A/N:

Okay, first of all:

I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG TO UPLOAD!

I said a few weeks and it took me like two months. :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

You've all been so lovely with your well wishes and kind comments, so thank you so much for that, and I guess those crossed fingers really helped, because I'M DONE WITH SCHOOL!

Yessss, no more Math!

School was a major pain in my ass, but thankfully it's all over now, and to make up for it I have an emextra/em long chapter for you today. It's a bit of a filler, but don't worry, it's emall/em important!

We're going to be getting into more plot-ish things in future chapters, and drama is, as always, abound.

ENJOY!

xx

Kate

vVv

War.

The word clanged through me, and it looked like it had thrown the others as well.

Beron's lips pulled back from his teeth. "How dare you—" he hissed.

Cassian, blood still pouring from his chest, somehow managed to lift his head and snarl. He looked like he was about to pass out, and Morrigan put her hand on his shoulder, blood staining her slender fingers as she glared at the gathered High Fae.

"I dare, Beron, because my cousin is missing, and you played a part in it," she responded coldly. "And do not think the Night Court will not retaliate. That is all I came here to say. Whether or not you have employed this new…power to help, or if this is a new threat, is irrelevant. You have all signed your death warrants."

"But we haven't." The Lady of Winter stepped forward, her face earnest and her palms spread in front of her. "Mor, I can say without a single doubt that Winter played no part in this. You must believe me."

Mor. It seemed so…affectionate, so familiar. And yet utterly right.

Kallias stepped forward, his hand grazing his mate's lower back. "Indeed. We have had…our differences." Pain flickered across his gaze. "And I do not claim to like Rhysand, but he is a High Lord of Prythian. We would not do away with him without cause."

She shook her head. "I cannot afford to believe you," she whispered. She drew Cassian close and raised her head. "You have now been declared enemies of Night." I think her lips trembled a bit as she looked at the Lady of Winter. "Enter our territory, and you will face our wrath." Her face turned to ice. "This is your only warning."

She grasped Cassian's arm with her own and disappeared.

No ripple. No sound. Just gone.

Gone.

vVv

It was no surprise that the meeting dispersed quickly after that.

Everyone was so preoccupied with the news from the Night Court—missing, war, war, war, war—that Tamlin took advantage of the distraction and hustled me and the rest of the Spring Court out before the rest of the High Lords remember their promise to kill me.

He didn't bother with the retinue through the forests and the carriages—he grabbed me and Lucien with a bruising grip and winnowed us immediately back to Spring, leaving the sentries to make their own way back.

We hurtled through space and time, the ragged edges of the world brushing my arms and face and the bloodstained hemline of my dress.

I could feel it whispering to me, a soundless dance in the dark, and a pull, toward a frozen land of sea and mountains and endless, ruthless nigh—

We landed on the sun-drenched gravel driveway of the manor with a thud.

I stumbled, and Lucien steadied me, but his eyes were on Tamlin.

Tamlin, who was standing a few feet from us, his back turned, his shoulders trembling with rage.

I took a shaky step forward, ignoring Lucien's warning hiss, and said tentatively, "Tam…"

The snarl that sliced from him was inhuman in its rage, and I flinched as he started off down the driveway—not towards the house, but towards the wild forests surrounding us, where a human girl had once ensnared a Suriel.

Mid-run he shifted, hands turning to claws and hair and teeth turning to fur and horns and fangs, until a shadowy beast raced along the horizon, disappearing into the evening woods.

Moments later, a beast's roar split the land.

vVv

Dinner was a silent affair.

Lucien had silently escorted me into the house, where Alis waited with a pinched look on her face, then disappeared as I made my way to my room, took off that gods-cursed dress, and sank into a hot bath.

Alis didn't ask me about the meeting, but Lucien must have briefed her at some point, because she didn't even raise an eyebrow at the now clotted wound on my shoulder, merely sent for a healer and had them bathe and bandage it.

Even with a numbing tonic, it…burned.

I'd seen the healer's look as she examined it. My Fae healing was supposed to take care of minor injuries like this within hours. But it stayed open, stubbornly bleeding through the bandages, and staining the shoulder of my forest green dress the color of rust.

Tamlin did not return during the stiff, tense silence of dinner in the dining hall, where I made mostly stilted conversation with Lucien, too preoccupied to worry about politeness. I would have felt bad for being so antisocial if only he didn't seem particularly in the mood to chat either.

After twenty minutes of playing with my food, taking a few bites to maintain appearances and tasting only ashes, I excused myself, claiming a headache.

Lucien didn't seem to hear me; he just stared into the distance, his metallic eye utterly still.

I didn't particularly want to imagine what he was thinking about.

Alis was lurking the hallway as I headed toward my room—not our room. Tamlin and I had always had separate bedchambers. I supposed I would never know if that would have changed had we…married—but I ignored her, carefully opening the wooden door.

I'd already shattered, bended or broken everything of value on this floor of the manor in the weeks and months following Under the Mountain.

Whatever phantom power I'd accessed to wield against the King during the war hadn't given me any better control. I supposed only time could give me that.

Time. Now I had eternity of it.

I stepped into the darkened room, heading blindly for the bureau, and reaching for the pins curling my hair into delicate loops.

My shoulder burned with the movement and I bit back a cry.

Fuck.

What in hell was in that creature of darkness?

Alis's silent footsteps followed me in, and I felt her standing behind me, watching, as I stood in front of the mirror, my figure a dark, shadowy smudge in the reflective glass.

I took in the sharp cheekbones, hollow eyes, the pretty green dress that was too loose in the waist and shoulders, that fell around my skeleton like a burial shroud.

A phantom, I thought. Perhaps that was what I'd become.

Nothing but a ghost in cobwebs and crowns.

Not Savior, not Cursebreaker, nothing like the awed whispers that followed me.

Not the golden, pretty wife Tamlin expected—needed —me to be.

Maybe I never had been.

Maybe I was always meant to be a wolf, starving and deadly in the winter woods, snarling and biting at anyone who came close.

A weapon.

I closed my eyes, pushing back the waves of memory.

Red hair, red blood, red marble—

Whispers in the dark, thrashing and cold silence, the one presence I craved the most so far out of reach, beyond space and time and mountain ranges—

Missing missing missing missing missing

No, I couldn't think about that, couldn't think about him—

"Just spit it out, Alis," I said, my eyes still closed.

The fey shifted, and I sighed. My head pounded.

"You've never had a problem voicing your concerns or opinions to me before," I reminded her. "So go on. I know you're dying to say something, and I'd prefer to get some sleep sometime this century."

I almost regretted the harsh words, but before I could apologize she spoke.

"There has not been a war in these lands for many centuries."

I twisted to look at her, more out of surprise than anything else. Her tree-bark skin was darkened with shadow, her eyes little pinpricks of deeper blackness, like pools of ink or oil.

"Hybern—"

Alis shook her head, her mouth pressed together. "Hybern was terrible, but it never truly came to a full scale war. Not as this would." She swallowed. "The Night Court…in the first war, their legions were something to be feared."

I knew. I'd seen them in the camps, seen the rows of Darkbringers and winged males. But never on the battlefield.

Only in that last, final battle when I struck that killing blow…

"We fought just a few months ago side-by-side," I told her, trying to hide the tremble in my voice. "This could not be worse."

I couldn't see her face, but Alis didn't seem convinced, even as she bowed and murmured, "Of course, lady. I will leave you to rest."

She turned and walked away, me staring after her.

At the door, she paused, her gaze latching on mine through the shadows.

"The Night has a foot in the shadow world," she said, her voice low. "They are different than us. Darker, fiercer—more powerful and dangerous. And their allies of monsters and men…"

She didn't finish her thought, just shook her head, and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

I stood staring after her for many more long moments, before turning back to the bed.

I didn't turn on the lights once as I stripped and slid into a too-large nightgown.

The silk was slippery against my skin, the sheets cool as I lay in bed, my heart pounding, straining for the sound of footsteps in the hall, the echo of breath…

Nothing.

And I lay there, wide awake, dreams and nightmares, past and present, snaring around me in a thorny nest.

Tamlin didn't come to me once.

vVv

The halls of Under the Mountain were in ruins.

I made my way along the bare tunnel that led from Spring, hand trailing against the rough stone, feeling only numb purpose, a tug telling me to keep going.

I was wearing a simple white dress that fell to my feet. The color made me want to cringe.

Pure, it was too pure, too good—

Not me.

As I neared the main hall I tried to slow, tried to push down the balking terror that rose up—

My body continued to drift, into that marble room.

Faceless people turned to look at me, their features blending together into a nameless terror.

I continued on, even as I was silently screaming inside.

Gone, these people were gone. She was gone, she couldn't hurt me, the ceiling wouldn't collapse onto me, sealing me into the earth—

Against my will, I looked up at the dais, where a red haired queen held court—

But it was not Amarantha who sat there.

It was the roiling, deep, evil darkness of the meeting with the High Lords, not quite a physical form, but a presence nonetheless. In the depths, I thought I caught a glimpse of golden hair and light eyes.

And kneeling on the floor below it…

I knew those broad shoulders, the slender hands and dark hair, the wings trailing from his back like a fallen angel's.

I came to a convulsive halt, a stretching, tearing call reaching out—

"Rhysand."

My voice echoed in the room, far louder than it should have been.

The High Lord of the Night Court didn't look up, his head bowed, hair falling over his forehead and obscuring his face.

I stumbled forward, tripping over the long white dress I wore, but someone—something—else had notice my call.

The darkness stopped its swirling, turning toward me with something that looked like…surprise.

Cursebreaker, it hissed. The voice sounded clearer than it had in the meeting hall. Younger, and feminine. Almost familiar. The darkness drifted toward me like tendrils of fog.

Of course you would come, it whispered. The eighth of seven…this calls to your dreams.

It came closer. He calls to you.

I knew it—she—was talking about Rhysand, but I couldn't bring myself to do more than shake my head, terror suffusing inside me—

A low laugh. No matter. It will be done soon enough.

The dark twined around my waist, drawing me closer to the dais, to the fallen warrior kneeling on the floor.

Look, it whispered in my ear, as gentle as a lover's caress, the strongest High Lord in history was unable to defeat me. I know your dreams, your nightmares, your secret wishes and fears, the brokenness inside your soul, the tie to the north and the darkness…

And as the darkness rose to swallow me up, embracing me like a thousand knives of fire and the cold embrace of death…

You will fail, Queen among mortals. You will fall, just as your heart has.

I sank into blackness.

vVv

I retched into the toilet, clutching the cool porcelain with burning hands.

My throat felt raw and rasping, as though I'd been screaming for hours, even though no one had come to investigate any noise, so I knew I must have been silent.

My skin was too hot, my soul too big for my body as I panted, curling my fingers into fists that drew blood from my palms, trying to rid myself of the deep claws of my nightmares.

Even now, the remnants were fading, leaving only the darkness and the pain, the whispers of death, and something—something precious—remaining there, something I needed with my whole being, the only thing tying me to this earth—

I vomited again.

When I was done I flushed with trembling fingers and sank into the floor, pressing my hot cheek to the cool bathroom tiles, letting my heart steady, trying to sort reality from myth.

I glanced up at the cracked open window, at the slice of night sky visible.

Even that couldn't bring me my usual comfort. They just felt…empty.

And as I lay there, sinking into a daze, I could have sworn that living, twining shadows lurked in the corners of the room, watching me with nameless curiosity.

vVv

The next few weeks passed with little excitement.

Tamlin had returned the next morning with apologies, bearing a bouquet of roses, which I'd accepted, pasting a smile on my face.

I didn't tell him how much the red made me want to hurl, or how the thorns cut into my palms, leaving scarlet crescents that I could barely bear to look at.

Lucien was gone most days, though Tamlin made an effort to be at my side every available second, showering me with affection and smiles, seemingly trying to drown out all the turmoil going on beyond our borders.

But even when we were laying in fields of wildflowers, even when I was in his arms as he made love to me…there was something missing.

Tamlin's efforts would have worked though, would have let me sink into a faux-content haze, had I not seen the worried looks passed between servants, the whispers and secrets kept from me.

Even by Tamlin.

I'd been walking through the empty study a few days after we'd returned, studiously ignoring the paintings on the walls, when I head a familiar voice hissing from the half-open door to the hallway:

"You have to warn her, Tam. This isn't just about us anymore—" Lucien's voice.

And the 'her' in question was presumably me.

I crept closer, ignoring the tingling feeling of guilt gnawing at my stomach.

Tamlin's returning answer was stone cold. "Do not push me on this, Lucien. She is a valuable ally—and she will make the other High Lords think twice about testing us."

Lucien snorted and the venom in his voice was clear. "Only because she's a poisonous bi—"

A snarl rattled the crystal chandelier above my head.

"That is enough. You will be polite to her when she arrives. And you will not, under any circumstances, use your friendship to manipulate Feyre into seeing her as a villain. She needs more female friends, and this is the perfect match for her. Is that clear?"

There was silence, which Tamlin seemed to take as acquiescence.

"Good. We've fortified the borders for now—no one can harm her. Those pitiful attacks they've sent will not be enough." Another low growl, and fear raced through my veins like acid. "No one will harm her. I would see this entire court destroyed before a single hand was lain on Feyre."

A heavy sigh. "Yes, High Lord," Lucien murmured. "Just be wary. A force that can kidnap a Faerie as powerful as Rhysand is something to be feared even by us."

I didn't hear Tamlin's response—though I doubted there was any beyond a chilling look—but their footsteps faded as they walked away down the hall.

I'd pressed myself against the wall, my heart pounding and vision swimming.

Attacks. The other High Lords had sent attacks after the Spring Court. After me.

Attacks Tamlin clearly didn't want me to know about.

Why?

I took a shuddering breath and slowly slid down to the floor, my too-thin knees knocking together under the pinching gauze of my dress.

And a 'she' who was coming to visit us.

Sudden terror caused my limbs to lock up.

The last mysterious 'she' mentioned in this house had been Amarantha. But Tamlin didn't speak of this female with fear or hate. He spoke with deference, with respect. Maybe even affection. I wondered who she was to him. Perhaps an ex-lover.

I wondered if maybe I should care about that, feel some jealousy over this no doubt beautiful, charming, good female who'd perhaps once held Tamlin's heart.

But all I felt was numbness.

I did not rise from that floor for a very long time.

vVv

The silence was stifling me.

Tam was lounging in his chair at the head of the table, his face brooding, and Lucien had been steadfastly avoiding my eyes since I arrived.

And I couldn't care less.

Since that meeting with the High Lords…I'd been drowning in silence. Different from the shattered rage after Amarantha, during the war. This was endless. A freefall with no end in sight.

And I'd let it swallow me whole.

I pushed the food around on my plate, a growing headache pressing at my temples.

The ticking of the clock was the only sound.

Maybe I'd excuse myself early, head up to my room. But not to bed. I'd been purposefully keeping myself awake these past few nights, not daring to close my eyes lest another one of those dream come—dreams swathed in shadow and menace and the fallen form of the High Lord of Night.

"An…old friend of mine will be coming to stay with us soon," Tamlin said suddenly, startling me out of my hazy thoughts.

Lucien's face went cold.

I tried to muster up a look of interest. I was pretty sure I failed. "Oh?"

Tamlin's face was halfway between tense and relaxed. "Yes. Her name is Ianthe. She is a High Priestess—one of the Twelve who govern the land alongside the High Lords. She will be occupying the old temple at the edge of the grounds for the foreseeable future, helping out with certain affairs."

Like keeping me out of the other High Lords hands.

No doubt this was the mysterious female Lucien and Tamlin had been arguing about earlier.

I dared a glance at the Emissary and saw that he was determinedly staring at his plate, both his metal and russet eyes still.

Why wasn't he pushing, if he was so against this woman's presence here?

Misinterpreting the look, Tamlin assured me, "She won't disrupt out daily routine. Mostly she'll remain cloistered in her temple. But…I would hope that you two could become friends. You need more female companionship."

I frowned. "I have Alis—" I started.

Tamlin pressed his lips together. "Of course you do. And Alis is a loyal and steadfast servant."

I hear the unsaid words. But not a suitable friend for someone like you.

I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood, but kept the words in with difficulty.

Sensing the tension, Lucien smoothly changed the subject—though the next topic wasn't much better.

"The repairs in the village are going well," he said, clearing his throat. "Though they would appreciate some assistance with rebuilding their borders. During our…absence the forest encroached much of the town, and a clan of naga settled in."

"Send some sentries to help clear the border, and I'll ride out tomorrow to deal with the naga," Tamlin said.

Lucien accepted this with a shallow dip of his chin and seemed prepared to move onto another subject, but they would be leaving tomorrow and doing things and I would remain here and—

And—

"Take me with you."

Eating halted down at the other end of the table, and Tamlin didn't even bother setting down his wine as he said simply, "No."

Lucien winced.

I tightened my fists—clad, as always, in pale silk gloves—in my napkin and said tersely, "The villagers need all the help they can get, and I'm just another set of able hands that can assist them. This is the least you could give them. Give me."

Now he set down his drink, his face stone and brows narrowing. "They have all the help they need, Feyre. You'd only be a nuisance—a distraction."

I ignored the way my chest caved at the words, the way a little bit more of my heart, my self chipped away. I pushed, "But it would be helping them—"

"I said no." Tamlin slammed his hands into the table, claws sliding out and gouging deep.

I flinched back in my chair, and Lucien shifted, his mismatched eyes flickering back and forth between us.

Tam growled, "No, Feyre. It's too dangerous, and I cannot—will not—let you be compromised like that again."

Because there had been a time when he could not protect me, when he was vulnerable, and he could not bear to be like that again.

I knew this—understood it.

But I could not stop the white hot anger from razing my senses, the rage coming from a place so deep inside me I feared there was only black, festering darkness remaining.

"So I am never to see this light of day again?" I asked, something dark and wicked and alive singing in my blood. This—this was the only semblance of emotion I could feel. I embraced it—reveled in it. "I am to be your prisoner?" I practically spat that last word, spat it with months' worth of fear and anger and hatred.

Tamlin's eyes glowed, and the wood groaned beneath his claws—

Lucien barked a curse. "Shit—"

He didn't even have time to throw up a shield as the High Lords' power blasted through the room.

I cried out as my chair toppled over, instinct taking over—

The windows shattered.

The furniture splintered.

And that dining room table we'd had so many meals at…

It exploded into dust and glass and wood.

vVv

My ears were ringing.

A distant line of blood slid down the wall nearest me, impaled with shards of broken glass.

Not my blood.

I wasn't harmed. Not a single scratch of hair out of place.

Even with the ravaged dining room around me, flickering in the distant, too-bright light of torches and candles.

Lucien was thrown against the wall, a shard of broken glass sticking out of his arm, his wide-eyed face bloody and cut up. But conscious.

Alive.

I tried to gather the breath to speak, the strength in my legs to stand, to help him…

Tamlin was standing where the head of the table used to be, his head bowed and hands still curled into claws.

My arms were wrapped around myself, my knees curled up underneath me, the tattered remains of my dress spread around like a morbid flower. My shoulder had started to bleed again, fire racing down my arm. But even that was strangely numb. Detached.

As I watched Tamlin raised his head, sucking in a great breath as though emerging from underwater—and his eyes landed on me,

There was devastation on his face. And pain. And fear. And grief.

Tamlin took a step toward me, his mouth opening—

He halted, seeming to take in the shattered glass, the blood on the floor.

"Feyre," he rasped.

Lucien pulled the shard of glass out with a grunt, his immortal healing already closing the wound.

And around me…nothing.

"Feyre, please," Tam breathed.

Nothing but clear marble floors, ruined pink skirts, and a wall of solid, unflickering night, shielding me from the ruin.

And it was coming from me, the lines of shadow spreading from underneath me like a depthless ink stain, leeching away all color in the world.

I knew exactly who this gift had come from.

Tamlin tried to take another step—tried, and recoiled as he hit that wall, separating us.

My wall.

Through Rhysand's power.

Even if I'd never displayed…any of this during the war.

The power of night to stop a High Lord.

I'd thought only another High Lord could have done that.

Clearly I was wrong.

"Feyre," Tamlin groaned a third time, pushing a hand against what indeed looked like an invisible, curved wall of flickering shadow and air. "Please. Please."

Those words, the desperation in them, cracked something in me, and like a tidal wave sweeping back in reverse, the wall collapsed, shadow sucking back into me, wrapping around my heart until it was coated and shielded by darkness, like a glittering wall of adamant.

Tamlin's hand shot through the divide, and he stumbled a step, once again fully human.

He dropped to his knees, taking my face in his hands. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

I couldn't stop trembling, couldn't stop seeing the blood, the night, the ruin. A terrible blend of doubt and death.

Tamlin slid his hands down to my waist, wrapped himself around me.

"I'll try," he whispered. "I'll try to be better, I promise. But I love you, Feyre—and I will always strive to protect you. Just…let me try."

I couldn't speak, couldn't do anything but let him hold me, let the familiar, hard warmth of him try to wash away everything.

But over his shoulder I saw Lucien laying slumped against the walls, his face pale, the shard of bloody glass on the ground beside him, the wound on his arm still barely healed.

And on the ruined white marble I could have sworn I saw traces of shadow still imprinted there.

I opened my mouth, still unsure if I could really even speak, but then a chirping hello cut through my efforts.

Tamlin tensed, a snarl building and claws sliding out at a perceived threat even as I twisted to look—

But it was not some monster, not some denizen or assassin from another court.

The female standing in the doorway was stunning. Almost overbearingly so. Her golden curls layered over the hood of her blue-grey robe, teal eyes and a smile like molten honey peeking out. There was a line of midnight blue tattoos stamped over her brow in the phases of the moon.

I knew who she was even before Tamlin shoved off me and breathed, "Ianthe."

I remained on the floor, watching as that almost too beautiful priestess took in the carnage, the blood. Lucien laying against the wall.

Tamlin paused a few feet away, his arms hanging unsurely at his sides, and he said, "Thank you for coming." He followed her gaze. "Apologies. We had a little…accident."

Both sets of eyes went to me, and I nearly flinched at the weight of those gazes, the knowing looks that I had caused this…

But some inner strength—one that didn't entirely feel like my own—made me lift my chin. Straighten my spine. Harden my eyes until I met their looks, daring them to comment on the wreckage, the loss of control and power I didn't dare think about.

The High Priestess Ianthe lowered her teal gaze, bowed to me. "Feyre Cursebreaker—Savior of Prythian," she murmured huskily. "What an honor. I hope we can become close friends in the future."

So she would be staying awhile.

The words sounded like honey, like a sweet-scented summer day. Tamlin seemed to think so, with his approving smile, smoothing away any anger, fear or rage from before.

I thought the words sounded like a lie.

vVv

The knock on my bedroom door took me by surprise.

Ianthe hadn't said much more to me before drawing Tamlin and Lucien away on claims of urgent business.

They'd gone, Tam with a last, gentle, apologetic kiss on my mouth.

I tried to hide how I flinched away from it.

Alis had swept in seconds later, sharp eyes missing nothing, yet remaining silent as she simply herded me up to my room, into a hot bath, disposed of my old, torn clothes, and left me sitting at the vanity before quietly retreating.

Now the manor was silent with the velvety blackness of night. Silent, but for the echo of the knock on my door.

I froze, the light of my single candle illuminating my knotted hands, my vacant gaze at the cold, lonely and yet strangely lovely stars.

Not him, I found myself praying even as I made my way to the door, hands unnervingly steady beneath my gloves. Please don't be him. I don't know if I can face you right now—

The door swung open, and Lucien paused, his muscled, scarred hand raised in the air mid-knock.

I blinked.

"Good, you're awake," he said. He shifted. "Ah…good."

I remained silent.

He cleared his throat. "Can I…come in?"

I hesitated, then— "Of course."

I stepped aside, letting him pass. His shoulder brushed mine as he did, and I nearly flinched. He was ice cold.

Lucien stopped in the middle of the room and surveyed it, taking in the rumpled bed covers, the cracked open window and the flickering, nearly burnt out candle. I'd need to light a new one soon. I couldn't bear to be in the dark anymore.

I did so, fumbling with the matches on the vanity just to have something to do with my hands.

You could create this on your own, a hidden inner voice reminded me. If you dared, you could do anything. You could remember how it felt, to spark and ravage and burn—

I shut down that voice as firmly as I could and said, my back to him, "I see that you're all healed." My own voice, thankfully, came out steady.

It was the first mention of what had occurred downstairs.

I heard Lucien's breath catch, my Fae hearing noting the slight disturbance. I winced, putting a hand to my ear. Strange—so strange, these new feelings and sounds. I wondered if I'd ever get used to it.

But he said, "Yes. Faeries are fast healers." A pause. "Ianthe and Tamlin are…discussing some matters of state downstairs. They'll be busy for a while"

Matters I no doubt wasn't allowed to hear about.

I heard the unspoken message. Tamlin won't be coming to see you tonight.

Rather than look at that too closely, I turned, bracing my hands against the wood of the vanity, studying the Autumn colored Faerie frankly. "Why do you hate Ianthe?"

Lucien's face tightened almost imperceptibly. "I don't hate her."

I snorted. "Well, that's convincing."

Even though it probably made me a wretched, nosy person, when he didn't respond, I prodded, "You glare every time her name is mentioned, when she arrived earlier you couldn't even look at her—"

"Well maybe that had something to do with the fact that you were lying on the ground in a gods-damned cocoon of night sent straight from the Cauldron and Tamlin was on the verge of destroying the whole manor," he snapped, fists clenching and eyes flaring with gold.

Like flames, a distant part of me thought.

A part that had once been rife with color and sound and light.

But now…

I didn't say anything, and Lucien took a deep breath, running a hand distractedly through his hair.

"Ianthe's family," he said carefully, "had…ties to Hybern, during the First War."

Because now there was a second, a Great War.

"Her father caught wind of…her attack." He didn't say her name. "And rather than stay and fight, he took Ianthe, their mother and her little sisters away to the Faerie city of Vallahan, on the continent."

"If she was a child—"

Lucien shook his head, the light flickering over the tan planes of his face, the brutal scar. "She wasn't. Ianthe is young for our kind—just over four centuries. But she is cunning. And when the High Queen's reign began…she chose to flee rather than remain with her homeland."

And for Lucien, who had suffered and fought so much for family and a place to call home…that would have been unforgivable.

He looked lost in his thoughts now, no doubt in some long buried memories I'd dragged up, but I dared to ask, "Were you two good friends?"

Lucien started, as though emerging from a deep sleep, then registered the question and his brow furrowed. "She…was Tamlin's friend, at first. In the beginning, in the years after the First War and the wall. But…when I came here…she was kind to me. She listened. She helped me—" He seemed to choke on the words.

I dug my fingers into the wood, my shoulder burning with the effort. Alis's new bandages were going to be ruined very soon at this rate. "What happened?"

A dangerous line. We were dancing a dangerous line here, between Tamlin's orders and painful, shattering pasts that were better left buried—

"She wanted more than I could give," he said simply, eyes shadowed. My heart clenched. "And when she couldn't have me…she moved on to other pursuits."

My heart stopped, and I opened my mouth to ask—

I slowly shut it again, keeping the words in, not daring to voice them, as Lucien continued.

"But she'd understood me—at one point. Understood what drove me. What Prythian meant to me. And she turned her back on it anyway."

I couldn't speak, couldn't think past the cold, hard feeling burning in my chest. There were missing pieces in the story, things Lucien found too private, too painful, to tell me, but…

This was the female Tamlin had smiled at, welcomed into his home. The friend (Maybe even a lover, a traitorous little voice whispered in my head) who he trusted to hear the secrets of this court, the ones I wasn't allowed to hear—

There was a groaning sound—

A crack.

I looked down, heart hammering. My nails had dug into the wood, creating small crescents nearly a half inch deep. The ornamental golden border had snapped off, lying on the carpet in a glint of precious metal.

Lucien's eyes were on it too.

I gulped down air like a drowning man, begging, praying he wouldn't mention it—

"I'll see you in the morning," was all he said, and I tried not to slump with relief.

I managed a jerky little nod, then he was out the door, almost too fast for me to follow.

And I wondered if maybe he had been just as eager to get out of this room, this conversation, as I was.

The candle flickered, and as I watched it burned out, leaving me in velvet-soft darkness.

vVv

"So, your family still lives over the wall, in the human realm, do they not?" Ianthe asked, her face tilting inquisitively as we walked through the gardens.

"Yes." I didn't elaborate more than that.

A pause.

Her brow crinkled a bit, but she laughed the awkward silence off and said, "Well, I'm sure they're very proud of you."

I nearly snorted. "Clearly, you don't know my sisters very well then."

They'd likely be glad if I was eaten by faeries or monsters, or killed by this strangling silence inside.

They'd barely even heard of the Great War, the shattered armies tearing each other to pieces across the sun-levelled plains of the Day Court.

Memories rose behind my eyes, drowning my senses—

Ianthe's silver bracelets tinkled as she crossed her hands elegantly, and the sound brought me back to my body.

Her stunning golden face was politely inquisitive, but Lucien's words from the night before still echoed in my head, still prevented me from trying to get to know her.

Even if Tamlin, resplendent and utterly casual at breakfast this morning, as if nothing had happened, had looked so pleased when Ianthe offered to walk around the grounds with me, and I'd warily accepted.

Now…I wasn't sure if this was a very bad nightmare, or just a simple lack of interest in conversation.

But the priestess asking about my sisters…

I held back a frown as we passed a branch in the hedge, and, spotting the dark red of Tamlin's mother's roses ahead, and feeling nausea begin to rise in my stomach, quickly turned us down another path. "Why are you so curious about the human realm?"

Her face tightened. "Oh, just trying to find out more about your life," was the swift, light reply.

I crossed my arms, not caring that it wasn't ladylike in the least. "I think the only important parts of my life are the ones everyone already knows." My tone was frosty.

A quick glance and a little hum. "Really." Her tone said she disagreed with me.

Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to care.

I was just about to say to hell with rudeness and go back to the manor to languish in silence, when Ianthe paused and said casually, "I have something to show you."

You mean something I haven't already seen in the year and a half I've been living here, as opposed to the fifty years you've spent away? I wanted to say. I didn't.

The priestess led me down a little hedge-covered passageway and my spine locked up, my breathing quickening at the darkness, the lack of space, the memories—

We emerged into bright sunlight, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the little clearing near the edge of the gardens.

Once I'd taken in the white flowers growing in neat lines around the edges, the pretty little fountain in the middle, and moved on to the rest…

For a second I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, that the darkness and lack of sleep had muddled my brain as surely as it cast shadows under my eyes.

But they weren't.

Because there was Tamlin, standing in the middle of the bedecked clearing, his face open and happy, so sure, and Lucien and Alis and all the sentries and High Fae and servants gathered behind them…

"Feyre," my love said, smiling, beckoning.

But my eyes went straight to the little box he was holding in his right now, the wood and velvet—red, I noted dimly—glinting in the spring afternoon, and I couldn't make my legs move.

Ianthe slipped out from behind me, beaming, and took her place at Tamlin's side.

Her place…

Because this was…this was…

My gaze shot to Lucien and Alis, and their faces alone were grim, still, unsure if this was right. Damning.

My breathing became faster, a writhing, slithering power awakening beneath my skin.

Distantly, as if I were underwater, I saw Tamlin go down on one knee, opening that little box, revealing the ring, a twin to the one I'd once worn, before I'd thrown it into a rushing river in Winter, all bright gold and glittering emerald…

His lips moved, forming words I couldn't hear.

My heart pounded slower, not faster, spreading, changing as that thing inside me reared its head—

But I heard the words at the end, the tone so bright and hopeful and certain.

"Feyre Archeron…will you marry me?"

The moment hung in odd suspension, Ianthe's self-satisfied smile peeking out from behind Tamlin's shoulder, Lucien's eyes darting through the crowd, Alis's silent, grim stare…

I began to shake my head.

Shake it, because that thing was trying to get out and I could feel it climbing my insides, and this felt wrong—

Whispers swept through the crowd, and people shifted, Ianthe's smile dimming just a bit.

Tamlin frowned, rising to his feet and taking a step forward.

That power paused, waiting…

"Feyre?" A question, and a prompt.

No.

No, no, no, no.

I didn't realize I was saying it until his face darkened, that ring glinting in the light.

I saw his muscles tense, that familiar lithe grace preparing to move, to take another step closer…

No.

He took that step, the wasted marriage promise hanging in the air between us. That ring—

And I erupted.

vVv

Ending Note:

I'm sure some of you noticed a few distinct parallels to ACOMAF in this chapter, and that's because a. I was just reading ACOMAF and it was perfect to model after and b. I wanted it to run side-by-side with the whole Feyre/Tamlin/Ianthe/Lucien quad-thingy.

Hopefully update time will be shorter for the next chapter, but it would seem that someone *cough* me *cough* wasted the entire summer on one stupid chapter (even if it was really long) and now has to start school again! Seriously, me? I really want to punch you right now, but then I'll be unconscious and I'll never get this uploaded so…

It's a vicious circle.

Until next time!

*virtual hugs to all the kind and patient people reading this*

Kate