Touched by the Flame || Azriel Shadowsinger

Chapter 3

Just when she had finished taking in the outside of the manor, Soraya pushed through the front doors and froze in her tracks. The floors beneath her raggedy old boots were checkered with black and white marble, though a few of the tiles were cracked. She couldn't even begin to count the doors leading off into separate rooms.

A sweeping staircase drew her eye and the curious side of her wanted to explore until every inch of Tamlin's extraordinary manor had been committed to memory. There was another side of her that was angry at the extravagance. So many humans, so many of her people were starving and left without homes. She herself had only a servant's shed to sleep in while just beyond the border, the fae were drowning in riches.

Soraya's fingers curled into fists.

A long hall lead straight to the back of the grounds, a set of glass doors providing a glimpse of what looked to have once been sprawling gardens. Clusters of neatly trimmed white and yellow flowers hugged the hedges and in the center was a rose garden gone rogue. One lone figure bustled about clipping at the vines. She didn't need to seek out pointed ears to know he wasn't human.

Tamlin cleared his throat again as he stepped around her and through an archway on the left. Soraya peeked back at the giant oak doors that had been left wide open, before following after him.

She sucked in a slow breath through her nose when she took in the familiar dining room of marble and gold. Music sang from the far corner and an overzealous chandelier hung over the intricately carved wooden table. 

This was the room that the tonic had shown her. It looked different now, though. The curtains draped over the expansive windows had been replaced. The walls bore the occasional scratch, as if from claws gouging into them. Like the entryway, the floors were speckled with seams of cracks. Still, none of the damage made the room look any less expensive. Briefly, she wondered how Feyre had felt about seeing all of this. Then she hated herself for caring.

"June-"

Soraya nearly jumped out of her skin when Tamlin again interrupted the tranquility. Her head snapped toward the corner where he had stopped behind a female seated at a stark white piano. That must have been the source of the music, then.

The female spun around, looking about as startled as Soraya had been. Her hair was a cloud of thick, inky curls that barely brushed the deep brown skin of her shoulders. Her doe eyes went round at the sight of Tamlin and she scrambled to her feet, sliding a young boy off of her lap. The boy, whose skin was a pale shade of blue, grinned up at the male before them without restraint, showing off a gap where one of his front teeth should be.

Soraya studied them curiously. They would look so human if not for their pointed ears and the little curled horns that peeked out from the female's wild hair.

The female who must have been June dipped her head in greeting, her eyes flicking to Soraya for only a moment and catching on her bloody sleeve.

"Could you bring us some bandages from the infirmary?" Tamlin asked, though it sounded more like a casual order than a question.

June dipped her head again and reached for one of the boy's fiddling hands. 

"Alone," Tamlin added.

"Of course, My Lord," June hurried before reluctantly scurrying from the room. The skirts of her dress billowed behind her.

Soraya swallowed the lump in her throat and watched as the young boy linked his hands behind him. He rocked back on his heels nervously, refusing to meet his High Lord's eyes. Tamlin didn't seem to mind. He simply ruffled the boy's mess of black curls and nodded over his shoulder.