A Court of Gold and Shadows

you'll be made of ashes too

Just like the cauldron had wanted.

He had gotten to see that every family dinner he attended, even when his attendance got rarer and rarer.

Saw how Elain, beautiful Elain bloomed under Lucien's attention. When Azriel could stomach to look at her. When there wasn't Rhys reminding him with harsh words if he so much as dared to look at her for too long.

He stopped coming so often.

It was better that way.

The question was just for whom.

He thought that maybe if he didn't go...then it wouldn't quite hurt so much. But that wasn't true. It still hurt. Even more maybe.

Likes somebody cleaved his chest open and burned out his heart.

And then they had announced their wish to marry and...well.

That was it then.

The people around him found their happily ever after.

Rhys and Feyre.

Cassian and Nesta.

And now...now Elain and Lucien.

It seemed like the cauldron knew what it was doing after all, didn't it?

There weren't even words that could describe his bitterness. And he cut off that line of thought before it could...result in anything unpleasant.

Not now.

Not here. Not where Rhys could hear.

He could feel his shadows curl against him as the evening progressed. Trying to offer him any comfort they could, regardless of how little it was. They slithered against every bit of skin they could find, cloaking him in darkness underneath his clothing, as he was reduced to watching.

Mor pulled him to dance once, because, of course, she did.

Morrigan.

So beautiful, so unattainable. Pining after her had been safe, because why not want the unattainable?

It wasn't like he had ever really had a chance with her. And a part of him had known that from the start.

Morrigan had been unattainable. (And so Azriel hadn't...hadn't needed to think about it. Not really. Whether he deserved her or not, because it was Mor and he wouldn't be able to have her anyway.)

But with Elain...with Elain...Azriel had thought he had a chance.

Elain in all her beauty and softness and gentleness...Everything good in the world...He had seen her and he had fallen in love.

And then it had been taken from him before he had ever had a chance to go for it.

He watched. The Bride and Groom. The friends and family surrounding them.

He slipped into the shadows because that was the one comfort he had right there. The one thing that he could do.

He waited and he watched...he saw Nyx in Feyre's arms, looking halfway to sleep already, saw Feyre watching the other Faes dancing... He slunk out of the shadows. They followed along with him.

They had clung tighter to him over the last months, ever since that solstice, slipping underneath his leathers, clinging to his wrists and ankles, like they wanted to assure him that they were there. Or maybe to shackle him.

He wasn't sure anymore.

Not anymore.

He didn't care anymore either.