A Court of Fire and Shadows.

chapter seventeen.

By the time Elena had dragged her ass back to the House of Wind, her clothes were slick with black blood,  her eyes were wide, and her mood was sour.

And when Azriel steps through the door after her, his mood wasn't much better, she looks over her shoulder, grinning at him, showing her teeth. "Told you it wouldn't be fun," she says with a shrug, moving further into the house, and into the living room, Cassian looking up from where he was seated on the couch as he plugs his nose with his finger. "Oh. You're alive. Wonderful," he says, yawning slightly, "don't drip blood on the carpet."

"Do I look like the type of woman that dies, Cassian?" she asks, ignoring his request and walking past him to get to her room. Not hearing his grumbled answer, as she walks down the passage, Azriel still behind her. Unable to stop her shoulders from slumping, and a hiss of pain slipping through her teeth, pausing to lean against the wall while Azriel comes up in front of her, a frown on his face, a crease between his brows. "You'll get wrinkles if you keep frowning like that," she says, her voice slightly strained, pushing up against the wall and standing straight again.

"What's going on?" he asks, that frown still on his face, her heart tightening to an ache.

"Nothing I can't handle," she replies, walking past him and opening the door to her rooms, hearing him say, "That's not what I asked-" before her door swung shut, and she winced, feeling a deep ache in her back, seeing Noah asleep on her bed with his face in a picture of peace, and knowing she cannot wake him to ask him to rub the salve on her scars, the ache they brought after too much exertion.

So she quietly takes off her armor,  biting back sobs, her teeth clenched so tightly she thought she might break her jaw, or crack a tooth. Coming to the realization after trying to reach her back, that she could not do this herself. And the only other person she trusted here was down the hall.

So she takes a deep breath and stands back up, wearing only loose dark pants and the band she uses to wrap around her breasts, one that stops them from moving, but right now it constricted her breathing and made her have to pause on the threshold of her room before pushing forward towards Azriel's. Raising her hand to knock on his door, but it swung open before her knuckles could touch the wood, and she comes face to face with Azriel's neck, and when she glances down, his bare chest. Ignoring the twisting in her stomach and clearing her throat, holding up the tin of salve in her hand.

"I can't-" she starts, before pausing and starting again. "My back hurts. After a day like that, it always hurts, and Noah is sleeping, and I could normally reach it myself but it's really bad today. And I know you probably have better things to do than help me, but no one else knows. And if you genuinely are busy,  then I'll just wake up Noah, or find Mor. But it's hard to walk, and I feel as though my legs are about to buckle, and if you don't let me in, just know you'll be sending away a cripple."

Azriel runs a hand over his face, letting out a harsh breath. "Get in, Princess."

***

She'd come to him.

He ignores the flare of victory that courses through him at the thought, opening the door wider to let her inside, his eyes traveling over her back when she walked past him and into his room, his armor in a heap in the corner. They shocked him every time he saw them. Made him unexplainably angry. But he clears his throat before saying, "You can lie on the bed," voice a bit rougher than usual, stopping his eyes from moving along the skin that was visible, knowing now was definitely not the time.

She does what he says, lying down slowly on the bed, letting out a small sigh of content when she does, and he looks to the ceiling as if asking the gods for help. Her hands reaching behind her to undo the small clasp holding the bandage type thing together, and she lifts her chest to unwind the material, her back now completely bare.