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That was how he discovered that his half brothers had come of age. How he heard their plans for his mother. It had nothing to do with her and everything to do with him. But they would hurt her and get away with it, and then gloat to him.

The stone warned Azriel when they left their rooms in the dead of night.

His self-imposed training told him how to shatter his cell door.

The shadows guided him, keeping him unseen as he raced through the halls.

And the wind instructed him on how to minimize his half brothers’ screams as he intercepted them before they touched her door, as he slammed his fists and his power and his teeth into them, as he unleashed himself, more beast than male.

Those keen-eared chambermaids heard; they instantly alerted the household.

It took three full-grown Illyrian warriors to pull Azriel off his eldest half brother. The other was already unconscious. And Azriel was still snarling, thrashing in their grip, when his father appeared, his wife beside him, and took in the scene—the door they stood in front of, and Azriel’s mother, wide-eyed and shaking, her wings folded away painfully tight in utter submission.

Alcohol clings to your father, the shadows murmured, drawing Azriel from his daze. And heavy sleep. Fear and anger envelop his wife. Your mother knows only terror—and desperation.

The shadows didn’t speak, exactly, but he’d learned to interpret the shards of images they showed him as words, sentences. Just as he’d learned to read and write during the precious hours with his mother, who hid books in her room, along with what scraps of paper and cinders she could find.

His father’s spoiled, ice-hearted wife shrieked as she rushed to her own sons, then cooed their names, stroking their hateful faces. The one still conscious sniveled and whimpered.

Their broad-shouldered sire towered above Azriel, his wings so large they seemed to blot out all light. Wings as dark as his hair, currently pulled back from the harsh planes of his face. He surveyed his son with slightly clouded hazel eyes, while his Second in command gripped the boy by the back of the neck hard enough to bruise.

“Don’t lame him, don’t clip him, don’t cut him,” Azriel’s mother begged, dropping to her knees, crawling toward his father. Her broken wings dragged on the ground.

His father ignored her, gaze fixed wholly on Azriel. “How did you get out?” His voice was harsh as granite. As unyielding.

Azriel sniffed back the blood clogging his nose. “The shadows and wind and stone told me how.”

The warriors snickered, the breath of his sire’s Second a warm push against his neck. His father kept staring, unmoved.

“Simpleton,” his father’s eldest son jeered at Azriel from the haven of his mother’s arms.

Embarrassment flooded through him. For a heartbeat, Azriel wished he could fade into the rock and darkness. Wished he could step back so the shadows could wrap around him and hide him, and he’d never have to see these people again—

So he did.

One moment, he was held in place by his father’s commander.

The next, a dark haze had settled over his vision. He could still see, but as if through a thin, black veil. A step, and he was out of the male’s grip. A glance at his own hands showed—

Nothing. They were gone. Only shadow remained.

The commander yelped, leaping back. “The bastard was right here.”

Azriel’s father scanned the space, something like fear blasting away the cobwebs of alcohol and sleep from his eyes. And in that moment, Azriel knew he was truly gone, hidden in a sliver of shadow so deep no one could find him.

“Where is he?” his father’s wife screamed.

Her shrillness shocked Azriel into movement. The shadowy veil shivered and fell away. Blaring light poured in, and he squinted against it. Whatever had happened, he had reappeared—or removed that cloak of shadows.

We are here, the shadows whispered in his ear. We are always here.

Hide me again, he whispered back. His mother had raised a hand to her heart. The shadows encircled him, the world dimming. His body vanished. He could still feel it, use it—but he knew no one could see him.

His father’s wife shrieked, “Demon!”

The word threw him into the light again, shadows slipping. Torchlight and the freezing hall pressed in.

“Shadowsinger,” a warrior down the hall breathed.