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After the years they'd spent together, the heartache and the joy- the unwavering faith that they shared in each other - Azriel could admit that sometimes his soon-to-be wife terrified him. He was never necessarily afraid. His heart never raced in his chest; his hands and neck didn't become sweaty. No it came in quiet gasps; the single split seconds of realization buried in the ordinary moments of his every day life. The instances where he was struck dumb by the power differences between them.
He'll have a knife
Don't drink the wine
They know you're coming
On the surface, he was the thing of dark dreams. The master of shadows and spies; the High Lord's assassin. The Court of Nightmares had called him the Night's Bane for all the carnage that had followed in his wake; their memories were long, and Keir's mutilated body was still fresh in their minds. But no one ever suspected Elain. Quiet, daydreaming Elain. Soft Elain. With her flower petal skin, her muddy bare feet, her soil stained dress. Her face like the warm daybreak after a winter of darkness. Those that didn't know her, looked at her with something akin to pity. The slightly mad sister of two of the most powerful Fae in Prythian. The weak one. The helpless one.
But Azriel had seen who Elain really was, and it was far from the timid flower.
One of the first things his shadows ever learned about her was that while Feyre was still insisting on playing nursemaid, Elain had learned to winnow in her room, alone and without instruction. Moving from one side to the next in careful little skips, before travelling around the house and eventually outside. While they thought her locked in her bedroom she was wandering around Velaris; walking the banks of the Sidre, exploring the markets and streets. Wards didn't seem to bother her - Elain passed through them like the wind; a shade herself. Azriel's shadows had followed her, drawn by her light, as enraptured by her as he'd become.
Mor had told told him the truth of her feelings only when she'd had absolutely nothing left to lose. Because she could let him go and not have to deal with the repercussions. And it had hurt. Hurt more than any of the times where she'd flaunted her little trysts in his face. Hurt more than the rejection itself. For a long time he'd been unable to think of her without feeling that knife in his chest. And when he'd returned to Velaris he'd been lost. One brother was now a King in exile. His High Lord was a sulking mess. Mor had in no uncertain terms told him she would never want him in the way he wanted her.
But Elain was there, steadfast and untroubled. She would find him sitting quietly in the garden and wordlessly sit with him. Two weeks of silence and then she took his hand.
"I've seen this," she laced her fingers in his as heat crept up his neck - confusion, "And I've seen you happy again," she'd chirped, looking up at him through heavy eyelids. Leaving him with a kiss on the cheek that he felt tingling hours later. The pain lessoned after that. Like she'd put a spell on him.
Their next kiss was not a peck on the cheek.
Patience was Elain Archeron true gift. And she'd quickly stopped him jumping in to defend her when people spoke to her like a simpleton. "It makes things easier," she'd said with that soft smile when always wore these days.
At the time he'd no idea what she was talking about, and then his eyes had started opening to how she worked. The way she'd offered her seat at solstice to a particularly argumentative Fae dignitary from Hybern. The male who'd had a little too much to drink and a particularly poisonous tongue - the new ruling class in Hybern had little love for Illyrians. And Elain had stood from her seat beside Nesta, bowed low, and deep, and gently, calmly offered him her own place at the table normally only reserved for family. Replying to Nesta's tight, murderous frown with a benevolent smile. For their lack of love of Illyrian's, the Illyrian Queen had nothing but contempt for Hybern Fae.
He'd been sitting perhaps ten minutes when Nesta's infant son suddenly realised he'd wings and attempted to fly out of her arms. Nesta had the quick hands of a snake and caught the baby, but not before a day's worth of partially processed milk landed in the male's lap.
With an upturned nose he'd jerked from his chair, knocking Nesta's. The babies cries now echoing over the musicians as they were both jostled in their seat.
And Azriel watched his brother Cassian's eyes lift from his food, watched him stand slowly, reach around them, pick the male up by the throat - as though he weighed less than nothing - and throw him over the edge of the terrace balcony.
They were a hundred feet up in an air, the cliff bottom a jagged bed of rocks; the entire area protected by wards. A few eyes only briefly looked up from their drinks and conversations, drawn by the sounds of screaming, before immediately going back to the festivities. Commander Masha appeared less than a minute later, soaring up from the edge where she dropped the diplomat to the stone; having caught him still shrieking on the way down. He was unhurt but had soiled himself. And Elain had not smiled at him then. Her features carved of steel and ice. A warning to anyone that would think her the lesser of her sisters.
That was the first time it had truly hit Azriel just what Elain was.
It was also the night he proposed. He'd had no ring. No jewels or oath to promise to her, but he'd never forget her smile, the terrible realisation that she'd known, even before he did. That she would see it all. See the terrible things he'd done and would do still. There would be no surprises for her; no where to hide.
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"I'm sorry Lady Elain, it's just not fitting," The seamstress huffed, struggling with the laces of the dress, "I must have made an error in the measurements. I'm so sorry,"
Elain held up her hand to stop her. "The other dress won't bind so tightly," It was a free-flowing gown the colour of peony blossoms. "We can go with that,"
The seamstress raced from Elain's changing room to fetch the backup gown as Feyre tapped her nails on the arm of the couch. The wedding was in two days. Azriel had been called away further south and Elain hadn't shared a bed with him in three months, but she'd seen him. Knew he was safe. Knew he would arrive back in time for their day.
"Elain, she didn't make a mistake, the same dress fit two weeks ago," Feyre's eyes narrowed.
She stood facing the mirror, mouth flattened in a disapproving line as she examined herself.
"No! Don't say it!" Elain snapped at her sister. "It's stress!"
"Elain," Feyre pleaded.
"Stress!!" Elain repeated sternly.
Feyre held up her hands, not willing to start an argument over it. Her son was now twelve and more interested in killing imaginary monsters than his studies, and he'd been left unsupervised for far too long already. Children and magic were a dangerous mix. Her day was already going to be a long one.
"You'll look beautiful no matter what you wear,"
The rest of Elain's morning went more or less to plan. Nesta had arrived the week before to micromanage her younger sisters wedding and had confined herself to a darkened corner of Elain's kitchen in an attempt to avoid as many of the visitors as possible. Nesta and Cassian's son, Wren, was now two and hadn't yet come to grasp the concept of flying as a strictly outdoor activity, as a reault the house was a battlefield of broken vases and cracked picture frames, hanging at odd angles. But Elain didn't mind. He was a fearless, curious little thing with his father's warmth and his mother's flash temper. When she stepped into the kitchen it was to the sight of flour everywhere and a failed loaf of blackened bread, smoking on the countertop; all the while Nesta sat at the table tiredly wiping down Wren's chubby powdered cheeks and wings with a wet cloth.
"Fly!!" The toddler yelled excitedly, throwing his tiny hands in the air.
"That was falling, not flying, little bee," Nesta corrected him, before sliding him down to the floor where he turned, running towards the front room, his wings flapping haphazardly with excitement. They were barely large enough for him to glide with, but they were growing. Elain could see flickers of a tall male with steel eyes; a wicked grin. But that future was far away.
She took a seat opposite Nesta and poured herself a glass of wine from the only flour free glass on the table. It made it all the way to her lips before Nesta plucked it from her fingers.
"This is my wine," Nesta smirked deviously at her. Before knocking back the contents of the glass. Elain narrowed her eyes and grabbed the whole bottle from the table, it barely made it passed her chin before the glass bottle in her hand turned to wine soaked sand that splattered on the floor and on her. Contrary to the rumours she allowed to spread about her powers, she didn't see all things at all times. She shook out the creases of her dress. The sand had absorbed most of it.
"You shouldn't drink -" Nesta started to say before Elain stood abruptly.
"You're absolutely right," she said. "I have to go pick up the rings,"
Nesta clamped her mouth shut. As Elain shook herself down and donned a somewhat forced smile. She swung a cloak around her shoulders and fixed the extra tie at the front so it hid the worst of the wine stain now marking the front of her dress as she bolted from the house.
As she knew he would, Rhys had arrived before her to settle their account at the jewelers and there were some extra boxes in amidst the wedding rings.
"Azriel is on his way back, I expect he should arrive tomorrow at some point,"
"I know,"
"Course you do," Rhysand smirked. He heaved a sigh, offering her the bag, "They resized your ring a little so it wouldn't be so tight, but they can make it smaller when the swelling-"
"That was very generous of you," she interrupted him, beaming widely. Unwilling to let him finish.
"I'd recommend checking the sizes. When Feyre was - "
Elain didn't let him finish, she quickly whipped the bag from his frozen hands and turned on her heel winnowing away, as the High Lord stood looking around, trying to work out if this was an illusion, or if he was hallucinating. He'd have read Elain's mind if it wouldn't have rendered him a useless vegetable.
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Azriel arrived back the night before the ceremony to find her sitting on the end of their bed looking strangely lost. A purple shaded gown of silk and flowing lace in her wringing hands.
"New dress?"
He'd stopped announcing his return a long time ago. When he'd entered the house there was hot food waiting for him. A bath already drawn and steaming. Fresh clothes. She always just knew.
"My wedding dress," she said, her voice distant.
"Didn't you say it was bad luck for me to see it? Or some other odd mortal custom?"
"It's torn," she muttered "I tore it," she looked up at him, her eyes as wide as saucers, "It didn't fit, it should have fit," she stood abruptly throwing the dress to the ground at her feet.
"Elain?"Azriel called to her, approaching slowly, his eyes widening at the silhouette in the moonlight. She stopped as he reached out a hand and placed it on her stomach. "You're pregnant," his voice was laughter.
With a frown Elain batted his hand away.
"I wanted you to be the first person to know, but..."
Azriel laughed and pulled her against him. Tears streaming down his cheeks. Elain weakly muttering "...but I got fat," into his chest. Her voice breaking into sobs.
He laughed and picked her up, carrying her to the bed where he laid her down and brought his face close to her rounding stomach. He could hear it, the heartbeat thumping quickly in there. Not yet the child they would have, but soon.
"You are and will always be the most beautiful creature in my world," he said, crawling up the bed beside her; letting his hand rest on her stomach. "I'd have come back sooner if you'd have told me,"
"You're here now,"
After bathing and changing Azriel slipped beneath the sheets and held her. Inhaling the smell of her. Tomorrow she would be his wife. His beautiful, wonderful, terrifying wife.
"Girl or boy?" he asked her, drifting asleep.
"Both, they're twins,"
And suddenly Azriel was wide awake.