A Court Of Moonlight And Shadows (An Azriel/ACOTAR Fanfiction)

Chapter 11

Arcane had been going off on a tangent about orangutans for a good thirty minutes when they reached the entrance of the tunnel. Vines crept over the narrow mouth as it disappeared under the ground. It was hidden behind several boulders and the way inside was very narrow.

Arcane fitted through it with ease. Azriel struggle with his wings and she wondered if they could get rid of them completely. He batted her hand away from them and huffed before searching for a dry branch. There were several of them on the ground but they were all moist. He found one that they could use and turned towards her, "Tear a bit of fabric off your dress." He said.

She frowned, "Excuse me?"

"We need to light this on fire." He waved the stick in her face.

She glared at him but tore a piece from one of the under layers as he dutifully looked away. Still glaring at him, she took the stick and wrapped the cloth around the top of it before it went up in flames. The dark tunnel lit up and she thrust it back towards him. The bundle of pears in her arms, she walked ahead of him and even thought she had just glared at him, he could see the excitement of getting closer to the palace.

After they had walked for a while, he said, "So, what's in the palace? When are you going to tell me?"

"I was going to tell you after you told me you had found a way in but now I'm here." She sighed and stepped over a carcass of a baby dear. It must have wandered in for shelter and gotten lost. "It's-" she sucked in a breath. "It's my father."

"Huh?" Azriel choked on air. "They have your father? Why?"

She didn't look at him and kept walking. He kept her with her, "Don't leave it hanging, Arcane. Why do they have your father?" He paused and then asked, "Was it during the war?"

She stopped in her tracts and turned towards him. Looking into his eyes, she said, "When I was seven."

"But you just left your house when you were-oh." His knuckles turned white around the torch. "You didn't leave. Your mother wasn't attacked."

She nodded, a haunted look in her eyes. Ice filled his veins. "Why did you lie to Feyre?"

"What difference would it have made if I had told the truth?" She smiled sadly. "Now at least she's happy."

"But- Arcane!" He called when she walked ahead again. The ground was getting clearer as they travelled farther, possibly because nobody had ever went inside and not even animals wanted to walk into the endless dark. "Finish what you started." He frowned angrily. "You can't lie to all of us forever."

"Oh?" She snorted.

He ducked away from a cobweb. "Will you stop walking? We need to talk."

"Do we?" She mused.

"Yes."

She sighed and slowed down, taking leisure filled step. "Fine. What do you want to know?"

"You spend all these years in Hybern?"

"Yes. They captured me and my father from our house when I was seven and killed my mother. Both of us were locked in one cell until I managed to escaped three years ago." She swung her arms forwards and backwards.

He sucked in a breath, "And your father?"

"He sent me forward. That was the last of him I saw or heard." She sucked on her teeth.

"Why you?" He asked carefully. "Why your family?"

She looked at the ground, "Well, that was the time when Hybern's spies were spread everywhere."

"People like Amarantha." He nodded.

"Yes. Like her. My mother was one of them."

"Pardon?" He tripped over nothing and caught himself.

Arcane smiled, "My mother was a spy of Hybern but she-" she shrugged, "-fell in love with my father. They had me." She grinned at him. "That's why I have magic."

"You're half - fae?" He asked in a daze. His mind was empty and he didn't know how to digest all of this information.

"Something like that." 

"No, no. Tell me exactly." He insisted.

"Well." She said awkwardly. "My mother was- she was doing something when she conceived me."

"Obviously."

She rolled her eyes, "Shut up. I'm trying to be serious."

"Of course." He held up his hands. "I want you to be serious about this."

"Good." Arcane fiddled with her fingers. "She was trying to look for ways to amplify her magic."

"Oh?" The tunnel spun. Or maybe it was just Azriel's head.

"Yes. That's why my magic is similar to fae magic but not exactly that. When the king found out about my parents's wedding and me, he had us all captured. My mother was executed but they noticed the magic in me." She let out a shaky breath. "My father and me were kept alive and this war would have started a lot sooner if I hadn't escaped a year before that."

"They would've tried to use you to find the cauldron." He stated and she confirmed it by nodding. "And now you're back for your father?"

"Yes. But also another thing." She pursed her lips into a thin line. The light from the torch bounced off the walls and the tunnel twisted a few times. "My magic is rooted into something." She seemed hesitant. "It's in there. Nobody but I can use it but my magic can get out of control without it."

"What is it?" He asked, leaning forward with intrigue.

"It's a bracelet. My mother made it with pure starlight."

"Can I ask something else?" He already knew the answer.

"You've asked everything but sure."

"Was it at seven that you grew habitual to only having one meal?"

She uncomfortably adjusted her dress and kept walking. "Let's keep walking."

Azriel stopped in his tracks, watching her faintly glowing shape moving towards the dark. As if they weren't different enough, this difference stared him in the face. She had been locked up in the dark her entire life but unlike him, who made a friend out of it, she had chosen to glow stark against it, refusing to submit to the shadows.