Azriel can confidently say that all is well, which, due to its rarity, admittedly causes him some doubt. Enough has gone wrong throughout the course of his life that, were he to find utter peace itself in the Mother's halls, he would still look for danger.

He clears his throat and looks away from the window of Rhys and Feyre's manor on the Sidra. Outside, snow falls in gentle flakes, enough to entirely blanket the ground. The Sidra's frozen over, and some Fae are skating on it. One day, maybe, he will take her to do that. It is a bit romantic, is it not?

She stands across the room, laughing and talking quietly with Nesta and Feyre. Elain sits in the corner, eating sweets and ignoring Lucien next to her. The mating bond, wrong—it is a shock to him, but maybe that is because he cannot imagine treasuring the sort of love it grants. The sort of love he has with his mate.

He does not talk about it a lot. It is easier to be quiet, and in character. If he did discuss it, he expects to be mocked and teased. 'Azriel, opening up? Azriel, delving into discussions of love and self-realization?'

Well, yes. He spent many years alone. Of course he is self-realized. How could anyone suggest different?

Yet there is something to be said for the matter of his hands, for the matter of how scarred they are compared to hers, to Rhys', to everybody's. He forgets them easily with her, that is the very thing, the very issue. His shadows love her. They dance, they sing, whisper in his ear small poems they have scavenged from the world, or poems they have taken apart and pieced together with other poems to create something new, something more her-specific.

But there is an understanding with her: quiet, peaceful understanding. They do not need words. Not with the bond in place, not even before it snapped in.

She looks beautiful. Beautiful, angelic, divine, like something the Mother crafted herself with precise hands, intent on every small particle that makes up her being. For her, he would kill. For her, he would die.

He breathes in the air slowly—hot cocoa, roasted chestnuts, chicken, bread, wine, sweets, the smell of the evergreen tree and wreaths. The room is altogether filled with both sight and sound (including Cassian shaking all the presents beneath the tree to try to figure out what they are). But he sees nothing but her. He does not require the sight of anything else.

He crosses the room to her. 'My love,' he begins, offering his hand. For once he does not wince, or second think. 'Let us take a look in the wine cellar?'