Post by @ai.aesthetic.romantasy

Before anything else, I need to say this: this has been the hardest collection I have ever created. I spent the entire morning crying while making these images. Reading about Azriel’s childhood is already painful, but having to visualize him as a little boy — alone in that darkness, year after year — affected me more than I expected. Azriel was born the bastard son of an Illyrian lord and spent the first eleven years of his life hidden away in his father’s keep. He was kept in a cell with no windows and no light. He was allowed out for only one hour a day and could see his mother for only one hour a week. He wasn’t permitted to train or fly. Then, at only eight years old, his half-brothers poured oil over his hands and set them on fire to see how quickly an Illyrian could heal. The warriors came when they heard him screaming, but they were too late to save his hands. And he still had three more years there. Three more years in the dark. Somewhere during those years, there were the shadows. The books never tell us exactly when they first appeared, so this part is my own interpretation: I imagined them coming after the burning, almost as if everything Azriel had been forced to repress needed somewhere to exist. His fear. His anger. His loneliness. His words. His freedom. Something that could move when he couldn’t. Something that could whisper when he had been forced into silence. Something born in the darkness that somehow kept him company. At eleven, once his family realized he was a Shadowsinger, Azriel was sent to the Illyrian training camp. And that is where this collection ends. The next one will begin there — with eleven-year-old Azriel entering a completely different world, and the years that would bring Rhysand and Cassian into his life. But tonight is only about the little boy before all of that. Before the warrior. Before the Spymaster. Before the Inner Circle. Just Azriel. A little boy who spent eleven years in the dark. And creating his story completely broke my heart. 🖤