The mountains of the Illyrian Steppes wrought a chill through my bones I hadn’t felt in years.

We flew for most of the day, listening to wherever the shadows at my brother’s back directed us, until at last the sun began to set and we landed in a small clearing between the trees.

They were close. Near enough to sent them on the tendrils of wind that carried their blood and sweat through the heavy pine of the woods. Since my return, I’d lost count of the number of rogue Illyrian war bands I’d had to hunt down and confront. And that wasn’t counting the number Cassian and Azriel had taken care of in my absence.

Today’s hunt felt restless. The outcome had been decided the moment we left the Steppes. These primal encounters never changed even if I spent the hours flying faster towards them hoping they would.

A confrontation. An offering of second chances. Bow down and obey - or pay the debt they owed for the blood they’d spilt, the debt for using fifty years of freedom to push the boundaries however they pleased.

The Night Court would need every drop in the coming weeks that it could spare. Petty disagreements over territory, among other things, wasn’t something I could deal with in the middle of a shift that sought to overthrow the entirety of Prythian.

And once Illyrian alliances shifted, they rarely shifted back.

So in blood, they usually ended.

We threaded through the trees, Cassian and Azriel silently stalking several paces out on either side of me until we hit the gap where the band made camp. It was a small legion, perhaps a dozen or so with their chosen lord in the center. An exquisite gash ran down the center of his cheek. No doubt he had been forced to earn his rank, had likely volunteered for the blood bath.

I wondered what they had done with the bodies, if they’d bothered to bury them properly in Illyrian fashion or had left them to rot in the snow.

Their heads turned in our direction as we neared close enough for them to catch our scent, but by then it was already too late. I held their minds steady from the grip of my power long before the three of us cleared the trees lining the perimeter of their camp.

My brothers strode quietly out from the trees, the swords they’d been gifted at the Blood Rite brandished in their hands in an offensive gesture, ready to strike at a moment’s signal from me.

Slowly, I narrowed my eyes on the newly elected lord and approached, tendrils of darkness trailing in my wake, my wings stretched out wide enough at my back to send a jolt of fear down even the toughest Illyrian’s back.

“Do I need to bother asking?”

My voice was flat, hardly even a question as the lord looked me over once and spat directly at my feet. “Whore,” he cursed and internally, I savored the feel of my mental claws dragging through his mind, undoing every last piece of who he was and would ever become before I let his body fall limp and ragged to the snow. I didn’t even wait. Little impulses of pain trembled along his skin and muscles in those last seconds before he gave up and was no more.

All round me, the forest rang silent save for the bitter, cold wind howling my sins in my ears.

Red splattered in harsh contrast against the snow at my feet, large sloppy drops dripping from Truth-Teller’s blade.

Azriel looked stoically at me as if he hadn’t just shed the blood of a half-dozen men he’d once shared camp with. I often wondered how he managed to lock that darkness away so well.

Slowly, he lifted a brow as snow crunched between Cassian’s heavy boots on my other side.

“Rhys?” Cassian said, dragging my attention down to my hands. They were shaking in a near violent manner.

Whore.

“Let’s go.”

“Rhys-”

I grabbed both their hands and winnowed on the spot before they could say another word.

I did not join them at the House of Wind that night for dinner.

---

There was blood everywhere.

All over the three young fae hooded and kneeling on the unforgiving marble floor, the dagger I watched fall clattering to that same ground, and most especially all over her .

Feyre stood reaching with a trembling hand for the second dagger covered in blood. Her clothes were soaked from merely one kill that shouldn’t have garnered that much evidence of her deeds. It carried onto her hands - her poor, stuttering hands that plunged themselves upon the fae woman singing herself into death’s waiting arms.

Amarantha sat poised on the throne calling Feyre on with praise. It felt disgustingly wrong.

Feyre pulled the third dagger and I knew what to expect as the veil was to be lifted on the final victim. Tamlin would be waiting and then our fate would be in the hands of this small human girl none of us knew. I felt like I was going to be sick even as Feyre questioned whether or not she could go through with one more murder - just one more murder , and we would all be free. Such a steep price to pay for her.

The hood lifted. Silence fell.

The blood stood out in stark relief against the resounding quiet of the room.

Feyre knelt before the third victim - before herself, her ears turned up into two stiff points, her skin smooth and blended into a soft perfection only my own breed possessed. And her body, which had become so long and elegant with its new fae gifted powers, sat strongly before her, beseeching her move forward.

And that’s when I knew where I was.

I saw Amarantha up on her throne because I saw her from Feyre’s eyes and not my own place on the dias where I should have been. This was nothing new. We’d been inside this prison countless times before and always we failed to get out alive.

Murderer.

The words chanted inside Feyre’s mind as a flurry of self-loathing and hopelessness I only ever felt inside myself welled up beneath her skin.

Butcher.

She angled the dagger at herself and my lungs screamed inside of me to stop her as I felt her anticipate the relief that blade could give her. No, no, never -

Monster.

A relief she welcomed, craved even. It was horrifying to watch, to feel.

Liar.

And it killed me to think she could see herself that way, in any way other than the determined, resourceful woman I’d met Under the Mountain who had saved us all and lost herself in the process.

“Feyre!” I screamed inside her mind, as violently and brutally as I once had to stop Amarantha from attacking her.

Deceiver.

But it was too late.

Feyre thrusted the knife into her own chest and I watched as my mate willingly committed suicide before my own eyes. Somehow, it was a thousand times worse than hearing her neck snap against her will.

---

I was already half-awake when I felt Feyre wake me from her nightmare.

Maybe my body was adjusting, learning to anticipate these moments each night, waking me up hours before the day needed me.

But Feyre needed me - needed someone. And so each night, I readied myself to be stolen prematurely from sleep. If I thought it might be a welcome reprieve from my own nightmares, I was wrong. Watching Feyre suffer was infinitely worse than doing it myself.

Her mind read like an open book when she woke like this and tumbled blindly out of bed racing for the bathroom. Had it not been for her own obsession with marking Tamlin’s position strewn about the sheets, willfully ignoring her distress, I wouldn’t have even realized he was there consuming her energy.

But he was there and night after night I watched her pretend it didn’t hurt her not to have him wake up at her movements, her tremors.

Calmly, I rose from bed and walked to my own bathing room that stretched wide and luxuriously off my townhouse. Most visits to these chambers, I indulged my wings in the freedom the space allowed, but tonight, I allowed no trace of them.

Sitting down between the toilet and the edges of the bathing pool, I felt the cool porcelain meet my back and waited for Feyre to finish retching... hundreds of miles away. Sweat coated both our brows. Feyre’s brown-gold hair fell against her face, a curtain around my own vision as I blacked out the waste filling the toilet in front of her - in front of us.

I wished I could see her eyes. It was, perhaps, the cruelest and most overlooked portion of my bargain with her. The bond linking us showed me what Feyre saw, but Feyre never looked at herself. Never gazed into any mirrors or wandered past lakes or meadows or reflective surfaces of any kind that might give me a glance at her face. I knew she wasn’t getting out that frequently much to my regrettable ire, so the lack of scenery in her life didn’t entirely surprise me, but the fact that she actively avoided her own reflection in the privacy of her rooms spoke volumes enough.

Redness stung sharply at Feyre’s eyes and at last, I felt her pull back and cling to herself, scrambling only mere inches away for the open window that revealed the night sky and she wiped the slickness away from her cheeks. Whatever remained was soon dried by the cool, crisp air kissing her skin.

Were her eyes more grey or blue tonight? I couldn’t remember from when I looked at her Under the Mountain, how the colors changed with her growing distress.

This is real , she thought. I survived. I made it out.

She had survived. She was free.

But still, she huddled around herself hugging her knees to her chest as though she were anything but.

Agony sank into my stomach as I felt her sharpened nails dig into her skin at the fists she’d tightened, as she gasped for air in deep breathes I took alongside her out the open window. She struggled for air, anything to feel a stasis again and there was only so much of it the night sky could provide her.

My night sky. I felt like a failure every time the stars blinked out in front of her and she lost herself a little bit more.

Real.

She mouthed the word to herself over and over again.

Yes, this is real , I thought, but I didn’t say it loud enough for her to hear.

For three months I’d sat back and watched just like Tamlin had on his seat next to Amarantha. For three months, I’d quietly convinced myself that the mask I wore Under the Mountain had become my real mask here at home. For three months, I convinced myself that the glorious emerald sitting on Feyre’s finger, the tears of joy she’d cried receiving it, were exactly what she wanted - what she deserved.

Tamlin.

She had done all of this for Tamlin. Not me. She hated me. More than hated me. Perhaps hate was too weak a word for what she felt for me. I had to remind myself of that fact constantly even as it drove knives under my skin.

If an eternity in the Spring Court was what she wanted, then I would let her have it. Cauldron knew I had done enough to fuck up her life. Dragging her to the Night Court for pointless visitations that would guarantee she hated me more, even if it meant gaining a valuable edge in what I knew was coming, would not help her.

And all I wanted was to help her. For my mate, I would yield to this nightly poison if it meant her happiness.

And yet...

Here she sat night after night. Alone. In the dark waiting for something to answer her. It was the only time I wavered. It was the only time I questioned my decision.

But unless she asked the question, unless she made the choice and called my name, I’d leave her be. This was her peace and she’d earned it.

However much I hated every single second of it and denied my loathing in the process, I had become such a coward. A monster .

Feyre’s noting of the pain lacing her palms dragged my attention back to her. I saw her fists unfurl revealing the sleek eye I had etched upon her left hand. She felt calmer now, more recovered from the incident that had transpired tonight. But her scowl at the tattoo and subsequent abhorrence flooding through her was dismissal enough.

And I knew those feelings all too well to ignore them.

Together, we stood. Together, we left our bathing chambers.

Separately, we returned to our own private worlds - she in hers and me in mine.

I had two weeks until I lost her, and likely the future of my court, forever.

The smooth ceiling of my room shimmered faintly in the early morning light as it poured in through the open windows of my room. Snow from the rooftops nearby reflected an extra layer of sheen to the light that would have been somehow dimmer any other time of year.

Though I hated having my wings pinned down, I rested comfortably on my back preferring to have them out and suffocated than stuffed inside myself, a further reminder of my previous imprisonment.

It was rare that a day went by in which I did not fly somewhere. Most nights I couldn’t sleep and so the stars wove together to form a cradle for me instead. I had missed it, that feeling of open air and crisp cool wind that burned my skin and lungs so badly the pain became a pleasure. Not even on the rare occasions Amarantha let me out of my cells of dirt and stone did I dare attempt flying. Anyone could see. Anyone might mark me for it and use it against me later on.

I knew she knew. She had to have known about my wings. She couldn’t not know after the weeks she’d spent with them pinned to the walls during the war torturing me for information. Yet it was the one part of myself she seemed to have forgotten or else casually chose to ignore while I was Under the Mountain.

There is one person who saw your wings in that court. You showed them to her when she cleaned your room...

I shuddered with a groan, the sheets beneath me feeling stale.

The Mountain.

I had to stop drowning in thoughts of it. It was too masochistic when this day already brought enough pain for me to harvest for the remainder of many winters yet to come.

Yet here I was lying wide awake in bed, my fingers tracing circles over themselves as I stared at the blank expanse of ceiling that mimicked the future I would enter into by the end of the day.

War was coming.

For three months since I’d earned my freedom and come home, my mind had been torn in two with one half dedicated to this repeated thought.

War was coming.

And the only way I could see to stop it was... just out of my reach. Barely any time into my reign as High Lord and already, I was going to fail my court miserably. Fifty years of service in those gods forsaken caves would be wiped out, forgotten among the pages of history the second Hybern figured out the key to rebuilding that damned pot that would unmake us all. I supposed if he succeeded, my lone consolation would be that all of history would be forgotten alongside whatever shitty contributions I had failed to make in a feeble attempt to go down on the side of good.

Dread knotted into the muscle fibers banding around my stomach and I didn’t know if the sentiment was mine or hers - the other half of my pounding thoughts. Maybe it was ours both.

She’d thought my name last night, only hours ago. Not only thought it, but said it.

Then you don’t know Rhysand very well at all .

The words had floated casually into my mind in a sea of emptiness I’d blocked out most of the day, startling me into pleasant surprise.

She never thought my name unless she could help it. The only time her mind dared to wander down that dark and drunken alleyway was in the middle of her nightmares, when she’d stare at that eye tattooed upon her skin and curse my name for it.

A curse. That’s all it meant to her. A cauldron damned curse.

Which was why it shocked me so thoroughly to feel it spoken off her lips, the bond opening like a chasm deep and wide for that brief moment to let me in.

...Rhysand...

She had so little control over her mind. There were times it was wide open and I flipped her thoughts over as one would the pages of a book, easily taking my time to peruse as I saw fit, something I preferred not to do if I could help it.

There were other times that it was closed. When she was so distracted by how bored or idle she was that ironically her mind felt it had nothing better to do than shut against me, entirely unaware of what she was doing.

But last night, she’d spoken my name. Spoken it and cringed even as she showed me through her vision those around her doing the same, including Ianthe, that frigid High Priestess better suited to a brothel than a temple altar.

Reflexively, I stretched my fingers wide allowing the stretch to pull the curse out of me. I had no love for Ianthe and her schemes, but it shamed me all the same to condemn her to the same names I had resorted to for the sake of my court.

Whore .

Perhaps that was what my mate called me in her mind when she tried not to think my name. She certainly hated me enough to use it. Everyone else did. My name was sure to be a curse inside her mind, one she would spend the rest of her life avoiding, already did avoid every time she stared at her tattoo and prayed I had forgotten her with such loathing and desperation, I sometimes forgot my place and plummeted straight out of the sky.

I avoided her name too. Avoided it like the plague. It was a reminder of what I could not have even if I was prepared to sit by for an eternity and watch her myself through the bond she thought was nothing more than dark blue ink on her arm and a broken bone I’d once mended.

Most days, I succeeded at keeping her out save for those moments her emotion become so strong she was practically at my side screaming at me. The only time I couldn’t seem to avoid it entirely was when -

A knock rapped curtly at my bedroom door. My eyes flickered close with a deep sigh. Speak of the devil, I should have known this would be coming.

“Come in, Morrigan,” I said, not bothering to sit up in greeting as my cousin walked briskly into my bedroom. “As if you needed an invitation.” My voice did not come out pleasantly.

“Good morning to you too,” she said with a small frown. “I’ll try not be too hurt by your underwhelming reaction to seeing me.”

She plopped herself down on my bed lying next to me, her arms tucked behind her head teaming with long golden locks that grew brighter in the increasing sunlight streaming in from outside. She had on a pair of dark leggings and a deep blue blouse, a color that suited her well.

I turned my head enough to look at her and spoke plainly.

“I told you weeks ago not to check in on me anymore.”

She pulled one hand down to examine her well manicured nails and flicked them off without a word.

“Morrigan.”

“When are you going to stop pretending that everything is fine? I’m not an idiot. I know what day this is.”

“Everyone in Prythian knows what day this.”

“Not everyone, including Cassian, whom you stormed out of training with yesterday after insisting you were fine when he asked you why you want to get shit faced tonight for no apparent reason.”

She lifted her brows daring me to deny it. I shrugged. “I see no reason why it’s any business of his - or yours for that matter - if I want to get drunk with my friends for the hell of it.”

“For her, you mean. For Feyre.”

Feyre.

And there it was. Morrigan was the one constant in my life capable of always dragging the truth out of me. She didn’t even need the aid of her magnificent gifts or charm to do it. Sheer will and nagging were enough alone.

“And I think you mean friend, singular, not friends, seeing as how no one else was invited to your little escapade tonight.”

I snorted and a ghost of a smile almost graced my face. “I suppose that’s why you’re here now, is it? To tell me how much you long to take care of two sick puking Illyrian males for the evening. And you can spare me the trouble of trying to convince me Azriel actually wants to be there for that.”

My brother would sooner have dinner alone with Amren than turn up to watch me become a morose drunk. Azriel spent his life among the shadows. He didn’t need to deal with my self-indulgent pity party on top of that.

“Azriel can take care of himself anywhere, as you damn well know,” Morrigan said, her eyes hard as steel, ever ready to defend her preferred Illyrian. “And he’d be there in a heartbeat,” she drummed her fingers on my chest for emphasis, “if you asked him and you know it. As I would too.”

I sighed, but didn’t say anything, my attention returned to that blank, blank ceiling above us.

Because of course she was right. That’s what was so annoyingly perfect about her and why we had all clung to her like honey for the better part of near on six hundred years.

“Rhys,” Morrigan said, propping herself up on one elbow, her voice softening. “It’s not too late, you know. She doesn’t marry him until sundown.” I didn’t have to ask who she’d spoken to for that intimate piece of information. “You could go and get her.”

“And say what, precisely? ‘Remember me? The man who got you drunk for three months, tortured you, taunted you, and pushed you into a bargain you didn’t want when I could have just been nice and saved you without asking anything in return? We’re mates and I’d love it if you didn’t marry the High Lord of Spring that you risked everything for. How does that sound?’“

Morrigan pursed her lips and bobbed her head a bit considering. “That’s an... i nteresting way to do it, but you might find a more subtle approach to yield better results.”

“Your suggestion, oh Queen of my wretched court?”

Mor smirked like a tiger. She liked that one and it seemed to put the next idea in mind.

“Why don’t you try starting with ‘Hello, Feyre darling.’ Someone once told me that one garners quite the reaction out of her.”

“Why do I tell you these things,” I said shaking my head. “You are impossible.” Morrigan laughed.

“So are you. Must run in the family.”

I was too miserable to return the laugh.

“Sundown.”

“Sundown,” she confirmed even though I already knew that detail, had been given every detail of this weeding right down to the lace design of the doilies they would set the tea kettles on. Azriel had given me all of that and more.

She would marry at sundown, when I’d go find Cassian and likely watch Feyre marry herself away, taking the easiest, albeit still perilous, path towards stopping an impending war away from my court along with my mate. In my drunken state warping the barriers of my mind, I’d likely see everything as it happened and hopefully forget it all by morning.

The Cauldron was cruel.

Perhaps a night of obnoxious drinking with my brother wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Sunlight filtered the room in full force now. Morning was here which gave me a long time to decide how much revelry I would be up for come nightfall.

“Morrigan.”

“Yes, Rhys,” my cousin replied thoughtfully.

“What are you doing today?”

“Hmm,” she said, a little hum in her throat. Her hips gave a scoot on the bed knocking into mine teasingly. “Hanging out with your sorry ass, I’d imagine.”

If only Feyre was never this alone. She might be here already.

Despite how much I liked to complain about my dear cousin, having Morrigan around for the day was more comfort than I cared to admit.

The only one who knew. The only one I’d told. Not even Amren knew everything that had transpired under that rock of dirt that cut Prythian in half.

By now, my inner circle knew strictly the facts. Feyre was a mortal who had willingly come into the lion’s den and offered herself already dripping in blood and bait to save Tamlin and break the curse on our world. After defeating three brutal tasks to free the fae she had grown up despising, she solved Amarantha’s riddle only to be killed at the fae queen’s hands anyway and wind up miraculously remade into one of our own. A High Fae lady among us with the spark of seven High Lords in her blood where once a human huntress had been.

And that was where the knowledge stopped. No one knew who she was to me. No one knew how deep the bargain on her tattooed hand now ran. No one knew what torment those three months had wrought on her still human heart, the one keeping her sane despite what she thought.

Feyre Cursebreaker was whispered throughout Prythian. Even the fae of Velaris, my own sanctuary I had struggled for centuries to keep hidden from the world, spoke of her. Their savior, she was hailed and rightfully so.

But never their Lady. Never their queen. And certainly never my mate.

I knew the second I saw Morrigan waiting for me on that balcony when I came home that I would keep it all locked away from them. I told Morrigan because I had to. I had to tell someone and she just happened to be there for me, the right person when I’d needed her. Had it been anyone else...

The relief at seeing her was... overwhelming, to say the least.

The words fell out of my mouth in droves I couldn’t contain. We didn’t move until I’d spat the entire story out at her, her eyes grown wide from shock as she watched me fall apart. I hadn’t even given her time to embrace me before I was gasping She’s my mate, my mate, my mate - she’s my mate at her over and over again and she had no idea who I was even referencing.

The last time I’d seen my cousin, I’d been dressed in my finest mask, the essence of power and might and all that I ever was and I’d returned home to her a mess. She had pleaded to go with me, had said I needed someone at my side that night to keep me from ripping my hair out all evening. I’d almost let her come. I would have been utterly fucked if I had.

And I vowed never to let the others see it. The second my story was done and I let Morrigan winnow us home to Velaris, I felt a hole inside of me close for none to pass through. Close, but a gaping pit remained beneath it waiting for the stitches holding it shut to burst open.

I wouldn’t let it.

We spent most of this day in quiet silence, content to remain at the townhouse for most of the morning before taking to the streets of Velaris and breathing in the fresh air. We walked for hours, never saying more than was necessary. Her presence was enough.

Occasionally, Morrigan would touch my wrist or squeeze my shoulder, but she never pried. Not once.

Not until we came home and stood on the rooftop watching the sun begin its descent towards the tips of the horizon. It was nice to stop and be idle for once. A day of walking had wormed a sick, nauseated feeling into my gut that was becoming harder and harder to ignore the longer we went.

“Cassian will be here soon,” I said. I stood stiffly with my feet apart and arms crossed over my chest.

“Is that a dismissal?” Morrigan said with little inflection. Stay or go, she would accept my request.

“It’s never a dismissal. You know that.”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder and smirked up at me. “I’ll try to remember that the next time we bicker over dinner or you get invited to a big party in someone else’s court.”

“That’s your own doing and you know it.”

Morrigan leaned up and kissed my cheek before turning for the door. “Say hello to Cass for me.” Her voice darkened and I felt her grow deadly serious. “He’s worried about you, you know. We all are. Your mask doesn’t fool everyone, Rhys. And this isn’t Amarantha’s court anymore. You needn’t always be so guarded.”

“I’m not so su-”

“Feyre?”

The words died in my throat. The barriers of my mind cracked open like lightning ripping the heavens apart as I saw through her eyes miles and miles away from me.

Tamlin was standing feet from Feyre, his arm outstretched towards it as she struggled in vein to convince her to take his offered hand.

Help me, help me, help me , she begged - pleaded so pitifully in her mind, her body begging her tongue to make use of the thought and turn it into some kind of action. I saw through her eyes, took advantage of the window she’d opened for me and surveyed the scene.

High Fae - hundreds of them - sat around her gawking whilst red rose petals that Feyre couldn’t stop staring at screamed at her from every corner.

Blood boiled in my veins. Darkness spilled out of me like waves on a turbulent night sea. I couldn’t see it through the fog I traveled within between our minds, but I could damn well feel it.

The bastards. The fucking bastards had recreated her damned trials all over again.

With Feyre, I saw them the way she did. This was not an assembly of Prythian’s finest turned out to celebrate a blessed union with her. This was a human standing in a pit of mud and bone and grime while those same people pretending to be her friends now stood around the perimeter of her cage and watched her fight a creature from the bowels of hell itself that she could never hope to kill. This was a girl who had no education, had never learned to read standing before a riddle she could not decipher while her only friend cried out behind her and these fools applauded feet above her head. This was the girl who had stained her soul with blood and death for the sake of the man she loved and earned only the cruel snap of her neck in return.

Save me - please, save me. Get me out. End this.

This was Under the Mountain all over again. Feyre was relieving it in the full light of day, but this time, the mask was pulled off and she was forced to see it as a blessing.

But her happiness, her happy ending... no one moved to help her and the solution sat there dangling before my eyes and I couldn’t move even as my heart tore itself to shreds watching her panic rise to a breaking point. I couldn’t take her future away from her, not unless she -

No.

Tamlin stepped forward and Feyre recoiled. No - no.

That was all I needed. That one little word. That was all I had ever needed.

I made my decision. Tamlin might be content to sit idly by and not do anything, but I would not. I would never keep quiet any longer. I would never - could never - let her suffer an eternity like this. I was shamed for how long I’d already let it go on.

“Rhys?”

Morrigan’s voice became a dull, distant memory in my mind as I winnowed on the spot. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Velaris had been plunged into darkness and storm with the rage that flew off me and swirled itself into thunderous applause as I landed in a cloud of smoke and shadow in the middle of the Spring Court. Starlight flecked the dust around me and when it settled, I stepped out of it giving a brisk shirk to the lapels of my jacket, now formal and elegant compared to the casual tunic I’d worn most of the day.

I had no idea of the chaos erupting around me. I spared the guests no thought as my eyes plucked over them one by one like the strings on a violin looking for her.

And then, there she was. Standing mere feet away from me.

And she was absolutely horrified at my appearance, but I didn’t care. Seeing her there standing in that dress that drowned her out and stole her voice, I felt a flicker of happiness for the first time in months .

My mask - that cruel mask of the wicked High Lord of Night hated and despised by all - was fitted tightly around me once more, but after fifty years of wearing it and three months of struggling to remember who I was without it, it felt like a comfort, a road I knew how to navigate that would get me... somewhere. Anywhere that was closer to her.

I looked at Feyre dead in the eye and the words sprang immediately to my lips in a rich, soothing purr that felt immediately familiar.

“Hello, Feyre darling.”

All around me, everyone screamed.