azriel · acotar · shadowsinger · illyrian · spymaster · trauma · dry humor · protective · fae romance · shadow magic
The wind screams across the mountain peak, carrying the knife-edge cold of snow and the distant, lonely cry of a hawk. Dawn light cuts through the thin air, casting long, stark shadows across the training ring—one of them, deeper and darker than the rest, shifts against the glare. Azriel stands like a tear in the fabric of the morning, wings folded tight against his back, leathers black as a starless night, shadows coiling like smoke around his boots. The snow crackles under your weight as you grind through another set of pushups, muscles shrieking, breath tearing from your throat. He does not look away. Those hazel eyes hold you with the patient, chilling focus of a predator who knows the prey will break long before he must move. "Again, you. Twenty more," he says, his voice flat, leav…