Chapter Text
A twisted tree. A sign, swinging in the wind. The musty scent of ale, stale cloth, rot, and autumn. Raucous laughter swelling over the crackle of embers. Glasses clinking and the scrape of chairs on flagstones. There is warmth and grime, people moving against each other in dark closeness. The humidity of bodies at the end of the day, seeking refuge out of the cold by the fire.
And there he waits.
His shadows coil about him, swelling out of him like a perpetual ink blot that’s ever growing and shrinking. He is with them, but not. He is in the crowd, but apart from it. Those beautiful, cruel shadows whispering, always whispering. Spilling secrets in one's ear like honey. Can you hear them? They say she's close, so close. She is here, her scent is here.
Shadowsinger - the Shadowsinger is waiting in the darkness for you.
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Kia jolted awake. What in the Gods name was that? Groggy, and not yet fully awake, Kia fumbled around in the darkness trying to orientate herself. Roof, night time, Carpathia, Autumn Court... the mark. Shit. The mark. The job.
Suddenly awareness crashed into her. She had fallen asleep on a fucking hunt.
Scrambling in the dark, Kia looked for her binoculars. Finding them discarded at her feet, she hastily leveled them at The Fanhill Brothel a few streets over. She levelled them on the open balcony doors three floors up, and sighed with relief. He was still there. The mark was still ufully engrossed in the arms of the lovely Cressida.
Kia couldn't have been out that long then, but still - she reprimands herself for being so darn reckless. Falling asleep mid hunt, was so, so amateur.
A memory dawns on her of another hunt, this time at the start of her training. Kia had drifted off whilst tracking a Hybern spy across the forest border to the Dawn Court. It was a simple job really, except she had been out the night before, had a few drinks, maybe sworn that she could drink any assassin at the guild under the table...
She had closed her eyes for no more than a second before she had lost the mark. Aralm, the assassin tasked with shadowing her early training soon discovered her. He had promptly hauled her arse back to the Sett of Daggers to answer to Larak directly, before winnowing out to finish the job himself. Larak had punished her himself personally that night, with his eyes a blazing fury of rage and frustration. Centuries later and she could still hear the crack of the whip, feel how it pinched and tore at her skin as he struck again, again, again. He had not been forgiving.
Kia shook herself from the memory, wrapping her jacket around her to protect against the cold evening breeze. She raised her gaze to the balcony once more to check on the mark. Blimey, this bastard had stamina - what was it, a good couple of hours now? In any other situation, she might silently congratulate him, but right now, right now she was fed up. No doubt she would have to pay Cressida double this rate for all the time he was taking. After all, she would be wanting to move onto her next customer soon. Kia scanned her eyes down to the barely visible back alley to whorehouse. Thankfully the guards of the fifth stationed outside hadn't changed shifts yet. So long as the mark left within the next 30 minutes she could still complete the kill as planned. Else that was another guard to bribe. If needs must, she mused, she could always find another alley on the mark's route back to the textile quarter. A robbery at knifepoint gone wrong, who would suspect? She sighed into the wind. This kind of killing was lazy, even by her standards. She was better than paying off guards, backstreet butchery before cutting and running.
Of course, Kia had her reasons. Three days she had to complete this job, and she be damned if she missed the Hallows Eve Solstice in the Autumn capital in order to stake out some lesser officer in the fifth unit of the Autumn Guard. Either way, there was nothing she could do but wait. No point busting into a packed whorehouse on a Friday night when most of the battalion had decided to spend their time and wages there.
Kia sighed and let herself fall back against the roof, the cold edges of the tiles gutting into her spine. A flicker of agitation swept over her wing muscles at the imposition and she adjusted her position. She really did need to stretch her wings out once this was over. It had been far too long since she had taken to the skies and left her troubles in the streets.
Starring up at the stars, she allowed herself a moment to ponder the dream just now. The dreams had been getting worse recently, but this was so tangible, so vivid like she could almost feel his shadows curling around her skin - her very flesh ghosted by his invisible touch.
The Shadowsinger had felt more real tonight than ever before.
Azriel had been appearing in her dreams for as long as she could remember; at first, he was a mirage, no more than a shapeless phantom of mist and fury. But with time, sleep offered her stolen moments of his life in fragments and pieces, revealing night by night his life over the centuries. The Shadowsinger felt so close to her after all these years, like a second self-wandering this earth outside of her body, as she shared in his pain and frustrations as if they were her own.
Their lives appeared in parallel, but always divergent. When she spent her last winter solstice on a hunt, she had dreamt of him sat around a table with his makeshift family, brooding and silent. Kia knew all their faces, knew all their names - Rhys, Feyre, Cassian, Mor... Strange how their faces felt as real to Kia as those in her own brothers and sisters of the guild.
Yet there was loneliness, a kind of isolation in this male that harkened to Kia's own soul. They were both forever in company but perpetually alone, at least in the ways that often mattered most. On her darkest nights, Kia had told herself that one day she would seek him out. She would occasionally track his footsteps if the fates brought their paths closer together, had even bumped into a few of his 'family' over the years by accident ... but something always held her back from approaching him. Like some dreams were too precious to touch. The one good dream she had to hold on to.
Pondering the details of the dream she had just stirred from, something nagged at Kia. She couldn't fight the feeling that she had seen that image of the sign with the twisted tree blowing in the breeze before. A twisted tree. Why was it so familiar?
A commotion on the street below abruptly stopped Kia from pursuing this line of thought and brought her attention back to the task at hand. Job now, think later. Stretching out the worsening knots in her shoulders, Kia raised her line of sight once more to the balcony. It seemed the mark had finally reached his natural point of endurance and was disentangling himself from Cressida at this very moment. Collecting the clothes he had strewn by her bed, he appeared to make a break for the door.
A feline smile spread across her lips. Excellent, Kia thought, time to go play.
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Kia had finished the job a whole two days earlier than expected, and quite frankly, she was in no rush to trundle on back to Larak so that he could give her another shitty assignment. At leats, not with the city all decked out for Hallows day. There was a festive spirit in the air, jack lanterns hung in shop fronts and the scent of spiced cider hung ripe on the air. In all her centuries she had never been able to spend the solstice in Carpathia, to see the famous light festival. So why not wander the city a bit, explore, soak in the atmosphere this once? The night was the perfect time to walk the streets, few people stared to closely at this hour of revelry and merriment, which suited her. She just wanted to be an observer - a face in the crowd as the evening's spectacle unfolded.
She rounded a street, her hood pulled up close around her face, weaving through the throngs of night-time merrymakers. Sidestepping, she quickly dodging a gaggle of drunken souls helplessly trying to hold each other up as the existed a nearby tavern. Moving back, Kia's eyes fixed on the inns' sign. A twisted tree. The Broken Oak Inn. She had seen it before. It was an inn near the city gates, she had passed it on her way into the city.
But if she had seen this but hours previously through the eyes of another, perhaps, perhaps... was it possible he - the Shadowsinger - might be here in Carpathia? The thought clanged through her. Surely, it was not possible. How many centuries had their lives passed by seamlessly in tandem, parallel but never colliding? The fates had never brought them so close.
Before she could second guess herself, Kia pushed the inn door and stepped in off the street.
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The scent of sweat and beer hit her as she angled her way into the Broken Oak. Groups of Fae gathered in groups, occasionally bursting into racous laughter. Glasses overflowing with amber liquid clinked as they were raised in honour of the Hallows celebrations. It was just how she dreamt it. Approaching the bar, Kia took the stool nearest the door and secured her hood round her face and shielding it in shadow. She rattled through her mental list of jobs she had performed in the city. Did she have any enemies in Carpathia? Walking the streets was one thing, showing her face in public and lingering was another. Especially with the barracks so close, she could not afford a commotion. Kia resolved that she would not be staying long enough to find out, she just wanted to satisfy her curiosity.
From her aspect, she had a good view of the room. She scanned it between adjusting herself on the bar stool. Her eyes jumped between faces at each of the tables.
He wasn't here. Kia's heart sunk, a voice within her cursed her stupidity, her blooming hope now wilting in her chest. Of course, he wasn't here. It was a fool's hope to think he was.
The barkeep approached. 'What can I get you, love?'
Kia gritted her teeth against the last word. 'Sorry, I think I have the wrong bar'.
Rising from her stool, Kia muttered her apologies in the barkeep's direction before turning to leave dejectedly. Wrapping her cloak about her and cradling the disappointment in her chest, she made her way to the door.
As she prepared to leave the muggy warmth of the inn, a flicker of something in the dark recesses of the inn caught Kia's eye. She could have sworn that the shadows surrounding that table were moving. It took her another moment to see him through the gloom. Azriel. Though his facial features were somewhat hidden by the expansion and contraction of those coiling shadows, Kia could recognise his presence in a moment. How could she have missed him before? His sharp, cold yet infinitely beautiful features; those wings of midnight tucked tight against him.
His stare was fixed on a figure sat opposite him. As the door behind her to the street swung open and the breeze of cold night air blew through the inn, the Shadowsinger's companion suddenly started and looked anxiously towards the door. Kia jolted in involuntary recognition. It was the guard from the brothel. The one she paid off. Shit, this did not bode well.
Confused, but loathing to step away from this man who had plagued her dreams, Kia was suddenly acutely aware that she was standing stock still and directly in their line of sight. Whatever this was, this meeting, her recent involvement with the guard at the Fallhill was too much of coincidence to linger. Something in her gut uprooted her, and Kia dived out onto the street.
But still, the question plagued her thoughts: What in God’s name was the Shadowsinger doing here with him?
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'This was stupid. I shouldn't be doing this, I should leave.' Kia muttered beneath her breath.
Every bone in Kia's body told her to go, to race from this place and the danger that lingered for her in the dead of this night, but something rooted her to the ground. She had to see him, if just for a little while longer. She brushed off her own darkness, her own shadows which called her further into the alleyways and stood watching.
Kia had positioned herself down a neighboring side alley shortly after leaving the inn, watching the entrance to the Broken Oak like a hawk. She decided that she had to see him, just one more time. Then she would go back to the rooftop on which she has stashed her belongings and start her journey back to the Sett, she swore. She would throw herself into her work, take whatever nasty job Larak threw at her, block out the dreams and get on with life. But for the sake of one night, she had to know.
It was less than twenty minutes before he appeared, slipping away from the Inn and down into the main street. She could have sworn for a moment that his face tilted upward towards her direction, but in a heartbeat, he had disappeared into a throng of the crowd moving through the main street.
Kia slowly stalked from the recess she had been hiding in and silently moved through the pack of the night-time ramblers, observing him from a distance. Though largely hidden beneath a cloak, his face obscured, Kia could feel the whispers of his strength in the way his shoulders held themselves. There was preciseness in his step, like every move he made was conscious, thought out, purposeful. He moved a creature of the night. Blink and he would have gone, disappeared into blackness.
Distracted in her observations, Kia nearly started when he suddenly altered course. She had been following him towards the city gates, toward the river, when he suddenly broke from the crowd and darted down a side alley. Picking up her pace, Kia moved to follow him, turning silently down the darkened alley. It took her eyes a second to adjust to the bloom as she stumbled on further in.
The blow caught her unawares.
No sooner had she entered the alley a body of shadow and muscle crashed into her, lifting her off her feet and into the alley wall. With the Shadowsinger’s blade at her throat, Azriel snarled.
'Who are you?'