Work Text:
Azriel was still awake when he heard Gwyn’s panting from his cot.
She had fallen asleep about an hour ago, curled up on her side, clutching the sheets to her chest like a replacement for a childhood stuffed animal. She’d tied her straight hair in a ponytail, no doubt prepping for a fight. If another Illyrian brute snuck into the house in the dead of night, she wanted to be ready to defend herself, and she’d have a better chance without a sheet of auburn falling into her eyes.
It had come in handy a week ago, when she’d managed to pin down some male who’d broken into the kitchen. One minute Azriel had heard the bangs and grunts of combat, catapulting him from his room, and the next he’d walked in on Gwyn. The Valkyrie already changed into her teal pajama set and fuzzy socks, straddling the struggling intruder, one dagger pressed to his throat and another pinned against his right wing.
“You’re a bitch,” he’d spat in her face.
“No,” she’d responded. Nearly a whisper, her mouth a mere centimeters from his ear. “I am the rock against which the surf crashes.”
The male’s reddening face had contorted. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Gwyn had then shoved the sharp tip of her dagger into his wing in answer. “It means I’ve been used by your kind before, so next time I won’t hesitate to plunge this knife deeper into your precious wings if you try to hurt me again. Do you understand?”
The Illyrian had hurled more expletives at the priestess, but she didn’t seem to care as Azriel swooped in and yanked him up by his hair. And when the Shadowsinger had returned to the house after making threats of his own and throwing the male headfirst into a pile of mud, Gwyneth Berdara was simply humming with a hot mug of tea in her hands like nothing had even happened.
The Spymaster had never felt so proud.
Still, he’d made a promise to Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn when he’d offered to protect the Priestess for the two weeks she’d be staying at Devlon’s camp. After visiting Emerie’s shop one day, Gwyn had been hounded by male customer, claiming her Blood Rite victory had been a fluke and that the red-headed beauty wouldn’t survive two weeks training with the Illyrians. Emerie had told her friend to ignore him, but Azriel hadn’t been surprised when he’d heard that Gwyn, ever the competitor, had taken the tease as a challenge.
And the Shadowsinger hadn’t hesitated to offer his protection, as she not only trained but slept in Rhy’s house at Windhaven.
So far the Valkyrie had held her own, but Azriel would be lying if he didn’t admit his heart stopped nearly every time a sparring had left Gwyn laid out in the dirt. Still, she completed every obstacle thrown at her, landing several blows to Illyrians’ faces (and egos) in the process.
Azriel knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d told Cassian once that they’d taught the females well, and he believed it.
But watching her those long days, shooting arrows into bullseyes and swordfighting against males twice her size, Azriel couldn’t help but notice something in Gwyn that he couldn’t teach her. He didn’t know if it was her spirit? The way her eyes twinkled as she sized up her opponents. The way her brows furrowed as she watched others closely, soaking up whatever techniques she could as they punched and kicked each other across the ring. Or the way each taunt, each sexist, callous insult seemed to fuel her, like she stashed each comment somewhere hidden deep inside and burned them as energy when the muggy air got too hot and the exercises strained her too much. Azriel would see her limbs tire, observe as she took a few Valkyrie breaths, and then emerge from her meditation faster and stronger than ever, her hair gleaming, her sweat glistening, like she reveled in the challenge.
It was a sight that made his shadows swirl and bounce like her own personal cheering section, and even though he silently pleaded with them to calm down, he couldn’t contain their excitement.
He didn’t know why, but they seemed to have a mind of their own around Gwyn.
The same fire ignited in her eyes when he demanded after the late night intrusion a week ago that he’d be sleeping in her room from then on.
“For safety,” he’d assured her.
He worried that his command would scare her. No doubt she’d feel uncomfortable with a male so close to her bed, after everything she’d been through, survived in Sangravah. But he’d be damned if didn’t protect her in time again.
“You’re worried that I can’t defend myself?” she asked, glaring at him. “Did you not see what I just did?”
They had fought for a couple more minutes, neither one of them familiar with backing down, but the deal had been made: Azriel would sleep on a cot next to Gwyn’s bed until he returned her to Velaris.
It had worked out well, all things considered. Azriel’s shadows didn’t mind that she often hummed herself to sleep, often slinking around her arms like another blanket as she drifted off. And Azriel told himself he was just doing his job, when he became too restless to fall asleep. But his shadows reminded him often that it wasn’t the security of the room his mind was often fixated on, not the lock on the doors or the windows. It was the priestess.
The way her mouth opened slightly as she dreamed. The little squeaks she made as she flipped to her other side. How her freckles somehow shone out in the darkness.
Or that rose pendant she never took off, that slid beneath her shirt. A symbol that filled him with secret joy and guilt at the same time.
That was what he was thinking of tonight when her pants began. Quiet at first, it took mere seconds before they transformed into heaves that had Gwyn shaking and shouting.
Azriel immediately sprang up, jumping closer to the bed. His shadow’s reacted, too, almost petting her fair arms, trying to get the female to calm down.
“Gwyn,” he whispered.
But her shakes grew harder and her yells turned to screams.
“Gwyn!” he called again, louder. He didn’t know if he should touch her. He vowed to himself to never touch her without permission. Did the promise still stand here?
He didn’t need to decide, though, as her eyes shot open, and she grabbed the Shadowsinger’s arm.
She inhaled hard before hurling herself upwards and slumping over the blankets.
“Gwyn,” Azriel said softly, her fingers clawing into his skin. “It’s okay. It was just a nightmare. I’m here… It’s okay.”
She nodded loosely, steadying her breath before looking up at him. Tears hung in her eyes, and she was sweaty, so sweaty.
“I’m… I’m…”
“Shhh… it’s okay,” Azriel said. He knelt beside the bed.
He wanted to say that he got them, too. The nightmares. But he kept quiet instead like he always did, watching until her hands returned to her chest and she wiped her flushed neck. Eventually she grabbed the glass of water on the side table and downed it in one gulp. Azriel took it from her and returned it to the table, as she pushed the sheet off of her, spun slightly, and dangled her feet off the side of the bed, facing the Shadowsinger.
She stared at her knees.
“It’s not what those soldiers did,” she finally said quietly, not looking up at Azriel. She swallowed. “My sister… my twin sister was one of the priestesses killed in the kitchen that night before you arrived. She was… I had helped the children escape, and the male said he’d kill her if I didn’t give them up. And I…”
Azriel silently cursed himself, as his shadows curled around the priestess. He’d beaten himself up for arriving too late ever since that night in Sangravah, and he had assumed Gwyn had been close to and scarred by the murders of the other priestesses. But he hadn’t know this. Hadn’t known that one of the females lying bloodied on the floor of that kitchen had been her twin sister.
He’d killed those Hybern bastards too quickly, he told himself. Too, too quickly.
“We had gotten into a fight that day,” Gwyn continued. Her voice broke a bit, and her hands trembled. “Catrin had wanted to leave the temple, and I told her she was insane. That people wouldn’t treat us kindly out in the real world. We were ‘bastard halfbreeds,’ I said. She had webbed fingers from our nymph grandmother. I told her there was no way… no way…” She stopped and swallowed. “She called me a coward, and I called her crazy. We went to bed angry, and the next thing I knew, she shook me awake and said to get the children, and then I…”
She didn’t need to finish her sentence for Azriel to know what plagued Gwyn most. The female thought she had killed her sister.
“I’m strong now, and I’m healing,” the priestess spoke after rubbing her eyes. “I have great days. Great days where I’m not as afraid to walk around Velaris anymore. Where I shop with Nesta and visit Emerie. Where I read in cafes and, by gods, kick Illyrians’ asses, but even after the best days, even after days where I feel so full and so happy and so well, it doesn’t change what I did… it doesn’t stop my dreams reminding me of what I am.”
The pair was silent for what felt like centuries, and Azriel didn’t think he was breathing. Even his shadows had stopped swirling, resting on her shoulders like they belonged to her instead of him.
“When I was a child, I was kept in a windowless cell,” he said without thinking. Gwyn’s eyes shot up at his face for the first time at the statement, and before he could plan just what the hell he was doing, he continued.
“I was only let out for an hour a day. I only saw my real mother for an hour a week, and my half brothers and stepmother hated me. One day when I was eight, my half brothers poured oil on my hands and set them on fire. My father’s warriors heard me screaming, but they didn’t get there in time to stop my hands from being… well…”
He held up his scarred hands towards the priestess, and she researched them like he’d often seen her do with books. No ounce of fear existed in her teal eyes. Just curiosity, as if she were looking at palms and fingers for the first time.
“I should be happy now,” Azriel spoke. “I have a family now, and I’m supposedly one of the three most powerful males in the entire Night Court.”
“Prythia,” Gwyn interjected softly. “In all of Prythia.”
He felt the sides of his mouth inch up a bit. “Sure. But I look down at these hands, these things, and I…”
He left it for Gwyn to fill in the blanks this time. Her silent nod let the Shadowsinger know that she understood, not just what he couldn’t say… but how he felt.
The gesture panged his heart in a way he didn’t recognize. Maybe this was just what happened when you bared your soul. He’d never laid his story out for someone so… concisely before. Sure Cassian and Rhys knew his history, but he’d never told them everything outright. It’d taken his brothers nearly five centuries to piece together what Azriel had confided in Gwyn in just two minutes. And even then, he’d never admitted to the males that he was plagued by feelings of unworthiness.
The reality of this had him bracing for the freckled priestess to coddle him. Or maybe she’d scold him for feeling so inadequate when her trauma, by comparison, must have been so, so much worse. However, when she finally opened her mouth, he was met with something else entirely.
“Your hands are perfect for palm reading, you know?”
His shadows bounced in laughter, and he felt his eyebrows raise. In all the times she had surprised him…
“Excuse me?”
She lifted her chin and tucked a fallen lock of hair behind her ear. “When we were young, my sister and I used to pretend we could tell someone’s future by looking at the lines and scars on their hands.”
Azriel couldn’t tell if his mouth hung open in a smile or in an expression similar to a gaping fish, but he lifted his palms higher, as the priestess unspokenly asked permission to touch them.
“Ahhh… see,” she said, rubbing a calloused blotch by his right thumb.
The sensation of her delicate fingers against his marred hands sent a shiver down his spine, but he didn’t move, instead focused on her intently. The small grin on her face. The reappearing twinkle in her eyes. The tears that still stuck to her cheeks, remnants of a Gwyn that somehow seemed long past.
“Marks like this mean you’ll grow to be a feared warrior, so it was right about that.”
A soft chuckle escaped Azriel, and he stayed still as her middle finger etched over the grooves and stains in his left palm. He almost didn’t notice his shadows had slithered down her shoulders and wrapped like ribbons around where his and Gwyn’s hands met.
She didn’t seem to mind though, and continued her examination.
“And this one here,” she said, pointing to a line along his left pinky. “This one means you’ll grow to be protective and brave.”
“And what about this one?”
He flipped his hands to show the priestess his biggest burn mark. The scabby welt nearly covered the entire back of his right hand. He swore he could hear his childhood screams whenever he stared at it too long, but Gwyn didn’t fear a thing, instead, massaging the welt with her thumbs and hmmm-ing to herself.
“I’ve always wanted to see a mark like this...” she said.
“Oh really?” Azriel asked, staring as she looked up at him. Redness still circled her eyes from where she had cried to him, but her teasing expression had something deep within him glowing, like it had been waiting a very, very long time to ignite.
“This mark means that a blue-siphoned Shadowsinger will sing a red-haired Valkyrie to sleep after she’s had a very hard, hard night.”
Now she was laughing, and he sputtered a few objections, as she let go of his hands and curled back against her pillow.
“Was the whole nightmare a lie?” he said, trying to wipe the smile off of his face. “Was this whole thing just some trick for you to finally get me to sing?”
Gwyn had pestered him incessantly to hear his singing voice ever since he’d admitted that he could carry a tune last Winter Solstice, but every time he’d shoot down her request, and every time she’d left his face warm with her promise.
“One of these days, Shadowsinger,” she’d coo, offen flipping her hair and sashaying out of training with Nesta and Emerie.
“Can you blame for seeing an in?” she now said, clutching the bedsheet to her chest yet again. “It would really help me fall back asleep.”
Azriel opened his mouth, but his protest never came. He watched the clever priestess bat her eyes and yawn wide, lifting her chest slightly, and bringing his attention yet again to that gold chain around her neck.
Joy and guilt got the best of him.
“Fine,” he grumbled, getting up off his knees and lying back onto his cot.
He heard Gwyn squeal with delight, as he faced the wall, back to her, and took a deep breath.
“One song,” he said. “That’s it. And then never again. And you don’t tell anyone, anyone about this, do you understand? Not even Emerie and Nesta. Especially not Emerie and Nesta.”
“Whatever you say, Shadowsinger,” she called from behind him.
And as he sang quietly, a lullaby he’d sung over and over as a child huddled in his cell, he felt his shadows cocoon Gwyn again.
By the time he had finished all the verses, all that remained was the soft, sleepy breathing of the priestess behind him and that small, steady glow deep within. A glow that he swore had his shadows singing as well, as he succumbed to rest, too, and dreamed of delicate fingers grazing his palms.