Archive of Our Own ^beta

Feyre awoke with a shiver, the frigid draft slipping through her threadbare clothes to tear her out of what little comfort she could find in sleep. Next to her, Elain barely stirred as the bulk of the coverlet protected her from the cold.

As Feyre’s mind cleared, just before her eyes could focus on the fireplace containing not even a lingering whisper of flame, an image appeared of a snowy mountain glistening in starlight. When she blinked, the mountain was gone and only her sad reality remained. She cleared her head resting on the thin pillow, paying no more mind to the strange landscape she was sure had been nothing more than a dream sneaking through into her consciousness.

Nesta had apparently failed to chop enough firewood, as she often “forgot” to do, leaving the task to Feyre, whose hands were already calloused from the many labors she did to feed and clothe her family. Feyre pulled herself up and grabbed a shawl, wrapping it around her tightly to stave off the cold while she shoved her feet into boots that were too small and wearing thin in the sole.

~

The next time, she was awake and could not dismiss the apparition as a dream or a half-asleep hallucination. Feyre savored the moments of blissful mindlessness she found in Isaac’s arms, her orgasm crashing over her abruptly before he withdrew to prevent his own from getting them both into trouble. She could hardly afford to feed her sisters (and herself) these days, let alone bringing up a child – not that it would ever come to that.

As her breath returned to her, Feyre saw a red-headed woman with a cruel smile, also enraptured. Feyre seemed to be observing the woman from the body of whoever was pleasuring her… were those pointed ears?

Why was Feyre seeing a Fae female in her mind’s eye?

Isaac’s movements shook her out of her thoughts, and Feyre quickly re-situated her undergarments before buckling her trousers back into place. Isaac asked her a question, but Feyre didn’t hear him. She made her excuses and left without another glance.

~

It didn’t happen often, the images appearing briefly and without warning every few months or so once they started. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrific. Once, she could see a Fae male being beaten. Another time, a pair of eyes that seemed to flow unnervingly like quicksilver. Some bluish stone fashioned into a collar. A sky full of stars and a bright, full moon. A throne. A plate of food, some kind she had never seen before and couldn’t name.

And it wasn’t always images. Sometimes Feyre could swear she felt things too, emotions accompanying the images, or occasionally, just feelings themselves.

She was awoken from sleep once feeling inexplicable anguish at the face of a beautiful young Fae female. Another time, Feyre could almost feel fingernails sharp as knives scratching into her skin as that same red-haired woman snarled. At least once, she could feel echoes of an orgasm ripple through her with no touch from Isaac – or herself – involved.

The images didn’t make any sense, though the red-haired female appeared often enough that Feyre had a pretty clear sense that the female was very much not a Fae she would ever want to cross paths with. But she couldn’t see how they all related to each other.

~

The day she was brought across the Wall into Prythian, that changed.

That first night, she strung up a trap to ward her bedroom door, uncertain what horrors her Fae captors would unleash, desperate to do anything to protect herself.

When she finally slept, she dreamt of a Fae male, clothed all in black, sleek and powerful. In her dream, she watched as this new figure checked his appearance in a mirror, gaze glancing over each area as it moved up his body. She could see that he, too, was Fae, those tell-tale pointed ears poking through coiffed black hair.

The male’s gaze finally reached his face in the mirror, and dream-Feyre was shocked to find herself staring into violet eyes. He furrowed his brow, abruptly pulling back, and Feyre was jolted awake.

She was suddenly sure that those violet eyes she’d seen were what she’d been seeing through, that all these images were from his life, his thoughts, his dreams.

The realization was alarming, but she had other worries much closer to home.

~

She continued to see through this male’s eyes, though now it was more often when she was asleep than awake. She dreamed of him, with him, sometimes saw what he saw, felt what he felt. Still, thoughts or feelings occasionally came to her unbidden in the daytime, when she needed most to be on her guard.

It was a dangerous distraction from the daily challenges she found living at this Fae manor, strangely empty except for Alis, Tamlin, and Lucien. Even once she realized she didn’t have to fear for her life, she could see that there was no relaxing here. No forgetting that there could be some monster around any corner. No forgetting the power disparity between her, a pathetically weak human even as adept with bow and arrow as she was, and her Fae captor, this Tamlin who spoke like nobility but often acted like a beast she was more likely to find in the woods.

She gave up trying to understand, knowing she would likely never meet this male, if he was even real. Just like she gave up believing she would ever see her home or her family again.

~

Fire Night arrived, a Fae holiday that Tamlin - the High Lord of the Spring Court, apparently - had barely explained a few days before. Calanmai, he had called it. Feyre had watched as the bonfires were set against the rolling hills of Spring Court, perpetually lush and green.

Feyre couldn’t say exactly what it was that called her out of the house at dusk, but it felt like she was pulled by some unseen force, following it toward its unknown destination. It called to her, an invisible string tugging so appealingly that even the harsh order from Tamlin wasn’t enough to stay Feyre’s purpose.

She didn’t know where she was going, but she was clearly being taken in by some sort of Fae magic – a spell woven with the fires and drums, she supposed, that beckoned her onward.

As she moved toward whatever called her forth, Feyre’s arm jerked in the grasp of some Faerie creature, flanked by two others. She fought, voice and body, but it was no use. She could see clearly that she was outnumbered, overpowered, and utterly alone. She would be food or a plaything or even dead, if no one helped her. Feyre felt it in her bones.

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you,” a voice said, and although she had never heard it before, she knew it, somehow. It was him. As he thanked the faeries for finding Feyre, somehow dismissing them without further conflict, she knew suddenly that this male was both incredibly powerful and somehow connected to her.

And when she finally looked him in the eyes, confirming what she already knew, Feyre thought he was even more beautiful in the flesh – more beautiful than any man she’d ever seen. He was right in front of her and not a wisp of an image gone in an instant. He was real.

She could smell him, his body fragrant with citrus and sea spray. She could see the way the Spring breeze tousled strands of his hair like a kite on the wind, feel the rightness that proximity to him brought.

His eyes twinkled like the stars she’d seen him dream of. Feyre realized it had been nearly a minute since he’d spoken, the thank you she’d meant to say dying on her lips as she appreciated it barely captured all the feelings she wanted to share.

Instead, she tilted her head and said, almost without realizing she was doing so, “I think I’ve been looking for you, too.”

~

The composed male who had confidently approached her and her assailants disappeared instantly, looking concerned as he stepped closer into her body space with a frown.

“I’m going to move us somewhere more private,” he warned, taking her arm and then they vanished into shadow before reappearing in a grassy knoll farther from the bigger bonfires, and much farther from the cave where this supposed Great Rite was to take place.

Feyre’s stomach lurched with nausea and she doubled over, the sudden movement a shock to her system. She moved her hand to grab his arm back and steady herself, their forearms intertwined. The male’s eyebrows arched as he took in the sight of her, clearly contemplating her statement.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked, while she fought her roiling insides.

Feyre shook her head. “I just know I’ve been seeing pieces of your life for over a year now.” She didn’t want to let go of his arm, the touch of his skin some kind of balm. Perhaps he was using some Fae magic on her. He didn’t let go either, and the skin of her arm tingled where his fingers touched her there – not to restrain, but almost… almost like a caress.

The male was quiet for long moments. “I’ve been seeing you too. Just glimpses, mostly. Rabbits, hay bales, a fireplace. Once I saw you painting, and it seemed like something you loved, so I sent an image of something I loved too.”

“The night sky,” Feyre breathed out, remembering. “The stars were so beautiful.”

“You’re a human,” he observed, a non-sequitur if ever there was one.

Feyre wanted to be defensive, to respond sarcastically to his statement of the obvious, but she was not unmoved by the magic of this meeting. She’d thought herself an oddity but nothing more, never truly considered the possibility that the male she’d seen was real, that she might come across him one day. And all of that was nothing compared to this pull she felt, like even with their skin touching she wasn’t close enough to him.

“You’re a High Lord, aren’t you?” she asked, hedging a bet. She could feel the power rolling off of him, remembered the way that those faeries had obeyed him without question. Feyre didn’t know a lot about Fae political structure, but she knew power when she saw it. Felt it.

He nodded, dipping his chin slightly without breaking eye contact. They were talking around whatever this was. Whatever brought him here to find her, and her to him.

“Rhys,” he offered, and she knew names were a powerful thing, not something freely given. Feyre liked the sound of his, saying the name a few times in her head and appreciating the feel of it on her tongue.

“Feyre,” she responded in kind, offering her own name back. He grimaced, like part of him didn’t want to know that information.

“What is this?” she asked, choosing not to interrogate his response to learning her name. She wanted to know what was going on. As surprised as Rhys seemed to learn that whatever called him to Feyre was also affecting her, he definitely knew more about it than she did. Tamlin and Lucien were not exactly forthcoming when talking about Fae matters, so she was entirely in the dark, in a foreign land, at everyone else’s mercy.

“What do you think it is?” he asked, infuriatingly responding to her question with another.

“I think,” Feyre said, “It’s something special.”

His eyes softened, the violet irises gleaming in the moonlight. The fingers on her arm stroked patterns into her skin, a shiver running through her at the touch. “Very,” he affirmed.

“I want to know,” Feyre said firmly. “I’ve only been in Prythian for –”

“Six months,” Rhys interjected. She drew a sharp breath. “I could feel you cross the Wall.”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “So I don’t know much about Fae things. You’ll have to explain it to me.”

Rhys tried to speak, his voice cracking as though saying the words was too much. He cleared his throat, taking her other hand in his, and said simply, “You’re my mate.”