A.N.: Just to let you know, I've updated and amended chapter one, so you might want to peruse that: I've taken out the bits mentioning that Angharad was a courtesan - I've altered her backstory so she wasn't, however she was trained as one. I'd also been listening to a lot of Game of Thrones soundtrack while doing this, so in my mind, Angharad's origins and nature are a hopefully seamless amalgamation of Arya and Sansa Stark and Jon Snow - witness to horror, trained as a warrior, politically savvy and downright terrifying in her elegance and disdain, a true ruler, leading ragtag armies against insurmountable odds.

For TheWiseQueen and lovingthisbook, this chapter is dedicated to you! Thank you for your reviews.

I'm sorry it's taken so long to update - I started my first teaching job in January, so it's been incredibly hectic for me! But, I've had Easter holidays off school, and the spring weather has inspired me to get back into writing. In the UK the last couple of weeks, we've had blistering hot sunshine followed by snow! It's given me a whole lot of inspiration where the Spring Court and Tamlin are concerned.

I've just finished Nesta's book. I have thoughts. They're all on Reddit! Anyone fancy a chat about it, PM me!

Of Wolves and Starlight

02

First Glimpse

From an upper window, he watched her. The mortal was tall and dark-haired with rich golden-olive skin, and even from his vantage he acknowledged her beauty - and the queenly way in which she carried herself. Shoulders back, spine straight, chin level to the ground, her gait purposeful and even, her arms held still by her sides as she walked the garden paths, pausing here and there to admire the parterres overflowing with lily-of-the-valley, tulips of every imagining and strawberry plants, to gaze at the trellises laden with palest-pink wisteria and flowering spray-roses, lingering beneath an arbour heavy with golden honeysuckle which led to the less formal meadows and gardens he had always preferred to the manicured parterres.

She stooped several times, and he was interested to see her rooting around in the flowerbeds, only to straighten up, weeds trailing from her fingertips. Fascinating that she felt so at ease in this place to expose her back as she pulled weeds. At least, she put on a good show of looking as if she was at ease.

He never trusted in appearances. And though she was dressed in serviceable clothing that had obviously been cared for, darned and mended in several discreet places, the fabric had once been quite rich, and she held herself in a manner that was more befitting an empress than a labourer. From what he could see, her boots were well-made from good leather, her hair shone with health, and though she was slender, there was strength and purpose in her movements. She had the look of someone who had always been slender and was strong in spite of it, and if she was poor - as her oft-mended dress implied - it was a recent poverty.

It might explain why she seemed so at ease in Tamlin's famed gardens. Many Fae had been struck dumb by the sheer scope and magnificence of the gardens of the Spring Court. There was little else besides in the world to compare to them, that he knew of - though admittedly, half the world was forbidden to him. He watched her starting to explore the half of the world that had been forbidden to her, curious when she paused in a meadow carpeted with creamy primroses. She stopped, found a place amid the primroses, slipped off her boots and stockings to wriggle her toes in the fresh grass, and started bending and contorting her body into impossible shapes, kneading at sore spots in her neck and shoulders, her thighs and lower-back.

"Your new pet appears to like rolling around in the mud. For the sake of the rugs, I hope she's house-trained," he murmured, as a golden beast prowled silently up to him. His eye clicked softly, subconsciously telling Tamlin how he had sensed his friend's approach. He sighed, frowning in the pale gold sunlight streaming past billowing clouds dark with the threat of rain, and watched her. "Andras is dead, then."

"Yes," Tamlin grunted softly. "I am sorry."

"How?"

"An arrow of ash," Tamlin sighed heavily, and Lucien hissed, scowling out of the window.

"You're telling me that slender woman took down Andras with a single arrow?" Lucien remarked, grinding his jaw. They all knew why Andras had set out beyond the wall, for his own reasons: He had been aching to join his lover for decades… But to have Tamlin confirm that he was truly gone…

Tamlin went still, and Lucien glanced at his friend, noting that stillness. He knew Tamlin too well. "Tamlin?"

"She did not slay Andras."

Lucien blinked, his golden eye clicking.

"Then why - "

"She took the girl's place. A younger sister, perhaps," Tamlin grunted, and Lucien exhaled sharply.

"She took her place?" he repeated numbly, and Tamlin rumbled softly. Lucien turned to the window again, watching the woman. Lucien had never seen a human. Not a living one, anyway. Not whole. Far too often recently, they had found the remains of robed humans wearing silver bells around their wrists and ankles, humans who had foolishly crept through the cracks in the wall. Why, they had no idea.

And neither Lucien nor Tamlin had any experience with fierce sibling love - the kind that would prompt one sibling to give their life to protect the other. Quite the opposite. Lucien's brothers had no compunction in sadistically torturing Lucien for their own entertainment and the approval of their father, and Tamlin's brothers…even the memory of them had made Lucien's brothers seem meek.

But Lucien turned sharply to his friend, unfolding from the narrow windowsill where he had been perching. A rich noise rumbled from deep inside Tamlin's furred chest, his emerald eyes glinting, seething - not with anger at the woman, Lucien knew instinctually. With self-loathing that his hand had been forced, that he had brought her here at all, against his wishes. He would have let Amarantha take his entire Court if it meant sparing one innocent life. Tamlin's men, on the other hand…

Andras had been more stubborn than Tamlin, more desperate. Brave. And untethered to anyone or anything: Amarantha had already taken everything Andras loved. He had nothing left. Nothing but his life, to give as he chose.

He had set out beyond the wall knowing he was their last chance. Knowing that his death meant their freedom. That in going beyond the wall, he would force Tamlin's hand in a way no-one else dared.

"Tamlin, tell me you are joking." Tamlin raised those glinting green eyes to Lucien's face, and even with the fur and tusks and antlers, Lucien saw his friend's face shining through - the strain, the unhappiness, the guilt.

"Speak no word of it to anyone," he rumbled softly, his enormous golden body seeming to sag under the weight of all he carried.

"Tam, they will start to hope -"

"It should have been apparent decades ago that there is no hope," Tamlin snarled. "You're too clever not to have realised it by now. She will claim us soon, and that will be the end of it." A terrifying viciousness laced Tamlin's words. He alone had seen through Amarantha, Lucien knew, all those years she had plied the other High Lords, flirted and simpered and seduced. They all knew. Tamlin alone had tried to alert the other High Lords to her true nature, her treachery. They had sneered down their noses at him, Tamlin, the soldier-lord, rough and earnest. How often had he sent Lucien to the other courts to warn them? Tamlin knew Hybern's Never-Fading Flower too well: she had lusted after him since he was a boy.

Lucien frowned at Tamlin, his eye clicking. After all these decades, his eyelid no longer snagged on the golden eye set into the socket, replacing the one Amarantha had taken. "I know you were against this, that Andras disobeyed direct orders in venturing beyond the wall…but to actively sabotage -"

"I did not offer the choice so much as she commanded," Tamlin said, with a strange note in his voice. Respectful, almost awed. Lucien frowned out of the gleaming window, watching the human contort and stretch her body in the primrose meadow. "She…used my words against me."

"She wasn't frightened?"

"Not that I could scent. And her heart never faltered," Tamlin said, nose to the window to watch the human. "I think perhaps she has faced far worse than me."

"That she kept her wits about you in a fury…" Lucien shook his head, expelling his breath on a soft hiss. None but he dared go head-to-head with Tam when he was in a terror. Everyone else was too afraid. There was a reason few courtiers lived at the Rose Hall with them anymore. Once upon a time, this palace had been the hub of life at the Spring Court, full of art and music - Tamlin loved music, as much as it pained him. Now, there was no music, and even less laughter. Easy conversation had given way to strained arguments about - this.

A single human, and the hope she presented for everyone in Tamlin's court.

"Without the girl, we cannot stand against her," Lucien said quietly. Tamlin growled softly.

"There was never any real hope, Lucien… The one who took Andras' life… She was too young," he bit out. Whenever he shook his head like that, shifting his weight on his enormous paws, Lucien knew his friend was agitated. And agitated, for Tamlin, meant upset. A trained warrior since childhood, never intended for the power and responsibilities of High Lord, Tamlin had learned how to channel his emotions through violence. When there was no conflict, he struggled to express himself. And now, with the curse upon his heart, Tamlin understood when he should feel emotions, in his mind he could connect action with emotion, but… Feeling them was a different thing entirely. To attempt to put others at ease, Tamlin tried to emote. It fell to Lucien to pick up on subtle shifts in his body-language, his tone, even the vibrancy of those eyes green as the oceans of grass sweeping beyond the Rose Hall. His body betraying the tiniest clues as to what was going on inside Tamlin's head. Tamlin growled, "You would have balked at the thought of snatching her back here, too."

"The human who killed Andras was truly so fragile?"

"No. Fiery and wilful and coltish," Tamlin said, almost fondly. Lucien wondered just how long Tamlin watched her before attempting to claim her. "Distrustful and bluntly-spoken. To break the curse, we would have had to - I would have had to break her. I will not. Not even for you."

Lucien smiled grimly. "Nor I for you, old friend."

They each had their codes. They had to find some way to sleep at night.

"So what do we do with her?" Lucien asked grimly, glancing at the woman outside, still stretching among the primroses. They all knew what it might have meant, that this woman might have actually fulfilled the terms of Amarantha's bargain. Yet there was no winning with Amarantha. Lucien understood - so had Tamlin, the moment she uttered the terms of her bargain - that Amarantha would never allow for their success to go unpunished. To allow a single human to live, if she had anything to do with it. His tone tart, Lucien remarked, "Her life replaces Andras'. Perhaps she could train with the other sentinels at the borders and make herself useful."

"She is my honoured guest, until I say otherwise," Tamlin sighed around his tusks. "After a few days, I will send her back to her people. I debated even bringing her so far. I should have sent her back and erased their memories."

"Why didn't you?"

"My magic. Beyond the wall, it was weakened. More than I ever imagined it could be," Tamlin admitted. "With the limits she's placed on me…"

"What to do with her in the meantime?" Lucien murmured.

"We treat her as our guest. Perhaps leave her second-guessing the truth of the tales and stories her people likely tell about the Fae."

"Those stories did not come from nowhere," Lucien muttered darkly, but he didn't need to tell Tamlin that: Of the two of them, Tamlin had been the one to grow up with human slaves. Only rarely did Tamlin ever mention his childhood, but Lucien had seen enough of the hollow look in his friend's eyes to know that this place, the Rose Hall, had not always been as tranquil and beautiful as it was now. That what Tamlin had witnessed was something he would never forget - and never allow to happen again. Not in his lands. Not while he still drew breath.

Watching the woman, Lucien's golden eye glittered in the sunlight as it spun and clicked, taking note of her, of any immediate threat to her, piercing through every glamour and ward and spell with ease. It had been imbued with the High Lord of Day's immense gifts for spell-cleaving, an invaluable improvement on an already priceless gift - one Amarantha knew nothing about. Only its maker, Lucien and Lord Helion himself - a gift for Lucien, but also an apology to Tamlin for not listening. Lucien scanned the gardens again, the fresh green leaves and delicate flowers of the parterres shivering in a crisp breeze, and his gaze settled on the woman.

Perhaps, he thought, there may be a way of warning her what was coming.

He had never met a human before. He knew enough Fae who had been alive during the slaves' revolt, had even fought beside them for their freedom - or against it - but he had never seen a live human being before. Had no idea what their culture was. He wondered if he could ask about those robed fools with silver bells dripping from them. Lucien admitted it freely to himself: He was curious about the humans. He frowned in concentration, watching the woman stretch her arms over her head, her entire body elongating, as he pondered possible loopholes to Amarantha's magic. Her bargain had been highly specific, as all Fae bargains were: She had thought through every aspect of the bargain before proposing it, he knew. She had made it…an impossibility.

Most would rather deny a hard truth than face it.

"Soon she will claim Spring," Lucien said grimly, watching the woman balance on her toes and one splayed hand, pushing her body upwards, reaching one arm perfectly straight up to the sun, hold the position, and then switch hands. "And then…"

"And then she will turn her greedy gaze upon the mortal realms," Tamlin said, sounding exhausted. "It was far too easy for me to breach the wall, even with her limitations on me."

Lucien shook his head, watching the woman, and sighed, "Cauldron help them."

He slipped from the windowsill as Alis appeared, almost marching along the garden path heading directly for the woman.

"Alis?" he asked curiously, glancing at Tamlin. Blunt and impatient, Alis would not have been his first choice to pair with their guest, but then, Alis was one of the few who had consented to remain. Few wanted to be near the human, too afraid of how vulnerable they were, and the rest wished to give their High Lord the privacy to do what was necessary - to woo and seduce and make the human female fall in love with him, before it was too late. Before there was no saving them.

"She volunteered," Tamlin grunted, and Lucien shrugged.

"If there was any hope whatsoever in her breaking the curse, I'd wonder whether Alis' sharp tongue would not harm your cause more than help it," Lucien said, and Tamlin chuckled grimly.

A dark cloud skudded in front of the sun, limning the edges silver, and casting the lawn in shadow. Without the warmth of the sun, the breeze became crueller, and it took her out of her meditations. Of all the things she had tried, her stretches aided her in removing herself from her own mind, from her aches and pains and the unconquerable feeling of agonising despair and self-loathing, grief and rage, gnawing at the pit of her stomach.

Furiosa, Gwain had nicknamed her, a name Angharad had given her mount during the war. A name that, in Sindarin, meant vicious burning one. Gwain had warned that if she did not learn to wield her wrath as a weapon, it would consume her. He had taught her to hone the white-hot, terrifying, all-consuming wrath into a weapon as sharp as any blade she had ever wielded. She had learned to use it to cut through everything else, all the noise cluttering her mind, threatening to overwhelm and consume her - it brought everything to a sharper focus, vicious in it intensity, often leaving her breathless, her hands shaking.

Her mind had been quiet for years now. Not quiet…numb.

Since the end of the war, her mind had been quiet and her heart detached, as if the two had been severed. She knew the moment it had happened: Plunging the knife into her oldest friend's heart… Moment by moment, day by day, she had been coaxed back into herself - to tuck away the General's armour and relax, and accept that there were no more enemies left to fight. She had slain the greatest evil their world had seen in centuries. Voluminous golden curls and depthless black eyes flickering to hazel flitted through her mind, and she flinched, lashing out at the thought that punished her so incessantly.

After so many years, her limbs ceased to shake and protest as she practised her stretches. She could contort herself into fantastical knots - when she was appropriately attired. Her dress - she should have changed out of it before leaving with the beast. Asterin would soon outgrow her gowns, and with rationing still firmly in place, they were not likely to obtain enough fabric to make one anew… Her mother's and sister's gowns, glorious as they were, were inappropriate for Asterin's needs. She flinched again, willing her mind to gentle, until it was filled with a tranquil mist that blurred and softened everything.

She focused on her stretches, the exercise reminding her of her own strength. The fantastical things she had trained her body to do since she was a child, her innocent stripped from her with a crossbow and the resonant throbbing of a double-bass's echoing notes.

Human potential, she had determined over decades, was fearsome and wondrous. There was nothing they could not do: Because there was nothing they would not attempt, especially when they were told it exceeded their grasp.

At least, that had always been the case with her. That white-hot fury had motivated her as much as her grief. She had defied anyone who ever attempted to tell her what she could not do.

The moment Asterin had been threatened, the fury that had been quenched by grief and exhaustion after the war had soared into life, burning through her limbs, burning away the numbing fog that had suffused her mind to protect itself.

Humans lived by a few, simple laws. Foremost, and most fiercely guarded, was their right to live free.

She had led armies to defend that right. Thousands had died under her command, fighting for the freedom of people they had never met, who would never know their names, but who would live, and praise the gods every time the sun rose again and their lives were theirs to do with as they pleased.

Angharad had led armies and assassinated queens to preserve strangers' freedom.

There was nothing she would not do, to protect her daughters'.

The sudden darkness from the rain-heavy cloud brought her out of her meditation, as much as the sudden stillness of the birds that had contented themselves to chirp and sing in the lilac and crepe myrtle and apple trees lovingly embraced by clematis, ignoring her presence. The crunch of gravel alerted her to someone's approach - their footsteps too clumsy to be the beast - and she turned sharply, eyes distrustful as she squinted in the light.

A faerie, wearing the universal uniform of a servant - a serviceable dress and a starched apron with deep pockets - stomped towards her, plump and brown-haired with an expression that warned of bloody-minded malevolence.

She said something in the Fae tongue, and for a beautiful language, she certainly made it sound sharp and unpleasant. Angharad had been taught the languages of the High Fae almost since birth - they were still used by some royal courts on the continent, and her mother had been a favourite in most of them. Aunt Ember and then Gwain had continued her education in the languages of the High Fae. But it was one thing to sit on a frozen rock with a numb arse beside a tiny campfire, distracting herself from the cold and her aching hunger by provoking crass, ill-tempered Gwain with questions about the differences between the Quenya and Sindarin languages, and another thing to have the language spoken to her, by a faerie no less.

Angharad understood two things very quickly: That the maid was an impatient, bad-tempered faerie, and that, more importantly, she believed Angharad had no education in the language of the High Fae. Only the second mattered. The faerie - and perhaps her master - believed Angharad incapable of understanding their speech. That was only an advantage to Angharad.

She had learned long ago to seek and exploit any advantage she could. Everything was an opportunity.

The faerie spoke again: Angharad listened carefully, but kept her features blank, sweeping her eyes distrustfully over the faerie. She did not look like a faerie…but then, the faerie were adept at lies, disguises and deception of every kind. When Angharad did not respond to the command, the faerie huffed, and gestured to the palace behind them, its thousand windows glittering as the heavy clouds laboriously inched past the sun.

Angharad frowned, unfolded, and tucked her stockings, knitted socks and heavy leather boots back on. She had relished the rare opportunity to sink her bare toes into fresh spring grass, could not remember the last time she had done so - it was the heart of winter in Atalan now, and the last few years had been hard on everyone: they had not spent many idle afternoons in the meadows, not when the majority had been planted for extra crops to ease the strain of food rationing.

Keeping a shrewd eye on the maid, Angharad meandered along the pathways through meticulously beautiful parterres, setting her own pace - the maid kept scoffing and grumbling to herself, and that she did so blatantly told Angharad enough about how the maid felt about her presence, and she could not help wonder that the beast allowed such insolence from their servants. Up the grand marble stairs and through gilded doors, and Angharad stopped dead, her lips parting in awe.

There was no denying the beauty of the place. The entrance hall itself was more exquisite than any of the finest palaces in Luthien or Voria, the twin capital cities of Atalan designed by Fae architects and built by human slave hands long before the wall was raised. This palace had similar architecture. Dreamed up by Fae, executed by the blood and pain of mortals. Thousands of years ago, human slaves had toiled and died to set every stone in place. Something like the collective memory of her people echoed in her mind, the fading screams of those butchered and raped on these lands. The stench of their sweat and blood and terror and sorrow seemed to seep from the shining black-and-white chequerboard marble floor, the plush crimson carpets, the incomparable murals lovingly painted on the high walls and the ceiling, gilded and glorious, depicting ancient Fae odes and epic poems the lord of these lands likely had no idea Angharad even knew.

Fae literature had long gone out of fashion, with so many exquisite works produced by their own wordsmiths. But for those who wished to guard against ignorance… Angharad had been raised with Fae literature from the cradle. And indeed, it would be shameful to even try to deny the beauty of the songs and poems. Some of those epic sagas had been watered down through the centuries, through human culture, warped and twisted by time, glimmering kernels of truth buried beneath the embellishments, shared amongst them. Their gods, their music, their literature. For some, especially those nations closest to the wall, enjoying the literature and music of the Fae served as a much-needed reminder that the wall…did exist, and for good reason.

Others had the benefit of space. Nations to the south had the luxury of forgetting.

To those who knew and appreciated Fae poetry and sagas, like Angharad, they knew that their own gods were inspired by and sometimes even plucked directly from Fae poems and histories.

It did not mean that Angharad believed in them any less: For her gods intertwined Fae and human histories in their legends. And legends were lessons. In her family, the legacy of her foremother Atenayis had crafted lessons that were still taught generation after generation.

Let it be beautiful…but train it to kill, Aunt Ember always cackled. The women of their family acknowledged one simple truth: Those without swords still died upon them.

They had trained themselves to fight, to kill - and to fuck gloriously. Angharad had been raised to fight - not just with sword and spear, but with her mind - and to fuck: To become the embodiment of every deliciously dark, scintillating desire, sensual and dangerous, sultry and unattainable, and to use that to her advantage. She had not become a courtesan, as her mother and grandmother and all their mothers had been before her: Her life had been dominated by war in a way her ancestresses' never had. She had become a General in the Allied Armies, yet every skill taught by Aunt Ember had its place in Angharad's life regardless of its originally intended use.

A mural caught her eye, and Angharad's heart plummeted, her stomach clenching horribly as she battled back the horror long enough to realise it was not her mother painted into the mural, that thoughts of her had not brought her likeness to life in this place. She gazed at a starkly beautiful dark-haired, pale Fae female with night-blue eyes idling through clouds glimmering with ice, the personification of Winter chased away by Spring - by the High Lord of Spring himself, a crown of wildflowers nestled on his wheat-gold hair, resplendent, radiating power and self-assuredness, the archetype of Fae masculinity.

Fae masculinity…

It was a very different sort of masculinity than humans valued: More…ethereal. Untouchable, as Angharad had been trained to be. Every mural showed the sleek, high bone-structure of the Fae, their delicately pointed ears and noticeably sharper canine-teeth… Every part of them was designed to entice - and to kill. Predatory and seductive.

Angharad had met hybrids before - the offspring of humans and Fae - and staring at the frescos, she knew there was a significant difference between the Fae and their offspring born of humans. The hybrids she was acquainted with had not inherited the same predatory grace depicted in the paintings - or perhaps she had never felt as threatened by them because she knew them so well.

Angharad was now the single living human to venture into the immortal lands of Prythian for centuries - and survive the attempt. Angharad doubted she would meet the same fate as the Children of the Blessed, not when the beast had gone to such pains to bring her here. Or was this all connected to the Children of the Blessed? But why the lies? Gazing at the murals, Angharad stopped her lips from twitching toward a smile: The ancient tales claimed that no lie could pass a Fae's lips without causing severe pain. The greatest lie there ever was.

The murals served as a reminder, even if the beast's appearance - and his speech through tusks, altered by magic so he could understand them, and they him - was not the most vivid reminder that the Fae were not just tales to frighten their children into obedience, legends to learn from, lessons to educate themselves by.

They were very much real.

And even the wall, it seemed, was not enough to stop the most determined of them from stealing into the mortal lands and threatening and coaxing a mortal woman back to their lands. Lands that had once belonged to the High Lord of Spring, confiscated by the other High Lords allied with humans as punishment for his alliance with the forces who had fought for the continued enslavement of humans.

The Fae were very much real: And the stories and legends of their power and trickery, their malevolence, their loyalty and compassion, their lusts and their generosity, their romanticism and their brutality, had been passed down through the generations of humans who had never looked upon one, because of the sacrifices of their ancestors.

It was a grand estate. It made the royal palace in Voria seem like a modest country retreat by comparison. Angharad frowned: Perhaps it had been. The palace had once belonged to the High Lord of Spring, after all - Angharad had explored the palace often enough to know the insignia was still etched everywhere, in the marble and the woodwork, even the odd parterre in the famed royal gardens… Only on the continent had Angharad seen this palace's equal before, in the ducal palaces of Iacopo, formerly the oldest human dynasty and wealthiest nation on the continent. Formerly. In its golden days, the fine ducal palaces of Iacopo had been maintained by hosts of servants. A place like this…required an army just to clean it.

Angharad allowed herself a moment's awe at the incomparable beauty and craftsmanship around her, for not to acknowledge it was a grave insult to those who had died in the making of it. This place of exquisite, incomparable beauty had been created by Fae and human hands alike. She took a steadying breath, tore her eyes from a fresco detailing the magnificence of a winged Fae hero romancing a goddess of war and fertility, and got her bearings.

The overwhelming beauty of the place almost distracted her from the details. Truth always lurked in the details.

Roses in abundance, the scent of flowering magnolias and camellias drifting on a crisp breeze touched by a hint of frost. Artwork boasting of the power of the personification of spring…

In Voria and Luthien, there were still sigils and crests, relics of a time forgotten by all but the hybrids, who could rarely be coaxed to remember their former lives. Everywhere there was an ancient garden, a crumbling amphitheatre, a grand mirrored ballroom or overgrown temples, there were hints - symbols that once would have told every mortal that the lands on which they toiled, and were permitted to live, belonged to the High Lord of Spring.

The same motif, unchanged in five centuries, was worked into every single fresco and panel, sometimes subtly, merely a hint of iridescence on a swathe of pale sky in a fresco, sometimes significantly, painted embroidery of the High Lord of Spring's cape as he stood in his court finery. Angharad stared at the portrait of a handsome male with wheat-blonde hair falling to his shoulders in careless waves - the same male personified as Spring chasing away the winter chill - and at the court dress he had been painted in. Silk, velvet and jewels, gold that seemed dull in comparison to his flowing hair. The artist, she noticed, seemed to have struggled to hide the disdain with which the male wore his finery. In fact, the only thing he seemed at ease with was the sword in one hand - and she noted that the sword was not ceremonial. There were no jewels, no gold inlays: It was a warrior's blade. Eyes vibrant as any emeralds in her treasury seemed to glow from the painting, watching her.

She was being watched, but not by the subject of the portrait.

Angharad felt it: the tingle down her spine, the gentle prickling of the fine hairs at the back of her neck. The ingrained instinct passed down through a thousand generations, warning her that she was being hunted.

Out of the corner of your eye… Aunt Ember's voice hummed beguilingly in her memory, and she could see her aunt's wizened face cracking into a thousand lines, her eyes radiant with light, life and irony. A trick, passed down through the generations, never yet tested - not since Atenayis herself. Not since the Wall was raised.

Out of the corner of your eye…

Human senses fell prey to the cunning and trickery of the Fae. But some had learned how to see through the disguises, to peer past the magic… Atenayis had seen the truth of things: She had become notorious for it, during the Slaves' War. Notorious - and feared, by the Fae who could not hoodwink her.

Angharad relaxed, letting her guard down for half a heartbeat, slowing her breathing, shedding the blanket of dread that had settled on her shoulders as soon as she draped her cloak around herself to follow the beast. In its place, she felt awareness sparkle up her spine, tingling at the back of her neck, heating her ears delicately as she felt it…instincts passed down through her bloodline, the experience of recognising when she was being watched, and movement out of the corner of her eye, something long and lean and vibrant draped at the top of the sweeping staircase, and she exhaled slowly, seeing an almost tangible ripple glimmer across the great hall as if the tender caress of a lover was gently drawing back a veil.

She caught a glimmer of rich copper, at odds with the fresh pastels of the frescos, and the tall figure slinked down a corridor out of sight, leaving her to the dozens of faeries she could now see, going about their chores as if she was not there - as if she could not see them - maintaining this splendid place. The world revealed itself to her eyes. She swallowed. The grand entrance chamber was bustling with faeries.

The soft hitch in her breath was the only sign Angharad gave that she could now see…everything. The very fact that they ignored her as they toiled spoke volumes: She was not supposed to know they were there. Yet she did. She saw through the illusion. And they had no inkling that she could. She had been trained long ago to hide her emotions, to conceal her reactions, to never telegraph anything to her enemy.

Strange how such a little thing could be so significant, yet might very well determine her fate. She could see. And she saw much more than they realised. She understood that this splendid hall was not just a palace: It was the home of the High Lord of Spring. This was the Spring Court - what was left of it, after the lands had been carved up and divided, given over to the humans.

She was a guest of the High Lord of Spring, she was certain.

Angharad thought back to the beast when it had appeared in her home. Antlered, with massive tusks, a leonine way of walking, though its body had been more bearlike, its enormous head wolfish… Enormous, terrifying…and the very image of the statues topping the gateposts marking the official boundary of the estate's magnificent gardens.

"I...have lands. I will grant permission to live there, and protection."

Frowning at the portrait of the handsome young Fae male, Angharad thought, The master of these lands is the High Lord of Spring.

Why had the High Lord of Spring stolen beyond the territorial divide, to blackmail her - or more specifically Asterin - to return with him to his own lands?

Why send one of his people to wait patiently until Asterin to let loose her arrow? she wondered, frowning at the grand portrait. The day Asterin killed the wolf, they had been on a hunt, the two of them together - Asterin had taken down a gorgeous buck. Had it not been for the wolf's nearness to the promise of fresh venison suppers for the village, its nearness to them, it might still have lived.

Angharad remembered how the beast had tried to distract them when he let something slip about the Fae-wolf by bellowing - but he had not intended to let slip that the Fae-wolf had been ordered not to harm them. The Fae-wolf had taken its orders from the beast. Therefore, the beast, the High Lord of Spring…had ordered the Fae-wolf beyond the safety of the wall, its life forfeit to anyone who had the nerve to put it down for fear of the havoc it would wreak on their community.

Asterin had let loose the arrow: Angharad had ordered her to. A lone wolf in winter was a dangerous thing, especially for tired humans still recovering from war and several brutal winters. Voria and Luthien had retained their strong economy, in spite of the war: but in the countryside, the people of Atalan were exhausted to their marrow by their grief and their ghosts. They were tired, they were poor and they were hungry. Food rationing had continued for the majority of the war: it continued now.

It was Angharad's privilege to hunt for deer on her own lands. Better she do it than others be arrested for poaching. She thought it a greater crime to let her people starve. She had fought for them, after all, made hideous sacrifices to protect the freedom of Atalan. As she would again.

Angharad sighed softly, frowning up at the portrait. She always trusted the feeling in the pit of her stomach: It was telling her that she was safe.

It also told her that Atalan may not be. They were vulnerable, she knew it, worried about it daily, the threat of impending doom that would consume not just her life, but her children's lives. Only the very wisest of them had voiced their concerns that spies amongst them might report back to the High Lords of Prythian that their lands were ripe for the plucking. Too often, attacks had been carried out on villages unlucky enough to be along the border.

It had been her duty to protect people: Now, Daario would take over organising the watchers along the wall, however few there were. They had weighed the danger of leaving the wall unguarded against the risk of losing the war, and conscription had claimed many of the watchers. Too few had returned to guard the wall, but those who had returned fought with the strength, cunning and grit of ten hardened warriors. They had fought beside Angharad: they knew what was truly at stake should the wall fall. They had experienced a taste of that terror at the killing fields…

Angharad thought of the watchers, of the killing fields, and her spine straightened. Her shoulders pushed themselves back. She ignored the twinges in her aching body and reminded herself just who she was.

Angharad. A wartime leader who commanded their small, ferocious armies to unfeasible victories, who inspired the respect and love of her troops with her brutal tactics, her quiet charisma, her grit, her bravery, her ruthlessness, and her compassion - even for her enemies.

Angharad knew who she was.

She knew what she was willing to fight for. What she had sent others to their deaths for. It was her turn, now. It was her turn. To embrace that blessed oblivion so many of her soldiers had faced for her sake as she led them through hells beyond imagining.

She had coaxed so many to their deaths, she often thought herself worse than the mesmerising, murderous Sirenae… Their faces haunted her dreams, their agonised screams and weeping a constant chorus in the back of her mind that made her hands shake sometimes, when the world around her became too quiet, when Asterin stopped playing the piano, when Aunt dozed in between telling stories to Orelya, when Daario's face closed off all emotion, glassy-eyed and pale, drawn into terrors from which he struggled to escape… As a general of the Allied Forces, Angharad had sent thousands to their deaths. Tens of thousands, more… All for the sake of freedom.

Five hundred years ago, the slaves had risen against their masters and demanded what had always been theirs, what the Fae had denied them: their freedom. Their descendants had just ended a war that had sought to enslave the mortal world once more - worse, this time: Humans attempting to subjugate, imprison, exterminate and enslave their own people. The second global conflict among humans in Angharad's lifetime - this time, they had learned. They had declared that never again would their world be plunged into such despair.

Angharad winced at the knot in her stomach, hoping against hope that her world would not, for a third time in just as many decades, be dragged into war. She knew Atalan would not survive a third time: they no longer had the strength to repel an attack.

The maid bustled up the grand staircase swathed in expensive woven carpet, and Angharad thought to tiptoe along the very edge of the polished wooden staircase so as not to ruin it with the dirt on her boots…and she swallowed the taste of copper on her tongue - the stench of battle making her stomach clench with familiarity, and reminded herself that the faeries could use magic to clean, and strode up the stairs, her callused fingertips trailing along the marble banister carved and inlaid with precious quartz and gems to mimic live garlands of gardenias, roses and daffodils, bleeding-hearts, tiny strawberries and roses. At the top of the stairs, the landing split into a mezzanine that wrapped around the entirety of the hall, with a second storey of grand portraits and more murals, windows splashing pale sunlight on the painted ceiling, and a corridor leading under a wide archway, guarded by huge urns overflowing with flowers.

The maid led her through the archway, which opened onto another, smaller receiving hall furnished with loveseats, folding screens and little tables glinting with carafes of cordial and wine, and off a side-passage, down more corridors hung with exquisite artwork, beautifully decorated with miniature statues, priceless porcelain, vases of flowers overflowing, and carpets worth more than kingdoms. Two male Fae stood to attention either side of narrow double-doors inlaid with wildflowers in enamel.

They were High Fae - they so closely resembled humans, except for their elegantly pointed ears and more dramatic bone-structure. Both wore swords and daggers, and each held a glaive. They did not make eye-contact with Angharad, but at the maid's approach they reached for the rose-shaped doorknobs and opened the doors.

Angharad wondered whether the beast thought her threat enough to place guards outside her chamber, or whether the guards were to protect her from everything outside it.

And it was her chamber - her suite. They entered a very pretty receiving-room, the panelled walls painted the palest muted gold and alive with climbing roses and clematis, all in hues of gold, cream and palest pink and filling the room with delicate perfume. There was a daybed under a silk canopy, a dainty lady's writing-desk beneath one of the large windows swathed in lace and silk curtains, a golden harp in one corner, and before a polished mantelpiece displaying delicate ornaments and glittering trinkets, several chairs and a settee were arranged around a low oval table neatly arranged with little vases of flowers, delicate figurines and trinkets, piles of books bound in silk, a bowl of fresh peaches - and an exquisite set of cyvasse figures.

Angharad let out a soft noise of genuine interest and made for the sitting-area, inspecting the cyvasse pieces. They rested on top of a polished rosewood box, large enough to contain the boards that interlinked to create a cyvasse board. They were carved of soft green jade and a pale golden marble, inlaid with tiny precious stones and gold, staggering in their beauty and craftsmanship. Angharad peered closer, and noticed that in place of the two figurines that were either a King, a Duke, a Queen, an Empress or a Duchess - depending on the owner of the cyvasse set - there were instead miniatures of the beast, down to the intricate antlers and cumbersome tusks.

The aim of cyvasse was to kill the ruler.

There was the usual pieces: the rabble, the spearmen and the cavalry… That was where the similarities ended. Cyvasse sets south of the wall usually contained some combination of standard pieces: rabble, spearmen, crossbowmen, cavalry, trebuchet and scorpions, armoured arakhs, and the ruler.

The pieces of this set were different - the beast stood in place of a human ruler, there were long-bowmen instead of crossbows, fantastical creatures instead of cavalry and each one of the figures carrying a glaive identical to the two guards standing outside the doors had wee pointed ears rather than curved ones - but it was remarkable to find a cyvasse set, here, in a receiving-room of the High Lord of Spring's palace.

Angharad had her own set, jumbled together piece by piece - some of them made of precious metals and stones, others simple renderings carved from wood, none of them matching and none of them anywhere near as beautiful as this set, but every one of them very much loved.

It was one thing both humans and Fae had in common.

All life was in cyvasse. Angharad had become a master of war through playing it. Any move can be the death of you. Do anything except remain where you started, and you can't be sure of your end, Aunt Ember had muttered over their family's cyvasse set, early into Angharad's lessons.

Cyvasse had taught her patience and strategy: it had made her indomitable in war.

She was in the cyvasse game of her life, now.

A huff sounded from the other end of the room, where the irritable maid waited impatiently, her arms folded over her chest. Lifting the veil of deception had allowed Angharad to see her clearly; her skin had the same texture as bark, and her eyes were beetle-black and querulous. Angharad set the little carved beast down in its place, and drifted over unhurriedly to the maid, who guided her into another chamber.

This was the bedchamber, the walls a slightly darker hue of gold, a glorious chandelier of coloured crystal neither carved nor blown but somehow taking the form of hundreds of honeysuckle flowers radiating light in soft, flattering hues of gold and pink, intricate gold-green leaves winking dully. Windows draped with delicate lace and expensive silk curtains were open, coaxing in the scent of bluebells and camellia drifting in on a breeze that carried birdsong inside. A dressing-table sat beneath one of the windows, and a chaise rested beneath another. On the little table beside it, a vase groaned with fresh greenery, bleeding-hearts, fuchsia flowers and decadent cream roses. The grand bed was made up with the finest lace-trimmed linen, wool blankets and a richly embroidered eiderdown, all in hues of soft fawn, cream and pale gold. Just by looking at it, Angharad knew it would be extremely luxurious - probably a goose-down mattress - and entirely too soft for her.

Yet another set of doors led off from the bedroom, and Angharad heard the maid murmuring to several other faeries as she raised her eyes to the exquisite chandelier, marvelling at its craftsmanship, and the tell-tale sound of running-water and a waft of perfumed steam alerted her to the fact that the third chamber was the bathing-chamber. She glanced around, and it was then she noticed that a delicate stool spanning the end of the bed had been laid out with three exquisite gowns, with matching shoes. She frowned, and observed more of the details. A round table in the corner, set with little figurines and a collection of small velvet-bound books, also had several leather cases set on it. They were familiar to her: Jewellery cases. The kind that contained jewels only someone who could maintain an estate like this could afford. Gowns and jewels.

The surly maid reappeared, beckoning Angharad, who joined her unhurriedly in the bathing-chamber, which had marble floors and an enormous golden bathtub set beneath a high window, and a padded bench folded with soft white towels. Two other faeries, also in simple dresses and aprons, waited for her, though between them all, they seemed to be the most anxious. More doors led off the bathing-chamber, ajar to reveal a linen closet full of fluffy towels, a cabinet filled with perfumes, balms and all sorts of lavish ointments, oils, salves and lotions, and a larger room full of glass-fronted wardrobes.

What followed next was half an hour's absurd attempts to mime that Angharad should firstly choose the scents to fill a large pad which was sunk to the bottom of the bath, which would fill the bath with goodness when she sat atop it, also picking from her favourite perfumes and lotion scents, and then for her to undress and climb onto the padded bench.

She had experienced this before, as a personal guest of Queen Galatea's in the palace in Voria: It was all decadent and wonderful, and would have been utterly familiar to Angharad's mother and sister, and definitely Aunt Emberynne would have moaned with longing at the chance for such a luxurious bath and a massage. Angharad stripped, pretending not to notice the maids quickly exchange glances at the evident muscle-tone and scarring that told the stories of her life more eloquently than anything attempt at stilted conversation could. She climbed onto the bench, which stood before a small fire crackling merrily, and settled on her front, and let the masseuse go to work.

By the time she poured herself into the bathtub, every ache from the enchanted ride had been rubbed and squeezed and kneaded away. She had not realised just how much tension she had been carrying in her body: most of the time, well…Angharad thought she felt too little of anything, hat soft fog in her mind gentling the worst of her emotions… But she was tense, and she carried it in her shoulders and her neck. The maid had put her to rights, and she startled herself awake when she almost inhaled the fragrant water through her nose, she had sunk so low in the tub - especially after the third maid massaged her scalp and washed her hair with fragrant balms, dousing her head with fresh hot water that soothed her.

Perhaps this was what she had needed? Perhaps this was all…perhaps this was all an invention of her own mind? But why in the hells would she invent a scenario in which she went beyond the wall? She knew herself to be a creative thinker in terms of tactics - her strategies during the War had been written into books for a reason: she took opportunities others could not see, created scenarios her enemies never saw coming and could not evade, and yet…yet Angharad knew she was not a daydreamer. She did not dream wistfully of faeries, and never had.

No, this was very much real.

While she discovered what the beast intended to do with her, would it be wrong to enjoy the pampering?

She had not been treating herself kindly, at all. She worked too hard, put her body through too much, refused to rest and reflect on her very real trauma - simply because if she looked back, she was lost. She could not afford to look back. And anyway, she was not going that way. Always, she was moving forward. There was no other option.

But if this was being offered, and being offered freely…it would insult her captor - her host - to reject their hospitality.

Besides…not every master was as equally kind to their servants as their guests, and if Angharad made a fuss, how would the maids suffer? She did not think it likely they would - the impatient maid's attitude was proof enough that servants here were not afraid of being impertinent.

As the sun began to set - it was spring here, after all, and sunset still came early - Angharad was coaxed out of the bath by the gentler of the maids, who handed her a warm bath-sheet and stood by while Angharad towelled herself dry before the fire. She was presented with the three gowns, and chose what she considered to be the most…adult of the three, an illusion bodice of translucent nude fabric sewn with intricate charcoal-green vines glinting with thorns, sewn with thousands of tiny crystals and beads to look like dark-pink rosebuds, over her breasts, growing thicker and more tangled at her waist, and trailing down to the hem of the fitted skirt and train, the rosebuds blossoming into decadent flowers that trailed behind her as she walked the length of the receiving-room for the maids to assess and, perhaps, to admire.

She could tell the maids wanted to step in, but Angharad arranged her own hair, piling it all up in a twisted, knotted style at the back of her head that beautifully balanced her profile. Aunt Ember had taught her how to dress her hair, and after years of formal events - as a General in Her Majesty's Army, and a favourite of the Queen's in her own right, childhood friends, she was accustomed to court dress. Sometimes she was required to wear formal court dress - usually a gown - but other times, she attended wearing her military uniform. Either way, Angharad knew how to dress. And she knew how to use kohl, slightly wetted, to darken her eyelashes and make her dark eyes even richer, to use rouge to brighten her cheeks, and how to use tinted balm to bring out the shape of her lips.

The surly maid offered her the leather jewellery cases, one after another, and Angharad chose a pair of delicate dangling earrings made of diamond and dark pink tourmaline. There was a time for exquisite jewellery - and many of the pieces begrudgingly offered to her would have made Gal frothing at the mouth with envy - but Angharad's tastes had always leaned to designs that were timeless and elegant. This was not the time for tiaras and seven strings of diamonds the size of her thumbnail.

Truthfully, she did not know what this was the time for, precisely, though it felt almost momentous, in a way, as she followed the surly maid down corridors - taller than the maid, Angharad idled behind, her strides longer but unhurried, as if this was her palace and she would dictate just how quickly she would saunter along its decorated halls, not be barked at and scolded by an irritable maid - faerie or not.

It felt as if something important was happening, even though she had no idea what her part in it was.

But she was determined to find out.

A.N.: I did it! I updated! I've had a productive Easter holiday! Yeah, I'm not even convincing myself. I wanted to write so much more! Alas, the brain and the hands were not enjoying a symbiotic relationship!

Okay, so I felt the need to set the scene, in a nod to Maas' original work, but I'm going to be streamlining what happens next - ACOTAR could've been condensed into a book half the size, if she'd taken out all the gumph getting in Fire Night and the Suriel.

So, the war Angharad keeps thinking about is her world's equivalent to the Second World War, but think of it in terms of the weaponry and world of Game of Thrones and the War of the Five Kings. I'll go into more detail about it in future chapters, especially as Angharad is still suffering PTSD from being the equivalent of Jon Snow leading battered ragtag armies to hollow victories on the continent, at war with her oldest childhood friend, who happens to be this universe's answer to Daenerys Targaryen in terms of imperialism, but with a more blatant link to Hitler. I was hugely inspired by GoT for a lot of Angharad's backstory and the plot pre-Tamlin, which I think has benefited her characterisation.