NOTE! This is 100% inspired by tumblr user underthe-mountain the ENTIRE PLOT is hers after we bounced around some horribly painful ideas of what it would have been like had Rhys's sister been Azriel's mate and he had known before she was murdered. Thus... this happened. I just put it into story format.
Enjoy! Check us both out on tumblr - underthe-mountain and my blog is fuckyeahazriel.
He wasn't nervous. He wasn't nervous.
Stop lying to yourself, the shadows whispered to him. Tendrils of darkness and silhouette curled around his broad shoulders, creeping up his neck in a dark caress. We see you. You're afraid. Afraid of her. Afraid of the one who sees us and doesn't send us away. Why? Why are you afraid? We're not afraid of her.
Azriel shoved away his shadows with pure determination and will that had been forged in the heart of the Illyrian Steppes. Those shadows did not control him, he controlled them. And today he didn't need them whispering in his ear.
Not when he was going to see her. Not when he was going to see Nissa.
Azriel had convinced himself that telling Rhys would be the part that required the most courage. How exactly does one tell his best friend that he is mates with his sister?
Rhys's sister that they had all looked after since the moment she had been born. Rhys's sister that had absolutely refused at only five years old to be taught how to fly by anyone other than Rhys, Azriel, and Cassian. Rhys's sister that had taken one look at his shadows the first time he'd let them loose around her and been utterly delighted, not afraid. Rhys's sister that cried when they had to leave for the camps and squealed in delight the moment they returned, begging for every detail. Rhys's sister that had almost killed her own father and High Lord when she found out he was making Azriel do awful, horrible things as spymaster and separating him from Cassian and Rhys.
Rhys's sister. Nissa. He tried to separate the two in his mind but he just couldn't. Nissa was her own person and one of the strongest individuals he knew - he would bet money that she would be stronger than Rhys one day. But no part of Azriel's conscience would allow him to tell Nissa the truth about who she was to him without telling Rhys first. Without his blessing.
His blessing and his fists, apparently. A few pummels in the snow after the original declaration of "she's my mate" and Rhys had realized that... of course Nissa and Azriel were mates. Their friendship ran deep and true and strong in a way that Rhys nor Cassian understood, but that had always been okay. They had an easy intimacy, a magnetic attraction that had screamed 'mates' their whole shared lives.
Yet Azriel had only realized it the day she almost got herself killed defending him.
It was no secret that Azriel was a talented shadowsinger, his powers and friendship with Rhys and Cassian made it difficult to hide. It was a secret though that Rhys's father had been using Azriel's skills for his own agendas in the other courts. While Nissa believed that her father was showing her a kindness inviting Azriel to their court for her benefit - to train with him since she was forbidden from the camps - he was actually using their relationship to mask his true intentions with Azriel.
One of those intentions had been more than his conscience could bear, it was all too much too soon and it wasn't the kind of court he wanted to be a part of, it wasn't right.
Rhys's father had taken him and Nissa with him to the Winter Court for a small holiday celebration there. Nissa believed her father was allowing her freedom when he was actually allowing her to be a distraction. The bright-eyed daughter of the Night Court - the charismatic enigma that captivated whatever room she entered with her quiet grace.
The steadfast believer in the goodness of all. She was the one that had captured his own twisted, scarred, dark heart. And his High Lord had made him deceive her yet again.
The mission though was too much, the sentry's blood dripping from Truth Teller was too much, the scars on his hand still tingling from her earlier touch was too much.
She had been standing over him when he looked up from where he sat on the ground next to the sentry's body.
What was left of it.
Her eyes - twin to Rhys's, violet and piercing through his shadowed soul - took him in without judgment or disdain. Only cool observation and a twinge of something even he couldn't make out.
She had no words, only broken trust and a raging heart rippling with night. Her power leaked from her pores, but she reigned it in. So controlled, so mature, so put together next to his pieces.
As the last of her night snapped back inside of her she turned on her heel, the white of her beaded dress scraping the stone floors singing a symphony of her rage as she strode to the High Lord of Winter's study. Azriel raced after her, his shadows a harmony to her night.
They reached the study, Nissa immediately slipping past the High Lord Kallias's mental shields, sending him sprawling to the floor in a deep slumber he wouldn't remember. Before her father could speak she winnowed in front of him and swung hard and true.
Azriel's shadows no longer whispered to him, no, they shouted and screamed for him to get her out, get her out, get her out.
He grabbed her, prepared to winnow, but her father's power grabbed him where he stood and forced him to the ground. Azriel's knees roared in pain, his blue siphons dimming as his magic was stripped under the High Lord's fury.
His fury though was nothing compared to her wrath.
Darkness filled the room, thick and blacker than any night to ever have existed. The power holding Azriel slipped away like a gust of warm wind, replaced by new shadows not of his own making. His High Lord was keeled over, body bent at an awkward angle ready to break at any moment. Any indication from his daughter filled with raw, undiluted darkness and he would cease to exist.
"I could do it," she had whispered. "I could kill him. Mist him. Rhys would become High Lord or I would become High Lady."
Azriel felt her thrum of power and knew it would be her, not Rhys, who would inherit the title.
"I could kill him right now. I will." Violet eyes met hazel ones. "For what he's made you do, I will kill him."
Azriel's blackened heart cleaved in two only for a thread of pure night and shadow and starlight to pull it back together. Pull him towards her.
His mate, his mate, his mate.
The shadows were silent, in awe alongside their host.
And how could he have not known, how could he have missed it. The perfect smooth edges that somehow matched his rough ones. The night that sought his shadows instead of running away. The eyes that saw the tattered soul and only walked closer.
His equal. His partner. His mate.
"Don't," he somehow found himself able to say. "Don't kill him. Wipe his mind, change the plans. Don't kill him."
"Why?"
"Because you will be a better High Lady than he is a High Lord."
She had let him go. Nissa's father never knew that his daughter, a mere twenty-five year old half-Illyrian half-high Fae had held his very life between her hands and almost ended it because of him. Because of a bastard-born scarred Shadowsinger with innocent blood on his hands.
It had taken him weeks to tell Rhys. Another day to explain to Cassian why he had bruises from Rhys and receive more in addition.
But none of that had been the true test of courage. This was the true test. To tell her.
His mate, his mate, his mate.
He debated for hours upon hours in the middle of the night whether he should tell her or not. Why would he? She was only twenty-five, barely an adult in fae standards. She had so many plans. Become High Lady, get rid of the Court of Nightmares, mend relationships with the other courts, implement policies to strengthen the bonds between lesser and High Fae, reform Illyrian treatment of females, and more.
He knew this. He knew she had her priorities. He respected them. In fact they only made him love her more.
But he also knew he had to tell her. He couldn't keep this hidden - not from her, never from her. She saw his soul, she would see this. Maybe the bond would click into place when he told her. Or maybe it wouldn't and that would be okay too. He would never demand anything out of the bond from her. He would never demand a single damn thing from her.
He just couldn't lose her.
My mate, my mate, my -
"Hey!"
Azriel moved out of the way just in time to avoid the flying dagger past his head. He turned and caught the wielder's mischievous eyes - violet twinkling with delight.
"You're slow today. Better work on those reflexes if you plan on beating me today."
Azriel smiled, the easy nature of the expression something he only experienced with her, he only felt with her.
"I see you're in full arrogance mode today, Nis."
"I see you're in full brooding mode today, Az. At least it seemed like you were before you saw me, that is."
The teasing smile, the bits of truth, the lessening of his burden. It all crashed together in a wave.
Tell her, his shadows whispered. Tell her.
"Come on then. I'm ready. No magic, no swords. Just fists."
Azriel nodded, entering the ring with her. He was fighting as much with his heart as he was with his fists.
Nissa jumped first, she always jumped first. Fearless, unafraid, confident. He blocked.
My mate.
She feigned to the right before kicking at his shin.
My mate.
He grabbed her leg and pushed back, spinning around her and wrapping his arms around her torso.
My mate.
She flung her head back and he narrowly avoided the blow, loosening his grip enough for her to elbow him in the gut and spin, tripping him up as he inhaled her scent -
My mate, my mate, my mate.
He lay on the ground beneath her, her forearm at his throat and teeth bared playfully.
"I win."
Her smile, her laugh, her braid tickling the skin at his collar bone. No enemy had made him feel as close to death as she did in that moment.
She stood up, catching his hand in hers and lifting him to his feet as well. A pretty smile, a giggle, and she was turning away. Turning away without knowing, without hearing...
"Wait."
She froze. Turning slowly, brows lifted, eyes curious. Her small but strong hand captured in his. Never hesitant, never disgusted at his hands. Only the tight grip she now held him in as she laced her fingers through his, stepping closer, lifting his face to hers with the gentlest of touches. The bond thrummed and beat to a tempo he wanted to listen to for the rest of his days.
"I would do anything for you," he whispered, his very voice filled with shadows. "I don't care if your father is my High Lord... you, you are my High Lady."
"Azriel..."
"You are. I serve you. I will protect you. I will... cherish you, Nissa. As much as you'll allow me to. I'll give you anything, I'll give you all of me."
"Azriel why are you saying these things?"
"Because you're my mate."
The shadows sighed.
"You're my mate and I love you. I've always loved you. And I don't expect anything from you that you aren't ready to give. But I can't keep this from you and I can't lose you."
His words were barely audible, his dark hair covering the shadowed planes of his beautiful face as he looked away - had to look away, it was too much, it was too much.
And then,
"I know."
Violet and hazel. Shadows and darkness. Truths and secrets.
"What?"
"I know. I've known since you took me flying on my twentieth birthday."
Twentieth birthday, the shadows repeated. Five years ago. Five years she has known. Five years of watching you take other lovers to your bed, five years of sending you back to the camps, five years of -
"It's okay."
The shadows stilled at her quiet midnight voice.
"I chose not to tell you not because I didn't want to. Not because I didn't want you. I do. You know I do. I just... I need time to love you. I need time to love you the way you deserve to be loved."
His heart was speeding up and then slowing down and stopping altogether and beating in a rhythm he couldn't understand, couldn't keep up with, couldn't -
"I love you, Azriel."
And then there was her forehead against his, her breath in his, her heart showing his how to beat in time. The rough edges smoothed and the smooth edged roughed. The picture that had always been but was only now seen.
"Just give me some time," her mouth whispered against his. "You won't lose me, I promise. We're fae, remember? We have all the time in the world."
And he believed her. He believed her with every fiber of his stained soul.
Only when he sat in the snow soaked in her blood, the evidence of the Spring Court's crimes, did he stop believing her.
Only when his spies reported back to him that her wings - her beautiful wings - were nailed to the wall above Tamlin's desk did he stop believing her.
Only when he visited her grave for the first time did he stop believing her.
Only when Rhys looked at Feyre the way he had always looked at Nissa did he stop believing.
There wasn't enough time.