I breathe flames each time I talk
The story of how Oriana Fireborn Belmont finally meets her mate's family.
Also the story of how Rhysand, The High Lord of the Night Court, finally recognises that by the cauldron, there is no fury like a female scorned.
Azriel would just like everybody to get along.
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Chapter 1: none of us thought it was gonna end that way
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There weren't many things that shocked Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court. The sight of his brother, brutal bruises painting his face after what should have been a simple retrieval mission in the Winter Court... that did it.
It had been supposed to be a meeting to exchange intelligence on whatever was currently going on with Tamlin in the Spring Court.
Instead...it had apparently turned into...a mess.
"I was caught in an avalanche," Azriel said, his voice harsh. "Rhys, I told you that it probably wasn't gonna end well. There was nobody there...and that avalanche wasn't natural."
Nobody but a trap waiting for Azriel.
That was the last thing that he wanted to hear. Peace in Pyrithian was hanging on by a thread, somehow seeming all the more precarious to Rhys, ever since Nyx had been born.
Maybe it was the instinct of a young father...maybe it was something else, but he couldn't dare to not trust them.
And so he had wanted to keep his allies close, but the ones that kept away from it all...even closer.
"Right. And I told you that this was important," Rhys responded just as sharply. "I'll write to Kallias. And you should probably do something against the blood that is currently dripping on my carpet," he said pointedly. Azriel wiped at his split lip. Rhys opened his mouth to tell Azriel to go see Madja damnit, but Azriel beat him to it.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of it," Azriel's voice was dripping with disdain, and Rhys opened his mouth to respond, but Azriel's shadows were already converging onto him.
Mother help him.
His brother was gone, shadow travelled away, before Rhys had even dismissed him.
He sighed as he sat back down at his desk, fingers tapping against the dark wood of it.
There were so many moving pieces and so little time.
And still, his mind turned towards his brother. Not Cassian, who seemed as content as Rhys had ever seen him with Nesta in the House of Wind...but Azriel.
Azriel, who had, ever since that Solstice nearly 3 years ago, pulled back from him. Who had still not forgiven him for what Rhys had done.
At the start, Rhys had thought that Azriel would get over himself in a few weeks.
Azriel was infatuated with Elain. It would be a few weeks and then it all would be back to how it was before.
Oh, but he had been so wrong.
He had not been wrong about what he did. He hadn't.
Rhys had done what needed to be done.
They couldn't afford a fucking war with Autumn and/or with Day or a blood duel that would be called because Azriel had wanted to...had decided that seducing Elain was his fucking right.
It wasn't, it hadn't been, it never would be and Rhys had needed to stop that from happening.
So he had.
So he had ordered his brother away from Feyre's sister. An order, not from one brother to another, but from The High Lord of the Night Court.
Azriel had...listened.
The question was just if the price Rhys paid for it, hadn't been far steeper than he had realised.
If the prize hadn't been his brother's...happiness.
Azriel hadn't rebelled against the order.
And at the beginning...Rhys had seen that as...well, as another point in his favour. If Azriel was really in love with Elain, he would have fought against the order. Azriel hadn't. So Azriel had been infatuated, but not in love.
Azriel had done nothing. Azriel had stayed coldly detached. He had even attended the wedding of Elain and Lucien, nothing but sincere words for the happy couple. Not a mention of what had gone down between him and Rhys...to anybody.
Elain was happy with Lucien. So especially now, when they were married for close to a year...when it was clear that the mating bond had worked out for them...Rhys had expected Azriel to soften. At least a little bit.
To realise that what Rhys had done was right. To understand why he had done it.
He had waited for that. And waited. And nothing of that sort had happened.
Azriel hadn't budged one inch. Maybe Rhys shouldn't even be surprised about that. Azriel had always been...stubborn as a mule.
Azriel did his work. Efficient as always. But Azriel only came to as many family dinners as Rhys outright ordered him to attend, and otherwise kept away from anything that was...well, personal.
His mind, which had once been an open book to Rhys, few secrets kept between them...nowadays it was guarded. An iron wall around it, slamming down whenever Rhys wandered even just in the direction of anything that wasn't work-related.
Azriel kept quiet. Kept on moping after three years, regardless of how much Rhys tried to draw him out of it.
Morrigan finding Emerie and being happy with her...Rhys had thought that maybe that would pull him out of it. But Azriel had only wished her all the happiness in the world, sincerity dripping from every word.
He was sincerely happy for everybody around him...and kept Rhys and the rest of their family as far removed from him as he could get them.
Rhys had tried to order him to come to dinner with Elain and Lucien, a part of his mind hoping that Azriel would finally have enough and his temper would flare, his magic would crackle and he would attack Rhys. Maybe then they would be able to clear the air. Maybe if Azriel just got pissed off at him...maybe it would be better afterwards.
Azriel didn't. His temper stayed even, especially for him. He sat through that dinner, even let Lucien have a few barbs at him and then even helped him, even when nobody thanked him for that.
And then Azriel disappeared to cauldron knew where somewhere which he clearly much preferred over the presence of anybody else these days.
That had been a few months ago. It hadn't changed any since then.
Cassian tried to play the mediator of sorts between them. Cassian tried. Cassian teased Azriel about a non-existent lover and Azriel took it in good humour, only shutting down the theories when they were outlandish.
Or when it was Gwyn.
Rhys had really thought that that...that could have worked out.
If Azriel just gave her a chance...if he just opened himself up for the option of it...but Azriel was as stubborn as a mule. Azriel wasn't interested, that was so very apparent when he had slipped into his brother's mind. He liked Gwyn as a friend. But there was no attraction there.
None whatsoever.
And even the suggestion had been shut down by Azriel so harshly, that there was no question what he thought about this.
None.
Azriel had cut him out of his private life. Built a wall around it that kept Rhys out...and Rhys had no fucking idea how to bridge it anymore.
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Master is coming. It was the only warning she got because then Azriel was already materialising in their kitchen.
"Sweetling." It only took her seconds to take in the bruises painting his face, the blood that was dripping down his split lip...Seconds for her to fit herself under his arms, to half drag him into one of their kitchen chairs.
It wasn't the first time that Azriel came home to Oriana bleeding and hurt in some way. Though most of the time, it was things that she could patch up easily. She couldn't do anything against the bruises, but she could clean out scrapes and ply him with pain potions.
But today, his usually olive skin was nearly ashen-faced, his jaw tight as she got him to sit down. "You don't look good," she said quietly.
"It's fine," Azriel promised her, his voice rough as gravel and she cupped his cheek, turning his face. His eyes closed as she very gently prodded the scrapes at one side, the split lip...the dried blood.
"It's really not fine," she disagreed. "Anything else?"
He shuddered, hands clutching the fighting leathers he still wore. He started taking it off, and she took over from him after just a few seconds, sliding the buckles open, taking off the leathers, piece after piece.
His torso was painted every which shade of blue and black, violet...maroon.
"You should have seen a healer," she said quietly. It looked... excruciating. She couldn't say if there were any broken bones. It didn't matter. It must be painful anyway. So painful.
"I missed you," he murmured, closing his eyes as she wet a clean dish towel at the sink, making sure that it was warm and gently started cleaning the blood off him. The split lip stopped bleeding sluggishly after a moment.
"Still should have seen a healer," she quipped.
"But then it would have taken longer until I came home," he responded, even through his pain and she sighed.
He didn't even flinch away from her touch, even when he had every fucking right to it. If anything, he leaned into it.
Leaned into the pain that she was sure she was creating, even when she tried to be as gentle as she possibly could be.
"What happened?" she finally asked quietly. He didn't often talk to her about his job. Nearly never. Whenever pushed either, because this was nothing that he needed to know. This was nothing that she needed to be aware of. This was a line he had created because he didn't want her to touch any of his work that was so very....so very harsh.
She accepted that because she knew that for him she had become a sort of island in the middle of everything, untouched by it.
And it was better that day. She didn't wonder what he did. As long as he came home to her. That was all that mattered.
"Bad intelligence. Got caught in an avalanche," he murmured. "I knew it wasn't going to work, but did Rhys believe me, of course not," he muttered under his breath. Since they had consummated the mating bond...Azriel had opened up to her, in some ways. He still knew more about Oriana's life than she would ever know about his past, but she knew that it didn't mean that he didn't love her. She knew that for him it was difficult to open up because he expected everybody around him to use any knowledge about them to hurt him.
Still, Oriana wasn't stupid. And she had put together her own version of Azriel's past through all the snippets he had shared with her.
And so she knew that Rhys and Cassian were his brothers. And that Rhys was short for Rhysand and that that was the fucking High Lord of the Night Court.
Who was still as annoying as he had been two centuries ago.
And somebody that Azriel both loved and also loathed sometimes, especially when he decided that he knew better than everybody around him.
Cassian...Cassian seemed more interested in who Azriel was seeing romantically than anything else if Oriana could believe the stories Azriel told.
Hyacinth had been the latest possibility. Hyacinth had found the whole thing hilarious and spent the last night out dancing teasing Evander with it.
"I think this calls for an early night," Oriana said as she handed Azriel one of the pain-reducing potions that she kept stocked, watching carefully how he rubbed his temple.
She got out the salve she had bought at an apothecary a few weeks ago, squeezing some of it on her fingers and carefully kneaded them in Azriel's neck, just there where his neck met his skulls.
He shuddered, though she knew that the heat the salve created would loosen the tightness that he had there in his muscles. He could get horrid headaches.
She had learnt that too since the two of them lived together. Like a whole other list of details, like that he loves every form of berries he could get away with, his sweet tooth was so bad that on occasion he ate lumps of sugar straight out of jar...he absolutely adored doting on her in that quiet, calculated way of his and he had a real problem with giving up any sort of control in the bedroom. Her pleasure seemed his singular goal, his own just a byproduct of it.
"You are the best thing that ever happened to me," he murmured, pressing his head into the soft flesh of her belly.
He found so many different ways to say I love you than to utter these three words to her.
You are the best thing that ever happened to me. Coming home to you is the best part of my day. Every time I wake up to you, I am so grateful that you are there.
Sentence after sentence, said in that earnest, sincere way of his and Oriana squirrelled every single one of them away, like precious gems.
"Better?" she asked and he hummed. "Alright. Eat some of the sandwiches I made and then we'll go to bed."
That's what they did.
He collapsed into their bed, and she pulled the blankets around them, careful not to tangle them in his wings, gently running her fingers through his hair. She had only cut it for him a few weeks ago and it was only just starting to curl again. She was quite sure she had done a hack job at it, but he had seemed pleased with it. But then she was sure she could dye his hair bright pink and make him completely bald on one side and he would still kiss her and tell her thank you.
She pressed a kiss to his head, and then she fell asleep herself, no more worry about Azriel being somewhere else, because he was right there, next to her.
It was his retching that woke her up.
She immediately reached out, feeling his skin burning up underneath his fingertips.
"Azriel?" she asked quietly, hearing more retching, immediately sitting up to find him leaning over the edge of their bed.
"Sorry," he was shuddering as he brought out the words and she opened her mouth to respond, but by then she saw the blood that was trickling out of her mouth, another sound of retching and then he fell to the side like somebody cut all the string that held him up. She managed to catch him at the last moment, her eyes wide, ice-cold fear clawing at her heart.
She could see the shadows dancing around him worriedly, taking her weight from her, helping her to get him to lay back against the pillows.
She could hear them call for him, but getting no response.
"Azriel!" she tried, panic apparent in her voice and getting no response.
He was unconscious, knocked out. After vomiting up blood. She had never seen anything like that.
She cursed.
Master is hurt, The shadows stated the obvious.
She jumped out of the bed, tugging the first best dress she could find over her head, forcing her feet into shoes.
"I know. Can you bring me into the mountain?" she asked the shadows. Alternatively, she would need to get out of her ward boundaries and winnow to the ward boundaries of the mountain.
We can, Mistress.
"One of you stay with him, please," she requested, holding out a hand for the shadows, as she cleared her mind as best as she could, taking one last back to Azriel, so pale, so still, and then thinking as intently as she could of their living quarters in the mountain.
It was a whole lot less smooth than when Azriel did it for the two of them, but then he was the shadowsinger, and Oriana was only his mate. She could ask, he could command.
But they were willing to listen to her, to drag her through wards she had placed on her own, to take the magic that she offered them and turn them into the strength they needed as they flung her across Velaris and shoved her into the mountain. At least it felt that way.
She landed in their private living quarters, surprised to find Kiran, Toron and Samson sitting there, playing cards. And drinking. The scent of Fireale was unmistakenly
"She's really here, I am not just seeing things, right?" Toron said, sounding like he had definitely drunk more than a little bit of their self-brewed Fireale.
"No," Kiran muttered. "That's Oriana. What are you doing here? Where did you come from?" her older brother demanded, slightly slurring.
"Are you drunk?" she gave back because she had never seen him quite like that. He just shrugged. Samson still stared at her wide-eyed, waving his hand in her direction, like he wasn't quite sure if she wasn't a figment of his imagination.
"Where's Enya?" she demanded. She really didn't have time for that.
"Working," Samson answered, nodding sagely, and nearly tipping to the side.
Thank the cauldron for that at least. "Great," she muttered, flinging herself in the direction of the door. That was something. She was going to check the infirmary first, and then Enya's bedroom, when she wasn't there.
She knew these halls, knew the mountain better than anything else, and so it only took her minutes, before she reached it, pushing open the door without even bothering to announce herself.
"Oriana?" Enya asked, sounding shocked, having risen from her chair as Oriana came running.
"I am kidnapping you. I mean I hope you come willingly but otherwise, I am kidnapping you," she blurted out, the shadows coming to a stop behind her. "Enya, I need your help."
It spoke of her sister's unflinching trust in her that she only rose and reached for the bag that she kept stocked behind her desk and grasped her coat.
"What happened?" she asked, as she came around the desk.
"He vomited blood, Enya. I don't know who else to...He was fine and then he wasn't and he lost consciousness and..." she blubbered. the panic that she had tried to keep at bay, threatening to overwhelm her. Azriel. Azriel.
"Let's go then," Enya answered, turning in the direction of the door, but they didn't have time for that. She grasped her sister's arm, letting the shadows take them both.
Home. Home. Home.
They landed in the bedroom, Oriana staggering at the impact, the shadows trying their best to keep her upright as Enya looked like she had lost all colour in her face, her skin was the same black colour as Oriana's own looking decisively grey.
"If you vomit, I am sorry," Oriana forced out, pulling in a harsh breath on her own.
"What was that?" Enya asked, staring at the shadows that swirled around the room, then at Oriana, then at Azriel, on whom the shadows seemed to converge.
"Shadowsinger," she breathed and Oriana just stayed silent. Managing a nod.
Yes. That.
They were stupidly rare. She herself had done a double take the first time she had met Azriel. Nearly mythical in nature. She had never once met one before. So shadow travelling...like she had just done...dragging Enya through two sets of wards, was highly unlikely. She knew that.
But her sister shook herself out of it, already taking in Azriel with an analytical glance, crossing the room, her hands slightly glowing.
"You, sit down at his head," Enya snapped. "I don't need you fainting while I try to work."
Oriana did as her sister asked, knitting her fingers through Azriel's short curls, her whole body shaking with fear and nervousness that suddenly seemed to make an appearance. She didn't even know where it was suddenly coming from.
Just that it slapped down onto her heart, as she swallowed to keep tears at bay.
She had gotten Enya here. She wasn't alone. She had done that. Azriel was getting help.
So why did it feel like her whole world was caving in around her?
Her sister's magic was so unlike her own, thanks to the High Fae ancestry that Enya didn't have. But Oriana knew it, had felt it move around her own more times than she could count. It was safe. she knew that.
"He has inner bleeding. Quite extensive," Enya said quietly and Oriana forced down the panic that wanted to rise in her throat.
Enya's eyes met her own. "It will be fine," she said quietly. "He will be fine, Oriana." There was promise there in her eyes, glowing like coals in her face. "I swear to you. He'll be fine," she repeated again. Oriana just nodded, closing her eyes.
It was all she could do.
She kept quiet as Enya worked, pouring whatever potion her sister told her down Azriel's throat. She tried not to shudder at the sight of blood-flecked metal as Enya worked, Azriel's blood all over the sheets of their bed, all over her dress where it had dripped down.
Time seemed to stretch and warp and finally, Enya stepped back.
"I am going to bandage him...and then you'll need to let him go because I going to put him into a healing trance. Just for a day," Enya said quietly. "Are his wings gonna be alright with him laying on them?" she asked, and Oriana managed a nod, carefully stretching out the wings so they covered the bed. They seemed strangely cold to her touch, not moving like they usually did to respond to her touch.
"Thank you," she whispered as she worked, as Enya gathered up the blood-soaked linen that Oriana knew she was going to need to boil to get the blood out.
"Of course," her sister responded. Oriana pulled up the ugliest blanket she had ever seen from the end of the bed, covering Azriel with it, straightening out his arms and then leaning forward to press a kiss against his forehead. She could feel the even, deep breathing of him, the warm puff of air...the pulse underneath her fingertips...
She stepped back. Enya raised her hands and the whole bed was enveloped in a green dome just seconds later, burning brightly for just a moment before settling in a subtle glow.
"He'll be fine," Enya repeated. "You saved his life with your quick action."
"No, you saved his life," she corrected her sister." "Thank you. You didn't need to do this."
She really hadn't needed to. She hadn't needed to let Oriana and the shadows drag her into Velaris.
"You married Wynstan for me," Enya said at that moment and she stared startled at her sister, who grasped her hand in hers. "You endured decades of being married to that idiot for me. You lost your ability to have children, just so that Iwouldn't need to get married." She opened her mouth to protest but Enya shook her head. "This..." she waved to Azriel. "This.... This is the least I can do for you. He's yours, Oriana. He's family."
She swallowed.
"It's not your fault," she finally whispered. "What happened...it's not your fault. It was on Wynstan. It was on...Enya had saved her life. She had done everything she could. But even Enya hadn't been able to...
"I know," Enya said quietly. "Still. You always wanted children."
She had. When she was young, she had wanted them. And then she had married Wynstan and first, he had wanted to wait, to finish his mastery, even when Oriana would have been fine with starting to try immediately. And then when he finally wanted kids, their marriage had been more than questionable. Questionable enough that OOriana didn't want to put a child anywhere near it. Didn't want to give Wynstan anything he could yield as a weapon against her.
And then he had taken even the option from her.
"I made my peace with it," she said softly, watching Azriel lay there, still, silent, but gloriously alive. She hadn't had any other option. Still, when she saw Cyyrus with his three children, so close in age, a miracle in itself... "He doesn't care," she finally said quietly. Azriel didn't care. "I don't think he thinks that he could be a good father," she said softly. She thought that that was the main reason why he didn't care that she couldn't give him children. Why he was so alright about it just being the two of them. He seldom thought that he even deserved her. "But he would be. He would be the best. "
"That's not the only way to have children, you know," Enya said quietly. She knew. Under the mountain, adoption was... if there was a child in need of a family, that was never a problem. But they had rules for that kind of thing and one of the biggest ones, the unspoken one, would be that the child would be raised in the community in the mountain.
"I know. But that only works in the mountains. Not out here," she said with a shake of her head.
Enya watched her for a moment.
"You know...if I have learned anything then that...Fate has a funny way of working. If you are supposed to have a child...Fate will provide. One way or another."
It was a nice thought.
"And now, we need to get some alcohol into you, because you look like you are going to faint," Enya said briskly. "You keep Fireale around?"
"I don't think Healers are supposed to be proponents of alcoholism," Oriana said weakly, but her sister just ignored her, dragging her into the living room and depositing her on the couch.
"I am not a proponent for alcoholism, I am a proponent of you not fainting," Enya said drily as she pushed a glass filled to the brim into her hands. "You aren't feeling it, but you are shaking. And your magic is leeching all over the damn place," Enya said pointedly and Oriana stared in front of her, only now seeing the sparks that seemed to come off her.
The shadows around her throat pressed gently, just a touch, never constricting.
Master will be fine, Mistress. Thank to you and the healer.