He could not feel the call of the wind in his blood.

Not as his hair was dancing violently to some rhythm he could not fathom, blocking his view. The
wind was a roaring scream in his ears.

He could remember hearing its song before he could ride its currents. When he was wasting away,
with his wings being weak and useless; dead weight on his back. He had dreamt of flying both in
his sleep and in his waking hours, when he was seeing red, as the stench of burned flesh filled his
nostrils. The moment darkness claimed him, when he could no longer stand the pain, when the
sensation of his dying cells and of his hands decaying and wrinkling -soft skin turning to dry
leather- was unbearable, all he could do was envision himself flying away from his prison; from his
father. He could imagine a soft breeze on his face and the skies opening; cold rain soothingly
caressing his skin. Healing him. Baptising him to freedom. A gift from the Cauldron.

The skies had forsaken him now. There was nothing to cleanse him; to wash away the dried blood
from his skin. The world seemed lifeless. No sun. No moon or stars. The sky a dark grey, as dawn
was approaching. Velaris was silent; a city asleep. Gone were the lights. The Sidra river mirrored
the grey of the heavens, reflecting it on the mountains and dulling their striking red; sucking the
colour out of the world. Everything looked faded and dull; such a contrast to the crimson coating his
hands and face and drying on his hair.

He had gone too far that night, Cauldron damn him. He had crossed a line. But it was not the torture
that he minded. The screaming of his victims, the pleas and desperate promises, he had come to
terms with a long time ago.

They deserved it; every single one of them. Truth-teller was an extension of his soul, of his
subconscious and his deeply rooted fears; a channel for every bit of pain to be used and harnessed
instead of rotting away and consuming him until nothing but a cell remained. He was an artist with
his knife. Being at the other end of one had prepared him better than years or even centuries of
training. His father and brothers had tried to break him. Still, he had held on. They had melted him
but he had been made anew through fire and blood. He was a weapon made flesh, an instrument of
justice. His exterior made of diamond, beautiful and rough, contained a soul burning brighter than
the flames that forged him. Still, Azriel was not his father's blade. He had been born of nightmares
but had aligned with dreams. His Illyrian heritage felt distant, foreign, and yet he had never felt
more at home than with the two warriors that were now waiting in the House of Wind for his report.
The two Illyrian bastards that had become the only real family he had ever known. The family he
never thought he deserved. Protectors. Brothers. Friends.

a=He tried and tried but he could not feel it in his bloo

Numb. He was so numb.

. It faced a walled, winter-kissed garden in the back of the town house, the large windows peering
over the sleeping stone fountain in its center, drained for the season.