The Dark Flower (Azriel x OC)

20. The Bone Carvers Face (Azriel)

Rhysand did not return to them as the same male who had disappeared on them and trapped them in the city all those years ago. And Azriel hadn't expected him to. Half a century enduring tortures that even Azriel could not comprehend... only a fool would expect the High Lord to return the same male that had left.

Azriel had kept waiting for the days that the shields hiding Velaris failed - for the day that Amarantha killed Rhysand and his magic died with him. He'd waited and plotted the murder of a queen, but he never should have doubted his High Lord, his brother. 

Rhysand had always been better at getting himself into trouble rather than out, but he did always get out of it, one way or another.

Rhysand had told his story of course - fifty years of secrets was a good way to completely destroy a court. That's what he'd claimed when they'd told him that it was okay if he wasn't ready. His monotone voice and lifeless eyes had painted a disturbing picture of Amarantha's reign and his role in her court. It was enough to make Azriel want to go hunting - to find every fae fool who'd termed his brother "Amarantha's whore" and cut the tongues from their mouths. 

What information he couldn't get from Rhysand, he got from his spies. There wasn't a single court that he hadn't infiltrated and his people were more than accustomed to playing the long game. They'd smiled upon seeing him and then dumped fifty years of knowledge onto him.

Some of it was so old that it was irrelevant, but other pieces were a goldmine after being cut off from the world for so long.

He'd missed out on so much in those years of isolation, and there was nothing that Azriel hated more than missing pieces of a puzzle. That was practically all he had now. A few scattered pieces that he'd been able to grasp hold of, but the rest would take more than a mere week of hidden meetings to pull together. 

Azriel found himself standing in the doorway of Rhysand's office. No one had stepped foot inside it since Rhysand was lost beneath the mountain, but magic had kept it pristinely clean throughout the years. 

"You called for me?" Azriel asked as he stepped into the room.

Rhysand nodded his head, seemingly lost in thought. "I wanted to speak with you in private... without the others listening in and throwing in their opinions where they don't belong."

Azriel kept his expression carefully blank. Rhysand had often come to him for the terrible things that he did - the things that he thought no one else could forgive him for. He'd always said that the one person who could match his darkness was Azriel.

But he'd told the others about the lives he'd taken - the guilty and the innocent, of the things he'd commanded of others and the minds he'd taken control of... what other terrible thing could he have to say that he felt couldn't be said before the others? That he'd taken more than a week to even come to Azriel for?

"Show me what the Bone Carver appeared to you as," Rhysand asked, a quiet command.

Azriel stared at his brother for a long moment. The conversation was already drifting in an unexpected direction. "I've always seen the same thing," he told Rhys. From that very first moment his master had brought him to the Bone Carver when he was just twenty-five, he'd always seen the Bone Carver with the same deceptively lovely face. 

He'd asked it once, who's face it borrowed. The Carver had simply smiled at him and answered, "I'll tell you if you promise me her bones one day." Azriel was smart enough to not accept. 

"I've showed you before," Azriel continued. While Cassian and Rhysand seemed to see a different face every time they endured a visit with the Bone Carver, Azriel had only ever seen her.

"Just... show me," Rhysand told him, rubbing at his temples. 

Azriel arched a single brow but opened his mind to his brother, showing the beautiful mask of the Bone Carver. Her hair fell down the length of her spine in a long mass of dark curls. Her skin was softer in color when compared to his, but not necessarily lighter. She was made of fragile, tawny flesh that was inviting and warm. Spring green eyes stood out starkly, seemingly always pinpointed on him.

Rhysand released a quiet breath of recognition. "You know her?" Azriel questioned. "You've met her?"

Rhysand slowly nodded his head, "Persephone - Tamlin's daughter."

Of all the things Azriel might have expected him to say, that was not one of them. Daughter...? Rhys had mentioned her before with some amount of affection that none of them had dared comment on. She was the blind, halfling girl who'd killed Amarantha. 

But Azriel had pictured her as well... a female version of Tamlin. Tall and blond, not this petite female with a mess of curls. She didn't exactly seem the type to take down tyrannical dictators with stolen daggers. 

"Why would the Bone Carver appear to me as Tamlin's daughter of all people?" Azriel asked, certain that Rhysand had some theory or another. No doubt he saw something in this Persephone female. He wouldn't have worked so diligently to keep her breathing in that hell hole otherwise. "Why show me a female centuries before she'd even been born?"

Rhysand watched him carefully. "I've always told you what I thought." 

Azriel huffed out an irritated breath. "No," he said simply. 

"After meeting her, I'm more certain of it," Rhysand told him, not an ounce of humor in his eyes. He was serious. 

Azriel just shook his head, not dignifying that with a response. It was complete and utter nonsense. There was a mate out there for Rhysand. For Cassian. For Mor, even though he detested the thought of it. But not for him. Love like that didn't exist for him. 

"She's hardly more than a child... not even out of her teenage years," Azriel said. She was centuries too young for him. She might be beautiful, but she lacked growth. He had more interest in females who'd experienced the world... females whose words were as sharp as their blades, who could wear violence like a common accessory. Not younglings with flower crowns and pastel dresses.

"A hundred marks says that I'm right," Rhys shot at him. 

Azriel stared at him for a moment. If it had been anyone else who'd said that, he would have just turned his back and left. But this was like seeing a glimpse of the old Rhysand, one he'd started to think had died under that mountain. So he said, "Two hundred says that growing up so oppressed has her more inclined towards females. " 

Rhys let out a sound that might have been a laugh. "Not that I need the money, but I look forward to taking yours."