Wind Wielder

Chapter 12 - Punching Bags

His knuckles were bleeding again.

Azriel had wrapped them well. Over five hundred years of muscle memory had ensured that his hand wrappings were perfect before he stepped foot into a training arena, battle, or otherwise. Perhaps it was the fact that his skin, scarred and brutal as it was on his hands, was always a bit more delicate than the skin on the rest of his body. It ripped easier, bled faster, and hurt more than the rest of his skin. So when Azriel felt the delicate skin of his knuckles fracture, and then crack open in bloody ribbons under the forces of his brutal punches into the training bag, he wasn't really surprised. If anything, he had been surprised it had taken this long for him to bleed.

His breath came in ragged uneven pants, although it wasn't from the exertion, even if Azriel was throwing every single ounce of strength he had into each blow. The chains holding up the punching bag rattled and shook as Azriel utterly unleashed himself upon it, the poor, previous bag he had already broken laying in pieces on the floor.

Azriel had learned long ago to control his breathing, to pace his heart from the strain of battle. And as a Spymaster, regulating his breathing was one of the first skills Rhysands father forced him to learn as a young male, stating it was crucial to learn how to overcome fear, or anxiety in the face of danger, how to masters one breathing into being utterly silent, even in the face of death.

No, his breath came in ragged pants at the world ending rage threatening to rip the mountains to pieces that Azriel was struggling to keep at bay.

Azriel could still smell Zara on him, despite the fact the top half of his leathers had been long discarded hours ago. Her scent had woven into the very skin below his collarbone, where her head had rested mere hours prior. When Azriel had snatched her from the High Lords meeting and Zara had immediately collapsed in agony.

And when Azriel had seen what had been done to Zara, what a desolate state she'd been left in...

A yawning pit into the darkness opened in the wretched, back corners of his soul. And the Shadowsinger, no stranger to the dark, had been tempted to dive right in.

It was a darkness Azriel hardly ever dared to allow himself to venture into. He only let himself brush the surfaces of it when torturing his inmates in the Hewn city below. He knew that if he ever let himself submit to the horrid formidable darkness that lurked within him... there would be no turning back from it, no recompense.

Azriel had never even considered venturing into that dark part of himself, until he saw her broken body lying there against the bathroom floor today.

Until he'd held that broken burning body in his arms, and realized he wanted to rip the world to pieces for causing Zara pain, this female he barely knew. Azriel wanted to winnow straight into the heart of Autumn, politics be damned, and take his time ripping Eris' throat from his slimy miserable neck with his teeth. Wanted to taste and feel Eris' blood sliding down the back of his throat.

Azriel was no stranger to horrendous thoughts of violence. Was accustomed to ripping and stabbing and tearing through his victims for most of his life. For the secrets and protection of his Court. But even he found himself a little frightened of his own bloodthirstiness as he held Zara's broken form. As Azriel leaned in close with his eyes on the purple marring Zara's smooth neck and prayed to the Mother that she would continue to make her next breath as he waited for Zara to wake up again on that bathroom counter.

Azriel knew he was a monster, knew it as surely as he knew day from night, but never before had he felt so wild. So untamed and feral and angry, as if there truly was a monster borne of shadow rippling under his flesh, waiting, biding it's time until someone tried to hurt her again, and then he would waste no time devouring them whole. It was a feral, wild sort of anger Azriel had never felt once in his life, not even for Mor.