A Song of Faithless Shadows

19. Darkness Untreaded

Gwyneth

We fall into the rhythm of it: Azriel sleeping in the nights while I hunt for us, me sleeping in his arms during the day while he flies. There was labor on both ends of it, though it was hard not to feel like dead weight in his grasp. Part of me expected to struggle with it, if I'm being honest. Don't get me wrong, I could fall asleep anywhere.

But in a man's arms...

It took something different at first. A real focus on my breathing, losing myself, forfeiting to exhaustion. Now, it was a single decisive blink, and I was like a corpse in his arms. He told me as much.

"I swear you don't breathe," he had said the other night. "I've checked your pulse a couple times."

The admission had caused a laugh to spill out of me. I can see it in the front of my mind, Azriel's brows knitted together is worry, fingers pressed against the side of my neck. He would likely take a breath after the first beat of my heart, surely relief upon not having to explain to Nesta how I died mysteriously in his arms.

He wakes me up in the night, and I assume it's from my heart rate slowing too much. When my lashes flutter open, however, his face doesn't express a begrudged worry or any emotion I can discern. His brows are knit, slightly raised, his eyes dark, lips parted, hair blowing across his temple. "What?" My voice is rasped with exhaustion. It was dark out. He must've let me sleep in.

He blinks, but words don't fall from his lips. Instead, his eyes dart towards the horizon, a fleeting glance. I follow his eyeline, mouth falling open.

I hadn't realized there was a paint brush that could touch the heavens. That in the dark could exist such color. Blues. Purples. Greens. Freckled in stars, the night sky blushes in jewel tones, reflecting, refracting. I can hardly catch my breath to see it.

I glance up to Azriel for confirmation. "The Auroras?" I ask.

A half smile. "I thought you might want to see."

I look away from him, something magnetic and charged within me. It overwhelms me in such a beautiful, mystical way. It's like religion, worship. The horizon sang my name across the sky, curling and slipping with the melody of a song so ancient it can only be heard with full focus.

I tighten my grip around the back of Az's neck. "Can we just fly awhile?" I ask.

...
Azriel

"Az." I had been dreaming of a freckled horizon and a vivid night when she wakes me, a gentle hand between my shoulder blades. I still feel like I'm dreaming when I look up at her, lids heavy. "Azriel. Wake up. I don't think we're alone."

That's enough to rouse me. I pull myself up as she rises, tightening her grip on her dagger. I check in on my shadows and find myself immediately affirmed in her claim. There was something in this cave tonight, though it was not easily identified.

It was nearly dawn now, and with the fire kept in just embers, I could hardly see a thing. This thing I felt... it had a strange power, though I didn't understand the nature of it. I sense it's attention, and I step closer, Gwyneth stepping stubbornly out from behind me. She twirls her dagger restlessly as something laughs.

The sound wasn't inherently insidious, more humored than anything. That what scares me the most. Then, my shadows start to retreat, shriveling into what was there before we came, what darkness will always exist in the cave. I straighten myself, pulling my dagger from my holster.

At some point, I had lost truth teller in the ambush with the rogues, and I was disturbingly unbothered with recovering it.

I haven't the time to dwell on it now, a man emerging from the depths of the cave. He looked Illyrian enough, but there was something other about him, something I'm led to believe only another Illyrian could pick up on. His hair was long and dark, his cheekbones high, his smile a bit too easy to be any Illyrian I've encountered.