A Court of Flame and Shadow (Azriel x eris)

Chapter 21: Azriel

Friday, 7th of June, two weeks until the wedding. 

"So, I just want you to tell me what you like. It's all from the Autumn Court, which I feel I should specify." Elain explained, gesturing to the table of trays piled high with decadent foods.

"What's this?" Cassian asked, taking a scoop of a red gloopy substance.

"Its cranberry coolie. You're meant to eat it with the meat." A stressed look overtook Elain's doe-like face.

Cassian shrugged, putting his spoon into his mouth, and immediately taking it out. "It's hot!" He cried.

Nesta gave him a confused look. "It's coolie." He shook his head. "It's hot!" He repeated.

"It's meant to be hot." She explained, bemused frown on her face. 

"Then why is it called coolie?" He asked, fanning his mouth. 

Elain sighed, reaching into her pocket to pull out a list. "So that's no cranberry, blueberry, or mixed coolie?" She asked the table. 

"Not unless you want to put a warning next to it all." Cassian scowled at the bowl, shoving at away. 

"It's probably fine. I highly doubt everyone else that will be there is as stupid as Cassian." Amren said, picking at what looked like smoked duck. "This tastes terrible, by the way." 

Elain sighed again, crossing another thing of the list. "What do you like, Az?"

Azriel exhaled deeply. "The wine." Mor gave him a significant side eye, leading over to drag the bottle he had been working of out of his hand. He barely had the energy to frown at her. 

"Helpful, thanks Az." She said sarcastically. "What about you?" Elain turned to the only truly normal people at the table, Rhys and Feyre.

"I like the beef." Feyre smiled at her sister.

"There is no beef." Elain loosed a breath, tossing her notebook across the table. "Do you have anything to say?" She turned to her fiancée.  

"I hate it all." Lucien stared blankly at the table.

Elain began to massage her temples. "Maybe we should just let Beron do it."

The real sign that Lucien hadn't slept in weeks was his immediate relenting. 

~

Azriel had been in the bath for over an hour, with a glass of wine in his hand. He had imagined that Eris was there, waiting for him in the next room, and now couldn't face the truth.

The truth that Eris was miles away, likely sitting in a room full of ass-licking politicians and his disgusting brothers, pretending to be awful, and hateful. Was he eating one of the dishes that had been sitting in front of Azriel just hours ago? 

Was he staring at the roof, alone in bed, wishing he was beside Azriel, or beside some faceless, nameless woman who his father had matched him to? If he was, was he happy to be beside her, or did he wish he was in someone else's bed? 

I love you, he chanted over and over in his head. Azriel had meant what he had said in his letter, that if Eris needed to marry, then he must. But still the thought of him standing on an alter, beside a female who looked like a porcelain doll, made him hurt. 

So he would sink into the hot water, and pretend it was heated by the flames that Eris so masterfully controlled. He would lie in bed beside no one and pretend that he was with the love of his life. He would wipe his own tears, and pretend that it was Eris kissing them away. He would pretend.

~

There he lay, watching the canopy that drifted above him. Emptiness filled him like phantom water, falling over his skin, filling his mouth, sinking deep into his heart. The soullessness that swam in his stomach made him wonder, would this last forever? Would all be cured when he saw his lover again, or would leaving him again kill him?