*TRIGGER WARNING*

There are depictions of rape, sexual assault, death, violence, blood, PTSD, and many other things in this book. If any of this bothers you or would harm your health, please do not read.

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As if the metal bars and disgusting stone floors covered with shit and gods know what else didn't already make this place worse than a hole in the ground, the fact that it's also freezing makes hell seem like a better residence. Still, it's slightly better than the snowy ground outside. If it is still winter in the human realm. I've no clue how much time has passed since I've been here. I tug my feet closer to my body and try to blow hot air over my toes, but I'm afraid I'm about to lose my right pinky soon. The rest will follow if something doesn't happen soon. That something is why I'm here, the bargain I struck while I was covered in my family's blood as their still-warm bodies melted the cold snow around me. It had actually steamed slightly when the red hit the white.

Metal clangs and I melt back into the shadows with my thin cloak wrapped tight around me. I've become so thin I could be a mere skeleton-like on the far wall of my cage. The cold is bad enough, but the fire is worse. Fire and light mean guards and they're almost always bored. I've become their favorite form of entertainment whether it's beating me, taunting me, or fucking me on the cold stones. A small mercy is that I'm so thin that my cycle has stopped, so at least I don't have to worry about getting pregnant. It isn't much, but what I have is barely anything at all. The darkness is my only salve since the light has become so dangerous. The dark is the only thing that is safe.

Guards pass and shove a tray of bread with some thick stew that I don't dare wonder about before stuffing both down my throat. "Nothing but a pig in a stye." The guard spits with a shake of his head before he continues down the hall taking his cursed light with him. I savor every drop of warmth that the food gives me and after I've licked the bowl clean, I press my feet into it to soak up any leftover heat. Warmth was all my family had been looking for when we came to the wall separating the human lands from the faerie. Our house had been taken since we could no longer pay rent, so we were kicked out onto the streets in the dead of winter.

With nothing to eat, drink, or do to remedy either of those things, my father pushed us towards the wall. "The Spring Court lies just on the other side." He told us fervently with dark eyes shining. "It will be warm there. You'll see." I knew him the least being the youngest of four, but I knew what he was truly trying to do. He only wanted a peaceful death for us all somewhere warm. A mercy, he no doubt thought, at least until the fae stepped through the rift to slaughter him, his wife, and all his children. All but one.

The man who slaughtered my family offered me only one other option. Come with him and be a part of something to change everything, or die with my family. I didn't care what he offered me and maybe it makes me a dishonorable coward for accepting, but all I could think of was my family's blood on the snow. They never got to be warm again and now their bodies are cold. Perhaps even within the stomach of some beast that came upon them in the wood.

I push the thought out of my head so I can keep my food down before returning to my corner. I will survive. I will make it long enough to be warm again no matter what it takes.

* * *

Fire comes the next day and I prepare myself for whatever assault the guards have planned this time, but instead, they heave me onto my feet. They drag me out of my cell and have to carry me up all the stairs because I can barely feel my feet anymore, but when we reach the top, I see the man who killed my family. "It's time." He says simply as his lip curls. "Clean her, then bring her." The guards nod and obey. My skin is scrubbed raw by two women who are clearly servants and I'm so shocked at the kindness that I say nothing. Do nothing. At least if I'm to die I will be clean on the outside.

My skin is pale as snow and tinted pink from all the ladies scrubbing when it used to be golden brown from days in the sun. More time has passed than I realized because my hair is longer than it used to be. Black curls that used to touch my shoulders now tumble down my back. The ladies help me carefully stand in front of a mirror as if I were a person, not a prisoner, as they put me in a plain white dress. Skeletal is a generous word for my body and empty is fuller than my eyes. The hazel depths that were once so many things and saw so much are now void. The brown was once freshly tilled land at the farm, the green was once a jade broach my brother stole for me, the blue an endless sky. Now there's only the black of promised death.

I still can't walk, so the guards once again drag me down the stone hallways. Every flash of light is blinding and eventually, I just leave my eyes shut so the darkness can comfort me. Light stops leaking under my lids and when we finally stop, I find we're once again in a place that seems very much like a dungeon, but there's a man here. "She doesn't look strong-willed, soldier." He bids the man who steps around him, my kidnapper, who shrugs.

"No harm if she dies, sir. This is only a test to make sure it'll work in front of the queens, after all." He bids and the man in charge sighs, but nods.

"Put her in then." His eyes flick to the guards on either side of me as the males in front of me part to reveal a large tub filled with water. Warnings ring in my head, tugging on my instincts to run, fight, anything, but I remain limp. It looks so dark inside the tub, so inviting. I only hope the water is warm. The guards lift me up and carefully lower me down until the edge of my right pinky, the one most in jeopardy of being lost, touches a slice of water.

Freezing. It's ice-cold, no, colder than ice. It's as cold as death.

"No." The word is nothing more than the creaking of a door since my voice had been spent on screams long ago. I refuse to die in the cold. "No." I refuse again and jerk with the pitiful amount of strength that I have. Still, since I'd put up no fight so far, it surprises the soldiers and they both lose their grip which leaves me tumbling into the tub. The water envelopes me along with the darkness, but its soft song doesn't lull me into complacency as it normally would. The cold is too much. It's too cold. "NO!" I thunder even though my voice is only bubbles down here. Fire, energy, darkness, something heats my blood until the water around me isn't cold, but boiling.

My skin is on fire, my body is on fire, everything hurts so badly that I can't help but sob even under what feels like miles of water. I spend the last of my breath on one last defiant scream before I'm jerked to the side and flushed out as if I'd just been pushed out of my mother's womb all over again. The last thing I feel is the sensation of falling, then a sharp pain as my head hits the floor. Darkness embraces me and I hold it just as tight before there's nothing between me and it.

The next time I wake, I'm warm. Relief that death's embrace isn't chilled, but actually warm hits me hard as I take a deep breath. The stench of something rotting floods my nose so potently that it makes my head spin before my eyes open. Everything is slightly blurry at first, but my vision clears after blinking a few times.

Bodies.

The warmth around me is dead bodies. Some fresh lay on top of me and are still warm while others near the bottom of the mountainous pile are rotting with flies buzzing around them. Horror sinks into me as I try to move them off me while trying not to think about what I'm touching. Stiff hands grab and slide over me as I try to wiggle out from under at least five males and females. Tears of horror sting my eyes as I realize that, in order to get to the one exit that seems to be a hole in the ceiling, I'll have to climb them. I take a few breaths of the rancid air before moving only to find that my body isn't my own. Or, at least not how I remember it.

My skin, even now covered by grime and blood, gleams with a soft luster as if a pearl encased in mud. My fingers are a little thinner, a little longer, and my nails are perfectly shaped. Strength that's no doubt limited by my lack of care, but real strength more powerful than any mortal, fills my limbs. I focus back on the exit and shove the rising bile down my throat. Dying here is not an option. Not here in the cold surrounded by stranger's bodies. Clumsily, I run up the bodies with my feet digging into soft skin and take a flying leap for the hole. The tips of my fingers barely slide onto the curve, but it's enough. Desperation pushes my body to the limit as I tug myself up and out of the hole into blinding sunlight.

No amount of blinking adjusts my eyes, so I rip off a relatively unsoiled edge of my sleeve and tie it around my eyes as a crude covering. As I tie it, my fingers brush over my ears. My new ears with pointed ends. Fae. I've somehow become High Fae in all this shit. Shoving that aside, I look around myself. Stone walls rise around me and I note that I'm not outside, but in a dimly lit hall with this hole at its end. I force myself onto my feet and stumble down the hall while keeping to the shadows. I've no clue where I'm going, but eventually, my eyes adjust enough for me to get rid of my mask.

Then the screaming starts.

I'm not sure why I float towards the sound. It's male, that much is clear, but changes to many different voices all coming together. Maybe it's because I've so rarely heard a man scream and the first sounded like my oldest brother. Perhaps this is death and it's playing a game with me. Maybe that's all death is, relieving the moment it took those that you most loved. I'm also not sure why none of the guards stop me as I slip from shadow to shadow into a throne room littered with people and blood. My eyes widen and the sudden taste of surprise fills my mouth as I behold males with wings, kneeling on the floor. Although one's wings look irreparably damaged while the other is bleeding and sprawled on the floor.

I see the man in charge from earlier flick his hand to the side and I stiffen at the sight of that dark tub along with the sight of a girl that can't be much older than me being lifted into it. I can't see her face, but she's kicking and weeping. She's afraid just as I was afraid. Maybe it's that fact alone that has me vanishing into the shadows only to reappear between the girl and the tub. The entire room goes silent, but I look at none but the frozen girl. "No," I say simply and hold a hand out for the girl.

"How can this be?" The man on the throne of human bones hisses and throws a blast of white light at me, but my hand raises. The light smashes into my hand and does absolutely nothing. A fold is what I'll call it. The shadows that lurk even in the light between each ray of sunshine, the shadows that aren't just darkness, but the in-between. More magic from others in the room tries to reach me, but an impenetrable bubble of darkness ripples around me and the girl. My hand drifts closer to her and the guards as they glance between me and the man with fear in their eyes while he bellows incoherently.

My eyebrows raise, then they're letting her down onto her feet and some fear is leaking off her face before something crashes against my head. Broken porcelain scatters onto the floor, or perhaps that's my skull, and I blink even as pain makes everything blur. I think I'm already gone when I find familiar dusty blue eyes staring at me. Feyre. I name her quizzically even though she does not look like the Feyre I once knew. My new hand reaches towards her and the strange people surrounding her before pain slams into the back of my head. Shadows come for me again and I'm happily whisked away.

This time, I dream of when I knew Feyre Archeron.

It was a winter long past. Both of our families were dirt poor, but while I had two brothers who could find good work and a sister who would no doubt find a good husband, she had two sisters who never helped as well as a crippled father. She hunted, I knew that much, but it was winter and the season has always been blind to those who needed just a bit of grace or mercy. So, I gave her some.

It was a late night and I was avoiding my brothers who'd made fun of my penchant to sing while sewing. After throwing one of their half-mended shirts in their faces, I stomped outside with their extra servings of bread from dinner. I saw her trudging through the snow and mud that night with nothing but extra arrows on her back. She was a waif already and her boots probably didn't shut out much of the snow anymore. Indeed, the stitching was already coming apart on the sides. My brothers had good luck hunting earlier in the week and I knew we wouldn't hunger for a little while. A small blessing even with the rent coming up.

I didn't think about it much as I walked through the snow and shoved the basket into her hands. We'd lived in the same area for a long while. Never spoken other than the niceties, but there was steel in her that I always admired. She'd do whatever was necessary to help herself and those she loved and that was something special. A rare trait in hard times. So I gave her the bread and walked back to the warmth of my house without waiting for a word in return.

Later on, when we were starving in the woods and freezing in the snow, I cursed myself for giving away food. Any food at all was precious. I couldn't believe I gave away something worth more than gold, but when I think about it now, I'm glad I did it. I'm glad that I was kind at least once in my life even if it didn't mean anything. Even if death will laugh in my face when I meet it. She did not die that winter and perhaps that's enough. Perhaps my little moment made a difference after all.

*A/N*

And so starts my foray into the world of ACOTAR. :D I adored this series and burned through it so fast that I just needed more, so I decided to write this. It's dark, if this chapter didn't make that clear, so I advise caution going forward. It takes place throughout A Court of Wings and Ruin, so you'll be revisiting many scenes and places throughout the book. The message that appeared surprised me and has great meaning for me, so I hope you all enjoy the journey as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Keep reading, lovelies!