A Court of Blood & Mercy || Elriel Dual POV

Chapter 38 - The Debut

When Azriel awoke the morning of Penelope Vanserra's seventeenth birthday Debut, he felt a sincere sense of dread.

Thick unyielding dread.

It was already winding its way up his spine and limbs, tangling and burrowing under his skin before he had so much as taken a second breath.

It reminded him of the way his stomach would twist and pull within his gut the morning of battle— when he would awake before the sun had even broken over the muddy horizon, tossing and turning for hours beneath the canvas of a war camp tent, as his heart thundered with echoes of future doom.

Cassian seemed to wake on the day of battle the same way he would wake for Solstice morning or a grueling session of training— chipper with an edge of bloodlust. It was like Cassian was created for battle, able to find himself and his purpose out there in the sky, guiding the troops and stretching his muscles as if he was made by the Mother herself for such heroics.

Rhysand on the other hand never woke before battle— he simply had never gone to sleep in the first place. The High Lord would remain hidden in the strategy tent, his hands thumping down on battle maps, arranging and rearranging legions and companies of troops before running through contingency plans and ally support with his generals. And when there were no more plans left to make, he would meet war and face death with a confidence Azriel envied.

Oh how he wished he could be like his brothers.

Because Azriel never woke for battle calm or chipper or confident.

The only emotion swelling in his chest would be pure unending dread.

He hid it, of course, but it was always there, gnawing and biting at the peripherals of his heart as he pulled on his leathers and sheathed his sword.

Before the blades clashed or blood spilled, Azriel could feel the horror of war bear down upon his soul— as if he could already see Cassian's corpse on the muddied soil or Rhysand's gaping chest shredded by wicked magic. Horrific images would haunt his nightmares, of what would follow a loss— the innocent females and younglings taken hostage or slave by the enemy as his brothers' skulls were crushed beneath the hoof of an enemy steed.

He always tried to distance himself from the gut of war by focusing on battle strategies or brawn like his brothers, but so often he found his heart wound too tightly in war, leaning on vengeance and pride to fuel his striking sword as strongly as he let his fear and terror guide his wings and blade. It was as if he could not separate himself from the enemy, fighting every battle like it would be his last and gutting every foe as if they had personally cursed him. There was no distance in battle, at least none which Azriel was able to forge.

To Azriel, every war was personal.

Every battle was a fight for good against evil and every skirmish a chance to take revenge on the wicked.

Because he could not kill or maim without conviction the way he could not stab or behead without true purpose and heart. He felt every kill deeply. Perhaps that was why he thrived as a tortuerer— where the punishment could truly fit the crime. While a vagrant in the Court of Nightmares could be weighed and measured as deserving of Truth Teller's slice, it was impossible to know for certain that a killing on the battlefield was against someone who truly deserved it.

But if he failed to kill the enemy, the enemy would come for everything he held dear in this world.

So Azriel would face war the way he faced all the other horrors in this life— with vicious contempt and force, waiting for the day when he would push it back so fiercely, it would never knock upon his door again.