The Whispers of Shadows - Azriel

56

The wind was cold against her bare skin as the group winnowed to the Hewn City. They appeared in the room behind the throne room, where a sea of voices murmured in a low hum. Aurora felt her throat tighten as she looked down the the dark stone floor, the same floor she had fought for her life on. The same floor she had been dragged across with arrows sticking out of her body.

Her eyes lifted to the ceiling, and no doubt, scorch marks stretched across it. Her flame had left its mark.

"We need to speak with Kier. You four go out and enjoy yourselves for now, we will be out in a moment," Rhysand spoke. Aurora looked up at him, he had meant Mor, Nesta, Elain, and herself. The females turned and made their way into the crowded throne room, Aurora closely beside Nesta and Mor. Elain led the way, shockingly. More so when she went straight to the table full of a variety of drinks, pouring herself a glass of wine. Nesta sent Aurora a raised brow as the three of them followed suit.

Aurora noticed how Mor and Nesta seemed to stare down the members of the Court of Nightmares with faces that emanate pure dominance and power. With an upward tilt of her chin, Aurora grasped the full wine glass and turned her gaze to the room. High fae looked back at her. Scattered faces of beauty and disgust. Some sneered at her, others looked on with looks of lust and curiosity. She wondered how many of them were here the night Tamlin had taken her. She guessed all of them were.

Goosebumps rose on her skin but Aurora didn't back down as she glared at the crowd. Nesta's hand softly grazed over her bare arm to catch her attention.

"Pay them nothing. They look at us like we are no more than a feast spread upon them. I'd like to slide a dagger into them all," Nesta whispered in Aurora's ear as she began to follow Elain back to the dais. A throne of obsidian sat above their heads as the two females turned toward the crowd with their lips pointed downward. Aurora turned her eyes to Mor, who was already refilling her wine. Her perfectly carved lips curled back in disgust as a richly dressed male came beside her to fill his own cup. Aurora copied Mor's grimace as his tongue ran over his stained teeth.

Voices grew back into a low hum and murmur soon enough, few eyes pointed at the four of them. It was utterly sickening, Aurora thought, to be standing in front of the people who had seen her be stolen away by a High Lord and have the scars from those weeks entirely visible. Her eyes moved from the crowd and she turned to throne and made her way to the side of it.

"How long do they normally stay in that room?" Aurora asked in a low voice as Mor approached her.

"Could take a few minutes or an hour," she responded before taking a slow sip from her glass. Elain cleared her throat, downing the rest of her wine and handing the glass to Nesta, who gave her a pointed look. As soon as the glass was in Nesta's fingertips, Elain stepped down from the dais and made her way into the crowd. Nesta groaned. She finished her wine and sat the two glasses on the small table behind Mor before following Elain.

"Where are they going?" Aurora asked. Her nails ran along the hard glass as she looked over at Mor, whose lip was slightly pouted as she stared after the two females.

"My guess is that Elain is going to mingle and Nesta is watching over her," she responded. Aurora hummed, eyes squinting as she observed the crowd. There had to be over two hundred people in this room, it'd be easy for them to get lost within it. "You can take a walk-through, stand your ground," Mor continued. Aurora looked up at her with furrowed brows.

"What do you mean?"

"Show them that you aren't afraid. Follow Elain and Nesta if you'd like, but fall in with the rest of them. It's what I do when I feel lost at these types of events: I walk through the crowd and show my place of power above them. I like to let these fuckers know that I can get as close as I'd like to, but they can never touch me," Mor explained. Aurora swallowed the bitter wine. It tasted the same as the thought of being close to those people beneath them. The people that watched her be taken.