Chapter Text
Cassian stumbled into the House of Wind’s sitting room, shirt half off and blood dripping freely down his nose.
“You should see the other guy!” he crowed, grinning despite the crimson streaks on his teeth.
Y/N rolled her eyes as she grabbed a bowl and began filling it with hot water. “You mean Az? He looks fine to me.”
From where he leaned against the doorframe, silent and unreadable, Azriel’s shadows curled lazily around him, a faint shimmer of amusement in their dark tendrils.
Az raised a brow and smirked at Cassian who scowled dramatically back.
“He fights dirty,” Cassian insisted, dropping heavily into the chair she pointed him toward. “Knows I’d never actually hit that face of his. Can’t risk ruining the brooding beauty—”
“Gods just sit still,” Y/N cut in, snapping on clean gloves. Her tone was unimpressed, her hands steady as she tilted his chin. “If you hadn’t left your guard open, you wouldn’t be sitting here with a broken nose. Again.”
Cassian groaned like a dying man as she pressed the cloth to his face. “You wound me. And after I fought so valiantly!”
“You tripped over your own feet,” Azriel murmured, voice low as smoke.
Y/N stifled a laugh, though her lips twitched. She leaned close, whispering a soft healing incantation as her power threaded into Cassian’s battered ribs. The crack of bone shifting back into place made Cassian yelp, his wings flaring wide.
“Baby,” she muttered, utterly unfazed by the blood soaking her tunic. She pressed her palm against the next fracture, her magic warm and steady.
Cassian clutched his heart. “You used to care about me. What happened?”
Azriel’s shadows curled tighter around him, as though keeping in a laugh. But his eyes didn’t leave her hands—gentle, practiced, and sure as they worked Cassian back together.
When she was done, Y/N pulled back, washing her hands briskly. “Next time, keep your guard up. Unless you like breaking your nose for fun.”
Cassian groaned again, slumping in his chair with the air of a martyr. “Nobody appreciates my sacrifices.”
“I appreciate them,” Y/N said dryly, handing him a fresh cloth. “They give me practice.”
Azriel finally pushed off the wall, crossing the room with his quiet, lethal grace. “He’ll need more than practice if he keeps sparring like that,” he said, but his gaze lingered on her. Not the blood. Not the mess. Just her.
Cassian held the cloth to his face, groaning loudly for effect. “You know, some healers comfort their patients. Gentle words, soothing voices. Maybe a pat on the head.”
“You’re not a patient,” Y/N replied without missing a beat. She rinsed her hands and dried them on a towel. “You’re an overgrown Illyrian who thinks bruises are personality traits.”
Azriel’s mouth twitched, so quick she almost missed it. His shadows, however, gave him away—curling and flickering like they were laughing for him.
Cassian caught it too, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t you dare smile, brother. You broke my nose. Again.”
“She’s right, you dropped your guard,” Azriel said evenly, though his gaze lingered on Y/N as she tucked away the healing supplies.
Cassian leaned back in his chair, sighing dramatically. “At least Y/N cares enough to put me back together. Unlike some people.”
“She didn’t look very concerned,” Azriel murmured, shadows curling toward her wrist before retreating.
“I care,” Y/N said, crossing her arms, “but not about your theatrics. If you want coddling, ask Rhys.”
Cassian barked a laugh. “Rhys wouldn’t last two minutes as a healer. He’d faint at the first drop of blood.”
“True,” she said with a smile. “Which means you’d still be stuck with me.”
Cassian grinned, mischief glinting in his hazel eyes as he looked between her and Azriel. “You know, you could always stop fixing me. Then I wouldn’t bother getting hit on purpose just to come see you.”
Y/N rolled her eyes. “You think I don’t know you milk your injuries?”
Azriel finally stepped closer, looming over Cassian’s chair with the kind of quiet menace only he could manage. “If you are taking hits on purpose,” he said, voice low and razor-sharp, “then I’ll make sure next time hurts worse.”
Cassian raised his hands in surrender, but the grin never faded. “Touchy, touchy.” He winked at Y/N. “Funny how protective he gets when you’re the one patching me up.”
Heat prickled at the back of her neck, but she ignored it, snapping the lid shut on her healer’s kit. “That’s because he doesn’t want to deal with me yelling at both of you when you come back half-dead.”
Azriel said nothing. But his shadows brushed her wrist again before vanishing, subtle as breath.
The door swung open without a knock, and Rhys strolled in with the smug ease of someone who owned the place.
“Cauldron save me,” he drawled, surveying Cassian sprawled in the chair with a bloody cloth pressed to his face. “Did you trip over your own feet again?”
Cassian groaned. “That’s Az’s story, not mine.”
Rhys’s violet eyes flicked to Y/N, who was still tidying up her supplies. “And of course our lovely healer puts you back together without complaint.” He gave her an exaggerated bow. “We are unworthy.”
Y/N snorted. “You are unworthy.”
Azriel’s shoulders shook—just once, but Cassian’s scandalized gasp drowned it out.
“She’s turning you against me now too?” Cassian demanded. “Traitor.”
“She’s not wrong,” Rhys said smoothly, sliding a bottle of red wine onto the table with a flick of his wrist. Four glasses floated down behind it. “This isn’t the first time I’ve walked in on her fixing you up after Az knocked you flat on your ass.”
“I let him win!” Cassian insisted, but he was already reaching for a glass.
“Of course you did,” Rhys said, dry as bone.
Y/N accepted her glass with a murmur of thanks, curling into the corner of the couch without thinking—right beside Azriel. He didn’t move away. If anything, his shadows seemed to curl around her space, dark tendrils brushing against her calf like they approved of her choice.
The banter carried easily from there: Cassian railing against his unfair treatment, Rhys twisting every complaint into sharper jokes, Y/N rolling her eyes but smiling into her glass. Azriel, as ever, spoke little—but he was watching her, his gaze flicking to her hands as she laughed, the line of her throat as she drank.
Eventually, when Cassian was halfway through his second glass and Rhys had begun reenacting Cass’s “tragic fall” with enough flair for a theater stage, Y/N set her glass down.
Her voice was quieter, cutting through the laughter. “I want to ask you guys something.”
Three sets of eyes turned to her. She fiddled with the stem of her glass, suddenly aware of how close Azriel’s knee was to her own.
“Would you train me?” she started, tentatively. “Properly. Not just enough to defend myself or run from a fight.” She lifted her chin, meeting Rhys’s gaze first, then Cassian’s, and finally—hesitantly—Azriel’s. “I know I’m your healer, but I want to be able to fight beside you. To keep up. To… prove I belong out there.”
Cassian blinked, then grinned wide. “Cauldron, I thought you’d never ask.”
Rhys’s smile was quieter, though his eyes gleamed with something proud. “You already belong, darling. But if you want training, you’ll have it.”
Her gaze slid last to Azriel, heart in her throat.
He studied her for a long moment, his shadows whispering across the space between them. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, low, unyielding.
“We got you.”