Chapter 1: Lonesome I came

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To be quite frank, Oriana hadn't expected Azriel to show up again.

(She had fully expected to never see him again, to be honest. And that had resulted in her spending three days moping around before she had forced herself to act like an adult again.)

She had hoped he would. Of course, she had. He was her mate.

She had spent two centuries waiting for him. And it made her feel half-grown, giddy to know that finally, there he was. He existed. He was alive. He was… right there.

But…she also looked into these hazel eyes and saw…pain. So much pain and hesitance and….he had looked at her like he had expected her to turn him down any second. Like in her very hands, she held the key to lock away any chance of happiness he ever would have.

It terrified her to see him like that.

She didn't even know him. Not really. But he was the one fate thought she should have and she didn't want to see him like this.

He didn't deserve that. Nobody did.

Still, she hadn't wanted to push.

She didn't ask him what was wrong, because she knew that she had the tendency to want to fix everything and that could be… overwhelming. And she didn't think he was going to answer her questions anyway. So instead, she had offered him an open-ended invitation and then waited.

She treated him like a skittish cat, putting out the milk.

Her patience was rewarded a few days later.

Much to her surprise.

She was just getting ready to close up her shop for the day, cleaning up the displays of the jewellery she sold on a daily basis. She may no longer live in the mountain full time, but some things would always stay with her, and her love of jewellery was one of them.

Mentally she was taking stock of the things that she had sold, of what she needed to make more and which was probably going to end up being remelted down because it hadn't sold for so long.

There were a few pieces that she never would melt down, even when it was going to take years for them to sell because she was too proud of the workmanship she had put in them.

However, there were very few of these. Most things she did these days were easy enough to replicate if the mood struck her and if they didn't sell… well then she had only lost some of her time and none of the materials that had gone into them.

A dark winged shadow showed up at her doorstep and she smiled to herself as the door closed behind him.

He didn't look any less broody than he had the last time he showed up. Still looked like he didn't quite know what he was even doing here.

But Oriana could work with that.

"You can put the closed sign on, I am done for the day," Oriana said with a bright smile as she finished wiping down her counter. He did as she asked, silent as he crossed the room, the always present shadows skittering around his feet.

One tendril immediately wrapped itself around her wrist, a soft touch, just like velvet, slightly cool. She patted it as greeting, holding back a laugh as it playfully tugged at her fingertips in response and then looked up to find Azriel standing before her, watching her play with the shadow, wiggling her fingertips at it enticingly.

"I…Good evening," he finally said hoarsely, like he didn't quite know what to tell her and her smile widened.

"Do you want to stay for dinner?" she asked him. "I was making stew, it's upstairs, should be finished in an hour or so. You can serve yourself," she suggested. "But I am gonna need to go into the forge for a moment and finish up my nephew's birthday present," she warned him. "Wanna come along?"

He seemed so taken aback by the invitation, just like the first time, that Oriana just opened the door that kept her shop closed away from her forge and waited until he entered behind her.

Hopefully, it would be comfortable for him. Her mind was already whirling with ideas to make it more comfortable with him, some ideas of temperature control charms that she hadn't used in decades coming to the forefront and then wondering where one could find a chair that was fashioned to allow for wings.

At least it wasn't too hot. It was cool there as she had already let the fire go out this time of the day, knowing that she could simply relight it if she needed and she probably wouldn't.

She never needed to worry about that, Oriana thought with some amusement. The heat was doing nothing to her, neither did fire. She could walk through it and she would come out without a scratch on her, even if her jewellery would have melted off her.

"Welcome to the forge," she welcomed him. Somehow…somehow this was more private to her than her apartment had been. Maybe because making jewellery, working on things right here was where…Oriana felt most like herself. She always had. She always would.

"It doesn't look like it does at the blacksmith's," he said suddenly and she watched out of the corner of her eye as he tucked his wings tight around himself, tucking himself into one corner like he was terrified that…she was going to throw him right back out.

"No, most of the things I work with are a bit more delicate than broadswords," she said drily. "Tartera excel at making jewelery. We make art, not war," she said, recounting her grandmother's words.

He made a noise that she was quite sure was something between a laugh and a sigh, like he wished it was that easy, and she couldn't help but agree with that.

"I always wondered that if you take a stand for nothing, then what do you fall for?" she continued, as she sat down at her worktable. She pulled a rolling stool that she kept there out with a foot, pushing it in his direction, as she herself sat down and pulled out the bin that she used to keep together all the pieces for a project.

She did her best not to stalk him like a wolf did it's prey as he sat down across from her.

Cat. Think about the cat, she warned himself. It won't want to be pet immediately. Even if she thought that he could really use some pets. And some treats when she was already at it. And a warm, safe place to sleep.

"But what do I know? I was always in the forge and never on a battle field." Different than him probably. She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, taking in the black leather armour he wore, Different from the dark jacket of last time. Blue stones were glinting off it. Siphons. She knew that. She had studied them decades back for a pet project of hers, though Illyrians seemed to play it close to their vest. Like they seemingly did everything.

Her brain was itching to figure out how it all went together, how it worked around these wings that she was quite jealous of. Flying, who didn't want to be able to do that, after all?

Still, talking about battles and bloodshed was probably not such a good idea, if she wanted him to relax around her. And he stilldidn't talk.

So she wrecked her brain, trying to think of something else.

"What are you making?" he asked her, Curiosity getting the better of him and she held back a grin. Oh, he wasn't going to tell her anything but put him in the forge and he started to ask her questions... she filed that away for later.

"My nephew's birthday present. He's turning two, so I thought I was gonna make him a toy," she said, as she fiddled with the pieces until she finally put them together into the sphere she was making. "It's pretty much a glowing ball that has an enchantment on it that makes it change colours. Puts on a pretty light show and not much else," she explained, as she quickly fit the last piece into place and then pushed her magic into it slowly. It glowed brightly into her hands, until it turned off.

She held it out for Azriel to take and he did, broad hands carefully holding it. It immediately lit up bright blue, nearly making him drop it. She grinned at him.

"Don't worry it's safe. I would never hear the end of it otherwise," she promised him. "Worst case scenario: It loses the ability to light up." These days, she was very careful in always putting a dead switch in anything she was making. A sort of last-ditch attempt to fix things that she couldn't fix anymore.

Azriel turned the ball around in his hands, the ball changing colours to red and green and yellow, before cycling back to blue.

"This is…" he didn't seem to have the right words for it. "This is beautiful," he finally said quietly as the ball glowed brightly. She watched him as he took in her work, even when it was just that stupid ball that she could have made before she was even an adult.

It was ridiculous, wasn't it? She had spent centuries studying and honing her craft, knew that she had been well on her way to be one of the foremost goldsmith her people had…and still, all the praise that she had received for her work, somehow paledin comparison to him playing with that stupid ball, turning it over and over again to see the engraved metal. Paled in comparison to these simple words.

"I…Do you sell these?" he asked her and she couldn't help but grin.

"You can have that one if you want it," she said instead. No, she didn't sell them. Didn't think there was much of a market for them, to be honest. She did jewellery these days. Nothing more.

"No, I couldn't…it's your work. You put hours into that. It wouldn't be right if I…" he disagreed.

And now Oriana was charmed beyond belief.

"Stay for dinner and you can keep the ball, Azriel," she interrupted him and he swallowed. "It took me less than 2 hours to put it together. I have made dozens of them over the years," she assured him.

If he kept looking at her like this, with this look of quiet wonder, then she would gladly make him a dozen more. Even when, quite frankly, she didn't like making them, because they were not a challenge for her in any way. But what was these days?

Well, he was.

"That doesn't seem fair to you," Azriel protested. "You are giving me this andfeeding me dinner. That's not how bartering works," he told her seriously, and she laughed with amusement.

Oh, she was definitely the one that was winning here.

"I get your company out of it. It's fair to me," she told him matter-of-factly, enjoying the way his ears seemed to redden once again. He stayed quiet for a moment clearly not knowing how to react to her flirting. Was it flirting? Mother knew Oriana hadn't flirted in…centuries. Or ever really. She had been married just days after reaching the age of majority.

"It's my nephew's 2nd birthday in a few days. I couldn't come up with a gift for the life of me," he finally said quietly and she filed that away, where she kept all the kernels of truth that she knew about him.

"Then give it to him," Oriana said easily. "He'll enjoy it. I remember having one of these when I was a child," she recounted as she started cleaning up her work surface.

Seems like she would make another one of these tomorrow.

"You do?" Azriel aksed and she hummed.

"Yeah, I do. I used to take it apart and put it back together when I was older. Still do sometimes, when I need to think," she said easily. Gave her hands something to do. She finished putting everything away. "All finished," she proclaimed just seconds later. "Come on, we need to check on the stew if we want to eat today."

She never had had a problem with filling the silence and had on more than one occasion been told that she could have a raucous conversation with a cave wall if the mood struck her. So she also had no problem whatsoever doing the same thing right now.

If it bothered him, he could open his mouth and say another word to her. It wasn't like he had told her more than 50 yet. And maybe a part of her was wondering if she would need to pull on his tail to get some sort of reaction from him…and for him to stop looking at her like she was either going to kill him or throw him out of her house.

To her surprise, he actually did say something when they were in her apartment, as she stoked her fire and dragged a spoon through the stew that she had been making for the better part of a day.

Granted it was two words.

"You paint?" he asked her and she looked over to find him standing, bent over the table, which was currently covered with some of her designs.

"I sketch ideas I have. It's different," she corrected him.

"How?" he asked her, amusement lacing in his voice and Oriana smiled. She put her spoon down and then came around to stand next to him. She could feel the air move as one of his wings twitched like it wanted to move but he pushed it down.

"Mostly because if you tell me to paint a horse, it's not gonna look like a horse. But I can make you a very exact drawing of the necklace I am gonna make tomorrow," she explained, shuffling through her papers until she found the one she was looking for, pulling a bright red garnet out of the bowl she kept the flawed ones in for design purposes. She placed it on the drawing, right in the middle of the sketch she had made of the necklace it would end up in. It matched perfectly, the scale right just as she had drawn it that morning over breakfast.

He mustered it attentively, leaning nearer to investigate and she left him to it... "I just can't ever get the colours right. There isn't that much iridescent metallic paint around here," she sighed. The reason why most of her drawings were made in pencil.

"I…How long have you been doing this?" Azriel finally asked her. "They are beautiful."

"Pretty much my whole life," Oriana gave back drily. "I told you I grew up in the mountain. All of us learn the basics. And then it's a question of what we want to do…where we are particularly skilled. I decided very early on that I was going to be a goldsmith. Not a silversmith, not one of the very rare blacksmiths that we do have…But a goldsmith. And that I was going to be an enchantress just like my father."

"How does that work together?" Azriel asked her and she hummed.

"Can you set the table?" she asked him. "I'll show you in a moment," she promised him, as she handed him two plates.

They both served themselves and then she held out her wrist for him.

"Try taking off my bracelet," Oriana said. He stared at her.

"Your bracelet," Azriel repeated and she nodded.

"Yes," she agreed. "Try taking it off." He reached out for her wrist, his broad, brutally scarred hands a sharp contrast to her own skin the colour of fireplace ashes, and tugged gently at her bracelet. It didn't budge. He did it again. This time, he got a magical shock for his troubles that made him pull back his hands.

"Doesn't work, does it?" she asked him with some amusement. "

"Did you…" he asked her but she shook her head.

"No, that was the bracelet," she promised him easily. Slipping it over her hand to hand it to him. He took it, taking in the runes that were on the inside of it, painstakingly etched in, so that nobody would see them unless they were looking for it.

"See the runes right at the beginning?" she asked him, waiting until he nodded. "Anti Theft enchantment. It's locked onto me. Only I can remove it. It was a birthday present from my father. That's one of the easier ones."

Azriel looked at it for a moment, nearly calculating. "What other enchantments are there?" he asked her curiously.

"Well, whatever else can you come up with?" She asked. "You can do anything you want…if you do the research and make the rune array for it to work…but for the more common ones…jewellery that returns to the family vault if they do get stolen after all, necklaces that automatically snap closed without you needing to do it yourself, anti-choking, things like that," she explained. "They are timeconsuming but not particularly difficult. Still, the time investment drives up the price and the value, so it's only done for stupidly expensive pieces," she explained. "Of course, there is no limit of what you can do. Some enchantments are made for a more emotional reason. Fidelity enchantment on a wedding necklace for example, or anti potion detection…things like that," she explained.

"Fidelity?" Azriel wondered.

"Yes. Tartera wear necklaces to signal that we are married…They are spelled that way. At least the traditional ones," Oriana said. Her own had been spelled that way. The same as the arm cuff that was traditionally worn by the males. But of course…even that couldn't help in some instances. It didn't foster emotional intimacy at any rate.

"Anti Potion detection?" Azriel asked and she grinned at him.

"Pretty handy, isn't it?" she said, mentally already wondering if she would be able to get him to wear a wrist cuff that she made. She could put Anti Potion Detection on that. She also could layer on every single protective enchantment she knew to keep him safe.

"That's what you do?" he asked her and she sighed.

"That's what I used to do," she corrected him quietly. "These days, I am much more a goldsmith than an enchantress." The ball had been the most enchanted thing she had made in months. Before that…a bracelet for her niece…and before that…she couldn't even think about it anymore.

"Why?" Azriel asked her. "You are obviously talented." She was. She wasn't even touting her own talents if she agreed with that. She always had been talented.

But these days…it had been a long time since she had been itching underneath her skin to dive headfirst into a research project as she had used to be doing.

"I used to be one of the researchers," she told Azriel quietly. "Which meant that I spent day in and day out in the forge. I made things. I did experiments. I had my own projects that I worked on." She could still remember that. That was all she had wanted to do during the first few years of her marriage. And she had been so happy about it.

And damnit, she had been good at her job. Great even. She had done more in a few decades than others had in centuries. Created and worked hard and every day she had found something new and it had been…And then…

"Enchantments can be…fickle. It has the potential to go awry very quickly. One wrong rune and you put half the mountain on fire," she quipped, her mouth pulling half into a grimace as snapshots came to the forefront of her mind of exactly that happening.

"Did you ever manage to do that?" Azriel asked her."

"No. But I was caught in the sway." She pushed the memories away sharply. They were still there. Even a century later. still as fresh as they had been that. Ruby red blood trickling down her body, as the inferno raged around her. The pain, the agony…the spearing pain.

She shook herself out of it harshly.

"After a while, I decided that I was going to…stop doing that. The more explosive things at least. Nowadays the worst thing I do is balls that glow," she explained to Azriel and he mustered her attentively.

"Do you miss it?" he asked quietly and she didn't even need to think about it.

"Yes." Like a limb.

"You could start again," he suggested. She turned over the words in her mind. Cyrus had suggested it often over the years but it had never quite seemed right. But now as she looked at Azriel over her table, as she wondered about making something for him, of making something that would keep him safe…she wanted to do that.

"Maybe I will," she finally agreed with a soft smile. "It's my turn now, by the way," she told him drily.

"Of what?" he wondered, his brows furrowing.

"Questions," Oriana agreed. She immediately took in how his fingers tightened nearly imperceptively around her cutlery and how she could feel a bleed off of…fear, hesitance over their tiny wiggling bond. She wanted to keep their bond safe, nurture it and make it grow strong and not be this hesitant little thing that…well.

"What do you want to know?" Azriel asked her, sounding like she was going to stab him.

"Mostly, I want you to stop looking like I am going to torture you," Oriana said drily. "You know if you don't want to tell me something, you can just say so," she pointed out reasonably.

What had happened to him to make him so hesitant to even trust his own mate? What did he think she was going to do to him? Hurt him?

"And you are just going to accept that?" he asked her, sounding like he didn't believe one word that she was saying. Oriana wanted to sigh. She didn't. Instead, she tried to push as much acceptance and warm, happy feelings at him as she could.

"Yes, of course," she agreed. "It's none of my business. You think I told you everything there is to know about me?" she asked him drily.

"I think I know more about you than you do about me," Azriel said, his voice thawing. "And that's not fair either," he murmured under his breath. She took that as an opening.

"A truth for a truth," she proposed. It was a gamble. But it paid off.

He inclined his head.

"Siblings. I have Cyrus and then I have half-siblings, 2 sisters and 2 brothers," she said easily.

"Two brothers," Azriel answered quietly. "Claimed. Not by blood. I have two half brothers, but I don't…they are no brother of mine." His hands clenched again. She wondered what that was about.

"I am the youngest," Oriana said instead.

"Oldest," Azriel responded.

"I always wanted to keep a couple of chickens, but I never had any room for them," she told him, utterly serious, only for him to crack a smile as he stared at her hazel gold eyes warm and amused.

"Why chickens?" he wondered.

"I don't know, I think they would be neat to have. Always fresh eggs!" Oriana said brightly, this time managing to shock an actual laugh out of him. "And don't think I didn't notice that these were two truths!"

"Alright," Azriel agreed. "I never thought about keeping chickens," he told her seriously and she rolled her eyes at him, making him smile even brighter. "I…I always expect you are going to be scared of me," he said, growing serious and Oriana kept a smile on her face, even when she wanted nothing more than to envelope him into a hug. and keep him away from everything in the world that had ever hurt him.

"Maybe you aren't half as scary as you think you are," she told him instead, the expression on his face that was half relieved and half scandalised made something flutter in her stomach. "Maybe I just really like you."

"Is that a truth?" he asked her softly and she smiled at him.

"Keep coming back and you'll find out," she quipped.

And so they continued, trading tidbits of their lives between bits of food.

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Azriel had tried keeping away from her. He had.

He had tried everything to get his mind off his mate…and he had failed.

Even when it had been a never-ending litany in his mind. She is better off without you. It's safer if you keep away.

It wasn't helpful, that his shadows had absolutely no qualms of doing everything in their power to whisper enticingly to him.

She's your mate, Master. You have every right to see her. She isn't scared of us, Master. When will we see her again, Master?

And finally…he broke.

He was too selfish to keep away from her for longer than a few days.

And so he had showed up at her house.

And Oriana had smiled at him.

That smile, that beautiful, lovely thing had cut him to the quick.

Azriel couldn't even remember the last time anybody had been willing to…just be there with him. No expectations…Oriana seemed content to just go on about her evening when he did slink into her apartment and stayed for a few hours. Soaking up everything he could get away with.

Squrielling away every word she told him,e very conversation they had, regardless of how mundane t was. He learned about her brother Cyrus and about running the shop, about the two females that she employed there…he learned about the few friends she had, mostly other shopkeepers in the rainbow…every new thing that he learned about her, he committed to memory. He wanted to know everything.

Staying with Oriana…it was peace. He had never had that before.

Not like that.

She chattered on and on and while he normally relished the quiet, he found out that her talking…he could get used to it. It was a safe thing. As long as Oriana was talking, everything was alright.

And so he listened when she chattered on about nothing in particular and came back the next evening to do it all over again.

He hated himself for doing it but he loved it. Adored it. He wanted nothing more than to soak it all up, bottle it to take it with him whenever she decided that he wasn't worth the hassle.

Because she would think that eventually. He knew that. It was just a question of time. A question of time until he said something or did something that terrified her and she wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

And so he went back, again and again, and…after a few times, he couldn't help himself. Because even when it was taken from him, currently it was still there. She was still there. And she was wiling to cook dinner and talk to him..and so before the next time he went to visit her, he bought her flowers.

He had no idea what made him do that. Why he bought her flowers of all things. He could have given her something else, he supposed, but he was on the way to her and he saw that flower card just packing up and…it hadn't even been a conscious thought.

That's what faes did if they were courting after all right? Find something to gift to the other one. Why not let flowers be the first thing? He would never abe able to give her jewellery, because he had the feeling that whatever he picked, she would be able to make much better.

And he couldn't very well buy her knives and be done with it, right?

So flowers. Nobody could hate flowers, right?

The smile on her face definitely made the few clipped coppers he had spent on them worth it.

"Oh, these are beautiful," she said quietly, reaching out to take them from him.

He had absolutely no clue what he should have picked, so he had ended up with a bunch of bluish, nearly violet, jasmines. Azriel was quite certain that he never would be able to look at them and not think about Oriana ever again.

"Do…Do you like them?" he managed to bring out because somehow she managed to make him feel like the luckiest idiot in Velaris.

"I love them," Oriana said and he could feel the fledgling happiness burning along their bond, how happy and glad she was to receive them.

He would gladly find her flowery every damn day if that meant that he could get that smile from her.

"I am glad," he said softly and she grinned at him brighter, taking out a vase out of a cupboard, burnished gold, inlaid with some kind of brightly sparking blue stone and put it above her sink.

He listened to her chatter on about his day, about taking out her nieces and nephew for a day out in the city soon. He thought about Nyx's birthday party that had just been a few days before, about how happy he had been about the glowing ball and how Amren had mustered him with a look tath he hadn't quite been able to place. Nobody else had said anything to him, not Rhys, not Feyre, so he was quite certain that his walls were holding.

But then Amren had always seen more than she said.

And if she did figure it out, there wasn't much he could do against it.

He could just accept that.

The longer he would be able to keep Oriana a secret, the better.

He liked having her to himself. Azriel didn't allow himself to think about that for much longer.

"I'll be gone for a few days," he told her finally. There was a mission coming up, a trip to Spring to figure out…a few things and Azriel didn't doubt for one moment that it would take longer than a day. Maybe two or even three.

"Alright. Be careful, will you?" Oriana said easily and he stared at her.

He had no idea what he had expected, but the easy acceptance wasn't it.

"You aren't going too ask me where I am going?" he checked and she cocked her head to the side.

"If I would, could you answer that question?" she asked him drily and he just shook his head. No. The further he could keep her away from his…job, the better. Oriana was bright and light and shouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. It wasn't right. "Then I won't ask. Just…do your best to come back to me," she requested softly and he swallowed.

Then he nodded.

And that was that.

There was this quiet embering of wonder in his chest at that. She didn't fuss, she didn't ry to stop him, just simple accepted that he must go and that was that.

No fighting, not anything, just asking him to be safe and come back to her.

And so that became his goal. Of course, he was still gathering the intelligence Rhys wanted. He still did what he needed to…but he wanted to come back to Oriana. And so if he was more careful than he usually was…well, that was good then.

Still, even an abundance of caution resulted in him coming back home with numerous new bruises and a few shallow cuts.

And two sets of metallic paints stashed away with his things, one of which he dropped off for Feyre after he debriefed with Rhys…and then he finally got to see Oriana.

He landed on her doorstep, fighting leathers still damp with blood that definitely wasn't his. Maybe he should have thought this through a little bit better.

But he didn't even have time to hesitate, because suddenly, there she was.

"Are you alright?" where the first words from her mouth as she opened the door for him.

"Yeah. Just a few bruises," he promised her, tiredness suddenly overcoming him and she pulled him into her home, without a second thought. He wanted to warn her of the blood that clung to him, not wanting to ruin whatever silky dress…gown, robe, whatever, she was wearing, but she ignored that too.

Instead, she gently pulled him up the stairs and before he could protest, he was chivied into her kitchen and put onto one of her chair…and that was it then.

The enchanted teapot that he had learned to tell what kind of tea he wanted waited for his command and he managed to bring out a wrecked "peppermint, please," before it already depositing steaming tea into his cup.

And then Oriana was there, depositing what he was quite certain was half an apothecary on her kitchen table and wetting a clean tea towel to gently blot at the scratch on his face.

"You don't need to do that," he said softly. It was fine. It was already nearly closed. It would be alright. He had way worse. She held still for a moment, poised to stop.

"Don't I?" she finally asked him. "Do you want me to stop?" she asked him. He swallowed. Then shook his head.

No, Azriel didn't want her to stop.
He was selfish enough that he wanted her hands on him in any way he could get away with.

Master isn't selfish. She's Master's Mate!,his shadows hissed comfortingly.

"Thought so," Oriana hummed thoughtfully as she kept cleaning up the scrapes. the towel was warm, her touch gentle and Azriel wanted to close his eyes and let her do to him whatever she wanted.

He didn't.

"It's nothing. It's not even a scratch," he tried to protest as she started smothering the cuts with healing salve. He didn't need that. It wouldn't do anything. The natural fast healing would take care of it. The only thing the salve would do would be to numb it while it was healing and he didn't need that.

"How about you let me be the judge of that?" Oriana said quietly. "Hands," she requested, thought he realites ethat fighting her wasn't going to be futile.

He was amused beside himself as he held out his hands for her perusal.

High Lords were terrified of him, people thought he was death incarnate, and Oriana…bosses him around and cleaned the blood from his hands without even flinching away from him once.

"His scarred skin was less sensitive than the rest of him was, but that didn't stop it from feeling like tiny electric shocks as she finished with the damp towel and then started rubbing salve into them.

His heart constricted as he realised what she was doing.

"That isn't going to work," he pressed out. "I tried everything to get rid of the scars."

Her hands froze.

"They are beautiful," she told him, her voice even. "And I wasn't trying to get rid of them. I am trying to get rid of the bruises that are covering your hands."

He stared down at his hand, and for the first time, he realised the mottled bruises that covered where he had gripped Truth-Teller so tightly that the scabbard had bitten into his hand.

"Oh," he managed to bring out.

Oriana sighed. "You didn't even notice, did you?" she asked him drily and he managed to shake his head, feeling slightly dazed. "These are beautiful," she promised him, lifting one hand and he could just stare as she pressed full, rosy lips to his bruised knuckles, before she let go of his hand.

"They really aren't," he whispered.

"Agree to disagree," Oriana said calmly. "One day in the future, I am going to show you mine."

Her scars? He stared at her.

There were no obvious scars to her that he could see, other than the few that were on her hands, thanks to her having one mishap or another in her forge. But they weren't big or she wasn't trying to hide them, nothing like his at least.

"You have scars?" he asked her and she hummed.

"Yes," Oriana agreed. "Drink your tea."

He did as she asked, staring at his own hands.

"Every time I look at them I remember…I remember how I got them," he finally said as he stared at the violently mottled skin, now painted with bruises. "I spent…I spent most of my childhood in a cell. I was the result of my father's affair and…and I think he hoped that I was finally going to die and get rid of all his problems." It was the most he had told her about his childhood. He hadn't yet touched how he had come to have these scars, but they were there, painted on his skin. And they always would be.

Oriana turned from where was standing at her kitchen counter.

"He put a child in a cell," she said flatly and he just managed to lift one shoulder.

"Yes," he said quietly. "I got to see my mother one hour every week. He used me to torture her for daring to get pregnant. She never…quite got over that." And now he wondered if that was all he was good for. Inflicting pain on those surrounding him.

"Is he still alive?" Oriana asked, her voice sharp and Azriel snorted.

"No." He had taken care of that.

"Good," Oriana agreed calmly and he stared at her.

"Good?" he echoed.

"Yes. Good," Oriana said, turning back to the counter. "Children are…precious. To Tartera. We aren't perfect. Of course we aren't. We have our own problems in our society. But if anybody ever to put a child in a cell or use them to hurt their mother…Well, they wouldn't be alive much longer," Oriana said, her voice dripping with disdain. "Children are above…everything."

And still…"You make art, not war. That's what you said," Azriel recounted and then it was Oriana's turn to shrug.

"And it was a hard-won achievement to get that far," she quipped. "Still, if anybody ever would have suggested putting any of us into a cell to my mother, I think there would have been a bloodbath…and she would have been the one walking out without a blemish," she said with some amusement. "We get territorial if threatened. And not in a good way," she said with a sigh.

"You ever got territorial like that?" he wondered and Oriana hummed thoughtfully for a moment.

"No," she finally answered. "But then, I never really had a reason to before. I understand it now."

"What changed?" Azriel asked her. Why did she…

"The mating bond, Azriel. That changed," she told him with some amusement in her voice, putting a plate of…sandwiches? next to his elbow on the table. "Eat, sweetling," she told him softly, a hand gently reaching out to smooth his hair away from his forehead. He couldn't help but lean into it.

"I brought you paint," he mumbled, suddenly dead tired and Oriana hummed softly.

"They are metallic…i thought you could…use them…" Why did talking suddenly take so much effort? " You said there wasn't any metallic paint around here."

"That sounds lovely. Thank you so much," Oriana assured him softly. "I am sure I am going to love them," she promised him. "Come on, let's get you on the couch. You can sleep, and I make dinner. I think you need to sleep first before I get you to eat anything," she mumbled under her breath. He let her drag him up and the few steps into her small living room where he fell more than sat down onto her couch.

"How about you just rest for a moment?" Oriana said quietly and he listened. The shadows seemingly covered him and he fell asleep, knowing that they would wake him if there was anything that he needed to be awake for. Any danger that would befall him.

But for once in his life…he felt…safe. Surprisingly. Right there, with the quiet noises of Oriana moving around into the kitchen, he felt safe.