Thanks to franklyherondale, wavingthroughawindow, Fire Breathing Queen and rowaelinfeyrhys for reviewing!
franklyherondale: Thank you so much!
wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! I find Cassian kind of difficult to write, so I'm glad he made you smile! And I loved setting up the backdrop for Nessian - that was probably the easiest part of the chapter to write. I hope you like this chapter!
Fire Breathing Queen: Feyre's not gone looking for Amarantha in this chapter - she was just very overwhelmed by Rhys's "betrayal" and so much information and the repercussions of it, so she had to run off to try and process it all. This is her processing it :)
rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you! The first part of the story I came up with was the Feysand and the Elriel and such, but I needed a storyline (and a villain) for it to all fit together, which is why it's all developing at once. I hope you enjoy!
This chapter it kind of backstory-heavy, but not everything is revealed, so if there's anything you still don't understand then just say so in the reviews and I'll try to make sure it's answered in the next chapter, if it's not another big reveal I've got planned.
Disclaimer: I don't own the ACOTAR series; it belongs to Sarah J. Maas.
The mountain earth was hard beneath her feet as Feyre ran. The slopes of Alpha Astra were steep and rocky, but Feyre knew them. She'd worn the paths smooth running along them as a child, been battered and bruised through the many trips and falls she'd sustained, played hide and seek in every minute crack or crevice she could find. This was her territory. She wasn't afraid of it.
Amarantha's back Amarantha' back Amarantha's back oh please no Cauldron no not her not her again-
The scar on her calf burned.
She shouldn't be here. She should be down at the manor with her family, working through a contingency plan to get the hell out of this city. She shouldn't be climbing a mountain in too-thin clothes, summer or not, the thin air making her shiver in earnest.
She should go home.
But Amarantha is back, and now it's not a matter of should she but a matter of will she.
Rhys had spoken so- so easily - about killing Amarantha. Said it with arrogance in his voice, albeit mixed with desperation at the plight he'd been in. Said it like it had just occurred to him, a you know, maybe we could do this that had sprung to mind. Like it wasn't the deepest desire of Feyre's tormented and healing soul that Amarantha was dead and gone and burning in Hell.
It had scared her, in the initial days after the nightmare, after the physical wounds had healed but the psychological ones were just beginning to fester. It had scared her how much she wanted to see her tormentor suffer for what she had done to her - to her family. She had been a sheltered teenager with the roof and rug ripped from over and under her, left to freefall into oblivion, and she had been so, so afraid.
She was so, so afraid.
Her footsteps carried her where her thoughts could not, and when the fissure in the rock opened up, mere hundreds of metres below where the mountain split into its two peaks, she dived into it. The darkness swallowed her like the embrace of a well-worn dressing gown and she sighed in relief, her breath echoing. It was dark in here - dark, but she found her way.
After she'd stopped running for an instant, after she allowed the unmarred tranquillity of the tunnel to soothe her racing heart: that was when the thought bubbled again to the surface.
She shouldn't be here.
She shouldn't be here not only because she was needed down there, or because there was no mistake, but because in the wake of her mother's death and the return of her murderer she was forgetting - no, not forgetting, discarding, obliterating, defiling - her mother's most staunch advice: Never walk the Ouroborous Path alone with a heavy heart.
And Feyre's heart had never felt heavier.
For a moment she froze, those whispered words from so long ago yanking at something in her chest like the stitches in a too-small piece of clothing.
Then she plunged farther into the tunnel.
She didn't need the green light from the pools to her left and right in order to see, but she was grateful for it anyway; muscle memory could only get you so far, and legends had been told about negligent fools who'd fallen in enchanted places such as this and been cursed in increasing imaginative ways forevermore.
The tunnel itself was uninspiring, if a haven for a child's imagination. It was a natural cavern that stretched through the centre of the mountain, right from one side to the other. In places it was about as wide as a tennis court, the stalactites on the ceiling at least three stories up; in others it was barely narrow enough for one large person to fit through, with twists and turns that dug uncomfortable into your spine and back if you didn't shimmy along sideways.
It had been the highlight of Feyre's youth.
The puddles and pools - filled with a rare, bioluminescent algae, Feyre's mother had said; she assumed that was the truth - that littered the floor were unusual, and made it a fascinating place to walk, but that wasn't what made it so famous - or dangerous.
No, what did that was the magic the place seemed to sing with. This place had been sacred to witches and wizards for generations, stood as a site of pilgrimage since long before witchcraft was legal, been the entire reason that a city like Velaris - nestled only a few dozen miles away from it - had such a large magical population. When the witches had been forced to choose one area to ward and charm against unwelcome visitors, they had naturally chosen the site of one of their most precious curiosities.
The magic had never manifested itself in a definitive form - that was what had kept its origins obscure for countless centuries. But when one played in it, it was impossible to entirely ignore the whispers, or the darting shadows, or. . . tingles. . . one got.
Sometimes, when one was feeling particularly emotional, one would see full scale visions shimmering in the air.
Feyre knew all this, but she kept walking anyway, effortlessly shifting her weight to avoid the uneven terrain tipping her headfirst into a pool. She clenched and unclenched her fists as she walked; her breathing came quick and fast; everything she'd learned in the past hour replayed on a loop in her head.
She was shouting into that enchanted abyss: Hey! I'm emotional! What are you gonna do about it?
Never walk the Ouroborous Path alone with a heavy heart. You will not survive.
Well, fuck that, fuck magic, and fuck all the fucking rules. She'd survived this far; she would not be killed by a cave.
She kept walking.
Nesta didn't know what Elain was thinking, insinuating Feyre would go down that path. Especially now, of all times. Feyre had a sensible head on her shoulders; she knew when to quit.
There was no way Feyre would try to walk the Ouroborous Path today.
But she hurried her steps a little anyway.
The first vision that came was one she almost literally crashed into. She was walking at a fairly brisk pace until she was drawn up short by the reflection of the green light in the grey translucence of a stalagmite. She almost stepped aside to walk round it, but-
The stalagmite wasn't reflecting the cave behind her.
No: It was reflecting three little girls playing in a garden. It was the photograph on the mantelpiece at home, taken when Feyre had been three, Elain five, Nesta six. Feyre remembered the heat of the day, the cool swish of grass against her hands, and the vicious satisfaction she'd felt moments after the photo was taken, when she'd taken the bottle of paint she was pictured holding and squeezed it all over Nesta's pristine white sundress.
Her older sister had made a comment on the state of her overalls. It had been only fair.
When she examined the image closer, her eyes strayed to the vessel it was carried in. The stalagmite seemed to be lit from within by the same white light the images were woven of; it was like looking into a hollow glass cylinder, with tiny little dolls propped up inside it. Like an art exhibition.
She blinked suddenly, and the strange pull that had clamped her in place peering was relinquished. She may have been a tad hasty in getting away from the picturesque scene, her heartbeat loud in her ears.
She should have gone back.
But she hadn't.
So really, she was obligated to keep going.
When Nesta crested the first hill, her pulse was thundering. She'd had to give up on running it sometime back; without the well of desperation and shock Feyre was undoubtably drawing on, it was impossible to take the entire mountainside too quickly. But she stopped altogether when she faced the first split of the path.
The path to the left led to the mountain glade Nesta knew Feyre loved dearly. She went there to paint often, had gone there for solace after their parents' deaths - she would probably be there. Certainly not have gone to the right, where the path Elain had mentioned was.
Nesta knew this. (Thought this.)
But for some reason, she found her feet taking the right hand path anyway.
The second vision wasn't just an image. It was moving.
It came up in much the same style as the first: A stalagmite lit from within, a monochrome reel of events displayed amidst the light. The events were repeated, but Feyre could see no minute jump where the run ended and the next began; it was like each motion led smoothly into the next in seemingly perpetual motion. This time it just showed a clip of her parents dancing - the memory itself was unfamiliar to Feyre, but she watched with hunger the change of her mother's face from peace to surprise to joy as her father took her hand and spun her in a pirouette.
She spun for eternity, that changing face never bearing any other expressions. Her father looked on with a sort of quiet adoration; Feyre tore her gaze away and clenched her fists, angry at the image, angry at what was lost, angry to feel hot tears cling to her cheekbones.
They were dead. They were dead they were dead they were dead-
She punched the stalagmite.
There was a crack from her hand slapping stone, but her mother kept on spinning.
And Feyre kept on walking.
This path was chillier than the left hand one; it led round the mountainside, rather than through the relative shelter of the woods. Nesta scowled at the scenery below her, as though it were at fault for her discomfort, and pulled the coat she'd grabbed on the way out tighter around herself.
The third and fourth visions came at once, in quick succession.
The third was barely countable as one: She paused and blinked at a sudden flash of red in her peripheral vision, heart thundering - I want you to do something for me, Malorie Archeron - and it was in that moment of reflex that a stray wind blew through, despite the overall lack of breeze thus far.
Feyre shivered at the coldness it brought with it just as much as she did with the whisper it carried. "You will find that move most unwise, Prince of Merchants. I have my ways of letting my displeasure show."
The hearthstones in front of the living room fireplace would forever bear the stench of blood and vomit from where Feyre had retched onto them after that particular event, the fear from the moment still stabbing through her.
She jerked to the side, eyes squeezing shut for an instant. Then she opened them to look at the wall, and the floor fell away from her.
She felt like she was floating in mid air as she watched the dew-dampened wall glisten with that same white light, an image rippling across it. She caught her breath as the events played. It was a memory seen from her own young eyes now, of her father rooting through old newspapers in his study muttering, "Clythia, Clythia, Clythia," and freezing when he looked up to see Feyre standing in the doorway.
"Sweetheart," he said, trying for a grin. His face was pinched. "Why don't you run along and find your mother? Tell her-"
"Tell me what?" a voice she hadn't heard in so long said, and Feyre remembered this, remembered the weight of her mother's hand resting on her shoulder as she asked, "What's wrong?"
Her father bit his lip, glanced at her, then back at his wife. He didn't say anything.
Malorie Archeron sighed, and placed her other hand on Feyre's free shoulder. "I had a client today," she offered. Honesty for honesty. "A woman named Amarantha. She was offering a lot of money."
Her father paled further. "Do you know what she wants you to do?"
Malorie shook her head. "Not yet, no. Why?"
Her father's gaze landed on her. "Feyre, go to your room," he said softly. "Malorie, I need to talk to you. . ."
The scene cut off almost as swiftly as it'd started, leaving Feyre to blink as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
Nesta was still panting, exhausted. But then she got a gut urge to run.
Feyre - if she didn't run, she wouldn't reach Feyre in time.
She ran.
The fifth and final vision would be what killed her.
Feyre knew this. She kept walking anyway. None of her earlier bravado had survived the emotional turmoil, but she trekked onwards, despite no desire to see any more visions. But now she had an insatiable curiosity inside her, and she needed to know what this cave was trying to tell her before she died.
She needed to know who Clythia was.
She needed to know why Amarantha had been so desperate to get her mother's services all those years ago that when Malorie had refused she'd gone on a killing spree.
She needed to know why her mother had refused in the first place.
And so she kept walking, her eyes peeled for any white light in the vicinity. She found it maybe two dozen paces later, where the green light from one of the pools had the colour sucked out of it until it danced and sparkled like carbonated water. She knelt next to it, ignoring the rough rock under her knees, and gazed in.
She recoiled like whiplash.
But her eyes were still riveted to the water, so she leaned forward and watched as that awful day played out again in front of her - of her father in the middle of the street, a younger Feyre in her school uniform at his side. She remembered that though Amarantha had initially asked for her mother's help when Feyre was just eight, over the years she'd become more desperate for it and the Archerons had become more paranoid as the years passed, until Feyre had to be picked up directly from school every day.
That day, however, marked an end to the waiting game, and reminded them all what they'd been paranoid about in the first place.
Feyre watched how she chattered away - so many years younger, so much more naïve - how her father had listened with a smile on his face. Her heart ached as she watched him, knowing what was about to happen, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop it. Knowing she would have given anything to anyway.
Her father idly looked up to scan the street, then froze.
Because there, leaning against the building opposite, was Amarantha, her hair a splash of colour against the dirty brick wall.
He barely had time to look shocked at her appearance before the first gunshot was fired.
It hit her father in the chest, and blood bloomed against his white shirt - a rose against the snow. He gasped and doubled over. Feyre knew enough to glance at the tattoo on the inside of his right forearm - three concentric rings, each flashing red, amber and green. The tattoo her mother had put there.
There was a pulse as the bullet flew back out of his chest, the wound already beginning to heal.
He wasn't dying anymore, but he shoved his daughter away all the same. "Go," he said, fumbling in his pockets for the car key and pressing it into her hand. "Nesta should be here soon - give that to her, and get out of here."
She didn't move, the key gripped tightly in her hand. "But-"
"GO!" he shouted. "RUN, FEYRE! "
Feyre ran.
She zigzagged across the street, a more difficult target in case the sharpshooter decided to fire at her next. At the time she hadn't been privy to looking back and seeing as the two other shots hit her father; she'd just flinched at the sound and kept running.
But now, with an outsider's perspective, she could see the pain in his face. The way he snarled at Amarantha. The terror as he watched her make her escape.
And she could watch as the fourth shot rang out, all the lives spent. She saw the tattoo struggling to fight back against it, saw it winning. . . and then another shot rang out, and it was too much. He collapsed to his knees, dead.
She shut her eyes tight, praying for the vision to end.
It didn't.
Instead, she heard another shot, and a scream - her own scream - as it collided with her younger self's leg. Teenage Feyre collapsed, sobbing, absolutely unwilling to look behind her and behold her father's corpse.
There was the slow sound of sauntering footsteps, and Amarantha approached the felled girl. She was smiling. Pulling a gun from behind her back, she stood directly in Feyre's line of sight, pointing the firearm at her.
"I wouldn't advise moving, Miss Archeron." Teenage Feyre bared her teeth, but followed the advice, muscles pulled taught at the end of the barrel.
Amarantha sighed, ostensibly from disappointment, and then she swung the gun. The butt collided with Feyre's temple; she sprawled out onto the floor, unconscious.
This was where Feyre's memory of the event ended. But it wasn't where the vision ended.
The woman surveyed her dispassionately for a moment longer before raising the gun again. Feyre's eyes widened as she watched.
Then-
"Don't you touch her!" screamed a voice. Feyre whirled to see a younger Nesta sprinting down the street, brandishing her wand at Amarantha. "Leave my sister alone."
"Nesta Archeron, right on time," Amarantha replied smoothly, stepping back and - most confusingly - tucking the gun away. Nesta immediately interposed herself between her sister and her opponent, her wand still held threateningly in front of her.
"What. Do. You. Want." Feyre had never heard that sort of rage coming from Nesta before this event.
After the event, it was sometimes all that came from her.
"Now, you see, Nesta," Amarantha began, beginning to circle the two sisters. Anyone who'd been on the street when the whole spectacle had started was now long gone. "We're actually very alike, you and I. Ruthless when we need to be, and we'll do anything for our sisters." Her eyes lingered on the youngest Archeron's unconscious body. "Which is why Feyre is not dead. Yet."
"What do you want." Her voice was unyielding; her grip on the wand had tightened.
Amarantha smiled. "I want you to do what your mother refused to do - and what she is now paying the price for. I want you to use your extensive magical abilities to resurrect my dead sister Clythia."
Feyre stopped breathing.
Clythia.
"No," Nesta said instantly. "I will not."
Amarantha raised her hands in a reassuring gesture, that small smile still playing about her lips. "Now, I'm sure we can find the right incentive-"
She never got to finish the sentence before Nesta jabbed her wand forwards, a harsh word forcing its way out through her teeth. There was a flash, then Amarantha fell backwards, stunned.
Nesta's lips were pulled back in a snarl as she scanned the rooftops for the sharpshooter from earlier, but saw no one. She stalked forwards, then she lifted her foot above the woman's throat. And then she stomped downwards.
Feyre looked away when she heard the crack.
Nesta returned to where teenage Feyre lay on the ground. She picked up the car keys from where they'd toppled from her hands, and then she ripped off a strip of fabric from her top, leaving her midriff exposed. She used it to bind the bullet wound in Feyre's leg.
Then she lifted her sister into her arms, checked her pulse, and marched out of there.
Waking from this vision was far more startling than the others. This was how the cave tried to kill her.
Feyre's eyes flew open as she sucked in a breath, only to find herself choking. She thrashed about, but only succeeded in hitting herself against the stone sides of the pool, the green water glowing brightly against her eyeballs. She sucked in another breath, forgetting she was underwater, and her gag reflex kicked in, expunging all liquid from her lungs.
She was going to drown.
She must've fallen in whilst in the vision - she needed to find a handhold - needed to get out-
She kicked for the surface, arms stretching out, but she wasn't getting any nearer, it was so far away-
Two strong hands gripped the fabric around her collarbone and then she was hauled out of the pool. Feyre flopped onto the rock with the grace of a fish on dry land, gasping and heaving for breath even as she retched thin, watery bile. There was a hand patting her on the back, the other still scrunched in the fabric.
"What the fuck were you doing?" Nesta hissed, her righteous anger at her sister's sheer recklessness shooting Feyre's thoughts back to that moment in the vision, to the place where Nesta had found her anger and never let go of it again.
Nesta must be extremely strong to haul Feyre out of the pool like that - but then, mustn't she have been extremely strong to be able to carry a wounded Feyre to safety so long ago?
Nesta was an incredibly strong woman.
"Feyre."
"I needed to- needed to know," Feyre panted. She glanced up at her sister through damp, spiky eyelashes. "Amarantha said you were alike. When you last spoke."
Nesta's hovering hands froze. "Yes," she said stiffly. "What of it?"
"You have to know it's not true."
"I know it's not," Nesta snapped. "But she just wants her sister back. I can sympathise with that. Resurrection is wrong, against the laws of nature, and there is always a price not worth paying, but I can sympathise with her wish to have her sister back."
Feyre trying to stop shivering so much, said quietly, "I love you, too." Her sister nodded. "But Amarantha is back. She didn't give up, she didn't leave forever. She's back. And I don't think we're the only ones who're trying to stop her."
Lyra Night's vague allusions as to getting in her way and stopping her operations suddenly made sense. No one could interfere with affairs of the dead - and the soon-to-be-undead - better than a ghost.
"It's impossible."
Feyre, shocked, looked at her sister. "What?"
"It's not possible. Amarantha can't be back. She's dead."
"Nesta. . ." Feyre's voice trailed off. "She's back. She kidnapped you."
"I never saw her." Nesta voice was flat - reasonable. "It could have been anyone who kidnapped Cassian and me - maybe it was someone who wanted to wield the terror of Amarantha's name, even after her death. It doesn't mean she's alive. She's not."
"How can you be so sure?" Images of Nesta raising her foot, stomping down-
Her sister looked away. "Because I killed her. She's not back, she can't be back - because I killed her." She met Feyre's eye again. "She threatened you," she said simply. "I killed her."