Chapter 3: Hidden Rage
AZRIEL
The following night was worse.
The impatience for the fight was like an arrow meeting its' mark only to twist itself deeper into bone and muscle, to let hours pass without seeking attention to it, and for infection to set and spread at it's own pleasure.
It was no surprise when Rhysand's father roared through the walls, rattling the House of Wind. "I'll kill them! I will kill every fucken one of them! I don't care anymore!"
Cassian rumbled. "He's getting worse Rhys."
"I know." Rhys rubbed the dark bags under his eyes. No one had taken rest, not a single wink to stop this nightmare, all of them statutes, waiting.
"Maybe we should speak to him." Mor piped up.
The look Rhys gave Mor brought a smile to Azriel's mouth. The brief moment didn't last long.
In the room next to theirs, something heavy was thrown at the wall. A piece of wood splintered through the plaster and wood, and Mor and Cassian flinched at the power behind it.
Unlike his friends, Azriel had been expecting it, wanting for his High Lord to call out for the war-bands to assemble.
"You alright Az," Rhys noticed something.
"Yes." The shadowsinger only moved to the other wall, falling back into the shadows once more.
For once it killed Azriel to be so detached from it all.
"He'll destroy half of Velaris if he could," Cassian said bringing the cup of water to his mouth, no ounce of liquor on his breath, not wasting a reason for Rhys not to make use of him, but any humor left in Cassian was gone. It seemed as if the dark shadows of Night pressed on all their sides, the wind's whistle seemed less inviting than most nights, and that only made Azriel more somber.
"DON'T FUCKEN TELL ME TO STOP! I'LL STOP WHEN I'M DEAD!" The very mountain shook with the scream through the Night. At least that voice kept Azriel awake.
That ancient High Lord's power scared most. Especially those court members whom had the most to lose in this fallout.
"You must control yourself my Lord!" Lord Keir tried to control Rhysand's father once more by raising his voice, he had been called from the Hewn City by some concerned court members. "The Night Court looks to you for leadership in this trying time"-
Azriel had wondered if it was wise to have Mor's abusive and horribly demented father try to tame the Dark Beast that had once unleashed devastation on rebellious Illyrian warbands and Hybern generals alike.
"FUCK YOU KEIR!" Rhysand's father roared at the Darkbringer to get out. Azriel got some satisfaction from hearing his usually composed High Lord lash out at one of the males that would be better off dead. "HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD OR SHOULDN'T DO!"
"I didn't mean it my Lord."
"YOU DID YOU FUCKER!" Something else crashed and Azriel hoped it was Keir himself.
He counted his blessings when Keir spoke up again, tempting his death. "But my Lord we must plan the funeral rites, we can still bury their heads, give them the proper send-off as tradition commands,"- that was not the right thing to say.
Azriel bit back a laugh when he heard and saw Keir Darkbringer be thrown out from the room. From his place at the back door, Azriel did nothing to hide the triumphant smirk when a slash ran red across his cheek when he stormed away from the High Lord's study, giving him a sneer in return.
"I'm finished here!" Kier called off from down the hallway where more nobles awaited guidance. "He's gone mad, don't even try to get him back!"
That was the last they heard of Keir, or the court sympathizers that had once spit on this very ground when their High Lord married an Illyrian female of such low birth. "I cannot stay in this foul place!" Some went with him the Hewn City, to plot and gossip their petty little bets of which High Lord would survive the fallout. Azriel didn't need to take bets to know how this tale would end. The Spring Court would be on fire this time morning.
There will be more to follow Keir, watch him, the shadows whispered.
"Good riddance." Mor had said for them both, taking a seat next to Rhysand, and rubbing his back a very similar way to the way Rhysand's mother had done since they were eight. Azriel raised an eyebrow to see Rhys not push her off, too lost in his own personal hell.
After an hour of a boiling insanity, tempting them for answers or perhaps giving an answer in the form of revenge, their High Lord's thrashing and blood curses went uncomfortably quiet.
Mor's whispers became louder, filling the silence, "we must negotiate some justice Rhysand."
Rhys muttered under his breath, "Justice? Justice for whom Mor?"
"This is your opportunity to be a leader," she said in that tone she used to compel them to listen. "This is your chance to make sure no more needless death need happen. You can tell your father, please Rhys, he'll listen to you," she said, smoothing Rhysand's hair, trying to regain the friend that had once laughed and smiled at the thought of partying the night clubs of Velaris,and had raced for patrolling the skies with his brothers.
That Rhysand, was not this pale ghost that regarded the once blood-soaked wooden boxes before them. The same boxes that had dried after a day sitting sadly on the table, spelled to stop decay, but it did not make the look of them any better.
"Mor is right Rhys," it was Cassian that shut the boxes closed, for once covering Selene and Nyx's faces forever frozen in fear, his own knuckles as tight as Rhysand's clenched fists, but for once his words were calm and reasonable, "your mother would not have wanted you to kill like they do, to turn into the beast they want"-
"You don't know that." Rhysand gritted through his teeth, Mor's hand stilling in his raven hair, frightened as he snarled at Cassian's darkening features, "we can't know. If I hadn't trusted that bastard," Tamlin, "they would still be here, if I had been there to keep my sister and mother safe, none of this would have happened"-
"No Rhys." Mor was back to consoling, a bit too forcibly now, Azriel could see how her lips tightened, "this was not your fault. None of this is your fault," she beat that into him, but then that is when the tears came. Azriel had only seen Rhys cry once.
That had been thirty years ago, his father had struck and killed an Illyrian soldier and that was the last time Rhys had shed a tear. Seeing him fall apart after so many years, it sobered Azriel to the truth.
"I will help you Rhys," Azriel made it very clear, their deeply troubled eyes of now motherless children looking up to him. "I will do whatever you ask of me."
He had never seen Rhys so lost, and so it was his place to set him on the right path.
Rhysand could feel the unsaid words the shadowsinger was inching towards. "What should that be Azriel? What could make this right?" There was no sarcasm in him left, none of that dark humor his mother would pull his ear for, "none of it can get them back, I would do anything, be anything-" he shook his head as if he was trying to get the water out of his ears. "But nothing we do now can bring them back. I'm going to have to go and talk to him-"
"We are going to"- Mor put her arm around him, "we can do this all together. We can make this right, tell your father not to destroy them Rhys, because this can become so much more worse than it already is-"
Azriel frowned at her assertive reassurance to be the better person. It did not feel right to just let this injustice go.
It was a good thing their High Lord chose that moment to come out.
"Rhysand." An older and far less composed version of Rhysand exited the pulverized study, worried creases around his eyes made him seem ancient, his sternly cut hair dangled around his cheeks like daggers. Violet eyes meeting violet. "My son." His voice left no room for argument. "We leave in an hour, say your goodbyes, and meet me in the northern courtyard, we'll winnow there."
"I will." Rhys nodded grimly, his voice no longer twisted in denial or suffering. Cold. Just like his father.
"Good." Their High Lord's head whipped quicker than it should to Cassian, "tell the Generals I will have need of them when the time does come. Send twenty of your best warriors directly after me." He remarked in a vicious tone, cutting through time lost waiting for the inevitable, "I will raze their land to the ground. By the time I am done with them, there will be no Spring Court left"-
"But High Lord," Mor stood, her face a picture of horror, "this was the act of few… you would not punish innocents?" Azriel moved a fraction closer to her as the High Lord's dark waves pounded harder.
The broken male thankfully made no move to punish her. "They are no innocents in my eyes!" He roared in renewed passion and left the room, hot in the pursuit for blood-soaked steel, still aware of his frozen son, "come Rhysand!"
Rhysand followed, and so they did too, out into the crowded courtyard, too many faces that craved such entertainment. They knew it. Very soon two of the most powerful High Fae would tear asunder another Court in vengeance for the fallen Lady Selene and little Lady Nyx, and it disgusted Azriel to think people could crave this sort of thing.
Mor's frightened whisper seemed louder in the courtyard, too many ears, "Rhys, please. Remember what I told you."
"I will try, I will try to make him see reason," Rhysand promised just as softly, his eyes too dazed for battle, both of his Illyrian brothers felt uneasy to let him go like this.
"You should let me go with you Rhys," Cassian had the balls to say. He was probably dying to say that since the moment he heard his father's commands, "I want be there." Cassian said before Rhys winnowed from the Court of Night and away from the friendship of his informal Inner Circle. "I want to fight for both of them Rhys."
"I have to do this alone." Rhys said, balling his fist. "I will be back," before he winnowed after his father.
The wind picked up, taking whatever remainder of his magic was left.
Their restless Illyrian wings were tempted to take it, and yet they did not. Rhysand's words echoed in Azriel's mind as the crowd began spreading thin at the lack of stimulus.
I have to do this alone.
Azriel had noticed Rhys' mouth twitch at the statement, as if it killed him to say it.
I have to do this alone.
As if what Rhys really wanted was for his brothers to join him in avenging a mother and sister.
Alone.
It was still a command Azriel knew Rhys had meant.
But he told Cassian that, not you, the shadows bickered with him.
As if his brother could hear the shadows tempting him, Cassian and Azriel locked gazes with each other over Mor's head, for once taking in the other.
"Azriel?" Cassian saw the change in the shadowsinger, the hidden rage he had hoped they would miss. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm sorry," Azriel whispered, a small look at the golden-haired female between them confirmed their suspicions, her eyes widening to the sudden realization, "but I must do this."
"Azriel no!" Mor's fingers curled the space where his body once stood.
Azriel had winnowed into wind and shadows.
