Decade | | Azriel

16

Azriel felt a rush of panic as Kyla began to vanish, her form slowly fading away until the dagger clattered into the alter she had been laid out on.

He stared with wide eyes and was filled with desperation to be home at her side to be certain this really did save her, that he didn't damn himself only for her to die anyway. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, a portal opened up right back to where he came from. He hurried through it and it snapped shut behind him.

Kyla's wounds were rapidly healing, and the dagger was nowhere to be seen. She didn't wake until every cut stitched itself together and ever bruise faded.

When she woke, she screamed. She screamed and sobbed and thrashed around, fighting a monster who wasn't there—a monster, Azriel recalled at the sight of her terror, he still owed death to for this crime. He couldn't go kill him now, not with Kyla like this, but he would soon. As soon as he could.

"Kyla," Quyn spoke with steady calmness despite the panic Azriel knew she was surely feeling, "relax, honey, he's gone. You're safe now. He's gone."

Kyla only sobbed harder and muttered so incoherently through it that no one could understand a single word she said, other than Azriel's name in the mix of it. Quyn whirled towards him, as if just recalling that he was there.

He hadn't even touched the crown, but it somehow ended up atop his head and Quyn cursed quietly under her breath.

"Get out," she snapped at the newly crowned King, "get out and take the damn shadows with you. If you try to leave a single one behind to spy for you, I will peel your skin off and burn your shadows into nothing."

"I can't leave her," Azriel responded, though he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that this was a battle he wouldn't win.

"I hope you haven't forgotten all the enchantments on this building," Quyn spoke lowly, somehow managing that deathly calm even some thoroughly trained warriors could never manage. "King or not, Azriel, I will turn every defense I have against you if you don't get out. You being here is not helping."

Azriel swallowed back the bile rising in his throat. He felt physically sick at the idea of leaving her side. His instincts screamed at him to go to her and hold her in his arms and comfort her in whatever way he could. His instincts also hissed at him to hurt Quyn for trying to force him away from Kyla, but that was far easier to ignore because he knew Quyn was only trying to protect her.

"I can't leave her," Azriel repeated, trying to make her understand how urgent it was. "I can't do it."

Quyn held his stare for a moment before, much to both of their shock, she relented.

"You stand over there," she ordered, pointing over towards the farthest point in the room from Kyla, "and you do not move. If you move, you lose the privilege of being here. Is that understood?"

"Yes," he mumbled before turning and walking to where he had been told to stand.

He stood there and stayed quiet, feeling an ache all the way down to his bones at forcing himself to not be directly at her side.

Kyla sobbed even as Quyn set a gentle hand on her arm and spoke to her so softly that Azriel couldn't even make out what she was saying. Kyla started to relax, but then she noticed Azriel, noticed the menacing crown on his head. And she screamed in terror at the sight of him. The sound felt like it vibrated through his body in the worst way possible.

"No," Kyla shrieked, tears falling so fast, "no, no, no—not again, please—"

Her words became incoherent again after that as she sobbed so hard her body shook.