Chapter Text
Azriel woke the next morning finding a few things quite alarming.
First and foremost, that he was in bed with Elain. He now remembered making his way into her bedroom to wake her from her nightmare.
Secondly, that he and Elain had somehow shifted closer to each other during the night, and he now had one arm draped over her as she dozed next to him.
Thirdly, if she were to wake, the length she would feel against her backside would be all too noticeable through the thin cotton of his pants.
Shit. He slowly retracted the offending arm and gradually edged out of the bed.
Azriel had woken up like this in many a bed throughout the course of his life. But always with random females he had sought out—never with someone he cared about—friends though they might be. And certainly never with a friend he was sure would be positively scandalized if she knew their positioning as he came to consciousness.
He had been shocked last night when she had come up with the idea of sharing the bed. It wasn’t due to any inhibitions of his own that he had hesitated, but more due to the protection of her innocence.
She had been loosening up lately, drinking more and wearing more revealing Night Court fashions in the past few months, but that didn’t mean that Azriel could assume anything about her level of comfort where interacting with males was concerned. She had just been being overly polite.
He had called her bluff though, letting her have the bed anyways, while he slept on the couch. Until she needed him in the middle of the night and he was powerless to say no. But that didn’t mean she would be perfectly fine with waking up next to him like this. She had just needed someone to help her not feel so alone in that moment of vulnerability.
So he made it easy for her, slipping out of the bedroom to take an ice cold bath before making his way to the kitchen before the sun had even risen, hiding that accidental slip of familiarity his body had shown and saving her the embarrassment of waking up beside a male who meant nothing to her.
Elain woke to the muted sounds of voices down the hallway, one in particular high-pitched and lilting as if she were in the midst of song.
Her suspicions that the deep, hushed voice did indeed belong to Azriel were confirmed as she flipped over to find the other side of the bed vacant, the sheets cool. He had woken up much earlier than her, without bothering to rouse her as well.
She frowned, wondering if he hadn’t perhaps moved to the couch after all, once she had fallen back asleep, but she sincerely hoped that sharing a bed with her wasn’t that detestable.
He had probably only felt like he was doing a duty to his friend. Cauldron, she was so foolish to have thought that even for a fraction of a second, what had transpired last night was anything other than that.
It just confirmed what she already knew, though—what she had failed to somehow convince herself of in the past year. Nothing was going to change, and pining after him was a dead end. If she continued down this path, she would only end up exactly like him—foolishly in love with someone who would likely never love them back for centuries.
She had pointed this out to Azriel, and he said that he knew his childhood crush on Mor was likely doomed, but Elain had seen no change in him, even with their growing intimacy.
It was not enough. She was not enough to change him. Not when he was so set in those ways.
He could continue to let this blind devotion ruin his love life, but Elain needed to make sure she didn’t fall into the same trap. She couldn’t imagine feeling this foolish every morning for the next hundred years, let alone the rest of her life.
She steeled her nerves before heading downstairs to a breakfast spread which Azriel’s mother was fussing about, making it obvious that the shadowsinger had been the one to scrape it together. He must have left her side quite a long time ago in order to workout and prepare a pot of tea as well as heat up a bunch of bacon, sausage, and scrambled eggs for the table.
The male on her mind himself was seated by the window overlooking the frozen Illyrian landscape, having already changed back into his leathers and looking for all the world like he had just walked out of the ring.
His hair was now damp—from sweat or melted frost, Elain was unsure—and his cheeks ruddy, as if he had indeed left his shields down as he took a jog around the village she still had not seen much of outside of these four walls.
Azriel’s eyes shot up from his meal as Elain stepped in the room, and she could have sworn she saw a hint of guilt flash across those tawny eyes before they schooled themselves. She had no way to know what was on his mind then, the shadows refusing to give her the slightest hint as she frustratedly plied them for information.
It could have been a fluke, but perhaps he truly was regretting their night spent in such close proximity, the fact cementing in his mind that he and Elain should never mix like that, could never share that chemistry.
Did you sleep all right? It was foolish, but this was the only way she had to slyly investigate this morning mystery.
Right as rain. What about yourself? After— He was acting … chipper, almost. There was definitely something he wasn’t telling her.
Well enough. In fact, those few hours after Az had woken her and held her had been the best night’s sleep she’d had in a long while, yet Elain wasn’t about to admit that to Azriel.
Elain felt a tug on the sleeve of her shirt, still lazily donning the set of sleeping clothes Azriel had lent her, and looked down to see Iris grinning up at her and dragging her to the dining table.
“Come eat. Azzy made so much food! It’s so yummy!”
“Thank you, little one.” The giant Illyrian gave his tiny sister a forced smile, still hesitant around young children it seemed. “But we’ll have to be quick. Both Elain and I have to return to Velaris this morning because we have work to do.”
Elain let herself be led by the hand to the table and took up the seat next to Azriel.
The two ate in relative silence whenever they weren’t being peppered with questions, the awkwardness of last night seeming to truly have hit home.
When she finished, she excused herself to change back into her own leathers and found an impatient Illyrian warrior waiting for her near the foyer, clearly anxious to take his leave. Perhaps it wasn’t just the night spent with Elain weighing on his mind but also being stuck in this house—in this region—for too long.
“Please come back, Elain!” Iris pleaded, as Azriel began to give his mother his farewells.
Can I?
Yes, I’ll let you know next time I’m making a trip, Az replied instantly.
So he did still want her around to some degree and was willing to keep sharing his family with her.
“Of course I will.” Elain bent down and scooped the squirming toddler up. “And maybe next time I can bring you a lovely bouquet of irises. They’re your namesake after all, and they’ll be in bloom soon.”
“Yay!” Iris squealed, as Elain gave her a peck on the cheek and set her down, so she could embrace Azriel’s mother and thank her for the hospitality.
Finally, the two made it out the door, with many regrets about how short their visit had been, and were able to shadowstep back to the riverfront estate in Velaris.
“Do you really have to work today or can we train?” Elain questioned of the shadowsinger the instant they had vanished from Illyria.
“Work, unfortunately. I put off Rhys’s latest request yesterday to take that trip, so I owe him one today.” He frowned down at Elain. You’ll be alright?
She did notwant him to linger on the memory of seeing her so weak and broken last night. Especially not when she could never admit to him what she had seen in her nightmare.
Of course. Come find me when you’re free, but I did neglect my garden yesterday. And I should catch up with the twins. Why do you ask?
You just seemed … quiet this morning. I thought something was on your mind.
Azriel didn’t even know the half of it, but there was no way she could tell him how much last night had meant to her without confessing her deepest secret. Or how disappointing it was to wake up alone this morning. Or how she had promised herself that she’d stop indulging in these moments because she didn’t want to form an obsession as deep and complicated as his entanglement with Mor.
I’m always quiet before I’ve had my morning tea. I may wake early, but that doesn’t mean I have a lot of energy straight away, she deflected.
Fair point.
You can rely on them, you know, she added perhaps a bit foolishly. All it took was one look at your mother for me to realize how much she adores you. She may have built a family centuries after having you, but she deserves to be happy. And it doesn’t make her need to see her son any less.
I know. I still feel like I don’t belong there. That I will never quite belong anywhere. That somehow everyone will eventually realize that I can never be enough for them. That I’ll bring them down to my level.
There’s nothing wrong with you, Az. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but maybe one day you’ll listen to me. She averted her gaze, a strand of hair slipping loose from her braid as she hung her head so he couldn’t just read the forlorn expression which she must have been radiating.
You’re too kind to me, Elain, but I’ve come to terms with it over the centuries.
She glanced up to find his hand hovering for the tiniest fraction of a second near her face, as if he was about to tuck the rogue strand behind her ear before thinking better of it.
Well, I hope you change your mind, was all she managed to feebly get out before slipping out of his orbit and into the safety of her home, where she could try to safely decouple herself from these feelings of longing and loneliness which her pining had drowned her in.
Lucien found her, frustratedly tearing up roots later in the afternoon.
“What did those plants ever do to you?” he asked in jest, as he approached with catlike steps, swiftly and silently.
Elain sank to the ground before she finally huffed, “Nothing. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Duly noted that I never want to get on your bad side ever again,” he laughed, offering a hand to help her up as she laughed at his dry humor.
“You didn’t deserve it, you know,” she added, a seriousness overcoming their conversation.
“I put you in a difficult situation, though it wasn’t my intention, but that’s neither here nor there anymore. Can I help take your mind off of whatever is troubling you? Perhaps a short ride before dinner?”
“Say no more.” Elain gave Lucien a grin brighter than the sun which was blinding her as it bounced off of that metal eye of his and took his arm as he led her towards the outskirts of Velaris and the promise of temporary freedom from her mental burdens.
“Az!” Mor exclaimed from the largest sitting room of the House of Wind. “Stop working and come have some fun!”
Cassian had flown in from Windhaven an hour ago, and he and Mor had been thick as thieves, breaking into the liquor cabinets almost immediately whilst Azriel continued poring over maps and reaching out to his spies for status reports.
He hadn’t been joking when he’d told Elain he had a busy day ahead of him. Rhys had sent him as a messenger to Kallias, and then he’d had to spend the rest of the afternoon and what was looking to be most of his evening backfilling all he had missed out on during yesterday’s visit to Rosehall.
“You two will have plenty of fun without me!” he grumbled back, letting his veil of shadows thicken a fraction to block out the ruckus that only his brother and his beloved could make.
“Cassian’s here one night earlier than he’s due to report, and you can’t make the most of it?” Her voice was gradually crescendoing, and Azriel knew that he was doomed. She was going to walk straight into this room and drag him out of it, one way or another.
He sighed, glancing up from his duties just in time to see her golden head peek through the doorway, his shadows fleeing as her brilliance filled the room. “We miss you. And whatever Rhys has put you up to can wait for a few hours. Cass already told me you were whisked away last time he was in town.”
“And by a few hours, you mean until tomorrow, don’t you?” He was already shuffling and organizing his stack of papers, on the edge of his seat, unable to resist her aura.
Mor’s resulting grin shone more brilliantly than Starfall as she retreated with a casual, “Indeed, I do,” over her shoulder. A beckoning. Tugging on that thread inside him which would permanently hold him prisoner.
Azriel was out of his seat in another minute, following her down that hallway, until he emerged into the antechamber of the enormous lounging space and was greeted by his brother clapping him on the back and pulling him into a hug.
This wasn’t particularly unusual for a sober Cassian, but Azriel could tell he was already well into the bottle of wine clasped in his other hand.
“What brings you in town tonight?” Az asked, having been fully unaware of the visit until Cassian had touched down on the rooftop.
“Oh, you know. A little bit of this. A little of that …”
“Dodging a certain Archeron?” Azriel raised an eyebrow.
“Quite a bit of that. She’s not happy I accidentally drank one of her precious bottles of wine. Most I’ve heard out of her mouth in ages.”
Azriel could tell that, though Cassian was making light of the situation, it was eating away at him inside. Nine months he’d been stuck in that cabin with Nesta, and nothing seemed to have changed.
Certainly, Nesta was entitled to take some time to heal for whatever was ailing her after the war, but even he had to admit that it seemed to be taking much longer than it had for the other two sisters. Perhaps that was in part because of how much of a toll her prickliness was taking on his entire family.
“Well, let’s hope Rhys doesn’t chew you out for stealing his best vintage.”
“I stole it, to be precise. Walked right into the estate this afternoon as soon as I heard this one was on his way and made off like a bandit. Cauldron knows that we all deserve it,” Mor corrected.
Azriel poured himself a glass, taking a large swig and relishing the slight burn as it trickled down his throat. Perhaps he needed a bit of a release to take the edge off the tightness he felt in his chest after visiting his family.
“Well, who am I to refuse to partake after such a daring deed has taken place in order to obtain it?” Azriel chugged the rest of his glass before reaching for the bottle, cursing his Illyrian blood for making this so difficult. Burn though it might, it was going to be awhile and take many glasses before he truly felt any effects of the alcohol.
“Bottoms up.” Cassian grinned as he toasted his two friends.
Many hours later, and one impromptu winnowing to a bakery downtown for the pastries Mor was craving, Azriel found himself teetering on the edge of his own sanity, as he glanced at Cassian, passed out on one of the couches.
His brother had also broken into the whiskey upon their return to the House and had not lasted much longer afterwards. And Azriel had a suspicion that with how much Cassian was snoring, he wouldn’t be waking anytime before midday tomorrow.
He and Mor had vacated the sitting room, leaving him to his slumbers and were now seated shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor by the bar, passing a bottle of wine back and forth in silence, every point of contact between them branding him. Until …
“Az, are you happy?”
“What do you mean?” He passed the bottle back to Mor who took a monstrous swig before continuing.
“Do you ever just look back at all these centuries and wonder what you could have done differently? Have these tiny moments you wish you could change which might, I don’t know, fix some of the wrongs in your life?”
What the hell was she insinuating? Was this really happening to him right here? Right now? In this state of intoxication?
“Mor—I—”
She held up a hand, and he let her continue. “You’re so quiet, and I know that’s just part of who you are, always watching and observing, never trying to take center stage, but don’t you want something like that in your life? Somebody who could give that to you? Help you find contentment?”
So many times over his life had he promised himself he would have this sort of conversation with Mor, yet every single time, for centuries and centuries, he had chickened out.
“Of course I do, but I don’t deserve it.”
“Azriel, you more than anyone else I know deserves to find love and happiness. You may not recognize that about yourself, but it’s true. I know you better than almost anyone.”
Those words hit so close to what Elain had told him only this morning, but …
“I don’t deserve you.” His voice was barely a whisper, and Azriel could hear as Mor audibly gulped.
“Az, I think … I think I’ve been grossly unfair to you. For a long time now …”
Holy shit. Only in Azriel’s wildest, most impossible-seeming dreams did Mor ever confront him about this—begin a confession in this way.
“I almost told you this when we were kids, but I got cold feet. And ever since then, I haven’t been able to find the right words to say. But I think … I think you should know this anyways.”
Azriel’s drunken mind was somehow whirling at a million miles a minute, yet even so, her words were floating at the edge of his consciousness, as he tried to process them.
“I … like females, Az. I always have, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change.”
“But …” Everything within him screeched to a halt. All those nights where he’d seen her go home with a random male from the bar. Or with someone they knew. Or that time with Cassian. “You sleep with males.”
“I can … find pleasure in that, yes. But I’ve never been able to love a male. Not in the way that counts.”
“But …”
“I’ve been selfish for a very long time, shielding this piece of myself from the world, but you needed to know. I couldn’t keep doing this to you.”
Azriel could feel his face heating. “Doing what to me?”
“I’ve always known how you feel about me, Az. I think I’ve known it since we were teenagers, even before I slept with Cassian, but I could never work up the courage to tell you. But now …”
“Now what?” His fists were clenching at his side, the wine bottle shattering in his iron grip, as he fought the urge to explode, but he couldn’t even feel the shreds of glass digging into his skin.
She had kept something like this from him for centuries. He had always assumed that he had even the slightest fraction of a chance with her, but she had known it was never meant to be and had hidden that information from him for so long.
“Please, just calm down.” Her voice had raised in pitch. “I just … I want you to be happy, and I think you could be. Just not with me.”
Azriel stood up, unable to remain still, shedding any minuscule semblance that he was still in control of the icy rage which was flooding through his veins.
“It was always you. It was always you,” he growled, as he prowled down the hallway, with no aim, no idea what he was searching for.
“It wasn’t. You just used me—”
“Liar!” he accused her, still running in the opposite direction, unable to breathe as her statement began to sink in. “You were always such a liar, Morrigan.”
Without thinking, in a frenzy, he spat those putrid words at her, a curse which Jurian had crooned at her years ago. And she froze. He heard her footsteps halt behind his as he kept storming through the House.
Yet, somehow he didn’t care. He merely kept walking, his feet carrying him on autopilot until he reached a dead end. How fitting.
He was never going anywhere. He was never going to amount to anything. He would never have any inkling of anything good in his life.
He tugged on a shadow, letting it take him to the only place he could ever truly be alone before everything went utterly blank.