Unreal, Unearthed | Azriel x reader

Chapter III.

CHAPTER III.

The hours cease to pass in the darkness of the living quarters of The House of Wind. Time slows to a near-halt and the darkness is an unending abyss. The passing of time is marked only by the slowly dying embers of the fire in the hearth.

The cinders burn slow and white-hot and their warmth still kisses your skin softly like the kiss of an old lover. The sky outside is dark and foreboding, a heavy blue-darkness that looms on the horizon like a storm brewing beneath the sky's skin surface, hidden behind the flowering clouds

The house drifts between solemn silence and palpable tension.

It's raw power that radiates through stagnant air. A tremor in the earth as something ancient and long-dead awakens from its dormant slumber.

You rise from your place in front of the fire, fanning the flame as you go, and pad over the balcony. Night air hits you like the break in a fever. It's soothing and a little cruel. The wind sweeps you into its icy embrace and as you reach the railing you stare down into the unending darkness below. Your mind drifts to the darkness that had plagued you for centuries. How many centuries old is this wound? It cuts you in ways you cannot yet name and the darkness speaks to you in a language so ancient that only you and the earth understand it.

It whispers on the wind like the first Gods. Lost to time and long dead.

There is comfort in the knowledge that is contained between you and that same darkness. That your heart, seeped in shadow, is seen by someone.

Something.

However archaic and mythical.

The balcony is large, vacant, and cold but from this height Velaris shimmers golden against the twilight. The lanterns trace the line down the mountain and into the main square, then trailing off down into the deepest crevices of the valley, down between the row houses. They look like veins of gold, carrying light right down into the heart of the valley.

In your youth Velaris was but a hazy recollection of starlight and dreams; eternally beautiful and smothered in the rosy colors of dusk-- A colorful oasis from the emerald forests of the Illyrian Mountains. Where the shadows of the mountain cannot reach you.

You have grieved for the girl you were, now you must grieve for the home which you left, burn it to the ground and forge a new home from the ash. A home built of spite and bone, a home that smells like jasmine and cool seafoam.

The last of the dying embers have been snuffed out now and the living room is soaked in the hues of night. All black and indigo, inky shadows illuminated by the slivers of amethyst moonglow that piece through the thin material of the curtains.

Turning inwards to the house you notice movement in the dark, a thick black mass that wades through the night air. Through the blanket of the dark, all that you can see are eyes, gilded and ardent topaz in the dark.

In the opalescent light your eyes fall onto his form; he's built like some great Adonis. Or perhaps Atlas holding up the weight of the world. He looks like the personification of divinity. Or perhaps a devil incarnate. Either way, there is some strange, violent beauty about him that threatens to bring you to your knees. Your breath catches in your throat as he drops into the seat where you had made your bed.

Azriel.

You would know him, always. You would love him in every lifetime.

You would know him eternally, by the way his scarred hands caress the light and the way his shadows kiss your skin. You would know him even in death and by the bond that tethers your body to his.