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A month.
It had been a month since he had seen her smile. Touched her honey-sweet skin. Smelled her.
The absence of Mor was a chasm in his chest, worse even than the literal hole that had opened him when Jurian had shot him through the chest. That scar remained raised on his torso, though the wound had healed. With some time, even that scar would fade into a mere shadow on his marked skin. But the scar that was quickly building up in him from Mor’s absence?
Azriel growled and shook his head as he sat at a table in the makeshift Illyrian base in the Summer mountains, his shadowed eyes scanning his maps and tactical plans. He hated this. Cassian had always been better at this than Azriel, though the spymaster had plenty of experience leading soldiers himself. He wished his brothers would return so and take this burden from him so that he could go where he was led--to Spring, to rescue Mor.
No one looking at Azriel would ever suspect the conflicted emotions within him, as he had practiced an even expression for centuries. It was a necessary skill as a spymaster and shadowsinger both. But truthfully, Azriel hated his role for the first time in centuries. It was his loyalty to Rhys and commitment to the Night Court that kept him here, but he would be lying if he said he hadn’t begun to resent it weeks ago. The logical part of his mind told him that this was how war went--it was never as smooth or easy and quick as he wanted it to be. And he knew that what Rhys was doing was important.
But the fact that it had been a month and Rhys had not so much as attempted to get Mor out . . .
Azriel’s scarred hands clenched into fists as the maps blurred in front of him. He swallowed and leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair and releasing a long breath. Feyre had bargained to keep Mor safe. He remembered that. She had offered up herself and her sisters to ensure that Mor would not be harmed. But that did not keep Azriel from worrying, especially since it had become entirely clear that Hybern could adeptly work around the terms of their contract, using others who had not been involved in the deal to accomplish his means. Rhys was doing the same.
Anger boiled in Azriel’s gut as he thought of Elain. That poor, sweet girl, who had done nothing to deserve half of what had happened to her. Azriel remembered being surprised when he’d met her--surprised at the softness and sweetness that was such a contrast to her sisters’ wrath. He’d felt a kindred spirit in Elain, though he didn’t wish any of his own experiences upon her.
The Winter and Summer Courts were in a frenzy now, trying to find out what had happened to her. The moment Azriel had heard, he had sent some of his spies out to try and get her location.
Sadly, it was all too easy.
The sources he and Lucien had painstakingly established in the Spring Court had reported back the instant Princess Cresseida had arrived with Elain there. And she wasn’t alone. It hadn’t been Varian, as Azriel had initially suspected. It was worse.
Tamlin and Cresseida had evidently worked out an alliance while the High Lord of Spring had been a prisoner on Tarquin’s estate. No one had thought to suspect Cresseida, not even Azriel, and he kicked himself for it. He’d thought her nothing more than a rude princess. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she would work with Tamlin and Hybern. But to keep war off her lands, when Adriata had been hit so hard by Amarantha . . . in hindsight, it seemed so obvious.
Azriel had written to Cassian immediately with all the information he had, and he found himself thankful that he wasn’t in the same room as Feyre and Nesta when they found out what had happened. It had been two days since Elain had gone missing, and in the meantime Winter Court had sent men to Summer to supply reinforcements--evidently, this offense done to Elain was finally enough to prompt Kallias into action, and even their High Priestess had supported the decision. Cassian’s men had arrived from the Night Court, so most of Azriel’s time over the past twelve hours had been spent coordinating the armies of the three different courts. It was a headache, and he’d urged Cassian to return soon to manage it all.
He knew his brother was occupied, and he wished they could be fighting together. But this war was so splintered, spread all over Prythian. Though they were stronger together, they were needed on different fronts. The Dawn Court attack on Night had been successfully staved off, though Azriel hadn’t slept a wink until he’d heard that his brothers were alive.
Truthfully, he hadn’t slept much at all this past month.
Azriel gritted his teeth as his thoughts drifted back to Mor, locked up in that manor, collared like a dog. He plumbed his sources and his shadows for anything concerning her . . . the woman he’d loved for centuries yet couldn’t bring himself to face. He was an idiot. He knew it, and he regretted his foolishness every day they’d been apart. He hadn’t been without her like this in fifty years, longer even than that, and he’d forgotten how much he’d relied on her smile and her joy to keep the shadows of his past from creeping in and making him despondent.
How much he needed her.
It was this need that had kept him away all those years. Because he knew that she didn’t need him like he needed her, and he did not want to shackle her to his darkness or obligate her to stand by him if one day she were to find her mate, someone brighter and less morose than he. Someone worthier of her.
These weeks had only reinforced these thoughts in his mind. If he was truly worthy of her, he would have stormed across the border immediately, snatched her out of Hybern’s claws before he’d been able to lock that cursed chain about her neck, subduing her.
Subduing her.
Azriel’s Siphons glowed like blue fire as he thought of Mor kept quiet, docile, on display. The life she had worked so hard to escape.
He would never forgive himself for letting her go through that.
The only solace he had was that she was not being physically harmed. He had ensured that his sources told him if Hybern broke this part of his bargain with Feyre. Feyre. There was no one else Azriel could imagine as his High Lady--not before, and certainly not now that she had traded so much to prevent Mor from being harmed.
And yet it was all coming to nothing. Elain had still been taken. The war was still happening. Azriel groaned and leaned an elbow on the table, massaging his forehead with his hand.
He snarled when the flap to his tent world opened. “What?” he snapped without looking up.
The intruder didn’t speak. Azriel raised his hazel eyes and sat up when he saw Lucien standing before him, nostrils flared and an aura like flame around him. “I need to speak you,” the emissary said.
Azriel was not in the mood, but he gestured for Lucien to sit across from him. Lucien did not sit. Instead, he began to pace.
“I need to get her out of there,” he said. “I don’t give a single damn what the plans are. I’m going. And I want your help.”
Azriel blinked slowly as he processed Lucien’s words. He frowned and picked up a pen on the table, idly rolling it in his fingers and tapping it on the table. “What exactly do you expect me to do that I haven’t already done?” His upper lip curled as he thought about all the sleep he hadn’t had, all the effort he’d put into this damn war already, and Lucien wanted more? He’d become fond of the emissary in the past weeks. He’d been invaluable in getting eyes into Spring Court. But that did not grant him unlimited access to Azriel’s energies.
Lucien stopped pacing and fixed his mismatched eyes on Azriel, his fire licking around his knuckles. Azriel had never seen Lucien’s fire magic before, but a part of the man had been ignited at all times since Elain had been taken--as though he had suppressed it for centuries and now could not turn it off. Lucien’s russet eye was slightly wild as he said, “I want you to go with me.”
Azriel let the request hang in the air for a moment. He slowly laid the pen down and leaned forward, folding his hands on the table. “You want me to do what?”
“Go with me. Help me save her. No one else will, and I can’t--I can’t wait any longer.” Lucien’s breath was ragged--he looked practically crazed, but he still retained his composure as he stood before the spymaster.
“Going in there is a suicide mission,” Azriel said, keeping his face even. “It was one thing to have you alone slip back in, but to attempt to get into that manor without backup--”
“Azriel!” Lucien slammed his burning palms down onto the table, causing the edges of Azriel’s plans to smoke. Azriel frowned. “She is my mate. I cannot wait for the logistics, for the armies. I’m going to get her. And I don’t care if they take me too. I don’t care what they’ll do to me if they catch me. I’m freeing her. I don’t care.”
Azriel’s breath caught in his throat. How many times had he laid down at night saying those same words to himself about Mor? How many times had he arisen in the middle of the night, determined to go after her and damn the consequences? How long had the fire that now coated Lucien burned inside Azriel, urging him to go to the woman he loved most in the world?
Now he was being offered a chance.
“I have to be here to lead the armies,” he said quietly, though his gaze finally flicked away from Lucien.
“There are plenty of others here who can do that,” Lucien said. “But I know that I don’t have nearly as good a chance at getting near that place alone as I do with you. And Azriel . . . I know you want to go as much as I do.”
Azriel froze and slowly raised his eyes to Lucien. “You don’t know a thing about me.”
“Please,” Lucien scoffed. “I saw you and Mor together for no more than two minutes that day. I saw you on Hybern, and I saw you immediately after the king took her. You want her back just as much as I want Elain back.” Lucien’s voice crackled as it left his throat, as though the words too burned inside him.
Azriel’s jaw tightened. Lucien spoke the truth. What he wouldn’t give just to have her eyes in his life again. To hear her voice. He had promised to stay and represent Rhys and Cassian, but this . . . he was sure they would understand this.
He swallowed. “I won’t do it without backup,” he growled, staring Lucien down.
“I don’t want anyone to know,” Lucien argued, but Azriel held a gnarled finger up.
“I think you’ll like who I have in mind.”
Lucien raised his eyebrows. “Oh?” he asked quietly.
The corner of Azriel’s mouth lifted. “I have an old friend who grew very fond of Elain and who just about brought Tarquin’s house down when she heard the news. I think her particular . . . skillset . . . would be of use to us.”
Lucien straightened, grim pleasure lighting his eyes. “Perhaps they would.”
Azriel finally stood to his feet. “I can’t believe you’re getting me to agree to this. But meet me at the edge of the range in two hours.”
“I’ll grab supplies,” Lucien said, the promise of wrath in his eyes as he considered the mission ahead of him.
“Very well,” Azriel said. “I’ll meet you shortly. But first . . .” Azriel’s Siphons flashed and he shook out his wings.
“First, I’m getting Amren.”