AN: Just flagging I wrote this before I'd even finished the 2nd ACOTAR book, so if there's some things that are wildly different than what happens in the following books — oops.

Chapter 1 - JURIAN

I twisted the brass band around my wrist in time to the ticking of a loud clock somewhere outside of this windowless, stone room. I'd never seen the clock, even though the room I was in didn't have a door, I'd very rarely been permitted to leave. But there was something comforting about knowing that time was still passing, because otherwise it seemed like we were just stuck in one moment of hell forever.

Over everyone's soft sleeping breaths, I heard the thud of shoes on stone, and I turned and shook Marcus' arm. He was sleeping next to me, and he quickly woke up at my touch. He knew better than to speak.

A dark haired, scowling faerie walked into the room. His large, dark wings were tucked behind his back as he scanned the sleeping humans around us. I saw his brown eyes fall on me and Marcus, the only two who saw him.

"Good morning, Dellia," Hybick said, his voice bearing no pleasantries. It was taunting. Then his sharp eyes flitted back to the sleeping bodies and shouted. "Get up! Get up!"

We all scrambled to our feet, even the ones that had been unconscious one moment before. We were fast, nobody wanted to be the last one up. If you were too slow… the faerie had been known to beat anyone he felt was too slow.

"We're leaving in 20," Hybick growled, throwing a rucksack down at our feet. Nobody moved. "Eat, you're going to need it." Only then did anyone reach for the bag, which had a few apples and pieces of stale bread. It was probably enough to feed 4 people, but we'd have to stretch it to around two dozen. Of course, some people wouldn't get anything.

I wanted to ask where we were going, although I knew it wouldn't be good. It only meant one thing when our captors woke us early and fed us— they were taking us somewhere to attack.

Because I didn't move towards the food, and kept my eyes on the hateful faerie, he sneered at me, "Do you have something to say, princess?"

Marcus very subtly brushed his arm against mine, silently begging me to just keep my eyes down and to shut up.

"Where are we going?" I asked, since the faerie had opened the door of conversation.

"To a land of milk and honey," he jeered, and rolled his eyes. I don't know why I thought he would be honest, I guess some part of me still believed that faeries couldn't lie. Although I'd long since realized that was just a stupid human misconception. In the 3 months my friends and I had been stuck in Prythian, I'd learned quite a bit about faeries and how evil they could be. Lying was just scratching the surface.

Hybick left the room, and nobody followed him. We couldn't even if we wanted to, which I'm sure nobody did. He was scary.

There were 26 of us human captives now, of various ages and genders, although that number changed almost every day. We were all from Scythia, the mortal realm just on the border of Prythian, and all had been taken from villages along The Wall. Marcus and I weren't from any of those villages, but we had been traveling there when we were abducted. My friends and I were the first captives the faeries took.

One of the humans passed me the core of an apple, and I nibbled on the last bit of fruit that remained. We weren't worried about the food being enchanted, at least not from these faeries, because they already had full control over us. They couldn't possibly gain anything more by cursing our food, when they already had us by the throat with an enchanted chain.

"Want the crust?" Marcus asked, holding out what remained of the loaf of bread someone had passed him. I handed him the apple core, and took the crust. We both were just fractions of ourselves now, I could count my ribs from starvation, and Marcus— who had been one of my strongest guards just 3 months ago— was slender and tired most of the time.

He was my last friend. Everyone else we knew was dead.

The food quickly was gone, and we all stood quietly, waiting for the faeries to return. We kept the conversation to whispers.

Marcus grabbed my hand, something in our previous life he normally wouldn't have done. As my royal guard, he wasn't very affectionate in that touchy-feely way before, even though we'd been friends for a decade. "We just need to get through this," he whispered. "Do it quick, so it's done."

It's not like we had a choice. Whatever the faeries demanded, we were compelled to do. But he was right in that the faster we did it, the faster we'd be done, and then we were safe again. Because every moment we were under the faerie's direct compulsion was incredibly dangerous. We had to do exactly what the faerie said, even if it hurt us. Even if it killed us.

It was only luck that caused Marcus and I to survive as long as we had. Luck that we got better powers.

When Marcus let go of my hand, I started fiddling with the brass band at my wrist again, turning it. Wishing I could rip it off. If I didn't have the incredible power that band gave me, these faeries wouldn't want me. I'd be dead, but I'd be free.

I often thought about how much I wanted to be free.

Everyone stilled when we heard footsteps walking back towards our room. This time there were two.

Jurian walked in first, with Hybick trailing behind him. Jurian's dark brown eyes surveyed the group, his face expressionless. He looked like a predator, searching across a field to see which weak animal he would target. "This isn't going to be like the other times," the faerie started with a dark, disconcerting calm. "Those were just practice. You haven't been in a real fight yet."

Just practice? He called us killing innocent humans and fae just practice?

Marcus brushed my arm again. As my best friend, he could clearly sense I was bottling up a lot of rage, and he didn't want me to lose it now, where it would certainly get me and him killed.

"We are going to the Nightcourt," Jurian said, "And the fae you're going to attack will fight back. So when we go there, I want you to use everything you have and fight 'till the death."

There was a tang of magic in my mouth, as the chain around our necks tightened. It always did that when Jurian compelled us, a physical reminder that we were under his direct control. He'd stated what he wanted, and now we had to comply. I did a dry gulp, trying to get that metallic bite off my tongue. It didn't fade.

Jurian was in charge, and in the past he'd commanded us to attack fae towns and temples in Prythian, and human villages in Scythia when he needed more slaves. We'd killed many people, and very rarely did anyone put up a significant fight. So I think we were all nervous by what he said about the faeries we were attacking in— what was it? Nightcourt? What the hell was that?

"Hold hands," he demanded, and once everyone was connected, he grabbed one of the humans by the back of the neck. Then, we all vanished.

It was so unnerving to be whisked away in a blink, but that was the power of fae magic. Jurian literally could appear and disappear at will, teleporting between places with seemingly no effort. So one minute we were in that cold, windowless, stone room… and the next, we were in some field in a crisp, balsam woods. It was day time, and the air was so fresh, we all looked up. There were towering mountains on all sides of us, a beautiful valley.

That was one thing about Prythian that they never told us humans back in the Mortal Realm, it was very beautiful here.

But there was no time to enjoy the view, or the fresh air, or the sunlight on our skin. Jurian made sure there was never any time to enjoy anything about life anymore.

He pointed east, "Go down the hill, they'll be there. And kill them all."

Again, that magic irritated my senses, and my body turned and began walking quickly in the direction Jurian had demanded. He and Hybick stayed behind.

When we were a good distance away from the faeries, one of the humans hissed, "I can't wait to get slaughtered, and put myself out of this misery."

"Hopefully it will be a clean death," another one agreed.

It was a sentiment I understood, although in my very core, I didn't really want to die. In the deepest part of my soul, I wanted to get free of this cursed chain and crush Jurian and Hybick to death with my powers, to ensure they never did this to anyone else again.

But there was no chance of that happening, because all of us humans were compelled to keep the chains on, and we couldn't even ask for someone else to take them off. It was literally the first thing Jurian had demanded of us.

"Who's that?" I heard a faerie voice speaking from down the hill. It sounded like a woman, although I couldn't see the faerie yet. Instinctually we all ran, charging towards the faerie we were compelled to kill. I saw a blast of fire, and felt a frigid blast of air— the first two attacks from the human army with elemental powers.

I only glimpsed the bronze-haired faerie for a moment before she vanished.

The humans stilled, looking around for the faerie to kill, if she was still here.

For a moment, there was nothing but silence in the woods, and our breathing.

Then, a dark-haired faerie with bright violet eyes stepped from the tree line to my right, the female at his side. Marcus fired off a vicious bolt of bright blue lightning, and both the faeries vanished again. The lightning struck a tree, igniting it.

"They're fast," he said to me. "We're never going to land a blow."

I looked around, wondering why on earth these faeries would stay in an area where they were actively being attacked. They should flee.

But then, out of a black swirl of shadows, stepped another faerie. His intense hazel eyes immediately locked on me.

I pulled at the earth, lifting a huge piece of the ground up, and threw it at the faerie. It crashed against a tree, splintering it in half, but the faerie was already gone.

Marcus looked concerned, and that made my stomach drop. I think we all realized that if these faeries started to attack us back, we would lose. They were just too fast.

For a few minutes, there was nothing. No sign of the faeries, and no direction from Jurian, wherever he was. One of the humans started walking into the woods, and then he shouted, "I think there's a village over here!"

Jurian's compulsion hadn't been very specific. He said fight the faeries you encounter to the death. So, we started to head towards the village to encounter some more faeries. We didn't make it.

I saw a swoop of dark wings, and the scream of one of the humans— the one who had the fire power. He went stumbling to his knees when a flying faerie struck him with a sword, bleeding profusely from his chest. Everyone started using whatever magic they had, attacking that faerie. Wind, ice, water, fire— anything and everything. But the faerie expertly evaded every blow. With his thick brown hair, muscular tattoo'd arms, and long sword, he looked like a warrior.

Damn it, Jurian. He wanted us to die.

This faerie was fast, just as fast as the others, although he didn't vanish and reappear. He was swinging his blade and deflecting or dodging most of the magic that was directed at him. The compulsion forced me to fight, and so I started pulling the earth up and up, forming a large boulder, and threw it with everything I had. It struck the faerie, and he stumbled back, but didn't fall. Then, he flexed those large wings, like Hybick's, and shot back up into the sky. Another winged faerie joined him in the sky, he looked like the one I'd seen emerge from the shadows. And then a third— the one we'd first encountered with the female faerie.

The three faeries dove down, and fought back.