Chapter Text
Pain
Agonizing, heartbreaking pain was the first thing she remembered.
And burning. It crawled up her spine like fire through dry brush. She felt so heavy. A weight she didn’t recognize pressed against her back—alien and suffocating. Her body ached, her skin cold with sweat, her pulse thundering in her ears.
And then—voices.
Muffled, like underwater echoes. Man and woman.
“She’s not waking up.”
“I don’t trust this.”
“She could be as dangerous, even more so, than those things.”
“Did you get through to them? Hear from them?”
“No.”
Her muscles tensed before her eyes opened. Instinct overruled thought.
The moment her lashes lifted, the world slammed into her. Too bright. Too big. Too foreign. An impossible room carved of moonstone and obsidian, the ceiling high and arched, like a cathedral—but not holy, not like a church. There was magic here. Power. And—
Them.
Two figures stood over her. Her eyes were just small slits. One tall, black hair, broad and dark, shadows coiling at his shoulders like living smoke. The other—a woman, steel in her stance, long golden-brown hair braided down her back, eyes like molten flame.
Her breath caught. Her body screamed danger. And something deeper surged up. Terror. Grief. A void behind her thoughts, where memory should have been.
And then her eyes fully opened.
Brown. Deep and burning with confusion, pain, and something old, unknowing—something buried.
She looked straight at the man, with shadows whispering to him, her gaze sharp as a blade. They locked eyes.
“Where…” she croaked, out of breath, her voice shredded from screaming. “Where am I? What the—” Here eyes wild while she reached behind her, face in shock, fingers barely touching her wings. “What the hell?” she heard the panic in her voice, hands trembling.
The man moved closer. “Easy. You’re safe,” he said, voice calm. Measured. His shadow twitching. He was unreal, this was not real. “You crashed through—”
The woman didn’t hesitate. In a blink, she had spun him by the collar, yanked him toward the wall, slammed his back against the stone. With a warcry, she raised a trembling hand—and a silver sword from glowing, celestial light formed from nothing, summoned into her palm. She moved fast. Faster than either of them had expected. Then she really looked at him, with golden, glowing eyes.
Tall, still, effortlessly lethal — the kind of man who didn’t need to speak to command attention. His wings, gods wings, were massive, midnight-dark and scarred in ways that should’ve been illegal and intimidating… but somehow just made him more interesting.
His jaw was sharp and—delicious. His mouth—unfair. Like it had been designed to ruin a woman with a single smile. His hair was dark, silk curls she'd like to run her hands through. Those hazel eyes locked on her, assessing, interested, and the rest of the world had the audacity to keep spinning.
Her heart thudded once, twice—hard. Danger, whispered something deep in her bones. Delicious, whispered something else entirely.
And when he had spoken—voice low, rough velvet—she knew two things instantly:
And oh, his scent.
It hit her like a thunderclap—shadow, leather, amberwood—safe. Familiar. Like breathing in spring-crisp air. Comforting. It made her awake and dizzy with something she didn’t understand. And there was something else, something familiar yet unknown. Something that smelled like home.
He went still. Too still.
“Tell me,” she snarled into his face, her hand shaking. They were so close. “Tell me what the fuck is happening. Where the hell am I? Who are you? What did you do to me? Why…” she lost her words. “Why do I feel like I’m on fire?” Questions tumbling out of her.
“Put the blade down,” the woman warned, stepping forward. Her power coiled around her like white smoke. Tall. Regal. A quiet kind of lethal. A piercing, unflinching gray for eyes. Like tempered steel. The kind that didn’t soften when it saw blood. Her posture was perfect, her stare sharper than any blade, and there was something in her stillness that made even the air hesitate.
“Answer me!” the girl screamed between them, blade pressing so hard at the shadowman's throat that blood ran down to his collar.
“Easy.” Someone said, appearing behind the radiating woman in a blur of darkness and stars, his power crashing down like a tidal wave. The moment he stepped into the room, the air shifted. His eyes were the first thing she noticed. Violet. Striking. Intelligent. Too perceptive. Dark-haired, impossibly elegant, he carried himself like a ruler… or a predator. Maybe both. Definitely both. Every inch of him radiated authority, the kind that didn’t demand attention — it simply expected it.
If she was afraid of him, she didn’t show it. Not one bit.
“Who the hell are you people? What is this place?” she growled, the blade steady despite her shaking hand. “What the fuck are these—” she spread her wings instinctively, feathers brushing the walls, buckling “—things on my back?”
“Those things are massive wings,” the tall woman said sharply with a hard voice. “And you’re in the City of Starlight.”
Brown eyes snapped to her. The woman radiated challenge. Strength. Power. The stranger’s voice cracked, looking even more confused. “I don't have wings. I didn’t have —” she trailed off.
“You do,” the woman said. Her tone wasn’t cruel, it was unflinching. “Put the sword down.”
The newcomer's grip only tightened.
“I don’t know…” she whispered, panic clawing up her throat. “I don’t remember—” her breathing quickened, blade scaring the man even more. “I don’t fucking remember...”
The shadows around the handsome man began to pulse, not violently, but… protectively. He made no move to stop her.
“You’re safe,” darkness said, voice low. “I promise you.” His voice was calming, even though a blade was at his companion's throat. The woman's blade trembled. Her hair gleaming blue from the shadowman's siphons. She didn’t believe him.
Power brushed against her mind like silk—and steel, and darkness.
Pain.
She screamed. Her body seized. The woman wavered on her feet, the sword in her hand flashed silver, disappearing as she clenched her hands to her head.
Something inside her—**her mind, her soul, her memories—**felt like they were being scraped raw, pushing at her core.
“Stop!” she bellowed, closing her eyes hard. Her voice wasn’t just sound—it carried force, ancient and sharp.
Her wings flared as her body released a wave of light. Not a dome. Not a bubble. A shield exploded outward.
A shockwave of raw, psychic energy sent the two strangers coiling backwards—and even the shadow male who she had by the collar slammed into the wall again, knocking him to his knees.
The walls trembled.
The windows cracked.
The chandelier above them swayed.
She stood alone, gasping, eyes glowing golden—wide and wild. She stared at her shaking hands. Her wings trembled, trying to fold, but she didn’t know how.
She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t think.
Fear coiled off her. But not just of them. But of herself.
“Don’t touch me,” she rasped. “Don’t come near me. Stay away.” Her hands splayed outward.
The man in black held up his hands slowly, dark power simmering beneath his skin. “Take a breath.”
But his expression wasn’t angry.
It was… stunned. And afraid.
Not of her. But of what she might be, what he saw in her mind. He tried once more.
Pain etched all over her face.
“Make it stop! Fucking STOP! NO!” Her eyes, those deep, unknowable brown eyes, locked on his violet—
The shadowman struck, albo meeting nose, and she collapsed, knocked out cold.
Darkness moved faster than thought, catching her before she hit the ground.
For a moment, the man in black simply held her.
Her body felt fragile, shivering. But the raw power radiating off her skin was unlike anything he’d ever felt. Not Illyrian. Not High Fae. Not even Starborn.
It was other.
His heart pounded.
“What is she?” The steel eyed woman whispered, eyes fixed on the unconscious woman, her wings, the shield made of light and force and fury.
The violet eyed man didn’t answer. His eyes tracked every flicker of the stranger’s power. Every twitch of the shield's remaining magic. Every ripple of it in the air.
“She’s... not from here,” he said quietly. “And if that’s the kind of powerful shield she can make without thinking... then we have no idea what else she’s capable of.”
The shadowman sat on the floor, dazed, bloody throat. Shadows curled anxiously around his arms. Reaching.
Steel kissed eyes stared at where the blade had been. Eyes distant.
Darkness himself looked down at the unconscious woman in his arms. Her wings lay crumpled behind her, black feathers shimmering with iridescent blue. A blue that reminded him of someone's siphons.
“She didn’t come here by accident,” he murmured. “I think you were right, Az. It must be connected. She came here... because of something. Or someone.”
'Az' raised from the floor, walking slowly towards the stranger. He looked at her face. Her freckles were smudged with ash. Her lips parted slightly, brow still furrowed even in sleep.
He pulled her from The High Lord's arms and walked towards the bed. Putting her down, careful with her breathtaking and broken wings.
He didn’t know who she was.
Didn’t know where she came from, or what kind of magic had ripped her into their world. She had just had him. By his throat. Him. Disbelief had him hard.
But as his shadows coiled protectively around her, curling like cats at her shoulders…
…he felt it. A sinking feeling in his gut. A voice, quiet and ancient, whispering in his bones he did not understand.