Chapter 84
Eden
The palace is sleeping, or at least pretending.
The shadows aren’t acting, and the walls no longer whisper. Azriel isn’t here, and that is giving me time to search. I just have to be careful since nothing here truly rests. Not when this place was created by someone as cunning as Azriel.
Still, I have to try.
I pad over the floor, silent as a breath. The robe he gave me trails along the marble floor, and I clutch it tighter around my shoulders. I keep my foxfire fow in my palm, just enough to see but not to glow. I don’t want the shadows to notice me,
The corridors are colder tonight. Or maybe that’s just me.
Frightened girls freeze…right?
I continue walking, but feel a bit dumb doing it. What am I even looking for? I don’t know. But there are too many unanswered questions, and the library holds more than books. I felt it before. The moment I entered, the way the shelves moved. The way something whispered.
There are answers there and I intend to find them.
I reach the library doors and press my fingers to them. They swing open with a soft sigh, revealing the magical place. The floating books. The shifting shelves. The vaulted ceiling where stars burn that don’t belong to any real sky.
The door shuts behind me.
I take a breath.
“Alright,” I whisper. “Let’s try this again.”
I walk between the rows. The library doesn’t creak or stir, but there’s magic everywhere. Like a breath held in anticipation. I run my fingers over the spines. Some feel warm. Others feel like ice…or fire.
When I touch one book, it leaps off the shelf and lands open on a pedestal in front of me. I stare at it when the pages turn on their own.
Images shimmer in the space above it like holographs. Memories.
Azriel.
But not the version that brought me here.
He’s laughing. Barefoot in the snow. Carrying firewood. Looking at me like I’m the entire sky.
The next image is of Mara, twisted and broken. Her blood soaking the dirtied snow on the battlefield. Azriel is kneeling beside her, not in triumph… but in fear. His hands tremble as he touches her heart.
“Eating this,” he says. “Will ruin the soul, awaken the beast… It might even fracture the mind and destroy me from the inside, But it will keep her safe.”
Then…darkness.
I flinch back when I hear someone slamming a door.
The book slams shut, and I whirl around.
But there’s… no one there?
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Chapter 84
Nothing. No footsteps. No shadows. But the alt is wrong, like the magic is no harmless, but waiting to iwatoa ma whet
Does that mean Azriel is close?
I turn back to the shelves.
“I need answers,” I whisper. “I need to find a way to leave this place, but how am I supposed to do that if I’m constantly being watched
Another book slides from a shelf. This one doesn’t open. It hovers. I’ve never seen it before. It has twining roots and a thorn at the center
The moment I touch it-
Pain.
A burst of white in my vision. A voice not my own screaming inside my head. For one terrifying heartbeat, I see two faces.
Both Azriel.
One smiling.
The other… watching me like prey.
Then it’s gone.
The book falls.
I drop to my knees, gasping.
Behind me, the air shifts, and then I hear a calm voice. “You should be in bed.”
I freeze.
Azriel.
I rise slowly. His expression is unreadable. But his eyes are both white and glowing like coals in a dying hearth.
I try to speak. Lie. Pretend I was sleepwalking.
But no words come out and he steps closer.
“You’re looking for something,” he says.
My throat is dry. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He picks up the book I dropped.
“So you’re looking for a book to read?” he asks.
“I…yes…but I didn’t mean to break it.”
“You didn’t.” He runs his fingers over the thorn seal. “But you came close.”
“I’m glad it didn’t break…” Am I? No. I’m just looking for words to fill in the silence so he doesn’t figure out how afraid I am.
His gaze lifts to mine. “What kind of book are you looking for, little fox?”
The way he says it is not mocking. It’s not cruel either.
It’s… sad.
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I whisper, “No, I didn’t.”
“Then you’ll have to keep looking.”
He steps aside to let me pass since he doesn’t know I’m trying to find a way to escape from this place and him. I almost feel guilty for that I knew he cares about me, in his own twisted, fractured way. But I can’t stay here.
My pack needs me. My friends need me. Cedar. Elvira.
And Axel…
My heart clenches.
Is he really gone?
I feel sad thinking about my dead best friend, and when I brush past Azriel, his hand grazes mine. Just a whisper of contact.
It shouldn’t mean something.
Sadly, it does.
His touch is familiar. And I want more of it because I’m sad and broken and aching for something real. This place is a cage, spun from dreams and shadows, and I’m forgetting what the world outside even feels like.
My eyes find his, and for one devastating heartbeat, it’s him looking back at me. The Azriel who once laughed at my terrible jokes. Who kissed me like! was the only truth in a world built on lies.
It hits me so hard I nearly stumble. The ache is immediate. Deep.
How can I want someone who terrifies me? How can I crave the touch of a man who might not even be whole?
But I do.
I want to lean into him. To press my face against his chest and beg him to come back to me.
Instead, I force my feet to keep moving to my room.
But as I turn the corner, I hear another voice inside my head.
Fainter. Broken.
Don’t stop looking for me.
The words echo in my mind. Familiar. Fractured.
And then, just before the shadows close behind me-
I realize the voice… was his.
The real Azriel is still inside and he’s trying to find me, too. Even as the other version of him watches me sleep. One wants to save me while the other wants to keep me forever.
And I don’t know which one will win.
