Chapter 2: Brittle Bones

Author's Notes:

This head canon event takes place in "A Court of Mist and Fury", at the end of Chapter 31, but just before Chapter 32, in the days Azriel is out of Feyre's sight working on breaking into the human queens' courts.

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"When you are Made, you become 'other', but that condition does not imply a lack of feeling.

Quite the opposite, in fact."

~ from "The Carver's Legacy", excerpt by Amren

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My doors were flung open without fanfare, but I knew who had come to visit me even before he'd taken a step into my lair.

I smelled his fighting leathers first, then heard the creak of his wings as he folded them in and tucked them tight to prevent potential damage to them. The shadows scouted ahead for him next, and the wind followed after, whispering in his ear a trove of lesser secrets. Yet, despite all his magick and talent, there were greater secrets he was not privy to nor could he understand, hence the reason for his visits.

I felt my body shift into the familiar shape of the Morrigan and clucked my tongue at the strangeness of taking on a female's form once more.

"Hello, Spymaster," I greeted Azriel as he stepped forward into my domain, torch in hand. His beautiful face was as icy and tightly controlled as ever, but his eyes were haunted. They betrayed him to me. "Why so angry today? Is it because you can't find a way into the queens' courts past the barrier they've each erected?"

I knew he'd been trying. The wind and shadows spoke to me as well, and I'd felt that magical warding go up. Its power had been immense. Someone was protecting them, but whoever it was remained hidden from my inner sight behind the same sort of mystical veil that hid the human's half of the Book of Breathings.

Azriel paused, searching and reclaiming the eternal calm that he'd practiced well during those long years he'd been chained in darkness. "You're a wind-talker, too, aren't you?" he asked.

I gave him a bland smile. "Have you brought me a gift today?"

He sighed at my deflection and reached into a hip satchel, withdrawing a long, white bone for me. Tossing it to my feet, he said, "My half-brother's Tibia. His dominant leg."

I picked it up and immediately felt the power of Azriel's cold hatred running through it. I brought it to my nose and inhaled. It had been taken centuries ago, but the marrow within was still fresh. It made my mouth water.

It also conveyed to me why it had been so important to my visitor.

"He hurt you when you were a child."

Azriel went preternaturally still, and the shadows seemed to pull in, gather tightly to him until he wore them as an inky cloak of dark protection.

"Beat you, cut you, burned you."

My gaze moved to those scarred hands that I knew, in my mind's eye, had been lovely before being ruined.

A vision suddenly came to me through the bone and it caused me to jerk back from its smooth surface. His half-brother was holding him down with other males, gripping his small, white hips, laughing and jeering while they took turns behind him…

I dropped the bone and snarled at it.

Too close, too real!

That murky sensation of drowning in memory—mine—threatened to pull me under once more, reminding me of why I'd stayed hidden all this time. Reminding me of who I had been hiding from down here in the deep caverns of the world, and why I needed to remain here.

Koschei and Stryga.

Sadists. Blood drinkers. Rapists...

Had my 'guest' not spoken then, I think I might have fallen into one of my usual catatonic states or a fugue. Memories of the past sometimes dragged me into dark places with them and locked me down tight until I shook them off. I'd once lost an entire century thus.

"Rhysand broke his legs. I tore this one off," he said with a feral showing of teeth.

"Good," I managed to say, and dragged my eyes from the bone, from its horrible visions, forcing them to meet the Night Court's master assassin. He seemed a bit astonished at the ferocity of my reply. "Did he beg you for mercy?"

"Yes."

Obviously, he hadn't granted it.

I knew the smile I gave him then was feline and predatory.

He'd offered up to me a piece of his soul, so I would grant him what I knew in exchange for such bravery. "Ask me." I held up three fingers so he would know his question limit.

A simple nod from that dark head confirmed acceptance of my terms.

"How can I get into the mortal queen's courts?"

I used my foot to kick at the bone on the ground, rolling it with my toes against the earth to nullify the residual memory it carried. The stone would disperse its energy, so I could touch it again without being overwhelmed by the painful emotions attached to it. "They've warded their castles against magick. Just don't use any," I replied, offhand.

Azriel frowned, seeming to consider that. "You're saying I should use humans to spy for me. But how can I control them without magick?"

I let my eyes linger over at him, tracing that classically elegant Fae profile, admiring both the fragile beauty of it and the quiet, masculine pride. Seeing the many secrets lying under that smooth, sun-kissed skin… "Break their minds. Own them," I instructed. "Then send them in to do your bidding."

Again, the Illyrian's spine stiffened and the shadows thickened around him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

I scoffed. "Lie to everyone out there," I told him, pointing towards the door behind him. "Even lie to yourself on occasion, if you need to. But don't ever lie to me, Shadowsinger. I taste your power in my mouth. I know your true heart." I waved a hand down the body of the magnificent female whose face and form I currently mimicked. "And I know a daemati when I feel one."

The hand holding the torch shook just once, but I saw it. He knew I saw it.

He knew he'd finally been found out.

"What do you want?" he asked in a soft whisper. "For your silence."

"Is that your second question?"

He seemed to struggle between using up one of his chances to find out more about the queens versus discovering a way to keep me from spilling his confidences to anyone who might come asking me about him.

He opened his mouth to answer, but I quickly held up a hand to stop him.

"I'll make you a deal instead."

"No."

He took a step backwards, as if he was considering leaving. I thought about what I was willing to risk to push him too far. I'd come to enjoy our occasional talks over the centuries, to be honest, and would miss them if he were to go and never return.

I thought about the end coming soon as well, and what I would need to do to prepare for it…

"What I ask for in return for my silence should be no difficult task for you: I need bare bones, cleaned. A lot of them. Preferably those that have meaning to you, but I'll take any you can bring me. Any shape, any size, any species. Skulls, too, if you can acquire them. I need them immediately."

My request seemed to surprise him.

"Why?" he asked, clearly curious.

I tsked at him. "That's another question, Azriel, and you haven't even made the first deal yet."

He blinked at the use of his first name. I rarely used it when we talked, preferring to keep a distance between us. Things were changing, though, and too fast for me to keep up the act. The clock was ticking down on my life, and truthfully, I was tired of my self-imposed prisons.

"Take my offer," I encouraged him, "and I will keep your secrets and answer all your questions today about how you might best go about breaking into the queens' courts—including how to determine the right humans to make your spies."

The spymaster's suspicions of me ran deep, but his need to get this information was time critical, and we both knew it. Besides, what I was asking of him was an easy enough request to fulfill.

I waited him out, but in the end, he agreed as I'd predicted.

We spent the next few hours talking in low voices. That leg bone on the stone floor lay as an unspoken demarcation line between us in the room, but as our discussion progressed, we each moved closer to it. By the time I'd exhausted his questions, we stood only a foot or so apart.

I wondered as I glanced up at his greater height if the face I wore and the lovely voice that came from it had something to do with the trust he'd unwittingly shown me.

When he left at long last, I shut the doors behind him and turned to the bone of the male who had hurt the shadowsinger as a small child. When I cracked it open between my hands and sucked the marrow from it, I enjoyed every bite of its buttery-meaty texture, savouring the taste of Azriel's revenge.

Then, I gnawed the bone down, grinding it into grit between my teeth.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Author's Final Notes-Chapter 2:

Remember in "A Court of Wings and Ruin", the Bone Carver tells us the names of his siblings - the Weaver in the Wood ("Weaver") is his twin sister Stryga, and he has an older brother named Koschei. They all three "fell" into this world from their own. If you're curious as to their backgrounds, I suggest you go to the "Court of Thorns and Roses" Wikia (acourtofthornsandroses . wikia wiki / A_Court_of_Thorns_and_Roses_Wiki) and read up on them.

Please review, if you would be so kind!

XOXO,

- RZZMG