A Court of Bone and Sorrow

5

Azriel and I, I know, will never again speak of that afternoon, on the floor of that solar. I wish, desperately, for there to be a future where we can. Some part of me, tucked deep, knows the truth.

I finish the painting. I hate looking at it, so I hide it under an old cover in that damned solar, and I swear I'll never go there and never look at it again. I swear I'll never think of the day that I finished it again. I am a liar and a fraud, because I will do all of those things, and at night, I will dream of a male I shouldn't, because my stupid, traitorous heart can't let go of him. Even if he smells of other females after nights and weekends out with Rhys and Cassian. Even if I hear the whispers of Rhys and Cassian, questioning if he still loves my cousin, a dream born from a nightmare. I will lie to myself and to the world if it grants me some peace.

My mother is making a dress again. Illyrians are rarely granted the gift of the Sight, and my mother doesn't speak much of her visions. But she makes the most beautiful dresses for Rhys's mate, who she knows he'll meet when he's far older. She simply tells him that she's making the dresses for if he finds his mate. She will never tell him that she has the Sight. Even my father doesn't know. This is our secret, shared between mother and daughter.

...and Azriel, who knows far too much for his own good. This is merely a suspicion, and one we never discuss.

I embroider the hem of a tree skirt for the Winter Solstice, sitting on the floor while my mother makes another dress. "Will I ever find my mate?" I ask suddenly, disrupting the silence. I can't look up at her.

My mother pauses, needle halfway through fabric. She continues her stitch. "Why do you ask?"

I shrug a little. "I think I'd like to know."

My mother is silent for long enough, I think she won't answer. She says, "Are you certain that you haven't already?"

"No."

"Perhaps you have."

"Do you know this to be true, or are you offering the idea?"

She just shrugs. "You've always been closest to Azriel."

"I don't recall that." Rhys was always the doting older brother, always hovering, always right with me.

"Rhysand has always taken care of you," she clarifies, "but when you were little, you always picked Azriel. And he was always on your side when you and Rhysand and Cassian bickered."

"I thought he was in love with Mor," I say sourly. I cannot recall a time where I have ever chosen the shadowsinger over Rhys, but my mother would have a better memory than I. And she's correct that Azriel has always chosen my side.

My mother laughs, the sound so lovely and delicate, I wonder how she is the full-blooded Illyrian in our family when my brute of a father exists. "Anyone that thinks he has ever loved Morrigan is blind, as blind as he and your father."

I have never felt a thing at my mother's comments about my father, though his little digs at her have always gotten under my skin. Rhys has grown to detest the idea of ever finding a mate because of our parents; I have grown to hate the idea of marrying out of obligation. Perhaps it is because my father is sentencing me to an unhappiness that nearly mirrors his own that I hate him so. "I thought the stories said a shadowsinger could only heal if they remained forever in sunlight," I grumble, pulling my legs in closer. Surely that is Mor, the sunlight of our family, with her lovely golden hair and bright smiles and kind heart.

"Stories aren't always true—"

"—Evidently—"

"—and sometimes, the only way to heal is to go farther into that darkness, not to run from it." My mother fixes me with a level look she normally reserves for when she is scolding Rhys. Or for when she is threatening him. "Azriel is still learning that there is no shame in scars. Perhaps one day, he will realize that he needn't pretend away his past. For now, he thinks it defines him. The things that others do to us are not our actions, Dea. They are not what make us who we are. They are simply..." She trails off, blinking into the distance, eyes unfocused. I know that she is recalling when they held her down to clip her wings. She will not tell even me that story; only my father has told us it, and only ever in pieces. For all that they don't love each other, they do tolerate each other, and my father cares more for her than he will ever admit. He must, if he saved her from such a fate.