Healer

Chapter 27

     When the females were done, somewhat satisfied with the state the healer was in, they left the room. Azriel stood in the hall with Cassian and Rhysand, talking about preparing for Hybern's backlash and as the females left he shifted on his feet. He shouldn't walk away from the conversation but he couldn't stand to leave her alone.

"She doesn't seem hurt except for cuts and scrapes, and those bruises on her arm. I think she's just exhausted." Feyre said. She folded her hands and looked between the males expectantly.

Rhysand looked at Azriel. "Go." He said. The word, the command, was an apology. Azriel felt it, and his nod in return was his forgiveness. They had bigger problems now. He turned and reentered the bedroom, wondering if she would wake before morning. He wouldn't let her be alone. 

Quietly, he took off his weapons and laid them on the ground. He shrugged out of his armored top, his undershirt hanging loosely off of him. He'd been sweating under the anxiety of finding her dead but it had cooled since he found her alive near the beach. He laid it over the back of the armchair in the corner of her room and approached the bed. She was pale, the circles under her eyes dark and deep even in the moonlight, but he still found her stunning. He knelt and took her hand, the one bandaged by Nesta, and just held it in his for a moment. He was surprised by his lack of rage. When she had been shot on solstice, all he cared about was taking out the male that did it, making sure he suffered. But he couldn't find it in himself now.
Hybern would pay, sure, he would make certain of that, but every space in him that that anger might take up was full of her instead. She had gotten herself out when he couldn't. She had saved herself when he couldn't. She had found her way to him. The last time they had spoken had been in that meadow. He didn't regret that, he just didn't know how it might play out now, now that he wouldn't be able to give her the space he had offered her before. He stood and looked out her window at the night sky. Rhysand beckoned to him and he considered ignoring it, but he looked back to Talia in bed, her steady breathing and peaceful face and went to speak to his brother.

Rhysand didn't say anything at first as Azriel walked up behind where he stood, looking out at his city. Azriel figured he was waiting for an actual apology so he cleared his throat to begin. But Rhys spoke first anyway.

"I did what I thought was best."

Azriel looked at him for a second before turning back to Velaris. "I know that." He swallowed. "I did what I thought was best for her."

"I don't blame you."

The silence dragged but it wasn't uncomfortable. The wind was still, the night quiet. Like a deep breath before a plunge.

"When I spoke to the healer earlier tonight, she showed me who took her from the house."

Azriel turned to Rhysand, waiting for him to continue. "They used an illusion spell. One that makes them appear trustworthy. As something the victim desires. Including the house, apparently. To her, the male that took her out of bed and down the steps looked like you." Az closed his eyes and swallowed. "But she knew, Az, that it wasn't."

"It's the same thing we saw in Hybern." He had known it wasn't her, too.

He nodded. A new threat. "And the king confirmed that the thing you have run into on the steppes is a witch somehow consumed by the magic. Just like she previously told us."

Azriel crossed his bare arms against the cool air. "I thought I would be returning with her body."

"She risked her life to keep from burying you, I should have known...I did know, you would do the same."

Azriel understood. They had almost lost him already, it was hard to justify that risk a second time. And he had stood in this same place, in this same position once before, begging Rhysand to let him go back for her. An age ago, before he even knew her. "Is she safe here, Rhysand? Really?"