“What are you doing here?”
Her voice was low.
Barely above a breath.
But the stillness behind it carried more weight than a shout.
He was leaning against the wall beside the window, arms folded, dark clothes, completely still the way only people trained to be still could manage.
He looked exactly the same as the last time she’d seen him.
Same lean build.
Same quiet watchful eyes.
Same expression that gave almost nothing away.
Azrael Ravenshade of Jerusha.
There was something in his face right now.
Something careful and relieved and trying not to show either.
She stared at him.
”How did you get in.”
”The usual way.”
”Azrael.”
”Through the walls,” he said.
“I brought something.” He reached into his robes and held out a small sealed vial.
Dark glass.
She knew what it was before he said anything.
“The antidote.”
She looked at him.
Then at the vial.
Then back.
”How did you know,” she said slowly.
“How did you know I was poisoned.”
”Wait.”She held up a hand.
Azrael opened his mouth.
”Were you watching me?”
”Elyndra…”
”This entire time?” She took one step toward him, and despite everything; despite the careful way she was holding herself upright, there was nothing fragile about her in that moment.
“You were watching me?.”
”We are always on the walls,” he said, with the careful patience.
“We have been here since before you arrived. You simply hadn’t noticed,” he finished flatly.
She looked at him for a long moment
”The master has had eyes on Azgareth for long,” he continued.
“When word came to Erebus that you’d been poisoned… that the crown prince had brought you back on horseback… he sent the antidote immediately.” Another pause.
“He was angry.”
Something shifted behind Elyndra’s eyes.
”He was angry,” she repeated.
”Yes, he sent the antidote immediately.
He wants you…”
”He was angry.” Her voice didn’t rise.
It dropped, which was worse.
“Veythorn was angry.” She laughed once, and there was nothing warm in it.
“How considerate of him.”
”Elyndra…”
”No.” She turned away from him, When she turned back her eyes were bright, not with tears.
Never with tears.
With something far less forgiving.
“Do you remember how I came to be here, Azrael? Do you remember what the two weeks before my arrival looked like?”
”Elyndra …”
”I was whipped.” The words came out carefully.
Her voice tight, low and controlled even through the pain still sitting in her chest.
“I was locked in the dungeon for four days because I refused to come. Four days, Azrael. Four! I was dragged out and told that if I did not comply, the consequences would extend beyond me…” Her jaw tightened.
”Elyndra…”
”It would extent to kyren.
I was tortured into walking through those gates with a smile on my face and my back still healing beneath this gown.
Just few days here and I’m already poisoned.
I am being watched the entire time without being told.
And now, Veythorn is angry that someone tried to finish what he started?”
”That is not…”
”I am not taking that antidote.”
”Elyndra…”
”I am not taking anything sent by…”
”NYXARA!”
The name cracked through the room.
Silence.
Both of them became very still.
Their breathing harder than before.
The candle on the desk flickered in the sudden quiet.
Elyndra looked at him with even more widened eyes.
Then she crossed the room.
The slap landed clean and sharp across his cheek.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t even turn his face fully with the impact.
He just absorbed it standing exactly as he had been standing before.
Elyndra’s hand dropped to her side.
She was panting slightly from anger, from the poison still threading quietly through her chest.
”Never,” she said, very quietly, “say that name that way.”
A pause.
”I apologise,” he said.
His voice was even.
He didn’t touch his face.
He did not think about the sting in his cheek.
He thought, instead, that this was not the first time.
It wouldn’t be the last either.
He had seen her like this more times than he could count, fury and pain wearing each others faces.
She always slapped him when he pushed too hard.
And somehow, it never made him angry.
It just made him certain he was still the only person in any room she trusted enough to be furious at.
He counted that as something.
The silence stretched between them, not comfortable, but familiar, and then he broke it.
”Your courtyard is empty,” he said.
She turned.
Brow lifted slightly.
“I’m sorry?”
”The guards assigned to your courtyard,” he said carefully.
“They’ve been replaced. The ones outside now…. they’re ours. Veythorn’s men.”
She stared at him.
The door opened.
Both of them went still.
A figure stepped through; dark clothed, Tall, Chiseled face.
He paused when he saw Elyndra and dipped his head.
”Lady Nyxara.”
She moved her gaze from him to Azrael slowly.
The guard looked to Azrael.
“It’s time.”
”Three minutes,” Azrael said.
The guard’s eyes moved to Elyndra.
She met his gaze without expression.
After a moment he stepped back outside and closed the door.
Azrael turned to her immediately, his voice dropping, picking up speed.
”Take the antidote, I know you don’t want to.
Take it anyway.
We need you strong.
We need to find out who did this, which means you need to be alive and thinking clearly.” He held out the vial again.
“There are things happening that you don’t know yet. Things that change what this mission looks like.” A pause.
“I’ll be returning to Erebus after this. The master’s orders.”
She opened her mouth.
”I know,” he said.
“I know. But right now…the antidote. Please.”
She looked at the vial for a long moment.
”Why haven’t you replaced any of the guards?” she asked.
Azrael was quiet for too long.
”He wouldn’t allow it,” he said slowly.
She looked at him.
”The man who came in,” Azrael said, moving on carefully.
“His name is Lyel Tatton. He’s been on these walls three months. He knows this palace better than most people who live in it.” He met her eyes.
“I trust him. You can trust him.”
She said nothing.
He moved toward the door.
”Azrael.”
He stopped.
She was looking at him steadily.
“There is a maidservant. Her name is Senna. She ate the same food I ate.” A pause.
“She may have the same poison.”
He held her gaze.
”She’s young,” Elyndra said quietly.
“Her mother is already gone. She has no one here.” Another pause, shorter.
“Get her out of this palace if you can. Take her somewhere safe. Give her the antidote. Take care of her.”
Something moved in his face briefly.
”You’ve changed,” he said quietly.
She looked away.
Quickly.
Her face cold again.
”Whose fault is that?” she said.
He didn’t answer.
”And Azrael.” Her voice was level again.
Flat and certain. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“Taking care of Senna. That is not a request. It is not something I am asking of you.” She met his eyes.
“It is a command.”
He held her gaze for one moment longer.
Then he nodded once and left.
The room was quiet again.
Elyndra stood in the middle of it and did not move for a long while.
She looked at the closed door for a long moment.
Azrael.
He had never gotten tired of her.
Not once in all the years she had known him.
She had ordered him around since before she had the rank to do it and he had always listened, not out of fear, not because he had to.
Just because that was who he was with her.
And the same way he always listened was the same way he defied her when her orders were going to hurt her.
She remembered the time she had wanted to take a mission alone; too dangerous, too exposed.
And he had simply shown up anyway.
Silent.
Already there.
*You can be angry later,* he had said.
*Right now we’re doing this together.*
She had never told him what that meant.
She probably never would.
She pushed the memory away and looked down at the vial in her hand.
Then she opened it and drank it.
—
Across the palace in the eastern side a different kind of quiet had settled.
The queen’s courtyard was lit with low lanterns, fewer than most parts of the palace.
The light kept deliberately soft.
The guard at the entrance straightened when he saw the crown prince and announced his presence in the low formal tone.
A pause from inside.
Then.
“Let him in.”
The queen’s private chamber was smaller than the formal rooms.
More deliberate.
Everything in it had been chosen; dark wood furniture, ink-black screens painted with white birds, a low writing table near the window with a single lamp burning beside it.
The smell of ink and faint incense.
She was at the writing table when he entered.
He moved further into the room.
Looked at the writing on the paper; neat rows of characters, perfectly formed.
He remembered watching her write when he was young.
The same stillness.
”You’re still awake,” he said.
”Mm.” She did not look up.
”It’s late, Mother.”
”I’m aware.”
Her brush did not pause.
”The lockdown concerned me,” she said, before he could speak.
“The confinement of the princesses courtyards. The physicians coming and going at that hour.” She turned a page with two fingers.
“Something happened.”
It was not a question.
He opened his mouth.
He had come here to tell her.
He had walked the entire length of the eastern corridor planning in his mind to tell her everything.
The poisoning.
The physicians’ findings.
The antidote.
Elyndra’s explanation.
The cure sent for from Velmora.
He stood in his mother’s candlelit chamber and felt the words stop somewhere before they reached his tongue.
He didn’t know why.
He searched himself for the reason and found only the memory of Elyndra drinking water from the cup, that half-second of hesitation before she lifted the cup to her lips.
The way she had laughed, tired and unguarded, before she remembered to stop.
*sighs*
”Princess Elyndra Ivor of Velmora.” he finally said.
“She’s just sick,” he said.
“She’ll be well within the week.”
The queen looked at him for a long moment.
Then she reached for her brush.
Dipped it.
Looked down at the paper.
”A sick princess,” she said, her voice completely even, the brush beginning to move again, “cannot be selected for the crown prince.” A pause “A king cannot rule the kingdom with a weak queen beside him.” The brush lifted.
Set down again gently.
“She should be eliminated from the selection.”
The crown prince went very still.
”What???,”