In Shadow and Death

006

         Azriel felt himself drowning in woe, the rigorous ash-bolt skewering gravely from his chest had nullified his abilities, and his cobalt syphons seemed dismal with despair, unable to kindle an ounce of his power.

He allowed himself to take it, to drown in that ache as punishment for being too late, to now slump flaccidly against Mor, who wavered unintentionally beneath his sunken weight.

The King of Hybern sat sardonically atop his burnished, emerald dais, that throne of assembled bone sending Azriel's shadow's uncharacteristically skittish, wreathing him like startled children.

His gaunt face was sunken in vain, honed cheekbones embracing no such colour as he scrutinised the congress of prostrated fae, a brow quirked in mere hilarity.

Azriel let his depleted head buckle, his chin knocking indolently to his chest, raven hair creating a curtain of shame. He permitted his shadows to manage his body, the dark swirls of mist droning their trepidation as his senses stalled and disintegrated, his mind waning to numbness, until all he could do was smell it, that anchoring scent of Jasmine and sandalwood.

Azriel allowed himself to bathe in the leisure of it, it's permanence a cogent tranquility. Even his shadows pranced for it's crooning, spiralling and chanting their infatuation, bounding and retreating around him in an occurring dance.

Maybe his distance and futility was inconsiderable, granted their current disposition, but that ambrosial scent was immersive and hypnotic, and Azriel didn't think he could free from it's noose even if he wanted to, and he definitely didn't want to.

Those prodigious, timber doors lurched to a clamorous opening, revealing nothing but a cavernous chasm of silence, coaxing the room into stillness, cascades of expectancy and chagrin corralling the congregation.

The hall remained ambiguously still, nothing but bleak wind to be carried through the ponderous doors. Exuding from the hall, a malodorous odour, incompatible to the piquant scent Azriel had been enraptured in moments ago.

Death seemed to loom, it's repugnant tendrils sheathing the gathering into a motionless ineptitude, the King's disgruntlement stirring the emerald dais.

Azriel groaned through the quietude, the jeering poison rearing it's ugly head as it emanated gradually through his veins, thick and damaging. The King paid no heed as Mor attempted to straighten him, Azriel's face donned in arcane shadows.

"Merikh." The King snarled to the dimness, his voice akin to ire. His apathetic, obsidian eyes flamboyant with mania as he bellowed commands to his soldiers, ignorant of Feyre's pleas for benevolence.

That name, cited with vehemence and loathing, sent Azriel's chest jouncing with rapture, his shadows rolling in tandem as he groused in need, that earlier aroma restored as it's source cruised closer.

And then she was walking through those colossal doors, a sort of goddess akin to his stupors, her sable hair bucking against her open back in pliant waves, donning a dress so tight and delusive that Azriel almost missed the two spouting heads wavering indelicately at her hips.

His ears rang out emphatically, the corners of his eyes fading until she was all he could see, her beautiful, driven face taut with reprisal as she strolled sneeringly slow toward the King and his throne, the two body-less soldiers weeping cardinal revenge along the leaden floors.

She was ignorant of Azriel and his reticent court, feigning her nescience to the conspicuously placed cauldron, inactive and foreboding on an unshared dais of its own, extricating a ghastly aura from the heart of the frigid room.