Azriel was about to embed a knife into someone very deeply. His anger was quick and sharp, but it was not noticeable. He barely grimaced as another male spoke up, offering yet another needling detail. With one hazel glance, the Illyrian silenced themself, and he released the tightness in his face.
"I have matters to attend to," he fibbed, "send me any further comments to me later." He walked out before they could respond, his wings twitching in the cool breeze. Dry grass crunched beneath his feet, his shadows crawling about his neck. Azriel wasted no time as he strided to a very familiar cabin, one marked and carved with age, which stood alone and prominent among the swarm of dark Illyrians.
His leather boots thunked against wood as he climbed the stairs and crossed the small, covered porch. The door was open before he could reach for the handle.
"Oh," a small voice said, and he winced. He dashed the shadows that kissed his shoulders away before crouching in front of the child, forcing a smile to his face. "Don't do that, I already know you don't like me."
His smile fell away. "Where did you get that from?"
The girl, who stared at him with the same face as Eblis's, rustled her wings defiantly despite his soft tone. "I can tell. You don't like me because you can't smile at me without thinking about it."
"Lilith," he continued in the same tone, even though the words struck him deep, "it is not about you. There are a lot of things going on right now." Lilith-Princess Lilith, rather-stood a little taller. Her black hair rustled with a light wind, and he tucked it behind one of her tiny, pointy ears with his scarred fingers.
Her face pinked. "I'm sorry, Azriel. I just miss Mom."
"I do too." He regretted the words as soon as Lilith's expression crumpled and she seemed near to crying. He pressed her into his arms, a warmth swarming where she curled against him, her shoulders shaking.
"Why'd she make me leave?" His hand wrapped around her small head, pulling her up. Her legs dangled below as if she were not used to being picked up-that she did not know to wrap her legs around his waist. "Does she not love me? I thought she was my real mom."
He thought carefully, entering the cabin and shutting the door and her soft sobs filled the room. "Of course she loves you. She loved you so much, she got you out of that horrible place."
"Why didn't she come with?"
"Because." He did not know. Her time was nearly up, and there had been nothing to tell him she'd been successful. Feyre was within Velaris once more, so they were effectively blind of all things going on within Hybern and of the armies far, far above them. His spies could not infiltrate, and despite everything, he'd been forbidden from going to get her himself. That, and he'd been handed Lilith.
Eblis's child.
"Because," he continued, "she has unfinished business."
Lilith sniffled. "When do you think she'll be finished?"
"Soon," he promised, because he was not sure how to handle a child, and because he was not sure of much of anything else, either. Lilith nodded. He sighed. "I'm going to take you to Velaris, alright?"
The girl glanced at him, violet eyes twinkling faintly in a way he wished to see Eblis's do again. "Do I get to see the High Lady?"
"Feyre would love to see you."
Lilith smiled through red puffy cheeks and eyes, and he winnowed a moment later.
Sunlight washed over them, and he set Lilith down. Her tiny wings fluttered a tiny bit, and she took off towards the Townhouse he'd landed before, the green copper roof glinting in the light. He shut the gate to the small, manicured yard behind her, following inside. Somehow Feyre was already there, smiling at the small girl as they hugged briefly.
The warm interior surrounded him, making his leathers nearly unbearable within the heat. He ignored it however, and made eye contact with Feyre. The female shook her head.
She'd heard nothing about Eblis.
Azriel took a deep breath through his nose and released it, the small inkling of hope falling away. He'd been waiting for word from her ever since the last time they'd spoken, where he had first heard about the child in Feyre's arms, and was given another shard of Eblis's past that cut him just as deep as every other one. She'd left his mind shortly after that, making him regret the few seconds before that he had attempted to push her out. He had not known how much it would pain him for her voice to be ripped away, even if it had only been three days since they'd spoken in person.
Feyre had appeared a day after that, letting him know that nothing had happened, and that they were well on their way to success. She'd filled them in on everything, but only after Rhys had relinquished her. He, like Azriel, had hated every second she'd been in Hybern.
Now, he watched Lilith and Feyre separate. Feyre, in simple leggings and a loose shirt, set Lilith on the ground, gold-brown hair swinging across her face with the movement. Lilith still held on to her pants, as if hanging on to the main thread that linked her to her mother, as they swiveled to him. The small girl beamed.
A scream echoed.
Sharp and piercing, a startled moment of confusion passed along Lilith's face before it shuddered close, her wings tucking into her back tight. Both he and Feyre left the small girl in the Townhouse for a brief few seconds, and stepped outside once more.
The sky, once blue and clear, was nearly black.
***
He launched into the sky the same time Feyre winnowed Lilith away to somewhere safer, the young Princess stoic and still. His wings beat hard as he crested the copper roofs of Velaris, and his vision swam open and wide. The scent of decay huffed over him, faint screams echoing far beneath his legs. The wave of attors, bearing at least two faebane-cladded soldiers a piece, undulated and began a sharp dive. Feyre entered his mind, and that of the rest of the Inner Circle. She warned all of them about the attors and fae, and they responded in kind.
Chaos had descended.
The army had arrived.
Blue blasted out of him in a wave, rising to stop the oncoming forces. His siphons flared over and over as he shielded as much of Velaris as he could, but it did no good as the faebane pierced his magic, and one by one, soon hundreds by hundreds, they descended upon Velaris. He cursed, diving for the foremost point of the wave, and started slaughtering.
Silver and crimson blood and the dark blue of his magic filled his vision, the kiss of shadows sometimes whipping forth to protect him. Though he tried to shut it out, his mind was filled with the voices of his friends and family as they organized themselves. Through the gore, he was alerted that he was to shield the Bone Quarter, and Feyre would handle two other quarters while Amren fought through the forth. Cassian, far away and faint in his mind, was getting Illyrian's airborne and flying to aid others, but it seemed they had their own contingent of soldiers to deal with.
Azriel soon found himself on the ground, booted feet quick upon the stones, and he sliced left and right. Death surrounded him like a fog.
Rhysand handled the Nightbringers, Morrigan winnowed to contact the nearby Dawn Court, and Nesta, a silver fire in her eyes, helped Cassian. Elain and Lilith were watched over by Priestesses of the Library, so he did not worry about them. Instead, he focused on the bat-faced opponent before him.
It's leathery skin was clad in the dreadful faebane, so Azriel focused on the steel of his blades as he fought. The attor landed a few hard blows against his Illyrian sword, but it was soon repelled and relieved of its legs in a sweeping under-arc that passed the beast's awareness.
Azriel fought on.
***
Blood sluiced from his arm. He panted, wiping silver from his face as yet another attor was felled. Hazel eyes scanned the sea of bodies that surrounded him before he looked up further, to the skies. What was a brief respite from the fighting became even briefer as he caught on a struggling figure far above.
It was an attor; one with a smaller, winged figure in its grasp.
Azriel cursed and pushed off the ground hard, sweat slicking his skin. Wind buffeted him as his wings beat harder than they had ever since they'd been repaired, but he gained on them. The attor did not seem to notice the bolt of darkness that swept at it from below, nothing but a fury of shadows that reached a scarred hand for the weeping and screaming Lilith. His grip wrapped around her ankle and secured her from being pulled any farther as he came to eye level with her.
Her tear-stained face burst into tears once more, especially as the clawed foot of the attor, impaled deep into her shoulder, tugged. She was a mess of blood, but he clenched her to his chest, his smaller, easier to maneuver knife darting forward and cutting into bone with brutal efficiency.
The attor released her with an ear-piercing shriek. It turned towards him, one leg bent protectively against itself like a bird, and snarled at him with it's horned nose. He snarled back, Lilith's head pressed against his chest. Beast and male dove for the ground at the same time, wings nearly tangling if it weren't for Azriel's careful maneuvering. Lilith held on tight as air whistled past their ears, her fingers near-white against his dark breastplate.
He parried but a few blows before he was lifting away from the ground with a growl, the attor following close after with an efficiency he wasn't expecting, deathly eyes pinned on the female in his arms. And, in the moment, a wicked blade curving for him, he realized why they were after Lilith.
His wingbeats would've faltered were it not for Lilith's crying scream. He snapped into focus and blocked quickly, before diving once more. This time, he swept between two narrow buildings with a precision borne from centuries of flying, and landed hastily.
Lilith's sobs renewed.
"Be quiet," he whispered urgently, wiping more blood from his neck and eyes. "It's okay. I need you to work with me." He patted the girl's head none-too-gently and, surprisingly, she did as asked.
Violet eyes fearfully glancing up to the small crack between green roofs, she nodded. Screams rent the air, blood pouring between the cracks in the roads, and the roofs dripping it like rain. He wiped any that slipped onto her face.
"Did you overhear any of Eblis's plans?" Please. Please tell me this was planned. Please tell me she is okay.
The girl spared precious seconds to think, wincing as another drop landed on her brow. He smeared red across her forehead. "She was going to tell her friends about betraying her Majesty. I was standing right there when they were talking."
"Yes, Feyre told us that. She also mentioned that they were trustworthy, so they couldn't have betrayed her."
"Well," Lilith blinked through tear-stained eyes, "what about being caught?"
His heart ratcheted into a faster beat. "What do you mean?"
"The more people who know a secret, the more likely it is to get out. The Queen told me that when I asked for some company and she said she wouldn't do it." Azriel gripped her shoulders and hugged her without thinking. Sadness and worry warred within him; sadness for Lilith, and all she'd had to live through in her short life, and worry for Eblis, because the point the child had made was more true than he'd like to admit. The more people who know a secret, the more likely it is to get out.
All he knew was that something had to have gone wrong-very very wrong if the army were here. It meant Eblis had failed.
It meant that Eblis might be dead or dying.
"Why are they trying to get me, Azriel?" Lilith asked, the thickness of tears in her throat again. Fear burned in her eyes.
He grimaced. "Because you are very important, Lilith. You could be used against Mom to make her say things she shouldn't."
Her violet eyes widened. She sobbed again. "I don't want to make Mom hurt again. They already hurt her badly." He held her again, watching the streets that were strewn with bodies and shadows, cursing himself for being so bad with children. He'd never quite had a childhood, nor had to deal with children. He didn't know why she kept crying, or what he was saying wrong.
"She won't be hurt again. She'll be fine," he lied, though his heart was already splintering. Lilith sobbed harder as if she knew, her mind far too quick for her young age. Above them, a body crashed between the eves, the twitching form blocking the sunlight and sending blood cascading over them. He had no choice but to dive from out of cover, Lilith in his arms, and back into the fray.
Almost instantly, several fae warriors saw him and scattered forward, their movements uneven and jerky. He took off into the sky before he could think too much on it and searched for the safest place to set the small child down. His magic, a blue film around them, rippled and shimmered, soon in quick succession.
He turned. A wave of dark arrows rocketed towards the city.
Azriel cursed, watching as they slammed into his shields and Lilith screamed. She hid her face in his chest right as he sent his Illyrian magic far and wide, trying to block the rest of the city from attack. He panted, strain gathering beneath his skin and his scarred hands twitching with tire. He did not know how long he'd been swinging his blades, or how long his magic had whipped out and killed, but the sun was still high in the sky and Lilith was still cowering in his arms and they still had no aid besides him, Amren, and Feyre.
His blue buckled beneath the onslaught, stretched thin. The focus nearly sent him tumbling to the ground, free-falling, an arrow in his shoulder and just barely stabbing through his armor.
He had to get Lilith to safety.
He had to protect Velaris.
It was his home; it was the future home of his mate's daughter; the future home of many to come. And Hybern was about to take it again.
He roared his fury, tearing the arrow out of his breastplate, his shadows flaring out of him. His eyes searched the streets and the green-turned-red roofs with dark bodies scattered atop them, his magic pulsing and flaring with anger. From another quarter of Velaris, a wave of night pressed against his own shield, pushing it up, up, up, and stretching across the city like a dark shadow. He released his magic there at Feyre's behest, and strengthened the ones above him and Lilith, his wings straining in the sky. Water flushed the streets somewhere far off, and the Sidra ran red and gray with fallen enemies.
The arrows skittered across their power, his teeth gritting. Lilith shook in his arms, and right as he turned away to alight upon the ground, the pounding of arrows fell silent.
And, somehow, another wave of soldiers descended, faebane slicing through magic.
"How many are there," he cursed, though it was not a question. Too many, his mind supplied, but he focused on the shields around himself as the ones over the city scattered and went up in wisps. He didn't know what to do with Lilith, he realized. He needed to fight, but he also needed to keep her safe from Hybern's hands, and the safest place she could be was with him, especially if the library failed to protect her.
He set off again, staying low and sweeping at the faebane-clad soldiers who could pierce his shields.
All he could do was fight.
***
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