#elain mischaracterization

Summary: In the golden shadow of her sisters' post-war happiness, a forgotten Archeron sister slowly fades into the background of the Night Court, entirely unnoticed until she is captured by lingering enemies. When Azriel finally unravels the truth of her disappearance, he faces a family blind to their own negligence and a broken bond that can never be fully mended. warnings : established rhysand!sister!reader, mention of suffering, torture, kidnapping (sort of implicit) and hurt with almost no comfort. fluff if you squint

The mountain air of Velaris was always crisp, but tonight, it felt entirely devoid of warmth.

In the months following the war with Hybern, the House of Wind had transformed into a sanctuary of recovery and joy. Feyre and Rhysand were inseparable, managing the court with a shared, unspoken language. Nesta and Cassian sparred with an intensity that burned bright, while Elain found a quiet, steady rhythm alongside Lucien. The bonds of mates were a physical force in the house, thick and consuming, anchoring everyone to a new, immortal reality.

Everyone except you.

At first, the isolation was subtle. An invitation to breakfast forgotten because a training session ran late. A conversation cutting off as you stepped into the room, not maliciously, but simply because the space had already filled with the heavy presence of coupled fates. The sisters didn't mean to do it. But the mating bond was a tidal wave, and you were a shorebird being slowly pushed inland, away from the water.

You became an afterthought in the very house you had fought to protect.

One evening, when the weight of the silence became too heavy to bear, you walked out onto the eastern balcony. The wind whipped at your hair, and you bit down on your lower lip, trying desperately to keep the tears from spilling over.

"You look miserable."

The voice came from the shadows near the stone pillar. You didn't flinch. You knew the cadence of that low, steady rumble anywhere.

"Thank you," you whispered, wiping your face quickly.

"It wasn't a compliment," Azriel said, stepping into the moonlight. His dark wings were tucked tightly against his back, his scarred hands resting lightly on the balustrade.

For the first time all week, a genuine laugh broke from your chest. It was small, but it was real. Azriel stared at you for a moment, his hazel eyes tracking the movement of your shoulders, as though he had forgotten what the sound of your laughter felt like.

Without another word, he vanished into the shadows, returning a minute later with a steaming mug of tea. He didn't offer a grand speech. He didn't make promises he couldn't keep. He just stood there, leaning against the stone beside you, letting his silence keep yours company. For someone who had spent weeks feeling invisible, it meant everything.

A few weeks later, the house was entirely empty again. Everyone had vanished into the city or the camps, leaving the halls echoing. You wandered into the library, seeking the comfort of old paper, and found Azriel deep in a stack of reconnaissance reports.

The quiet settled between you comfortably, the only sound the turning of pages. But the question that had been burning in your chest for months finally refused to be contained.

"Do you ever feel unnecessary, Azriel?"

The spymaster froze. The shadows swirling around his shoulders went entirely still, flattening against his skin. He knew that feeling better than anyone in the Night Court; he had lived in its grip for centuries.

He didn't look up from his papers, but his voice was a quiet, piercing truth. "Every day."

You closed your eyes, a strange sense of relief washing over you. You weren't fixed, and you weren't comforted, but for the first time since the Cauldron, you were understood.

But the comfort was short-lived. The next morning, Rhysand ordered Azriel to the Illyrian camps for an extended inspection—an assignment that would take weeks, possibly longer. And just like that, your one anchor was gone.

The weeks that followed didn't hurt because people were cruel. They hurt because people were careless.

You tried to reach out. You went to Feyre first, finding her at her desk in the townhouse, buried under mountains of post-war paperwork.

"Feyre, I don't think I'm doing very well," you said, your voice barely louder than a whisper.

Feyre finally paused, setting her pen down. She looked up at you, her expression softening into something so deeply empathetic that a sudden, fierce spark of hope flared in your chest. For a beautiful, fleeting second, your heart swelled—she was looking at you the way she used to. She was going to open her arms, pull you into her light, and tell you that she saw how hard you were drowning. You thought, Finally. Finally, someone understands.

Then, she spoke.

"It's probably just the adjustment, sweetie. Your Fae body is still settling."

The spark vanished, leaving behind an even deeper, freezing dark. The warmth in her eyes wasn't understanding; it was just a gentle, generalized pity.

"I've been adjusting for months."

"Y/N, you're immortal now," Feyre said, her tone shifting to a patient, slightly distracted murmur as her eyes drifted back toward her documents. "Everything feels overwhelming at first. Just give it some time."

Dismissed.

You tried Nesta next. She was out on the training rings, wiping sweat from her brow as Cassian adjusted her stance.

"Nesta, can we talk?" you asked, standing at the edge of the dust.

"Later," Nesta replied, her focus already shifting back to the wooden blade in her hand.

Later never came.

Desperate, you tried Elain. She was tending to the winter roses in the garden, a serene smile on her face. When you asked if she had a moment, she offered a warm promise: "Let's have tea tomorrow, Y/N. Just the two of us."

But tomorrow became next week. Next week became next month. Eventually, the weight of asking became heavier than the weight of the loneliness, and you stopped trying entirely.

One night, the three Archeron sisters sat in the small parlor, drinking wine while their mates were at a strategy meeting.

"She's having a difficult transition," Feyre noted, staring into her glass as she thought of your brief visit to her office.

"Still?" Nesta asked, leaning back against the cushions.

"She's always been sensitive," Feyre sighed.

"A bit dramatic, honestly," Elain agreed softly, setting down her teacup. "She always finds a way to make the silence feel like an accusation."

And just like that, the narrative was written. You weren't drowning; you were just being dramatic.

The hopelessness settled in like a thick winter fog.

One evening, you walked out of the townhouse, wandering aimlessly through the winding streets of Velaris. You weren't paying attention to the shadows, nor were you listening for footsteps. You hadn't cared about your own safety in weeks. If the world didn't notice you, why should you notice the world?

You turned down a quiet, darkened alleyway near the city's western wall. A heavy canvas hood was thrown over your head before you could even draw breath.

There was no grand struggle. Magic, cold and suffocating, bound your wrists. A sharp pain bloomed at the back of your skull, followed by a heavy, absolute silence. Then, nothing.

When you woke, you were underground. The air tasted of damp earth and old iron. Cold stone pressed against your back, and heavy chains bound your ankles to the wall. There were no windows, no torches—just the dim light of a single faelight sphere, and faces you didn't recognize. Hybern loyalists. Remnants of a broken army looking for a vulnerability to exploit.

The questions began immediately.

"What does the High Lord discuss during war councils?"

"I don't know," you rasped, your throat dry.

"What weaknesses does the Shadowsinger possess?"

"I don't know."

"How many soldiers serve the General in the north?"

"I don't know."

The interrogators didn't believe you. To them, you were an Archeron. You were the sister of the High Lady. Surely, you sat at the right hand of the Inner Circle. Surely, you knew their secrets. They didn't understand that you had been sitting at the edge of the room, invisible.

The days blurred into a singular, agonizing existence. Food arrived randomly, just enough to keep your Fae heart beating. Sleep was impossible in the freezing damp. But the physical discomfort was nothing compared to the quiet realization that grew heavier with every passing hour.

One day. Three days. Five. A week.

Nobody came.

The wards of Velaris hadn't flared. No armies were tearing the continent apart looking for you. The terrifying truth settled deep into your bones: nobody had noticed you were gone. They likely thought you were still in your room, being dramatic.

The interrogators grew frustrated with your silence. Your lack of answers was taken as stubborn defiance rather than genuine ignorance. They began to mock you, throwing words at you that cut deeper than any physical threat.

Worthless. Useless. Disposable. Dead weight.

The terrible part was that you didn't fight the words. You started believing them. They were the exact same phrases you had been whispering to yourself in the empty halls of the House of Wind.

Dead. Dead. Dead

Eventually, you stopped crying. You stopped screaming when they dragged you to the center of the room. When the cold iron bit into your skin, you simply bit down on your tongue, refusing to make a single sound.

Burdens complain. Burdens need saving. Burdens cause problems for the people who matter.

And you refused to be a burden anymore.

Two weeks after he left, Azriel returned to the House of Wind. He was covered in the dust of the Illyrian mountains, his wings aching from the long flight, but his first thought was of the balcony. He wanted to see if you were there, perhaps waiting with another quiet silence to share.

He searched the balcony. The library. The gardens. The riverwalk.

Nowhere. Your scent was completely absent from the common rooms, faded to a ghost of a memory.

He walked into the dining hall where Feyre, Nesta, and Elain were gathering for dinner. "Where is Y/N?" he asked, his voice cutting through the warmth of the room.

Feyre shrugged, adjusting a silverware setting. "Probably wandering. She's been doing that a lot lately."

Nesta didn't look up from her book. "She does that when she wants attention."

Elain let out a soft, dismissive laugh. "She's likely trying to make a point because we've been busy with the winter preparations."

The air in the room instantly turned to ice. Azriel's shadows didn't just rise; they exploded. Dark, suffocating midnight flooded the dining hall, extinguishing the candles and rattling the glass fixtures.

"What do you mean, trying to make a point?" Azriel hissed, his face completely pale, his eyes flashing with a terrifying, lethal light.

Nobody answered. The sisters shrank back, shocked by the sudden violence in his demeanor.

Then Feyre spoke, her tone exasperated. "Azriel, honestly, she's always been dramatic. She'll come back when she's done moping."

In that single second, every strange interaction from the past year clicked into place in Azriel's mind. The exhaustion in your eyes. The way you looked at your sisters as if they were miles away. The desperate, quiet question in the library.

He looked at the three sisters, and a horrifying realization struck him.

Nobody had actually seen you in weeks.

Azriel didn't waste another breath. He slammed through the doors of Rhysand's study, where the High Lord was deep in conversation with Cassian and Lucien.

"Where is she?" Azriel demanded, his hands trembling with a rage that shook the foundations of the room.

Rhysand frowned, standing up. "Azriel, calm down. What are you—"

"Your mate," Azriel snarled, pointing a finger at Rhys, then turning his lethal gaze to Cassian and Lucien. "Your mates. They let her walk out. They let her disappear because they thought she was brooding. They haven't looked for her in weeks."

Cassian immediately stepped forward, his jaw set, his defensive instincts flaring for Nesta. "Watch your tone, Az. Y/N is fine. Nesta said she just needed space."

"She isn't fine!" Azriel roared, the sound tearing from his throat like a wounded animal. "She's gone. Her room is freezing, her scent is dead, and your mates think she's playing a game for attention!"

The room went entirely still.

Lucien looked down at his hands, a sudden, sickening memory hitting him. Every time he had asked Elain where you were over the past fortnight, she had murmured that you were resting, that you didn't want to be disturbed. They haven't told the males anything. They had kept it to themselves, a small domestic annoyance they thought they were managing.

Rhysand's face went completely bloodless as he reached out with his power, sweeping the city's wards. There was no trace of your signature. Anywhere.

"She's gone," Azriel whispered, the absolute finality of the words freezing the room to its core.

The search was an exercise in pure terror.

For three days, the Night Court became a living nightmare. Azriel didn't sleep, his shadows tearing through every alleyway, every border, every whisper in the wind. Rhysand ripped through the minds of every traveler passing through the territory, while Cassian scoured the skies and Lucien tracked the physical borders.

Finally, deep in a forgotten valley near the cracked perimeter of the court, Azriel's shadows caught the faint, metallic scent of blood and old iron.

The assault on the subterranean stronghold was completely merciless. There was no negotiation, no questioning. Cassian and Azriel tore through the heavy stone doors like a thunderstorm, leaving the captors no time to even raise their weapons.

When the dust cleared, Azriel kicked open the final iron door at the end of the corridor.

You were curled into the furthest corner of the damp cell, your knees pulled tight to your chest. Your clothes were ruined, your skin pale and mapped with the physical toll of a two-week confinement. Your eyes were wide, staring unseeingly at the doorway, flinching violently at the sound of the heavy footsteps.

At first, your mind couldn't process the dark wings or the blue siphons. You just saw figures coming into the dark again.

Then, Azriel dropped to his knees in front of you, his hands shaking so violently he couldn't bring himself to touch you. "Y/N," he choked out, his voice cracking. "Y/N, it's me. I've got you."

You didn't cry. You didn't reach for him. Instead, a panicked, desperate expression flooded your face, and you tried to press yourself deeper into the solid stone wall.

"I didn't tell them anything," you whispered, your voice a ragged, broken thing that made Cassian freeze in the doorway. "I swear I didn't."

"Y/N, stop, look at me—"

"I know I'm not useful," you sobbed, the words tumbling out in a terrifying, rushed panic, your eyes wide and pleading. "I know I'm a burden. I know I don't belong here. But I didn't tell them anything. Please... please don't let them take me back. I'll do better. I'll stay in my room. I'll be quiet. I promise."

You looked directly into Azriel's hazel eyes, your lips trembling. "Don't let them do that again."

In that exact, devastating second, something primordial and violent snapped into place inside Azriel's chest. A golden bond of pure, undeniable light flared to life in the darkness, connecting his soul directly to yours.

The mating bond didn't bring warmth or celebration. It brought the collective weight of every single night you had spent believing you were nothing. It brought the echo of every silent tear you had shed on that balcony.

Azriel's shadows completely swallowed the room, turning the space into a void of absolute wrath. He lunged forward, gathering your fragile form against his chest, his wings wrapping around you so tightly that the rest of the world vanished. He buried his face in your hair, a low, terrifying growl vibrating against your skin.

"Never again," he promised against your ear, his voice rough with a lethal vow. "Never again."

They brought you back to the House of Wind, but the home you returned to was dead.

The physical wounds healed under the care of the healers, but the silence remained. Only now, it was a silence born of profound guilt and terror.

You didn't trust anyone. Especially your sisters.

Every time Feyre entered a room, you didn't yell or accuse her. You simply flinched, your shoulders tightening as you quietly stepped away toward the window. It wasn't anger; it was the simple, devastating memory that when you had begged for help, she had looked at a piece of paper instead. You remembered that nobody came.

Nesta tried to apologize one afternoon, standing at the door of your bedroom with her hands clenched at her sides, her eyes red. "Y/N... we didn't know. If we had only realized—"

You looked at her from the bed, your expression entirely hollow. "I know."

Nothing else. No anger, no screaming, no tears. Just an acceptance that cut Nesta deeper than any blade ever could.

When Elain came to your bedside, she broke down, weeping openly into her hands, overwhelmed by the horror of what her carelessness had allowed. You reached out, your pale hand gently patting her shoulder, comforting her out of sheer, ingrained habit.

And that act completely destroyed the house. Because even now, broken and hollowed out by their neglect, you were still the one taking care of them.

Months passed.

The seasons shifted toward winter, and the house remained quiet. But you were never alone. Azriel never left your side. When the nightmares woke you in a cold sweat, he was sitting in the chair by the hearth. When the panic attacks made it impossible to breathe, his shadows gently wrapped around your shoulders, muting the sounds of the world just as he had promised. He said very little, but he stayed. He knew you no longer believed in words.

One night, months after the rescue, you found yourself standing on the balcony where it had all begun. The stars were bright over Velaris, casting a silver glow over the snow-dusted rooftops.

The shadows shifted, and Azriel stepped out beside you, his presence a steady, familiar warmth against the winter chill. Neither of you spoke for a long time, watching the city lights twinkle below.

"Did you know?" you asked quietly, your eyes fixed on the horizon.

Azriel's breath caught in his throat. He turned his head to look at you, his features soft in the moonlight. "Know what?"

You didn't look at him. You just kept staring at the city that had forgotten you. "That I was disappearing."

A long, agonizing silence settled over the balcony. The wind sighed through the chasm of the mountains.

"Yes," Azriel whispered, his voice rough and thick with an old, lingering grief.

You closed your eyes, a single, hot tear slipping down your cheek. For the first time since you had been taken, the tight knot in your chest loosened slightly. You weren't crazy. You hadn't been dramatic. Someone had seen you slipping into the dark.

"I just didn't realize how far you'd fallen," Azriel added, his hand finally reaching out to cover yours on the cold stone.

And there, under the indifferent stars of Velaris, you finally let yourself cry. Not from fear, and not from pain, but because someone had finally admitted the truth. They should have noticed. And sometimes, that is the only apology that can begin to heal the break.