| BOOK TWO - A COURT OF ASH AND SMOKE | Lovers separated, powers that won't be controlled, a doomed wedding. With the threat of war looming over Prythian, Lucien, You, Tamlin, and Rhysand's Inner Circle must scramble to find allies and prepare thems...
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Azriel very rarely allowed himself time inside of his own head. Usually, when he found himself in those quiet moments - the moments that weren't filled with the looming voices of his brothers or found family - he would find another way of distracting himself. Whether it was training or sparring, or drowning his sorrows in Rhysand's very best liquor, or sitting on the roof of the House of Wind and looking out over the city sprawled below - anything that would drown out the thoughts inside his own head.
Yet, his thoughts seemed so loud these days, so persistent.
There was nothing that he could explain as the reasoning. Nothing had changed, besides Feyre's occasional appearance in the Court of Nightmares. Everything else, day-to-day, seemed to be exactly the same. He spent his time working, conversing with the spies he had stationed in various other courts, went on patrols of Velaris' borders to ensure their wards remained strong and intact. Yet, one thing had changed in the past few days.
Y/N had left.
Strangely, he had become so used to her being there, even if it had only been a few months since her arrival. Granted, those first few days, she had struggled, and for some reason it had cracked his heart a little bit, to see her facing such anguish. But, after a while, she had found comfort in the Inner Circle, it would seem - friendship. She had become a part of the furniture, had slotted herself into a gap in their family that he hadn't even realised had been there. She had become, not important, but valued within their group.
To no one more so than him.
It startled him, how she had somehow squeezed herself into his mind in such a short amount of time. It hadn't been that way with Mor - it had taken decades before he'd seen her in any way other than as a friend. But with Y/N? The second he had seen her curled up on the floor in the Spring Court, she had barely left his mind. And now that she was gone, it seemed to have only become worse.
He had tried training - punching the sandbag in the training area at the House of Wind to the point that his knuckles had cut open. He had tried throwing himself into his work - asking Rhys for more and more missions that could fill his thoughts with anything other than the thoughts of her. Nothing he tried seemed to drown them out. Her face kept flashing in his mind, each time he closed his eyes.
But he didn't want to think of her like that. He didn't want to feel for her that way. Not when she was a friend, who had so much resting on her shoulders that she needed him as a friend, nothing more. Not when she had Lucien.
'It's just because you're worried about your friend,' he reasoned with himself as he sat atop that rooftop, admiring the way the golden glow of the lights from the city glimmered and reflected against the ripples of water in the Sidra. 'She's in the Spring Court, and you're worried about her. That's all.'
But, much to his annoyance and concern, he knew that wasn't the reason. Not at all.
***
A heavy sigh echoed through the foyer; Lucien was exhausted. So many days he had spent patrolling the border of the Spring Court lands with Tamlin. A week had passed in the blink of an eye, but Lucien had been lucky enough to sneak back to the manor every now and then, unlike Tamlin, who had spent the full eight days stalking the grounds in search of the creatures that were lurking there, along the border that split the Spring lands from Autumn and Summer.
