Page 7 of Touch of Oblivion (Woven in Time #1)

Azyric

W e arrive in silence in my wing of the castle.

The walls rise around us, formed of black stone that glimmers with the subtle glow from the sconces lining the hall.

It may not be beautiful, but it was built to withstand a siege, not to impress–unlike the decadent spires of the vampires or the gilded courts of the fae.

Its bones are older than I am, shaped by hands that valued keeping our kind alive for centuries to come.

Survival over ornamentation. Duty over desire. Logic over emotion.

Each day blurs together under that regime.

Her presence here is a ripple of disruption in our careful order and it won’t go unnoticed.

Golden-green eyes framed by full, dark lashes stare up at me as I release her from my careful grip.

I can’t help but appreciate the fullness of her pink lips and the cupid’s bow on top, while this close to her.

Even the contrast of her fair skin against the long, dark waves of her hair are enchanting.

I clear my throat and step back, trying to hide the anger welling up within me as my shadows refuse to disentangle completely from her.

My lip lifts, not quite a snarl, but the edge of one. I don’t know what unsettles me more: their disobedience…or her sudden indifference to it.

Less than an hour ago she recoiled from my shadows, as if they were flames that would scorch through her skin and leave nothing behind.

Now, she stands tall with her chin raised, refusing to break my gaze as one wraps lazily around her wrist. It practically strokes her skin and she doesn’t so much as blink twice or look at it.

Why?

The shift is too sudden. Too complete. More tendrils dance around her, hovering there like they’re reverent or curious.

I clench my jaw to keep from reacting further.

Other wraiths–young, foolish, weak ones–lose control of their shadows often. Their emotions are too overwhelming for them to control, allowing their shadows to bleed out into the world like an open wound .

But I am not them. I am their king.

I have never allowed a shadow to break through my control. Not once in all my years, even as a child.

Until her…until now.

I take a deep, steadying breath and center the chaotic emotions she’s churned up within me.

She’s just a lost woman.

She’ll be out of my life by tomorrow, I’m sure.

With a flick of my wrist, the shadows recoil finally. They retreat and sink back into the tattoos on my skin. Inked thorns and smoke bloom darker across my arms as if drinking them in, absorbing the writhing mass like it belongs there.

Her lips part as she watches them disappear, and my brow furrows at the emotion in her wide eyes.

Awe?

It can’t be.

I should feel settled to have them under control again, but I don't.

It’s too much to process, so I tuck it away and turn on my heel. Only then, when those haunting, lost eyes stop looking at me do I feel the tightness in my chest loosen.

I don’t have a plan for what I’ll do with her now that she’s here, but I can’t shirk off my duties as king to puzzle it out. Later, after my council meeting, I will figure it out.

I move forward and immediately the sounds of her soft footsteps follow.

“Why do your shadows keep touching me?” she asks quietly, her voice more curious than accusing. “Are you telling them to?”

The questions land too close to the nerve I’ve been trying to ignore.

My voice is clipped in response, not wanting her to know how egregious of an error it is. “They respond to threats.”

A pause stretches between us.

Just above the hush of our steps she softly murmurs, “Yes, I’ve been quite threatening with my lack of clothing and knowledge, I’m sure.”

It’s said with a quiet flicker of dry wit, the kind that slips out before someone has time to think better of it.

I glance back at her. Not a full turn, but enough to see the way she keeps her chin lifted as she glances around. If she truly doesn’t know who she is, I have no doubt that she’s beginning to find pieces of herself. Small, sharp ones.

She doesn’t even realize the danger of that yet. Maybe I don’t, either.

We cross through the final hall that separates my quarters, the quiet rhythm of our steps the only sound beneath the stone archway. The walls narrow here, drawing toward the council chamber where I know they will be awaiting my arrival.

The voices within are low and clipped as I approach the threshold.

“How soon do you think he will want to launch our attack? We should do it tomorrow and keep the humans on the defensive.”

“We need more bodies to join our combat force.”

“If we’re to fight with the other factions, we need to learn to fight together.”

All things I’ve heard before but that have never been spoken directly to my face. It’s interesting, the bold opinions they have when I’m not there to oppose them with my own line of questioning in response.

They think they have all the answers.

I may be a king, but I will not force anyone to join our combat force if they don’t wish to.

The council wants to make decisions like launching an attack tomorrow, despite our smaller numbers compared to the other factions, and they apparently want to learn to fight alongside the other factions before it.

They’re all walking contradictions of each other and it’s tiresome.

I quickly school myself to a mask of indifference and steel my spine. They need a king who sees all of these variables and makes logical considerations before implementing decisions that impact all of our people.

No one announces my arrival, but they don’t need to.

As I step into the chamber, the room falls into stillness. Twelve sets of eyes lift, a dozen gazes sharpening like drawn blades. I let the silent judgment roll off my back.

I may have been born into this role, but I’ve more than proven that they’re all incapable of taking my throne from me, after one of them tried.

He no longer walks the shadows of this world.

I continue toward my seat at the head without pause, expecting to hear the sound of her steps following, but I don’t.

As I reach my chair at the far end of the obsidian table and take my seat, I find she still stands at the threshold.

Her arms are wrapped around herself beneath the oversized coat, the hem barely brushing the tops of her thighs.

The borrowed material does little to hide the littering of bruises beginning to form along her warm skin.

Every face in the chamber watches her now. Calculating and assessing.

An uninvited variable placed into the center of a council that does not welcome uncertainty.

After how she handled the kings, I expect her to be tense or reactive, but what strikes me is how quiet she becomes.

She doesn’t tremble or make a sound, yet there’s a weight to the way she stands, as though every gaze in the room presses down harder upon her than gravity itself.

It’s like her presence folds inward, managing to make her appear so small.

This version of her is nothing like the woman whose eyes I watched blaze from the safety of my shadows as she challenged the other kings.

A flicker of something uncomfortable settles low in my chest at this change within her. Not quite guilt, but something adjacent. It feels jagged and is wholly unwanted.

My lips thin as her eyes drop from me to the stone floor.

I should have made preparations for her first. I should have ensured she was dressed appropriately, at the minimum. I should have considered what it would mean to bring someone like her here without warning, without context, without any protection from the eyes that now dissect her.

But I didn’t, and that misstep grates.

I rise slowly, letting the scrape of my chair against the stone purposefully draw some attention from her. My hand lifts in a silent command toward one of the attendants waiting in the shadowed alcove.

“Bring a chair for our guest,” I say, voice flat and quiet, but edged with enough steel to carve through the tension lingering in the chamber .

The attendant bows without a word and disappears down the corridor.

No one else speaks. No one moves.

They know better.

Still, I feel it, the subtle shift rippling through the council as they absorb the moment.

They’re watching her, of course, but they also watch me.

Trying to read into the smallest gesture with the sharpest glance.

They take note of this break in protocol and are tucking it away to use against me in the future, but I don’t care.

I let them.

My gaze returns to her. She still hasn’t moved or met my gaze again. She just stands there, silent and unmoving, caught between shadow and scrutiny like she doesn’t know which one will reach for her first.

The attendant returns quickly, pushing a simple wooden chair across the stone with far too much noise. He places it just within the threshold near her, well behind the arc of the main council table where we all sit.

A placeholder for an outsider. An afterthought.

I exhale slowly through my nose, trying to diffuse the anger that simple action inspires within me. “The chair will go next to me. Move it.”

Several of the council members gasp as a few heads snap toward me, others toward her. Even the attendant hesitates for a beat before moving it again, dragging the chair forward with careful, uncertain steps until it rests at my right side.

Only then do I glance at her again.

She watches me now, and the firelight catching in the wideness of her eyes gives them a more golden, molten hue.

Surprise ripples across her features as her lips part with a slight inhale.

It lands in me with far too much precision.

There’s no logical reason for the satisfaction I feel in seeing that on her face. No strategy that explains why the faint softening of her shoulders matters to me, but it does, and that truth coils tightly in my chest like a fist.