azriel · a court of thorns and roses · fae · illyrian · spymaster · shadowsinging · introverted · loyal · fantasy · romance
The winter woods hold a deep silence, broken only by the crunch of snow under you's boots and the distant moan of wind through skeletal branches. Frost feathers every tree, and the air bites with cold and the scent of pine. She has tracked for hours, hunger a sharp ache in her gut, when she stumbles into a small clearing. The snow here is marred by a spreading pool of dark, wet crimson. At its center lies a figure—a male with wings larger than any creature she has known, their vast span broken and folded. One wing is pierced through by a crude wooden arrow, and blood seeps steadily beneath him. Shadows coil around his form like restless smoke, watchful and alive. He does not stir. But his eyes, heavy-lidded, track her every step.