Wind Wielder

Chapter 17 - Coping

****trigger warning, brief mentions of suicide and suicidal ideation. Please read at your own discretion.***

It had been less than a week since Zara Aphelion became the newest resident of the House of Wind.

Azriel was not coping well.

He hadn't even seen the damn female. Had not locked eyes on her once. But he could smell her, and worse, he could feel her.

It was the feeling Azriel could not cope with.

Azriel was certain Zara had no clue she was pushing nearly every emotion she had into the ether between them, into the space the winds and shadows would happily translate for him. Because if she did, Azriel was certain Zara would try to rip the air from his lungs for the invasion of privacy. And Azriel tried to block it out, fuck, did he ever. But his shadows... they were persistent. And those winds pulled at his wings of their own accord, as if begging him to help.

It came in waves, the agony. 

For the most part, the days were fine, aside from the soul crushing heaviness that sat on his chest like a ten ton boulder.

It lessened slightly in the mid afternoon to evenings, when Azriel could smell the alcohol permeating down the hallway to his chambers. And in the wee hours of the morning when she slept, it was blissful, numb, for an hour or two. Until Zara would begin to dream.

And then the waves of agony, grief, terror and rage would barrel into him right around the time Zara began crying. A tsunami, threatening to pull him under. The first time it happened, Azriel had shredded his bedside table with his shadows, convinced someone had snuck in the night to kill him with the way his heart pounded. And then Azriel realized what had happened, who it was coming from. And Azriel had leapt off of the balcony of his chambers, forcing himself to go for a fucking flight before he stormed into her room and did something he would regret.

He was better at it now, at blocking it out. At least, that was what he told himself. Azriel put that ability to compartmentalize his emotions to good use, tucking every whisper of agony the shadows told him about into a locked box at the corner of his mind.

Only this morning, when he landed on the balcony in his room after a long morning flight he could hear the winds ripping her room apart. Could taste the behemoth of her power slowly rising to the surface.

And Azriel had no intention of seeing his home blown to pieces.

He was out the door and running before he knew it, down the hallway and slamming the door to her room wide open. Zara was writhing in her bed, face scrunched in agony and legs tangled in the sheets.

Azriel grabbed Zara's shoulders and shook gently, trying to pry her from her dream. "Wake up! It's not real, Zara!"

She wouldn't budge, her eyes flickering rapidly side to side beneath her eyelids, beads of sweat trickling into her hairline. But that behemoth was rising, and Azriel would not be able to stifle it, so he cast his voice out into the ether between shadows and wind for the first time since the war, bellowing "ZARA, WAKE UP!"

Zara's eyes snapped open like a clap of thunder, and there was nothing but electric blue.

Azriel was momentarily stunned, and it was all Zara needed to seize his shoulders, and hurl him to the bed, clamoring on top of him. "Zara," Azriel rasped.

There was no pupils, no iris, nothing remotely fae or rational behind that wall of electric blue. And Azriel was filled with a jolt of fear, one that was his own for the first time that week.