Chapter Eight
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Aurelie pushed open the door to her room, her hand trembling against the iron handle. The air inside was cool, a stark contrast to the heat of the battlefield that still clung to her skin. She stepped across the threshold, footsteps muted against the worn rug, and shut the door firmly behind her.
She could still feel the weight of a sword in her hand and the phantom pain from wounds healed.
The scent of smoke and iron clung to armor she was quick to shrug off, letting each piece clatter to the floor on her way to her bathing chamber.
The water in the basin was frigid to the touch, yet Aurelie slipped inside anyway, eager to free herself from the memories of battle.
She scrubbed at the blood beneath her nails, at the grime along her skin and hair, and by the time she was pruned and crossing the floor back to her bedchamber, donning a silk robe over raw flesh, her armor had been swept away by the servants for cleaning.
How strange it was to be balanced on the precipice of a new life. Her body prickled with anticipation, and though she was exhausted, she feared what might await her within the depths of her own mind if she were to shut her eyes now. Her fingers ached not for the blade, but for a simpler weight.
Aurelie turned, seeking her mother’s lyre from its stand. It drew her in like a lifeline, and she longed to feel the strings beneath her fingers and distract herself from the cries of terror and the heat of battle that clawed at the edges of her mind.
The lyre was in excellent condition given all it’d seen.
Its dark wood was polished to a warm gleam and inlaid with delicate patterns of gold that glinted in the candlelight.
Her mother’s hands had once held it with the same care, coaxing melodies from its strings that had filled the castle with light.
It’d been a part of her mother’s very soul, and every time Aurelie held it, she was a child again, longing to follow in Myrah’s footsteps.
To bathe in the buttery haze of light upon a stage and weave music so compelling that people would travel from all over the world to hear.
War had stripped her of those dreams, forcing new ones in their place, but the ache for all she’d lost still lived beneath her ribs, beating with every breath.
Now, as she pressed the lyre to her chest and carried it to the bed, she had only herself to play for.
The music came slowly at first, her hands stiff and unsteady. But as the notes unfurled, the tension in her chest began to ease, loosening with each chord. The melody wove through her like a thread, stitching her back together and softening the jagged edges left by the battle.
Aurelie’s eyes drifted shut as she played, and in each note the battle melted away.
There were no demons. No haunting cries of fallen comrades or paralyzing fear of all that was to come.
She sought comfort the only way she knew how, letting the gentle hum of the strings carry her to a place far removed from war.
Ilaria had books to soothe her mind and allow her to escape.
Orion had been a talented artist, filling scrolls with sketches and documenting everything he could about the demons with wild fascination, while their father was a knight through and through.
Like her mother, it was music that Aurelie let consume her.
She gave it everything—her aching, her terror, her hope—all of which the lyre devoured with greed.
And in return, it gave her music she could escape into, if only for a moment.
“You play just like her.”
Aurelie fumbled her next note, head whipping up to find Azriel and her father standing in the doorway.
The captain wore a careful expression, though Aurelie could peel it back enough to glimpse the pain in his eyes.
They were silvered, like the angel’s beside him, and looked as if they held fragments of the stars themselves. Soon, her own eyes would look the same.
Varen was staring at the lyre, eyes softening for a heartbeat before he looked away.
The two had cleaned up since the meeting.
Her father’s nail beds were no longer caked with blood, and Azriel’s wet hair was plastered to his brown skin.
His feathers, too, still glistened with dampness as he moved toward a high-backed chair and took a seat, only to grimace when it didn’t comfortably fit his wings.
He moved instead to the edge of her bed, Varen standing beside him.
“You’re meant to knock before entering a lady’s room,” Aurelie said, carefully setting her lyre aside.
“We did,” Varen said.
“Several times, in fact.” Azriel’s voice carried the barest hint of a smile. He leaned back on his hands, his weight dipping into the layered quilts.
“Is that what you’re wearing tomorrow?” The angel motioned toward the corner.
A single beeswax candle cast wavering light across the crimson and gold plates of her ceremonial armor.
Each piece had been arranged carefully on its stand, polished to a mirror finish.
Beside it lay a golden circlet—an elegant gift from the queen, shaped like slender branches that twisted around the head and swept upward into winged arcs above the ears.
“Her Majesty chose it. She’ll be leading the procession.” Aurelie stared at the circlet, its gilded branches gleaming in the dim light. How strange it was to imagine that soon it would rest upon her own head. That soon she would leave behind life as she knew it and bind her very soul to an angel’s.
“It’s beautiful,” Azriel said, “but we have something better.” The angel nudged his bonded, and Varen startled as though the touch had pulled him back into reality. Without a word, he reached into his pocket and drew out a small bundle.
He unwrapped the cloth with delicate hands, and Aurelie’s breath caught.
The pendant inside was beautiful—a silver eye set at its center, wreathed in a fan of finely detailed feathers. Tiny gemstones glinted along the curve of each plume, catching the light. It was delicate in make, precious.
She recognized it immediately.
“I had this made for your mother when we married. To offer her protection, always.” Varen swallowed, the pendant small in his hands. “She was having it cleaned the night of the attack.” His thumb brushed across the edge of the feathers before he met her gaze.
“It’s yours now.” He leaned forward before she could say anything. The pendant trembled between his fingers as he brought it around her neck, the catch clicking into place with a finality that made her throat constrict. “Don’t ever remove it.”
She remembered how it used to rest just above her mother’s collarbone. How it had caught the light when she performed, or when her head fell back in laughter. Now it rested against her own skin with quiet familiarity, and Aurelie’s fingers curled around its edges.
“We’re proud of you,” Varen said. “I feel as though I blinked, and the child I watched take her first breath has become the most formidable woman in this kingdom. Myrah would have loved to see you like this.” His voice dipped low at her mother’s name, like it cost him more than he’d admit to say it aloud.
“Get some rest.” He reached for her shoulder, giving it the lightest squeeze before easing toward the door. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
Her father had never been good with emotion. Even then, the weight of it looked as if it were choking him. He quickly excused himself from the room, and with a small smile, Azriel rose to follow.
“Wait.” One of Aurelie’s hands shot out to catch him by the sleeve, the other still clutching her pendant. The eye burned beneath her touch.
She should tell him the truth while she still had the chance, yet she couldn’t for the life of her seem to form the words. Azriel watched her, brows pulled tight, but all she could say was “Were you afraid to bond?”
The angel’s laugh was almost wistful. “I was terrified. But that’s the secret, dove. We all are.” Being near Azriel was like sitting beside a campfire, a pleasant warmth calming Aurelie’s nerves and loosening her breaths until they came more freely.
“It’s not easy to open your soul to someone,” he said.
“It was strange, at first, to feel Varen’s emotions.
To feel his rage or delight, and the depth of the love he felt when he took a wife and built a family.
I had no choice but to love you all as my own blood, for that’s what I felt—like you all belonged to me as much as you did him.
Sometimes, I cannot know where my feelings end and where his begin.
“That no longer bothers me as it once did,” Azriel added when Aurelie hugged her arms around her knees.
“If your father were killed, I would die with him, and such would be a blessing, for I no longer know who I am without him. It may take time, but I suspect one day you’ll feel the same of your bonded.
You will grow to love them, as they will love you. This, I promise you.”
Aurelie wanted this bond. For years she had fought, trained, and pushed herself to every limit in an effort to prove she was worthy. She had sacrificed everything. So why, in the face of it, was she so terrified?
“Azriel.” Aurelie hardly wanted to give voice to the question plaguing her since the council meeting, but it burned within her like a poison. “Do you think there’s a world in which demons might ever accept a truce?”
He tensed, the shift subtle but unmistakable. “Would you? After everything they’ve done?”
“Never.” The answer came without hesitation.
“Then I imagine their answer would be the same. This war did not start with us, but I hope that we’ll be the ones to end it. Something is changing, Aurelie. I feel it on the wind.”
His hand came to rest atop her head, lingering for a moment before he withdrew and made for the door. As it closed behind him, silence settled over the room.
Aurelie stayed where she was, her fingers brushing absently over the edge of her lyre. Her mind was too muddled to return to music, and with Azriel gone, the sudden silence was stifling. She shut her eyes, willing herself to sleep, but rest refused her.
Behind her eyes, the dead made themselves known with screams as sharp as thorns.
Aurelie’s skin grew clammy, her breaths shallow and quick.
And when she could take it no longer, she opened her eyes and threw herself from the bed.
She crossed to the sideboard and pulled out a ceramic jug of wine hidden there before grabbing her slippers and tucking her dagger into the belt of her robe. Then she slipped out the door.
Aurelie knew she would find no rest that night, and so, rather than try, she decided to pay her brother a visit.