"When the Daughter of Darkness comes, only Death awaits."
Born unlike anyone else and forced to work as the king's Aviary, Azria has only known one thing: she is a monster. The people of Izmera fear her and her powers, but when a chance comes to lea...
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...Ssshe liesss in wait...Go to her...Ssshe sssleepsss in sssuch a heavy ssslumber...Doesss ssshe even lisssten...We tell whether ssshe lissstensss or not...Ssshe hearsss whether ssshe knowsss or not...Sssuch a dessstiny thisss little one hasss...Not ssso little anymore...Not the babe ssshe onccce wasss...Ssshe isss ssstrong...Ancccient prophecccy fulfilled...Ssshe mussst go...Go......GO...
Azria sat up in bed abruptly, her body drenched in a cold sweat. Her breaths came out in harsh pants as she tried to calm her racing heart from a nightmare she couldn't remember. The voices of the shadows that had plagued her for as long as she could remember still rang in her ears. She swung her legs off the side of the bed and stretched her wings.
They were getting louder. And no matter how hard she tried, she could never remember what they said when she opened her eyes. They were different voices than the ones that spoke to her when she was awake. All mixing together, she could barely understand them. And this time...there was a nagging feeling in her gut that she needed to move, do something, do anything than sit here any longer.
Rubbing her face with both hands, Azria took a final deep breath to settle her nerves and leapt off the bed. The stone floor was cold as she padded across it to light a candle in the corner of her room. It was a converted storage room in the underground of the castle, a large square space with only the barest of furniture. A bed, a small wardrobe, a wooden chest, and a single chair.
"A dwelling fit for a creature of darkness," the king had said when she was a child. It had been disorienting, learning to live below ground. There were no windows so she never knew when it was morning. And the silence. The silence was deafening at first. Though, it soon became a much-needed reprieve from the chaos that reigned above. But to be stuck underground when her joy came from the height and openness of the sky...that had been the most difficult adjustment to make. Azria had no doubt the king chose this dungeon for her in order to tighten the power he held over her.
She stood in front of the cloudy mirror and began plaiting her hair into a tight braid that she wound into a bun and pinned at the base of her neck. I should cut it soon, she thought. It was getting to be too long and sometimes caught her wings when she flew.
They were leaving for Raheim today and there was still so much that needed to be done before their departure. She grabbed the clean, white undershirt that hung from her wardrobe in the far corner of the room. It had two large slits cut out in the back to accommodate her wings. Once it was on, she reached for the soft flying leathers that Orin had made for her on the night of her first mission. She put it on over her head and made sure her wings fell between the slits in the leather, then began buckling and tying the loose ends until it was tightly fitted to her body.
Once she pulled on her pants and strapped the rest of her fighting leathers to her thighs, Azria turned to the wooden chest and opened the lid. Inside lay ten gleaming daggers of various sizes. She sheathed eight to the outside of her thighs and at the base of her back and carefully put one in each of her boots. They had cost the equivalent of one full years pay, though she didn't get paid much. Her service to the king was a bit more along the lines of indentured labour. Or just straight up blackmail.
