A Court of Death || ACOTAR

5

Azriel felt nothing but dread, cold and ruthless dread.

Astryn had left. She had gone to visit that King of the Dead who wanted her so deeply. She had gone to another realm, where that king reigned.

She had gone to Death.

She had come to this bed she shared, and slept in it so she could travel to another realm and visit a male who loved her, who loved her perhaps almost as much as Azriel himself did.

He sat by the bed and waited, that cold dread a living thing inside of him as he wondered if she might not come back to him. Maybe she would choose Death over him. Maybe Death, in all of his surely wretched kingdom, had more to offer her than Azriel ever could. Or maybe Death, surely as wretched as his kingdom, just wouldn't allow her to come home to him.

Azriel didn't so much fear that Astryn would choose to leave him as much as he did that Death would refuse to allow her to return. Astryn loved Azriel, and Azriel knew it. But Death wanted her. And she hadn't visited him a single time in months until now. If Death decided he missed her too much between her visits, Azriel feared the king would simply never let her leave again. Death could trap her in his kingdom, keep her there forever. He could force her to become his queen instead of waiting and winning her heart in the afterlife as he had said he wanted to. Why should he wait? He was the ruler of a realm. He was Death. If he wanted her that badly, he could take her.

Azriel waited for hours for Astryn to return, sat at the side of their bed and waited for her soul to come back to her waiting body. The more time went by, the more Azriel feared that Death had truly decided to hold Astryn captive.

She came back though. After hours and hours, she came back.

"You went to him," Azriel muttered lowly, not bothering with any greetings, "you chose to go to him and didn't even bother to tell me you planned to."

"Would you have allowed me to go if I had told you?" Astryn countered, her voice weary as she tried to settle back into her body. It was something she had forgotten weakened her so much after months of not going to visit Death. Her soul had to fit back into her body, and it was exhausting. Still, though, she held Azriel's fiery stare.

"You know damn well you don't need my permission to do anything," he snapped, a muscle in his jaw twitching, "but it would have been nice to be warned that you planned to go visit a male who has every intention of making you his queen when you die. You traveled to another realm without saying a word to me about it."

"You would have stopped me if I had told you I was going to go see him," she fired back, her voice raising slightly, "you would have said it was dangerous and that he's a liar trying to manipulate me into trusting him."

"I would have said that because it's true," he growled, his volume raising to outdo hers.

Shadows swirled around them, as if unsure which side they should be on right now. They didn't like her visits to Death anymore than Azriel did, but they were almost always inclined to choose her side in any argument whether she was right or not. Now, though, they leaned towards Azriel if only because they couldn't follow her to Death's realm when she went.

"How can you judge him so harshly when you've never even met him?" Astryn challenged, getting out of bed. Her body trembled from her soul crashing back into it, but she refuses to lie in bed and have this argument. Azriel stood too, his wings tucked in tightly. "You've never met him!"

"He is Death, Astryn. He is the end of all things, and he made it entirely clear that he plans to court you the moment your life ends," Azriel argued harshly, "he has made it no secret that he wants you to be his queen. What if he decided he didn't want to wait? What if he decided to just keep you there?"