A Court of Light and Fire (ACOTAR)

Chapter Thirteen

The following weeks were a blur of meetings with Amren to control whatever the light-rays were, never-ending muscle aches and the burning desire to throw certain High Lords (Rhysand) off the nearest mountain when he asked if she would like to take a stroll through Velaris with him (the answer was no, she had just finished training with a particularly irritating Cassian and wanted nothing more than to curl up with a good book that she would fall asleep on only minutes into reading).

Celeste had taken to flight like a Cassian to beef jerky, coming so far as to bet Azriel she could do a cooler flip than him. Azriel took it even further, 'the all or nothing ways of the Illyrian', according to Cassian, and said if he won, Celeste had to read his favourite book.

In some uncanny twist of fate, Azriel won, but Celeste still argued it only came down to Azriel's bias, since their skill was so equally matched.

The male had kept his promise, and only two days later, an annotated copy of A Court of Light and Fire  - an apparent romance (who would've thought the evil, nationally feared Shadowsinger of the dreaded Night Court was a romance reader?) published magically chapter by chapter as the author wrote it - appeared on her nightstand.

When Feyre, Rhysand and Cassian disappeared on a mission to the Prison the next day, leaving the girl with hours of free time with the lack of training sessions, Celeste took it upon herself to track down the shadow singer - which wasn't as hard as one might have guess due to the little shadow friend that refused to leave her side since it had first entwined itself around her finger.

'Take me to your master, kind shadow,' she bowed mockingly to the darkness as it zipped away in front of her. Pausing at a corner, the shadow seemed to be waiting for her to catch up before it hurried down the flight of stairs and led directly to the shadow singer's office.

'When is the next chapter of that book out?' Celeste burst into the room, and the shadow singer glanced up over his nose at the girl.

'The fun is in the uncertainty, Celeste,' he tugged the round glasses from his face, tidying his stack of papers before moving to sit on the couch by the window. She paced in the middle of the room, sharing all of her theories with the male of who the newly turned Faerie girl might end up with. Azriel only sat intently by the window, watching Celeste talk with a small smile adorning his lips.

She paused to regain her breath, and felt a small rush of affection swell in her chest. Looking over at the Illyrian, the feeling pulsed again, and she realised just how grateful she was to have a friend who listened to her as honestly as he did.

'And I just need to know if she ends up with him,' she breathed, plonking onto the seat beside him, fingers rubbing her temples. She sighed, leaning back against the window to look at the male.

Azriel paused for a moment, watching her with that same intensity he would a letter he could not quite decipher, or his opponent on the battlefield look, as she liked to call it. 'They grew closer in the previous chapters,' he decided, rising to place his glasses back on his cheeks and sat on his chair once again. 'I have high hopes that it will work out for them in the end.'

Celeste sighed again, and moved to sit on the armchair opposite from the Illyrian's desk. 'I hate being in the dark about these things,' she watched the clouds moving in the distance as her voice dropped to a murmur. She could have sworn the sky grew darker, but not in the usual sense of the Night Court's namesake.

Azriel took the glasses from his face again, hair ruffled as though he had been running his fingers through it relentlessly over the past hours.

It quite frankly made him look adorable.

Well, as adorable as a 6-foot-tall, extremely muscular male with ginormous wings and swarming shadows could get.

Which was pretty darn cute in her eyes.

She felt that rush of adoration again as she admired her friend. How similar the pair was, but so unalike in the same breath.

'Is this about the Court of Nightmares visit?' Azriel saw right through her facade. He always managed to do that somehow. Perhaps in honing a skill so effortlessly, one could recognise the flaws when presented with the same mask on another. Hesitantly, she let the smile drop from her face. Celeste nodded. 'You don't have to come, Celeste,' Azriel rose to stand on the other side of his desk, only two metres from the girl now. 'Rhysand said-'

'What Rhysand said is irrelevant,' she cut him off sharper than she intended, but met his gaze unyieldingly once more. 'You and I both know there is no choice when it comes down to me and my sisters.' She sighed, but always knew the decision she would make in the end. 'At least one of us three needs to know what's going on, to have some plan in place for us.' What she didn't say was that she needed to make the plan herself, planned to keep her other sisters out of this mess entirely even if it meant putting herself in the midst of the chaos for them.

She had done it before, and had not regretted her decisions even once. And she would do it again in a heartbeat. At the end of the day, her love for her sisters overwhelmed any ounce of fear she could ever feel, and that made it more worthwhile than any extra years this new life would bring.

Even if it meant she had no more time with her loved ones. No more time with her new friends.

Azriel sighed, observing the girl for a moment before walking to the window. Instead of sitting on the ledge as she expected he would, the male unlocked the glass panes, and extended a hand out to the girl behind him.

'What are you doing?' She stood from the chair, ready to grab him away from falling into the air, but chuckled as she remembered he had wings right there on his back.

'Fly with me?' Is all he responded, extending his hand further out to meet Celeste's. She peered out of the window, then back at the male's hand, before letting her fingers interlock with his own calloused hand.

'Please don't let me fall or I'm bringing you down with me, bat boy,' she glared up at the Illyrian. For the first time, he let go of the restraint he held on the smile he always seemed to suppress, and his broad grin flaunted the small dimples - dimples - in his cheeks, had his eyes so bright she could see her own reflection in them.

'It's not Cassian you're talking to, Lightsinger,' he took a step closer to the edge, chuckling as his grip tightened on her evidently smaller hand. She took the step with him. 'You don't need to ask me twice.'

~~~~

A/N:

The grind has begun once again.

I hope you enjoy the subsequent chapters 😎 See you in the next one! Charlotte🤍