Summary:
Elain Archeron makes the most beautiful bride.
Azriel...Azriel copes.
Notes:
I should be studying. Instead, I binged around 750k in fanfiction in the last week and also wrote this.
Mostly Canon Compliant Through A Court of Silver Flame including the Azriel Bonus Chapter with some teeny tiny changes, which are explained in the story (a difference in the necklace arc). Set around 1 year into the future from that point, where it veers off wildly.
You'll be made of ashes too
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Elain Archeron was the most beautiful bride the world had ever seen.
Azriel was sure of that .
A flower meadow come to life , clad in a white dress that was shot through with her favourite blooms, sparkling with every step she took. Hair falling down her back like spun gold, whiskey brown eyes filled with the kind of happiness that nothing could touch.
She was irrevocably happy as she married her husband.
There was no doubt in anyone's mind how much she adored him as she gazed at him with such love in her eyes.
Lucien looked at her in awe as if she were a precious, precious thing he didn't deserve.
Azriel watched from the shadows as the person he loved found her happily ever after with somebody other than him.
Elain Archeron married Lucien Vanserra on a gorgeous spring day in the garden of his townhouse in Velaris.
The garden bloomed with the couple's love and Elain's love for the flowers that she had planted, roses and lilies and daffodils. A whole ocean of them, blooming brightly for their mistress.
Azriel watched.
It was all he could do.
All he had done over the last year as Elain and Lucien had fallen in love.
After that catastrophic solstice.
That would-be kiss. When Azriel still thought that maybe...maybe he had a chance.
He hadn't.
Rhys had made sure of that.
So you will leave Elain alone. If you need to fuck someone, go to a pleasure hall and pay for it, but stay away from her.
Like that was all he had wanted from her.
Like that was all Azriel was good for. All that he wanted. It hadn't even passed Rhys' mind that Azriel had actual feelings for Elain. Or maybe it had and he hadn't cared. Azriel didn't know which was worse.
But it hadn't mattered either way, because Rhys had pulled rank. It hadn't been his brother saying these words, but the High Lord of the Night Court.
What Azriel wanted...it hadn't mattered.
Not that it ever had before.
He should get used to that by now.
He had followed that order. What else was he supposed to do? He had left. Left their friendship in tatters...and Feyre had played matchmaker. Elain had moved on. Lucien had a chance. They had fallen in love.
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.
"I can take him," he offered to Feyre. Holding out his hands for his nephew. He could do that. Hold him. He didn't want to dance. He wanted to go back to the shadows.
She exchanged a look with Rhys. "Thank you, Az," Rhys said as Feyra passed Nyx over without hesitation. Azril took him, just about a year old, wings sleepily fluttering as Nyx yawned and moved closer to him.
"Good boy, Nyxie," Feyra whispered before she grasped her mate's hand and pulled him towards the fun part of the party. Azriel quietly swayed in place, Nyx sleeping against his shoulder, a scarred hand gently holding him in place.
He wondered if Nyx was ever going to look at them in disgust.
They were dripping in blood, but for just a moment, he could forget that.
He forgot all of that.
Until he felt nothing, was nothing at all.
He was good at that.
If he wasn't...well, then he wouldn't be there anymore. Then Azriel would have ended his horrible existence already.
It wasn't like he hadn't thought about it through half a millennia of life.
Or especially over the last year.
Sometimes he sparred with Cassian and the instinct of self-preservation wasn't there anymore. He wondered what would happen if he just...stopped to fight back.
He never did. He wouldn't hear the end of it from Cass.
But the thought was there as he watched the love of his life falling in love with another male.
Nyx slept until his parents returned... until it was late enough that Azriel wasn't the first person to go...until Cassian was drunk enough that he didn't try to get Azriel to get drunk as well.
He said his goodbyes.
Although it felt like he was ripping out his heart, he forced a smile on his face as he congratulated Elain and Lucien. She smiled at him. He wanted to hoard that smile away somewhere, wished it was...wished it was there on her face for another reason entirely.
But it wasn't.
It didn't matter. His pain didn't matter.
It never had.
It never would.
And then, finally...He let the shadows take him.
He resurfaced in the forest, feet away from his house.
His house. Because as much as he loved Cassian, spending time with him and Nesta at The House of Wind was not his version of a fun time. Especially not with everything that had gone down.
Being surrounded by a freshly mated pair, watching his brother being so utterly...in love and happy...Somebody thrust a knife into his chest and twisted.
And so he had bought this house, hidden away...still in Velaris, on the outskirts, built into the mountains, surrounded by forest...
Alone.
Nobody would hear him scream. The wards would take care of that.
He staggered as he hit the ground.
And then Azriel gave up trying to push it all away from him.
It didn't matter anymore. Rhysand was far away enough from him that he wasn't going to be the witness to Azriel...falling apart.
Nobody would be the witness. Just the forest and the sky and stars.
The shadows converged upon him.
Maybe it should scare him, but it never had. They talked to him, told him stories... were always there, even when nobody else was. The shadows were a part of him as true as his right hand was.
And right now they muffled his screams as he bellowed into the sky. Pain apparent in every single second of it, as he screamed his pain and grief into the void.
The shadows tried to comfort him. They always did. Many voiced, bundled into one. Master...
They tried.
But even they couldn't stop the pain that threatened to rip him apart.
Azriel thought he knew pain.
Of course, he did.
He just needed to look down at his hands to get a reminder. Grotesque, half-flayed skin that covered his knuckles. Every winter they hurt. It didn't matter that it had been 500 years since he first received these scars.
The pain of having his wing tied up, two emaciated things weakly, uselessly hanging off his back...he remembered the phantom of that every time he stretched them nowadays.
And then there were dozens and hundreds of other pains...scrapes and bruises, broken bones from practice gone wrong, knife wounds and sword nicks...ash arrows.
He knew it all. He had experienced it all.
Physical pain and emotional one as well.
Born a bastard, step-brothers loving to torment him...spending the first years of his life in a dark cell without even a window...seeing his mother one hour a week, used by his father to hurt his mother... He had lived through all of it.
But somehow a part of him had believed that maybe...maybe that was over now. He had found and fought for his family. Right?
And still, somehow, losing Elain was...Losing Elain was the pinnacle of half a millennia of torture.
He screamed.
He didn't know how long it lasted. Did it matter?
Not really. Nothing mattered anymore.
Nothing mattered as he cried and sobbed and railed against the forest ground, pounding it with his fists, burying them in the damp ground...
For the first time in his life, Azriel thought...that maybe giving it all up was worth it.
Why not? What did it matter?
All life had for him was more pain. The cauldron may have given other faes their perfect mate. Not him.
Who would even care ?
His brothers? Sure, for a moment. But they had mates that would take care of them. They had each other. They wouldn't be alone. Everybody seemingly had somebody .
Just Azriel. He was...alone.
Master isn't alone!
Right not alone.
The shadows weren't amused by that thought at all, poking him in the ribs. He wanted to laugh at how sharply they disagreed.
Normally, he was disciplined about them. He never let them talk to him like that, berate him into anything...but the last year he had depended on them...more often. Let them shoulder the brute of...everything that had gone on. Let them hiss comforting things to him and complain about Rhys...let him feel like maybe he wasn't the only one who thought something was unfair.
Shadowsingers were rare for a reason. They died young because they couldn't live with the incessant hissing of the shadows surrounding them. And Azriel...he wallowed in them.
Why not? What did it matter?
He stared unseeing into the night sky.
He should get in the house. He didn't want to.
The shadows slivered up, against his neck, rubbing against his skin. They never felt hot or cold to the touch, just a velvety sensation...not unlike a snake. He couldn't even remember the last time another person had touched him like that. It must have been decades ago.
Master should go into the house, they whispered. Master needs to rest.
(Did he mention that they could be surprisingly pushy? But did it matter? Not really.)
He wanted to protest. Why did it matter?
It didn't.
None of it did.
And his chest still felt like it was caving in.
Master...Master, please.
Even his shadows were worried about him. That was the only reason he could fathom why they would ask him something like that. Soft. Imploring.
Like...Like a friend? Or a lover?
He forced himself up from that forest floor. The shadows gently pressed down onto his body, nearly like they wanted to praise him. Good, Master.
He trudged up into his house.
Open the door, the shadows whispered. Master, open the door.
He opened the door
He hadn't even bothered to furnish it. He had survived a childhood with nary a bed, so what did it matter now? Neither he nor the house were anything more than empty shells.
He could have used magic to make it inviting, to light the fireplace, to maybe do something that wasn't just opening the door...but it was all he could do.
The house was dark.
That was alright.
Darkness was what he knew. Darkness protected him.
Always had, ever since his childhood cell. Why change it now? It didn't...
The shadows spilled into the house and he stepped in after them. Pulling his jacket off, his shirt...all of it muddy with forest grounds. He never wanted to wear it again. Didn't want to ever remember this night. Didn't want...Didn't want to live through this anymore.
That was as far as he came.
He didn't want to go further into the house. He didn't.
So he just collapsed into one corner, wings curled protectively around himself.
He had sat there that morning, trying to force himself to attend the wedding.
He had done it. Pure willpower. Or maybe stubbornness. He had been known for his stubbornness for centuries, after all. But now there was no more stubbornness left. There was nothing left anymore.
The shadows swirled around him, like even they didn't know what to do anymore. He thought about sending them away, but he couldn't. They were the one comfort he had.
What did it matter?
What did that say about him ?
He closed his eyes.
He couldn't help but see Elain.
It was all there in front of him, every moment they had shared. Every conversation they had. Every smile she had gifted him with.
The headache powder she had given him...He had never used it. He had stared at it when he couldn't sleep, he had kept it on his bedside table in the House of Wind and...It had been comforting. For months it had been comforting. How often had he held it in his hands and tried to smell if maybe there was still a whiff of Jasmine and Honey clinging to it?
The pair of earplugs meant as a joke to help with the noises of Cassian and Nesta's nightly activities...The Rosequartz necklace he had given her. Or tried to give her. Before it all went to...when she had given it back to him, he had wanted to return it to the shop he had bought it from first but then finally he had hung onto it.
He had held it in his scarred hands so often, thinking about how he didn't deserve to even look at the beauty before him.
And then they had announced their wedding and in a fit of rage, he had thrown all three things into the Sedra.
He shouldn't have done that.
But he was already a monster, so what did it matter?
There had been no gifts this year.
It was better that way.
The tears fell down his face but he couldn't even bother the energy to wipe them away anymore.
Tomorrow he was supposed to do his job. Azriel had no idea how he should do that when it felt like a knife was lodged into his chest.
He would get used to it. He would.
He always did.
It had been a crazy hope anyway.
Monsters like him didn't get...what they wanted. They got what they deserved .
And Azriel knew that he simply wasn't good enough for a cauldron-blessed mate.
He closed his eyes, tipping his head against the wall. The shadows seemingly pulled tighter against him, trying to cover him whole...they had done the same back then as well, trying to offset the lack of a blanket with their very presence.
Master...Master, go to sleep, they whispered to him, the voice, their many voices, an echo. Soft, indulging...trying to be comforting.
He wouldn't be able to sleep. He knew that. He wouldn't be able to sleep, he didn't want to sleep, not to be greeted with nightmares and memories.
He didn't know what was worse: The things he had done or the things he hadn't.
He had drenched his hands in blood to protect the Night Court and Prythian. Or at least that's what Azriel told himself. To pretend that the things he had done were...just. Not right, never right, but maybe he had a good enough reason to do what needed to be done.
He was an expert at that after all.
Cloaked in shadows, that whispered the secrets of the land to him, with Truthteller on his thigh...he was the Night Courts spymaster after all.
He did what needed to be done. Until he felt nothing, was nothing.
It was all he could do after all. And still, he knew...He was simply not good enough.
Not good enough.
The words followed him since he could think. Born as the bastard son of an Illyrian noble who was well known for his cruelty and not much else, used as punishment for his mother and a plaything for his half brothers...not good enough for a stepmother that kept him locked away in a cell without even a window.
Not good enough once he reached Windhaven camp, without even knowing the one thing that every Illaryan should know...how to fly.
Not good enough .
He wished he was like Cassian, had his brash extroverted personality, believing in the good of people...he wished he was like Rhysand, a powerhouse with mythical powers, who had that inbred arrogance....
Not good enough.
He was neither.
He just...existed. Surrounded by the shadows that always surrounded him, the one thing that he could count on that would never leave him.
They pulsed around him like they tried to promise him that they would stay with him.
That would be nice, wouldn't it? Back to only his shadows as a company, just like in his cell. There was some humour in it, he was sure. But then, in his cell, he had known that every day would be worse than the day before. Outside of it...outside of it, he had hoped that day one day there would be...more.
He had been wrong.
So back into the cell with him.
Sometimes he wished that he really felt nothing. He was good at pretending. Of course, he was. He was a spy.
He was good at pushing it all away until he felt nothing, was nothing...
But still, he felt things.
He didn't know if it was love, didn't know if he was capable of love at all. He wondered if his brothers knew that. Maybe that's why Rhys had warned him off. Elain deserved better than him. Rhys must have known.
Stupid, Stupid, Stupid...
Master, stop, the shadows whispered, tightening around him. A reminder perhaps? That they were there? Wouldn't leave him? Would be there even if nobody else was?
He wanted to thank them. He couldn't.
He could just feel the pain deep within him, welling up once again.
It didn't matter.
Not anymore.
Though now...now with Elain happily married, with his own heart burned out of his chest...maybe finally he would get that.
Nothing .
An existence bookended by nothing.
He would do his job. His duty. For the Night Court, for Pyrithian.
Of course, he would.
But if...if something happened to him...then that was alright as well.
It was.
He felt nothing.
He was nothing.
What did it matter?
It didn't.
It never would.
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Notes:
Did this make me cry while writing? Yes.
Am I happy that I wrote it? Also yes.
Hope you enjoyed it xoxo