A Court of Water and Shadow

27

—
TW: Memory of rape.
If you would like to skip, don't read the bold words.
—

"There's an old book that I read about balance. I believe they called it Yin and Yang. Two completely opposite forces that are actually more connected than you think. I like to think of it this way: the white and the black represent good and evil right? But the small circles in each color are opposite. What I believe is that nothing can be perfectly good and nothing can be perfectly evil. They each have some evil and some good in them respectively. So, Eve, you are the balance of Yin and Yang." Gwyn smiles at me as she threads the charm on the end of my black and white bracelet.

I turn the charm and notice a wave etched into it. "And what does the wave represent?"

Gwyn's face becomes wistfully serious as she ties the bracelet around my wrist. "Well, I heard you're from Summer, so it fits that way...but I was mostly thinking about our Valkyrie mantra."

She places her hands in her lap as I observe the intricate braiding that she taught me. I look up and nod at her to continue.

Gwyn takes a deep and calming breath, then closes her eyes. When she opens them, she speaks with calmness and conviction. "I am the rock against which the surf crashes. Nothing can break me."

I am the rock against which the surf crashes. Nothing can break me.

I take a deep inhale as I make my way through the House of Wind and knock on a door. I wait rather impatiently to hear those footsteps approach, and it seems as if I'm not the only impatient one. Frank slides underneath the closed door and comes to greet me before Azriel opens it. I smile faintly at the shadow, then my eyes dart to his. "What do they sound like?"

He furrows his eyebrows in confusion. "Who?"

I give Frank a sideways glance as he slides through my hair. "Your shadows."

Azriel blinks a few times, then angles his body so I can slip into his room. I make myself comfortable sitting on the edge of the bed as he pulls out a chair and flips it around, then sits straddling the backrest facing me. "They sound like whispered voices."

"Do they have faces?" I ask next.

He stared me down for a moment, then let's out a small breath. "Question for a question."

I cross my arms at him, but I ultimately agree. I'm feeling talkative anyway.

He inhales deeply and watches his shadows swirl around his shoulders and down his arms. "They don't have faces, but I can tell most of  them apart. What's your favorite color?"

I scoffed, then picked my legs up and crossed them on the bed. "Light blue, like the ocean."

He gave me a rare warm smile that made me feel safe and made me forget about all of the dark "yin" in my life.

After a small amount of thinking, I asked my next question. "Why did your shadows hide this morning?"

Azriel's smile falters as he stares at Frank, who has frozen in my hair at my question. When Azriel looks at me, he shakes his head lightly. "They think something's wrong with Elain and it freaks them out."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "What do you mean? Is she sick?"

"It's my turn." He counters with his usual serious face. "How far does that tattoo go?"

My jaw clenched as my entire body froze. "He didn't give me a choice."

"That's not what I asked." He slowly stood out of his chair and moved it so that he was standing in front of me. I arched my neck up to look him in the eye, then I decided to trust him with this part of me. The part that was taken from me and I'll never get back. But maybe if I showed Azriel, maybe he'd take care of that information and show me how to claim myself back from him.