#junior spymaster

The footsteps halted at his bedside, and a stifled giggle was promptly muffled by a blanket that was surely being pressed across the bedroom creeper’s lips. Azriel braced his abdominals for what he knew was to come, just as he knew his daughters’ knees were bending, readying herself to push off the ground as she fluttered her little wings and landed feet first on his stomach, her bottom following soon after.

Umph! He heard the little puff of her breath leave her as she landed on his stomach, shuffling to straddle his torso. She was still working on her crash landings, or rather, learning how to try to avoid them.

“Wake up daddy! I got you!” Rune squealed, her little fingers poked at his face, giggling as she did so. The sound of her tinkling laughter filled his heart with unbridled joy. He never thought he’d be the reason for a youngling’s happiness.

Azriel made a display of acting surprised, exclaiming theatrically “Rue! You got me good today, baby.”

Rune giggled and wrapped her little arms around his neck, stretching herself over her father’s chest, pulling her blanket up with her. A broad hand came up to rest on her back, stroking her long, unruly mane. So much like his own but softer, finer in the delicate way only a child’s hair can be. He breathed in her honey and morning dew scent.

“I’m a good sneaker, you know.”

Azriel smiled down at his four-year-old. Her little feet were planted either side of his waist as she rested her chin on a fist, her elbows digging into his chest.

Azriel arched an eyebrow, regarding his daughter. “A sneaker? Or a spy?”

“Oh, a spy!” she corrected.  “I’m gonna be Spymaster for Nyxie when we’re all grown up. Just like you and Uncle Rhysie.”

Azriel chuckled, “Oh really?”

She nodded matter of factly. “Ahuh! I’m good at finding secrets.”

He snorted, knowing very well how much of a snoop Rune was. He barely had a spare second with her mother alone.

“I know you are. But you see, what you also must understand is that you have to be good at keeping secrets, too.”

Azriel gave her a smirk as he bopped her on the nose pointedly. It was only just last week that Rune had announced to his brothers at family dinner that mama and daddy were doing yoga in bed again when Rhys had been ribbing Azriel about missing morning training sessions for three consecutive days. Cassian had looked like he was about to combust from laughter.

“I can keep ‘em!” Her bright eyes gazed back into his, the perfect portrait of righteous indignation painted across her features. She looked so much like him, big hazel eyes, raven black hair and golden-brown skin, thankfully still smooth and mostly unblemished. The only thing marring her perfect skin were the regular knicks and grazes a happy child would encounter. But her temperament, her way with people and her kindness, that was all her mother.

“Oh really? Didn’t you tell me just yesterday at bedtime that Benedict has been sneaking mama’s cookies from the kitchen?”

Rune blushed, fiddling with her blanket between her hands, her mind working to form a rebuttal to her father’s accusation.

“Yeah but… I’m just being a good spy for you daddy! You still the master now, so I tell you all the secrets. But when I’m the master, you gotta tell me when Beny steals the cookies!”

“Well in that case I guess you were just being a loyal subject then, is that right? It had nothing to do with tattling on your brother.”

“Yep! Mama said that the master is nothing without the network, daddy.” She waved her arms about as she spoke and that combined with the stern look on her little face had Azriel grimacing to contain his amusement.

“That’s very true, Rue. Mama is very smart; the Master is nothing without his network. That is why you have to all work together to protect the ones you love and the ones that trust you to protect them.”

Rune nodded solemnly; glimpses of such wisdom shown beyond her years already.

“Is that why you’re Spymaster daddy? So you can protect mama and Beny and me?”

Azriel smiled at his daughter. A whisper of sadness at the edge of his mind as he thought about the solitary reason he had been employed as Spymaster by Rhys’ cruel father centuries ago.

Shadowsinger.

So rare, so coveted.

It was no secret that his shadows could infiltrate almost any court, any kingdom. The edge his affinity over the shadows provided him, and therefore the court that he served.

Rune had always been fascinated with his vein of work. Enamoured with everything investigative and the gathering of intelligence. He wouldn’t tell his daughter today the full scope of what being Spymaster meant. He wouldn’t tell her that the pools of their enemies’ blood stained into the skin of his hands are never fully washed away. He wouldn’t expose her yet to the methods employed to gain access to vital information required to protect his family, his court and its citizens. He wouldn’t yet share with her the mental and physical lengths it takes to reel yourself back from the pit of wickedness you slip into in order to protect the fragile walls of your mind, so you do not lose yourself to the infinite realm of darkness and despair as you spiral.

No, he wouldn’t share all that with her today.

How the feared Spymaster and Shadowsinger of the Night Court had found himself with the most beautiful female he had ever known remained a mystery even to himself. Of all his proficiency in uncovering the truth, he still had no idea how a female as kind and warm as her loved his jagged and twisted soul so fiercely. And to bestow him with two children that not only loved and worshipped him, seeing not fearsome warrior, but just saw…daddy. Saw their protector, their play mate, their teacher and friend.

“That’s right baby, I do it all to protect you and mama and Beny. And before I had all of you in my life I did it all for Uncle Rhys and Uncle Cass.”

He wrapped a large hand around her head, threading his fingers gently in her soft hair and pulled her back onto his chest, pressing a kiss atop her head as she snuggled into his embrace. A small fist came to rub at her nose, her other hand still clutching her blanket.

“Mama is making pancakes,” she murmured into his chest, seemingly done with their previous conversation.

Azriel laughed. The attention spans of four-year-olds never failed to entertain him. This kid may have had his eyes and fierce loyalty, but she had Cassian’s appetite.

Rising swiftly out of bed, still clutching Rune in his arms, he exclaimed, “Well then, let’s go get pancakes!”

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@azrielshadowsingerweek