A Court of Fate and Failure | Azriel

14: Shouts and Secrets

Knives and forks clicked against porcelain plates in the morning light. Rather than disrupting the silence, they melded with it as reminders to its presence. 

Naoise sat across from Rhysand in the middle of the large table, still at the House of Wind, Azriel having left to complete business of some sort. A small breeze swept in from one of the doors left ajar behind her, tickling her shoulders with her hair. The overwhelming weight of Rhys's silent presence pressed down on her. It made her tense, made her forget the ease with which she awoke. She adjusted the collar of her maroon button up. 

Most of all, it made her think only of the night before, and all he now knew because she allowed herself to reach such a point of weakness.

Azriel; her mate. The weight of shame on her mind. The panic. The pain. The powers she hid away. What they did to her. Never belonging anywhere. All that had been taken and would never return.

Death, as it waited around the corner. And the hands she held out for it to take.

In contrast to his silence, his heart was screaming. Beating just a tad too fast, it echoed with anger. It echoed with fear and it echoed with deja vu. Like he knew, like he was familiar, with a situation like this one. Familiarity too, and sympathy. Something that could only come from knowing. Rhysand was familiar with her situation and thus would not pity her. Did not pity her.

Naoise wondered who his mate could be.

But the anger was most prevalent. And by now she knew enough to know it was because of her secrets. It was because... in reality, she didn't know. And that was the problem.

So she said, "You're angry with me."

Rhys looked up and the intensity of his stare caught her off guard, wings flaring. "Yes."

"Which reason?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

He raised a brow impatiently.

"I can mend the issue if—"

"I recall you thinking differently."

Naoise scowled. "Yes... lapse of strength led to lapse of judgment. Apologies."

Rhys scoffed a laugh of falsities and half truths. "So you don't intend to die before..." he trailed off.

He was taunting her. And anyone who had half a mind knew never to taunt an Illyrian. Much less a female who had been raised to kill and to fight for her place. Taunting her was like dangling her freedom in front of her face.

But Naoise's temper had always been an icy thing. Calm and steady and dangerous all the same.

It was grief that brought out the monster within.

"Oh, but I do. That's never changed."

"Then?"

"I let you see what ought not to be seen. That was my lapse."

Rhys huffed. "You were exhausted," he deadpanned.

"And yet I could have used what energy I had to shield my mind."

"Why didn't you?"

Naoise paused, lifting the edge of her thinned lips up in a twitch of her cheek. "Focused it elsewhere."

"And where was this?"

"Another secret, I'm afraid."

"Does this have something to do with your farewell plea?"

Naoise daren't say a thing. She didn't need to, for that answered the question alone.

Rhys smirked. "Interesting..."