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the-lonelybarricade · 1 year ago

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We Bleed the Same - An ACOTAR retelling

The forest was a labyrinth of snow and ice... The beginning to a story we know, unfolded a little bit differently.

HO, HO, HOHMYGOD, plot twists upon plot twists! This is dedicated to my @acotargiftexchange giftee turned anon I've been secretly in love with for... years??? For @belabellissima I really hope you enjoy this, and I'm hoping my mastermind plan to seduce you worked now that we've both unveiled our secret identities

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The forest was a labyrinth of snow and ice.

Feyre had been monitoring the parameters of the thicket for the better part of an hour, but with the angle of the sun lowering past the horizon and the gusting wind blowing the tracks of any potential quarry, her vantage point in the crook of a tree branch had turned useless. Not that there was much quarry to begin with. For years, the hunters have been saying that the animals were pulling back, going deeper into the woods than most humans were willing to pursue. Even today, Feyre had ventured further than she usually risked.

She’d woken that morning to the sounds of her sisters’ growling stomachs, and she couldn’t bear meeting the hollow stare in Elain’s once bright eyes to tell her that they would spend another day without eating. Desperation had dragged her closer to the Wall than any human should dare—not just because of the faeries who lurked on the other side of the invisible barrier, but because she was now edging into wolf territory. The town hunters had warned her that they were on the prowl again in numbers. But Feyre reasoned that if the wolves hung near, it surely meant there was nearby prey to keep them fed. Unless wolf prey was the very thing she was becoming, delivering herself at their feet as she eased off the tree and stretched her stiff limbs with a restrained groan.

The icy snow crunched under her fraying boots. What little snowfall had melted already seeped through the worn leather, dampening her thin socks, but like many things, Feyre had long become numb to the cold. She wiped her ungloved fingers over her eyes, brushing away the flakes clinging to her lashes. In the woods, there wasn’t time to be cold or hungry. Even as exhaustion gnawed at her, she shoved it away, focusing on her surroundings, on the task ahead. That was all she could do, all she’d been able to do for years: focus on surviving the week, the day, the hour ahead.

Only a few hours of daylight remained. Given how deep Feyre had ventured, if she didn’t leave soon, she would have to navigate her way home in the dark. And while she might have been foolish enough to stray closer to the Wall, even she understood there was no chance of besting a wolf in the dark. Or, gods-forbid, one of the faeries that lived in the Northern parts of their land.

Whispers were becoming commonplace on market days—tales of strange folk spotted in the area, tall and eerie and deadly. Traveling peddlers had begun sharing accounts of distant border towns, left in splinters and cindered bones. In the eight years Feyre’s family had lived in the village, they’d never witnessed such an attack. But if a faerie did decide to soothe its immortal boredom by playing with one of the townsfolk, it would need to cross through these very woods to fulfill that whim, and Feyre would be the first to cross its path. Even so, she couldn’t go home. Not yet.

After a few minutes of careful searching, Feyre crouched in a cluster of snow-heavy brambles. Through the thorns, she had a half-decent view of a clearing and the small brook flowing through it. A few holes in the ice suggested it was still frequently used. Hopefully, something would come by. Hopefully.

Her family wouldn’t last another week without food. She wore that knowledge in the weight of the quiver looped over her back. Each of the arrows was a reminder that if she failed, if she missed or came home empty-handed, then Nesta or Elain or their injured father might not survive the winter. And she would break the promise she made to her mother all those years ago.

Feyre sighed through her nose and eased into a more comfortable position, calming her breathing as she strained to listen to the forest over the wind. The snow fell and fell, dancing and curling like sparkling spindrifts, the white fresh and clean against the brown and gray of the world. Once, it had been second nature to savor the contrast of new grass against the dark, tilled soil; once, she’d dreamed and breathed and thought in color and light and shape.

Feyre couldn’t remember the last time she’d done it—bothered to notice anything lovely or interesting. Stolen hours in a decrepit barn with Isaac Hale didn’t count; those times were hungry and empty and sometimes cruel, but never lovely. She went into the barn to forget, to lose herself for a few hours in the feeling of another living, breathing being. To remind herself that something existed beyond the perpetual numb.

But it never mattered how long she stayed in that barn. The cold always seeped back, and Feyre was no longer convinced it wasn’t a part of her. How else could she be crouched in the center of the lethal winter and find herself struck by its beauty? The snow fell lazily now, in big, fat clumps that gathered along every nook and bump of the trees. Mesmerizing—the lethal, gentle beauty of the snow. She should hate it, but maybe that would feel too close to hating herself.

The howling wind eased into a soft sigh. Soon, she’d have to return to the muddy, frozen roads of the village, to the cramped heat of the decrepit cottage where her sisters waited for their next meal. Some small, fragmented part of her recoiled at the thought of returning.

Then, a pair of bushes rustled across the clearing.

Drawing her bow was a matter of instinct. Feyre peered through the thorns, and her breath caught. Less than thirty paces away stood a small doe, not yet too scrawny from winter but desperate enough to wrench bark from a tree in the clearing. A deer like that could feed her family for a week or more. Feyre’s mouth watered.

Quiet as the wind hissing through dead leaves, she took aim. The doe continued tearing off strips of bark, chewing slowly, utterly unaware that her death waited yards away.

Feyre was already contemplating how she could dry half the meat, and they could immediately eat the rest—stews, pies … the skin could be sold or perhaps turned into clothing for one of them. Feyre needed new boots, but Elain needed a new cloak, and Nesta was prone to crave anything someone else possessed.

Her fingers trembled. So much food—such salvation. She took a steadying breath, double-checking her aim.

But there was a pair of golden eyes shining from the adjacent brush.

Feyre stilled.

The forest was silent. She hadn’t realized how unsettling the quiet had grown until the wind died, and the snow paused, and even the trees seemed to hold their breath, a riveted audience as the wolf inched closer from the brush.

He was enormous. The village hunters had said as much about the wolves that prowled in the northern territory, had spoken of animals large as ponies with an unrivaled stealth. She’d assumed their stories were embellished. No animal that massive could be so quiet.

Now, she witnessed it stalk forward, unheard, unspotted by the doe. His gaze was set on her, a sentience behind those glowing eyes that caused her mouth to dry. Her lips began shaping a wordless prayer to a nameless god, begging mercy from whatever divine power might be watching this clearing.

The voice that whispered to her was innate. He looked like a wolf, moved like a wolf. Yet she knew no animal of the mortal realm could possess such stillness, such intelligence. But a faerie could. Was it paranoia, her fears becoming unbridled and taking hold? Or was that voice in her mind the work of some primal, long-forgotten instinct remaining from the days when her people were kept as slaves?

Fae, the voice whispered. Not a wolf, a faerie.

She found herself reaching over her shoulder for her heaviest and longest arrow. An arrow carved from mountain ash, armed with an iron head. She’d purchased it from a traveling peddler during a summer when she’d had enough spare copper for extra luxuries. If legend were true, the ash wood could deal a mortal wound to the otherwise invulnerable fae.

The only proof humans had of the ash’s effectiveness was its sheer rarity. The High Fae had supposedly burned all the trees long ago. So few remained, most of them small and sickly and hidden by the nobility within high-walled groves.

For three years, the ash arrow had sat unused in her quiver while Feyre deliberated whether the overpriced wood had been a waste of money. Now she drew it, praying that the rumors were true, that she wasn’t staking her life on fiction.

Faerie or not, there would be no outrunning him. She could let him kill the doe and sneak away while he was distracted, but then she would be returning to her family empty-handed. This was winter, where ruthlessness was all she could afford.

And if it was indeed a faerie’s heart pounding under that fur, then good riddance. Good riddance, after all their kind had done to humans. If she let him live, then she risked him creeping into the village to butcher and maim and torment.

She would be glad to end him.

Yes, that instinctual voice agreed. The fae are dangerous. The fae are merciless. End him now and save your village from slaughter.

A prickling sensation along her back struck Feyre with a new fear—that he wasn’t alone. But she couldn’t hazard a glance over her shoulder to be sure, not without taking her eyes off the wolf. Feyre gripped her bow and drew the string back, training the arrow on his powerful, silver body. She had only one ash arrow, which meant she couldn’t afford to miss.

The wolf sank onto his haunches, preparing to strike. There was no time to second guess. He shot from the brush in a flash of gray and white and black, yellow fangs gleaming as they wrapped around the doe’s neck.

Feyre fired the ash arrow.

She swore the ground shuddered as the arrow found its mark in his side. He barked in pain, releasing the doe as his blood sprayed onto the snow—so ruby bright, not any different than her own. He whirled towards her, those yellow eyes wide, hackles raised. His growl reverberated in the empty pit of her stomach as she surged to her feet, snow crunching beneath her, another arrow drawn.

The wolf merely stared, his maw stained with blood, the ash arrow protruding so vulgarly from his side. The snow began falling again, and he looked at her with the sort of awareness that made her fire a second arrow. Just in case—just in case that intelligence was of the immortal, wicked sort.

He didn’t try to dodge the arrow as it went clean through his wide yellow eye.

Only once he collapsed to the ground, legs twitching, did Feyre notch another arrow and turn towards the thicket at her back. Her eyes anchored on the point of the arrowhead as she swept her aim blindly between the trees for any sign of that looming presence she’d sensed.

There was only slow-drifting snow, skeletal trees, and the soft whine of the dying wolf.

Alone, that residual intuition told her. Safe.

Feyre eased the arrow off the bow before turning to face the carnage. Her hands shook at the sight of the blood gushing from the wounds she’d given him, staining the snow crimson. He pawed at the ground, his breathing already slowing. The snow swirled around them, merciless as the arrow through his eye, almost to the goose fletching. She stared at him until that coat of charcoal and obsidian and ivory ceased rising and falling.

A wolf, she told herself. Only a wolf, despite his size.

Still, she couldn’t shake the creeping sensation of being watched as she crouched beside both animals. If nothing else, it encouraged her to work quickly. She couldn’t carry both animals back to the village—even the doe alone would be a struggle. But it was a shame to leave the wolf. His pelt would fetch decent coin or at least make for a nice cloak to fight off the winter chill.

Though it wasted precious minutes—minutes during which any predator could smell the fresh blood, if there wasn’t already one circling—Feyre skinned him and cleaned her arrow as best she could.

When she was finished, she wrapped the bloody side of the pelt around the doe’s death wound before hoisting the deer across her shoulders. Grunting against the weight, Feyre grasped the legs of the deer and spared a final glance over her shoulder, past the steaming carcass of the wolf to the forest beyond. Wind whistled against the hollow branches, obscuring any sound of nearby creatures.

And though nothing emerged from the trees on the other side of the clearing, she swore something in the vacant space stared back. Curious. Patient.

Feyre swallowed before sparing one last glance at the bloodied snow. Maybe she was unsettled by the gore, by how little remorse she felt for the dead thing. Grief was too heavy to hold with a doe around her shoulders and several miles separating Feyre from her cottage. Maybe she told herself something was watching so it could bear that burden in her place.

And maybe a creature so capable of mourning would be equally capable of forgiveness, so that when Death inevitably arrived on her doorstep—be it days or months or years—maybe the eyes that fell at her back would mourn for her, too.

The trampled snow coating the road into the village was speckled with brown and black mud from passing carts and horses. Elain and Nesta did their best to dodge the particularly disgusting parts as the three of them trekked their way along it.

Feyre was aware that her sisters had only decided to accompany her because she’d be selling the hides today. It was market day, which meant that the meager square in the center of town would be full of whatever vendors had braved the brisk morning. The snow had cleared some in the night, leaving Feyre hopeful that traveling peddlers had gambled the journey. She found they usually offered her a better price than the local merchants.

From a block away, the scent of hot food wafted towards them—spices that tugged on the edge of her memory, beckoning. Elain let out a low moan behind her, and Feyre’s mouth watered. Spices, salts, and sugars were rare commodities for most of the villagers. It had been a long while since Feyre and her sisters had eaten anything besides bread and game meat.

She fought the temptation to stare too long at the food vendors as they strode into the busy market square. Spring was still a long way off, and the forest had been particularly unforgiving this year. They needed to be smart with any excess coin, even if the scent of fresh tarts drifted towards her from the doors of the passing bakery. They were luxuries of a time before.

“I’ll meet you here in an hour,” Feyre said to her sisters, not giving them a chance to respond before she slipped away into the crowd.

Feyre took her time to assess her options. There were her usual buyers: the weathered cobbler and the sharp-eyed clothier who came to the market from a nearby town. She could feel the eyes of the cobbler and clothier on her, sense their feigned disinterest as they took in the satchel she bore.

Fine. She slid her eyes past them dismissively, searching the crowd for unfamiliar faces, someone who might be inclined to buy a wolf hide. Like the tall, raven-haired man sitting on the lip of the broken square fountain, without any cart or stall, but looking like he was holding court nonetheless.

It was hard to place him at first. He was handsome, ungodly so, and smiling to himself like he knew it. She might have pinned him as a lord’s son for the swaggering arrogance that radiated from him, but the clothes were off. He bore well-made leathers and a fur cloak. Not the finery of a lord, but from his full cheeks and glowing skin, he didn’t strike her as someone scraping for his next meal, either. He turned, and the pommel of the sword strapped across his back answered her question. A mercenary.

It wasn’t his sword that stilled her approach, though its silver scabbard was polished with enough care that it reflected light even with the overcast sky. It was his eyes, turning to meet hers. Such an interesting color—not quite blue, but a deeper shade, almost violet, and like his sword they were brighter than seemed possible in the bleak winter. They twinkled with amusement as he beheld her.

Feyre’s mood immediately soured. She didn’t have the patience for condescension today. She might have turned around, but he’d already seen her, and the coin purse strapped to his weapons belt looked heavy enough that she decided to stay. Mercenaries were well-paid in this territory.

“Well met,” he said, nodding his head in a gesture of greeting as equally foreign as the lilt to his voice.

She pegged him as anywhere between twenty-five to thirty years of age. His sensual, swaggering grace spoke of youth. But there was a hardened edge to him, one that said he’d been in this trade long enough to expertly wield the sword at his back, and to adequately punish anyone who made an inconvenience of themselves.

Feyre didn’t want to linger and find herself on the opposite end of that sword, especially before knowing if he was interested in buying from her. She sucked in a breath to offer her pitch and found herself blurting, “Where do you hail from?”

His brows raised. She suppressed an exhale of relief that it was intrigue sparking in his eyes, and not disapproval for wasting his time. “That depends.” Feyre couldn’t draw her attention away from his violet stare, even as it flitted over her shoulder, making a quick assessment of the passing villagers trying their best not to gawk. “Will my answer impact your willingness to do business with me?”

She supposed that meant others in the village had turned him away already. A surprise, given his exceptional beauty, but she supposed that amounted to little in the face of prejudice. Feyre knew well enough that a person’s circumstances didn’t define them, and that the judgment cast by the village was harsh on its best days. With the added rumors of neighboring villages being ransacked, she could imagine the wariness they might pay a stranger with a sword. Even a beautiful one.

“No,” Feyre said. “I’m just curious. I’ve never seen you here before.”

I would have noticed you, she thought.

In part because he was massive, even sitting down. A mark of the trade, she supposed. No one would hire a mercenary who looked like her—gangly from hunger and drowning in her layers. Unlike her withering figure, he was broad and well-muscled. Strong. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt that way.

As he contemplated her response, his gaze snagged on her arm and his smile faltered. “Are you a painter?”

The question caught her so off guard that she bristled, her weight shifting onto her back foot in case she needed to cut and run. The mercenary laughed, softly, and nodded at the fleck of paint on the sleeve of her tunic. Paint that had to have been there from three summers ago, damning evidence that this tunic was old and rarely washed.

She swallowed, apprehensive at his observation. Why it was relevant to someone like him. “I like to paint,” she said, because she wouldn’t go as far to call herself a painter. Her skills were rudimentary, at best. “Does it matter?”

An odd look crossed his face, as though he was retreating to some distant memory. Then he offered another of those arrogant smiles and mimicked, “No, I’m just curious.”

Fair enough. One personal question in exchange for another.

“I hail from Illyria,” he said. At her blank look, he added, “A tribe of people nestled in the steppes of a far-away mountain range.”

On the continent, she filled in. There was nothing like that here, at least not on this side of the Wall. When the land was divided all those centuries ago, the faeries had allocated a slim strip of plains and woodlands to the humans. Anything so majestic as a mountain range was left to the fae above the Wall, but at least these lands were hospitable without magic.

“No wonder the winter doesn’t phase you,” she said, gesturing to his cheeks and nose, which lacked the rosy flush that was surely painted on her own. “This weather must feel mild in comparison.”

“It’s been many years since I’ve returned to the Illyrian Mountains,” he said. He kept his voice light, but Feyre sensed they were treading towards unwelcome territory. “And the conditions in these lands have been harsh, but they may be letting up soon.”

Feyre frowned, glancing toward the sky. “You think so?”

There were at least two months remaining before winter yielded to spring. But perhaps wherever he came from, the weather changed sooner.

When she glanced back at the mercenary, he was staring at her, a smile playing on his full lips. “Things look promising from where I’m sitting.” Was he… flirting with her? Feyre must have spent too long debating it, because the mercenary drew her out of the thought by nodding at her satchel. “What business does a pretty thing like you have with a mercenary like me?”

It was absurd to feel flattered by his words. Feyre couldn’t remember the last time someone had bothered to pay her that sort of compliment. Certainly not Issac, who was inclined not to speak a word during those moments she found herself undressed beneath him. That was perfectly fine with Feyre. She preferred silence over a lie.

She fought to hide her scowl, but from his laugh, she thought it was unsuccessful. Pushing aside her rising ire, she said, “I have a wolf pelt and a doe hide for sale. I thought you might be interested in purchasing them.”

He ran those remarkable eyes down her again. Feyre coaxed herself to remain steady, to lift her chin as he crooned, “Does that make you a huntress or a thief?”

It was difficult to determine which would be more impressive to him. Feyre held his stare as she answered, “I hunted them myself. I swear it.”

He would not understand what it meant to her, that vow. After their world had been cleaved by the fae, humans had deserted their religions and holidays. In Faerie, they relied on magic to bind a person to their word, but they had no such tools here, no Cauldron or Mother or any other deities to swear upon. Here, a person was only as good as their word. To Feyre, and to many of the villagers, a vow was sacred. But if he fashioned her a thief, he may not consider her word as bond.

“A huntress then,” he purred. His attention fixed on her satchel. “Let me see.”

Feyre pulled out the carefully folded hides. “I was only after the doe, to feed my family. But the wolf got to her first. And I made sure I was the one who left the clearing alive.”

The mercenary gave a low whistle as he examined the hides with an expert eye, running his hands over and under. She expected to be met with incredulity, but she marked awe in his voice as he praised, “Impressive kill, little huntress. You must be a good shot.”

“If I weren’t, I’d be dead.”

That truth sobered him. Sobered them both. He assessed her for a long moment, then lifted his gaze over her shoulder, where Nesta and Elain were doing their best to eavesdrop without being spotted.

He pursed his lips. “I’ll take them,” he said, before naming a price that would have sent her staggering if she didn’t keep a tight grip on her composure. He was grossly overpaying.

Feyre leveled her shoulders. “I don’t need your pity.”

“No,” he agreed, eyes darkening. “But you need to stay out of those woods, and I know you won’t keep out of them if your family is starving.” The question must have been plain on her face. He pitched his voice lower. “I think you know that this wasn’t any ordinary wolf. It won’t take long for its kind to come sniffing, and you may end up leading them right to those sisters of yours.”

She refused to glance over her shoulder and offer merit to the fear he was trying to churn in her gut. He wanted her to look at her sisters and see their slight figures, so fragile and defenseless against a creature like the one she’d encountered yesterday morning. Her stomach roiled despite her efforts. “Are you trying to scare me so that I hand the coin right back to hire your protection?”

The mercenary chuckled, but it lacked any warmth. “My services have already been bought by a local lord. I’m just trying to warn you, from one hunter to another. You go back into those woods, and you’ll be courting your death.”

She wasn’t brave enough to ask if he was speaking from experience, if he’d once been hunted by the fae after killing their kin. If she was smart, she’d heed his words and use his coin to get her family on a boat headed south, somewhere far away from the Wall. But would they believe her, would they be willing to go?

“Think on it,” he said, as if she wasn’t already. She held perfectly still as he reached into his heavy cloak to withdraw his coin pouch. She let him count, her mind far away while she plotted their different options of escape, including the scenarios where she had to drag her sisters kicking and screaming from their beds. It was preferable to a vengeful faerie doing the same.

Maybe it was for the better. The land left for the humans in this realm had always been an afterthought, and the governing queens had never paid much attention to this small colony of villages. She’d heard things were better on the continent, the land warmer and more fertile. Elain could garden, and Feyre could learn to make paints from the petals. It was a nice thought, a comfort against the more dangerous one—if she didn’t convince her sisters to leave, a faerie might come seeking revenge for the one she felled.

Feyre’s awareness was jolted back into the cold market square by the press of metal against her palm. She blinked, and violet eyes filled her vision, creased in feint amusement.

“What’s your name?” He asked.

The weight of the coins felt heavy. She knew if she glanced at her sisters, she’d find them drawing closer, sensing the transaction was over. What would he do with her name if she gave it to him? She couldn’t imagine anything good could come of it.

“Tell me yours first,” She countered.

That errant smile grew. And she understood why he had chosen to become a mercenary. Feyre only hunted in the woods out of necessity. If tomorrow she discovered she would never need to raise her bow against another breathing creature, she would feel relieved. But from the way his eyes sparked, fascinated at this new game afoot, she knew that he was the kind of man who hunted for thrill. That this information, basic and inconsequential as it may be to the rest of the world, had become his new quarry.

He raised a hand, offering it into the space between them.

“Rhys,” he said.

Wind played at his raven hair, swiping pieces across his forehead. Feyre stared at his outstretched hand. Broad and flecked with the odd scar, his hands were more elegant than she’d expect of a mercenary. They wouldn’t have looked out of place against the ivory keys of a pianoforte or gripping fine cutlery at a Lord’s dining table. Maybe that was the danger of him—the charming smile and the clever eyes. Perhaps his foes saw a pretty face and underestimated what he could do with that sword. Maybe the poor mercenary was one littered with scars, whereas Rhys walked away from his battles unscathed.

“No family name?” she pressed.

“They’re not needed in my trade.” Rhys leaned forward, flexing his fingers in invitation. “And you, little huntress? What name might I inquire after to ensure you’re still alive in a week’s time?”

Rhys. She had no way of verifying if that was his true name. Maybe he changed it every place he went, never assuming the same identity, never leaving a trail. If a faerie found him one day and demanded to know where that wolf pelt had come from, what would stop Rhys from revealing her name? Especially if it could spare his own life.

He wouldn’t ask if he didn’t think it would be useful to him one day. She wouldn’t delude herself by buying into his purred words and bedroom eyes. Feyre took a step back, steadying herself.

“There’s only one huntress in this village,” she said. “They��ll know who you mean.”

The mercenary lowered his hand, slipping it casually into his pocket. “I told you mine.” Velvet as the melted chocolate being sold by the cup two stalls away, Rhys leaned closer and whispered, “That makes our debt uneven, love. I may seek payment for it one day.”

A shiver crept down her spine, though she couldn’t determine if it was from the threat of the words or the sultry promise in his voice. Feyre curled her hand around the strap of her satchel, fingers tightening over the worn leather like she didn’t trust he wouldn’t try to snatch it from her. “I have to go,” she said, her tongue feeling thick. From the cold, she reasoned.

He waved a hand over her shoulder, smirking at whatever caught his eye. “I wish you luck, then.”

Feyre turned, expecting to find that Nesta finally summoned the courage to yank her away. But the mercenary’s lazy smile wasn’t directed towards Nesta and Elain, ducked conspicuously behind the clothier’s wagon. It was aimed across the square. Where, leaning against a building, arms crossed over his chest, Isaac Hale watched their interaction through raised brows.

More of that wicked amusement spread over Rhys’s face. “Friend of yours?”

Friend was both an understatement and too generous of a word. They’d vaguely known each other since Feyre’s family had moved to the village, and one afternoon they wound up walking down the main road together. Their conversation had been inane and perhaps a bit awkward, but a week later, she’d pulled him into a decrepit barn. He’d been her first and only lover in the two years since.

Their trysts were erratic and haphazard; sometimes they’d meet every night for a week, others they’d go a month without seeing each other. If recollection served, it had been almost six weeks since that last frantic shedding of clothes and shared breaths. He has grown lean since the last time she saw him, his brown hair a bit shaggier.

There was no love between them. There never had been. But the last time she’d seen him, Isaac told her he’d soon be married. A piece of her heart had sunk at the news, and she’d avoided seeing him since. Now, she weighed the apprehension in her chest against the reprieve of company, that bit of selfishness that made their bleak and wretched lives more bearable.

Feyre blew out a breath, watching Issac incline his head in a familiar gesture and amble off down the street—out of town and to the ancient barn, where he would be waiting if she decided to join him.

“Yeah,” Feyre said. “A friend.”

If he believed her answer, he didn’t press. She didn’t imagine her pathetic love life would be of much interest to someone like him. There was no room for wives and children in his lifestyle. Perhaps the occasional love affair, though he likely didn’t stay in the same place for very long. Maybe that was why there was understanding in the way he nodded. Like he, too, needed the occasional warm body to remind himself that there was life outside of the daily horrors.

“Just try to stay out of trouble.” His eyes gleamed in a way that suggested staying out of trouble meant staying far, far away from him.

She didn’t get a chance to respond before a slender hand clamped onto Feyre’s forearm, dragging her away. Elain waited beside the clothier’s wagon, shivering despite her cloak as she watched Nesta pull Feyre away from the mercenary.

“Mercenaries are dangerous,” Nesta hissed, fingers digging into Feyre’s arm. Even Elain’s face had gone pale and tight. “Don’t go near them again.”

“He was fine,” Feyre said, yanking herself free. “Generous, even.”

“They’re brutes, and will take any copper they can get, even if it’s by force.”

The silver coins in her pocket said otherwise. Feyre glanced at Rhys, still sitting on the fountain. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her. She glanced away, feeling her cheeks warm, knowing she’d made it obvious they were talking about him.

She shoved a hand in her pocket, suddenly desperate to escape this market and those piercing violet eyes. She pushed a twenty-mark copper towards Elain, not bothering to look at either of them as she said, “I’ll see you at home.”

They didn’t protest. Feyre thought it was miraculous how swiftly a mercenary’s business became acceptable if it meant a new pair of boots, but she held back the sharp words on her tongue. Her sisters wandered off, already whispering about what they should buy.

Like an arrow trained at her back, she could feel the mercenary’s gaze tracking her as she wove through the market stalls, not even bothering with subtlety in those rare moments when she gathered the courage to glance over her shoulder. He merely grinned at her, shameless.

She intentionally left down the same street as Isaac, just so Rhys might assume she was on her way to meet the farmboy. And think twice about following her. When she reached the ancient barn, she paused. Isaac would be waiting to undress her on the other side of the splintered and peeling wood. She could already feel the hot breath on her spine, the hay straws biting into her palm, her knees. Maybe it was better to see him in case Rhys didn’t think twice about following her. And maybe because she could feel a pit in her chest yawning open, and she thought Isaac’s strong, work-roughened hands might be able to hold it closed for just a little longer.

Just enough to feel warm again, for an afternoon. Before she returned to the cottage and remembered that she killed a faerie yesterday. And might very well have put a price on her head—on her family’s head—because of it.

He’s married, a small, rational voice reminded her. Maybe it’s time to move on.

Besides, the last thing she wanted was to get him killed.

Feyre walked past the barn. She ought to feel proud of her dignity, but it didn’t soothe the pit in her chest, a tempest of ice and darkness that slowly seeped out with every step along the frozen path back to the cottage. No amount of stuffing her fingers into her armpits could banish the cold. It was here, it was her.

She sighed, watching the breath expel in a cloud of frosty air. There had always been an undercurrent of darkness that drew her and Isaac to each other, but now she wondered if she was too frozen, too hollow, even for him.

And as she walked, she found herself thinking about Rhys, unflinching at the bite of winter. And how, for that short time she’d been drenched in the heat of his gaze, his eyes the first vibrant color she’d seen since winter had overtaken the village, she’d forgotten what it was to be cold.

Hours later, after another dinner of venison, Feyre’s family gathered around the fire for the quiet hour before bed. She watched the flames flicker in the fireplace, absently bathing in the precious heat before she and her sisters would retreat into the bedroom, where they’d huddle together for warmth beneath threadbare blankets.

Nesta and Elain whispered and laughed together about some encounter they’d had with a handsome apprentice in the marketplace. There was the odd lull in laughter, in which Nesta would slide her eyes to Feyre as if daring her to make some comment about Tomas Mandray, a woodcutter’s second son who would allegedly be proposing to her any day now. They’d fought about it the day prior, but it felt like centuries ago.

All evening, she’d been trying to summon the courage to admit to her family where that wolf’s pelt had truly come from. What it had come from. She wasn’t certain how they would react or if they would even take the warning of the mercenary seriously. Father might. He’d once traded one of his wood carvings for the wards etched around their cottage’s threshold, supposedly meant to protect their home against faerie harm. It was one of the few things he’d bothered to do for them. If the fae scared him enough that he’d barter with a charlatan for those useless engravings, maybe the threat would be enough to rattle him into action again.

Except he was dozing in his chair, his cane laid across his gnarled knee. And she suspected she would get nowhere with her sisters without his aid. He had no sway with Nesta, but Elain would listen to him. And wherever Elain went, Nesta would follow.

Tomorrow, then. She would speak privately with her father and worry about convincing her sisters later.

Tomorrow was a nice idea.

But then a roar cleaved through the still night. The cottage door burst into splinters. And her sisters screamed as snow flooded into the room, flurrying around the enormous, growling shape that appeared in the doorway.

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