips hard at her wrist. She stills, but does not look down to where he holds her, just like she has been trained.

“We wait,” Azriel states, staring only ahead. “You are everything,” he says, voice dropping lower. “Let them wait.”

Azriel cannot stop the brief trail of his thumb against her inner wrist, and so drops her unfeelingly, letting her slender arm fall to her side.

Too dangerous.

Too high a cost.

The awaiting sentry pushes closed the doors to the High Lord's quarters, and Elain and Azriel are once again alone, the onyx animals sneering at them from on high.

It takes little time for the air to thicken and shift. Then Rhys’ booming voice hums through the stone as he lazily congratulates his courtiers on their latest centenary. Feyre too speaks, her voice sultry, sweet, and the room laughs pleasantly, tightly, falsely, before the revelries resume as if commanded by the gods.

The walls tremor, and that same heady, sensual, unnerving music begins to radiate, its pulse sinking beneath Azriel’s skin.

Minutes past, enough for the flow of celebration to heal - for the spearhead of their entrance to truly land.

Alone, bodies close and on alert, Elain and Azriel’s synchronised breaths are the only conversation amidst the sounds of wildness.

They do not speak. They do not touch.

Until Azriel says in a low, steady voice.

“It is time.”

As if tugged by the sky itself, Elain’s spine straightens, her veil fluttering when she forcibly exhales. She, like Azriel, watches the door, hooded eyes fixed, sensual limbs trembling. Her dress shimmers when she shifts her weight, the anklet of bells singing above the bare feet Azriel knows must burn against the frigid floor.

Like a slow, grinning mouth the doors are slowly dragged apart, the finest slice of light carving the space between them before widening to illuminate their unendingly devastating faces to a startled crowd.

“Don’t...” Azriel whispers, the word escaping, sudden.

“Never,” Elain answers.

Never.

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