A Song of Faithless Shadows

15. Wild Fires

Gwyneth

Azriel warned me there wouldn't be much spying and tracking the first couple of days. Further south were the loyalists, for lack of a better word. They didn't especially like Rhys and Feyre, but they wouldn't outright defy them.

North was where there was defiance. North was where we were headed.

I keep close to Azriel as we sneak through town, following the foot paths of pedestrians as he cloaks us in shadow. It was more than being invisible. We weren't there at all. Illyrians pass through us without a particular care. I was shadow, same as Azriel.

"Her," he nods to a woman shouldering a snare of rabbits, dripping blood onto the fresh white snow. I presume he means to follow, so like a dog, I do, hating it.

"Why?"

"Women in Illyria aren't meant to hunt. At her age, she'd be wed by now," he explains. "Her husband would be hunting for her, but he isn't."

"Widowed?" I hope not. Perhaps defiant. Though she was wearing a ring.

He shakes his head. "Illyrians are cruel, but the most valued a woman can be in our society is a widow," he explains to me, jaw set. "If she were a widow, men would bring her bearings on a schedule three times a week just to help her get by."

"You think her husband left her?" I ask as we trail her to a residential street. "To join the rogues?"

He hesitates. "Women aren't nearly as treasured then, when their husband voluntarily leaves them," he replies, avoiding my eyes. "It is seen as their burden, their fault that they couldn't make him stay."

"Lovely." I feel nauseated as she ducks into her house, greeting her young daughter with an artificial smile. Her daughter lights up all the same, her wings clipped same as her mother's. I press my lips together as I follow Azriel inside.

The Mother pays us no mind as she starts dinner, me tucking behind Azriel until we emerge in the bedroom, at last there. I feel my feet solidly on the ground, my body dense and stern, breaking the breeze. "We're gonna riffle through her things?" I ask him quietly. I knew Azriel wasn't the most ethical person alive, but-

"We're gonna riffle through his things," he corrects me, slipping to the other side of the room, carefully opening the bedside drawer. He frowns. "What's left of it anyway."

I round the bed, slipping onto my toes to peak over Azriel's wing. Spare coppers. Reading glasses. Matches. A quill. There truly wasn't much to this man. But the quill...

A hand is clamped over my mouth before I can entertain the thought, Azriel pulling our backs to the wall, drawing shadow to conceal us. The woman not a moment later walks in, rolling out her stiff joints. He presses his hand tighter as my breathing picks up, an arm firm latched around my waist holding me close.

My hands curl around his wrist instinctually, at first, trying to pry him off of me. Then, fingers slip over scars. I shut my eyes. These aren't the hands that held me down, that made me hurt, that made me wish I were dead. These are the hands that saved me. They feel different, unlike the hands of any other man.

As I run my fingers over his scars, I slow my breathing back down. It's just Azriel. Azriel who puts way too much sugar in his coffee. Azriel who has one dimple, not two. Azriel is a little afraid of birds but will deny it to his dying breath.

The woman leaves the room with her letter opener, and Azriel immediately lets me go, starting to apologize, but just the raise of my hand stops him. He follows my gaze to the quill. "Someone has been writing her letters."