Unreal, Unearthed | Azriel x reader

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE 

Azriel's POV

She had first come back to him in a dream; haunting and prophetic. A warning from out of time.

Azriel sleeps beneath some ill-fated sky as the scene unfurls from the dark corners of his memory:

The sky is a thunderstorm, heat swelling beneath the skin's surface as the hydrangea clouds begin to gather in hordes like some savage, celestial army.

Some cruel and ancient voice calls out to him from the unending wilderness. It's laden with malice and dark intent as it whispers to him on the westward wind.

Azriel.

In his dreams the storm-streaked clouds loom thunderous and ominous on the darkening horizon as midnight encroaches on the Illyrian Steppes. The road ahead of him is muddy and foxgloved and shrouded in a heavy blue-darkness that swallows everything in its wake.

Drawing peace from the shadows.

Azriel finds himself wading into the stretches of wild, emerald forest.

Searching.

For what, he isn't entirely certain.

There's this ache. It's a dull kind of agony that cuts through his chest and makes a home in the spaces between his ribs.

And there is a girl.

She's screaming into the vacuous twilight beyond and the stars seem to flicker in and out of existence each time the light of the silvery moon catches in the white light of the storm.

Uncertain feet carry him over the threshold of the encampment and every now and again his feet feel a tremor in the muddy earth-- a recollection of the girl he couldn't save.

The atmosphere is oppressive and the acrid smell of smoke and rain linger there, clinging to the half-eroded stone and decaying wood.

In another life, this place had been his home. Warm and breathing itself to life with the symphonies of love and longing. But this place had been abandoned long ago. Now it lies desecrated, amongst the climbing ivy and dying jasmine.

The cabin breathes an unsteady breath each time the wind catches in the hearth.

It's aching and heaving like every breath might be its last.

Azriel's shadows convulse and contrort violently like ghosts against the walls of the cabin. The world goes dark for a moment and the war drums echo in the night air.

Something ancient and long dead calls his name.

Azriel.

Through the blanket of the dark all that he can see are her eyes, glinting and silver in the unforgiving twilight.

It's then in the light of the waning moon that his eyes fall onto her form; she's bathed in golden light, she's soaked to the skin and her nightdress clings to her like a shadow. She stalks towards him in flashes of bronze and gold and ivory.

She looks half-divine.

In this light, lithe and brutal, she looks almost holy.

There is something wild and sacred in her eyes. Some strange melancholic beauty that brings him to his knees.