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*Warning, themes of suicide are in this chapter*
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Inei opened her eyes to find herself with sickly realization that she was back in Hewn City, the cavernous ceiling high above, the damp darkness threatening to choke her.
She didn’t know how she had gotten here, but she knew exactly where she was.
The looming black gates with those curling creatures that sneered at her as she wandered through them in a haze.
How was she here? She had put herself in a bad situation once, and she knew better than to come back alone again.
As she passed through the gates, the world twisted and and she stumbled as she appeared in her bedroom in the Mountain Palace, the night sky visible from the window across the room.
The curtains floated on a breeze, a sweet jasmine scent familiar in the air, but Inei’s eyes were immediately drawn to the large bed that lay in front of her.
Inei blinked and found herself standing over the girl in the bed, whose eyes were sunken in and her cheeks gaunt, her black hair piled neatly around her face.
Inei looked down at herself as she slept, and she slowly realised that she must be dreaming- there was no way she was able to see herself like this otherwise.
She flinched as a small noise came from behind her, and spun around to find Azriel in the corner, sleeping fitfully in the chair that he had often occupied during her time in the Palace.
Inei stepped away from herself and towards him, and she silently crouched beside him looking up at his face.
It was beautifully fragile when he slept, revealing a softness she had only seen when he was asleep, and she marveled at how different he looked when he was awake.
Sure, she had seen his gentle side before, but he always wore a stony expression whenever someone else was around, like he was afraid for them to know anything that he felt or thought.
The idea made her shiver, because that meant that even on some fundamental level, he felt safe around her.
Inei reached up, ghosting her fingers over his soft lips, and he stirred slightly as if in response to her touch.
She withdrew her arm and stood up, walking over to the window and leaning against the pale stone pillar that framed the gap, and she stared out over the land and up at the stars.
They glittered and winked down at her, and she smiled back at them, beginning to feel content dispite the confusion in the back of her mind-
She winnowed again.
She didn’t mean to, but she found herself on a vaguely familiar balcony overlooking the same distant mountains, only from a different angle in the Palace.
Azriel’s rooms.
She wasn’t sure how she knew, but it made sense as she peeked back inside at the bed with blankets strewn about, various blades and weapons laying about.
How was she able to know what they looked like when she had never seen them herself?
She turned back around to find it was now morning, and yelped at the figure that had silently appeared next to her, and she backed away with her mouth covered right into the railing.
It was herself again, that too-thin form rocking back and forth in the soft wind, like it took everything she had to just stay standing, her long black hair streaming behind her.
She didn’t remember this.
She couldn’t remember ever coming out of Azriel’s rooms like this, standing at the railing, and yet she knew with utter certainty that this was real.
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shadows don't lie
FanfictionOnce there was a girl who lived in light. She was strong and smart, and commanded over the armies of the Day Court, until she was burned by one close to her. Then she became an echo, living off the light of her memories to stay alive in the dim cell...
