A Delicate Darkness | AZRIEL (ACOTAR)

iv. flights of fancy, flights of freedom

FLIGHTS OF FANCY, FLIGHTS OF FREEDOM

THE HOUSE HELD MANY SECRETS, she learned over the years. Hidden passageways, scratchings in stone, rooms she hadn't seen before. There was a deserted gallery in the North Wing that might have been used as a ballroom before the Grand Gallery had been constructed. Mosaic pieces of regal gentlemen and beautiful ladies with puffy gowns decorated the walls; oil paintings of Autumn landscapes; marble sculptures depicting the Mother and the Cauldron...

Sometimes when there would be some grand fete that Auroria was not allowed to attend, instead confined in her own wing of the House, she would use the passageways hidden behind bookshelves and walls to learn, to see other people, to know a life outside of Vanserra and the House.

She would peek through trellis panels in the walls, thrown in the darkness that her friends, the shadows, provided for her and she would watch on as people - her people - laughed and drank and partied, completely aware of the little girl in the walls that wished more than anything to join them.

Only once had she heard them talk about her. It had been a stern-looking lady with greying hair scraped back in a bun so taut it looked like it hurt. She wore a magnificent fox-fur coat and her scarlet-lined lips were almost always pressed in a thin, disapproving line. Auroria had never seen anyone look quite so old.

"Brilliant soiree as always, Lady Vanserra," the old woman preened. She had cast her eyes around almost theatrically and, in so doing, afound her attention drawn by the various portraits on the walls and inadvertently landing on Auroria. Auroria had hitched a breath and stepped back into the great darkness of the damp passageway as if the woman could see her - which was silly, of course. "I had hoped to see the youngest Vanserra in attendance tonight."

"All in due course, Lady Napier," said Nissa.

"Well, I should hope it be sometime soon. You've kept us all in suspense long enough, hm? We are all so eager to meet the High Lord's daughter - my son spares no acclaim about the Lady Auroria."

Auroria knew the Napiers - she saw Lord Napier practically every week, shadowing her father alongside Lord Marrone. The two were his most trusted advisors as Autumn's Second and Third Families. This lady must be his mother... or grandmother... wife, perhaps?

She shuddered. No way. Lord Napier was old but not that old.

"You and our daughter would be fast friends, Lady Napier. Two ladies hungry for knowledge. I am sure there are many a thing she would love to learn from you - but in due course," Nissa repeated with the firm yet alluring voice of a High Lord's wife.

"Whatever are you waiting for, Lady Vanserra?" asked Lady Bardisle.

Auroria recognised half of them from the miniatures Governess Eden had her learning. For what purpose, she knew not, because it wasn't like she was going to meet them anytime soon.

"She is a sickly girl, you see-"

She reclined back as if the wooden panels beneath her fingers scalded her. Sickly? She had never so much had a sneeze!

"-and the High Lord is most fond of her. There are some things we would rather not chance to fate."

The ladies around Nissa Vanserra hummed and nodded as if they perfectly understood, but the hesitation and ill-concealed judgment remained if one looked hard enough. And there was one girl behind the walls, away from the scrutiny of other gazes, who was assuredly looking hard enough.

Come on. Question her. Push her. Make her change her mind, she chanted.

Indeed, there was a long way yet to go for her sixteenth birthday, the birthday in which it was customary for High Fae girls to debut into society, meet bachelors, and continue the long line from whence they hailed. But, still, Auroria was at an age that she knew it was strange for her to be friendless, peerless, anything-less.