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.
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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.
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.”
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.”
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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.
