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Chapter Text

What is a daughter supposed to do when their Mother lays dead at their feet? 

The sky grieved; Thick, dark clouds rolled in above, swallowing the sun and taking all its warmth. Thunder cracked like the breaking of bones, shaking the Mountain under her feet. Rain hadn’t fallen yet—but the air was heavy, thick with the promise of it. Her eyes stared ghostly at her Mother’s corpse, how the wound from her neck flowed a river of blood. Those charcoal eyes empty, not even to reflect back at her. 

The world should’ve stopped. 

But it didn’t. 

What was she to do but hold her? 

Hands gently cradling a head that barely held onto the neck, pale skin staining itself with blood that crept under her nails, perhaps forever engraving itself in her fingerprints. 

She laid down next to her Mother’s corpse, her thumbs ghostly caressing the soft skin on her cheeks. Pushing the hair out of her Mother’s face. Knowing it would have bothered her before. Do dead people want things anymore? She lifted unmoving hands to intertwine with hers; laying her head on her Mother’s chest to try and hear a heartbeat. But all that greeted Cathyrena was nothingness. Only the storm above, only the gentle beat of rain beginning to pour. 

The only thing beating between the two females. 

She curled into a body she’s never gotten so close to before. 

Was her Mother always this… comforting?

She traced patterns on Amarantha’s stomach, feeling the blood beginning to wash away from the downpour. 

The voices that once haunted this Mountain turned empty, the chains that echoed down halls silenced. There was only death here, a heroic defeat. The High Queen of Prythian was dead. 

Prisoners were free- High Lords and peasant folk alike to run back to their Courts. Away from the Mountain that held them captive; away from the Queen who laid dead on its stone. 

Cathyrena felt her body heave heavily, her grip tightening on a corpse she should let go of. Tears falling down her face, just as hard and devastating as the storm. The pounding of her heart riling like a wild animal in a cage, her anguish tearing through her throat in a fit of despair. The thunder drowning out the sound of loss. 
What is a daughter to do when her Mother lays dead in her arms? 

Cathyrena watched as the flames ate Amarantha’s remains. 

The fire didn’t scream. It devoured. Slow and methodical—like it knew what it was owed.

Amarantha’s body arched as the flames swallowed her whole. Her arms twisted unnaturally, flesh bubbling and splitting in sickening bursts. Jewels melted from her wrists and throat, sinking into the blackened ground like her legacy—gaudy, worthless, and easily erased. Her face contorted as the heat claimed it, skin sliding away from bone until there was nothing left of the woman who once called herself Queen but ruled like a god.

Her bones cracked last—splintering like dry wood. Her final shape was not regal. Not powerful. Just another pile of scorched ruin.

Cathyrena stood still through all of it.

Smoke curled through her hair. Ash clung to her lashes. The fire’s heat kissed her cheeks, but her expression didn’t change. Not once. Her arms remained at her sides. Her jaw tight. Her breath steady. She did not mourn. She did not rejoice. She simply endured.

Because daughters of tyrants aren’t granted grief.

They are born to bear witness.

When the fire at last dimmed, and the corpse beneath it was no longer recognizable, Cathyrena turned without a word. Her footsteps were soundless over the scorched earth.

This is what a daughter is supposed to do when her Mother lays dead before her feet. 

Time is a foreign concept to an immortal. 

There is only the beginning and the continuous. 

She did not know how many years she spent down in that cell. 

There was no time before the Darkness; she was drowning in its womb before she escaped the waters to meet its embrace. Cradled in arms that aren’t made to hold, there is only comfort in things that were designed to haunt you. 

There are whispers in each echo of her prison, its claws caressing her skin so that only small lines of blood fall and not her organs. Their teeth bare and eyes stare and stalk. Cathyrena only sat and let them observe, the only touch she was allowed was one that could kill her. So, she leaned into that danger and thrived in the monstrous endearment.  She’d watch how they marvel at her auburn hair, more scarlet than anything- and run their talons through them. Pulling, tugging, ripping and combing it all down. 

Darkness was filled with the sounds of torture and forced pleasure—twisted symphonies that echoed through stone halls like lullabies in a cursed cradle. Screams and moans bled together until they were indistinguishable, as common and familiar as birds chirping at dawn. Cathyrena wouldn’t know the joy of hearing birds. Instead, she crept through the corridors like a shadow, her bare feet silent against the damp stone floor, ears tuned to whispered prayers and hopeless sobs.
She’d listen to the prisoners beg the gods who had long since turned their backs. Memorize the way their chains cut into flesh, leaving behind charcoal-colored bruises and raw, red ridges that never got a chance to heal. Every hallway smelled like old blood and burning incense—an attempt to cover the rot, but it only made the stench worse. Their cries clawed at the walls, desperate to escape, but no one listened.

The longing to feel the warmth of the sun again was a cruel fantasy. To hold the people they once loved, to whisper one last goodbye—that dream had decayed long ago. What was the point of dreaming when even the stars had stopped listening?

No one ever noticed her. 

Their own suffering was a curtain, thick and suffocating, blinding them to anything but their pain. Cathyrena could stand right in front of them and be invisible. A ghost among the broken. A witness to nightmares carved into bone.

And yet, she remembered every face. Every scream. Every prayer that dissolved into nothing.

She remembered, even when they couldn’t.

Cathyrena had awoken that night with a startle. 

Her eyes have adapted quickly to the night, the little light that barely shown through her cell. She tiptoed around the beast that laid and lingered near her where she slept to not wake them. 

When the High queen slept, the slaves planned failed escapes and plotted ways to slaughter her in her sleep. As if any of these fools touched Amarantha unless she wanted to be touched.  

The sound that woke her rang again. 

Her prison was made of glass and mirrors—an architectural cruelty crafted not to hold her body, but to unravel her mind. Every angle reflected pieces of herself: a hundred fractured faces staring back, some too distorted to be real, others too raw to ignore. The jagged shards whispered temptations in cruel voices, urging her to drag her skin across them—skin that healed too fast, too stubbornly, always leaving behind the silent confessions of scars.

Cathyrena moved like a shadow through the half-lit corridors of the underground prison, her steps soundless, her presence cloaked by powers only those with magic could detect. And down here, in this rotting place of despair, no one had felt magic in years. You could not recognize what you no longer remembered.

She wandered past the forgotten wings of the prison—places Amarantha liked to keep her newer toys, where the screams hadn’t yet quieted into whimpers. Her fingertips grazed the stone walls as she walked, letting their cold bite ground her. The stones cut through the numbness, for balancing and center. 

From the shadows, she stopped, peering through a crack barely wide enough to slip a thought through. 

Cathyrena peeked through the shadows curious stares at the blue-eyed female that laid miserably in her cell. 

The female lay in a heap on the floor, spine curled like a creature trying to remember what it was before it was caged. Her clothes hung in tatters, stained in blood, filth, and the fading hue of dignity. Bruises bloomed like dark petals across her pale, starlit skin, and her once-golden brown hair had dulled into the color of a withering chrysanthemum caught in frost. The scent of rot clung to her, but her eyes still held something sharp—blue like the heart of a flame that refused to die.

Cathyrena studied her silently; it was no fool that this was the girl who caused her Mother quite much distress. Amarantha seethed with quiet anger whenever the thought of her arose. How her oblivion eyes finally burned with color. Cathyrena never bothered to understand her Mother over mortal complications. 

But she couldn’t deny how much this female fascinated her. 

Perhaps mortal will seemed stronger than Immortal fascination. 

The girl sat with her back pressed to the wall, staring off into the dark like she could see through it, like she was watching something only she remembered. A memory, maybe. A life that hadn’t ended yet in her mind. All the broken ones did that—they couldn’t live in the moment of survival, only in the thousand what-ifs that haunted their past.

Then, a sound broke through the stillness.

A melody—soft, impossible, like it had traveled a great distance only to find them. Cathyrena stiffened, her breath catching in her throat. Her eyes widened, glowing faintly with violet-blue light as she sank deeper into the shadows, heart thudding.

The mortal heard it too.

Cathyrena watched as the girl stirred, crawling—crawling—to the iron bars of her cell with such reverence it felt holy. Her hands clutched the rusted metal like it was a lifeline, her face lifted as if she were trying to drink in the song. She closed her eyes, lips parting, and for a moment, she looked alive. She looked free.

She wasn’t. But in that music, she had remembered how it felt.

And Cathyrena—hidden, unreadable—watched her.

Savoring the sound as if it was fresh air she forgotten how to breathe in. 

This was the beginning of when Cathyrena’s interest was caught—snared by the mortal girl who breathed defiance into the cracks of her cage.

She began to linger longer between the hidden walls, the spaces where light didn't dare follow. The cracks in the stone became her windows, and through them, she watched Feyre. 

Feyre.

Feyre.

Feyre.

The name tasted foreign at first—rough, unremarkable. But then, like fresh water drawn from an ancient well, it began to soothe something dry inside her. She would whisper it to the Darkness like a secret prayer, and the shadows would listen.

Cathyrena had always believed mortals were fragile, pitiful creatures. Their bones snapped too easily, their hearts stopped too soon. Why would the Mother create something that was only born to die? 

But this girl—this mortal girl—clung to life with a fire Cathyrena couldn’t understand. Living, as if that alone was worth the bruises, the chains, the torment. What did she see in life that was worth crawling for? Gasping for? Was there something Cathyrena had never been taught to see?

She began to memorize her. To study the curve of her cheeks, the trembling set of her jaw, the defiance that cracked through the filth and bruises like sunlight between storm clouds. Cathyrena would crouch low in the dark, her breath steady, her mind drawing and redrawing Feyre’s face until she could summon it behind her eyelids at will. Human features—so simple, so soft—yet they made Amarantha's daughter pause.

They made her wonder.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Her father—the High Lord of the Night Court—appeared one night like a storm given form. He came silently, cloaked in shadow, unaware that he was not alone in his watching. Cathyrena stilled. She pressed herself deeper into the wall, a silent phantom. She watched him watch her.

Indigo eyes on violet ones.

He did not speak. Neither did Cathyrena. They both simply observed, though for different reasons. His stare was deeper than Cathyrena's—weighted with something personal, something raw. A cord stretched between him and the mortal girl, invisible and tight, vibrating with meaning Cathyrena couldn’t yet name.
But she felt it.

And it would be a lie to say his attention didn’t stir her own.

This girl—this mortal—had drawn the eyes of Amarantha’s daughter and Amarantha’s whore.

A hunter, caught only by those who had never been hunted.

Cathyrena was there when the first bargain was struck.

She watched from the shadows, silent and unseen, her presence cloaked by the very monsters she kept for company. They slithered and curled around her, drawn to her pulse, her stillness—but they knew better than to make a sound.

She scoffed, the noise muffled by the low growls and clicking jaws that surrounded her. What a show it was.

Rhysand, Prince of Night, clothed in charm and violet deceit, had knelt—knelt—to offer terms to a human girl with shaking hands and wild, starved eyes. And yet, his gaze was not pitying. No, it was hungry. Starved not for her body, Cathyrena realized, but for something far more dangerous.

Her attention. Her interest. Her existence.

If this was desire, it was desperation. And desperation did not suit a High Lord.

It sickened her to watch him. Cathyrena’s lip curled slightly. Her Father, the male who held Amarantha’s favor and title as her whore, branding a mortal girl as if she were his territory.

The mark formed, ink blooming on Feyre’s pale skin like a bruise made of starlight and chains. Cathyrena’s eyes burned as she memorized it—etched every curl and line into her mind.

It felt like betrayal.

A promise of doom signed in ink and arrogance.

Feyre now wore his mark. Her Father’s mark. And that was a death sentence, whether the girl understood it or not. 

Cathyrena had half a mind to snarl, to step forward and tear the bargain from Feyre’s flesh with her own claws. She wanted to spit at Rhysand’s feet, ask if he was so far gone in his games that he’d rather hand the girl over to Amarantha with a target on her back. She wanted to hiss at him for practically pissing on her like a territorial dog. 
But she said nothing.

She remained where she was, seething and silent, watching the ink dry on Feyre’s skin and knowing what it would cost her.

She was rather fond of this mortal girl now.

And she’d hate to watch Amarantha take off her head.

“How is my new pet?” Amarantha asked, reclining deeper into her silk-drenched bed. Her blood-red hair spilled out across the pillows like molten iron, gleaming under the dim torchlight. Her gown, a sheer slip of violet mist, clung to her body and left nothing untouched by the eye. It was a calculated weapon—not meant for Cathyrena, but for the man who haunted their halls like a chained god.

“Adjusting,” Cathyrena said coolly, her voice brushing the edges of boredom. “Though I doubt cages suit wolves.” Her indigo gaze unblinking as it sank into those bottomless, black eyes.

Amarantha’s lips curled, revealing white teeth stained slightly by the wine she swirled in her goblet. “She’s human. They’re born to be caged.”

“Perhaps,” Cathyrena murmured, indigo eyes never leaving her. “But she bites.”

That earned a dark chuckle. “Let her bite. I’ll break her teeth before long.” She sipped from her glass, leaving a crimson smear on the rim like a wound. “You saw the performance your father gave tonight?”

Cathyrena didn’t smile. “Hard to miss when the High Lord of the Night Court practically paints a target on her.”

Amarantha’s smile twitched—an animal baring its fangs. “Jealous, darling?”

“Curious,” Cathyrena replied, slow and measured. “Your whore plays a dangerous game.” Cathyrena was confused at Rhysand’s actions tonight. How he painted Feyre and filled her stomach with Faerie wine. At the wandering hands she was sure a sober Feyre would have snapped his neck for. 

Something flickered behind Amarantha’s eyes. Not rage. Not yet. But something ancient and cold. She set her goblet down with deliberate grace.
“You were watching.”

Cathyrena tilted her head, like a cat lazily observing a predator. “My eyes haven’t left her since you dragged her in.”

Silence. A breath held.

Amarantha’s gaze crawled across her, inspecting, analyzing. For a moment, silence filled the chamber, thick and scented with crushed jasmine and something darker—blood and control. Then Amarantha’s eyes flicked over her bastard offspring, measuring, weighing. “Come, Daughter.”

Cathyrena obeyed. Not out of devotion, but because refusal would taste worse than the bile she already swallowed around her mother. She climbed onto the bed with the care of someone entering a battlefield, not a mother’s embrace.

She moved silently, like mist across a grave, and approached the bed where so many had begged for mercy and died with her mother’s name as their final curse. She crawled up the silken stretch, not like prey, but like something sharp pretending to be soft. Her hands grazed skin she had no desire to touch—skin she sometimes dreamed of slicing open to see if cruelty had a color.

Amarantha reached for her, nails like curved fangs, combing through Cathyrena’s long hair with a mockery of maternal tenderness. She traced the features she had carved into being—features that mirrored her own: sharp cheekbones, red-tinted lips, skin like a statue cracked with shadows.

A mother of torment, a daughter born of darkness and ruin. And between them—unspoken—laid.

And in the silence, Cathyrena’s mind burned with the image of Feyre—paint smeared on her skin, music clinging to her bones, eyes that refused to dim.
The wolf still hadn’t bowed. 

Cathyrena let herself sink into this carefully stitched moment. 

At how devastatingly ordinary her Mother was. 

Pale. Cruel. Red.

That was all she was. No mystery, no hidden depth—just a hunger sharpened over centuries, wrapped in silk and crowned in rot. Red like the stain of a blade across skin. Red like the spilled entrails of fae warriors left to rot in the pits. Red like the silken gown she wore when she snapped the necks of High Fae with a smile on her face. Amarantha was a woman who wore vengeance like perfume and power like skin.

Cathyrena turned to the mirror, gazing long at her own reflection. To anyone else, she would seem a perfect echo—the daughter made in her mother’s image. 
Her eyes told the difference.

Amarantha’s were pits—black voids that swallowed everything. But Cathyrena’s... her eyes held galaxies. Lilac-tinted rivers that shimmered like moonlight on glass. She was pale too, but not like bone—she was carved from the same stone as the moon itself. Her red hair was the muted red of eclipses and dying suns, woven with hints of shadow at the roots. Her lips held the same curve as Amarantha’s, but her cheekbones, her jawline... those were her father’s. Elegant and sharp like a blade drawn in silence.

“Your humanity is showing,” The Darkness whispered in the dark corners of her mind. 

Bryaxis. 

Only once, did it ever let her say its name. Like a god granting its worshipper one fleeting taste of its name, then hiding it again beneath madness.

‘I’m far from human,’ 

It made her wince at how desperate she was for its voice, its company. Cathyrena can admit that even she could not deny a god and its presence she can’t seem to stop craving. To feel the weight of that presence wrapping around her mind like a cloak of night.

The Darkness only laughed. 

That night Cathyrena curled herself against her prison of mirrors. There was nothing she could hide about herself here.  Her nails traced the outline of her fallen form. Taking in the body she was never allowed to look away from. 

Her ears caught the sounds of chaos. 

Feyre was competing in one of Amarantha’s challenges. 

She closed her eyes as she listened to her Mother’s voice as it echoed through her court of slaves. She repeated it like a mantra. It was her riddle after all:
‘There are those who seek me a lifetime,’ Cathyrena whispered, feeling her monsters breathe in the words Cathyrena herself offered her Mother. She knew just the kind of effect it would have on Feyre. The daughter of the Mountain knew her better than anyone- just what kind of lyric poetry to spew. ‘-but never we meet.’ 

She’d written it in blood, carved it out of her own humiliating flesh from the same wounds her Mother punished her with, sinking in her own claws to write it on the glass. 
“At times I seem to favor the clever and the fair,” Cathyrena was alone. There was never going to be another moment to use it. She let light run through her veins at her fingertips. Illuminating and gleaming back at her through the mirrors. “But I bless all those brave enough to dare.

“Scorned, I become a difficult beast to defeat-” The light flickered from a  yellow into a soft adoring blue. “-When I kill, I do it slow.” 

She let the light escape her hands, floating around the air like stars she was never able to reach, dancing and curling with each exhale she let out. The lights floated around her now, drifting through the cell like fireflies that had forgotten what the sky looked like.

The human would not know the answer. 

Cathyrena made sure of that. 

Truth is only revealed when she drives a knife through a heart that stopped bleeding. 

She closed her eyes and listened to her Mother’s voice booming through the halls, wrapping around her like a snake—velvet, vicious, victorious.

Cathyrena hated many things. She didn’t particularly like anything either. 

But if there had ever been a sliver of warmth in Amarantha’s vile heart—any moment where her affections softened—it was for her sister… and, on rare, carefully veiled occasions, her daughter.

Cathyrena had been both weapon and secret. Her mother’s whisper in the dark. A shadow that slithered behind red thrones and crimson-stained corridors. When Amarantha's slaves showed signs of rebellion, Cathyrena would be the one to notice the tremble in their hands, the sideways glances. Her silence was sharper than a blade. Her word—a murmur in Amarantha’s ear—could mean execution or torture. She delivered treachery wrapped in silk and handed it to her mother like an offering.

And when Amarantha had been a General—before she carved her throne into the bones of Prythian—the Queen believed that soldiers who fought deserved spoils. She draped herself in splendor, and all that splendor came from Cathyrena.

Silk was the one thing her mother gave her freely. Not to wear—never that. But to touch. To command. Bolts of it, dyed in obsidian and bloodwine, starlight blue and withering violet. Cathyrena’s world became thread and bone, seam and sketch. She designed every garment her mother wore, from the sharp-shouldered battle robes to the translucent gowns meant to seduce or terrify. It was the one thing Amarantha allowed her to create—art, if one could call it that—though it came from bruised hands and sleepless nights.

Her mother would stand before her, expressionless, as Cathyrena’s cool fingers moved around her waist and shoulders, taking silent measurements, tugging cloth tight around the frame of the most powerful woman in Prythian. She picked the colors, the trims, the thread. She fastened lace in cruel patterns and stitched gold into curling flame across her mother’s sleeves. Even the crowns Amarantha wore, made from twisted silver or molten bronze, were cast first in Cathyrena’s mind, then by her hands.
Needles were the only pain she welcomed. The sharp, hot sting of them biting into her fingers was a distraction—proof that she still felt something. That she still bled. She never flinched from it. If anything, she leaned into the prick of the metal, let it anchor her in a world that so often felt hollow.

In those rare hours, alone in her workshop, thread caught between her teeth, silver dust coating her knuckles, Cathyrena was almost something normal.

Almost.

Just as there was beauty in the Darkness of the Mountain, there were horrors that brought on in the light. 

Cathyrena knew this well. The darkness could be tamed. Softened. Molded. But light—it revealed. It peeled back layers. It made things undeniable.
She recognized him instantly, even though this was their first time meeting face to face.

Tamlin; High Lord of the Spring Court.

The only one Amarantha hadn’t broken completely. No chains, no visible shackles. She tied him to a tree while the others were thrown into cages. It was her version of mercy. And cruelty.

Through shadows and whispers and ghosts, Cathyrena eyes stalked him. Watched how his stalked the human girl like a wolf’s teeth to bone.

His obsession wasn’t subtle.

It was all-consuming.

Fanatical.

Tamlin burned for Feyre.

And when Amarantha dragged Feyre through the dirt, tore her sanity apart strand by strand—when the screams echoed against stone and madness danced behind her eyes—Tamlin did nothing.

But Cathyrena saw the agony in him. The way he flinched when Feyre bled. The fury that haunted his every silence. The rage that trembled beneath his courtly mask.

And Rhysand

Oh, Rhysand had watched, too. 

And Cathyrena had watched him.

The envious glances he threw at Tamlin when Feyre smiled, even when that smile was bloodied and tired.

Cathyrena smiled to herself.

How very Fae of them.

Two ancient, powerful males fighting for a girl they barely understood.

And neither could hide it well.

Rhysand, with all his arrogance and poise, had cracks in his mask. Cathyrena saw them when her eyes landed on him. His gaze was cold, calculating—but it slipped, just for a second, whenever Feyre was involved. Tamlin was worse. A poor pretender in a game that required precision and manipulation.

The game had just begun, and they were already losing.

“Quite a show he puts on for her,” came a voice in her ear, a whisper formed from her shadows. 

Her Darkness; Bryaxis. 

Cathyrena didn’t answer at first. She watched.

Tamlin had pushed Feyre against the wall, his hands desperate on her skin, his mouth crushing against hers like she was the only thing tethering him to sanity.
She tilted her head.

“Shouldn’t he be trying to get her out?” Cathyrena murmured, her voice quiet but bitter. Her shadows purred in agreement, curling like smoke around her limbs, humming with amusement.

“He’s coming,” The deity warned, slithering across the stone.

Cathyrena didn’t flinch. She exhaled slowly, drawing the light around her like a second skin, vanishing into the wall itself. She was a whisper again, a shimmer behind the stone, hidden but not invisible.

Not from him.

Not from Rhysand.

She wasn’t foolish enough to think she could fool a five-hundred-year-old male born from night. But she could delay detection. She could listen.

Footsteps echoed through the corridor—measured, smooth, like a predator not bothering to conceal the hunt. Rhysand strolled around the corner, his eyes flicking to the very space she’d just been in.

However, Cathyrena was already long gone. 

Indigo eyes were wide with the scene. 

Feyre stood bloodied and broken before the throne, her entire body trembling from exhaustion and torment. Her voice, when it came, was barely more than a rasp.

“It’s love,” she whispered.

The word struck like lightning. There was no echo. Only stillness. Only the violent silence that comes before a storm.

Cathyrena blinked slowly, her brows tightening. She stared at Feyre—this fragile thing of bone and iron will—and something knotted tight in her chest. A premonition. A recognition.

Amarantha froze. The color drained from her face, as if the magic—the curse—was already unraveling, slipping through her fingers like ash.

Feyre said it again, louder this time.

“It’s love.”

The curse shattered. Cathyrena felt it break, like the sound of glass being crushed between her hands. The magic that blanketed the mountain lifted—ancient, old, furious—and for the first time in fifty years, the air was free.

But it wasn’t over.

Amarantha screamed, her power wild and dark, no longer controlled. “You insolent, pathetic mortal—”

Her magic struck.

And Feyre fell.

Hard.

Too fast. Too limp. Her body hit the ground like it had been dropped from a great height—arms slack, head twisted unnaturally.

Something broke in Cathyrena.

It was silent, a cold and invisible fracture. She didn’t cry. She didn’t speak. She just stared.

No.

The word tried to rise in her throat, but it never made it past her lips.

She felt it, though. A cold panic that rushed up through her chest, throbbed behind her eyes. Not grief—grief was for the living. But something sharper. Rawer. A sick, twisting kind of ache she didn’t know how to name.

She had watched Feyre be tortured. Had listened to her scream. Had studied the girl’s face with a hunter’s stillness.

And somehow… Cathyrena had wanted her to survive.

Feyre had been brave. Foolish, but brave. She had fought with nothing but her spine, her fists, her cleverness.

And now she was dead.

Not just quiet.

Gone.

Cathyrena’s breath hitched.

The sound shocked her.

She never gasped.

She never felt.

But something had cracked open in her, and it hurt.

“Why didn’t she run?” one of her shadows whispered.

Cathyrena didn’t answer.

Tamlin let out a silent roar, gold light exploding from his skin. Power raged through the hall like a beast unleashed. Cathyrena barely noticed.

Her eyes were still on Feyre.

Her monsters hissed at the sight of her crumpled body. One of them, a thin, eyeless creature made of mist, moaned low in grief—an echo of Cathyrena’s own soundless mourning.

Then—

Tamlin tore Amarantha in half.

Cathyrena watched her mother die.

It was not slow. It was violence incarnate. Claws to flesh. Her mother’s scream rose in one final crescendo before her head was severed and thrown like garbage to the floor. 

There was no time to think. No time to react.

It happened.

It was over.

And Cathyrena... went still.

Still like glass before the quake.

Still like the air before the fire.

Amarantha was gone.

And Feyre was dead.

Was a corpse at Tamlin’s feet. A ruin of meat and shattered pride.

Cathyrena stared at the body for so long, she didn’t realize the room was glowing.

It filled the air now—light from every direction. The High Lords, freed from their binds, stepped forward one by one. Power spilled from them in waves. Glimmering. Terrible.

They placed their hands over Feyre’s still chest.

One by one. All seven.

Including Rhysand.

Cathyrena watched him. The way he lingered. The way his eyes didn’t meet Tamlin’s—but hovered instead on Feyre’s bloodstained face.

“Bring her back,” someone whispered. It might have been Cathyrena. It might have been the wind.

But she sat, still as bone. Her eyes locked on the puddle where her mother’s head had landed, silver crown split in half, blood still steaming.

The silence in her didn’t lift.

Because whatever was inside her—whatever had tethered her to the world through hate or fear—was gone now.

Cathyrena dropped to her knees. Her vision blurred at the edges. Something in her chest folded in on itself. She should have felt relief. She should have smiled. But her face didn’t move. Her lips refused to twitch.

The silence was too much. Too thick.

She reached for her shadows—they flickered.

She reached for her monsters—they growled softly, like wolves mourning in the dark.

Then—

Feyre breathed.

Gasped.

Lived.

Cathyrena’s hand flew to her mouth. Not from shock—no, not quite. It was something else. Awe. Terror. 

It clutched her throat and wouldn’t let go.

The High Lords were glowing. They had given her something—life, power, immortality.

Cathyrena watched Feyre come back from death.

And for the first time in her entire existence, Cathyrena didn’t know whether to scream, or kneel.

Because love had won.

And her mother was just a smear on the floor.

There was no continuation of time when it was over.

No ceremony. No farewell. No torch to carry the moment forward. Only the stillness that follows a massacre. The kind of silence that hums too loud in your ears.

The High Lords returned to their Courts.

Winter fled to its childless, frostbitten wasteland.

Summer drifted toward its seamless waters, aching for warmth that couldn’t be found beneath stone.

Day vanished into its endless desert, chasing sunrises too bright to remember the darkness.

And Rhysand-

Cathyrena saw it. She could see the string that tied around his throat, his eyes- his whole being to Feyre. And her own to his. Mates, of course. She should have known. 
And for once—she didn’t care.

Let the mating bond rip his soul apart. Let it pull him into some tragic destiny. It wasn’t her concern. Not anymore.

Because she stood in the open.

No shadows.

No veil of light.

Nothing between her and the world.

She let herself be seen.

Exposed.

Twenty years of cloaking, of hiding.

The rain came first.

Soft. Almost a whisper. Then faster—heavy, angry. Thick drops slamming into the bone-carved stones of the throne room. It soaked through the mountain, dripped from the high cavern ceilings, carved dark lines through the blood on the floor.

It wasn’t natural.

It came from her.

The water bent to her will, shaped by grief, by fury, by something that had no name.It poured through the open chambers of the mountain, washing over the stone like a baptism. It filled the empty halls, rinsed away the blood still clinging to the bone-throne steps. Waves flooded the lower halls. They curled like claws through the tunnels, lapping at the broken cages where prisoners once screamed.

The tide did not recede.

It cleansed.

Washing away the last breath of Amarantha’s reign. The stains. The screams. The memories.

Cathyrena didn’t flinch as it reached her ankles.

The storm outside howled, thundering against the walls like a thousand fists. Lightning struck the mountain peak again and again—fierce, relentless, as if the skies themselves mourned the cost of freedom.

And still, her eyes never left her mother’s.

Amarantha’s body lay butchered on the throne room floor.

Her head—severed. Half a crown still clung to it, bent at a strange angle where Tamlin’s claws had struck. Her mouth hung open, as if her last words still fought to rise. Her eyes stared forward, unblinking. Lifeless.

Blood pooled beneath the remains, diluted now by Cathyrena’s storm. The red ran thin, spreading like rivers over stone. The gold thread in her dress had been torn apart, mixed with bits of bone and sinew, barely clinging to the corpse like remnants of her once-glorious mask.

There was no beauty left.

Only ruin.

The water swirled around Amarantha’s body, slowly dragging it from its place of pride—washing it downward, as if the mountain itself rejected her. Cathyrena didn’t stop it.

She watched. Watched her mother’s limbs loosen in the current, watched her once-flawless skin begin to break beneath the pressure of the water. Her red hair clung to her cheeks like seaweed, her lips parted in eternal silence.

And still Cathyrena stood there. Letting the rain fall in sheets. Letting it hammer against her skin until she was soaked to the bone.
Her monsters circled her in the water—shimmering, translucent, sad.

None dared speak.

The water hissed against the stone.

The storm roared louder.

Still, Amarantha didn’t move.

She never would again.

What is a daughter supposed to do when their mother lays dead at their feet? 

Chapter Text

It was going to be her.

The mountain groaned behind her like a beast wounded but not dead. Magic still crackled in the stone, leftover tendrils of horror trailing after her like phantom fingers trying to drag her back. The wind howled across the jagged slope behind her, cutting into her skin like knives. Snow blew in angry swirls, the storm rising like the Mountain was howling in grief for Amarantha. Or warning the world what had escaped it.

Her foot left a trail behind her. Blood—hot, bright, and steaming against the cold—painted the snow like spilled ink. It poured from the gash in her arch where a shard of ice had impaled her earlier. The pain had dulled into something distant, something hollow. Only the numbness was real now.

The storm howled across the barren snowscape, wild and sharp as broken glass. It tore at her hair, ripped at the hem of her torn leathers, and slashed across her cheeks until her skin stung and bled. The pale moon glared down coldly, lighting the blood-smeared snow as if the land itself wept crimson.

Her legs burned. Her breath came in ragged gasps, white vapor curling like smoke from her lungs. Her fingers—numb and stiff—clawed at the icy slope as she scrambled forward, slipping, stumbling—

Falling.

Her knees struck a frozen root. A jagged piece of ice, sharp as a dagger, drove itself deep into the arch of her foot. A scream tore from her throat, but the wind devoured it. The storm roared louder, covering her cries like the Mountain had once covered all her pain in silence.

Pain exploded up her leg. Her foot throbbed with every beat of her frantic heart. Her hands trembled as she gripped the shard, slick with blood and frost. She yanked it out with a grunt, her lips parting in a soundless scream as hot blood spilled down her heel. Snow clung to her skin, turning pink where it mixed with her blood. She wanted to sob.

But she didn’t.

Amarantha had done worse. Much worse.

So she bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper, and kept moving.

The trees were bare—jagged bones reaching for the sky, their limbs snapping in the wind. The forest around the mountain was cursed. It felt like it still breathed with the blackness of her mother’s rule. Shadows stretched unnaturally long. The air itself was heavy with memories—screams, begging, and the iron scent of spilled life.

She limped through it anyway, because she had no choice.

The sounds behind her—armored feet in the snow, the flap of wings, the sharp cry of a raven overhead—confirmed her worst fear:

She was going to be next.

They would come for her. 

They would find her.

They would hang her.

Burn her.

Break her in ways Amarantha had been too gentle—too soft—to prepare her for.

But even now, with her mother's corpse cooling on the throne of bones, Cathyrena could feel her mother’s cruelty stitched into her veins like thread.

Her steps dragged as her blood painted the path behind her. 

The snow drank it up hungrily.

The air grew thicker, darker. 

The further she fled, the louder her heartbeat grew in her ears—like drums of war. Her magic, that strange, coiled thing inside her, buzzed with warning. She didn't dare use it. Didn’t dare show them what else Amarantha had left behind.

A daughter born of spite. Raised in shadows. Built in silence.

Not quite beast. Not quite fae.

But wholly hunted.

She pressed her hand to the bleeding wound in her foot, teeth clenched, and looked up.

She had to run. Even if her lungs gave out. Even if her legs snapped beneath her.

Because if they caught her—

They would not show mercy.

And Cathyrena, for all the horrors she’d survived, did not yet know what it meant to beg.

Her shadows coiled around her shoulders like a living mantle, dragging behind her like a mourning veil. They hissed and snapped, curling into strange, inky shapes at the corners of her vision—twisting into claws and cruel smiles.

“Run, little ghost.” they taunted.
“Run on your broken feet.” they whispered.
“They’re coming. The High Lords. The soldiers. The judgment.”

Cathyrena clenched her jaw until her teeth ached.

She kept running.

The woods surrounding the Mountain were brittle, ancient. Each tree stood black and leafless, reaching upward with bare, broken fingers. Bark peeled like dead skin. Snow clung to them in thick crusts. Their shadows stretched unnaturally, not matching the pale light above.

Something watched her from between the trunks.

But it wasn’t the Court warriors.

It was her.

Her shadows. Her monsters. Her gods.

She stumbled through a narrow gully, catching herself against the crumbling edge of a frost-covered root. Her hands—raw, bloodied—left smears of red on the bark.

“You will die here,” the shadows said.
“Like her. Alone. Small.”

“I’m not her,” Cathyrena hissed.

But her voice cracked. She wasn’t sure it had even made it past her lips.

The storm screamed louder.

Snow hammered her like fists, slipping into her cloak, her boots, her hair. Her body shivered uncontrollably. Blood soaked her leggings from the wound in her foot. It pulsed with every step, a cruel reminder that she wasn’t free.

That she had never been.

She dragged herself forward through the forest, guided only by instinct. By defiance. By spite.

“They’ll hang you, girl.”
“They’ll tear you limb from limb.”
“Did you think they’d believe you were innocent?”

The shadows slithered beneath her collar, brushing the back of her neck like a cold breath. They twisted into words not spoken aloud:

“Born of a queen of monsters.”
“Daughter of spite.”
“Blood of the prison.”

“You are not real.”

The words slithered from the shadows, soft as silk, cold as steel. They wrapped around her spine like icy fingers, dragging along each vertebra until the chill met the base of her skull.

Cathyrena gasped—more from rage than pain. The wind clawed at her face, white flurries stinging her skin like wasps. Her breath left her in steaming, ragged clouds as she turned, eyes wild, fists clenched.

She struck the nearest tree with all the strength left in her. The bark cracked under the force, shards of wood flying as blood smeared across her knuckles. She didn’t flinch. Her chest heaved as she stared at the wound, panting, her pulse pounding through her temple.

“I am real,” she growled. Her voice was hoarse, feral. “I am real.”

For a moment, the forest froze. The wind paused in its screaming. Even the snow seemed to hover mid-air, suspended like time itself had recoiled from her fury.

A pause.

A breath.

And then the shadows stirred again. They coiled tighter around her arms, her ribs, like smoke winding through barbed wire. Their cold kiss brushed her jaw.

Then—softly.

Sweetly.

Cruelly.

“Prove it.”

And just like that… he was there again.

Not standing before her. Not tangible. But present.

Watching.

Waiting.

Not with eyes, but with pressure. With intent. Like the atmosphere itself had shifted to accommodate something too old to belong here. Something not made of flesh or bone.

The trees groaned.

The wind bent.

The shadows thickened, not with cold, but with weight.

Cathyrena felt it ripple through her magic—not just a shiver along her skin, but deep in her bones, like an echo of something vast awakening within her.

Bryaxis.

The name the god had once whispered into her dreams when she was too small, too broken to understand what it meant.

The thing her mother had feared, had never dared speak of. A nightmare sealed away beneath the Prison for millennia. A horror that did not torture or kill—not unless asked. Not unless invited.

The thing Cathyrena had whispered to in the dark when she was eight years old and bleeding in a cell meant to break her.

The thing that had answered.

And now… it pressed against her like a second soul, coiled around the space where her fear used to live.

“Do you remember how it felt?”

The voice was silk over shattered glass. A soft murmur curling against her mind.

“The first time you tasted power?”
“You didn’t cry when she hurt you. But you did cry when I left.”

Cathyrena’s legs buckled. The world spun sideways.

She collapsed into the snow with a sickening crunch, her knees giving out, her palms buried deep into the frost. The cold bit into her skin, searing it like fire. Blood from her torn foot soaked through the white powder, the steam rising off it curling like smoke from a ritual.

Her lungs heaved, her throat raw from silent screams. Her heart thundered inside her chest—loud enough that the snow seemed to vibrate with its rhythm.

Above her, the trees leaned in. The storm pulsed like a heartbeat.

“You wanted someone to listen,” the god murmured.
“I did.”

Her shadows twined tighter, pressing against her ribs like a second set of lungs. They didn’t just surround her—they infiltrated her, merged with her, their tendrils brushing her heart like lovers’ hands.

They curled against her bones like armor. Like wings.

Like comfort.

Cathyrena shuddered.

She hated the way they held her. She hated that part of her wanted to be held.

That she was desperate for someone to stay. To see her. To understand her shape—not as a weapon or an echo of Amarantha, but as a girl made of glass and fire and shame.

She screamed into the storm—her voice torn and wild, more a roar than anything human.

The blizzard answered in kind, blasting snow into her face, stinging her eyelids and cutting across her lips. But even then, the shadows didn’t loosen. They closed tighter, like they were cradling her.

Not with love.

But with recognition.

Pain roared through her body.

White-hot. Blistering.

Every inch of her ached—her foot, mangled and raw, throbbed with each pulse of her heart. Her arms shook beneath her, barely able to hold her up. Her skin was scraped, raw from the wind and branches. Her lips bled where she’d bitten them too hard.

But it wasn’t the pain that made her still.

It was the thing beneath it.

Something humming.

Something waiting.

Not the shadows.

Her.

A low, distant hum vibrated through her spine. Like the stirring of a sleeping beast. It was subtle. Gentle.

But unyielding.

A presence within her that had nothing to do with her mother.

Nothing to do with the Mountain.

Nothing to do with the Courts.

It was her magic.

Not born of Amarantha’s cruelty. Not born of the spells that had shackled others.

Her own.

Deep and ancient.

Hungry, yes—but not monstrous. Not mindless. It didn’t burn like flame or slash like blades.

It thrummed.

Steady. Patient. Alive.

It beat under her skin like a second heartbeat. It fluttered beneath her ribs like a wing not yet unfurled.

Cathyrena inhaled, and the cold air ignited something in her chest.

The shadows around her hesitated.

Not in fear.

In anticipation.

“She wakes,” they whispered.

They slithered backward—not away, but aside. Making space.

Like servants bowing as a queen passed.

“You can feel her, can’t you?”
“The you-that-could-be.”

Her breath stilled in her throat.

That version of herself—the one that had never bled in chains, never been called a mistake, a monster, a shadow of a greater horror.

A version that was whole.

And her magic responded.

A pulse—deep and rolling like thunder in her gut.

A small tremor in the air, barely there, like the snowflakes paused just a moment longer before falling.

Power.

Not unleashed.

Not formed.

But present.

Waiting for her permission.

And Bryaxis was watching.

She could feel his gaze like a pressure behind her eyes. He said nothing now. He didn’t have to.

She knew what he was thinking.

What he was offering.

“There is more of me in you than there was of her.”

She didn’t know how long she had been running.

Time had shattered somewhere behind her—lost beneath the jagged crags of the Mountain and buried under the endless onslaught of snow. It couldn’t have been more than a few hours. But it felt eternal. Like she had been running since the moment she was born. Since the moment her mother—Amarantha—first looked at her and saw not a child, but a vessel.

The forest had become a blur. A frozen dream. Or nightmare.

The world around her was dead.

The trees stood like ancient sentinels, their bark stripped and blackened, reaching skyward with brittle, skeletal arms. Snow coated every branch in ghostly silence. There were no birds here. No animal tracks. Not even wind anymore—just a thick, heavy stillness that smothered the land. It made the air feel too close, like it was pressing in on her lungs, suffocating her without ever touching her skin.

White.

Everything was white. And gray. And black.

Like she was trapped inside a memory of winter, not winter itself.

Cathyrena stumbled over a half-buried log, her leg buckling from the effort. Her arms caught her weight, but she didn’t move again right away. She knelt in the snow, breath clawing out of her throat, misting in front of her. Her ribs ached from the cold. Her face was raw, her lips chapped and bloodied. Her hair clung to her scalp in frozen strands, whipped by ice and sleet.

There was no warmth left in her. Only fire beneath her skin—and even that felt like it was flickering.

And still, the snow fell.

It didn’t drift. It swarmed. Swirled. Buried.

The storm wasn’t natural anymore. She knew that now. It hadn’t been for hours.

It followed her.

It wanted her.

The trees began to warp at the edges of her vision. The shadows stretched in unnatural directions. Her own trail of bloody footprints twisted behind her like something crawling, shifting in the corner of her eye.

Her heart pounded.

Her throat burned.

She pressed a trembling hand to her face, her cracked fingertips brushing against frozen skin. Something inside her was unraveling—thread by thread, stitch by stitch. Her thoughts blurred. Her name felt too large for her mouth. Her mind kept slipping back into that cell beneath the Mountain, into those chains, into the dark—

Too much silence.

She opened her mouth to scream.

Nothing came out.

Not yet.

Her knees shook beneath her. 

Her arms hung limp at her sides, her bloodied fingers twitching. The storm seemed to lean into her. The wind whispered against her cheek like a breath, like a dare.

Cathyrena tilted her head back.

The sky above was a deep, churning gray—no sun, no stars, no shape. Just a mass of cold clouds spiraling above her like a slow cyclone.

She opened her mouth again—and this time, she screamed.

It erupted from her throat like a sword splitting through bone.

The sound was raw. Violent. Hoarse. A cry from a soul not just in pain—but in ruin.

And the forest answered.

The scream didn’t echo. 

It rippled.

It fractured the silence like shattering glass.

It bounced from tree to tree, from snowbank to snowbank, growing louder and wronger as it returned to her.

The sound warped—twisting into thousands of voices. Like a flock of crows taking flight from a battlefield. Like the screaming of every soul her mother had ever broken. Like the death-rattle of kingdoms.

And then it rose.

It swelled.

The scream rolled into the sky like a tidal wave—crashing, tearing, slamming against the clouds.

The trees bowed in its wake. Snow exploded off branches in violent gusts.

The wind shrieked. Not around her—but with her.

As if the entire storm had opened its lungs to scream too.

And she—

Cathyrena—stood at the center.

Alone.

Weeping.

Raging.

Breathing like every inhale might be her last.

Her shoulders trembled, her fingers clawing into her own arms. Her heart pounded hard enough she thought it might tear free from her chest. Her mouth still open, her throat aching, raw from the force of her own voice.

But finally—finally—something in the world responded.

And still, the shadows whispered,

“Now they’ll hear you.”

Cathyrena was a dreamer.

Not the kind who believed in stars or made wishes on wells—but the quiet kind. 

The kind who built entire worlds behind her eyelids, piece by piece, like patches sewn into an old quilt. In the deep silence of the Mountain, where no bird dared sing and no sun dared rise, Cathyrena dreamed.

She dreamed of paradises she had never seen, of blue skies and green hills and sunlight warm on her skin. Of laughter echoing from open windows and bread baking in a stone oven. She dreamed of warmth. Of softness. Of a life that had never belonged to her—but that she could almost feel if she just closed her eyes tight enough.

And she dreamed of him.

Her father.

The male she had never touched, never spoken to. A silhouette in the distance, too far to hold, too near to forget. Too beloved in her heart to let go.

Cathyrena had seen him only in slivers—passing glimpses beneath the Mountain, when Amarantha’s shadows allowed her a crack between the doors of silence. She remembered the way he stood—tall, quiet, with a kind of stillness that did not belong in a place made of screams. 

She watched him for hours, hidden in corners, behind broken stone columns, or through mirrors tilted just right.

And in those moments, she searched.

She searched his face for reflections of herself—the slope of his nose, the line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth. Did her eyes match his? Did they carry the same softness? Was there purity in him she could claim as her own?

Was she like him?

She wanted so badly to believe that she was.

That her blood was not only Amarantha’s. That there was something gentler inside her, something that did not curl like a blade. Something that might make her lovable.

But Amarantha never let her near.

Not once.

Her mother—red-lipped, cold-hearted—kept Cathyrena hidden like a secret. A locked drawer. A shameful mistake. She was cloaked in shadows from birth, wrapped in silence and scorn. And even if Amarantha had granted her permission to go to him, Cathyrena never would have had the courage.

She had never learned how to approach light.

She’d only learned how to survive darkness.

So she watched. 

And dreamed.

Because she was good at lurking. At vanishing. At folding herself into silence. The shadows bent around her like a second skin, making her invisible. And from that invisibility, Cathyrena memorized everything.

His hands—how they curled loosely at his sides when he was still, the subtle tension in them when Amarantha was near. The way he folded them behind his back, standing like a soldier who had forgotten what freedom felt like.

His voice.

She knew every tone.

 The mocking one he reserved for Amarantha. The smooth, silken one he used when playing courtier. And—on the rarest nights—the soft one. Low. Ache-filled. The voice of someone who had lost more than he let show. She had heard it when he spoke to no one. When he whispered into the void of his cell, unaware that she lingered just beyond the stone.

She had studied his smile—not the one that flashed like a blade, but the faint one, the one that barely lifted the corners of his mouth. That was the smile she held close. The one she dreamed was for her.

Cathyrena clung to those glimpses like relics.

Because if he was kind… maybe she could be, too.

If he carried light inside him despite the darkness, maybe some of that same light lived inside her.

She searched for him in herself—the shape of her lips, the texture of her hair, the long silence in her bones. Any piece of him she could claim. Anything to prove she wasn’t only her mother’s child.

And in her deepest dreams, he saw her.

He saw her, and he knew.

That she was his.

That she had been waiting, quietly, all along.

But she never approached him. Not once.

Amarantha had forbidden it, yes. 

But fear had also chained her legs.

She didn’t know how to walk toward the light.

She only knew how to watch it from the dark.

How he might have smiled at her. How his arms might have felt—warm, strong, smelling of forest wind or parchment or magic. She dreamed of calloused fingers brushing hair from her face. Of him kneeling to kiss her scraped knees when she was younger. Of hands guiding hers as she learned to thread a needle, to pierce fabric just right.

Torn lace, discarded velvet, loose pearls and ribbons stripped from corpses Amarantha had no use for. Cathyrena collected them. And when no one watched, she stitched them together—piece by piece, thread by careful thread.

She created beauty in the dark.

Pale gowns made of remnants. Cloaks that shimmered faintly even in the absence of light. Tiny dolls with black-button eyes and careful stitching where mouths should be. Her fingers—small, chapped, graceful—knew how to mend what had been ruined.

When she sewed, she forgot the sting of chains and her mother’s sneers. She forgot the way the shadows clung to her name. She forgot the mountain overhead. For just a few minutes, her hands created what her soul could not say.

She stitched her sorrow into silks. 

Her love into velvet. 

Her longing into lace.

In her dreams, her father noticed that about her.

He would kneel beside her sewing table, run his fingers over the hem of her work, and tell her it was beautiful. He’d sit with her in silence, the way people do when they do not need words to be together.

He would be soft.

And he would love her.

Because that’s what she wanted more than anything.

She didn’t dream of power. She didn’t crave crowns or kingdoms. She didn’t want to rule.

She ached— ached —for love.

The kind that wrapped around you like a quilt on a winter morning. The kind that whispered goodnight and kissed your brow. The kind that looked at you and saw you , not your blood or your mother’s name or your silence.

Cathyrena dreamed of a father’s hug.

Of hands that held without hurting.

Of someone who said her name like it meant something.

Her dreams were paper-thin, fragile things. They folded and dissolved beneath the weight of truth. Beneath the echo of her mother’s voice. Beneath the silence of her father’s absence.

Still, she dreamed.

Because what else was there?

Cathyrena was built of things left behind. Of people who had turned away. Of blood that whispered of power and madness and ice.

But she just wanted warmth.

A chair pulled out at a table. A hand to hold.

A name spoken with love.

So she dreamed harder.

She imagined sitting at a low table beside him, candlelight flickering over her hands as she guided a needle through velvet. He would watch—not with judgment, not with pity—but with pride. He would trace the hem of her creation and say, “You did this?”

And she would nod, quiet and small.

He would pull her into his arms. 

And she would believe him.

Just for a moment.

She would believe she was wanted.

But dreams are cruel things in the wrong hands.

And Cathyrena’s had always been sharp-edged. Broken glass wrapped in ribbon. Fragile. Dangerous. They collapsed when the weight of reality pressed down.

So she returned to her corners.

To the shadows.

To her sewing.

She gathered her scraps and stitched a new piece, over and over, even if it never truly changed. Even if she knew no one would ever wear it.

Because even in the dark, Cathyrena had to believe she was more than the silence her mother had buried her in.

That somewhere, beneath the blood and bone—

A daughter still waited.

And a father might still see her.

In another life. 

In this one, she will continue to dream. 

Nyx.

That was what the people called him.

Son of the Moon.

Prince of Velaris. 

Lord of Dreams.

Starlight in his eyes, marble in his skin, a softness in his soul that had never been tested by the Under the Mountain. He was everything Cathyrena was not—beloved, raised in sunlight, nurtured in a court of laughter and open skies. The male heir to a legacy she had only ever watched from the shadows.

Her half-brother.

Nyx.

Born to the High Lord of Night and the High Lady who ended Amarantha’s reign, Nyx was their joy made flesh. Cathyrena often wondered how different he looked from her—what trait their shared father had passed to him that he had not passed to her. What part of Rhysand he had chosen to give freely, rather than keep buried in the dungeons of memory and shame.

She did not hate Nyx. Not even a little.

But sometimes, in the quiet hours, when the stars above were too far to touch, she imagined what it would have been like if she had been born into a different story. One where she might have danced with him under the Starfall skies, raced him along the rooftops of Velaris, or held his hand and whispered secrets under the River House balcony.

But that wasn’t her life.

And she would not be the one to ruin theirs.

She had decided that long ago. Cathyrena—daughter of Amarantha, creature of shadows, mistake carved in blood and silence—would not destroy the joy they had fought so hard to build.

So she left.

She wandered.

She traveled the world, seeking out the places she'd only read about in the old, brittle books the Darkness had left her. Bryaxis had always brought her stories—volumes of poetry, tales of faraway lands, even tattered atlases inked with the cracked spines of forgotten Courts. And when the Mountain finally crumbled and freedom became something she could choose, Cathyrena chose to go.

The first Court she visited was Winter .

She had always imagined it as a cruel, quiet place. 

But when she arrived, it was… still.

White as death, yes. But not lifeless.

Snow blanketed everything, soft and thick, like a silence that chose peace over mourning. The winds howled through pine forests with the low, mournful cry of wolves. Crystalline rivers ran beneath sheets of ice so clear she could see the silver fish swimming below. Spires of pale blue stone rose from the mountains, like frostbitten fingers reaching toward a colorless sky.

The palace of the Winter Court was carved directly into the cliffside, its towers glazed in hoarfrost, glowing faintly with the eternal shimmer of ice-magic. And inside—inside it was warmer than she’d expected. Fires crackled in marble hearths, pelts lined the floors, and laughter echoed off the cold walls in bursts of silver.

The people did not look at her twice. 

Wrapped in furs and crowned in snowflakes, they passed her by as if she were wind herself. She liked that. 

The anonymity. 

The way the cold did not ask questions.

She left her footprints across miles of frozen lakes. Slept beneath trees weighed down by snow so thick it muffled even her breath. She found peace there, for a time.

But it did not last.

The ache returned. The one that sat in her ribs like an unstitched seam.

So she went south.

To Summer .

If Winter was silence, Summer was song.

There, the air was thick with salt and jasmine. 

The sea gleamed like molten sapphire, waves crashing against golden shores that shimmered under a cloudless sky. Sunlight kissed everything. Even the smallest blade of grass seemed to glow.

The Summer Court's palace stood along the coast—a masterpiece of ivory and coral, its open-air halls designed to let the breeze sing through. Musicians played in every courtyard, laughter rang like bells, and bright silk banners danced in the wind.

It was too warm. Too open. Too… golden.

Cathyrena stayed only a few weeks, lurking in shaded alcoves and empty gardens. She dipped her fingers into the turquoise waters of moonlit coves, letting the sea salt sting her skin. She listened to songs she didn’t know the words to. She watched couples dance barefoot on the sand, firelight flickering across their joy.

No one there had ever known Amarantha. Not truly. Her memory did not linger like a ghost on their beaches.

But Cathyrena carried her anyway. 

A shadow stitched into her spine.

And so she left, again.

Next, she wandered to the Dawn Court .

It was beauty, plain and pure. 

Light filtered through rose-colored skies and painted the marble streets with hues of honey and gold. The air there smelled of warm stone and fresh parchment. Magic lingered in every leaf, in every breath.

The palace sat atop a rolling hill, made of pale stone and stained glass that shimmered like opals. Scholars walked the halls with scrolls tucked beneath their arms. Artists painted with glowing pigments that never faded. Gardens bloomed in spirals and patterns, each petal placed like a brushstroke.

Here, Cathyrena walked slowly.

She read the books left open on empty tables. Skimmed poems written in languages older than wind. She sat under the shade of flowering trees and tried to forget who she was.

The people of Dawn were gentle, curious—but polite enough not to question her presence.

And yet, despite its beauty, despite its warmth, Cathyrena did not linger.

Dawn was too honest.

Too full of hope.

She couldn’t bear the way it made her want to believe in things.

Her final stop was Autumn .

A Court of fire and decay, of embers and oaths carved into bark.

The leaves here burned red and gold, eternal in their falling. The wind whispered of betrayal. Trees towered like ancient titans, their roots twisting through the earth like veins.

The palace of Autumn was carved from the trees themselves—dark, towering halls with roaring hearths and windows stained with the blood-orange light of dusk. Flames flickered in every shadow, and everything smelled of smoke.

Autumn was war-touched. Angry. Bitter.

And yet, Cathyrena felt oddly at home.

There was no false kindness here. No hiding behind beauty or joy. Everyone in Autumn bared their teeth. Everyone had something to prove.

She spent months there, hidden in forests and forgotten watchtowers. She watched the High Lord’s sons train with blades that gleamed like wildfire. She learned their anger, listened to their arguments, studied the scars on their knuckles and the ice in their eyes.

And though she never showed her face, never spoke her name, the Court itself seemed to recognize her.

To respect her silence.

To leave her be.

But even there, among flame and fury, Cathyrena could not stay.

Because every path—no matter how far—led her back to him.

To Velaris .

To Rhysand.

Only every once in a while would she dare to visit. The temptation was unbearable. Even the briefest glance of him could undo her.

She never stepped beyond the edges of the Court. 

But from the rooftops, from the shadows of alleyways and hidden doorways, she watched.

She saw him fly overhead, his wings spanning the skies like a painting come to life.

She saw him walking through the streets with his mate, hand in hand, laughter like a lullaby.

She saw Nyx beside him—bright and joyful, eyes gleaming with light.

And she pictured herself among them.

Just for a moment.

She imagined what it would feel like to be there. At his side. Laughing as he laughed. Dancing in the city of starlight with the brother he gave her. She even let herself dream of wings—of flying with them, side by side, into the open sky.

Would she have had wings, if things had been different?

Did she even deserve to ask?

She didn’t know.

So she hid.

So she watched.

Because Cathyrena was good at watching.

She had perfected the art of slipping between shadows, of holding her breath, of disappearing into nothing. It was how she had survived. How she had endured.

And now, it was all she knew.

Her body had grown strange over the years—taller, sharper, honed by magic and grief. Her long limbs seemed carved from bone dust, her skin tinted with something not quite Fae. Her hair had darkened into blood-black waves, dipped in something ancient. And her eyes—her indigo eyes—glowed with a light that belonged to no Court.

Sometimes, she painted her lips in shades of blue, violet, or crimson—colors pulled from bruises and twilight. She found the irony entertaining. Beauty born from violence.

She had become a creature of dream and nightmare, a whisper on the wind.

And still, she could not forget.

Still, she could not stay away.

Because deep in her chest, beneath the silence and stitching and shadow—she still dreamed.

Of being seen.

Of being known.

Of being more than what her mother had left behind.

But she could not bear to bring her darkness into their light.

She would not curse them with the truth.

So Cathyrena wandered still, a ghost across the Courts, a daughter never claimed.

A sister never held.

A shadow carved into the side of history, invisible but watching.

Always watching.

And when the ache became too great—when the memory of him walking past without ever seeing her became too loud—she fled.

Back to the mountains. Back to the dark. Back to the silence.

Because if she stayed too long…

She might forget how to leave.

She came to Velaris the way some came to gods.

Starved. Silent. Half-mad with longing.

Not for power, not for redemption.

But for something holier: to belong.

It had been years since Amarantha had fallen. Since the blood on the stones dried. Since Cathyrena had fled the Mountain in the middle of a snowstorm and hadn’t stopped running since. The courts blurred behind her—Winter’s silence, Summer’s song, Autumn’s smoke, Dawn’s air. She had slept beneath thorn trees, beside broken statues, in the cracks of forgotten temples. She had become something wild and without a name.

A nomad stitched from shadows.

And now, after all this time, she stood before the Court of Dreams.

The name had lived in her mind for as long as she could remember. Whispers from old pages. Descriptions etched into stone by poets. The place her father had protected with every breath, every lie, every wound. The city untouched by war. The city of starlight.

She hadn’t meant to come.

Night after night, the image of it flickering like prayer smoke behind her eyes. And now, with nothing left but the tattered edges of herself, she followed the call.

Like a lost disciple crawling to a holy place.

She reached it just before dawn.

At first, Velaris revealed itself in fragments. The River Sidra winding through the cliffs like a silver thread. The sea, beyond the mountain pass, stretching to the horizon like a polished blade. And then—

The city.

Velaris was carved into the mountains themselves. A marvel of color and shape and sky. Homes of white and gold stone curved like waves against the hills. Balconies draped in flowering vines. Spires etched with ancient runes that shimmered when the wind shifted. No two buildings were the same—each one crafted with care, curved in celebration of difference.

And above it all, the stars still glowed, just faintly. Refusing to leave the sky, as if they too didn’t want to look away.

Cathyrena stood at the city’s edge, her boots coated in dust and ash from roads long abandoned. Her cloak hung loose around her shoulders, its hem torn, her hood half-shredded. Her skin had been burned by sun and wind, her hair braided with pieces of fabric she had collected like offerings.

No one looked at her.

They walked past with baskets of fruit, with rolled-up paintings, with arms wrapped around each other’s waists. Laughter drifted through the morning air like birdsong. Music spilled from open windows.

It wasn’t just a city.

It was a hymn.

She took one step forward. Then another.

And with every step, something inside her shifted—fractured.

Cathyrena had wandered courts filled with jewels and marble. But nothing had ever felt like this.

The Palace of Thread and Jewels rose in the distance, its towers polished with obsidian and lapis, adorned with stained glass so intricate it caught the sun and scattered it like fractured light across the nearby rooftops. The Sidra river glimmered beneath it, a blue vein running through the heart of the city.

And across the bridge that spanned it: the Rainbow of Velaris.

She had read of it. The artist’s quarter. The place where music was born, where color ran free down cobbled steps, where dancers performed barefoot in the streets. The buildings here were painted in every hue imaginable—rich indigos, emerald greens, bold crimsons. Murals covered entire walls: scenes of battles, of lovers, of galaxies curling into themselves.

Cathyrena walked in silence.

Her fingers dragged against the stone walls, as if touching the paint might make it more real.

This was the place her father had died for a thousand times over. The place he had kept secret from her mother. The city he had guarded while Cathyrena had sat beneath the Mountain, watching shadows crawl across ceilings.

She found a small square, tucked between a row of bookshops and a teahouse lined with ivy. A statue stood in its center—an Illyrian male with wings outstretched. Not Rhysand. But someone ancient. Someone remembered.

She sat at its base, legs curled beneath her, and just… breathed.

It was the first time she had sat still in weeks.

Around her, the city moved.

A female swept her storefront steps, humming a song older than Velaris itself. A child ran past with a string of paper birds. Two males kissed beneath an archway carved with stars.

No one noticed the girl in the shadow of the statue. No one questioned her silence, her threadbare cloak, her wide eyes.

She was invisible.

It comforted her.

She stayed there for hours.

And then, when her legs ached and the sun rose high above the rooftops, she rose and kept walking.

Velaris was layered. Stepped. Built into the mountains like a spiral of dreams.

She found the House of Wind next.

Or rather, it found her.

The mountain loomed above, its steps etched into the stone itself. She stood at the base and craned her neck. She had no intention of climbing. Not yet. Not without knowing what she’d find at the top.

But she stared.

She imagined her father there. His wings spread wide, laughter rumbling through the halls. She imagined Nyx racing through the library. Feyre painting murals on the walls.

And she imagined herself.

She turned away before the thought became too painful.

The streets curved. 

The city unfolded like a book.

She passed quiet neighborhoods where laundry hung like prayer flags between windows. She passed the River House—its gates iron-wrought and elegant, its gardens blooming with roses the color of dusk. She didn’t dare linger near it.

Too close.

Too fragile.

It was enough to see it.

Enough to know it was real.

Cathyrena found a bench near the upper levels of the city, where rooftops stretched below like a mosaic. She could see the docks in the distance, where ships drifted in like lazy whales. The sea shimmered, endless.

The wind carried salt and spice.

And she wept.

Quietly. Almost reverently.

Tears that had been building for years slipped down her cheeks.

She didn’t know what she wanted.

Didn’t know why she had come, only that she couldn’t not.

This city was sacred. 

Not just because it was beautiful. But because it had been loved.

And Cathyrena… had never been.

She came here like some pilgrims crawl to temples—without answers, but desperate to be near whatever it was that made people believe.

She envied them.

The citizens of Velaris.

Their ease. Their lightness. Their ability to look at one another and know love wasn’t a price to pay or a weapon to wield.

She had never belonged anywhere.

But Velaris… Velaris made her wish.

That she might belong.

Someday.

She stood again.

And for no reason she could name, she began to climb.

Past winding roads carved into the cliffs. Past gardens blooming with starlight plants—bluebell, moonvine, the Night Court’s sacred silverleaf. Past murals of constellations. Past alleyways where musicians plucked strings made of stardust.

She reached a platform that overlooked the entire city.

Velaris glittered below.

The Sidra curled like a ribbon through the rooftops. The sea sang to the east. The stars began to peek out, winking into being. The scent of spice and citrus filled the air.

And above it all, the mountains watched.

She dropped to her knees.

Like a worshipper at an altar.

Like a child asking for a name.

No one saw her.

And still, she whispered:

“I’m here.”

To the wind. To the stars. To the ghosts.

To the father who did not know her.

“I’m here.”

The city did not answer.

But the light didn’t fade.

The sky did not weep.

And Cathyrena—

She stayed.

Because maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

Cathyrena could feel the stares of those around her as she raced down the cobbled streets of Velaris, her boots clapping against the stone, her breath catching like moth wings in her throat.

 Her cloak billowed behind her, catching the morning light in faded threads of indigo and rose. But she didn’t slow. She never did when she returned—not until she reached the same familiar street, the same weather-worn awning, the same old apartment where she always stayed.

It was routine by now. 

A pilgrimage. 

A quiet, aching kind of devotion.

Just a few weeks earlier, she had been far from here—swept into the painted warmth of the Dawn Court, that golden land of eternal creation and blooming gardens. She had slept beneath its pink skies, where the clouds moved like brushstrokes and the scent of orange blossoms followed her through every square. The world there glowed as if some god had dipped the landscape in soft firelight.

She wandered through its sprawling cities and humming libraries, drank delicate sake in perfumed parlors with golden-silk cushions, and danced barefoot in the moon-washed streets to the sound of zithers and wind chimes. The Court was a painting made real, its people always on the edge of either singing or creating something that had never existed before.

It was there she met the Peregryn female—a winged creature of elegance and earth, with skin like dusk and eyes like honeyed tea. 

Their meeting had been accidental, the way stars sometimes collide: a brush of hands over a shared book in a crowded bookshop. A laugh. A conversation. Then cake, and tea, and the soft hush of footsteps toward somewhere quieter. With ruined sheets. 

They fell in the familiar pattern Cathyrena always found herself spiraling toward—soft words, whispered truths, fleeting touches exchanged in doorways and gardens. The Peregryn left her with pressed flowers in her book pages, with honey-smeared kisses, and arms that knew exactly how to hold without hurting. 

It was not love, but something close. Something safer.

It was the morning she awoke in her arms, the scent of fried eggs and cinnamon tea wafting through the flat, and saw the way those soft eyes looked at her—half-hopeful, half-knowing—that she realized it was time to go.

Not because she wasn’t welcome.

But because her heart had started to feel again.

And when it did, she always returned to the only place that felt like a prayer.

She traveled long and far—through golden fields and mountain roads, through places where no one remembered Amarantha’s name, or her daughter’s shadows. She carried nothing but a satchel of thread and needles, a bundle of letters she never sent, and a heart too full to name.

And now, as she passed under the archway blooming with silver wisteria, her feet finally slowed.

There it was: the old apartment tucked into the Rainbow Quarter of Velaris, wedged between a stained-glass shop and a perfume house. Its bricks were sun-worn, the windows smudged by time, the flower boxes always overflowing with marigolds.

At the front desk sat the same old male, his beard now whiter than the last time she saw him. His face lit like a paper lantern when she entered.

“You’re back,” he said, voice warm and trembling. “Your room’s been waiting.”

“Thank you for keeping it warm, Laszalo.” Cathyrena smiled sweetly.

She didn’t have to ask. 

The room was always cleaned, the bed made, the tea kettle already set on the stove. She paid him in silence and kindness, and sometimes—when his daughter outgrew her gowns—she paid him in stitches.

He would leave the dresses in a small basket outside her door, along with ribbons and buttons, and she would repair them at night by candlelight, threading memories into every seam. It was a gift her Peregryn lover had taught her: how to use thread like magic, how to mend without leaving scars.

Someday, she thought, maybe she would open a shop.

A small one. Tucked into a quiet corner of Velaris. With bolts of velvet and silk stacked beside the window, and shelves lined with dolls and tiny gowns. Maybe she would sew for children, for brides, for warriors.

Maybe she would sew for herself.

But for now, she simply returned.

To her room. To her window. To her quiet.

Because Velaris did not ask questions.

It only welcomed.

And for a girl who had never belonged anywhere else.

The kettle sang just as the light shifted through the lace curtains, spilling golden beams across the wooden floors of the apartment. Cathyrena poured the steeped tea into two mismatched ceramic cups—the ones she always used when he came by—and set them on the table near the window, where the sea breeze could find them.

The old male arrived right on time.

His cane tapped softly on the hallway tiles, a rhythm she could recognize with her eyes closed. When he stepped into the small space, his eyes immediately found her—just as they always did—with that soft, crinkled warmth that reminded her of paper pages left in the sun too long.

“Smells like chamomile,” he said, easing himself into the chair opposite hers.

“It’s from the Dawn Court,” Cathyrena replied quietly, brushing a few threads from her tunic. “They dry it with citrus rinds. Said it brings dreams that linger.”

“Do you want your dreams to linger?” he asked, though not unkindly.

Cathyrena offered a small, tired smile. “Only the soft ones.”

The old male, whose name she had never needed to ask—he had simply always been "Laszalo" in the way old trees are just trees—chuckled as he brought the cup to his lips. The steam curled around his nose and lashes.

“So,” he said after a long sip, “where have you been, little shadow?”

She looked out the window for a moment, watching the sails bob in the distant harbor, and then answered, her voice barely above the hush of sea wind.

“Dawn.”

Laszalo nodded, unsurprised. “It suits you.”

“I stayed longer this time,” she admitted. “Something about the sky there… it never feels heavy. Like the clouds float on paint instead of water. I wandered the poetry markets in Luthiel. They sell dreams in jars there—tiny ones, flickering like fireflies.”

“Sounds like a place for hearts that haven’t quite healed.”

Cathyrena’s silence was agreement enough.

She let herself speak freely with Laszalo. Only with him. He never asked the wrong questions. He looked at her and saw… something else. Someone else. Maybe even just a girl.

“They had a festival while I was there,” she went on. “Lanterns everywhere, lit with starsong magic. My friend—a Peregryn female—I met her again. She kissed me during a sky dance. Right in the middle of the square.”

Laszalo raised a snowy brow. “Scandalous.”

“She brought me cake afterward,” Cathyrena added with a smirk. “Pomegranate and lemon. She said it tasted like longing.”

“And did it?”

“Yes,” Cathyrena smiled. “It always does.”

Laszalo nodded thoughtfully, his gaze drifting to the open window. “And where else did you let your boots carry you?”

“I passed through the Summer Court,” she said, her voice softening like silk. “I stayed on the beaches of Adriata for three days. The water is the color of polished sapphires. And they paint their ships—each one is a moving mural. Music plays on every corner. There’s always laughter, always dancing, always sun.”

“But not for you?”

“No,” Cathyrena admitted, fingers curling around her cup. “Not yet.”

He didn’t pry.

He simply leaned forward and asked, “And Winter?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes. I stayed only one night in a village near the Forest of Sorrows. The stars there are so clear it feels like you can fall into them. But everything is quiet. Heavy with memory. Even the snow feels older than the rest of the world.”

“And Autumn?”

A small laugh left her lips. “Too many fires. Too many secrets in their eyes. Everything smells like cinnamon and smoke. I like the trees, though. They burn with color like they’re trying to outshine the sun.”

Laszalo sipped again. “You’ve seen more in a few years than most do in a lifetime.”

Cathyrena didn’t answer. Her gaze drifted again to the window, where the Sidra glittered below and the city sang in its quiet way.

“It’s always Velaris I return to,” she finally said. “No matter how far I go.”

“You and many others,” Laszalo said, smiling softly. “This city… it calls to the lost ones. Not loudly. Just enough to remind you that you were never truly alone.”

She blinked hard.

Then reached for her sewing kit, fingers itching for thread. “I started a dress while I was in Dawn. For a child I met in Autumn. I think I’ll finish it tonight.”

Laszalo rose slowly, setting his empty cup down. “And I’ll leave another parcel outside your door tomorrow. Baela’s grown again. She says no one stitches roses like you.”

“I’ll make her a gown,” Cathyrena promised. “The color of a starless sky.”

Laszalo smiled, placing a hand on her shoulder as he passed. “And one day, you’ll open that shop you always speak of.”

“One day,” Cathyrena echoed.

And when he left, she began to sew—quietly, the sun warming her hands, the threads glinting gold as they pulled something whole from pieces once broken.

Velaris had begun to stir with the hush of morning, the streets bathed in lavender light as the sun climbed over the Sidra. The air was cool, kissed with the faintest scent of sea salt and blooming citrus. Cathyrena wrapped her cloak tighter around her, its indigo folds catching in the breeze as she walked the curved stone path toward the Rainbow Quarter’s market street.

She needed silk. And yarn. And whatever else might catch her eye.

Her satchel bumped gently against her hip, already filled with a half-finished embroidery hoop, a list scrawled in charcoal, and a few spare coins wrapped in velvet. The cobbled streets echoed softly beneath her boots, clean and glowing from last night’s rain. Flower vendors were setting up their carts. The art shops were beginning to unlock their painted doors. Somewhere, a musician tuned his harp.

She passed under flowering trellises, brushed by vines of moon-peach and silver bells. Her heart felt unusually light, softened by the scent of sugar bread wafting from a nearby bakery. Cathyrena almost—almost—let herself smile.

And then she collided with someone.

A gentle but sharp impact. A gasp. The sound of paper and petals scattering to the ground like a broken spell.

“I’m so sorry,” Cathyrena breathed immediately, reaching to steady the figure she’d bumped into.

The female she’d run into blinked up at her—brown hair swept up in a loose braid, a soft golden shawl slipping from her shoulders. She was delicate in a way that felt effortless. Light pooled in her eyes like honey.

Cathyrena dropped her hands, noticing the bouquet on the ground between them. Crushed tiger lilies, their bright orange petals bent and bruised. A parchment-wrapped bundle of wildflowers lay beside them, along with a small string-tied box.

“Oh—your flowers,” Cathyrena said quickly, crouching to gather them. “I didn’t see you. I wasn’t watching.”

The other woman smiled faintly. Her voice was gentle, warm like afternoon sun through glass. “It’s all right. They weren’t for anything important.”

“I’ll pay for them,” Cathyrena insisted, already reaching into her satchel. “There’s a florist near the fountain—I can replace them. Please.”

“No,” the woman said softly. “It’s really—please, don’t worry.”

But Cathyrena had already risen, cradling the damaged lilies in her arms, ashamed at how clumsy she must’ve looked. The petals were stained with dew and dust now. She winced.

The woman watched her quietly, head tilted just slightly.

“I’m usually more careful,” Cathyrena murmured. “I don’t… I don’t always bump into people.”

“Truly, it’s fine,” the woman said again, this time with a quiet understanding in her gaze. “They’ll still bloom tomorrow.”

Cathyrena hesitated, unsure why the apology still stuck in her throat. “I should still—” she began, but then stopped. Something in her gut twisted.

She didn’t know why—maybe it was the calm in the other woman’s voice, or the faint way her magic shimmered like sunlight on petals—but suddenly Cathyrena needed to leave.

She placed the flowers into the woman’s hands and stepped back, the words rushing out of her.

“I’m sorry again. Truly. I hope… I hope your day is good.”

And then she was gone.

Her boots tapped quickly against the cobblestones as she turned down the nearest street, the silk and thread long forgotten. The folds of her cloak whipped behind her, catching the scent of tiger lilies as she disappeared into the early market crowd.

Elain Archeron stood still for a moment, blinking at the path the girl had taken. The bouquet felt heavier in her arms.

There was something familiar about her.

Not her face—not exactly. But something in the way she carried herself. Like shadow stitched to flesh. Like she’d walked for miles and didn’t expect to be welcomed anywhere she arrived.

And yet… Elain had seen those eyes before. In a different color, a different shade, but in the same kind of broken quiet.

She opened her mouth to call after her, but nothing came.

“Who was that?” came Nesta’s voice from behind her.

Elain turned, blinking again, as if Cathyrena had stolen the moment and folded it closed behind her. Nesta stood at the threshold of a nearby shop, a book tucked under one arm, her brows drawn.

“No one,” Elain murmured, still watching the shadows where the girl had vanished.

Nesta followed her gaze, then glanced down at the flowers in Elain’s arms. “What happened to the lilies?”

“I dropped them,” Elain replied.

Nesta frowned, coming to stand beside her. She plucked one of the crushed petals between her fingers, inspecting the damage like a soldier assessing a wound. “We can replace them,” she said. “You wanted them for the house?”

“No,” Elain said. “They were… I’m not sure. I just liked them today.”

Nesta tilted her head, still watching her sister with that narrowed, analytical gaze. “You sure you’re all right?”

Elain nodded slowly, but her eyes didn’t leave the empty path.

There had been something in the girl’s eyes. Something that didn’t belong to Velaris. Something that had wandered too far and never found a place to land.

She looked down at the lilies again, at the petals that had started to brown at the edges.

And still, something about that girl clung to her.

She wasn’t sure what.