Olethros

forty five - azriel

Freyja had been gone for a week. I hadn't slept, I'd barely eaten, and my brothers were growing suspicious. I spent most of my time with Odessa or in my room. I'd gone back to the cabin a few days ago, but it hadn't ended well. I'd destroyed it. I'd cried in the bed we had shared and torn that damned room apart. I shattered every bowl in the kitchen, I'd torn the cushions from the chaise. I'd laid in the snow for hours, staring at the stars.

I couldn't be away from her, not anymore. I had sent my shadows to the Spring Court High Lord's estate, and what I found had me on my knees. Freyja shared his bed- my shadows taunted me with that. He held her as she cried. I should've been doing that.

Cornered by the brothers.
Teased by the Lady.
Held by Tamlin.
Thinned and hollow.

She was falling apart. There was not even an ember of the fire once in her. My arms were wrapped around myself. My breath wheezing as my wings curled outward, a shell around me. I'd never wanted to love because I knew it was never beautiful. My desire for Mor's love was a childish thing that blinded me from reality. Fantasy was one thing, but truly loving someone was agonizing.

Freyja had swept into my life like I'd never expected. She had me in her grips and- fuck- I didn't think I'd ever break free. The smallest desire to feel her skin, to hear her voice, to wipe away the tears that I knew stained her cheeks. It was all tearing me apart. My soul, already marred and torn, was now being shredded in her absence.

I had to rein in my emotions. I needed to lay the mask of a ruthless warrior with no emotion straying further than anger. I needed to pretend that Freyja was not the bane of my damned existence because Rhysand had been approved to go there for supper. Cass and I would be at his side, Mor would be here waiting for us. I would have to sit across from my Freyja as she pretended to love another. I would have to watch his hands on her, see what she had become in her time there, and I wouldn't be able to touch her.

A pained sound left me as I curled inward, panting. I did not know love could be such a physical agony. I'd gone through more injuries and pain than anyone in my life, yet this was the most crippling. Without her beside me, it felt as if the Cauldron itself grew talons and sliced me in half. The threads of fate torn.

"Azriel? We are leaving soon!" Rhys's muffled voice sounded from outside my locked door. I wheezed again, my head whipping back to see that the sun had begun to fall. It took the strength of my decades of training to rise to my feet. I'd already been dressed in my finest for hours. I wore the neatly tailored jacket and pants that Rhysand had commissioned for Cassian and I during those occasions we are to join him in the Hewn City palace beneath the mountain.

I turned to look into the floor length mirror near my bathing chamber doors. I recognized the male staring back at me. He was the one fresh from the  war, primmed and dressed to escort the Heir to the rituals for the fallen. My lips parted as I tried to take in a breath. I did not feel any better than the male I was those years ago.

My hair was tugged at and falling over my brow in untamed curls. My eyes were stark against the shadowed skin around them, my brows pulled down with a constant glare. My jaw was set tight almost too often to be able to find comfort in lessening the tension.

I looked at my throat, to the shadows curling around me like serpents. They trailed the lines of my ink peeking from the collar of my jacket. That jacket was the darkest of blacks, lined with intricate silver threading. It looked as if I were ready to dance at a ball, but in my sleeves I had knives at my wrists, ready to fall into my palm at any threat.

"Azriel!" Cassian shouted from- I assumed- the sitting room. Cursing under my breath, I wiped at my face before turning and marching from my room. Rhysand was stood, crossed arms and tapping foot. He wore a jacket of silver and black, as well, but his was far more neatly trimmed and ornate in its design.