Wind Wielder

Chapter 4 - To Save a Life

The next two days were hell. Sleep had found Zara for a few hours, and she ate when Kazia brought it to her, brows crinkled in concern and wings fluttering anxiously. The spies had taken a great deal out of Zara, as she sent winds to contact them all the way across the continent, some halfway across the world. Her arms were burnt at the wrists in numerous places.

The charm bracelets Nuan had given Zara were the prototype for the real thing Thesan wore, and they heated up when ignored for too long. And seeing as she had hundreds of charms to go through, many were left ignored for hours. But it was done, and the spies were organized, and it was one less thing Thesan could demand from Zara. If only she was more than halfway done organizing fae bane antidote shipments.

On the sixth day of hell, Zara finally managed to complete organizing the faebane shipments. A day early, even. She hoped Thesan would be proud. Even if it was four in the morning.

She had spent the day in Court, and as such was still dressed in a sleeveless dark rose colored dress, the gauzy straps slipping down one of her shoulders, and her once ornately braided hair now tossed up in a wild bun that had curls falling out every direction. Her heels had been abandoned the second she reached her office, instead swapped out for fuzzy yellow socks. Zara was surprised she hadn't opted to go change into her night clothes yet, for how uncomfortable the corset was.

But Zara was grateful she had not changed, when a massive illyrian winnowed into her office.

She swore colorfully, standing from her desk and banging her knee on the way up so hard she was certain it would later bruise. Her hands rose to fling winds at the intruder, but stopped once she realized who it was.

"Shadowsinger," She breathed.

The male in question was staring at her. Staring at her head to toe, in a way that made her wonder if he was committing her appearance to memory. It was the first time he had seen what she looked like, after all. Zara flushed and quickly righted her dress straps, scowling at the male as she stepped closer to the desk, hoping it would hide the rainbows on her fluffy yellow socks from his view.

"What are you doing here?" She asked incredulously, sizing him up.

He was still donned in those illyrian fighting leathers, and seven siphons glinted with the promise of freezing painful death. The shadows swirled slowly around his shoulders, drifting from the broad tops of them like dry ice curling off an ice cube, slow and unhurried.

But the shadowsingers countenance was a far cry from what it had been the last two times Zara had seen him. Then, he had been curious and intrigued. Downright cheerful, to what he was now. It was as if a veil of ice and shadow had blanketed him, and she wondered if this horribly cold face was what his victims of interrogation saw when he came for them.

Azriel was angry. With her.

"Rhysand has requested to see you. If you accept, I will take you to him." Azriel said, tone short and clipped. Like the voice of a soldier, not the male who had flirted with her, who had communicated with her with his shadows. Zara resisted the urge to flinch.

Zara raised a brow. "Now? It's past three in the morning."

"You just finished organizing the shipments of faebane antidote less than half an hour ago. Now would be the perfect time."

Zara's hands curled into fists. "You've been watching me."

"Intermittently observing your progress." Azriel corrected, voice revealing nothing.

"I would think you would have far better things to do with your time at the current moment. Considering the war you are currently fighting." Zara said, irritation clear.