"Should I let you win?"
Azriel narrowed his eyes at her.
"It's only fair," Naoise said, a sly hum to her voice as she faced forward again.
"Fair how?"
"Heartbeats." Naoise shrugged. "Kind of easy to find."
"Shadows," he drawled in return. "Good at finding."
"If you say so."
"I do."
Her mind unwittingly flashed to a mortal custom. It made her wings twitch with over awareness and he seemed to take it as an answer.
"They are of this Court?"
"Always. I'm sure you know what that means for us."
Azriel raised a cool brow at the expanse of city before and below them. It was still intended for her. "It seems adept at making you gloat."
That certainly wasn't it. But Azriel didn't need her spelling it out for him word for word. His clever mind was something she admired, something that made him so fucking attractive she sometimes couldn't stand it.
"Adept? No," she huffed. "Simply gives me reason."
"And how much reason do you need?"
"Who said I even needed a reason?"
Azriel laughed. Naoise felt a rush of pride. And a happiness, brief and flitting, existing in his.
The sudden thought of trading this for anything, much less endless nothing and unsure forever, quietened any such happiness in an instant.
Azriel was still grinning when he glanced her way, shadows and the shape of his wings dancing with the vibrant fire of the sunset behind them. "I don't often gloat but... I am known to rise to occasions," he teased softly, what usually lacked inflection now vibrant with it.
Her heart felt as though it may just burst.
Naoise hummed. "Occasions are meant to be risen to."
He gave her another searching look that had her nerves buzzing, bond tugging at her. "Not always," he murmured.
"Not always," she agreed just as quietly.
To be entirely honest, not even she knew the full extent of the meaning that lay there. It was not something she could explain, it was a feeling of... desolation. Mistakes and regrets alike. To not rise to an occasion is a thing many made the mistake of forgetting was an option. And it could tear things apart as easily as one would blink.
Again, the way it came from his thoughts, that deep understanding of the world they lived in, made the pain of the bond heighten. Made her want to scream at the cauldron until something in her throat broke that shattered the rest of her. To get down on her knees and plead to the mother.
He made her want to kiss him senseless.
Connect their lips until each breath was drawn from the other. Pull him closer. Feel his quickened pulse beneath her palm, feel those hands on her wings again as the night shattered. The texture of flames caressing the phantom slice of blades. Worship him as he worshiped her. As two souls connected in the most primal of ways.
Naoise cleared her throat. "Shall we begin?"
Azriel shifted, arms uncrossing and shadows rising to his shoulders. He nodded, she gave one in return. Then, almost as if they were an army of two, an entity of two parts, they stepped forward to the ledge and walked off at the very same moment. The wondrous sound of wings snapping out and catching the wind caught her ears as they followed its course and flew off into the horizon, in pursuit of the same target.
✰
✩ ★
Twigs crackled lightly underfoot under the cover of trees familiar and as aged as her, perhaps even older. Shadows in every step, silence heavy on the soul broken purposely by the one who knew these lands best. Could feel its rivers in her veins and every step upon the earth on her skin. Like ghost spiders meandering along on a self-made path, a sensation she found she did not dislike. Spiders were a measly thing to fear, something she'd managed to get over hundreds of years prior. So she embraced their presence like one did the brushing of leaves and dapples of sun.
But in that forest where it was so silent and she so loud, at least for a fae, she did not have much time to waste. Indeed, in a clearing up ahead awaited her victim, her prey. Standing much too close to the barrier of Velaris, a broad-shouldered male paced a section of its powerful magic.
Snarls echoed back to her, frustration echoing in her chest with each strong beat of his heart in their chests. Surprise too, a tendril of fear she made sure to stoke, to make sure it remained, sparking to new life with every touch of his hand on the border. The border he should not have known of.
The border that protected a sliver of good in these twisted lands.
Naoise paused for the briefest of moments. Before her, among fallen leaves and a blanket of snow, lay her objective to get this going. A resounding snap echoed through the trees and this time as the male began to turn on high alert, she did not falter. Naoise moved swift and silent as the shadows that begged to coat the earth within her siphon. In the failing light, she saw when his eyes fell upon her and saw a dark Illyrian female striding forth with her siphons shining in reckoning. And she grasped onto that fear with her whole being when it flared, stoking it deeper and deeper. Not stopping when she felt the rot creeping almost immediately. Holding nothing back, not like she had for Mox.
This was someone attempting to harm Velaris and all who called it home. This was her enemy. Her basest instincts snarled with her; this was her prey.
She took great delight in watching him crumble where he stood.
Until she realized they were not alone, and it was not all of her doing.
The first sign was the flicker of darkness over his shoulder, then the bonds of shadows that wrapped around him. The second, the ghost sensation of someone stepping forward just outside of the trees surrounding the clearing and the male. Someone as in him. Azriel. Death and darkness incarnate, he stood with blades hanging by his sides, Illyrian steel shining in the burning sky and wings framed in a manner just as flattering.
When he paused from his cool approach on their prey and glanced over his shoulder at her with the sharpest of smirks, Naoise swallowed heavily and after just a moment's pause, relented with the inclination of her head. Acknowledging who won this day's task. Then she stepped forward until they stood as one once more to face the intruder. Naoise was well-aware of the distance between their wings. If they were to brush... she needed to stay strong. For him and for them both.
Already, wind swirled in her gut with a thousand fluttering leaves caught in its current.
Naoise turned just enough to meet his eyes of imploring hazel, shining just as bright as the edge of the horizon surrounding them. "After," she said.
Azriel nodded, a hint of that smirk still on his face, and then they descended.
Naoise forced a scornful chuckle once they were done with him, body crumpled and cooling in the snow. Wings of crimson spread through the snow. "See what I mean?"
Azriel hummed in response, kneeling by the male's body. A scarred hand, gloved in blood, nudged his limbs this way and that, searching for any signs as to where he came from. What his objective was. What he wanted with Velaris, and why they were so relentless in this pursuit despite how many died each and every day.
"Nothing will tell us anything, least not from this male." Naoise sighed when Azriel looked up at her, his brows raised. "I have been checking them for years. There is always nothing."
He studied her in silence for a moment more. Then he was standing and flexing his wings, facing her entirely. Azriel stooped his head just the slightest bit whether in a nod or a bow or to meet her eyes better she wasn't sure.
"You are good at this," he murmured.
Naoise's ears warmed at the praise. She remembered the way he cut into the male as he screamed from rotting fear and teasing pain. Never faltering. Ever clinical and ever analytical. He was very good at their line of work. Much better than the stories told.
She cleared her throat and tilted her head to catch his attention further, skating her eyes over every inch of him to insinuate that she saw it all, everything he had done and was, and stress her sincerity in claiming without a hint of doubt or hesitation present, "As are you. That was never in question."
There was so much more to the statement than reassurance or the respect of a partner in such a delicate process as torturing someone. He was darker than the night itself. He was so much more than one thing, more than anything one could be chained to.
Heartbreakingly beautiful and strong and so very caring.
And, mother above, was her heart just breaking.
Something flickered over his expression and something even worse whispered across the bond. Relief, but mixed with doubt. He knew her unspoken message, or a fraction of it. And Naoise began to fear that if she could feel his heart, doubt would always remain. Guilt and doubt would wage a war on both of their hearts at the base of everything that he felt.
Naoise yearned to obliterate whoever made him feel such a way. Azriel. Shadowsinger and spymaster. One of the most powerful Illyrians in history. Her Azriel. Her mate.
After a moment, he too tilted his head and appraised her in almost the same way she had him. She found a new hunger for the look that graced his eyes just looking at her, her body and her soul covered in blood, siphons, and darkness. Both from his shadows flickering over her skin and curling around her ankle once more to the many bargains she wore, and the ink of their culture.
It was dark and dangerous and almost as though he wanted her half as much as she yearned for him.
"How did you learn this?" he asked.
She huffed with bitter amusement. "The war."
Azriel met her eyes abruptly, in a flash of sharp surprise and the barest hint of fear that had her aching all over. "You were in the war?"
"Of course." She smiled something small and secretive and hid the way memories tore through her in an instant. Most of all of her father's last moments by her side. And the day she first met her mate and saved him with whatever instincts remained as the last of her being drained away that fateful day. "I fought till the end."
"I don't remember you."
"Would you, if we'd met?"
"Yes. I'm certain of it."
"Well," she said slowly. "I cannot fault you then, we were not very active in much else but the actual fighting and occasional interrogation."
"We?"
"My father and I."
A familiar sadness settled in his eyes. Everyone lost something in that fucking war. "Condolences."
"Mine as well," she whispered.
Azriel suddenly tilted his head again, something so inherently fae and so inherently animalistic an action that it was a comfort to see it in another. Naoise had never been a complete recluse; she knew people, she'd been places, but not enough so to fight off any fraction of loneliness that grappled at her constantly. A loneliness that would not leave, even here in this court and this circle.
"So we've met?"
"Yes."
When she saved his life, even when it seemed he no longer wished to live.
"When?"
"Another day, another challenge," she sang quietly.
At the reminder of why they were even there in the first place, Azriel cracked that small smirk again. "You owe me a secret."
So many. She owed them so many.
"What do you know of shame?"
Naoise conceded, "Alright. Let's take this to the House?"
Azriel nodded and his wings unfurled like a curtain of sunset, the last of that day's sunlight filtering through the membranes and highlighting every vein and every scar and the beauty that was everything about him. Naoise did the same with an odd lump in her throat and they flew through the night sky once more. Together. Just as she wished it could always be. Even if it could not.
"Oh, I know plenty."
___🗻___