A Court Of Flowers And Shadows {Azriel Shadowsinger}

Chapter Five

"You know that you are allowed to leave the grounds without Lucien if you wanted to, right?"

Feyre looked over at Amara when she heard her voice, silently cursing the fact that she'd been crept up on so easily. It wasn't like Amara had done it on purpose. It was kind of just what happened whenever a fae walked anywhere. She had been trying to make more noise when she was approaching Feyre but apparently Amara was going to have to keep working on that. She didn't want it to constantly seem like they were always trying to creep up on her. 

Amara smiled lightly and sat down beside Feyre on the bench in the pansy flower garden. There were about four or five different flower gardens on the manor grounds: roses, pansies, lilies, bluebells and sometimes there were tulips. The roses were cared for the most for obvious reasons but Amara's favourite was the bluebells purely because she'd been the one to grow them and organise the garden from scratch. It was hers. It was one of the first things that she'd been allowed to do on her own when she grew up. 

She'd noticed that Feyre had been spending a lot of time out in the flower gardens, alternating between them every time that she chose to go out. Amara had started to get curious about which one of the four gardens was Feyre's favourite so she'd started to note which one she visited the most. Weirdly enough, Feyre visited the rose garden the most. Amara wondered whether Tamlin and Feyre had spoken about what the rose garden represented yet or not.

"Yeah, maybe I can go without him but it's nicer to go with company. Even if we don't talk," Feyre said as she looked over at Amara. "The presence of knowing someone is there helps. It just... it makes things feel a bit easier than they probably should in this situation."

"True. That's usually why I end up dragging Lucien with me whenever I head in to the towns. He complains about it of course but I know he prefers it to going on patrol by himself. He used to always go with Andras, I don't think they ever went on a patrol without him. I think Lucien just likes to have someone that he trusts around him at all times," Amara admitted as she looked over at Feyre.

A flash of guilt made its way through Feyre's eyes as. "How come? What happened to him to make him feel the need to be around people so badly?"

Amara sighed softly and ran a hand through her long blonde hair. "That isn't really something that I should tell you. And I'm not saying that because of Tamlin. I'm saying it because Lucien doesn't trust easily and if he wants you to know his past then he'll give someone permission to tell you or he'll tell you himself," she said softly as her eyes gazed over the flowers in front of them. She noticed that a few of them had already started wilting and remembered that she hadn't checked on this garden in a very long time.

She sighed slightly and got up, making her way over to the pansies before she knelt beside them. She placed her hand gently against the dirt, knowing that it would be quicker to reach all of them than if she just flowed it through one flower instead. Slowly but surely, the flowers in the garden all went back to their pervious heights, their petals becoming more vibrant and all signs of wilting had disappeared completely. When Amara took her attention away from the flowers and back to the mortal sitting near her, she noticed that Feyre had a massive smile on her face rather than the lost puppy look that Amara had grown accustomed to seeing when the two of them were alone. When they were around other people, Feyre had a more determined and annoyed look on her face, the annoyance getting worse whenever Tamlin was the one speaking but Amara couldn't really fault her for that.

"What is it?" Amara asked her softly, curious about what it was that had put such an obvious smile on to Feyre's face in this moment. Using her magic had definitely never put a smile on to Amara's own face so she couldn't understand why Feyre was smiling tight now.

"Nothing. It's just... it reminded me of one of my sisters, Elain. She was always gardening," Feyre admitted. She then seemed to hesitate before she spoke again. "Why are you so secretive about it? Your powers I mean. Your brother seems to flaunt his powers but you keep them hidden."

"Yeah, well, he feels like that is all he has left at the moment. My brothers were always more... accepting of the abilities that they had. They would walk around trying to prove that they were more powerful than each other and I never wanted that. Our powers became a way to compete for our father's favour so I kept mine hidden my entire life. Then I wouldn't have to worry about them all seeing me as competition," Amara said softly as she looked over at Feyre. "Tamlin doesn't know any of this and I would really like to keep it that way."

"Yeah, of course," Feyre said carefully with a slight nod of her head. "It's not like we really talk about anything anyway. He just... acts kind of weird around me." 

Amara nodded lightly. She knew better than to get involved. Well, when it came to talking to Feyre anyway, she was definitely going to bring it up to Tamlin. After firenight though. It could wait. That was more important right now. 

Usually, she wouldn't go but she felt like something was actually going to happen at this one. Amara wasn't entirely sure what but... something. Something was going to happen. She could feel it. 

The only issue was... what?