Naoise awoke to dim sunlight streaming through darkness. A thick and hazy smoke filled every corner of the room, drifted through every loose sheet and every disheveled hair on her head.
And just as she woke, she caught it thinning around her, as though in her sleep it had been... cradling. Protecting. If that was even possible. If that was even something her darkness would do.
It had become a ridiculous notion at that point, that a part of her that had always rejected her so ardently could want anything good for its captor. Could harbor any notion of affection.
Sitting up, a strangled groan slid its way into the thick air from her throat, tensing with the pain that shot through every crookedly cramped muscle. She reached a hand to rub at the knot at the base of her neck, that motion alone eliciting another groan. Then Naoise forced herself to her feet despite every creak of her bones and the ache in the wing resting upon the ground through the night. And then she stood in a darkness from her veins and not at the very same time.
A moment later as she stood before the window and the light breaking through, an urgency and a panic hit her like a punch to the gut. Her wings flew wide at the steady pounding of the Velaris citizens' hearts, sending a wave of shadows washing right back. That was not morning light. It was day, and she had slept as those she'd vowed to protect were left without their guardian. Deserting her promise as though it were nothing.
She failed them.
For a split moment, she remembered when she'd last felt this. When her father lay on that torn battlefield. Her pulse pounded in her ears.
No.
Within five minutes, as pain echoed in the crevices of her body and soul, Naoise shot into the sky from the townhouse's rooftop and set out to make up for her failure.
✰
✩ ★
Naoise felt the impact race to her knees when she landed on the roof of the townhouse that night. It was much later than normal, and pain coursed through her with a relentless current. Nearly every heart beat slow and lethargic in her chest, as they had for hours. Who knew what kind of dangers could get their claws around the innocent citizens of Velaris in the dark?
Which was why, when something seized her ankle, Naoise glanced up with surprise. An ever-looming shadow, a shape against distant stars, Azriel stood before her. Her darkness swirled like a roaring storm in a bottle above her heart. A beacon of darkness in darkness. And yet those hazel eyes remained firmly on her face, arms crossed in a deep green sweater and the two siphons he wore upon the backs of his hands glimmering faintly. Naoise could've sworn they brightened when she flexed her wings and took a smooth, gliding step closer.
Her voice drifted uncertainly with a cold breeze, "Apologies if I kept you waiting."
"You didn't," he said. Simple. Flat.
His voice rumbled in the pit of her stomach, unearthing a flurry of wings. Naoise fought to conceal the sudden need to shiver. Fuck.
She tilted her head subtly. "Oh?" she murmured. "What is it, then?"
"Some rogue Illyrian war bands have been... troublesome. The others are inside."
"And you are not part of this discussion because...?"
Azriel drawled, "Air; space."
"And I have taken up said space."
His silence answered her.
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A Court of Fate and Failure | Azriel
قصص الهواة"What do you know of shame?" "Oh, I know plenty." She fought in the first war, the one that took everything from her, just as it did everyone. 500 years later, she is still fighting in each and every moment. But the day she finds a cause to fight fo...
