You were at the top of a tree, with your feet tucked to your chest and looking at the mountains in the distance, but more specifically at the fields with few trees surrounding them. Chains jingled, people, humans, stumbled as they carried things or were whipped. Tents, many tents around. People screaming, people moaning, Faeries laughing.

Malice, wickedness, cruelty.

Should you really be surprised?

It was none of your business. You are a Suriel, the Suriel, and you shouldn't get involved in these things because you are not part of the humans anymore, and you are not a common faerie, but an outcast among outcasts.

A wicked faerie they say. They fear you, but some would be more than willing to just get their hands on you.

The knowledge you have, the power...

Indeed, you would be a specimen to be valued. It's no wonder they have been trying to lure you for months.

You didn't imagine that the power of the Suriel would involve visions, but it makes sense. Brief visions of the future, helping you not to get caught, at least by someone whom you definitely don't want to know what you know. Another problem. You cannot lie. Not that you like it, in fact, you hate lies, and in fact, you have always been as honest as possible in your old life. The thing is, people here are dangerous, and they can use your gift for malice, cruelty.

You also know the emotions of beings, or at least try to understand them. Colors, colorful auras enveloping them. You have understood a great deal of these emotions, you could even temporarily turn off that gift if you wanted.

You were also fast, very fast. No wonder even Rhysand couldn't catch the Suriel, you are like the wind, so fast that in seconds you would be in another place thousands of meters away, practically invisible when you move. And strong, your hands could bend steel, break rocks and wood easily. But it wasn't just that.

Heal, feel. You remember seeing a severely injured horse near a tree, with large claw marks all over its body, blood staining the ground around it. You had knelt down near the poor creature, and it felt so scared, but also so exhausted, it could barely move. You felt repulsed by the smell of blood, but it was nothing you weren't used to.

You had reached out your hand to its bloody neck, feeling pity, wanting nothing more than to help, but not knowing how. That's when you felt a slight tingling in the palm of your hand, like a gentle cold breeze that seeped into the wound, and each one started healing, slowly. And you, astonished, fell to the ground as the horse stood up, startled, and then took unsteady steps forward, and then looking at you.

You thought it would run away, but it didn't, it stared at you while shaking its head before turning around, and slowly moving away.

You had seen a bluish hue around, clear, almost white, a color you imagine to be gratitude, as you had seen it repeat in rare and brief moments among Faeries. It was strange, and yet so familiar. You were still discovering your abilities, what you could or couldn't do, what you could still uncover.

Your mind was strange too, you knew things you never remembered learning, but you knew, somehow, you knew.

You had been there for months, seven, you counted.

On that day, when you escaped. You didn't think, not exactly. You ran.

You only saw her dark eyes widen before you sprinted, your speed was such that you passed by her and the soldiers in a blink, and with such force, that you, who kept running, heard the chaotic noise of them being thrown against walls. Your body, your legs, with so much energy and adrenaline, you passed through corridors and guards like a mighty wind, pushing them away when they got in your way.

And you saw, a window. Tall, enormous, two meters off the ground at a corridor intersection.

Something in you told you to do it, to jump, to break. And you did, pressing your feet against the ground with enough force to crack it, and you felt it, felt it crack, felt the strength with which you jumped through the glass, scraping your skin lightly on the shards and briefly closing your eyes.

Then you were falling.

Your breath was taken away and you felt as if your heart had stopped as you plummeted, at an absurd speed towards a ground of yellow and dry grass.

You widened your eyes, and something in you snapped. Like electricity on your skin, painful, traveling from your chest to your limbs. Then your limbs shrank, you felt your flesh change, your vision blurred for a second, a single moment, when you felt everything shift. It was a blink, a gust of purple shadows that appeared around you, in your arms, legs, basically your whole body.

hen you were smaller, faster, not with hands, not with arms, but feathers, wings. Without fingers, just two long, bony gray wings were your limbs, with claws in place of feet. Without a humanoid knee, with a beak instead of a nose, and a beak in front of you. Your own vision was altered so that you seemed to see things as if you were looking through binoculars, and with vivid colors, very vivid.

You stumbled, still plummeting, still flailing in the air, and then you flap, you desperately flap your wings, with your heart pounding in your chest and trembling fear, you flap and flap, moving through the air.

You managed to glide slightly before crashing onto a branch, slamming your now bird-like body with enough force to make everything go dark, dizzy, as you fell to the ground again, this time hitting several branches before finally hitting the ground.

You would have groaned if you could, instead you sighed, your beak slightly open, and managed to prop yourself up, albeit sorely.

You fell again, toppling to the side and burying your beak into the pure earth. You spit on the ground, now irritated, even though your heart was still racing, even with your breath heavy. It was disorientating, it was so different. Your wings were strange, you felt strange, trying to move so that you could stand.

You failed four times before attempting it slower and calmer.

You had discovered that you could shapeshift. It was bizarre, and you were still getting used to things. You had spent two weeks as a bird while still trying to change back. You didn't feel hunger, but cold and heat, you felt.

The cloak on your body was your refuge, where you pulled the dark fabric around yourself, curling up into a ball as you slept in cold caverns and dark places, where you knew you wouldn't be found, where your visions and intuitions guided you. Before anyone found you, before you had any unexpected surprises, you had visions. They showed the approach of strangers, and you would leave before they found you. You knew what would happen if they did.

You were ancient, and filled with knowledge, with a power that many would crave to have in their hands. Hybern, the king of Hybern, would love it, he likes power, he likes knowing, if he had you at his disposal, it would be an advantage. He would use you to uncover weaknesses, to know more. Like a book, which could be opened at any moment with almost unlimited knowledge. A book that only needed to be held down by something to be put in someone's hands, that can't lie and is forced to answer whatever is asked of it.

You tried to learn how to change, how to transform. You had learned to be an eagle and then a small sparrow.

You were still learning shape-shifting, and you thought about becoming human or faerie. But at that moment, you wanted to try an animal or creature first, to be able to better protect yourself, to learn more. You can do it, you know you can, the question is that you need to train, to get used to it.

Your body had no sexual organs, not even a proper mouth or hair. You were like a doll, like a dead thing, with gray skin and terribly terrifying. The weak would be afraid, the strong would try to capture you to use you, those brave enough to fight would only do so to escape from you.

You were nothing, without friends, family, you were only useful to distribute knowledge to those who longed for it, to the greedy and cruel. Those who were not like that didn't matter because they wouldn't care about a Suriel, a creature like you was not well-regarded, not loved. It didn't matter.

This left you with a certain emptiness and anxiety at times. Wondering if you would leave this world or why you were there. But there must be a purpose, there has to be. You need it.

But you could only be trapped if you allowed it, if you wanted it. Because you saw the future, at least a little bit of it. Not everything, but you knew when you should act, when you should leave, where to hide, who would dare to hunt you or run away. The visions only came to help you, to ensure that you stayed safe.

It's no wonder that Suriels were rarely captured. How to trap a being that knows the future? Especially knowing whether there are traps or not, and even where other beings will be and who would dare to try to catch you. How to lie to a Suriel? If they could read emotions and even see through lies.

The original Suriel at the Court of Nightmares probably allowed itself to be captured by Feyre, gave her the knowledge she wanted because they knew who she was, who she could be. Or maybe not, you had never seen another of your kind, never had visions of finding someone like you. You just wandered around, and when you felt hungry, you knew where to find edible fruits, drinkable water, and even where to sleep.

The visions didn't always appear, of course. Only in rare moments, only when you needed them.

Like today.

You saw a boy falling into a well, injured, with numerous cuts and bruises on his face and body. Wearing a dirty shirt and torn pants in some places. Barefoot. Human.

Jurian.

You were observing him now.

A human child, who escaped from the faerie soldiers of the Court of Hybern. He was now in a well, crying while on his knees, with his feet and buttocks in the cold, shallow water. He had injured his leg, with a cut that went from his knee to his heel.

You knew this because you saw him fall and smelled the blood. And you saw him fleeing from the faeries while they were crazily searching for him, because he, in his foolish bravery, had hit one of them with a stone, right in the head. It wasn't anything serious, yet it enraged them. He took advantage of a distraction when a man fought against the faerie who tried to harm him and hid in the forest, running desperately and falling into the well.

You shouldn't help, but you wanted to. Not because he was Jurian, and a part of you disliked having to help him. He would become a cruel and arrogant man, and you didn't like the fact that he tortured someone who loved him enough not to care that he was human. Clythia, as cruel as Amarantha, but you couldn't accept the fact that she died that way, despite the possible and countless terrible things she would do.

She loved

him enough not to care that he was human. Clythia, as cruel as Amarantha, but you couldn't accept the fact that she died that way, despite the possible and countless terrible things she would do.

She loved him, and he betrayed her. Even though they had their reasons, he didn't have to torture her to death, but he did. It was foolish to judge either of them, none of them were truly good. And they would both be quite terrible.

Still, a ridiculously altruistic and merciful part of you insisted that you should go help. Even though you knew it was unnecessary, the faeries would find him, and they would punish him. To help him, to heal him, would be useless. He would be hurt even more afterwards.

And you didn't like violence of any kind. It was...repugnant. Killing, hurting...even if it was necessary, you didn't like it. Even if it involved the worst and most terrible beings. Taking a life, hurting...you still didn't like it. You didn't like seeing it.

But you jumped from the tree, landed on the ground with a light thud, and walked calmly to the well, your face exposed. Your shadow caused the boy, Jurian, who was 11 years old, to look up and then he held his breath, his heart racing, and you saw the purple and deeply dark aura around him. Fear.

You expected him to scream at the sight of you, but that wasn't the case. He stared at you with steady eyes, his breathing heavy and trembling, but he stared.

You tilted your head curiously to the side, feeling the corners of your barely visible mouth curl up and your teeth show as you smiled, and this intensified the purple around him. He was trying to be brave, but he was terrified inside.

"Hello, little human."

If possible, his heart would have jumped out of his chest