A Court of Light and Fire

Chapter 3

Gods, Alina thought to herself. He looks like he's seen a ghost.

She could feel her heart hammering in her chest, and with her heightened hearing she could hear Azriel's sharp intake of breath as their eyes met. For the tiniest second he had pure shock on his face, but quickly any hint of surprise vanished completely. Alina suspected he might be the friend Cassian was referring to, and nearly didn't come to the training session because of it. She had paced back and forth in her living room, debating what to do and kicking herself for being a coward, when she checked the time and realized she was already late. So many years it's been since she was this close to him. She really took him in then – his glowing cobalt blue siphons, his tan skin, the muscles his long sleeved leathers poorly concealed. She felt sadness as she gazed upon the jagged scars that marred his wings and his hands. Alina's eyes moved back up to his face, noting the dark brown hair tucked behind his ears. Longer than he used to wear it.

At last, she met his intense stare. She had never gotten the chance to see his hazel eyes so up close before. The handful of times she'd seen Azriel, it was from afar, and she had taken serious precautions to make sure he didn't detect her presence. The most recent was almost two years ago when she flew in to Velaris to visit her favorite bookshop and her favorite grumpy , one-legged shopkeep, Mr. Thomas. The first time she had ever entered the shop, she had been so excited to pet his orange tabby cat lounging by the door that she accidentally knocked a vase over with one of her wings.

"Oy! That was a family heirloom!" He'd called to her as he wobbled over on his cane to pick up the broken pieces. Alina had felt so bad she'd offered to buy him a new one and stay for a while to help around the shop. He'd reluctantly agreed, and they set off on a project to clean out the back wall of book shelves and reorganize the books with his new inventory. It was quiet work at first, but soon they warmed up and began to chat about all sorts of things – how he lost his leg in the war against the humans, how she'd lost her parents and wandered all corners of Prythian, where he could find his favorite sunset views of Velaris, what her favorite kinds of books were. Minutes turned to hours, and when she left his shop that day, she had so many books she wasn't quite sure how she'd carry them all for the flight home. From then on she visited that bookshop at least every couple of months just for the sake of enjoying his company. For nearly two hundred years, as long as she had been settled in the Illyrian mountains, she would visit him and tell him stories about the places she'd been and the things she learned. Occasionally she'd bring him books from the other courts she'd visited for his shop, and he'd always joke about her slowly paying off the vase she'd broken. She considered him the closest thing she had to family.

On that day two years ago, like so many other visits she'd stayed far longer than she intended to, and by the time she was ready to leave she was starving. She was making her way up the cobblestone streets, admiring the soft pink colors of the evening sky as the setting sun dipped below the horizon and making her way toward one of her favorite restaurants. The street lamps were just being lit and children were darting between the crowds of people as they tried to get in one last game of tag with the fading rays of light. One particular little boy with small wings, hair dark as night, and large blue eyes bumped right into her at full speed, sending her pile of books flying. He quickly made to bend down and help her gather them, but noticed her wings and stopped to stare in awe, mouth gaping and eyes wide as discs. "How do I get my wings to look like that?" He'd whispered at her. Sometimes Alina still thinks about the look of absolute horror on his face when she told him he'd only have wings like hers if he ate lots and lots of broccoli.

Just then, from a distance, she'd heard it. Her pointed ears picked up the sound of a group of people sitting on the street corner laughing, enjoying their dinner under the magical summertime sky. One laugh in particular caught her attention – it was so brief, so quiet, but so deep and full of joy, like one of those laughs you could hear and laugh along with even if you hadn't actually heard the joke. She recognized a few of the people around the table, but felt her breath hitch in her throat when she realized the laugh had come from Azriel. In the few times she'd seen him over the years, she'd never seen him so relaxed, so carefree. Her thoughts were interrupted when the little boy ran past her, bound for the very same table of people she'd been looking at, screaming "Mom! Mom! I saw this girl with the coolest wings ever! Can mine be like hers?" Panic had kicked in, and by the time the boy had turned to point in her direction, she had already fled down an alleyway. She ran and ran until the riverfront shopping district was far behind her, and she wandered the city streets until the darkness could cloak her ascent into the sky. That night as she laid in bed she'd wondered if anyone else had ever been able to hide from the shadowsinger.