At the End There Was You (Blue Fairytales, #1)

by Wendy Heiss

“Why would I be angry at you?”

“Many are.” He reached to push a strand of wild hair behind her ear. “So, y...

“I don’t know. No one ever told me anything. For as long as I lived, I followed their orders. Ate when they asked me to eat, slept when they asked me to sleep, only cried when they’d let me cry, laughed only when it was appropriate to laugh. Then they left and I didn’t know who to ask and no one would tell me anything.”

“Because you said it matters what we want, like, think, desire, love.” He smiled at her. He really smiled at her and brushed his fingers over her cheek. “Very well. You learn well.”

His hand stopped on her cheek, his thumb slightly grazing her bottom lip, and she briefly lost the ability to breathe. “They made me become something of fear. Something that only brings chaos and pain when I was incapable of inflicting either of them.”

“I see.” She truly did. Winter did not know the Azriel outside the Sanctum grounds; she didn’t need to, though, to know that he was none of the things he thought his parents had made him. “You believe me?”

Winter patted the space next to her, and he immediately sat down as if he’d not judged her for it not even a second ago.

Azriel squinted when he turned to give her a look. “They should be. It is hideous.” His hand shot forward and tangled in her hair,

“What if I want to disturb you?” Her pulse went on a run again. “I cannot allow you to do that. The lives of many rely on you solving this.” “I’ll save them all if you pay attention to me.”

“Not exactly.” He took her hand and put it to his cheek. “Now it does.”

“So you keep saying.” He nuzzled her palm and pressed a kiss at the edge before he let go of her. “Will you let me disturb you then?”

His eyes gleamed. “Come here then.” “Where?” “Close to me.” “Why?” His mouth titled into a smirk. “Because you do as I say.”

“How about I let you figure that out? On the seventh day, tell me what I am.”

“Not necessarily. Not all was her duty.” She laid on her side facing him, their faces only inches apart. “Think about it, Azriel. The action itself is humane, is it not? The fact that it becomes a duty to obtain reinforces it. To know right and wrong, good, and bad, knowing to act on that same basis of knowledge is what humanity is all about. People sometimes are tired, heartbroken, starved, sick, deliriously happy, or overjoyed, other states of mind where inhibition is stolen from you, they might act upon how they feel at those moments, but acting upon those feelings is the most human thing one can do. Not all is inherently bad.”

“If Death saw the world with that amber colour lens of your eyes, little sun, he’d be doomed. He’d start sending people back to the land of the living before they stepped on the gates of his land.”

“I think these eyes would change his mind.”

“My world is sometimes grey. He wouldn’t like it.”

He turned to her fully, his hand spanning across the nape of her neck. “Who would...

“Me. I can have all the colours lined before me, and I’d still dip my brush in grey. If you ask me why, I wouldn’t be able to answer you. If you ask me if I hated colour, I would not say always. If you asked me to try and dip my brush in them, I’d tell you that I hate it and then I’d resent you for forcing me to do so. Every day, I see the world differently. Sometimes I hate it, resent it, love it, adore it. If I decided the fate of the world on the basis of what day it is, the world would have en...

Azriel leaned in and left a kiss on her forehead, his lips were soft and cool against her skin. It felt like the first touch of rain on scorching summer earth. “Tell me how you have not.”

“Because you talk to the fiends and ghosts when the world has cast them out and fears them, you reassure them, offer them company, and even crack jokes they thoroughly hate while you expect nothing in return. You’re sometimes grateful they are even there though they really don’t have anywhere else to go. And before you say it, I’ve heard you tell them that. I can’t begin to imagine how you treat the world outside of shadows.”

“How do you do that, Winter?” he asked, pushing her red hair out of her face. “How do you remain so spirited in a world who has wanted to rob you out of it? How do you fight for others when no one has ever fought for you? How are you so understanding of others when no one has been understanding of you?”

“I have, I think. I’ve laughed for me, fought for me, thought of me. I think,” she added, giving him a quivering smile. “You said that it is enough.”

“It is. But I pity the world that holds you and d...

A shadow suddenly fell over her and she looked up to find Azriel’s dark eyes pinning her on the spot. “You’re hiding from me.”

She was terrified. Of him. And the fact she was beginning to doubt her choices in remaining partial against what they were to face in only two days. It wasn’t enough. Suddenly time was not enough. It hated her even. It hated her so much. She would begin to find Death’s reasons severely unreasonable, she was beginning to resent him, damn him, curse him, and…and almost beg him to give them more time. “It would be better if—”

She gave up soon, lifting a hand to him. There was little time, and she didn’t wish to spend it thinking. She’d done enough of it for the past twenty-four years. Now…now she was wanting to live in that hurtful reality, though Winter hated pain, she really hated pain. “Can you come down here?”