#azriel shadowsinger

Crystals as big as her palm glistened as they made their descent from the sky, each with a chime of its own that swelled and harmonised together into one ethereal symphony. Cloying was the joy radiating throughout the lands, and Ayla turned her back on the couple torn between rejoicing the news of their unborn babe and mourning the death at their feet.

A trembling “Winter is forever grateful” rang out after her, getting lost in the rising winds. She didn’t deserve it, nor did she have use for it. They were yet to honour her requests, and only time would attest if their gratitude held true or if they were but hollow words.

Her feet carried her as fast as they could, and she was still not far enough. Their whispered prayers and declarations of love to each other chased her like ghosts. Her blood sang with rage, horror, sorrow, and she knew not which demanded her surrendering first. Her fists tightened on the pommel of the swords at her hips.

As soon as Ayla let the tears spill, and they froze against her skin. How cruel, Mother wouldn’t allow her even that release, and yet, was it not fair?

A gust of air swept up the fallen snow and sent it in swirls; it started slow, a gentle breeze, and picked up momentum, round and round it went, until it formed a barricade around them. It stretched and grew as far as she could see, a thin, pellucid shield that concealed every sound, every evidence of life within.

‘Secure this land until my people arrive.’

And they had obliged. The first token of their gratitude.

As Ayla took another step, the veil of frost and air shimmered through her. Its chill pierced her heart, ripping the breath out of her lungs. She was plunged into the cold and expelled so quick, her blood froze, sinew hardened, and bones ached. She looked over her shoulder for the first time since she began her walk. The sharp breath she drew burned her insides.

There was no couple behind her.

There were no scrawny limbs of slumbering trees reaching for her.

There was no lake, its surface sealing over the countless hands and feet.

Only an unending expanse of white from horizon to horizon.

Heart pounding in her chest, Ayla turned in every direction. Nothing stood as proof for what she had witnessed.

Had she dreamt it? She wished she had.

She had been on the search for them for a long time, and this was her closure. The sensible part of her impelled her to cross the barrier again, to see them again; instead, she trudged on her path.

The nameless faces flitted through her mind one by one, begging to be remembered.

Bloated, blue-veined, and skin sloughing off the flesh. Dark patches where blood gathered and froze. And eyes, stolen. Carved out of every head crudely.

Ayla had seen this before, but never these many.

What did they hope to achieve with these killings? Who could do such a thing? End so many lives and preserve them in their last moments of agony.

A beast preyed out of hunger or fear; this death so heartless was no work of a beast. But it was a monster on a hunt, driven by something far worse than vengeance or malice.

This was a sport.

To seek the Others, to torture them, to deny them the right to return to the lands, this was a crime against Mother’s will. And they did it without remorse, as though their lives were worth nothing.

How did no one stop them? Where were the High Lords and their laws? What use of their titles and powers if they failed to protect their own?

Ayla gritted her teeth. She waded through the vastness of snow that was knee-deep and soft, and yielded under her feet. The long route around the towns on the borders was considered the deadliest, for the winter was a patient, silent predator that didn’t discriminate between its prey. Then why didn’t it stop them? Why didn’t it take those monsters as it did their sacrifices?

Where was Mother when these lives needed her? Did she feel their pain and close her eyes? Did she hear their screams and deem them unfortunate?

She blessed them, and in doing so, she condemned them to a life of suffering. She abandoned them the moment they were born in a world made for the blind and the ignorant. She cursed them with the burden of truths whilst leaving them powerless against the frauds.

This world didn’t deserve the Others, and She didn’t deserve to be their mother.

The winds picked up pace, and a shard of ice grazed Ayla’s cheek. Blood broke her skin, its sting worse than the frostburn.

Now you hear me.

A laugh threatened to claw out of her, but the cold seized her throat. It was the reminder she perhaps needed.

Anger warmed her blood and kept it rushing through her veins. Who was she to blame Mother when she was no better?

A storm brewed in the distance, its howls growing louder and nearer. Finally, someone willing to weep for the dead.

Perhaps, none of them once belonged here, but the lands hadn’t known prejudice. Death was death to them; it mattered not where one came from.

Ayla shivered and shuddered through the hail. The cloak Eris draped over her could only offer little warmth against the High Lord’s caution. Or was it the land’s wrath at her intrusion? Was it for her indignation towards its chosen and his wife, for accusing them of a crime that wasn’t theirs? She couldn’t tell anymore, but she knew she deserved it.

The cold slowed her blood, her fury, and in its wake was the knowing of what she had done. She had strayed so far to resort to empty threats and trickery. She was as vain as the High Lords, with their lies and broken vows.

Her eyes stung with fresh rage. What would mother think of her now? Surely, the hearsay must have reached her. Ayla was dead to the rest, but not to her, not to them. They would recognise her in every tale and in every terror.

As the pellets hit her scalp, gathered in the hood of her cloak and weighed her down, Ayla refused to take shelter. She didn’t deserve a respite. She’d had plenty of it while her own were slaughtered.

What had she done? What was she to do anymore?

She hoped that Eris had honoured his word as well. The dead needed to be put to rest. She didn’t doubt the High Lord when he promised them a farewell, but it wasn’t right; they weren’t his to mourn.

For decades, they had lingered lost and forgotten, and they deserved everything they were denied in life, they deserved to be honoured by their kind.

And they would do it without her. Ayla would betray them one final time.

Who was to punish her for the disrespect anyway? Who would stop her?

Her leg buckled under her as she crossed the threshold between the courts. A wispy fence where the magic of the two lands fought, merged, and collapsed into one. Sun shone down on her, its light blinding her for a moment. The tears lining her eyes slipped free. Her lips parted on their own, greedy as her, and drew in the crisp air. Before she could succumb to the fall, she was pulled against a wall of warmth by firm arms.

The world was filled with colours again, the air iridescent with a red hue and sonorous with birdsongs. She didn’t belong here. A traitor like her had nowhere to belong, for death clung to her, and no matter what she did, it would never wash off.

Because she didn't come back. Not the next day. Not the day after that. Not at all. 

And at first, I'd told myself it didn't matter. People left. They always did. They came in with their questions and their structure and their careful little systems and then they saw enough, felt enough, realised enough and they left.

She was no different. She couldn't be different.

So I waited. Then I stopped waiting. And something in me snapped anyway.

It started small. A comment where there didn't need to be one. A refusal where compliance would have been easier. A look held too long, too direct, daring someone to react.

It didn't take much. It never did.

The first fight had been quick. Controlled. Efficient. The second wasn't. By the third, they'd stopped pretending it was incidental.

By the fourth, they were already dragging me down the corridor again, hands gripping hard, voices sharp with irritation instead of authority.

"Fucking animal—"

"—put him back in—"

"—he's doing it on purpose—"

They weren't wrong. I was. Because the anger didn't sit still. It didn't fade. Didn't settle. It built slow and relentless, coiling tighter with every passing hour she didn't walk back through that door.

It needed somewhere to go. So I gave it something.

Solitary became routine again. Cold walls. No sound. No distraction. Just silence and her. Her voice. Her eyes. The way she'd said my name like it wasn't something to be careful with.

The way she'd stayed. And then didn't.

I'd replayed it too many times. Every detail, every shift, every moment where I should have seen it coming. Where I should have known better. Where I should have stopped.

But I hadn't. Because for the first time in a long time I hadn't wanted to.

At one point, I'd considered it. Escape. The thought had come sharp and sudden, cutting through everything else with dangerous clarity.

I already had a plan. Had spent the better part of a year building it piece by piece, step by step, waiting for the right moment. Calculated. Precise. Controlled.

Not this. Not reckless. Not rushed. Not driven by something as unstable as... this.

And yet for a few hours, it had almost been enough.

The idea of walking out, of tearing through whatever stood in my way just to find her, just to see if she'd meant it.

I'd almost thrown it all away. For her.

That had been the moment I understood just how far gone I was.

So instead I stayed. And broke everything else around me instead. The cell didn't change. Same walls. Same suffocating stillness. Same place they put me when they didn't want to deal with me anymore.

Or when I gave them no other option.

My fist connected with the concrete again. And again. And again.

Skin split. Knuckles already raw from days of the same, reopening without resistance. Blood smeared across the wall in uneven streaks, dark and familiar.

I didn't feel it. Didn't care to.

The rhythm mattered more than the impact. The repetition. The brief, dull edge it gave to everything else clawing inside my chest.

Her. Always her.

Her voice cutting through the noise in my head. Her mouth against mine. The way she'd looked at me after like she didn't recognise herself anymore.

My fist hit the wall again, harder this time. A sharp crack echoed in the small space. Still not enough. Not even close.

The sound of the door unlocking barely registered at first. Metal scraping. Hinges shifting. Familiar. Irrelevant.

"Freakshow."

The voice cut in, low and sharp with irritation.

I didn't turn. Didn't stop. My gaze stayed fixed on the blood trailing down my hand as it struck the wall again, slower now but no less deliberate.

"Stop that, you psycho—" Another hit. "—you'll break your damn hand—" Another.

"—Doc's here to see you."

That one landed. Not like the others. Not noise. Not background. Not something to ignore. It cut clean through everything else.

My fist stopped mid-motion. Silence dropped heavy into the space. Slowly, very slowly, I turned my head.

The guard stood in the doorway, watching me with that same mix of irritation and unease they all wore around me.

But I wasn't looking at him. Not really. Because for the first time in two weeks something else had my full attention.

And just like that everything inside me went still.

Reader's POV - 

I didn't know if I should have come back.

The thought had followed me for days, quiet at first, something I could push aside with logic, with professionalism, with every rule I had spent years building my career on. 

But logic had a way of thinning out when left alone too long, and in its place something else had taken root.

Something far more dangerous.

Because no matter how many times I replayed it, the moment, the decision, the way I had said fine like it meant nothing, I couldn't undo the truth of it.

I hadn't been forced. I hadn't been manipulated into something I didn't understand.

I had wanted it.

That was the part that unsettled me the most. Not the fact that he had crossed a line but that I had stepped over it willingly.

I'd taken leave the next day. It had felt necessary at the time. Sensible. 

A chance to put distance between myself and... whatever that had been. To clear my head. To remind myself who I was outside of that room, outside of him.

Days passed. Then more. And instead of clarity, all I found was repetition.

His voice. His hands. The way he had looked at me after like he already knew I wouldn't walk away clean from it.

I had tried to rationalise it. Frame it as a lapse in judgment. A moment of pressure in an already volatile environment.

But every explanation felt thin because underneath it all, there was something I couldn't ignore. Something that didn't make sense but refused to be dismissed.

Azriel. There was something about him that lingered. Not loudly. Not in a way that demanded attention but persistently.

Like a pull I couldn't quite explain. 

Magnetic. That was the only word that came close. Not safe. Not right. Not logical. But impossible to ignore.

And eventually, inevitably, that pull had brought me back.

The prison felt different when I walked back through it.

Not physically. The same concrete walls, the same oppressive weight in the air, the same underlying tension humming beneath every locked door and passing glance.

But I felt it differently.

More aware. More exposed. Like I was walking back into something I hadn't fully left behind.

My heels echoed faintly against the floor as I walked beside Daniel his presence as solid and grounding as it had always been.

Too solid, perhaps.

"You really came back again," he muttered, glancing at me like he still hadn't quite decided if it was admirable or completely reckless.

"I told you I would," I replied, keeping my tone even.

He huffed under his breath, shaking his head slightly. "Yeah, well... I didn't think you meant it."

There was something in his voice, something edged with frustration, maybe even concern but I didn't press it.

We walked in silence for a few seconds before he spoke again.

"I'm telling you," he said, more firmly this time, "he lost his damn mind."

My steps faltered just slightly. Barely noticeable. But enough that I felt it.

"Azriel?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

Daniel let out a short, humourless laugh. "Who else?"

I frowned faintly, trying to keep my expression neutral even as something tightened in my chest. "But he'd been improving," I said. "His incident reports were decreasing. His behaviour was—"

"Yeah," Daniel cut in, glancing at me sideways. "That didn't last."

Something in his tone made me look at him properly. "What happened?"

He shrugged, but it wasn't casual. Not really.

"Started picking fights. Small stuff at first. Then not so small." He paused, jaw tightening slightly. "Got himself thrown into solitary more times than I can count in the last two weeks."

Two weeks. The same two weeks I'd been gone. A slow, uneasy feeling settled in my stomach.

"Maybe it has something to do with your leave," he added.

I turned my head toward him more sharply this time. "What do you mean?"

He didn't answer immediately. Just watched me for a second longer than necessary, like he was weighing how much to say.

Then he exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair.

"Look," he said, voice lowering slightly, "I don't know what it is you do in those sessions—don't wanna know—but whatever it is..." He shook his head. "It works."

"That's the job," I replied carefully.

"Yeah," he said, "except it's not supposed to work like that."

A beat. Then, with a dry, almost disbelieving edge to his voice—

"You're like some kind of psychopath whisperer."

The words landed heavier than they should have. I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry as my gaze shifted forward again, focusing on the corridor ahead even as my thoughts spiralled.

Psychopath whisperer.

It was meant as a joke. A careless label. Something to explain behaviour he didn't understand.

But underneath it there was truth in it. And that truth unsettled me more than anything else he'd said.

Because if Azriel had really unravelled like that, if his behaviour had shifted that drastically in my absence then this wasn't just about professional influence.

It wasn't just about therapy. It was something else. 

Something I wasn't sure I fully understood. Or wanted to.

I inhaled slowly, steadying myself as we approached the next set of doors, my pulse just a little too fast, my thoughts just a little too loud.

"What condition is he in now?" I asked, keeping my voice controlled despite the tension coiling beneath it.

Daniel gave a short, humourless huff. "Solitary," he said. "Where else?"

Of course. A flicker of something, unease, guilt, something sharper, moved through me before I could stop it.

I pushed it down quickly. Professional. Focused. Controlled. That was what I needed to be.

Daniel slowed slightly as we reached the final door, his hand hovering near the control panel before he glanced at me.

"You sure about this?" he asked.

The question wasn't new. I'd heard it before, variations of it, layered in concern, in doubt, in quiet disbelief at my choices.

But this time, there was something else beneath it. Something closer to a warning.

I met his gaze evenly. "Yes."

A beat passed. Then he exhaled, pressing the button. The door unlocked with a heavy click.

"Don't take too long," he muttered. "And if anything feels off—"

"I'll call," I finished.

He didn't look convinced but he stepped aside anyway, pulling the door open just enough for me to step through before closing it again behind me with a solid, final sound that seemed to echo longer than it should have.

And then it was just us.

He was standing when I turned. Not sitting. Not resting. Standing. Facing the wall.

Azriel's fist was pressed against the wall, shoulders tense, posture rigid in a way that felt... contained, but only just.

For a second, he didn't move. Then slowly, very slowly, he lowered his hand. Turned. And looked at me.

Two weeks. It showed.

Not in some dramatic, obvious way but in the details. The tension in his jaw, the sharpness in his gaze, the faint bruising across his knuckles, split skin, healing badly, like he hadn't cared enough to stop reopening it.

His eyes found mine immediately. Locked. And didn't let go.

Silence stretched. Not awkward. Not empty. Heavy. Charged with everything that hadn't been said.

"Where were you?"

The question came out low. Controlled. But there was something under it, something tighter than I'd ever heard from him before.

Not anger. Not quite. Something closer to... demand.

I held his gaze, forcing myself to remain steady despite the way my pulse picked up under the weight of it.

"I took leave," I said simply. It was the truth. Just not all of it.

His head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing just a fraction as he studied me. "Leave," he repeated.

The word sounded different coming from him. Like he didn't quite accept it.

"I had time accumulated," I added, keeping my tone even. "It seemed like the appropriate moment to use it."

A pause. Then very faintly the corner of his mouth shifted.

"I thought," he said slowly, taking a step closer, "it might have been because I left too much of an impression on you."

The words landed softer than they should have. Not crude. Not mocking. Measured. Intentional.

My breath caught just slightly. Annoyingly noticeable. I forced it steady, lifting my chin a fraction as I met his gaze properly.

"You seem very sure of yourself," I replied.

There was the smallest flicker of something in his expression, satisfaction, maybe.

"Not usually," he said. "Just when I'm right."

Another step closer. Not enough to crowd me. Enough to remind me.

"You're making an assumption," I said, keeping my voice calm despite the subtle tension curling beneath it.

"Am I?" he murmured.

His gaze dropped briefly to my lips. Then back to my eyes. "You didn't come back," he continued, quieter now. "After that."

The shift in tone was subtle but I caught it. Not accusation. Observation. But it carried weight anyway.

"I came back," I said. Not defensive. Just factual.

His eyes searched mine for a second longer than necessary, like he was measuring something, truth, intention, maybe even resolve.

Then slowly, he exhaled through his nose. "Yeah," he said, almost to himself. "You did."

The tension shifted then. Not gone but... different.

Looser. Less sharp. Like something had settled just enough to allow something else to take its place.

"Disappointed?" I asked lightly, tilting my head just slightly. "That I didn't stay away?"

It was a risk, pushing like that. Testing. But I needed to know where we stood.

His gaze flicked back to mine instantly. There it was again, that faint curve of his mouth, sharper this time.

"No," he said. A beat. Then, quieter "I was starting to get bored."

The lie was obvious. And we both knew it.

I couldn't help it, the smallest hint of a smile tugged at my lips before I could stop it. "Is that what all the incidents were?" I asked. "Boredom?"

His eyes darkened slightly at that. "Something like that."

Another step. Closer now. Close enough that I could feel the shift in the air between us again, that same pull, that same dangerous, magnetic tension that had been there before.

Unresolved.

"We're here for a session," I said, more firmly this time, anchoring the moment before it slipped too far.

His gaze lingered on me for a second longer. Then slowly he leaned back. Just enough.

"Of course we are, Doc."

But the way he said it, the way his eyes didn't quite lose that edge made it very clear.

Nothing about this was just a session anymore.

A/N - So Azriel lowkey crashes out because his doctor did in fact... not return :(

Buttt she does come back, she just took some leave to process everything that went down (because girl was absolutely not okay after that last session) and when she returns?? Yeah. Things are... tense. Very tense. Very charged!!

Nextpartislowkeycrazy... who said thatttt x

Thanks for reading <33