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nestasgalpal · 3 years

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The Voyage of the smuggler [Emeriel fanfic]

Part 1

Summary: Rhysand has been killed by his enemies from Hewn City, and Feyre has died with him because of a secret pact between them no one knew about. Keir, Rhysan’s only male relative, has inherited the crown of the Night Court and the High Lord’s magic, and he is taking revenge on each and every member of Rhysand’s Inner Circle one by one. Azriel’s been taken, and Emerie has only one chance to save him before he is executed in two days.

Warning: Angst. Like... a lot.

A/N: I have trouble expressing feelings in English and I’m not sure if a few prepositions were well used or not, so sorry in advance.

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Emerie

The sun was rising behind the tall Illyrian Mountains, their tops still covered with a snow veil, the last remains of winter.

Emerie run as fast as her feet let her to her shop, in the northern part of the camp. She had no time to waste, everything had to either be set into motion -if the letter contained good news- or stoped, if all hope was lost. The night before she had been called to the new Lord of the camp’s tent only for him to tell her, with the cruelest of smiles adorning his face, that Azriel -”the bastard spymaster” he had called him- had been found, taken, and imprisoned.

Emerie’s knees almost failed her when she heard his words, but she was strong, she had lived in one of the most inhospitable places on Prythian for over 500 years; she had endured the worst of pains when her wings were clipped, and she would walk out of this male’s tent without giving him the satisfaction of looking affected. Even if she was, in fact, shattered to pieces.

“We are not married”, she kept telling herself. She felt guilt consuming her when she thought about it the first time, right after the Camp’s Lord warned her. So she kept doing it. The previous night, as she waited for the sun to come out again, that was the only thought resonating in her head. “And now, we never will”.

They were not married, that’s why Keir’s soldiers had left her alone all those months: nobody out of the mountain range knew about them, and Illyrians hated Keir’s Darkbringers enough to not tell him. His reputation preceded him, and Emerie’s people didn’t think he would be much better to them than Rhysand was when he lived.

“We are not married. We are not mated”. Emerie could see her shop already, smoke from the chimney in her house, upstairs, fading away in the morning mist. Almost there...

At the time, to not bind themselves together had seemed like the best thing to do, but now, knowing he was doomed, the pain in her chest only grew every time she remembered that they had had a chance of accepting the bond and chose not to do it.

“For your safety”, he had said. And she had agreed.

Stupid, stupid Emerie. “What are you gonna do now?” she asked herself. She stumbled inside, pushing the door open with her shoulder, hurting herself, but not caring for it. “The letter opener, where was it?” she couldn’t recall where she had dropped it the last time she used it. She was getting nervous.

When Rhysand died, Keir sent a third of his Darkbringers to hunt the Inner Circle of the Night Court down, and they were all forced to split and run away in different directions. When Rhysand died, everything went so wrong so fast, Emerie hadn’t had time to properly say goodbye to any of them before she was left alone in Illyria.

They had found Amren first, and now it was Azriel’s turn.

Emerie opened the top drawer of the counter in her shop and groped for the dagger she kept there. The piece of paper burned in her hand, but she knew it wasn’t safe to read the message until she was alone. And since Nesta left, she was always alone in her shop.

She wasn’t a trained warrior, a gifted high fae or a powerful witch like they were, but she had been smart enough to act quickly and do the one thing the Inner Circle couldn’t do when they finally needed to: ask for help. Azriel and his friends had made too many enemies over the centuries, and when one of them finally killed their High Lord, their world crumbled down. Every single person they had ever wronged took the chance Lord Keir offered them and the witch hunt started.

And where could they go? Morrigan almost didn’t make it out of Hewn City, her power over its citizens reduced to nothing. Cassian and Nesta had disappeared in the cold and merciless Illyrian Mountains, and Azriel had vanished into his shadows, Cauldroun knows where.

Until they found him.

Emerie opened the letter with trembling hands. Keir’s coat of arms sealed the envelope. She hadn’t allowed herself to let her hopes up, she expected the worst from him. Her eyes devoured the words. “Azriel, bastard born, has been declared an enemy of the crown, and for his crimes...” no, not that. “Azriel the shadowsinger, was captured in the...” not that either. “The former spymaster of the Night Court’s crimes will be read to the public in the Great Hall of Hewn City, and executed the next morning by...”. The next morning? That was tomorow. That couldn’t be. When they got Amren, she was imprisoned for a month before her sentence was passed. Emerie started doubting her plan.

Her heart was pumping so hard she feared it would come out of her chest. She had to read two full pages of accusations against Azriel and graphic descriptions of the punishments he had been suffering already in his captivity and would endure until the moment his head was cut off. Keir, as they had warned her, never missed an opportunity to be cruel and to cause pain. That’s what she had been expecting, and where her hopes laid, so she put herself together and went through all of it until she finally found, at the end of the last paragraph, the sentence she had been waiting for.

“But yes, I do like to play the games you suggest, Illyrian, so I’ll offer you this: If you reach the doors of Hewn City’s Great Hall in the possession of this document before the Spymaster is executed tomorrow at down, I give you my word that the letter itself will serve as safe passage and the bastard will be free to go with you”.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Emerie couldn’t winnow nor did she know anyone who could and would be willing to help her. She couldn’t fly either, and Hewn City was too far to get there in a day just walking. But she had known that when she contacted another smuggler inside its walls of Hewn City, one she used to make deals with -one of many in her network of contacts- to deliver her message to Keir. She had a plan. She had a chance to save Azriel’s live, and she was going for it.

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Tagging: @illyrianwitchling @arin1030 @bookstantrash @mireillemystique @silvernesta @thatoddgirl777 @angrypotatofairy @thalia-2-rose

I’m basically tagging the people who said they would like to read this, so if you want to be included on the tag list or taken out let me know :)

#emeriel #emeriel fanfic #emeriel fanfiction #emerie x azriel #azriel x emerie #azriel #azriel acotar #emerie #emerie acotar

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nestasgalpal · 3 years

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The voyage of the smuggler [Emeriel]

Part 2

A/N: To the people who thought the last chapter had a lot of angst... sorry in advance. This is a long one.

*If you want to be added to the taglist let me know!

Azriel

Azriel’s cell under Hewn City hadn’t existed a year ago, when he was still the Spymaster of the Night Court. The space had been built in record time just for him, and the spymaster couldn’t help but wonder if Keir had given an order to create a personal nightmare for each member or Rhysand’s Inner Circle, or if it was just for him. The light was blinding and came from the ceiling. Not even his body could cast a shadow on the marble floor because of how intense it was. It felt like an endless noon, with the sun right above and not a shadow to be seen. The cell’s walls were not average either. They were not made of raw stone or bricks, it was a flat rock surface without any breaks or divisions where a tiny shadow could grow. He was absolutely powerless there.

“Maybe this is life’s way to punish me for my crimes” he thought. The white floor was so smooth he could get a glimpse of his own reflection. It was not neat, but he could still tell that his black hair was long enough to almost cover his eyes.

That’s what gave him the idea.

Azriel knew for sure it had been less than a day since they shove him inside of the cubicle. His whole body was tense, eager to get out before he had the chance of discovering the variety of tortures Keir and his subjects had planned for him. To take revenge on him. Azriel had known a day might come in which he had to answer for all the pain he inflicted on others, and he had been ready to endure it. But now that his destiny was so close, he felt scared. He hadn’t thought he would feel that way when death lastly approached him, but he did. Because he had dreamed of his own life ending many nights, but in his reveries, Rhysand and Feyre were alive, Amren was alive, Mor and Cassian were safe, and Emerie was still a stranger who had recently befriended Nesta Archeron.

He realized with horror that he hadn’t dreamed about his final day coming since they met. Not once had the urge of punishing himself with self-inflicted nightmares come to him since Emerie forced herself into his life with her loud arrogance and big presence. He could only look forward, to what the next day by her side might bring.

The bright light of his cell didn’t allow him to sleep, so he didn’t even get the chance of trying to imagine her in the scenario. That was probably for the best. Azriel didn’t want her to see him when his life was taken from him, even if her face was the one thing he wished to see before his eyes were closed forever.

Azriel had always understood balance. He thived from it. His power was not darkness, like many people assumed, but the mastering of shadows; those that came from both obscurity and light. He was sure darkness would come into his cell sooner or later. They had built new spaces to torture them, sure, but the protocol of Hewn City’s prison was sill the same. He only had to wait and it would come to him.

“For how long?” he asked himself. They kept Amren there for a month, but Keir’s people would probably hold him for a longer time just to enjoy torturing him with no hurry.

Vengeance upon him, what Keir had wanted from the moment Rhysand sittted on the Night Court throne’s for the first time and declared him his enemy instead of making him his mentor. Azriel, a bastard born and a lesser faerie having a bigger role in the Court’s politics than he did. He was above Keir, who was of royal blood, and that couldn’t be forgiven. Nor all the humiliations that came next.

Azriel stood up and walked around his cell. There was nowhere to sit or lay, so he had to “go for a walk” pretty often to avoid his muscles becoming sore. It was tiring, and he thought it could help him get some sleep. His wings were tied, but no one touched them further. They didn’t dare. His name still had power in the Night Court, battle-hardened soldiers flinched at the sound of it. He had a reputation, and even the people who found an imprisoned him were wise enough to be scared of the tied up and unarmed Illyrian shadowsinger.

Besides, if he stayed on the floor, he would eventually get bored, and when that happened, his thoughts went straight back to Emerie. Every moment he didn’t spend scheming a way out of the prison was invested into regretting their last encounter.

After a lifetime of chasing the wrong love, he found her, and barely a year after, they were forced to part. He could have proposed to her, but instead, he was the one who suggested never binding themselves together.

“For your safety” he had said. And she had agreed.

At least, he knew it had been worth it, because she was safe and out of this big mess Rhysand and Feyre’s death had led them into.

The loud steps of a prison guard on the corridor took him out of his trance. Azriel noted he was having too much trouble unlocking the three latches. He pushed the thick door open only enough to come inside. The male was armed to the teeth and held a bucket in one hand.

“For you” he threw it on the ground before Azriel’s feet, but the Illyrian had his stare fixed somewhere else, on the guard’s eyes, covered in shadows cast by his hood.

Azriel didn’t even had to think about it, his own instinct commanded the power in his veins to come out, the darkness that was supposed to protect the male’s eyes from the bright light of the cell, becoming his death sentence. His shadows weren’t just the union of light and obscurity, but the absence of both. They were voids shaped like black snakes with a life of their own, and they were now corrupting the male’s yes, covering them, getting inside, feeding themselves with his flesh and absorbing his life into the nothingness they were.

He died before he had a chance to scream, and the shadowsinger was there to hold his body so he didn’t make any noise when falling down. Still, he was not gentle when he dropped him on the marble floor and run out of his cell.

As soon as he stepped out into the corridor, he realized why it had taken the guard so long to open the door. The absence of light after so many hours trapped in a cube of white shine made him go completely blind. His eyes simply couldn’t see anything, not even perceive the walls around him. Azriel had to use his hands to grope for the stone partitions that formed the passageway.

“Where am I?” he didn’t know. He thought he had an idea of where his confinement might be taking place, but he didn’t recognize the texture of the walls around him. He didn’t know what way to go, and he hadn’t expected that at all. He was the Spymaster, he had been for almost 300 years now, and he used to know the space under Hewn City they used as a prison as the palm of his hand. “Where am I?”

He had to think quickly, because his options were narrower than he anticipated. And he hadn’t thought he had that many to start with. Keir had put a lot of effort into making sure he was confined in the appropiate space, because he had been in a room too well illuminated to let him find his shadows in it, and now he found himself in a corridor too dark to get a glimpse of light. If he remained near to the door, he could still gather a few shadows and send them to explore the labyrinth, but they would only go so far before the darkness was too vast for them to thrive.

But he couldn’t stay there for long either, or some other guard might go check on him and find him sitting next to the dead body on the floor. He couldn’t just go now, or he would get lost too soon to be worth it.

He needed to find the way out.

Azriel recoiled a few steps and sent his shadows to explore the way ahead. He could sense what they saw... endless walls, cold floors, and if he took three turns right, he would find... Mor? No, not her, but a familiar warmth that reminded him of his friend.

“Could it be Keir?”, he wondered; they were family, after all. No, he never reminded him of her. Their auras were almost opposites. This wasn’t Mor, but it was a feeling of safety that guided him in the darkness. Azriel was disoriented, and maybe that’s why he decided to follow what would stink like a trap if he hadn’t been so desperate.

His shadows couldn’t go far enough to tell him what was it three turns to the right that called him so badly, but he put his hands to that side of the wall, and started walking, trusting it blindly.

Only when he finally saw the orb on the floor, its silver light illuminating the space enough for him to distinguish its round shape against the rest of the tunnel, he recognized the Veritas. Mor’s family treasure had once belonged to her father. Azriel himself stole it from him and gave it to Rhysand. The last time he had seen it, it had been used to negotiate with the Mortal Queens, before the war.

The shadowsinger knew it was a trap, a piece put there by Mor’s father to play mind games with him. If he had learned anything from his missions during the centuries, it was that one should never, under any circumstances, take Keir for granted. Rhysand had thought he would be able to keep him in line if he opened up Velaris, and Caldroun knew how that had worked out for him.

Yet, the magical object had an aura so strong he couldhear it calling his name.

“Azriel, Azriel, Azriel”. It was a familiar voice. Azriel touched the orb, and a vision of the past projected into his mind without giving him the chance of resisting.

They were in Emerie’s bedroom, the snowstorm outside so dangerous she had offered him to stay for the night. They had been seeing each other for half a year, but they had never spent the night in the same house before. That night they had sex, and she made dinner for both of them. At first he thought they had been lucky Nesta was with Cassian, or elsewhere it would be the three of them having dinner in silence. Then, he remembered they only met in there when Nesta wasn’t around, so it was not a coincidence at all.

Emerie didn’t like silence, but she also hated small talk, and getting into deep conversations made her uncomfortable -At least with him. At least for now-, so when they didn’t know what to say, she would start talking about her childhood and all the good memories she treasured of the time. He had been afraid it triggered him, or it made her uncomfortable if he told her about his own past, but it didn’t, and she found the right way to mix his experience into the conversation with that dark humour of hers he enjoyed so much.

“You whiny bitch” she had called him that night. He knew a fire-related joke was coming, and a smile was already forming on his lips. “Oh, my dad set me on fire” she mocked “That’s nothing, Az. My dad...” she made a pause and pinched the bridge of her nose in a dramatic gesture, like she was trying to overcome a wave of emotion. All faked. “... My dad gave me the worst haircut I have ever seen when I was 17 years old”.

Azriel held his smile and put a comforting hand on her shoulder “Em, I...” he pretended he had no words to ease her pain. She pushed him away.

“You what?” she fake-cried. There were no tears on her face, but if she could cry on command, it would have been the perfect charade “You feel me? No you don’t! I was 17, and I looked so bad not a single boy asked me out for a year. At 17, Az! That’s like the most important age for dating”.

He thought she was funny. He thought her effort to make it easy for him to talk about his childhood without throwing a pity party for him was endearing. And she always made sure she wasn’t overstepping and hurting his feelings. She had finally mastered the fire jokes, after getting bored of the not-knowing-how-to-fly ones. Those had been the first ones she came up with, because, ironically, she couldn’t fly either.

“Em, I don’t even know what to say. I can’t even start to imagine what you went through. I mean, I can’t even remember what I was doing at 17″ He made a dramatic pause too, but his weren’t as good “Oh, wait, I was getting laid every night. Yeah, that’s why I can’t really feel your pain, sorry". He held her hand in his. He wasn’t wearing his gloves, she said she liked his scarred hands better. He didn’t believe it, but took them off every time anyway. “Maybe you should try sharing this story with someone who is ugly. Maybe they’ll know what to say”

“I’m never cutting my kid’s hair” she said. She was smiling, and he was too.

“Yeah, I’m okay with that. And if they want to cut it, I can probably do it better than you, anyway” he answered.

The room went silent. They looked at each other, suddenly serious. Azriel panicked, realizing the implications of his words. When he didn’t know what to say, the shadowsinger stayed quiet, in fear he would add the wrong thing and make things worse. So it was Emerie who said:

“Well, if you want your kids and my kids to be the same kids, you’ll have to do something about your friends who hate me”. Her voice was firm, not nearly as loud as it had been moments ago. He nodded and silence reigned in the room again. “I’m serious, Azriel. I would like to have a life with you, but... I’m not doing it unless I know I’m going to be a priority”

It was fair. She had complained about his friend’s co-dependency before, and he knew sooner or later she would bring it up again and he would have to either break up with her, or grow some balls and talk to them.

Azriel had done a good amount of unforgivable things in his lifetime. He knew that, and he had never tried to make excuses for it. After all he had been through as a child, he genuinely had trouble sometimes telling where the line was. And knowing he had already crossed it once, he thought his soul would be cursed forever, no matter if he never did it again or if he did it a hundred times over. At least he was useful, and his family loved him regardless.

He thought no other female but Mor would be able to see his darkness and embrace it, and that was why he had been pining for her for so many years. He had thought Morrigan was the only chance of love he would ever have. It was either her or solitude. But Emerie saw him, everything he had done to others, and still loved him somehow. The only thing she asked of hin in return, was the certainty that she would never be harmed or neglected even if Rhysand asked him to hunt her down, which was fair. She had wanted to know that he would always put her first, and no matter what the High Lord from the Night Court commanded, she would never suffer by his hand.

“He would never ask that from me”

“Still”

So he went to Mor and talked things out. He told her about Emerie and how deeply rooted his love for her was after less than a year of knowing her. He told her about the bond he had felt between them that night in her house, and how every fiber in his body had known he simply wasn’t capable of staying away from her, no matter what.

He then talked to Rhysand, who was his friend, but also his High Lord, and who could, technically, use his power over him to force him. Azriel was convinced Rhysand would never cross that line, but Emerie had asked for certainty, and he was going to give it to her. Rhysand had been happy to grant him his wish, and had been eager to celebrate his bond with Emerie. It had snapped for him, not for her. Azriel was not sure if it had actually fallen into place and she was being cautious, or if her fear for his job and duties in Court was so big it was the one thing preventing it from snapping for her.

Emerie and Nest had their onw party the night they all met to have dinner together in Velaris, and he didn’t mind her not attending, it was just onther one of Feyre’s endless fancy meetings. He thought there would be many more to come. The Inner Circle reunited and they drank too much while celebrating life, and happiness, and how lucky they all had been founding each other.

When the sun came out, Azriel was the one who found Rhysand’s body in the gardens.

Stabbed in the heart, his High Lord had been killed in a city that used to be safe. Inside his house. Cassian’s hungover had disappeared in less than a second when he saw Azriel carrying their friend inside the house and had run for Feyre. Their High Lady didn’t have a dagger forged in Hewn City coming out of her chest, like Rhysand did, but somehow she was dead too. Cassian was out of his mind, desperately wanting to get out of the city and go to his own house to make sure Nesta was okay, the bond pulling, but knowing his High Lord had been murdered, and he had a duty to attend. Watching him like that, so desperate, so lost and overwhelmed by feelings, made Azriel realize he couldn’t marry Emerie now. She still had a chance of having a normal life, and he wasn’t cruel enough to ask her to leave with him into exile, not knowing when they would be caught by the enemy. By his enemy, not hers. Not if they didn’t bind themselves together.

He took care of the bodies while the rest decided what their next move was going to be, because he already knew: to escape.

The the vision changed, and he was now seeing a letter. He knew the handwriting, it was Emerie’s. It was addressed to Keir. The piece of paper was folded on a familiar wooden desk, so he could only see Keir’s name and address on it.This wasn’t a memory of his own making, but if the Veritas was showing it to him, it must have been true.

Emerie sat on the desk and with a perfect trace, she flipped the paper and signed it at the end of the page. Then she put it inside an envelope, and sealed it with a wax seal Nesta had gifted her for her birthday.

The spymaster knew this game. He understood what Keir was trying to make by showing him the letter: creating doubt. He had used the technique on countless prisoners to get information from them, to drive them crazy. That’s how he knew it was working. Because he knew Emerie would never contact Keir, he would bet his life on it, on her innocence, even after seeing her hadwriting on it, her signature. But if the Veritas was showing it to him, it must have somehow happened.

How? Why would Emerie do such thing? There must have been an answer, a trick hidden inthe text he wasn’t allowed to read, even if he couldn’t come up with anything at the moment. He hoplessly wanted to believe in her.

He woke up numb, his wings still tied together, and alone back in his cell. The bucket the prison guard he killed had brought him was right where he had dropped it, but there was no trace of the body.

Azriel knew he was not making it out alive. What he didn’t know, was that Emerie was on her way.

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tagging: @illyrianwitchling @arin1030 @bookstantrash @mireillemystique @silvernesta @thatoddgirl777 @angrypotatofairy @azrielsgirl @thalia-2-rose

#emeriel #emeriel fanfic #emeriel fanfiction #emerie #emerie acotar #azriel #azriel acotar #emerie x azriel #azriel x emerie

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