A Court of Secrets and Moonlight

89: The Sun and The Moon

Leur

Air, I needed more air.

There would never be enough air.

How the hell did Tamlin pass back and forth through this portal so many times?

Everything hurt. I was so tired, so damn tired, that I didn't entirely know how I was still awake. Perhaps it was mere adrenaline keeping me going, a need to ensure that Azriel was alive.

Gods, I wanted to see him.

I wanted to hear his voice, his laugh. I wanted to feel him, his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his breath. I needed it, on some primal level that I did not fully understand. I needed him close, needed him with me.

He was moving next to me, light pouring off of both of our bodies, and that was enough for now. It was enough until we reached the shore, until I could drag him from these godforsaken waters. Farther and farther I swam, until my hands finally touched solid ground. We drug ourselves out side by side, my hand on his back to help him up.

Warm and solid, a heartbeat beneath my fingertips.

It healed something in my soul, something that had snapped the moment I found unmoving him on that rocky cliffside. Calmed some raging worry that I hadn't realized was eating me alive until this moment.

But my hands shouldn't have been able to reach this spot on his back...

Not without touching his wings.

His wings, his wings, his wings.

I turned my head but I could not see. There was only glowing silver light, as bright as the full moon on a cloudless night, nearly burning my eyes before I could snap them shut. A memory of when I had pulled myself from these waters flared in my head, of my entire body glowing when I first pulled myself to the shores in Solarea.

This had happened to me too.

But I hadn't lost my wings.

Panic was coursing down the bond, pure and unyielding panic.

"Az, calm down." I reached blindly for him, finding his cheeks purely through muscle memory, "Relax, just take a breath."

I felt him move, but when I cracked my eye open to check- there was still only that light.

Azriel did not have magic before, only shadows and Illyrian power.

Perhaps it was muscle memory for me, to control magic, to control the starlight I had been gifted with... but for him-

Fuck, how could I explain this?

"Imagine it like a fire, okay?" I said the first thing I could think of, "Close your eyes and imagine it like throwing a huge pail of water on it."

Shockingly enough, it worked.

I opened my eyes to find Azriel kneeling in front of me, panting as he squeezed his eyes shut. He was still shirtless, his tattoos now glowing a bright silver instead of black as they twisted up his golden brown skin. Curled, wet hair hung in his eyes, over his face. The siphons on his hands were glowing blue again, slightly cracked from the force of his new power. That eight-pointed star was still glowing on his chest. Wrong, he just looked slightly wrong.

There were no wings at his back.

I would have thought he would look smaller without his wings, but all it did was accentuate just how broad his shoulders truly were.

Actually, his ears were different too.

They were not completely High Fae, not the long pointed ears that the others had. No, they were still small, only slightly pointed at the ends. They looked like Rhys's and my own.