Azriel | Lux Ex Tenebris ✓

III

✦Azriel POV✦

"But what if I fall again?" Elvyn's worried gaze met mine, the shadows curling tightly around him. Yes, he turned out to be a shadowsinger just like me which made some tiny part of me utterly proud. He did not show light powers yet which meant he would only be a shadowsinger.

His small fingers curled tighter around my scarred hand, holding it firmly.

"You won't fall, Elvyn," I told him, stopping in my tracks. "And if you threaten to only as much as tumble, I will catch you."

Knitting his brows and biting down on his lower lip, he hesitantly dipped his chin. I fully turned towards him then, bracing my hands on his shoulders. He looked up at me. "Elvyn, you can fly and you won't fall again. You didn't even fall last time. You tumbled. We are not going out somewhere where it is dangerous, just a small slope."

Teaching my son how to fly....this feeling, it was...indescribable. And there he stood in front of me, pouting and his dark lashes drawing shadows onto his cheeks. His wings looked so big behind his tiny, fragile figure while the shadows hastily swirled around his body.

"They also tell me that it is too dangerous!" he grumbled, wiggling his foot on the ground.

I chuckled, shaking my head. "No, Elvyn, that's not what they tell you."

He pouted again, staring straight forward. I grimaced when I saw his wings resting on the rocks and branches and pine needles...gods, that would be painful. I cleared my throat audibly, raising a brow at his wings.

"Ahja, first lesson: don't let them drag on the ground. I need to lift them, makes me look lazy," he stated, all of a sudden an eager look appearing on his face and he immediately flexed his back muscles and consequently lifted his wings. They were exactly like mine — gleaming red and golden in the sunlight. A faint smile tugged on the corner of my lips when I nodded at him.

I went with him where I had taught Feyre how to fly. I would do it the same way with Elvyn, just a teeny-tiny bit more careful and secure.

"I don't want to disappoint you. What if again I cannot stay up in their air?"

"I would not care. You would never disappoint me. Elvyn, I am so proud of you already. There is nothing you could do when it comes to flying that would disappoint me."

Many times had I already told Elvyn the Nephelle story and also about me learning to fly only years later than other Illyrian children. Some annoying, stupid part of me was really ashamed of having to tell my son that I could not fly until a very long time but he did not mind — even told me that he was more than proud that I was his father. That must have been the first time I had openly cried in front of him. Well, the actual first time when he was born, he did not remember. I bowed my head at him again and he inhaled deeply, his lips pressed in a thin line.

"Good," I stated, folding my arms in front of my body, and leaned my shoulder against a tree. "Run. Push-off. Jump. Fly. Just as practiced many times before." I smiled when he flapped his wings once to try them out.

Misma and I had decided that it should just be Elvyn and I. He did not like it when other people watched him — especially not Nyx and Noora who already were quite good flyers. And also his mother was not a good audience, nearly breaking her leg the last time Elvyn had tried to fly. She was just too....nervous and anxious he would get hurt. I also worried about him getting hurt, but I also knew he could fly and was good at it.

Furrowing his brows and gritting his teeth, Elvyn stomped his feet into the ground and dashed forward, flapped his wings against the starting wind and—

Fuck.

"Elvyn!" I shouted, flaring my own wings and storming after him. Shit.

Just over the slope and not...not through the crowns of the trees and up into the sky. Flapping his wings eagerly he soon reached the clear sky, me hurdling after him like a berserk.