A Court of Dreams and Vengeance {Azriel x reader}

Chapter One- Escape

Edited

It was the perfect night to execute your plan, being that your first bleeding happened yesterday, and the males were to clip your wings in the morning. Taking a deep breath, you quickly and quietly pack the necessities in your brown leather satchel. Three apples, some cheese, and a half loaf of bread were the basis of your food. Two simple daggers were the only weapons you owned, so you tossed them in your bag. While it was an effort to calm your nerves, you were excited to escape the horrors of the war camp.

As you poked your head out of your one-person tent, you saw how the clouds temporarily covered the moon's light, though it did nothing with the heightened senses the Illyrians possessed. They would most likely hear you sneaking out, but it had to happen tonight. You favored your wings more than anything else. While you departed from your tent, you made sure every step was light and every breath was silent. The singing of the nocturnal animals drowned out your thundering heart as you made your way out of the area.

Mud coated your boots by the time you reached the forest surrounding the camp. You look behind you, noting the many tents containing the Illyrian soldiers that you grew up with. None of them were your friends, you kept to yourself enough that no one had an interest. But your mother... by the time she wakes up, you would be far away. She was the one you would miss the most, not the brutal, territorial males, or the conniving females, but the sweet-hearted kind woman who raised you. Letting the memories flood you one last time, you offer a prayer to the gods to take care of her.

A snap echoed to your left and your nose was suddenly full of the ashy scent of the General. His cronies are directly behind him. Panic filled the marrow of your bones as he stalked out of the shadows of a tree.

"Well, well, well. Look, boys, a female thinks she can get away before they clip her wings." His sneer was all it took to have you running.

Dashing through the woods, your thighs already ached, begging you to stop. But you didn't, not with the General right behind you. Thinking of a plan, you tossed your satchel behind you, hoping it would hit him or lighten the weight for speed. It did neither. In a moment of desperation, you flap your wings; the membrane turning a dark red as the light of the moon illuminated everything. With a few feeble flaps, you had done nothing but make the males laugh behind you. A sob racked your body as tears freely flowed down your face. Frustration and anger riddled your soul as you came to a stop at the mountain cliff.

"You have nowhere to go but with us, so put aside your pride bitch." One minion said, his teeth baring in a low snarl.

"Are you afraid of the life that you are destined for?" The general laughed, "Of the breeding? The clipping? Or maybe the inevitable loneliness?" You could see his nose flare, scenting the bottomless fear rising in your gut.

Making a break for the cliff behind you, determined to die rather than live a flightless life, your efforts were stopped as the two other males landed on the ground and blocked your path to freedom. Breathing became hard, your supple chest rising and falling with such speed it was hard to get anything in. Like an oil-slicked hand, something caressed you. Like a living thing inside of your soul, a thing awakening at trepidation. You take a step and darkness immediately surrounds you. The males disappeared with the ground beneath you. As a decrepit attempt to control your rising dinner, you close your eyes and think of all the things that made you happy during those years. Your mom, the beautiful flowers and colors of the flora she drew. Her stories of a court filled with life and kindness, the Spring Court she called it.

Light erupted around you again, the sparkling darkness fading away on a temperate breeze. It was still night as you frantically looked around you. The new surroundings disoriented you, but even in the dead of night, the colors still popped out. You were in front of an elegant manner and recognized some plants and structures here from your mom's stories and doodles. You knew immediately where you were, but not how you got there. The thing that had awakened inside you had disappeared, like a slumbering feline. Tentatively stepping up the stairs, your wings tucked tight into your body. The glass door of the building offered no sign that there was anyone inside. In fact, the more you looked, the more abandoned and destroyed it was.