Shadows Whisper | | Azriel

1

Azriel had spent a long time learning to master his abilities as a shadowsinger. He knew that, if he didn't learn to control the shadows, they would control him. Their whispers would drive him to madness is he didn't tame them.

It took years to master, but Azriel had finally got the shadows to answer to him and do his bidding. He was in control. Others who had come before him failed sometimes. He had heard the stories of shadowsingers who had gone mad because they couldn't learn how to filter out the noise or control the shadows. He had nearly failed—the shadows were stubborn, and they wouldn't have an unworthy master. He had to prove himself, and he did.

They obeyed him after that, until tonight.

They woke him in the middle of the night, their usual whispers had turned to screams.

She's coming, they warned, almost sounding eager, she's coming, Azriel. She's coming, she's coming, she's coming, she's coming—

"Stop," Azriel hissed, clutching his head in pain. The shadows hadn't screamed at him like this in so long. "Who's coming? What are you speaking of?"

She's coming, the shadows screeched again, she's coming. She'll take us, she'll take us all. She's coming.

"Shut up," Azriel ordered as they kept repeating she's coming. "Quiet! Be quiet."

They didn't follow his orders for once, they continued screaming at him until they finally broke into his mind and shoved in a vision of the she they referred to so gleefully.

She was in chains in what appeared to be a cell so deep in a cave that there was no light. He couldn't see her clearly—it was so dark. But he could hear her. He could hear her labored breaths, her soft sobbing. He could hear the chains rattle every time she moved. And then he could finally hear her desperate mumbling.

"Please," she begged no one, "please. I'll be good. I'll listen. Please."

There was no one there to answer her cries. She had been left there to rot. He didn't understand how his shadows seemed convinced that she was coming. He doubted she would leave that cave alive.

He took in the scene around him and tried hard to see clearly enough to get a look at her, make out any physical characteristics she might be identified by. He couldn't make anything out until she finally turned to him and her eyes glowed in the darkness and he froze at the sight of her staring right at him through shining violet eyes. How could she see him? He wasn't really there. She couldn't possibly see him—he had to be imagining it. But she was looking right at him, through his eyes and into his soul.

"Please," the word was directed at him and it felt like a knife to his heart. "Please don't leave me here."

And then it all melted away and his shadows laughed hysterically as those terrified violet eyes lingered in his mind. He couldn't think as his shadows screeched and laughed about the girl who was supposedly coming and was going to take them away. It went on for hours and hours and he writhed around on his bed in agony until he couldn't take it anymore, those violet eyes burning a hole in his brain as the shadows screamed at him.

He couldn't think over the sound of it as he stumbled through the hallways to his brother's room. The High Lord was fast asleep right up until the moment Azriel threw his bedroom door open, breath frantic and face twisted up in pain.

"Azriel—" Rhysand started, only to be cut off.

"They won't be quiet," Azriel hissed in pain, "they won't stop—they keep screaming she's coming, she's coming, she's coming—fuck, they won't stop—"

Rhys hadn't ever seen Azriel like this, so visibly panicked and in pain. The shadows swirled around him defiantly in a way Rhys was entirely unfamiliar with, like they truly were taunting him.

"She's coming," Azriel repeated, "they won't stop saying that—they keep saying she's coming and she's going to take them. They won't fucking stop. Fuck!"

Rhys couldn't find words as he watched his brother fall apart. Azriel scratched at his temples, breaking the skin as his nails dragged down. He was near dropping to his knees and sobbing as the screaming from the shadows—the shadows, not his shadows, he realized—got louder and louder. He felt like the noise inside of his head was going to kill him.

In an effort to keep Azriel from hurting himself any further, Rhys lunged forward and tore his hands away from his face. His own face paled in horror as he got a clear look at the shredded skin of Azriel's face. The wounds would heal in only minutes, but it was still so unnerving.

"It's so loud," Azriel whispered in terror as he fought against Rhys's grip on his wrists. He could put up a better fight normally, but it seemed like all the strength was being drained from his body. "It won't stop."

Azriel was pale and his entire body shook and the only thing keeping him standing was Rhys's grip on him.

"She's coming," he repeated what the shadows continued to scream, "she's coming, she's coming, she's coming, she's coming, she's coming, she's—"

"Azriel," Rhysand cut him off, voice so full of concern with a hint of fear hiding in it as he watched his brother cry for the first time in longer than he could remember. Tears slipped down Azriel's cheeks and he didn't even seem to notice it as he kept mumbling what was being screamed in his mind.

"She's coming," he kept saying, "she's coming, she's coming, she's coming, she's coming, she's coming, she's coming—"

Azriel sobbed, the sound broken and guttural, as his knees finally gave out and Rhys's grip on his wrists wasn't enough to keep him standing. He fell to the floor and vomited, skin pale and covered in a layer of sweat.

"She's coming," he said again, vaguely aware that a half asleep Cassian was rushing in, having been woken by the commotion. "She's coming, she's coming."

Azriel kept repeating that as Cassian spoke over him, "what's wrong with him? What's happening?"

"I don't know—he came in here and he said the shadows wouldn't be quiet and kept screaming at him that she was coming," Rhys explained, trying to find some way to process the last few minutes and help Azriel.

"I thought the shadows obeyed him," Cassian said, though his words got no response because he and Rhys were quickly distracted by Azriel vomiting again. He had tried getting up but ended up hunched over on his hands and knees emptying the contents of his stomach on Rhysand's bedroom floor.

"Get Madja," Rhys requested of Cassian, "now. Go get her now."

Azriel sobbed breathlessly as the shadows got impossibly louder in his head as he continued throwing up. His ears bled. His eyes welled up with tears of blood. He could taste blood in his mouth. The shadows were so loud they were going to break his brain. He looked up at Rhys with pain and desperation.

"Make it stop," he begged his brother, "please make it stop."

Rhysand didn't get a chance to even try to respond. Azriel vomited again, this time mixed with blood, and then he lost consciousness.