Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

-Bertolt Brecht, Galileo

Woodsmoke and stale ale hung heavy in the air as I gently shut the back door to the tavern.

The noise of the place hit me like a jolt. I was used to the twilight quiet of the forest, and the cold and empty winter streets outside. The deep boom of men’s laughter and shouts, the clatter of the kitchen, the drowned out sounds of a fiddle in the corner. Wood groaned under my feet, the floor sticky and worn as I edged around the walls in the shadows, angling towards the roaring fireplace.

This was not a place for young women like me. Certainly not my first choice of accommodations for the night. The brazen, lingering stares running up and down my body reminded me of that every step of the way. But the heat of the fire along with the surrounding warm bodies was worth it when I began to feel the tips of my fingers again.

Ten minutes ago I had been in the alley elbows-deep in blood and entrails, the squelching sound drowned out by the laughter and warm light of the tavern behind me as I worked. One dunk of my bloody hands into a frozen bucket of water to wash off made me rethink any fearful self preservation I might have had left.

Survival was like that. Blurring the edges of what should be a simple, safe decision.

But I wasn’t making cautious decisions these days. Outside, chill winds whipped up the fresh frozen snow and threw it against anything in its path. My cheeks smarted and burned with it even now. The cold had taken the easy prey and then the difficult prey, and now I was forced deeper and deeper into the woods every night to find something, anything for my family.

My fingers and toes started to ache as the frozen digits warmed back to life, tingling with pain. I knew the barkeep’s goodwill would only last so long once he saw me and realized I wouldn’t be purchasing anything. Even if the growling of my stomach battled the sounds in this loud room, as the smells of fresh bread and ale and mutton wafted through the room amidst the more unpleasant scents.

But it wouldn’t do to leave the deer unattended for long on the butcher's hook, not when there were desperate men and other predators just as hungry as me and attracted to the scent of blood. I had more of the deer to skin, and it would be hours until the dawn sun touched this place.

Cracked skin, split nails, a cramp in my stomach. Usually that was all I had to show for my nights buried in snow up to my knees or huddled in bare tree branches. But tonight, at dusk, luck was with me and I had taken a deer as it crept towards the half frozen river.

It had walked directly under my tree and straight ahead of me, presented like a ready gift from some long forgotten god. I was so weak with cold and hunger my hands shook as I readied my bow. But my arrow hit true.

Still, the deer had been larger than I could usually handle. I spent too much time with my feet buried in new snow, making a rough bower, then gutting it and finally taking the head before it was light enough for me to carry back in slippery sprints.

My body was screaming with exhaustion by the time I spotted the low night lights of the village. But there was nowhere in our family’s small cabin to keep a bleeding body. Certainly not if my sisters had anything to say about it.

More eyes shot to me as a glass smashed and I jolted like a spooked rabbit. I rubbed life back into my hands, trying to calm my nerves. Now that I wasn’t shivering and fighting the cold, exhaustion threatened to set deep in my bones. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. Nesta and Elain would be fast asleep, cuddled together for warmth in our shared bed.

The anger in me burned, like the bitter nettle tea Elain brewed to keep our stomachs warm in between meals.

Two men had been watching me, talking low and close to one another for too long. I wove between bodies and chairs to find another spot further away from their gaze.

My life was always like this, for as long as we had been in the cabin. Forced out of our richly appointed manor by my father’s debtors, the old place now just a dreamy blur in the fading memories of my childhood.

The days were never dull, that was for certain. I ricocheted between life and death, forest and hearth, starvation and sustenance. I walked the woodland paths that fed and sheltered me, forests that held monsters or the stark winter seasons of starvation. Poisons and fanged beasts and untrustworthy men. Fruit and herbs, glistening springs, growth and life and death. Three pathways: death, bare survival, or thriving life, all converging to a crossroads, and sometimes I ran so quickly between them I got whiplash.

Sometimes, in the twilight hours between sleep and waking, I remembered when it wasn’t always so. I remembered a childhood filled with dresses and lavish meals and even stolen cookies with petal-pink icing that smeared all over my face. I couldn’t recall, now, the last time I tasted sugar. Or had days on end with a full belly, without a care in my heart. That life was over now, and this new one demanded sacrifices. Like drawing the attention of unsavory drunk men in order to stay warm enough to bring breakfast to my family.

My eyes cast over the crowd. I wasn’t entirely alone. Isaac Hale was here, with his father and brothers, doing an excellent job of ignoring me completely. Old Hobb, at least, had given me a tip of his floppy felt cap from his station at the bar, several tankards in tonight. He had already reached the next stage of his drunkenness and would doubtless start a fight or an oddly unslurred lecture soon.

I didn’t mind - I had been subject to many of those lectures, and sometimes found them helpful. The old hunter was one of the few men in the village who had ever shown me kindness, catching me some years back when he caught me slicing through the intestines of my rabbits as I tried to skin them.

The cold, snow-burned skin on my cheeks was now hot and burning on my face as my blood ran warmer, waking from its sluggish sleep.

If I was lucky tonight, Isaac would continue to ignore me and the rest of the bar would be too drunk to notice or remember me. And if they did focus on me too long, I had been practicing since I was fifteen - the stance I had, one that was quiet but not small. Forcing the tiredness from my face the best I could, setting my jaw and keeping my hunting knife in easy reach.

I wouldn’t be prey tonight. I was the hunter. And if anyone chose to test me, my hunger and desperation would only make me more fierce.

At least, that’s what I told myself, to keep from breaking apart.

Just as I was thinking about moving back into the cold to finish my butchering, the front door of the tavern swung open with a blast of cold wind.

And silence fell.

It wasn’t that our village never got any visitors. There was market day, and travelers passing through. Most of them preferred to stay at my old town, much more opulent, with its hotel with beds that had fresh sheets each day and doors that actually locked. But not everyone could afford such luxuries, and the tavern had a spare room for rent.

The dread hush that fell over the space reminded me of the quiet in the forest just before I loosed my arrow. A deep breath and slow exhale, waiting for that moment without a breath of wind, until my target was perfectly in range –

No, the unease was not just from a stranger. Rather how he stood at the open door, the cold winter wind stealing out all the warmth. The way he surveyed every patron of the bar, slowly, as if judging our worthiness. The man’s eyes were hard and just a bit wild, his face pale against his dark brown hair, his right arm clutched close to his body under his jet black wool coat, sprinkled with melting snow. I watched him enter the tavern like an actor taking the stage and calling all eyes to him.

“Close the door if you’re looking for new friends tonight,” Joseph, the barkeep’s son, shouted from the back.

The howling wind was left outside as he shut the door, wood creaking under his heavy boots as he walked to the center of the room.

He was dressed in fine clothes without a hint of wear. A dark wool coat and a crisp white collar peeking out under it. Desperately out of place in this raucous tavern of drunks and the starving poor and the fed poor who lorded it over everyone.

My deer was forgotten as I watched the man, as he held the attention of the room without words or props or ceremony. Perhaps we were all foolish country folk, but his presence held something foreboding. I found myself straightening my posture, mirroring his pose, waiting for his words.

He held the silence. The fire crackled in the hearth and splashed panes of red on his face, which I could now see was pale and drawn.

“Well? You have our attention, stranger.” Old Hobb’s voice boomed from the bar. “Speak up if you have somethin’ to say.” The man was a hermit and a bachelor, and I had never yet seen him back down from anything, man or beast in the woods.

The stranger removed his hat with an elegant sweep of his arm, somehow straightening himself to be even taller.

“My name is Richard Dannon. I came from Innisville, on behalf of whose citizens I bear an offer and a plea to all surrounding lands.”

Most days, such fancy language would get him tossed out of this place by his belt. Unless of course he looked like a mark, easy for a round of drinks.

But now the room was murmuring with interest. Richard dug his left hand into his pocket and unfurled a small parchment scroll against his spread fingers.

The movement was awkward. Stilted. I could tell from his stance and movements he was right handed.

His voice boomed through the tavern, everyone quieting again to hear him. “To the people of the southern lands: we call upon your bravery, skill and mercy.”

I circled around tables and chairs again, trying to watch his face.

“On December the first, a beast entered our lands. A fae creature from beyond the wall. His crime is taking the lives of three of our citizens, including a young boy not yet fifteen years old. Hunters have tracked him to a cave in Greenspring Hollow. For the exchange of the beast’s head, a collection of fifty gold coins will be rewarded, payable by Mayor Christen. We call on all brave men to protect our lands, and may your ancestors protect you.”

The parchment snapped back and furled again around the man’s fingers. Gasps and whispers were spreading through the room.

Fifty gold coins. I could feed my family for a year.

I watched as Richard Dannon pulled his right arm out of his pocket, reaching to unfurl the parchment that had closed. And then paused.

Instead of his hand, there was a stump wrapped in stark white gauze. Dark blood still stained the end. He looked at it as if in surprise again, and folded himself back under his coat.

Already, loud boasting was erupting from the corners. Fights and questions and challenges amongst the drunken men who were undoubtedly now dreaming, just as I was, with how sweet the future could be with fifty gold coins to your name. Chairs scraped across the wood floor, shouts starting to drown out the crackling of fire and dimming everything to indistinguishable noise. My heart rate rose with the dangerous air in the room, and I went to slip out the back again, catching the sight of Richard Dannon pinning the notice to the wall before the door closed.

I would be back.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

All night long, Richard Dannon’s voice sounded in my ears.

Fifty gold coins.

I tossed in our shared bed, almost knocking skulls with Nesta, who was frowning even in sleep.

The watery dawn light was already creeping in through the windows, and I could still smell blood on my hands even though I had cleaned them thrice. But my thoughts wouldn’t still, even for a bit of sleep.

We could buy grain, flour. New shoes and a cloak better suited to hunting. I could stock up on arrows, even have my knife sharpened properly. Elain could buy seeds for vegetables and flowers, get help in preparing the rocky ground between us and the forest. Nesta could have a new dress. The healer could come again, with medicine for her father. Hell, we could buy sugar with that sort of coin.

Fifty gold coins could lift us up, soften the sharp edges, keep us from worrying about survival from day to day, meal to meal. With time to rest and plan and…live. I didn’t even know what that could look like now, but I would chase it all the same.

Maybe when there were full stomachs and silence, all my buried anger and rage would come roaring out of my body all at once.

But I would worry about that later.

Here, with the soft morning sun streaming across my face, I felt an echo of a memory, a useless daydream – a warm fire and brightly colored paints against creamy smooth paper, the taste of sugar in my tea.

Only one thing in my way, and it turned my stomach cold.

Ever since I could remember, the town had simmered with the undercurrent of whispered stories of the fae. Wolves the size of ponies with unnatural eyes, black serpents with teeth the size of a babe’s arm. Black shadows that swallowed men whole, never to be seen again.

I had never seen such things myself. Even now, it was hard to believe they were anything more than fantastical stories. Perhaps they were old wives’ tales, passed along by the other hunters to keep me out of their territory. Not that the small morsels I took kept food out of anyone’s mouth.

Not that I had time to worry about monsters and gremlins, when my stomach ached with hunger and my sharp bones made it uncomfortable to sit in tree perches for more than an hour these cold days.

Of course I hated the fae, like any human in Prythian, stuck in our tiny sliver of land south of the wall. Our tutors long ago told us the stories of the horrific war, of the suffering of human slaves under the cruelty of high and low fae alike, our fearful, tepid freedom divided by a wall still a better fate than slaves in black lands.

But mostly, I hated them for adding another worry, yet another danger in the forest I had to skirt by in the shadows and trees, begging my ancestors to keep me alive for just another day.

Fifty gold coins.

The sun was bright in my eyes now, and I sighed. I desperately wanted a bit of sleep, but it felt out of reach, not with these thoughts buzzing in my head like flies. The room was cold even in bed next to my sisters, and the wool blanket was rough against my wind-chapped skin. I moved closer to Nesta, just a hair’s breadth at a time, not wanting to wake her and incur her wrath.

I listened to the soft breathing of my sisters to calm me. What were the fae, anyway? How different was magic and monsters to the shrill cry of the winter wind, blowing through my threadbare coat and the holes in my shoes? To the wolves I skirted in the richer hunting grounds, the boars I had once escaped by flying up a tree to avoid narrowly being skewered?

What was another beast to the weak shaking of my body when I went to bed, exhausted in the cold, with only hot water to drink for another night?

If I succeeded, our lives would change. Maybe forever. Maybe it would provide enough to get my sisters noticed in the better villages. They were beautiful and young, and there was no lack to the attention they got in our small village. I didn’t think any of them were worthy for Elain or Nesta, but perhaps with the softness of money and time, they could devote space to finding suitors…

A sigh escaped me, and I turned on the mattress and heard the springs groan. I let the tiredness of everything seep into my mind and released it from my bones. Fifty gold coins. Warmth and food and a new life for my family. Fulfillment of my oath to my mother.

As I let my eyes slide shut, I let myself dream, just for a moment, of what could be.

Chapter Text

When I was in the woods, I let myself become an animal.

Cold winter wind whipped around me on the edge of pine forest. The wind was blowing east tonight, a good sign. It would bring me scents from the cave I was seeking, and carry mine far behind me into the woods.

As I had tossed and turned in bed early this morning, I knew there were few places in our land that a beast of that size and appetite could reside while evading the towns dotted across the central road.

And now I was headed straight towards it.

I lifted my nose to the wind. Smelling for death, for the iron tang of blood and sickly rot, the stench of wild pelts.

I had not been so fortunate as to receive any formal training in my work of hunting and providing. Such lessons would have been unthinkable in my old life, for my age, gender, and station. And when the money ran out and it became clear my father had no plan to support us, I began my long and painful game of trial and error.

My memories of that time in the forest are ones I try to forget, although I remember them in my body, in my skin. I remember the desperate claws of hunger gripping my stomach. I remember learning to be quiet and still. I watched the deer sniffing the wind as it changed direction, their ears swiveling back and forth. The wolves I watched from a greater distance – their confident, lounging packs always on alert. A single sound, a scent on the wind, could see them rushing out in a blurred pack of fur and teeth.

I watched the rabbits, skittish and cautious, sniffing each step before they hopped to the next.

This time, however, I needn’t have worried about my prey.

I was still a mile from the cave when the scent of festering rot picked up in the wind, filling my nose.

Good — the wind was on my side. I would need every advantage if my suspicions were correct.

The cave lived in my mind as a distant memory — I rarely came here because of the barren forest, the black rock, like something had scarred the earth here long ago and even the animals knew to let it be. Old Hobb had once told me the land south of our town was cursed, some battleground from the war five hundred years ago, where great and terrible magic had been brought down onto the earth. Whatever it was, the land seemed to keep the memory, even if we humans didn’t remember what terror it wrought.

Fresh snow skittered on the ground around my feet, swirling and biting in the sharp wind. The few inches of snow that had been there for months had frozen on top with the last rain, and I cursed as every step through the forest came with a gentle crunch of the top layer.

The night was as cold as any deep December twilight I could remember. But I had dressed lightly to avoid any restriction on my movement, choosing to layer instead of throw on an admittedly threadbare coat. Instead of my leather boots I piled two layers of socks beneath Nesta’s old walking shoes, several sizes too big but softer soled. The cold claws of the wind ripped through my layers easily finding my skin, but I let it sting, let it sharpen my senses.

Every few steps, I sniffed at the air and scanned the tree line. I had been walking for a few miles, and knew soon the trees would end and a small slope would dip down to black rock and the open mouth of a cave. When I left the cabin at dusk, I had prayed the other men of the village hadn’t scared away the beast with their stomping through the woods at dawn and throughout the rest of the day. Traipsing around in groups with knives, axes, scythes, anything sharp they could get their hands on.

Some of them who had gone couldn’t even string a bow, had never skinned a creature in their lives. They made hunting impossible, scaring off whatever normal prey hadn’t already run from the tang of a fae predator, and I was glad for the deer I caught the day before once again.

I steadied myself on a tree as my foot cracked through a particularly thick patch of ice and snow, sliding in up to mid-calf.

The forest was so dark and cold it looked like all color had been leeched from it, just a sharp study in black ink on white paper. Empty of everything but wood so dark it looked charred, the expanse of untouched snow, the strange boulders of jagged black rock covered in frost. And above, the endless depth of ebony twilight, twinkling with stars.

I was looking back at the path my footprints made in the snow when pebbles skittered on the small rocky outcropping nearby. I covered my mouth quickly to not make a sound, reaching for my knife with my other hand.

But nothing but a small snout poked its way above the rock, followed by a white face with twitching whiskers. And two coal-black eyes, looking at me.

A winter fox, white as the fresh snow.

Sniffing the wind for me, it growled.

My heart was still racing. He might be a small one, but it was rare foxes let themselves come so close to humans, much less stay to be observed. If I ever did see them, they usually scampered away like the rabbits we were both hunting.

I took another step towards it, hand still on my knife, waiting for it to bolt.

Instead it snapped at me, sharp canines glistening under the sliver of moon.

Shit. The last thing I needed was a rabid fox chasing and yowling at me, waking the whole forest. I’d have to catch it and kill it, and then blood would scent the air, the possibility of more predators finding me when I was trying to be stealthy.

I lifted my bow over my shoulder, sweeping it in a long arc towards the fox, keeping his snapping jaws as far from my fingers as possible.

“Go, go home. Leave me be,” I whispered, trying to nudge him.

It snarled at me again, and I worried it was about to pounce, but with an irritated flick of its tail it turned and ran down the other side of the rock, disappearing into the night.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

I hadn’t seen any other foot prints or signs of other hunters for at least the last mile.

I knew silence was the key. Not their bands of armed farmers. You didn’t win a battle against a wolf by flicking its nose. You played its own game: masking your scent with dirt and woodsmoke. Sneaking step by step behind it, downwind, breathing quiet.

Normally, I was running away from the beasts.

I must have become too focused on my balance on the ice, on listening to the frozen silence, because I was unprepared when the forest gave way to a steep slope of rock and the cave became visible below me.

The black maw of its mouth ate up the small light of the stars. Over me, the moon was a sharp crescent, just enough to keep me in shadows, but to reflect a little light off the glistening snow. But the cave was black as charcoal, smattered with a light dusting of snow that whipped off the jagged rocks above.

I had heard the fae could hear your heartbeat. Could smell the difference between you and your sister from a mile away. They could burst you into nothing but a blood mist and lure you into deep lakes with an irresistible song.

Every horror story I had heard in the village and from my old nursemaid bubbled back into my mind in a rushed panic.

What the hell was I doing?

Clamping down the fear growing in my belly, I willed my hands to be steady as I grabbed the lowest branch of a nearby tree and quietly hoisted myself upward.

The sky rose up to meet me branch by branch, the cold stars coming closer. Bit by bit, the edge of the slope fell away revealing the dark of the open cave, the black rock in front of it.

Bark groaned under my grip.

Bones, human bones, gleamed white under the sharp sliver of moon, blood thick as a layer of dirt on the rocks, staining the filthy snow.

And paw prints. Larger than my head, dipped in blood.

I looked up to the sky just for a moment, trying to slow my heart.

And then I heard it.

A snore, cutting through the cold night air. And then, a foggy puff of breath in the midst of the shadows of the cave.

I had found the beast.

At least he slept, I thought as I reached for my pack and unlatched it as quietly as I could. Unless this was some fae trickery, designed to put me off guard and tempt me closer.

But I’d be there soon enough.

The ropes I had borrowed from Isaac. If my plan worked, there would be nothing left to return. I figured I could buy him something with my new wealth.

And if it didn’t work? I would be dead, and he would have to forgive me.

My makeshift net drifted down the tree and I took my time lashing a corner to the trunk above my head. My fingers were stiff and cold, and I needed them to work. I threw all my weight into the pull of the knot, the bark groaning.

On soft feet, I slipped across the large branch over to the next tree, trailing rope behind me.

It would work or it wouldn’t. It might buy me nothing but a few seconds, but I had to take a chance on any advantage I could.

Back on the ground, I flexed my fingers and buried them under my armpits until they tingled, and until the tingling went away. I couldn’t think, couldn’t allow myself to contemplate what I was about to do, so without a pause I grabbed my bow, crouched low, and made my way down the hill to meet my fate.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The cave was wide and low, only the first foot inside illuminated by the moon, the rest cast in deep shadow. My eyes locked on the sliver of a large brown paw and a wet, twitching nose at the cave entrance. Two puffs of mist rose up from the nostrils like steam off of hot springs.

I crouched behind a small boulder. The slope in front of me was largely open terrain, and the small dead brush would do little to shield or hide me once I stepped out. My eyes jumped from rock to sharp rock, imagining a quick path back up.

On soft, tender feet, hugging the rock with my body, I made a cautious step down the slope. One foot, then the other, listening in between breaths.

I…hadn’t expected him to be asleep. Perhaps I had been convinced of my failure in my mind all along, because standing here watching him, I couldn’t imagine what to do next.

I was close enough to use my bow, but the beast’s body was still hidden in the shadows. I’d be making an extremely risky guess to find the softest parts of its body. And with the size of those paws, no doubt it could scale the hill in a heartbeat, before I got to my third step.

Scanning the rock, the slopes around us, I looked for other escapes. The beast needed to be angry and wounded, or at least confused, by the time it found me. And over the hill it was a straight shot to –

“I can hear you breathing, little mouse.” A deep voice reverberated through the ground and traveled up into my bones.

Every hair on my body stood up.

I had to look, I had to turn and watch it, to assess and make sure it wasn’t running for me. But my body had stopped obeying me.

Finally, when the silence became too heavy to bear, I willed my muscles to move, turned my head back towards the cave.

The beast hadn’t moved.

I didn’t know it could talk.

Still, I could see the change in its breathing. And then, from its large golden paws, jet black claws began to emerge, thicker than my thumb.

His words hadn’t been wrong. Right now, I knew what the mouse felt, what the rabbit’s last thoughts were as my traps were snapping tight.

“I smelled you ages ago, when you crossed the river. You’ve been stomping and crashing through those woods for the last hour, disturbing my sleep.”

When its lips moved, I could see yellowed fangs. The fur around its mouth was stained with dark blood.

My mouth was dry. I hadn’t spoken a word.

A deep, assessing inhale came from the cave, like he was sniffing me.

“The only reason you’re still alive is that I’m tired, and the scent of you is considerably worse than the four others of your kind I already finished up for supper.” He sniffed again, my stomach dropping. “And you seem much too bony and thin for the trouble of rousing myself.”

No wonder people hated the fae. It was the insults that snapped me back into the moment. Still crouching behind the rock, I swung my bow around and slowly reached for an arrow in my quiver.

He could smell me and hear me, but I wouldn’t give away my location so easily. But I was in the trap now, and there was only one way through. I had to put fear aside. Fear was only useful when it sparked you into action and fury. When it snarled back at the wolf pack and found rocks to hurl when they got too close.

I began to flex the muscles in my legs, wiggling my toes and fingers, readying for a fight.

He raised his head and my heart became a distracting beat in my chest. It balanced one paw on top of another, like a doting father grasping hands as he lectured. The moonlight still refused to illuminate the cave beyond the sliver of his toes, his filthy jaw.

I could’ve sworn he sighed.

“What do you want, little mouse? Surely you don’t think an arrow from those scrawny arms could even touch me. And you must know I cannot let a creature go that comes to my door with such weapons. I can’t have you scrambling back through the woods to bring the other fools. I have plans for them all.”

Anger found me my tongue. “You’re awfully arrogant, for a filthy monster sleeping in a cold cave.”

A burst of warm mist erupted as the creature huffed a laugh.

“It’s true, the mighty have fallen, indeed. Would you believe me if I told you I was once a King, ruling over a green land, the only cold the gentle kiss of the morning dew?” The cave amplified his voice, carrying it across the rock and up the hill where it shook me to my bones.

It was unnerving how…human he sounded, behind those vicious teeth.

He almost sounded sad.

“But it is no matter. I will rule this land soon enough.” A deep sigh from his chest rumbled the rocks under my feet. I kept my eyes trained on his nose, on the exhale of breath. I thought, just for a moment, I saw the gleam of a green eye.

The beast continued. “You have no Queen. No armies. The cold bites you and the hunger weakens you. Your weapons cannot pierce my hide, and your ash groves were burnt long ago. You will be conquered with ease.”

I ran my fingers over the fletching of my arrow. “The fae are bound above the wall,” I said. “The treaty demands it.”

The beast laughed: a rich, mocking sound.

“There is a new Queen of these lands, little mouse. She does not bow to treaties or armies or lords. And if she decides she wants the human realm, then she will have it. I am only what comes before,” he said, the sadness again creeping into his voice.

I breathed, in, and out. A deep, slow exhale.

And without a thought, my arm snapped back and released the ash arrow in one smooth motion.

I didn’t stay to wait and see if I had hit my target. But by the bellow from the cave, the shaking of the ground beneath me, I suspected I got close enough.

Pebbles and scree slipped under my feet as I scrambled up the rocks, hopping from one to the other before I could even put my full weight down. Praying not to feel hot breath and a scrape of teeth on the back of my neck.

Breathe.

The frozen muscles of my legs ached and burned as I tried to stay upright.

Breathe.

I felt weak, felt how the hunger had stolen so much from me, from my body.

Breathe.

There was no room for error, or to even glance behind my shoulder. My breaths came in sharp pants, fear squeezing my chest and all my muscles screaming.

I tripped and rolled over the top of the hill, pushing up to my feet with nothing more than frenzied speed.

For his size, the beast’s gait was surprisingly light. But I could hear his hot panted breaths, and sense the tangy smell of copper coming closer, blood and something else, like the flare of a lit match underneath my nose.

I ran through the woods, thick with trees and blessedly little undergrowth to trip me up. I ran as fast as I dared, skirting around trunks and crashing loudly through the thin layer of ice upon the snow. My feet were wet and frozen but I felt the pain, the sharp cut of it, and let it push me through.

I jumped as an earth-shattering crack sounded behind me, stumbling just for a moment and pushing off a tree. Sharp bits of bark and branches rained down on me. Giant paws were rending trees into pieces as he roared, far too close for my liking.

Victory or death. In the next few moments, I would know.

As trees rained down on me, splinters slicing at my cheeks, I saw the glow of the moon on the ropes ahead of me.

It wasn’t imagined now, the hot wet breath on my neck, the smell of his putrid scent enveloping me.

Not thinking, not pausing, I let my body drop backward, falling into a smooth slide on the icy snow, tucking my bow tight onto my chest. Black claws swiped above me, slicing where my body had been a mere half second before.

I slid, feet-first, under the net and to the other side.

My trap was set.

Everything above me exploded in a blur of golden fur and claws and hot, snarling breath as the fae beast lashed at me. He strained against the net, the ropes stretching and groaning.

It held.

The left tree had branches snapping but the net held.

I pawed at slush and snow around me, blindly, frantically searching. Reaching. I could not let the panic take over.

The fear focused my mind to a sharp point of nothing but survival.

Behind me, the beast bellowed, so loud snow crashed to the earth from all the high up branches of trees.

Then, my hands met smooth wood and I held, swinging the sharpened pole up to the beast’s chest behind me. I pushed, meeting fur and flesh without resistance as the beast roared.

The makeshift spear had been another gift from Isaac. He was the only person I knew with an axe and saw, really.

I had spent the afternoon honing the tip to a sharp point. And perhaps foolishly, I had shorted my ash arrow just a bit. Using the serrated edge of my knife, I sawed off a tiny chip of the arrow. Had chipped away small splinters until it was pointed. Had covered the spear with tar, and the tiny chip of ash, and all the shavings I could find.

The loud snap of a rope echoed through the forest, and the beast’s body fell closer to me, the stench of wet fur and sour breath filling my nostrils. But everything disappeared under the white-hot pain in my palm, as my spear pinned my hand to the frozen ground, pressing hard against the beast’s ribs.

All my attention ricocheted between the searing pain in my hand and the enormous creature of fangs and claws raging inches above me. Little mouse little mouse little mouse. A razor-sharp claw swiped my cheek and I felt hot blood drip down my jaw.

Another rope loosened as he raged, bones in my hand breaking and the jagged wood edge cutting into my flesh. I think I was screaming, his fangs snapping inches from my face, and I saw the feral bloodlust raging in his golden-green eyes so close to me.

But then — that crushing burn on my hand loosened, just as the monster fell forward, ropes snapping in the air.

I was crushed, I was buried, I was about to die under his fangs –

But instead of death, there was blood. Blood everywhere, hot and soaking through my layers of clothes, coating me from head to toe while the beast’s body twitched on top of me.

Every instinct in me roared. My legs kicked and my arms pushed as I fought his crushing weight to take a single breath into my lungs. Even if my mouth was coated in his blood, steaming and foul and making me gag. Every second I breathed meant I wasn’t dead yet, could still fight…

It was a few moments before reality caught up with the panic.

He was no longer snapping at me, not rending me to pieces with those claws. The movement of his body was my frantic squirming underneath him.

With a wrenching push of my foot against his ribs, I finally found purchase, my head popping free under his massive shoulder, and I gasped for the cold fresh air.

The beast was dead.

He was dead, collapsed on top of me, the spear of hickory with the ash point sticking through his chest and out his back. He did not draw another breath.

My heart was pounding against my ribs as I pushed and shoved my way out from his crushing weight, inch by inch.

When nothing was left but a heavy arm over my ankles, I finally let myself stop. I let myself lay on the snow and breathe. His wet blood was already freezing my clothes stiff, the melting ice seeping into my back.

My body began to shake. I didn’t think it was from the cold.

I felt the rush of all the fear, and relief, and all the adrenaline leave me in a great whoosh. The body it left behind was cold and empty. I sobbed and let my tears soak the ground, swallowing the putrid fae blood between gasping breaths.

I don’t know how long I lay like that, sobbing and shaking on the ground of the forest while my body froze. When I finally rose again, my muscles were stiff and aching.

Even though he hadn’t breathed, or snapped at me since falling, I still kicked his arm with my boot a little, his body shifting lifelessly. And I saw it then - the ash arrow protruding from his eye socket, the wood buried inches into his skull.

The fact that he had still come after her with such a rage while so injured terrified me. That fae power had kept him going long after most creatures would be stone dead.

But he was dead. The beast was dead and I was alive.

And I would have fifty gold coins.

I craned my neck and took one long last look at the moon. The night sky watched me, impassive as ever, the forest now hushed and frozen once again. I imagined the night sky and all her inhabitants had seen plenty of murders and butchering in her time. Tonight was nothing new.

There would be no judgment as she watched me, cold and quiet.

The hilt of my knife warmed in my hand as I finally got to my feet. I cradled my throbbing left hand against my body. The bruises and crushed bones would have to wait until morning.

My night wasn’t done yet.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Skinning the beast was an exercise in frustration. My knife was dull from preparing the spear, and his tough hide snagged and split into layers upon layers like it was scaled. It had been an hour, by the movement of the moon, and I had barely made my way across his throat.

I put my knife down and sighed, giving my stiff fingers a break. I flexed them and sat back to look over his massive body. At least for all his smell, he was still keeping me from freezing.

This was going to take hours. A whole day, maybe.

I shivered subconsciously as I looked at those massive paws, the black claws still extended. The cut on my cheek stung like fire.

But, maybe…

My hands were shaking as I lifted a paw, heavy and larger than my head.

My knife wasn’t ash, wasn’t fae.

But its claws were.

Holding the paw awkwardly between my good right hand and my body, I used my left hand to guide the claw as much as I was able. The pressure wasn’t much, but I gasped as the claw moved cleanly over the fur of his neck, skin and tendons coiling back as I cut.

For the first time in ages, I smiled. Perhaps I’d be home in time for breakfast, after all.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

At the tavern, I took a gamble.

I was more exhausted than I could remember being in a long time. My clothes were stiff with the beast’s blood and my body was frozen through. Tree bark and dirt filled my knotted hair, and the smell of filthy wet pelt permeated the air around me. But this, this wouldn’t wait.

And I certainly couldn’t bring it back to my sisters.

Richard Dannon was up early and sitting before the small morning fire, a steaming cup of tea in his hand. The pale wintery light did no favors to the tavern in the morning, still disordered from the night before and smelling of stale ale.

Two men from the village, looking worse for wear, were sitting next to him, peppering him with questions about the bounty and assuring him it would belong to the village in no time at all.

I watched the skin on his neck prickle as I approached, the cold air from the open door sweeping through the room.

Even if I was good with words, I didn’t think there was any explanation I could make with the heavy exhaustion weighing me down. So I dropped the head on the table, right on top of his plate of eggs and mutton.

The poor man gasped and spilled tea all over his fancy woolen suit.

The head was a hideous thing. A monster I couldn’t quite believe came from the same world. One eye was bludgeoned and bloody and the other rolled back into its head, the whites filled with spindles of burst vessels. A purple-blue tongue stuck out of its long wolf jaws in between massive yellowed teeth. And though its fur was golden like a lion’s, it had two massive curved horns above its ears, heavy and solid like a crown.

Mr. Dannon jumped back from the table as if it would come back alive and snap at him. I suppose I didn’t know enough about the fae to worry about that being a possibility. Whispers and explanations echoed around the tavern behind us.

When a moment passed and the creature remained dead, he turned to look at me, his eyes wide.

I probably shouldn’t have been so offended that the shock and fear remained in his eyes. I suppose I looked an absolute fright - skinny as a colt, covered in blood, its stains all over me. The stinging on my cheeks told me my skin was ripped raw and I knew my hair was a dove’s nest of sticks and twigs.

I cleared my throat, raw and sore from screaming.

“You can make the payment out to Feyre Archeron,” I said. “My family and I live at the cabin on the northern corner of the bridge, next to Miller’s farm.”

I waited for a minute, and two. Until I thought about repeating myself.

He reached to his cravat to loosen a button at his throat. “Yes,” he finally said. “Yes, Feyre, I’ll find you.”

I nodded, leaving him to it. I left the head with the mutton and the eggs. I had no use for it. Not like the rolled pelt on my shoulders, thicker than my whole body. And the four paws with black claws dangled on a rope over my neck, knocking against my chest.

I turned on my heel and strode out the door, back into the cold.

Chapter Text

The next morning, there were offerings at the door from the village.

It wasn’t until I had stepped outside in the morning to grab firewood that I saw our front stoop had been visited. There were…offerings. Lovely stacks of small gifts: an iron ring on a plain wooden dish, a pile of dried figs wrapped in a canvas bag, winter apples, a small carving of a wolf’s head, and a sprig of dried flowers.

No one from the village had ever given me anything before.

Coming here, my father, sisters and I had learned quickly that poverty hit this place too hard for begging to be of any use. The most well-off in our village still had lean times without bread and the refined folk down the road that deigned to come to market day would do nothing but sneer and kick at us. There was a line even for the burned and stale bread at the bakery. And tempting as it was, I refused to accept the occasional offers of ale at the tavern from the men whose eyes sparked after too many glasses themselves.

Richard Dannon had been good to his word, and had come to our ramshackle cabin just a few hours later with a purse of gold and breathless thanks. He eyed me the whole time as if I were some sort of dangerous beast that might turn and snap at him at any moment, just like the head I had brought him that morning. I didn’t ask what he planned to do with it.

The man in his fine suit and wan face had offered to keep some of the funds in the bank in Innisville - our old village, when we had been in society and not known the pains of hunger.

I said I’d consider it.

But I hadn’t thought about much at all, really, after scrubbing my skin raw and sleeping most of the day. 

If my mind wandered anywhere it was to what Isaac and the gaggle of boys around our age would think; at how the other hunters in the village might greet me at the next market day. How I could walk past those who sometimes laughed at me or threatened me with a reason to hold my head high.

On the second day, the gifts were even more lavish.

Nesta and Elain’s eyes had gone wide as we all shuffled out in our blankets that morning. There was a bouquet of vibrant hothouse flowers that made Elain gasp. Dried meats and a small bag of flour and candies - a bag of peppermints. 

For once, we hadn’t fought. Nesta’s eyes had glittered as she offered the bag to Elain, who deeply inhaled the sugary scent and selected one with delicate fingers, as if it were a sparkling diamond. Then she passed the bag to me, smiling wide, reveling in being able to share now instead of fighting over meager morsels.

I couldn’t remember, exactly, the last time I had tasted candy like this. But some recollection was buried deep within me, as the first taste of sugar flooded my memories, filling my mouth as I sucked.

A moment later we were all smiling at each other, laughing at the heady rush, at the crunch under our teeth and the tiny sweet memories of another life.

On the third day, the gifts were even more. Coins of all kinds. Bread rolls and pastries, and a small wheel of cheese. More flowers and dried up bits of the forest. And on the windowsill, a silver chain with a small stamped charm.

On the third day, as well, there were people waiting. Just a few - staring nervously as I cracked the door open and emerged, my sisters behind me.

A woman in fine black clothes approached me.

“I would ask your name, but everyone on the western shore knows it now.” Her voice was a hoarse croak, as if she had been screaming. Weary, bloodshot eyes seemed to confirm my suspicion.

“Um, I - sorry, I don’t know your name.” I remembered that once I had had lessons, etiquette, learning to curtsy and address all manner of people. My mother would be rolling over in her grave, now. 

Gloved hands grasped my own tightly, and she shoved a folded letter into my hands, her eyes turning to shimmering pools. It had looked like she wanted to say more, but she had left a moment later - a weary trudge back towards the main road.

I made Elain read me the letter later that evening, when Nesta had gone to bed and father was snoring quietly by the fire. 

Her son had fallen to the beast’s hunger. I didn’t let myself think as to whether I had seen his bones littered in front of the cave. She had written of her sorrow, and the hope that with his death avenged, her son would finally be at peace.

I didn’t know if I believed in that, if there was peace or anything at all to be had after we finally closed our eyes for good, if any old gods existed to guide us there. But I hoped for her sake it was true, or at least that the belief would let her sleep more soundly at night. Maybe we all would, knowing one such monster was gone from our lands. 

I had hoped for the stability that came with gold, to avoid hunger and the cold, to maybe earn a little respect from the village. 

I hadn’t expected anything like this.

An anxious part of me remembered the beast’s words, still so strong it was as if they rumbled through my chest. I am only what comes before.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

It was also on the third day that my father started acting strange, an unsettled gleam in his eyes as he stared into the fire. 

His eyes had taken on a sharpness that had been absent for so long. And his attentions drifted back to me, to all of us. I would glance up from sharpening my knife at the table to find him looking at me, a crease in his brow, a small frown on his face.

As wary as I was, it almost felt good to see him like this - sharp, animated, and directing his attention towards me more than he ever had before. It reminded me of our life so long ago, when he had presided over a mighty wood-carved desk oiled to a shine and sat shoulder-deep amidst the richest treasures of the world. 

When he had been…powerful. 

That afternoon, we made our way to the marketplace for the first time since my hunt. We had walked together, even my father joining us with his cane, standing closer together than I could remember us ever doing. Nesta scowled, and Elain gripped my arm tight enough to pinch as we wandered through the square, meeting face after face filled with awe and wonder.

Some of them murmured my name, a strange, unsettling echo throughout the road. Feyre. Feyre Archeron. Fae-killer. A few even put their hands upon their hearts, and bowed in respect.

Bathed in blood, I heard someone whisper. 

I didn’t know how to feel. My face was burning under all the attention, all the scrutiny. The village elders met us in the town square to shake my hand, the same ones that had turned us away again and again when we were at our most desperate. 

Nesta had seethed beside me, only the smile of our father staying our words.

I didn’t have time for this. For any of it, least of all the nervous, unsettled feeling curdling in my gut. 

I had things to do: I had to make change the best I could, for few in the village could exchange an entire gold piece. We had agreed upon some small initial purchases. Mostly I hoped that getting my sisters a few coveted items would douse those ravenous looks they gave every time the bag of coins sat upon the table. I needed to find a safer place to keep it than under the floorboards.

And I needed, desperately, to see the healer again. When I had first seen him a few days ago, he had done little more than give me a salve and poked around the bones in my hand as I tried not to scream. At least he had given me a tonic for the pain.

But I hadn’t been able to sleep last night, a burning numbness sometimes creeping past the pain of the shattered bone and torn ligaments. It was somehow worse. I had formed a new habit of pricking my fingertips with my nails, trying to coax some feeling back into them.

Fifty gold coins was fine. But it wouldn’t last my whole life. And I needed my hand to hunt.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The day after, father had mysteriously been gone in the morning by the time we all woke. He had returned hours later, his cheeks flush and three new dresses clutched in his arms.

He had hung them on the wall in display as I bit my tongue. They were simple, but made of fine fabric that draped well. Robin’s egg blue for me, slate grey for Nesta, and pale pink for Elain. We were to go to the market again, but as properly dressed ladies.

They had to cost at least a gold piece, perhaps even two.

I wondered how many gold pieces my hand was worth.

Still, something inside quieted me just for now. This was the first interest our father had taken in us in years. I felt it in the tension as Elain fingered the fabric reverently, as Nesta eyed hers with grudging approval.

So the next market day, I let him dress us as ladies. I didn’t say anything as we covered the new fine garments with our threadbare coats, paired them with our scuffed and worn shoes. He himself had brushed off one of his old suits as much as he could, shining a pair of impractical shoes from another time.

I had held out hope that things would return to normal over time, and we could slip through the market like any other unremarkable family with a few coin to spend. But no such luck.

The town square was full this morning, with more strangers in fine clothes than I had ever seen here. 

All eyes looked to us as we shuffled through the stalls. Nesta kept her chin high and her jaw set, as I ducked into stores and stalls to escape.

Father was in fine form, smiling and shaking hands as we shopped. He made sure to seek out those in finer suits first.

“Feyre, come here!”

My father beckoned me with a warm, hopeful smile.

I sighed. I was negotiating hard for some dried beans, some rice. It had been a new irony to discover these market days: even with so many coins in my pocket, the merchants insisted on filling my arms with food and supplies, refusing to take even half of their worth. I had to fight: not to haggle, but to pay. I knew everyone here was as hungry as we had been, couldn’t afford such charity even as they insisted. 

It was all right though, because it helped me ignore the shooting pains in my hand. 

Father was entertaining in the square as we shopped: a rotund man about his age, in a fine dark wool suit and a tall hat, shining in the morning light.

“Feyre, this is Mr. Robinson, the Mayor of Innisville. You remember him?” he asked me.

I didn’t.

“His wife, Lady Sasha used to show horses with your mother. And he’s come to see you, dear daughter.” He spoke with a theatric flair, with a barely contained smile on his face. Unsettling and strange. “He has an invitation for us all.”

The man beamed at me, his chubby cheeks glowing red, looking warm and jovial even on this dour winter day.

“Just look at you. Who would have imagined you bringing down that monster!” I prickled at his tone. “I got a look at its head. You must have been very frightened, dear child.”

Something burned in my stomach. I remembered, strangely, the taunting, bored voice of the beast.

“I’ve hunted for my family for many years,” I told him. “Hunger drives us to do many things in spite of fear.”

My father made a sharp inhale. But the mayor simply smiled, moving closer at my tone, and grasped my good arm at the elbow. “Of course, dear. I just meant you must be very brave. Especially for one so young. And lovely.”

My father held me by my other arm. I had the distinct feeling of a pack gathering, penning me in.

“The Mayor came with an invitation, Feyre,” he said gently, like I was a wild animal needing coaxing. I could see the regret in his eyes, probably thinking about how he had taken so little care to teach his youngest proper manners. Or anything at all. “He’s extended an invitation to the whole family, to join them as honored guests next week for the town’s solstice celebration.”

“Everything is so bleak these days - with the wheat blight and the threat of the wall always looming over us. People need something inspiring, to show them the way. Or maybe someone.” He seemed to be a kind man, and his eyes sparkled as he smiled at me.

My heart skipped a beat at that. My birthday. I suspected my father had forgotten the significance. 

I knew my sisters would want to go desperately, would beg and plead. And that spark in father, even if I resented where it came from…it was like he was back again, like when I was a child in his office, his youngest girl to entertain with treasures from across the world.

Except now, I was feeling more and more like the prize on display.

My hand began to hammer in time with my thundering heart.

“I suppose I can take a one day break from hunting.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

That night, the three of us lay in bed, not sleeping.

Nesta was the one who spoke first, her voice barely a whisper.

“Father means to use this to marry us all off,” she said, a simple statement of fact.

“Do you think we’ll get many more invitations, maybe to a ball?” Elain asked.

I snorted.

“This all depends on you, you know,” Nesta said, fixing her eyes on me in the dark. They glowed unnervingly in the silver moonlight. “You can’t behave like a feral beast anymore. If you can summon manners and keep your temper in check for once, you might actually be rid of us soon. Isn’t that what you want?”

I frowned. “Is that what you want, then Nesta? Who knew butchering a monster in the woods would lead to husbands all around. I didn’t think you would be so eager to partner with father in his schemes.”

“Last month I was considering marrying Tomas Mandray,” she said, almost bored, ignoring my words because she knew how much it angered me. Her eyes were locked on the ceiling as she lay next to me. “Now, if we can get a few more decent dresses and invitations to the town, we might be able to marry someone with money. An actual home to keep, with servants and filled pantries.” Nesta’s voice wasn’t hopeful. It was cold and practical, evaluating the lifeline set before us.

“I talked to the other girls at the dress shop,” Elain ventured, trying to smooth over whatever it was between us, her eyes wandering to me in the dark. “They said people think you’re…blessed, Feyre.” She sounded a bit nervous. “That you defeated a fae unscathed, and bathed in its blood to take its power.”

I laughed bitterly. “Unscathed? I can hardly move my fingers. And the cut on my cheek won’t heal at all. It still bleeds half the day.”

Indeed, the slice from the creature’s claws had remained a sharp red mark on my cheek, sometimes burning in the cold, despite the cleanings and bandages Elain had attempted on it.

I hadn’t told them yet what the healer had said to me about my hand. 

He had cleaned my cuts and scrapes, clucking his tongue at the deep purple bruises that were turning a sickly green, and finally gave it a closer examination. He bent my fingers and rubbed my bones with his thumb, drawing muffled cries and fiery bolts of pain that shot all the way up my arm into my shoulder.

He had made a decisive noise and set it down again, finally. “There’s no way to set all these tiny bones without cutting into your skin. And I won’t know what I’ll find in there. It's too risky to cut through the muscle and make permanent damage. I’ll wrap it the best I can and I recommend keeping it still for a few weeks to see how it heals.”

“A few weeks?” I had asked, horrified. 

“Five weeks is best. Afterwards we can see how it sets, and start practicing movement again.”

I had sat in stunned silence.

Five weeks. I had never been idle even half that long since we came here. We had money now, yes, but how long would it last if I couldn’t hunt? I knew I was the only one who could keep us afloat, and I couldn’t afford to lose that time.

Even setting the snares one-handed this morning had been a challenge. And this far into winter, the rabbits weren’t as plentiful on the forest outskirts. I had to go deeper, and I had to be prepared.

“After five weeks, I’ll be able to hunt again? To use it?”

His lips pursed. “We won’t know until then. It’s likely you’ll always miss some movement. It’s all up to your body now, and if it can put you back together. The more you move it, the more it will keep re-breaking and interrupt the healing process.”

Laying in bed, my hand wrapped tightly, it pulsed with the memory.

Maybe I would have to marry. If I could never use my hand again, never hunt, never fire a bow…snares and traps and a pocket of quickly dwindling gold could only get us so far.

My stomach turned at the thought. I had wanted marriage for my sisters, mostly to get them out of my care. Of course I always hoped they could move forward, leave this sad place, start their own lives away from our poverty and bitterness. I hoped they found someone hardworking – someone gentle for Elain, someone strong for Nesta – to eke out a life away from the sad pallor of our cabin.

I had never thought of it for myself. 

All I saw in my mind was freedom. Father dozing on a warm bed, while I rested, and painted, well-fed and warm.

What man could possibly match that freedom?

Chapter Text

Nesta slapped at my skirts for the third time since the speeches had begun. I was tugging at the lace collar on this fucking dress…

I dropped my hand and scowled.

The itch of the wool, the tightness of the collar that choked back every swallow…it was oppressive.

The afternoon sun was pale, as if sensing its power had fully waned on this, the longest night of the year. Standing uncomfortably on a wooden stage, my sisters on one hand, my father standing with the mayor and his family behind a podium, I did my best to ignore the crowd.

They stretched out before us, three times the number of people in our little village, most of them in fine hats and suits and rich winter dresses. All of them staring up at us. My skin was hot, even in the cold of the early evening.

The mayor had started droning on a while back, something I couldn’t pay much attention to. A jolly bustle of a man, he looked fat and happy with his wealth, his cheeks ruddy in the winter cold. He smiled easily, and the fit of his suit was immaculate. I wondered if what his family was wearing today cost more than my entire reward.

The speeches had begun after lunch, a picnic where my sisters and I had tried hard to pretend we weren’t hungry, that we saw this sort of lavish spread on the regular. Roasted chicken and small pheasants dressed with winter vegetables, glimmering slices of ham, golden rolls with pats of butter that glistened, spiced wine and candied winter berries for dessert. I watched Nesta swallow thickly as she spooned a moderate, polite amount of food on her plate. Next to me, Elain was licking the greasy chicken fat off of her dainty fingers and trying hard to hide it. Despite all our mother’s hissed lessons about small, dainty bites and demure ladylike appetites, we all ate until we groaned.

The entire town had gathered around, now staring rapt at me and the garrulous mayor, the breath of them all rising up in the cold like steam above their heads.

“Wipe that look off of your face,” Nesta hissed.

We had been taken to the town last night. Given rooms at the mayor’s house, each bedroom finer than our whole cottage. In the morning, I had been bathed and scrubbed and plucked until my skin burned. The maids tutted at my cracked nails and the dirt underneath they couldn’t quite scrub clean.

Afterwards, they had shoved me into a frilled woolen dress. A monstrous thing. Stockings and corsets and lace trim and shoes with heels so high my arches ached. I stumbled around the room like a newborn fawn, clasping and flexing my good hand into anxious fists. I had the overwhelming urge to rip the entire outfit off and run into the woods.

I swallowed the desire to tug at my collar again, the lace itching against my dry skin. It choked me, like a snare around my neck.

Clothing like this hadn’t been in our closets since I was a child. But the feeling was still familiar, my clumsy small hands ripping away my skirts and sleeves, rushing outside to climb the willow beside the manor, mother furious with me after all the dirt and ruin.

And now Nesta was here to take her place.

My sister wore the slightest of confident smiles, looking regally over her upturned nose at the crowd below. Elain beamed, her face full of joy and sunlight even in the pale wintery afternoon. Both of them looked aggravatingly at home in their new finery, warm in their spotless coats and scarves and soft leather gloves.

A terrible itch creeped up my neck, down my spine.

Standing there, I felt a nagging sensation, like I was in the woods and hadn’t yet spotted something that had spotted me.

Looking across the stage, I saw the Mayor’s son, glaring. As soon as my eyes met his, I swore he looked away with distaste.

He was young, probably about my age or just a year younger. Brown hair, pale skin, soft hands. His eyes were dark and his mouth was locked into a sullen pout.

I had no doubt he was the type to stay far from the forest. Probably had never skinned a rabbit, or felt hunger in his belly.

Apparently, I had offended him personally.

With a wistful smile, the mayor turned to me, and I wished I had been paying better attention. My heart thundered as all eyes in the crowd focused on me.

“We have lived in fear,” the mayor said, turning back to the gathered crowd. The people of Innisville, our old village, the ones that forgot me and my family so easily when the money slipped away. “Even though we live in freedom from faekind, even after five hundred years, we are still controlled by the wall and the terrible things that breach it. We have let ourselves be splintered by disagreements and differences, while the real enemy threatens us from beyond. Our true enemy takes advantage of the discord among us. It is only if we join together that we can push back the dangerous creatures waiting to descend upon us in the dark of night.”

A hearty cheer rose up, mist in the cold.

No wonder he was mayor.

But his words fell flat on my ears. I had suffered more under the hands of my fellow man than any fae or beast, the monster in the cave included.

“Sometimes,” he boomed, his magnanimous smile back on me like the sun, “it takes a great act of bravery and sacrifice to bring us together. It takes an extraordinary person to remind us that we are one. That we are powerful together.” Cheers and murmurs of ascent were bubbling up from the crowd, an echoing call.

I hated every moment of it.

I wasn’t brave, or selfless. I hated the grand sentiments, when all I had ever wanted was a full stomach and safety for my family. I hated the eyes on me, eyes that weeks ago would’ve scorned us. Fine boots that would have kicked at us, teeth that would have gnashed.

But Nesta’s hand was on my back, warm but unyielding, and she pushed me just a few steps forward towards the crowd, my feet stumbling.

“Our entire land has been blessed by this fearless and exceptional girl. Feyre Archeron, the hero of the human lands!” More cheers, and my name ringing across the crowd, from mouths that would have spit on me only weeks before. “Her talents were born out of hardship, but her undaunted spirit belongs to all of us living below the wall and the land of the fae. Although we will always remember those that we lost, we thank the girl who went out into the forest alone, and did what no one thought possible.”

The crowd erupted into applause. I balanced on the edge of the wooden stage, feeling like I might topple into the sea of bodies.

It was too much, too many adoring faces, people I had never met. They didn’t know me. My own story was being told in front of me, like I wasn’t even there to tell it myself. I was a hunter, and I needed those gold coins simply to gain a breath of air. These people in the crowd had been the ones to laugh and sneer at my misery, to ignore our hunger.

I hadn’t done it for a single one of them. Maybe that made me cruel, and heartless, but I knew it was the plain truth even as it hid in the dark shadows of my heart.

But the mayor wasn’t done. Once the cheers and applause had died down, his smile grew even wider, and he looked to my father.

“And, in a gesture we hope will inspire the land, my son Charles,” he motioned to the scowling boy, his face fierce and fixed on the ground in front of him, “is to be wed to our hero, Feyre Archeron. Our families will join together, uniting our villages. To remind us that heroes are among us, and we are stronger together. Feyre,” his eyes twinkling, “welcome to our family.”

The roar of the crowd was deafening, pounding in my skull and shaking my bones. Shock kept me frozen, and despite Nesta’s pinch at my hips, I knew my face was contorted in horror and shock.

My eyes found my father.

He had draped himself with the beast’s fur, like a cloak. Dressed in a dark, layered suit, he continued to smile blandly and ignore me completely.

No wonder Charles had looked murderous. I felt the same.

He was glowering on the edge of the stage, his mother whispering something into his ear with intensity. But he refused to smile.

The celebrating crowd in front of me was a mass of teeth and red cheeks. On the rising of their cheers, I felt my future slip out from under me completely.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Stumbling out of the mayor’s manor, I realized I was well and truly drunk.

It wasn’t for the first time in my short life, but it wasn’t exactly a state I was accustomed to.

Certainly not with such high quality wine, strong and dry slipping down my throat.

There’d been that one time when Isaac swiped a bottle being unloaded behind the tavern, and another when Elain shyly revealed a bottle of wine after we had gone to bed, refusing to share which of her admirers had gifted it to her. We had shared the bottle, taking indelicate swigs straight from the mouth until we giggled with mirth. Until the headaches and hunger hit and we had kicked each other in bed until my shins were bruised.

It hadn’t been like this, though.

The earth swayed under me. Warm light spilled from the side door of the manor, the party in full, brazen swing behind me. My skull felt like it was wobbling on my neck. My feet wouldn’t go where I wanted to put them. Swaying and stumbling, I braced myself still on a leafless tree in the garden.

Forcing my eyes to focus, I examined the bark, the bandaged hand splayed there, my middle finger still bent and unable to fully extend. A mangled claw, I thought. A promise of death and hunger to come.

Or, it had been. Now there was Charles. And a mayor’s manor, and a lifetime of servitude and lace dresses that would choke the life from me.

The thoughts rattled in my head, building and building, turning into something that felt like too much.

My hand grasped the collar of my dress, pulling the insufferable lace away with a loud rip.

Lace fell into dirty snow.

The tree was my lifeline, my body still swaying like I was nothing more than a branch in a heavy breeze. My thoughts went to the hard bark, to the deep roots beneath the frozen earth. I wished for roots to keep me steady. I wished to dig my toes into the ground and sprout branches and leaves. To transform into a peaceful and thoughtless tree, never hungry, never promised to anyone, only drinking rainwater and soaking up the sun.

But it was no good. Something acidic turned in my stomach, and I fell to my knees and retched onto the ground. It burned my throat as it came, wine as dark and red as it was going down. My sick steamed in the snow in front of my quivering arms, the smell bringing up more and more until only dark bile was left.

Behind me, a crunch of snow, a deep sigh. I tried to wipe my mouth clean.

“I see you took my advice to behave yourself very seriously.”

Nesta didn’t seem too shocked by my predicament.

It was hard to focus on her disapproval when my head pounded, and my throat was burning.

“Go fuck yourself,” I rasped, hoarse and slurring.

I expected her to leave. But in a moment, firm hands were on me, pulling me up from my own mess, shoving me back against the bark of my tree.

Tears were leaking out of the side of my eyes, and I groaned as my muscles shook, falling in between the roots. A knob dug into my back.

When I could lift my neck and my eyes finally focused, I saw Nesta perched on a rock in front of my feet. Her skirts were folded neatly in one gloved hand, keeping them smooth and straight from wrinkling or falling into the snow, her feet pressed rigidly together.

I wanted to laugh. I lay in front of her, sprawled on the ground, snow melting and seeping into my dress. My lips stained, the lace at my neck torn, my own sick beside me.

Perhaps Nesta wasn’t wrong, when she called me a feral beast.

We sat in silence for a moment as my breathing calmed, and the biting cold woke up some of my sleeping senses.

“At least he’s a mayor’s son,” Nesta finally said into the quiet, the din of the party seeming far away. “You’ll have a soft bed. Someone else will always chop your firewood. You’ll never be hungry again, Feyre.”

My sister’s coldness gave way slightly. She seemed almost wistful. Even in my drunken state, I could tell some of her fire had been tempered.

But I had none of this calm acceptance. Thinking of Charles again, of that childish pout…fire bloomed on my skin, acid dripped in my mouth.

I spit onto the dirty snow.

“I’d rather be dead,” I hissed out, my throat still burning. “I’d rather starve in the forest. I’d rather the wolves take me.”

Nesta only blinked. “You can’t mean that.”

I locked her with a gaze and hoped I was steadier than I felt.

Nesta didn’t balk at my anger, or my words. By now I should have known better than to try to fight her iciness with my fire. Instead, she watched me with head tilted, a look of pitying curiosity on her face.

“Daughters are to be wed, Feyre. Even ones who hunt in the forest. It was always our fate.” Her eyes shifted to the snow, kicking a toe of her new boot into the hard powder.

Even as I sat on the sopping snow, my skin was burning. I felt an unquenchable fire ignite within me, full of my rage.

“How could he do this to me?” I was angry, and I hated the sullen whine of the voice that came out of me. “I fed him. For five years I fed him. Put food on his own table. I sold my pelts to get his medicine. I rubbed his shoulders when his back seized up.” The words felt like ash in my mouth. Not even the cold of this solstice night could freeze them, stop them from spilling out. “And he…gave me away. Like it was his decision to make. He didn’t even tell me. He didn’t even ask.”

A shrug of Nesta’s shoulders. Infuriating, calculating. “At least Charles is young,” she said into the cold air. “Father just introduced me to Lord Rochester. He must be sixty if he’s a day. A widower, with bad breath and fat fingers and three children older than me.”

I regarded my sister. She had never told me anything like this before, with her voice sad and clear.

“I know it’s vain,” Nesta said, fisting her skirts tighter in her hand, “but I always wanted a handsome husband.” Her eyes seemed very far away. “Someone strong. Someone…worthy of me. Who could match me. That’s what mother used to say.”

I realized that as much as I had wanted peace and a family for both of my sisters, I had never really asked them what they wanted. And here was Nesta, raised to entice royal and rich men alike, now hoping for nothing more than some bare comforts and the dream of a dashing young husband she might never have.

She shrugged. “Maybe you’ll find some peace here, Feyre. Be safe, taken care of. Maybe even happy, some day.” I knew that Nesta spoke of her wishes for herself.

“And,” she said with another careless shrug, “if not, you can lure him out into the woods. Push him off a cliff. Just be smart, and make it look like an accident.”

A laugh punched out of me, quick and unexpected, Nesta raising an eyebrow at the sound.

Deep down, I knew my sister wasn’t joking.

Chapter Text

I didn’t take my sister’s advice, or heed my father’s tight look from across the room.

The large, open ballroom was sweltering and thick with the smell of cigars, of bodies and ale. My head was still spinning, and I stumbled a bit as I grasped at a glass of wine as it rushed past me on a servant’s tray. White and sparkling, this time. Red now made my stomach sour.

This room, with its gleaming marble floors, sweeping embroidered drapes, and blazing bronze chandelier, was grander than anything I could remember even from my mother’s lavish parties. But the drunken revelries and laughter, the smell of sick and sweat, the loud cacophonous noise - it reminded me of the run-down tavern. Everyone might put on airs and shine their shoes here, but when the wine poured they were all the same.

But even with more wine, bubbles tickling my nose, I still felt…uneasy.

Stumbling across the dance floor, I hugged corners as much as my dizzy feet would allow, brushing past hard shoulders and spinning skirts.

I didn’t realize I was following the smells of cooking until I found myself in the loud kitchen. I wandered through, grabbing a chicken wing as I continued my loose dance around chefs and servants. My belly had been stuffed hours ago, to the point of pain really, but I couldn’t stop myself from shoving more fine food down my mouth at every turn.

Weaving and twirling, I managed somehow to avoid the hot pans and precariously balanced trays.

A cold wind called to me again, the heat of the kitchen banked by the bluster of powdery snow outside an open door. My cheeks were hot and I tossed away the chicken bone as I stepped outside, the back of the grand manor facing a dark forest beyond the edges of the village. I licked the juices and the unfamiliar, delicate spices off my fingers, now shiny with grease, as I let the cold air cool my cheeks.

I wondered if I’d have to get used to it now - these parties, the stares, the pinched manners and the loud cluster of bodies and sound.

The smell of the clean cold of the forest was welcome. The vastness of the night overhead, and the beauty of the sparkling diamonds set therein. I tilted my head back to drink it in, to let the cold kiss of night air caress my skin.

“Well, if it isn’t the famous fae-killer,” a cocky voice called out from just beyond the little yard.

I whipped my head around, too fast, and the earth spun under my feet.

Panic gripped my throat as I blinked to focus my eyes, arms whirling to regain my balance.

Five figures - huddled around something, bony and lanky. A bottle passed between them. And in the back - I spotted Charles, shorter by a head, pouting and glowering in the shadows.

Young men from the village. Clothes fine but untucked, mussed free, eyes glossy. The sharp glint of teeth and low, secret laughter.

Every hair on my body stood up.

Sober up I yelled at myself in my head, and whirled as quickly as I could back towards the kitchen entrance.

Slam - the door shutting echoed through the trees, into my bones. Another grinning boy stood triumphant with his palm splayed over the door, standing between me and escape.

Every instinct was screaming at me as I tumbled again, my good hand barely catching against the stones of the house. My axis lost completely, nothing left of my honed hunter’s senses.

Now it was laughter, cruel and loud, echoing through the trees.

“Looks like the wild beast of the forest can’t hold her liquor,” one of them sneered.

“Cut it out,” Charles whined.

Panic was pulsing through my veins, slowly bringing me back to my senses. Bodies broke away from their group in the shadows. Stalking me, slow and unhurried. Cutting off my exits.

More laughter as they watched my eyes dart between them. Details slowly coming into shape, dark eyes and drunken smiles and too-white teeth.

“Look at her! She can’t even stay clean one day. You should throw her back into the woods, Charlie.”

Only he remained back, the others moving to circle me, a pack closing in.

“I bet she fucked the beast, and cut its throat while it was sleeping.” Rage ignited, a deafening roar in my ears. “She looks filthy enough. Maybe you should get separate bedrooms, Charles. She might have fleas.”

Charles looked away, cheeks heated.

He clearly wasn’t the leader of this pack of mongrels.

No, that would be the tallest of them, a golden-haired boy with a crooked nose and cruel brown eyes. He stood before me, eyes roving over me with a leer on his face.

Breathe. Just breathe.

I cursed this damned dress, and my father with it. He had refused to let me strap my hunting knife onto my waist. The one at my ankle now was barely a sharp dinner knife, snuck from the kitchens when we arrived.

“It’s a shame you didn’t get one of her sisters. At least they’re a bit pretty for poor trash.”

Was the door locked behind me? Any space between us was closing quickly. If I screamed and banged on the door loud enough, if anyone from the party would just hear me -

“Maybe she’s a good fuck,” the leader said, approaching me like a hungry dog. “Maybe we should find out for Charles, before he’s trapped with her in his bed forever.”

A scuff of snow and a grunt from my chest and in a breath, I had closed the distance between us, pulling the knife from my boot. It scraped against the baby hair stubble on his neck. The blade bobbed slightly as he swallowed.

Adrenaline seared through my veins, cutting through my drunken haze. On the edge of my vision, the world still blurred, but I fixed my eyes, wide and fierce upon the boy in front of me.

The other boys jeered and laughed, clearly not intimidated. “Charlie, your wife has claws!”

Mr. Crooked Nose felt different. He froze in position, his back bent at an odd angle to keep from leaning further into the knife.

“I’m nobody’s wife,” I said. Steadier than I felt. Though I was outnumbered, the face in front of me was pale as ash.

He tried to pull away from me but I pushed the knife harder against skin, following his half-step. “I’ve skewered a boar larger than you. I stripped his hide for a coat and carved up his meat for stew.” A single drop of blood dripped down his throat. “Would you like a demonstration?”

But one girl against five was never good odds.

The boy stumbled backward, falling away from my knife. A stinging slap against my face threw me into shock, enough that the knife clattered out of my hands.

In an instant, hands were all over me, grabbing and wrenching and pulling. Strong arms banded around my waist and lifted me into the air. I reared up, kicking my heels into the air and into whatever they could connect with. Skirts flying, screams tearing from deep inside. Until it wasn’t a scream but a roar, shredding and burning my throat as it escaped me.

A beast indeed.

For just a moment, as I thrashed, I met Charles’ wide eyes from across the yard. Something like guilt inside them.

When our gazes locked, he looked away.

Of course, I thought. Of course I’m all alone. Alone and surrounded by monsters yet again.

I was biting and kicking and raging. Filthy hands clamped over my mouth. Hands gripped to bruise around my arms, the hold like iron. A fist to my gut knocking the air out of me and I fell to my knees. And I screamed again, this time like an animal trapped, as someone crushed my left hand in their fist.

I heard bones pop and break.

The adrenaline was waning, my body beaten and I winced, expecting another blow.

But just like that, it was over.

Rough hands lifted off of me. Boots crunched in the snow as they stepped away.

I quickly stumbled to my feet, still gasping for air.

When I finally looked around, I didn’t know what to think.

The boy’s backs were to me, bodies rigid and still, looking towards the copse of trees behind the manor. Still as a pack sizing up a threat.

Wild, old forests. Blanketed in shadow. Trunks groaning in the wintry wind.

Whispers amongst them, “Did you hear that?”

And there stood a man.

At least, I thought it was a man.

The word didn’t seem quite right.

One moment there was nothing, and then he was there.

He was tall and lithe, with powerful shoulders noticeable even in his fine suit. And it was fine, black as the night and woven with designs in glistening silver thread. Epaulets at his shoulder held a long cape that billowed behind him in the wind.

Nothing else about his person moved. He was so still I didn’t know how the boys had even spotted him first. Not even his chest moved, as if he weren’t breathing at all.

Through the stillness, though, there was the threat of violence. It ebbed off of him like smoke, like shadow.

I realized then that the boys weren’t the wolves.

The boys were the rabbits.

Here was the wolf. Here was the lion.

If I thought before that my instincts were screaming, now they were a desperate growing hum throughout my body. Run, they screamed. Danger. Death.

The boy, the leader, tried to stand straighter. Tried to pretend his hands weren’t shaking.

The man, if that’s what he was, took a stepforward. Casually, he slipped his hands into the pocket of his trousers. Odd for how normal a gesture it was. Even from afar, his face was sharp and beautiful, a light frown that was almost…bored.

The shadows seemed to retreat back into the trees behind him as if released from his call. Moonlight danced over the circles and whorls of silver embroidery, over the gleaming blue-black of his hair.

Collectively, the boys took a step back.

“We’re just having a bit of fun here. No need to get bent out of shape over a girl,” Crooked Nose said. His shaking voice betrayed his courage.

The man stopped again. He cocked his head to the side, an almost animalistic movement. As if he were sniffing the air.

Scenting the fear.

At once Crooked Nose went still, his eyes glazing over.

In a blink he was back. As if returning into his body, eyes wide and wild. Feet tripped over one another and he stumbled back a step, scrambling to his feet.

Without a sound, he ran. The others waited only a moment until they realized they were leaderless and followed.

Now, we were alone.

I should have turned and run with them. I should have been more afraid.

But as he stalked closer, my eyes drifted to his face. To a powerful aquiline nose, deep blue eyes that almost glowed.

All I could think was, beautiful.

A flash in my mind - stories from my nursemaid, about beings so beautiful their prey walked right into their open waiting mouths. About humans so overcome with enchantments they bowed before being devoured.

A man indeed.

He took several long strides towards me, the distance being eaten up quickly.

Though he was beautiful, though he had saved me, the thought crossed my mind: am I the mouse?

Stepping into the light of the lanterns of the house, I saw his lips twitch. As though I had said the words out loud.

Although I was afraid, my feet were rooted to the ground. My neck tilted up to watch his approach, eyes irrevocably locked on his form.

But as he got close, he slowed. As if I was a wild beast to keep from bolting. And in a smooth motion he bent at the waist and picked up my knife, glinting in the snow.

I didn’t even have a moment for fear before he had flipped it, standing in front of me, offering the handle.

I looked back up into his eyes.

They were dark blue - almost violet. I could have sworn that stars swirled in them.

Still drunk.

I should thank him. I should say something, or at least curtsy or…something. But my tongue was heavy in my mouth.

Slowly, I reached out my hand to the hilt of the knife. The iron was cold against my hand. A stark contrast to the warmth of his fingers, brushing under mine.

For the first time I saw him breathe. His chest expanded as his lips parted. Glistening eyes widened and he looked at me with surprise. As if I were the mystery.

None of the boys in our village had ever caught my eye. Oh, occasionally my eyes would wander when we crossed someone splitting wood or hauling hay without their shirts, taut muscles gleaming with sweat.

But they were harsh boys, skinny with hunger, and they usually ignored us completely or sneered and whistled as we walked by. There was little that was beautiful in our small scrap of land south of the wall.

But this man…

I felt lost in his eyes. Frozen under his stare. A lock of errant hair slipped over his brow as he moved closer, towering over me.

A strange, new part of me longed to brush it away from his face. I felt a blush steal over me, across my cheeks and down my neck. I realized how frazzled I must look - beaten and bruised, hair unkempt, dress ripped and stained.

The corner of his mouth turned up again, the slightest hint of a smile.

A broad hand reached out to me, slowly, and then paused. When I didn’t run, he continued.

His skin was warm as his palm cupped my skin, covering my jaw, fingers brushing over my neck. Stars were swirling again in his eyes. I felt the brush of his thumb over my cheek, and everywhere we touched my skin tingled and heated.

My mouth was open, breaths shallow, but I still couldn’t form the words. Who are you? Why did you help me?

Why are you looking at me like that?

He hadn’t spoken a single word.

Was I locked in some sort of spell?

A loud slam from behind us and my whole body jolted. A serving woman stepped outside the kitchen into the yard, tossing a bag of trash with a clunk.

By the time I turned back, he was gone. Only a cold emptiness where his hand had rested on my skin, moments before.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Perhaps there were still some gods left to help, because Elain was the one who found me first.

I watched the pleasant flush on her face quickly pale as she spotted me in the ballroom, stumbling and disheveled. My sister paused only a moment before she was on me, grabbing my shoulders, watching the room, and hustling me off to an empty washroom up the ornate stairwell.

“What if I just…ran away?” I said aloud. Elain found a brush and came over to me with a bowl of cold water for my face.

A wrung washcloth, cool and soothing on my heated skin. “And lived where, in the woods? Forever?” She asked softly.

“I could hunt. I could find another village far away where nobody knew who I was.”

My sister gripped my hair, starting the brush at the ends to pull out the snarls and tangles.

“What about your hand?”

I looked at my gnarled appendage, shattered and bent. The bandages were torn and dirty, my fingers twisted unnaturally.

With my hair now in a loose braid, Elain began dabbing at the worst of the stains on my dress. I didn’t hold out much hope, but then again, Elain had a tendency to make everything around her beautiful. Maybe I would be the one blessed this time.

“Is he really so bad?” Elain asked.

Behind my eyelids I saw a face, guilty and scared. Turning away, as I fought and screamed like an animal.

“Make sure you’re not alone when we’re staying here. If I’m not around, stay with Nesta or father, okay?”

Elain was silent for a moment as she dabbed at my dress. “Who did this to you?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter,” I whispered. “It won’t happen again.”

Elain sighed, returning to wipe the last dirt off of my hot, cold-chapped face.

“Feyre,” she said with a gasp.

“What?”

“Your scar. On your cheek. It’s…gone.”

We both turned towards the mirror, bringing the lone flickering candle close.

It made the shadows behind us grow and dance. I brushed my fingers over my cheekbone, the skin smooth and clear, without a single mark.

Remembered the heat on my skin.

“I guess it healed at last.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Elain had tucked the errant threads from my torn collar into my dress, had wrapped her beautiful floral shawl around my waist to cover the worst of the stains. I walked down the stairs with her, arm in arm.

Elain had worked miracles. But given the rowdy state of the party below, I wasn’t sure how much it truly mattered on this night.

And despite Nesta’s words, and my father’s wishes, I had no desire left to impress anyone in this room.

The roar and heat of the room rose up again to greet us. The booming laughter and the clink of glass shook my bones.

My sister sensed my hesitation, always aware. My elbow in her gentle hand, she led me down to rejoin the festivities.

The band was in full swing, violins and fiddles and drums filling the air and sparking the crowd to dance.

With the deep and heavy night fully situated, most of the party seemed to be as deep in the wine as I was, faces red and ruddy, the dance less than elegant.

“Wait here. I’ll get you some water. And no more wine,” Elain said with a gentle chide in her voice.

I nodded, too tired and overwhelmed to argue.

While Elain slipped away, I scanned the crowd.

If I were to stay here, if I was actually forced to marry Charles, I knew the boys wouldn’t give up so easily. A vicious pack like that wouldn’t forget the slight of losing their conquest, of letting a doe slip away.

My mind was racing with the possibilities.

If I had time and freedom to wander the town freely, I could get them one by one.

Figure them out, decide whether I needed violence or merely threats. Individually, I could handle them. I wouldn’t be their prey. And I knew small cuts could be enough to make my point. Slices to the back of the ankles to keep them off their feet. Bleeding them from the neck or head to disorient them quickly. And if I had to, a carefully placed slice along the back, to take out their legs entirely.

Yes, without the mysterious stranger to interrupt, without his shimmering violence keeping them at bay, they would be back for me the next chance they got.

As if my thoughts had summoned him, he appeared.

The man in black stood in the doorway, the dark outside around his shoulders like a cloak.

He was just as stunning as he had been in the dark. Perhaps moreso in this room filled with drooping flush faces, his black outfit a contrast to the merry colors of skirts and cravats.

Dark eyes scanned the crowd for only a moment until they found me. When they bored into mine, all the sounds of the party faded away.

Again it was though I was in a trance, under a spell. My sister forgotten, I stepped through dancers and pushed past bodies, some inescapable tug pulling me towards him.

Presence overwhelming, he stood at the doorway, darkness hardly ebbing. It was as if he pushed away the chaos of the room, his own aura of beautiful intensity creating space, like a shield around his body.

With a breath, I crossed the threshold.

At once the smells of grease and wine and bodies disappeared, replaced by the clean, cold scents of winter - salt and citrus and the chill outside still clinging to his jacket.

The most curious thing was the way he looked at me. My eyes had locked to his from the moment he entered - I was trapped in them. The strange thing was that he looked at me the same - with surprise, with reverence.

Like I was worth something. Like I wasn’t a filthy girl gnawing at her chains.

All I wanted to do was touch him.

His head cocked to the side. Eyes raked up and down my body, shameless. Possessive. I shuddered.

He hadn’t yet spoken a single word.

Neither had I. I knew I should be polite, introduce myself. Ask one of my thousand questions buzzing somewhere in the back of my brain.

But here, in this little cocoon of just the two of us, I was loath to break the spell.

If I opened my mouth, he might stop looking at me with that intense gaze - would quickly find that the brave killer of fae was just a poor girl, angry and uncouth.

Somewhere far away, applause broke out, then first notes of a new song hummed over our heads.

As the first strong note of a violin traveled across the crowd, he grabbed my hand in his and pulled me to the dance floor.

I stumbled only a moment. His hand was warm, not soft but calloused, a strange contrast to his refined form.

Beside us, couples were pairing off, lining up, and pulled away from his hypnotic gaze, I realized I had been caught again.

For a moment, I seized in fear.

I didn’t know how to dance. Mother was just beginning to turn to my education before she passed.

But my eyes couldn’t look away from his solid form, the dark tunic soaking up the light, mischief dancing in his dark eyes.

He bowed deeply before me, elegant and graceful. My head tilted up to his as he stood and stepped closer to me, and I could only tear my eyes away from his to watch his hand take my own, the other wrapping around my waist.

His hand on me was warm and broad. I felt the heat of it through my dress. Wondered, unbidden, how it would feel on my skin, with nothing in between us.

I breathed into my nervousness as the music began and he gripped me tighter. As our feet danced, his hand moved from my waist to the small of my back to guide me, fingers skimming over the small buttons of my dress.

I knew I was awkward, my legs moving too slow and getting in the way. But I looked to his eyes and got lost - and I swear I was right, I did see stars - and the more I relaxed into him the easier the movements came to me.

He glided us across the floor through spins and steps and wove us gracefully between flaring skirts and flying elbows. I felt weightless, like I was floating through the sky on wings, his hands the only thing anchoring me to the earth.

We spun in circles, my body gently reeled out by my arm and twisting back into his embrace. We circled one another, his legs brushing against the back of my skirts, to come back face to face and place hands palm to palm. I hadn’t realized, before, how a dance was a song between two people - a call and an answer. He held me to him, my body breathless and light.

When our bodies came together again, he slid his hand low from my hip to my waist, the movement slow and possessive, and I felt the jolt of where we touched through my entire body.

His face was beautiful, chiseled like a statue of gods of old, a smile on his mouth, lips parted and inviting. I didn’t know what was coming over me, what had my insides igniting.

The violins reached a crescendo, laughter was all around us, and he dipped me backwards, hands splaying wide across my back.

And strangely - I found myself letting go. Letting my back arch and my head tip towards the ground as he held me aloft. I felt light. I felt held.

When he pulled me back to him, our bodies were grasped so closely together the breath was crushed from my lungs.

That huff of breath stirred his hair, the only part of him lightly unkempt, and though the music and spinning couples continued around us, we were both still in each other’s arms.

I couldn’t move, didn’t want to, while the heat of our bodies mingled together. His form against mine was hard and taut, and I longed to run my hands over it to find the softness, to trace every dip and groove of muscles and joints with my fingertips.

The hand I had on his shoulder wandered towards his neck, but my eyes caught on the dirty bandages and I faltered.

But there must have been no distance between our thoughts, because he turned his head to the side to see my broken hand, poorly wrapped, resting on his shoulder. I took a deep breath, worried I was going to have to break this moment, this spell, by telling a story of blood and murder in the woods.

Instead he lifted a hand off of my waist, lifting my hand at the wrist. And softly pressed my fingers to his lips.

Around us, in another world, the band expended its final note and applause erupted around us.

Terror gripped me, then, where before there had only been blooming heat.

The song was done, and now he would leave, and I would no longer be in his arms.

I had never dreamed of a man, had never thought of one as either a partner to be sought or a viable escape. Had never been able to rely on any else, really.

But I thought for a moment that if I stayed here, next to him, I could walk away from this now absurd world of hunting and hunger and drab cottages and fall into his, one that must be exciting and mysterious and wonderful to hold a creature such as him.

Clasping my broken hand gently against his chest, the other still warming my back, his lips turned downward into a slight frown. Perhaps he felt the seconds ticking away as well, the inevitable parting.

I needed something from him - anything. A name, a title, a single word of explanation as to what was happening between us with our bodies so close. Something to prove this wasn’t a drunken dream.

I opened my mouth to speak.

“Feyre!”

Around us, voices began crying out - calling, chanting my name, as the band broke into a boisterous melody.

I turned out of reflex, feeling too late the warmth of him seeping away, his hands leaving my body. And as I turned back I only heard I’m sorry in a whisper, in a voice so soft I wasn’t sure if his lips were at my ear or his voice was in my head.

Sorry? Sorry for what?

The crowd was crying out for me, chanting “Feyre!” now, led by my father, still wearing the cloak of fur from the beast like a king. He was joined by the mayor, drunk and jolly, and the rest of the crowd rushed in around me.

My body locked up as they lifted me, up over heads and onto a wooden armchair held aloft on the shoulders of four men. It was wooden and ornate, bedecked in waxy winter bows and bright berries. In his hand, the mayor held a crown woven from dried holly, the gaps filled with yellowing roses.

Feyre! Hero! Fae-killer! the crowd yelled. I held onto the arm of the chair for dear life as I was rocked and carried over the crowd as if floating on a raucous wave.

I managed to turn just once. Wishing to find his face, and knowing deep down I would not. My eyes scanned the crowd for his dark raven hair, for his luminous presence, but found no trace of him - as if he had disappeared into the ether.

Just like everything beautiful and lovely. My heart sank deep into my chest as the crowd pulled me towards the wide entry doors.

Glimpses were all I ever got, the slightest spark in my chest of something good - warm, happy, beautiful. And then they were gone. Like the shooting stars I sometimes saw in the forest, blazing bright and then sizzling into nothing, my eyes the only witness to their short-lived glory.

I rocked on the chair as we emerged out of the doors and onto the open town square. Cold air brought me back to the earth, to my own body and away from my dark thoughts.

A bonfire was burning, bright and hot, and the crowd circled once. I worried for a moment they were going to toss me on it like some sort of offering. But instead I was placed in front of the fire, my body jostling until I found my feet and sat up.

All eyes were on me. All the hands reaching. I felt like a rabbit in a trap, about to lose its skin.

The band followed us out, cheers and the sound of strings and drums, and people began dancing. Some drank, some reveled, some sang. The sound traveled far and wide into the cold winter night.

My eyes followed the dancing flames, the embers jumping higher and swallowed whole. My head followed them, tilting further and further up and I exhaled, a puff of mist, all my thoughts and worries carried aloft into the dark triumphant solstice night.