#next chapter we'll see more of feyre and lena discussing things

[azrielsiphons]

Shadows and Darkness: One and the Same (ch.1)

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This fic is meant to be read in connection with my Azriel-centric prequel stories. I would highly suggest reading those first to get the full reading experience of this fic. 

It’s finally here, friends! Chapter 1 of the follow up fic to my Azriel-centric prequels which you should definitely read before reading this if you haven’t already. This fic will span across and after the events of ACOWAR. 

I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter, it will explain (almost) everything that has happened since the end of the prequels up until now concerning our dearest Lena. Enjoy!

“Come on Cassian,” Lena said with a grin, ducking his swing and winnowing behind him. He whirled in frustration. “You can do better than that.”

Cassian growled, swinging with his left arm while trapping her footing at her right ankle. She saw the move coming though and used his own hulking weight against him to throw them both to the ground, laughing as he cursed — clearly pinned.

“You’ve been going easy on me in group training,” Cassian muttered as she helped him to his feet. “Tell Rhys or Az about this and you’re dead.”

Lena only laughed, already bounding out of the training room. “As if you could kill me!”

Bounding down the hall she ran into Mor, her cousin’s blonde hair shining like the sun itself.

“Hello Mor,” Lena sing-songed, touching Mor’s wrists as she walked by, turning so that she was walking backwards and looking at her cousin. “How’s Andromache?”

“Lovely as ever,” Mor said with a wistful smile. “She’ll be here in a few days. You’ll join us for dinner?”

“But of course!” Lena called down the hall, Mor laughing as she disappeared around another corner. Always going, always moving, never slowing down.

In the kitchen, Rhys whined as she twirled behind him and nicked a piece of fruit he was eating right out of his hand.

“That was mine,” he said with a teasing glare.

“Was it?” Lena popped the fruit into her mouth with a shrug. “I had no idea. See you later!”

“It’s a good thing I love you!”

Lena chuckled, smiling wide as she jogged right for the open balcony overlooking Velaris and threw herself off of it. Two seconds later she snapped her wings wide and flew to the rooftop. To their spot.

She landed right in front of him, his hazel eyes bright and full of love — love for her. His hair was tousled as ever and she couldn’t help but reach up and run her fingers through it.

“All these centuries and you still take my breath away,” he murmured, placing his hands on her waist and capturing her lips in his own. Lena fell into the touch, humming against him. She whined when he pulled away. “Hello my beautiful mate.”

Lena grinned, Azriel’s eyes lighting up. “Hello to you too, mate.”

The floor gave way beneath her then — and as Lena screamed, reaching out for her mate to catch her, the world exploded.

“Time to wake up, princess.”

Lena woke with a gasp.

Her chest was on fire, her limbs felt like they weighed hundreds and hundreds of pounds. There was a ringing in her ears. She was so disoriented, where was she?

What just happened? I was just with… Where am I, where is Rhys, where is —

“Good morning, pet.”

The tears began immediately. That was his voice — the devil’s voice.

She remembered the truth now.

It didn’t matter how many times she went through it. Waking up from that perfect dream just to be face to face with the King of Hybern was the real nightmare. Realizing that she had been trapped in that false reality, forced inside her wildest dreams only to discover none of it was real — that was the punishment. That was the real pain. Never knowing it wasn’t real until she was woken for whatever awful plans the King had in mind for her.

A weapon. That’s all Lena was anymore. All she had been for the past four and a half centuries — everyone she cared about thinking her dead. Her brother, Rhys, made High Lord after their father murdered the Spring Lord for killing their mother. And for all Rhys knew, the Spring Lord had murdered her, too.

Centuries with no one knowing who she really was — the Daughter of the Night Court. A title she used to resent but would give anything to be known as now. Her amazing brother — thinking himself an orphan with no one of his blood left in the world.

And Azriel — her sweet Azriel… her friend, her lover, her mate. Thinking she was dead and never able to tell anyone that they had been together since it had been a secret before she had been taken. His life was tied to her magic by the King so that if she defied his orders or did anything to escape, he would die — instantly.

This was the nightmare that the King had promised her. Asleep for years — decades, sometimes — until he required her. Trapped in a dream world of her idea of a perfect reality.

Only to wake to her actual reality. Her personal hell.

“How long?” She croaked. The magic that the King put her to sleep by preserved her body, but it always hurt like hell whenever she woke up all the same. The longer she was asleep, the worse it felt to wake up.

The King laughed once more, calling over two guards to unhook the magic cancelling chains wrapped around her body. He knew Lena wouldn’t try anything — she couldn’t. Her mate would die if she did.

“Quite a while,” he said vaguely.

The chains clattered away to the floor a moment later, and Lena arched her back and screamed, falling off of the table and to the stone floor beneath her as her magic came back to fruition like a flood.

It burned worse than ever. She could feel her skin peeling, blood pouring from her nose and ears as that horrible, deep well of magic within her filled back to the brim. The moment her skin tore it was stitched back together, only to repeat the process all over again. She shook, blood and saliva and sweat pouring from her trembling body.

It had never been that bad, had never felt so much like fire in her very veins.

Then she remembered. What had happened right before she had gone under this most recent time. She had been Under the Mountain. Hiding in the shadows like he had always taught her. She was supposed to keep an eye on Amarantha, supposed to keep her in check. The redheaded bitch had always been afraid of her — with good reason.

Then she had seen him. Her brother, her sweet, kind, loving brother. His eyes twin to hers and yet beneath that mountain they had been filled with cruelty and hate and sorrow. She had taken a step towards him out of instinct only to pull herself back with a flinch.

He wasn’t her brother anymore. Because she was supposed to be dead.

She had stood back and watched, her eyes never leaving Rhys. She hadn’t seen him in a couple centuries. He looked the exact same and yet more different than ever. The Rhys she knew had been full of life and love. This Rhys was… broken. Not beyond repair like her, but broken all the same.

She had opened her mouth to scream when she had smelt what Amarantha had done to the wine. Only for those damned chains to be wrapped around her face before she could make a sound of warning, the ancient relics gagging her and stifling her magic all at once. The King had laughed in her ear, telling her to watch as her mighty brother’s kingdom fell.

As her kingdom fell.

That was the only time she thought she might have actually broken through those chains, her magic boiling deep within her with rage as she silently watched her brother’s powers be stripped.

The King had put her to sleep that time out of fear for himself — and they both knew it.

“How long?” Lena hissed, spitting on the ground by the King’s feet from where she lay shaking before him.

“50 years, give or take a few months.”

Lena screamed, throwing herself at the King only to be blown backwards with a white light, her body slamming into the wall behind her. She felt the blood dripping from the back of her head as she hit the ground once again.

Every fiber of her being was telling her to let loose that horrible power deep within her, to rip the King apart limb from limb — and she could do it, too.

But doing that meant sentencing Azriel to death. Sentencing her mate to death.

She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

Lena stood to her feet, cracking her neck as the sheer power radiating through her healed her injuries in a few mere seconds. She let the darkness wash over her, breathing in deeply through her nose. She closed her eyes, letting that rage, that complete and utter hatred for the King wash over her and fuel her.

When she opened her eyes, she thought she saw the briefest flash of fear cross the King’s face.

“Is he alive?” Lena’s voice was blunt, to the point, sharp. Like the weapon she was.

“Your brother is alive, yes.” The King smiled cruelly, watching the darkness playing over her fingertips with both adoration and envy. “Your Shadowsinger and the other bastard I’m not so sure about though.”

Lena was in front of him in an instant, their chests touching as she snarled.

“Relax, my pet,” the King said with a bemused chuckle. “I’m sure they recovered perfectly fine.”

“From what?”

“Well your Shadowsinger had an arrow in his chest the last time I saw him. And the other one’s poor wings were shredded protecting him. Such a shame, they were lovely wings.”

Lena felt like she was ripped from the inside out. She showed nothing.

“Perhaps you and the Commander will match now,” said the King with a cruel smile.

“Why did you wake me?”

“I’m sending you to the Spring Court.”

Lena snarled, whirling on her heel and taking a few steps, her darkness flaring yet again. She had learned to control her magic long ago as a necessity to keep Azriel safe from the King’s clutches, but it was always the hardest to handle when she first woke up.

“Why?” She snapped, not even deigning to look at the King.

Lena had only been on two Spring Court missions on behalf of the King in all her years of imprisonment to him. She loathed stepping foot in that territory — the territory that had belonged to the male who killed her mother, the territory where Rhys had been made High Lord when their father was murdered.

He had been all alone. That burden had fell upon his shoulders through no fault of his own and she hadn’t been there. It was the place of her greatest failure to her family.

“Amarantha is no longer with us,” the King said casually. Lena whipped her head over to him in shock. “Tamlin killed her. Over a human woman no less.”

Lena stared in shock. “What?”

And so the King told her. Of the curse Amarantha placed on Tamlin, of all the High Lords trapped beneath that mountain after Lena had been put to sleep, of the mortal woman that had saved them all and broken the curse out of her love for Tamlin, of that same woman dying and being made High Fae — something Rhys had played a part in, and of her brother stealing the female away from Tamlin.

She stood stock still throughout the entire story, the King grinning as she grew more and more devastated.

Who had Rhys become? Imprisoned beneath that horrible mountain with Amarantha for 49 years had turned him into someone that would steal away an innocent female? That wasn’t the brother she knew.

How could Azriel and Cassian and Mor have let that happen? Or the other creature — Amren — the one that Rhys had freed from the Prison shortly after he became High Lord. How could they have let Rhys wreck that girl’s life?

That wasn’t her brother. The Rhys that the King was describing was more like Aeron than Lena ever imagined possible. Worse, even.

“I don’t understand,” Lena whispered. The King only grinned.

“Oh?”

“He stole the girl, the Cursebreaker, from Tamlin as part of their deal… but then she stayed? She came here for the Cauldron with him. With… the others.” She couldn’t say his name. She hadn’t said it in years. Not since she had seen him in the Middle. “Why didn’t she get away? Their bargain was only for a week every month.”

The King grinned wider. “Oh my pet. Your brother broke into her mind… convinced her to stay, made her one of them to keep her away from Tamlin. He would do anything to hurt him. After all… his father killed your mother. And killed you.”

Lena flinched. All those years and she would never get used to being the dead girl.

But deep down in her soul she knew that the King was lying — or at the very least withholding information. She knew her brother. She knew Rhys. He would blame Tamlin for the sins of his father, but only to an extent.

He wouldn’t steal an innocent girl or break into her mind… he just wouldn’t. And the others wouldn’t have let him get so far. It simply wasn’t fathomable.

“But now the Cursebreaker is back in the Spring Court with Tamlin, who is using his Court to help us bring down that horrible wall. Jurian, Brannagh, and Dagdan are already there awaiting your arrival. They’ll be the only ones who know who you really are so make sure to keep that pretty face of yours hidden.”

“Jurian?” Lena asked in shock. “Jurian the human? He’s been dead for centuries, I don’t understand—” Lena froze, the King chuckling as the realization dawned on her. “You used the Cauldron. Of course.” She rolled her eyes. Not killing that human piece of shit would be yet another test of her will. She flexed her fingers, magic shooting off of her fingertips. “Well what do you want me to do in the Spring Court?”  

The King had made Lena do things that would haunt her for the rest of her days, however many that may be. She had tortured, maimed, killed, kidnapped, and manipulated countless people. Innocent people.

And if the King made her hurt this innocent girl more than her brother already had, she would do it. She would hate every second of it, another piece of her would begin to rot inside as a result, but she would do it.

“Monitor,” the King said with a shrug. “Keep Brannagh and Dagdan in line. They’re arrogant, they would be the ones to ruin my plans just to feel like real royalty for a second. They fear you. So scare them.”

Lena hoped the King wouldn’t see the flash of excitement on her face. He did anyways and she cursed herself.

This was who she had become. Who the King had forged her to be: a weapon, a terrible knife in the dark.

When you spent years trapped in a perfect dream world only to wake up to the realization that none of it was real, that you were a dead girl walking with no one to love or to love you in return…

You had to become the nightmare to survive.

~~~~~

“Well, well, well, look who we have here,” Jurian drawled.

Feyre whirled as she heard footsteps behind her. She stood in the dining room of the Spring Manor with Jurian. She had come down looking for Lucien only to find Jurian instead and had just been leaving when someone walked in behind her.

The stranger stood in the doorway wearing a ratty brown cloak that hid their face in shadow. She hadn’t heard the stranger enter, and as she sniffed the air she realized they were somehow cloaking their own scent.

She didn’t know that was possible.

“I had heard you were being woken up,” Jurian continued, leaning against the wall and chuckling. The stranger was completely still. “The King told me all about your… condition. Shame about your br—”

The snarl that ripped from the stranger made Feyre jump.

“Easy,” Jurian crooned, though Feyre could tell he was spooked too. “I meant no disrespect. I’ve heard stories though… quite the weapon, you are.”

Jurian let his eyes drift to Feyre, smirking wickedly.

“Have you met our Cursebreaker?” He asked mockingly. Feyre stiffened as the stranger turned to her. “Meet Feyre. She’s Tamlin’s—”

Whatever Jurian had been about to say next caught in his throat as a thread of magic wrapped around his neck. Before Feyre could blink she was being shoved against the wall, the stranger’s forearm at her throat as she growled. The very foundation of the manor shook around them.

Feyre’s instincts kicked in immediately — hiding her powers be damned. She snarled back at the stranger, her hands grabbing their wrists beneath the heavy cloak still hiding their face as she let Beron’s fire bubble to her fingertips.

Feyre could smell burning flesh and yet — the stranger didn’t even move. Jurian continued to choke behind her.

“Let me go,” Feyre hissed, talons pushing out from her knuckles.

The stranger said nothing and Feyre thrashed against their hold — how was this person so strong? Stronger than her? She had the power of all the Courts and they were completely unaffected. She had burned their skin almost all the way off and… they didn’t even flinch.

Suddenly the stranger leaned in and pressed their nose against her throat. Feyre thrashed against them, but to no avail. Wind and darkness whipped around the both of them, but the stranger remained.

“Don’t touch me,” Feyre gasped. She saw over the stranger’s shoulder that Jurian was turning purple. “Tamlin!” She screamed. “Luc—”

The stranger jerked away, flinching as if… as if in pain.

Jurian gasped behind them, inhaling as much air as he possibly could as the stranger released their hold on his throat.

“Who are you?” Feyre asked.

The stranger said nothing. A beat passed and they slowly raised their hand. Feyre raised her arms, darkness radiating out of her. The stranger hesitated, but only reached up and slowly pulled back their hood.

It was a female. Golden brown skin, and hair as black as midnight. Feyre felt a pang of longing shoot through her chest as she thought of Rhys.

The female’s eyes and face were hidden as she looked down and away from Feyre at the ground.

No, not at the ground. At Feyre’s arm.

Her tattooed arm — her status as High Lady.

Feyre pulled the arm behind her back. The stranger was still silent.

“Who are you?” Feyre asked louder.

Jurian slumped to the ground unconscious behind them. The stranger hadn’t moved. If it weren’t for his breathing Feyre would have thought he was dead.

Slowly, hauntingly, the stranger raised her face to meet Feyre’s eyes.

Feyre froze. She couldn’t even gasp, she couldn’t even breathe.

Because she was looking right at Rhys’s eyes. The slightest shade darker — but those were his eyes. A horrible dark raised scar cut across the female’s face beneath her left eye and extended down her cheek and neck. Feyre forced herself not to flinch as she tried to slow down her heart rate.

“The question is,” the female began. Feyre did flinch at the sound of her voice — full of rage, bitterness, sorrow. “Who are you really, Cursebreaker? And why the hell do you still smell like my brother?”

~~~~~

Lena wasn’t sure Feyre was breathing.

“Hey,” she snapped, literally snapping her fingers in Feyre’s face. The Cursebreaker started, pushing her hand away. “Why do you still smell like him? I thought you had been here for a week. Do you not bathe?”

“Bathe?” Feyre spluttered. “I — your brother? But…”

Lena rolled her eyes, sighing dramatically. “For the Cauldron’s sake get it together, Cursebreaker. You weren’t even supposed to see my face, I’m breaking every rule I’ve ever set for myself right now. And I really don’t want to have to break into your mind like I did poor Jurian over there and make you forget everything, so how about you cooperate with me.”

At the mention of messing with her mind, Feyre growled. Lena only chuckled in response.

“Who are you?” Feyre hissed.

“I believe I asked you first.”

“Why do you look like him?”

“Am I not being as obvious as I intended?” Lena asked sharply, taking a step closer. “My brother, Cursebreaker, is your kidnapper. Now from what I understand he’s supposed to be far away from here in the Night Court, but you still smell like him. Now I know that I just got here and hopefully your Tamlin will fill me in further, but I’d rather hear directly from you. So tell me, why do you smell like Rhysand?”

Feyre was trembling, her mouth parted in shock. Silver lined her eyes.

“You’re… you’re her? But you’re—”

“Dead, deceased, gone forever, yes I know. I was beheaded and my wings are nailed to the wall somewhere in this house. Congratulations, you were tricked.”

Feyre flinched at Lena’s voice and deep down inside, Lena felt a wave of shame. But she could hear Tamlin and Lucien approaching the manor and didn’t have the time to feel shame. She would be kind later. She needed to understand, needed to confirm if this female was really who she suspected.

Feyre was silent though, completely and utterly stunned. Lena could see the gears in her mind churning, but she was taking too long.

With a scoff and another roll of her eyes, Lena reached forward and grabbed Feyre’s tattooed arm — the tattoo that was clearly glamoured.

Feyre growled, starting to jerk her arm back and burn Lena yet again, but stopped at the last second. She tensed, but let Lena turn her arm every which way and examine the tattoo.

“That’s… impossible,” Lena whispered.

She couldn’t be seeing it correctly. That tattoo, what it meant… it wasn’t possible. This female, the Cursebreaker, Tamlin’s bride stolen away from him…

She was High Lady. The High Lady of the Night Court — of Lena’s court.

And she was even more than that. Lena understood what she was smelling now.

“You’re his mate?”

Lena had learned how to wear a hundred masks, had hidden her face beneath her mother’s old cloak for centuries — but she couldn’t hide the devastation on her face in that moment as she stood before her brother’s mate.

Feyre swallowed. Tamlin and Lucien were close enough to the manor now that they could both hear them. Almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

Lena stepped back as if she had just been shot, dropping Feyre’s arm. Her breaths were shallow, her heart beating rapidly in her chest.

The King had conveniently left this part out.

With a deep breath, Lena rolled her shoulders and stood tall. It took not even a second for her to replace that mask of the King’s weapon back on her face. Feyre could only stare.

“You didn’t see my face,” Lena said simply, eyes darting to the door Tamlin and Lucien would be walking through any minute. “I didn’t speak to you. Jurian was being facetious so I knocked him out right before they walked in. Do you understand me?” Feyre only continued to stare. “Feyre, do you understand me? They can’t know who I am, I must remain nameless and faceless to them.”

Feyre nodded quickly and Lena loosed a breath. She went to raise her hood and cloak her face in darkness when Feyre spoke.

“What’s your name?” She asked quickly.

Lena froze, a wave of ruin washing over her.

“They never told you my name?” Her voice hadn’t sounded so weak in almost five centuries. Feyre shook her head. “It’s... it’s Lena. My name is Lena.”

Feyre continued to stare, but smiled softly. Lena couldn’t find any sentiment within her to return it.

Lena pulled up her hood in one smooth motion, hiding her face once again as Tamlin and Lucien burst into the room.