Shadows Whisper | | Azriel

35

Astryn had gone quiet again. Deathly, unnervingly quiet.

Azriel kept his arms around her more often than not because he took notice of how many glances she snuck towards the faebane chains, like she might try to wrap them around herself again if he gave her the chance.

Her silence and stillness lasted a week. A full, torturous week of silence and stillness and longing glances at those chains. Then, Astryn finally spoke.

"I'd like to leave this place now," she muttered, looking up at from where she was damn near on his lap, cradled in his arms with his wing curled protectively around her. "Please."

"Where would you like to go?" Azriel asked, already standing up with her still in his arms.

"Rhysand...he's the one who can help figure out this...power, correct?" Astryn questioned, to which her mate hummed in confirmation. "Can we go to him?"

"Of course," Azriel agreed to it easily, trying not to think too much about the rush of proudness he felt towards her. He pressed his lips briefly to the top of her head before he carried her off.

He flew them to the House of Wind and opened his mind to Rhys when they arrived, knowing he'd sense it.

Astryn wants to see you. She wants your help with controlling her power.

Rhys jolted at the words, nearly letting himself hope before he forced himself to remember that this was about helping her with her power and she didn't ask to see him just for the sake of seeing him. He cast a thought out towards Azriel.

I'll meet you both in the dining room.

He was terrified, utterly terrified. This could go so horribly wrong.

He forced his worries and fears down as best as he could as he made his way to the dining room where Astryn and Azriel were already waiting.

Astryn stood when he came in, turning to face him with wide, hesitant eyes. Violet eyes that matched him but had looked at him with so much fear damn near every time he was in her sight.

"I apologize for—" she started off, but he didn't let her finish. He wrapped his arms around her so tightly and squeezed his eyes shut because he felt like he might cry. Tears somehow managed to slip out from his closed eyes anyway.

"Thank you for coming back," he mumbled, "I'm sorry I scared you before. Please let me make it right."

Astryn's arms hung limply at her sides, like she didn't know what she was supposed to do. It tore Rhys apart inside. He wondered if he had already ruined any chance he might have had at being her brother, at her ever accepting him.

He pulled back and quickly wiped away the few stray tears, his heart wrenching at how alarmed she seemed at those tears.

She reached out hesitantly and set her hand on his arm and, suddenly, all the pain he felt just vanished. His eyes widened in surprise and his breath shook as he looked at her as if he couldn't quite figure out what to do. Looked at her face, then at her hand on his arm, then back to her face. Her violet eyes weren't quite as bleak as they had been before, and she was visibly unnerved by how much pain she felt leave him. He wondered if she had any idea that she had broken passed every mental shield he had and yanked that pain away.

"Rhysand," she spoke softly and kept her hand on his arm, like she was afraid he'd feel all that hurt again if she moved. She didn't know how she had taken it.

Rhys didn't think. He just hugged her again, hugged her like it could bring back everything he had lost and fix everything he had broken. This time, she loosely wrapped her arms around him too. She seemed confused by it, by this show of affection, but he clearly needed it. He wondered how rare it had been for her to be hugged that she was so confused about what it even was.

He hated thinking about what she had been through, how she had suffered. Had she ever even been hugged in the first twenty years of her life before he took her from that cell? Had she known any ounce of kindness?

He didn't let himself think about the fact that she willingly went back there, that she stayed there for days before coming back here. He didn't let himself wonder if Azriel had to coax her out of that cave after so many days and nights had passed or if she decided she wanted to leave. He didn't let himself think about the fact that she might never see him as he brother.

"Why did they want you dead?" Astryn's question pulled him out of his spiraling thoughts as she finally stepped back from the hug and let her hands fall to her sides. "Why...I don't understand why any of what happened did."

"For any member of the Night Court involved in this...many see a half-breed on the throne as a disgrace," Rhys explained after a cautious, brief glance at Azriel. "As for the Autumn Court's involvement, their belief that you would give birth to the Night Court's next High Lord was enough of a motivation. With Beron's son as the child's father, the Vanserra family would have had claim to two courts. It has been a long while since something like that happened. Their power would be a force that not many would be willing or able to stand against."

"So it's all just power and bloodlines? Did they even...did any of them even know you to want you dead so badly?" she pressed, eyebrows furrowed.

He smiled weakly, a failed attempt at reassurance.

"It's the life I was raised to learn to survive. There won't ever be any shortage of people who want me dead either to take my throne as their own or simply because I'm not a pure blooded High Fae. It's archaic and cruel but it's nothing new."

He didn't let himself tear up again at the thought of how that archaic cruelness cost him his mother and his other sister.