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houseofhurricane · 2 years

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the beginning of everything

Summary: After the war, Gwyn and Azriel are sent on a diplomatic visit to the lantern festival at the Autumn Court. They've been circling each other for years, though, and a night together is all that's required to kindle the spark between them.

Pairing: Gwynriel

Word Count: 9,109

Warning: This is a very smutty fic. There are also spoilers for House of Sky and Breath.

If you’d prefer, you can read this fic on Archive of Our Own.

This is part of the Picture & the Story Behind series, and commissioned by @booknerd87

The art that inspired this fic was created by sketchadayy. Please check out the rest of this series on Instagram.

“I’ve always wanted to see the lantern festival at the Autumn Court,” Gwyn says as the council meeting is drawing to a close, more of an offering to Eris Vanserra than anything. In the months since the war ended, his tenure as High Lord of the Autumn Court has been rocky, particularly after his long-held alliance with the Night Court was revealed by a jealous brother.

“Azriel will take you,” Rhysand responds, a row ahead of her, in the circle where the High Lords and their choice companions sit.

All her life, Gwyn never thought she would be so close to the central powers of Prythian. Even now, after the years of the war she spent alongside the spymaster of the Night Court, after all the secrets she’s uncovered, she blushes at the suggestion.

In part because to herself she will always be Gwyn Berdara, the would-be priestess who feared and hated every sound in the night, not the Valkyrie and spy she has become.

But her cheeks go pink, too, because she spent so many bleak nights during the war distracting herself with fantasies of Azriel’s scarred and elegant hands running themselves over the contours of her body. Sometimes, carried away, she would dip her fingers into her sex, thrust them up inside herself, and imagine they were his.

A fantasy, of course, meant only to keep the circling monsters at bay.

Now those hazel eyes turn towards her, the fierce gaze softening just enough to match the little smile on his lips as Azriel says, “For you, Valkyrie, I’ll brave even the Autumn Court.”

Gwyn allows herself only a quick smile, then focuses all her attention on Eris’ scowl.

It’s not that Gwyn has dismissed the possibility of romance or desire, only that, after the Blood Rite and her work to overcome her fear of the world outside the library, there was the woman with the funny clothes who said she came from another world, who despite her short stay in the Night Court, managed to set off the Illyrian rebellion before she left with Azriel’s dagger. And even before the rebellion could be settled, not to mention the reforms Emerie is still championing, there was chaos on the continent, and then in the Autumn Court, and finally Koschei had done everything in his power to ensure their world was at war.

Every one of Gwyn’s spare moments was spent researching or going undercover in strange new places, or learning increasingly more advanced spycraft from Azriel.

And yes, over those years, there have been plenty of moments when she’s noticed his architecturally perfect face, the grace of his movements, or when his fingertips have grazed over her skin during one training session or other and she’s had to stifle the little sound that rises in her throat.

And Gwyn has not missed the fact that all of this peril has not stopped anyone she knows from finding love. Mor and Emerie are planning an elaborate mating ceremony, and Nesta and Cassian were not always sneaky when they snuck off during their free moments, and the High Lady’s gowns have lately been let out to accommodate the swell of her second child. Elain Archeron now sits with the group from the Day Court, her fingers twined around Lucien’s, the latter lately named as Helion’s heir. All around her are contented sighs and plans for romantic futures, and Gwyn is happy for everyone, even if she wonders how they found those moments, how they turned them into something precious.

She wonders, too, what future there might be in peacetime for a priestess who turned spy.

Luckily, the council meeting ends before she can become too wrapped up in her thoughts, and Azriel appears beside her, his shadows slipping close to her in their usual greeting.

“We can get out of this if you want to,” he says, low enough that even Nesta, walking towards them, won’t be able to hear.

“Not without making it a diplomatic incident.”

“I think Rhys can manage.”

“You don’t want to go to the lantern festival with me, shadowsinger?” She makes her smile wide enough to show him that she’s joking.

Even if something twinges in her at the possibility that he’d only kept her company out of necessity, the idea that all the glances between them were born out of proximity rather than something more complex.

She hears him take a deep breath, and Gwyn braces herself for whatever he’ll say next.

“Better with you than with Cassian,” he says, finally. “You never know when he’ll destroy another building.”

His voice mirrors her own and yet she finds herself disappointed that he’d make that particular comparison.

“Then it’s the lantern festival for us. In the name of peace in Prythian.”

He offers that little grin that never fails to make Gwyn’s heart stutter in her chest, but when Nesta and Emerie approach them, he drifts off, the shadows following in his wake.

“I’m sure the House would be delighted to provide a gown for your evening with Azriel,” Nesta says with a smirk as soon as the shadowsinger has moved out of earshot.

Still, Gwyn scans the shadows.

“To think, we’ve been negotiating codicils to the peace treaty all day and that’s the first thing you want to talk about.”

“We’ve been talking about this treaty for months,” Emerie retorts, looping her arm through Gwyn’s. “And the next Sellyn Drake novel won’t be out for a few weeks.”

A laugh bubbles in Gwyn’s throat, easy and effortless. This, she thinks, was how she always meant to spend the peace.

A day after the council, Azriel winnows to Rhys’ office in the river estate. His brother is finishing a meeting with the ministers of Velaris that has gone too long, as Azriel had suspected, but while he waits, he takes in Rhys’ updated model of the universe, the other realms laid above and below their own.

Even if Azriel suspects that there’s no way to model what they experienced, in those months before the war spiraled into being, when every universe seemed impossibly near and far at the same time.

When Bryce Quinlan had first told him, her words halting while her eyes sparked with mischief, that he should stop staring at Gwyn and, to use her phrase, hook up with her already.

Azriel hadn’t understood the words exactly, but he’d heard the intent.

And for a moment, after Bryce had left their world with Truth-Teller belted to her hip, Azriel had thought such a thing might be possible. There had been a pleasant span of weeks where he and Cassian and Nesta and Emerie and Mor and Gwyn had all taken to walking the streets of Velaris and trying the restaurants and bars and shops that caught their eyes. Gwyn seemed to drift toward him without effort, even in the bookshops, and their conversation had been easy, sparkling. No hint of terror lingered on her face, and he’d looked at her teal eyes, her bright smile, and the morass of his past, the reality of his present, had all seemed pleasantly distant.

He had been about to ask her to dinner, just the two of them, when Beron and Koschei had attacked the human realms, capturing Vassa and unleashing a cascade of threats and allegiances that had drawn them all into years of war.

Of course, Gwyn had worked alongside him in his unit of spies, as natural at stealth and observation as anyone he’s encountered in his five centuries. Occasionally there had been moments, training her with daggers or with ciphers, where Azriel had wanted to gather her to him, but her stricken face in Sangravah would flash before his eyes, or the latest body he’d bloodied in the Hewn Court.

There had been no guarantee they’d survive this war. He’d worn a bigger target on his winged back than most. Even if she’d been receptive, he hated the possibility that she would lose him. Or worse, that she’d discover all that he was and is and turn away.

Finally, the ministers file out, and Rhysand looks up from behind his desk, his expression too innocent.

“The lantern festival is going to be of diplomatic importance,” he says, before Azriel can open his mouth. “Do you think you can be a courtier?”

“I can manage. But Gwyn—”

“You know better than I do that she infiltrated courts across the continent. And this was her idea.”

“You saw her face. She didn’t mean for this to become a mission. She’s curious about our world in peacetime.”

“Then show it to her, brother. You’ll have time. Eris expects you both to stay the night.”

“If you expect me to be trapped in that underground keep—” He can feel the scars tighten at his knuckles.

“He’s agreed to one of the upper suites for you both, although apparently they’re less secure.” A knowing smile pulls at Rhys’ lips.

“I suppose that means I’ll have to bring more daggers,” Azriel deadpans, settling himself into his usual chair, letting himself believe that everything might be all right. The treaty is signed, with only the minor codicils left to negotiate. There’s only so much havoc he and Gwyn could wreak. “Anything I should be aware of?”

“Eris will likely attempt to provoke you. Ignore him.”

Azriel flexes his hands. “I’ll do my best. Anything else?”

“The peace is real. Enjoy it, brother.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Gwyn can handle the threat.” Again, that too-innocent look in Rhys’ eye.

He’s never been particularly skilled as a courtier, but Azriel prides himself on how smoothly he changes the subject.

The Autumn Court fashions have not changed in centuries. Gwyn studies the dresses that the House has provided, all made of heavy brocade and stiffened with corsetry that gives the gowns the ability to stand without a person inside them. Despite the options in every color, each one seems wrong for her, too lavish compared to her leathers or the robes she wore in the library or the soft sweaters and leggings she favors in her rare moments of empty time.

“I want to see you in those headdresses,” Nesta smirks, running her finger over a golden gown.

“I’m just sad that ruffs went out of fashion last century,” Emerie adds, holding a brocaded violet gown to her chest. Her healed wings splay out behind her, and the combination of colors and textures makes her look like an ancient Illyrian queen.

But when the House spits out three ruffs in varying sizes, Gwyn keeps the compliment to herself.

Instead, she slips into a blue gown the color of Azriel’s Siphons and Emerie laces up her corset while Nesta arranges the skirts, and when they go to look at her, her friend’s faces soften.

“This is your gown,” Nesta says, so imperious that Gwyn can’t help her scowl.

“Trust us, Az won’t know what hit him.” Emerie smiles like she’s giving a benediction. Even as she reaches for a ruff.

“This is a diplomatic visit.”

Gwyn is already tugging at the laces of her corset.

“Cassian said you’ll have to stay the night.” Nesta’s voice has no inflection, and Gwyn feels her cheeks heat.

Because when she found out about the length of the assignment, she’d imagined Azriel’s hands on her skin, had held the images close until she’d curled under her quilts and could stifle her heavy breaths into the bend of her elbow.

The war is over, and Gwyn is becoming aware that her bed is empty. That she no longer seeks the solace of a perfectly quiet room, a door locked against anyone who could enter.

And though she knows that there are males in Velaris and beyond who might fit the contours of her desires, Gwyn’s mind keeps circling back to Azriel, to the easy way they were together in those months before the war began, winding through the streets of the Rainbow and talking easily about whatever came to mind. The light in his eyes when she reported her findings to him and provided a key bit of intelligence. His fingers on her wrist as he perfected her skills with the dagger.

Even if it’s that very desire that is dangerous to him, given the power that thrums in her veins. The power that, now that the war is done, no one likes to discuss. Not even Nesta and Emerie.

Easier to pretend she’s incapable of harming them all. Even Azriel, with his secrets and his shadows, his grace on the battlefield.

“I’ll survive it,” is what she finally tells her friends, and they have the grace to turn their faces away while they roll their eyes, before they discuss how to arrange her hair.

Nesta and Cassian had amused themselves in trying to convince Azriel to wear the Autumn Court’s traditional doublet and hose, had pressed a slouched velvet hat into his hands a dozen times, but in the end he’s outlasted them the way he always has: in silence and in his leathers.

He looks out towards the sea, to the sun setting over the mountains, breathing in the air with its hint of a chill.

There’s a whisper of silk against the stone staircase and his shadows startle to attention, already lazy with the peace.

But when he sees Gwyn in her finery, everything in Azriel is awe and silence.

Her long auburn hair has been curled and arranged on top her head with white and silver flowers, a few curled lengths caressing her elegant neck. Her eyes sparkle like a shallow ocean and her lips are the color of a spring flower.

And Azriel thinks he could stare at Gwyn in that blue silk gown for the rest of his life and never grow tired of the sight. The way the fabric makes her pale skin glow in the dimming light, the sumptuous fabric that makes the Valkyrie look more like a queen. The corset that cinches her waist and scoops her breasts like an indulgent lover.

"I can barely walk in this gown," Gwyn says by way of hello. "If I have to fight, you'll have to cut my corset lacings."

Azriel has spent wild nights in the pleasure-halls of Prythian and indulged in all manner of satisfying sex, but the idea of Gwyn's body freed from its bindings makes all the blood in his body thunder toward his cock.

"Perhaps I'll manage to save you," he offers, sketching a bow.

"And let you think all my training was for nothing?"

Even as she smirks, she drops into an answering curtsey and, for half a second, he lets his gaze roam over the exposed curves of her breasts, the hollows of her throat. Gwyn in this gown is a marvel of architecture.

"I don't need to bring my trunk with me, do I?" Gwyn says the words before he can tell her how lovely she looks.

"The House will take care of it," he says, leaning back against the balcony. "Nesta didn't tell you?"

"I didn't necessarily believe her." Gwyn fidgets with the little reticule at her wrist, the same silver and white as the flowers in her hair. "She's too used to living in a magic house."

"You've lived here for three years now. I've seen the House deliver books right into your hands."

"And yet the House has never taken charge of delivering my trunks to a palace."

"There are perks to living in peacetime," Azriel says, "though I wouldn't necessarily call the Forest House a palace."

"The ancient scrolls would beg to differ." Still, she extends her hand towards him, ready to winnow.

Azriel pulls her closer against his body than is strictly required for transport, but Gwyn only twines her arms around his neck. The ruffles at the wrists of her silk sleeves give way to softer skin beneath, and he's enveloped in the fragrance of the jasmine in her hair, Gwyn's scent rising beneath, the smell of spring in the middle of a forest, new leaves and fresh blossoms and the warming earth.

For a moment, they are alone in the roaring darkness.

Then the world is restored to them, and they stand before the Forest House.

Azriel has never seen the keep in peacetime, or when he's been freely invited, and he can admit, watching Gwyn's wide eyes, that the effect is beautiful: the faelights covering the rosy orange stones, the way the jewelbox of the surrounding forest rivals the setting sun.

Still, he cannot help a covert glance at Gwyn herself, her slender body radiating her delight.

He offers her his arm.

"According to the ancient histories," she says, resting her fingers at his elbow, each fingertip a distinct warmth against his leathers, "the High Lord serves peacock at the festival feast. Do you think we'll have to eat it?"

"Not unless you want," he tells her, and then, because in spite of all his years he can't control his tongue, "I think you look too beautiful tonight to be denied a single thing."

Her cheeks are stained with the pink of the sunset, but her smile reminds him most of starlight. Her fingers grip him a little tighter.

"I'll have to start devising my requests, then. If I'll be granted all of them."

He swears he sees her pulse beat in her throat.

Azriel's thigh rests against Gwyn's, and she waits for him to adjust his seat, or complain about the narrow width of the chairs at the Autumn Court. From the too-bland nods he's exchanged with Eris and the Autumn Court nobility, Gwyn suspects the grumbling might set his mind at ease.

Instead, the solid warmth of his leathers radiates through the silk of her skirts, the frothy layers of petticoats. Gwyn wants to cut them all away.

Such a thing would cause a diplomatic incident, she knows. They're surrounded by delegations from the other courts, Cressida and her consort sitting across from them on the long table, a cluster of Seraphim a few seats away. It is significant that the High Lords themselves have not come. Perhaps it's a slight to Eris, but Gwyn chooses to think of this grouping in a hopeful manner. Not so long ago, only the High Lords visited other courts. Now, the door is opening.

Though perhaps she should address the male from the Day Court seated at her left elbow, Gwyn angles her chin toward Azriel, keeps her voice low enough to escape the ears of others. "I think the histories lied about the peacock, shadowsinger."

"I thought you were full of roast boar and apples and cheese." He raises his eyebrows, and for a moment she's transported to those outings in Velaris, when the world felt so impossibly large, when his rare smile and elegant manner helped her find her way.

It's the only excuse for the way her hand drops to his thigh, her fingers spanning his knee, even as she says, "I want to see the spectacle, I think."

She has not been so bold in all the war, never taking advantage of the little moments they've had. Always, something more important has been happening, but now, everyone is wrapped up in their own affairs, the endless toasts and then the meal, all the little machinations and compliments that make Gwyn grateful for the High Lord's assurances that her only tasks were to look appreciative and avoid insulting anyone too high-ranking.

His next words are a breath of warm air on her neck.

"I'd be glad to see it with you."

His hand rests over hers, the leather gauntlet against her knuckles, his scarred fingers gently interlacing with her own. She can feel the calluses that swords have left behind.

Just then, Eris' voice rings out.

"The lanterns await us," he says, the Autumn Court nobility standing as he does.

When Azriel rises, he moves Gwyn's hand to the crook of his elbow, the same posture in which they'd entered the Forest House. Perfectly proper.

Gwyn isn't sure if she's imagining the scent of arousal on him, and she tries to cover up her uncertainty with a remark about the peacock, about abandoning old traditions, when, leading her into a hallway alcove, his other hand reaches up and twines one of the long curls at her neck around his finger.

She can feel every moment his hand brushes the nape of her neck. Each instant of contact jolts through her.

"Tell me if I should stop," he says, low.

She should say that they've come to see the lanterns. That it will be an incident if they do not make an appearance. That perhaps everyone is watching them from the open doorway.

Instead, she says the only words she can summon to her lips: "I've wanted this, shadowsinger."

When his lips descend on hers, she reaches for him, desire and her corset making her gasp at the sensation of his kiss, his teeth on her bottom lip, the claiming in each motion.

Dimly, she thinks that they are alone, that all the other guests have trailed Eris, but Gwyn knows now that even if they were surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, she would not step away from the hand that now cradles her head, the heat of his body.

Instead, she steps closer toward him, the hem of her skirts sighing over his boots. Until she can feel the length of his body against her own.

She hadn't realized she was chilled until now, when she can only sink against him, against his leather-covered muscles and the heat of his mouth. Desire pools low in her belly, her thighs clenching, already greedy for more. She reaches out for his shoulderblades, careful to avoid his wings, and he pulls away just slightly, presses his hand over hers.

"If we keep going—"

"We should see the lanterns," she says, all in a breath.

She does not want to hear him say that this is a bad idea. That she's not the person he wants. Or even that she's only right for this evening.

That last thought makes everything stop.

Because this hasn't been about desire, really. All of the hopes in the dark, the little glances, the laughter in between the horror that surrounds them, all of it has been drawing her towards something like love.

And Gwyn isn't sure if, at this moment, she can face anything less from Azriel. Even if her palms are still warm from where they rested on his thigh and her lips throb with the memory of his kiss. Even despite all her fears of harming him. Even so.

She aims her body towards the nearest door, hoping it leads to the festival.

Above her, the starlight is replaced by paper lanterns and the smell of cinnamon surrounds Gwyn. In the distance, she can hear a dozen conversations rising and ebbing, but she follows the lanterns away from the voices, where they're interrupted by overhanging branches.

It would require no effort for Azriel to track her, but she does not scent him as she wanders, keeping her gaze fixed upward, pointedly studying the paintings on each lantern, which are meant to signify the painter’s wishes for the coming year. A beautiful tradition, she'd thought during her research. She had wondered if, while attending, she would have the opportunity to create her own lantern and make her own wish. The idea seems childish now.

"I see you needed a respite from the bat."

The voice is so silken that Gwyn forgets to scream as she turns to behold Eris Vanserra, the High Lord of the Autumn Court, smirking just behind her. Unlike the rest of his court, he has eschewed the traditional Autumn dress, wearing a jacket in a rich umber embroidered with gold, white trousers and boots, and of course the crown of golden leaves at his brow.

He watches her like a wolf considering a deer.

But despite the deep well of magic she senses in him, it's the look in his amber eyes that makes Gwyn unafraid. She saw it all throughout the war and she prevailed.

"Perhaps Azriel is looking for secrets and wanted me to provide a distraction," she says, making her smile sharp.

"Tell me which of your kinsfolk was a noble in this court," he volleys back, tilting his head as he considers her, apparently picking up a trace of that noble's scent on Gwyn's skin.

"My grandfather. I never met him. I suspect I would not like him."

She has never been ashamed of her heritage. It is merely a fact. No, Gwyn reserves her shame for the mistakes she's made herself, which at this moment are beginning to include running from Azriel like some lovestruck youngling. Even if that might be exactly what she is.

"I could introduce you, if you'd like." Eris' voice is silken and he draws closer, but in his eyes there is only calculation. Gwyn wishes she'd thought of this scenario, that she'd asked Nesta for advice. Her friend could destroy Eris with a single smirk.

"I don't think he would like to meet his part-nymph granddaughter, and I don't relish being part of some courtly joke, High Lord."

He smirks, drawing closer as he reaches for her wrist, his thumb settling over the place where her heart beats. "Are you always so earnest? I would have thought Nesta Archeron's friend would have a bit more mettle."

His regard has shifted. Now it asks a question, and Gwyn thinks it could be easy to let him pull her closer, to let him erase every touch of Azriel on her skin. But her stomach twists at the very thought, so that it's difficult to keep from pulling away. Eris is simply not Azriel.

"You hardly have the measure of me," she says, trying to keep her eyes soft, to lessen the blow.

A shadow twines around her wrist, the only warning before Azriel appears at her elbow, his wings spread wide enough to blot out the lanterns.

"Does the lady want you to touch her?" Azriel asks, and his voice is deadly in its restraint.

"It is difficult to keep from reaching for one so lovely," Eris responds, each word silken.

"Gwyn?" Azriel's eyes are on her, and Gwyn can feel the weight of them, pressing against her skin. A word made of a thousand questions, and she thinks, longingly, of her leathers and her daggers, the comparative ease of fighting instead of these swift and deadly calculations.

"I'm flattered by your regard, High Lord," she says, finally, trying to sound as smooth as a courtier, "but I'm afraid I cannot return your intentions."

"You realize I could offer you a throne?" He does not acknowledge Azriel for even an instant, though Gwyn does not flatter herself to think he has become so quickly besotted with her.

"A Valkyrie does not require one."

"You may come to regret that certainty. What has the bat promised you? Beyond, of course, the requisite centuries of pining from a distance.”

Now Eris spears a glance at Azriel. Gwyn can feel the very temperature rise as he moves so close that her fingers brush, accidentally, against his wings. Still, he moves closer, and she knows that, however he feels about her, even if she is simply a pleasant distraction for the night, Azriel will not leave her to Eris unless she goes willingly. That the peace itself will not be sufficient reason to leave her with a male against her wishes.

She thinks, wildly, not of her training or strategy, but of the story of the ancient king in the center of the continent who was faced with the task of unwinding an impossible knot. How he sliced it in two with his sword and claimed the victory.

“If you had offered me a night of passion, High Lord,” she says, meeting Eris’ eye, “I might have accepted. But not anything beyond that. Though it is an honor to attract the eye of the High Lord, my heart is bound to another.”

She reaches out for Azriel’s hand, holding it tightly as she drops into the curtsey she practiced for an hour with Nesta.

“They said your court was full of monsters, but you’re all starry-eyed dreamers,” Eris says. “How you ever managed to lead us to victory is beyond me.”

“We’ll add that to the Night Court crest,” Azriel drawls, and Gwyn has to bite her lip against the sound of his voice, the smile that rises on her lips, all delight and desire. Even under the weight of Eris’ regard, the tension of the moment, it’s impossible to hold either feeling back.

Finally, with a little bow, the High Lord of Autumn steps away to join his people.

“Rhysand said we couldn’t cause an incident,” Gwyn breathes when she can no longer hear the sound of his footsteps.

“I don’t care.” Azriel’s voice is a growl and when she looks up at him, his hazel eyes are blazing amidst the shadows that wreath him. “Did he hurt you?”

“He was only making a little sport. I was fine.” That fact doesn’t stop her being glad that he followed her, that his fingers are still entwined with hers. “Though you might have to explain all this away in the morning. I suppose we both will.”

He gives a little shake of his head, and for a moment there is only the sound of the shadows between them, the dull roar of conversation in the distance.

“Why did you run from me?” The words are raw, like they’re torn from his throat. “I thought—if I was the one to hurt you, Gwyn, I am sorry and I will stay away.”

She thinks again of that king and his sword, takes the deepest breath her corset will allow. When his eyes stray to the swell of her breasts, she steps toward him, angling her chin to watch his face.

“What I want from you is too much,” she says. The words are barely above a whisper, and yet they echo around her.

“Tell me.”

He is close enough to kiss. She wants to trace the perfect angles of his face with her tongue, but instead she says the words that make her heart shudder.

“I want more than tonight. Much more than sex or even friendship. And it was too much for me to bear, if all you wanted was to bed me.”

He lets out a sigh, and she tries not to let her face crumple.

“I never want to hurt you,” he says, “I think of you that night, in Sangravah, and as much as it is in my power, I will never allow you to feel that pain again. I did not want to come to you during the war. When my life might be forfeit. When I did monstrous things to ensure the victory. And I wanted it to be your choice, whatever you might want.”

A tear has fallen down her cheek at his words, at everything he says and doesn’t say. He wipes it away with his thumb.

“What do you want, then?”

“Too much,” he says, and kisses her, his lips soft against hers for one extended moment before she opens to him, breathing into him, her tongue against his lips as his fingers tangle in her hair. The scent of jasmine surrounds them, the sound of their breathing and the rustle of her skirts against his leathers.

“We should—” she starts to say.

“No should, Gwyn.” He nearly growls the words. “We’ve done all the diplomatic work we can do. But I’ll stay as long as you want if you’d like to enjoy the lanterns or the forest.”

She shakes her head, rests her hand on his back, exactly where he’d placed it when he’d stopped her. Before she ran.

“When you touch me there,” he says, “I can barely control myself.”

“Good,” she says, hardly sure what she means, though she knows the syllable is all truth as she runs her fingers against the velvet skin of his wings. She can feel his sharp inhale over every inch of her skin.

The brush of her gown against her skin is enough to make her own breath catch.

When Azriel’s fingers skim the nape of her neck, she moans aloud.

“I want to be somewhere where people won’t catch us doing this,” she says with the last threads of her composure.

He sweeps her up into his arms and into the Forest House.

Azriel has to pay five gold marks to a servant for directions to the suite of rooms reserved for the Night Court, and ordinarily he would’ve tried to see if he could scare the information from the dryad on his full wingspan alone, but Gwyn’s silk-clad bottom is nestled against his cock, and Azriel finds himself unwilling to experiment.

“These tapestries are gorgeous,” Gwyn says as they enter their rooms, which thankfully are located aboveground. She presses a kiss to his cheek even as she inspects the weavings of unicorns and enchanted forests and beautiful maidens who do not hold a candle to her, and he presses a kiss to her temple, inhaling her scent.

After a moment, she surveys the rooms with little darting glances, noting the doors and curtained windows, the places where danger might look, and as he watches, pride rivals his desire for her, that she would not forget her training even now, when her cheeks are flushed and her eyes darkened with what he’s nearly sure is a mirror of what thrums in his veins.

But there is a familiar whispering, near his ear.

Listen, the shadows say, and he grits his teeth and obeys.

Beyond the curtains is the sound of laughter. He can hear Cressida’s voice distinctly, and Azriel wonders if Eris realized what a torment these rooms would be at this particular moment.

“They’ll hear us,” Azriel says, walking Gwyn to the curtains, watching her eyes widen as she hears Eris’ voice, the sound of an insult phrased too sweetly to be instantly detected.

“I don’t care.”

“I’m going to make it hard for you to stay quiet.”

Her grin is bright white even in the lamplight.

“Good,” she says, and launches herself into kissing him, sliding against him as she reaches the ground, so that he has to bite back a groan as her thighs work against his cock.

“I’ll go slow,” he says, exploring the neckline of her gown with his fingers as she pushes her fingers through his hair.

“You don’t have to.”

“Will it be your first time?”

She stills for a moment and he curses himself for asking the question. Because of course it won’t be, and years have passed since he found her at the mercy of Hybern’s soldiers.

But for a moment he’d forgotten, thought of her in some pleasure hall or a lordling’s bedroom, her bright smile the only illumination in the room. Regretted every year he’s known her and not drawn her close.

“The first time of my choosing, with another person,” she says.

“If you tell me to stop, I’ll stop.”

“I know. That’s why it was always you, shadowsinger.”

Her cheeks flush and he dips to lick them, savoring the audible intake of her breath, the gift of that revelation even as he regards her with a smirk.

“You’re referring to those times you chose,” he asks, “without another person?”

She nods her head, reaching for the fastenings of his leathers as her blush deepens.

“I’m even better in reality,” he says, and she laughs.

“Save those lines for Cassian.”

He’s rescued from embarrassment by her quick unfastening of his breastplate and shoulderguards, by the movements of her hands between his wings, working buttons loose and lifting the leather shirt off of him.

Exposed under her gaze, he resists the temptation to cross his arms over himself. In the distance, there is laughter.

“I take it back,” she says, tracing his tattoos with her fingers. “You are better in reality.”

His laugh bursts from him and he spins her, loosening her corset lacings as he kisses her neck, licking and biting until she’s moaning and her bodice is a halo around her body. He reaches to take her breast in his hand, running his thumb over her nipple until she moans.

Perhaps it’s his imagination, but the sounds of the festival outside sound more distant.

But Gwyn doesn’t care or doesn’t notice, she only shoves at her gown and her petticoats until she stands naked before him, her only adornments the flowers and jewels in her hair and the woven bracelet at her wrist.

She is lithe and gorgeous, her legs so long and her bottom so perfectly rounded that he can’t resist reaching for it as he captures one of her breasts in his mouth, teasing it until the nipple is peaked and she’s tugging at his hair, her fingernails scratching at his shoulders, sending pleasure darting through him when she skims his wings.

“Do you like this?” she asks, and this time the touch on his right wing is intentional, a light stroke towards the talon. He can feel the calluses from all the time she’s spent with her daggers, and as she moves her fingers, he forgets the words to every language he’s ever known, can only nod, dimly aware of the wicked grin that blossoms on her lips as she reaches out with her other hand to stroke the left wing in the same way.

“I’ve always wanted to touch them,” she says when she begins the second stroke, and then, “I’ve always wanted to touch you. I always thought I was deluding myself to think—”

“I never thought you would want me.” He can only be honest in the face of the pleasure that rises in him, pushing him to close to the edge of his control, so that he has to capture her hands and press them against his chest, over his thundering heart.

“Why?”

He splays his hands wide in front of her.

“I like your scars,” she says, kissing his knuckles.

“They’re fitting markers, given everything these hands have done.”

“We had to win the war. I did awful things too.”

“You were—” he begins, at the haunted look that passes on her face, quickly transmuting into triumph.

“I never thought you would want me either, shadowsinger.”

He does not offer his reassurances in words, but with his fingers, stroking lightly over each inch of her skin until her breath is ragged, until, when he asks if she likes this caress or this bite, she is beyond words, reduced to nodding while she gasps against him.

Then, when she’s limpid warmth against him, he strokes the copper curls over her sex, dips his fingers into her silken heat.

“So pretty and wet for me,” he says, swirling his tongue over her nipple. “Do you want me to keep touching you, Valkyrie?”

“Don’t stop,” she says, and he runs his fingers over the seam of her, opening her as she cants her hips into the touch, rocking towards the apex of her sex. He teases her for only a moment longer before he runs his thumb across it, letting his calluses scrape against that throbbing flesh.

He lets her scream for half a second before he devours the sound with his mouth.

“I love that sound,” he tells her, stroking her clit again and again until her thighs clench around his wrist, until she’s sobbing his name, until the scent of her is thick in the room.

He stops kissing her only long enough to watch her face as he touches her, to know that her orgasm is close. Her every feature is limned with delight, her swollen bottom lip caught between her teeth as her hands run over her breasts. He’s never seen anything more beautiful than Gwyn in this moment, and he can’t help but pull her against him, his fingers dipping inside her and thrusting while his thumb works her clit.

Her toes curl in her silk slippers, her back arching, tight as a bowstring.

“Come for me, love,” he says, letting the last word slip from him in his mounting desire, as Gwyn can’t hold back her moans any longer.

She screams his name as she comes, bucking against his hand, hot and slick as she unravels.

When she stills against him, boneless, he lifts her and goes in search of the nearest bed. He does not care if it will accommodate his wings.

Perhaps the Mother has smiled on their coupling, because there are no windows in the nearest bedchamber, no sound of conversation, and Gwyn gives him a sated smile while he settles her on the pillows.

“I haven’t seen all of you yet," she says, reaching for the buttons of his leather trousers.

"Let me," he tells her, because right now, what he wants most, beyond even his own need, is to give her everything she wants. He doesn't take his eyes off her luminous body, stretched out on the burgundy quilt, mapping out all the places he wants to touch.

In seconds, he shucks off his boots, removes the rest of his leathers, and stands naked before her.

At first she only stares, her eyes growing wide as they move across the length of him. She bites her lip when she reaches his cock, the evidence of his desire.

"Why are you so beautiful?" she asks, plaintive in spite of the smile on her face.

"I could ask you the same question," he says, licking his lips. The gesture is ridiculous, unsuited to him, but it's worth it when she laughs, beckons him closer.

He dips over her, kissing her forehead while she runs her hands over his body, studying him as if he were an ancient manuscript.

Then she sits up and kisses his hip, drawing her tongue down. He can feel the warmth of her in the base of his spine, the roaring of blood in his ears.

"How long do you want me to last, Valkyrie?"

"I don't know," she says, and then she winces. "I know the mechanics of the act, but this still seems like it would hurt."

For an instant, he sees her anguish in Sangravah and his stomach roils. Never, he will never cause her to feel that pain and hurt.

"We can stop," he says, gently angling her chin so she can see his eyes. "Whatever you want is yours."

She swallows.

"I don't want to stop. I feel — I think I want this. But. I don't understand how it would work."

He can see her thinking, can watch her mind giving her the version of bravery she needs for this moment. To take what she wants.

"I have an idea. Can we try something?"

At her nod, he lowers himself to the bed next to her, and sweeps her up into his arms, settling her thighs around his hips and her hands on his chest. As she settles in her seat, her sex rubs against his cock and her eyes widen.

"I like this," she says. "Do you want me to touch your wings?"

"What do you want?" He rocks her forward, tracing the elegant line of her neck with his mouth, savoring the gasp from her lips.

"I want you to touch me again," she breathes, "until I feel empty. Then I want you inside me."

He ignores his cock and takes his time with Gwyn, licking the curve of her collarbone and her breasts, nipping at her neck, and all the while he is teasing her with his fingers, close but not quite at her clit, until her fingernails dig into his shoulders and she's panting, rocking her sex over the length of him, so gone and so wet. He can't remember ever being this hard.

"I feel —" she says, "I want—"

"Take me, love."

"Show me." She meets his eyes as she says it, the words a command he wouldn't dare disobey.

He grips her hips and settles her over his length, canting his hips to tease her entrance, gratified beyond reason when she moans at the contact.

"Take as much as you want, love. As much as you need."

Her hands in his, she lets her hips just slightly, and her hot clenching flesh around him is so perfect that he groans, sparks at the edge of his vision.

She raises herself up again and lowers herself down, her expression thoughtful. She tries again, and this time she bites her lip. He nearly stops her, not sure if she's in pain or unwilling to disappoint him, but then Gwyn begins to move again, to experiment, bracing her hands on his shoulders, kissing his lips as she arches her back, rocking her hips, working him deeper and deeper inside her.

"Am I doing this right?"

"You couldn't do this wrong," he says, sitting up to kiss her and enjoying the little sound in her throat at the motion. He reaches down with a finger and presses her clit, her answering moan enough to launch him close. He arches his hips back and forth, thrusting himself inside her, slowly until she says yes and please and more, shadowsinger, until she matches his rhythm with her own motion, until he's fully seated and she moves over him with hunger and grace while he breathes her name against her lips, surrendering completely to her.

He feels her come, clenching around him, and he follows her over the edge, Gwyn's radiant face filling his vision as he comes.

He pulls her close to him, leaning back on the bed and resting her cheek over his heart.

"How are you?" he asks.

"Much better than expected."

"Did I hurt you?"

She shakes her head, her hair brushing against his pectorals, a jasmine blossom tumbling free.

"I didn't think it could be like that. Even during the Great Rite, the males are so overcome... we were told that sometimes our pleasure would be forgotten."

He kisses her forehead, her temple, lifts her hair to kiss her neck, and she reaches for him.

"Is it normal to want you again," she asks, "so soon after?"

"Sometimes," he says, though it's never happened to him like this, his cock already hard again, pressing at her thigh. He smirks, then, to distract himself from the gravity of that realization. "It might be all those years you fantasized about me during the war."

She only looses a wicked smile and reaches for his wings, and though he has to spend a few moments explaining the basics of wingplay, Azriel finds that Gwyn is, as usual, a quick study.

By the time they're something close to sated, the sun is rising, and Azriel pulls her to the window.

"The lanterns are still lit," he says, pulling the curtain around her body as she steps closer to the glass.

In the rosy light of dawn, the lanterns are not quite as striking as they were at midnight, but Gwyn thinks she might prefer this view, when she can study the wishes painted on the lanterns in the ancient calligraphy, illustrated to help the Mother know how to turn each wish into reality.

"What wish would you put on your lantern?" She asks it lazily, like a lover, with all the time and confidence in the world.

"More nights like this one," he says, quick and sure.

Even after all these hours of decadence and lovemaking, memorizing his body with her eyes and her touch, Gwyn's cheeks warm.

"Anything else?"

She asked the question mainly to give herself a moment to absorb the implications of his words, but she watches him weigh his answer.

"I want my work to be something that doesn't make me ashamed." He is looking at the lanterns, his gaze fixed.

"You have time, shadowsinger."

He turns to her, drapes his muscled arm around her shoulder, tucks her into his side. The warmth of his skin makes her want to drop the curtain and claim him again, without a care as to whether they were observed. She tries not to think about the fact that the whole assembly likely heard her cries of pleasure, focuses only on the circle made by Azriel’s arm.

"What would you wish for, love?"

That word again between them. She likes it, maybe too much.

"Something similar. To be useful off the battlefield. To keep people from being hurt like I was, or help them after. I thought I could go back to the library, but it seems so small after all I've seen. Even being here — I know I'm no diplomat, but there is so much of the world I haven't seen." She rests her palm against his chest. "And I'd like more nights like this with you.”

“Have you thought about using your powers?”

Since the war ended, Gwyn has tamped her power of persuasion down deep. The power that had delivered them so many secrets. The power that, when she joined with Bryce Quinlan and with Nesta, had convinced portals to open into other worlds. A power so great and terrible that it has no place outside catastrophe.

“What would I do with them?”

“There is still evil in peacetime.” He gathers her mussed hair at her neck. “You are too good to use your magic wrongly, Valkyrie.”

“I could make you stay with me with half a thought.” The words slip out, the fear she never wanted to think about. Even as it had made her keep him at a distance.

“If you wanted that, it wouldn’t be your magic that made me stay.”

“I never thought — you never said anything.”

The air is cool against her shoulders as he extends his hands. When he flexes his fingers, his scars pull tight. All those centuries, she thinks, and he’s still marked by this old cruelty.

“You worry about what you might do with your powers? I’m haunted, Gwyn. By what I have done. All that blood and gore. I hear all those screams in my mind when I should be sleeping.”

“Why do you do it?”

“I have to.”

She reaches out for his hands and enfolds them with her own, fixing her gaze on him. She hopes he can tell that she won’t ever look away. Because Gwyn met monsters during the war, and on that night in Sangravah, and she knows that they weren’t haunted by their deeds. Where pain exists, healing is possible.

“If the peace is real, you can make something new, Azriel. Something better. We can do that work together, if you want.”

It is a bold offer she’s made, more brazen than any kiss or revelation of her body, but Azriel only pulls her close against him, presses his lips to her brow. As if all those furtive glances and hesitations over these years have not been an evasion but a crescendo, building to this moment.

“I will not bind you with a promise, Valkyrie. You are free to leave me at any time. But I would like that very much, to build something new with you.”

Gwyn does not say anything else as she lets the curtain fall against the window. She will show him that she’ll stay, that there are better things for them both, even if it takes years for either of them to believe it.

Apparently the festival breakfast was scheduled assuming that the lantern festival would be celebrated as the fae holidays typically are, with drinking and fucking until dawn, and so when Azriel leads Gwyn into the dining room, dozens of faces turn towards them. He can feel the heat of Gwyn’s blush.

Then Rhys and Feyre appear at his side, smirks on their faces.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” Azriel says, wishing once again for the words of a courtier.

“We thought you might need some assistance, not to mention a good shielding charm,” Feyre says, one tattooed hand on her belly, “We’ve been here since Eris unveiled the lanterns. Rhys has had his fill of politicking for the week.”

“I’m sorry,” Gwyn says with a little bow to Feyre, then to Rhys. Her dress, a deep green velvet which Azriel buttoned himself, whispers over the flagstone.

“Don’t apologize,” Feyre tells her with a wink, “I like watching him think on his feet. And I think you both gave your fellow revelers some ideas before I managed to fix the shield in place. Anyway, I’ve never seen that expression on Azriel’s face before, and I’m enjoying it.”

“Though I would’ve hoped you could keep from threatening a High Lord in own his territory, brother.”

Azriel has heard his brother’s voice when he is angry, the awful stillness or the unbridled wrath. Now, more than anything, Rhys sounds as if he knows a secret.

“Azriel was protecting me. He thought — I thought, too — that Eris was trying to make a joke of me before his court.”

“He wasn’t,” Rhys says, with the kindness he reserves for Gwyn. “At least, not entirely.”

“He offered me a throne.”

“You deserve one,” Azriel cuts in, unable to resist this truth. Even if he’ll never regret giving Gwyn an out, will never stop being glad she chose to go with him last night instead. Even if he will always look at their dawn conversation as the greatest gift, this possibility of a new life at her side, her confidence at what he might become. Still. He will not force her into a life at his side. Not if she could find happiness elsewhere.

Gwyn rolls her eyes at this, and Feyre and Rhys glance at each other, and even the shadows hiss in his ears.

“What I want,” she says, her fingers twining with his, “is to have breakfast with you. And then whatever the day might bring.”

All the onlookers, the courtiers and gossips from the other courts, even his High Lord and Lady, fall away. The world narrows to Gwyn alone.

“I can manage those terms,” he tells her, grinning as he leads her to the table.

For months to come, Rhys and Feyre will tease him for it, for his besotted expression and how he turned away from them as if they’d vanished, but in those moments, for Azriel, it’s as if the world falls away and everything is simple: Gwyn and her smile in the autumn sunlight, the beginning of everything.

Notes: Thank you so much for reading this fic! This one came out longer than intended, but in spite of all those extra words, I hope you enjoyed 🧡

For sneak peeks of future fics, SJM theories, and thoughts on all the books I'm reading, you can follow me at on Instagram.

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