Chapter Text
The room was warm, too warm.
Consciousness fluttered gently to Feyre, her eyes still shut.
Her body had that soft, loose feeling that she was beginning to associate with Rhys and his roaring magic fires. The cabin had become a warm den in the midst of winter, not a bite of chill getting through the windows.
He breathed deeply next to her. Her skin brushed against his as she shifted.
Keeping her eyes closed, Feyre willed sleep to take her again. The room was warm and the bed was soft, and though the day would come for them soon with all its troubles, she knew the sun still slept.
Just a few more minutes, she asked of no one - settling closer to Rhys with a sigh.
A frozen breeze brushed against her thigh.
Feyre opened her eyes - a moment too late.
“Hunc daemonem liga.” A strange, slithering voice whispered the words, harsh and fearful, as gooseflesh tripped up her spine.
Rhys’s face was in front of her, and she watched in a breath as his eyes opened too - full of fear.
A scream caught in her throat as he contorted - pulled in a maelstrom of magic as a cry of anger and panic ripped from him. And then he was gone.
She twisted to follow the wind of magic and found men in her room - the cleric in his black robes shutting a carved wooden box tight as her front door smashed under a boot.
“Gods save and protect us,” the cleric said, his hands shaking, his eyes wide with fright.
No.
Glass and porcelain shattered as her house was torn apart. Eyes locked on her, a dark form moving, and adrenaline kicked in hard.
Naked and tangled in the sheets, Feyre flipped onto her stomach, scrambling, reaching for the wand in her bedside drawer -
Frozen hands grabbed at her ankles. A wild scream tore from her throat. Her body was thrown on the hard stone floor. She rushed to pull the sheets around herself.
Two boots approached and she looked up and up to a familiar face.
Alderman Hawthorne looked down at her. Grim and triumphant.
Feyre stopped breathing.
The fucking bastard. Her vision was spotty from lack of air. She pictured his eyes dead and black, his sallow skin grey and putrid with death. She willed it to be so.
All around her was chaos. The rest of the elders dumped drawers and broke furniture, no goal other than destruction. She felt her nakedness keenly, wrapping herself further against the judging eyes of the men. Her feet scrambled against the stone and she tried, dug deep for her magic but she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe -
The fire had gone out, only smouldering ashes as winter rushed in through her broken door.
The Alderman hadn’t moved. “What did you do to him?” she screamed.
“You mean the demon haunting our village? The demon that you called?”
Beside him stood the cleric, his hands upon a carved box of black walnut. It rattled in his hands.
“He’s mine,” Feyre hissed from her spot on the floor.
“So you admit it? You’re bound and -” he looked over the messy bed in disgust, “copulating with a cursed creature?”
Gods, she needed him here. Her mind raced for an unbinding spell, to call upon darkness, to render them useless -
Pinned under the dark eyes of the Alderman, she knew the truth in that moment. If Rhys was here, she wouldn’t hesitate. In her anger and righteous rage she would order them dead, and he would obey without question or judgement, spreading those glorious wings, turning them into nothing but stains on her floor.
“Get the fuck out of my house,” she snarled.
He shook his head. “I regret the day you first came into our village.”
Feyre was the flame - the fires Rhys had built that burned red with an endless hellish spark. “I can do better than that. I’ll make you curse it as the beginning of your end.”
His eyes flashed. She hoped he didn’t notice her trembling. For just a moment, his eyes flicked over her, down to her bare feet and back to her face. “Get her dressed.”
Feyre screamed as the heavy hands reached for her.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Every part of Feyre hurt.
Since she had been tossed into the Hawthorne cellar, she’d raged and fought at the door, scrambled to call upon her magic, tried fruitlessly digging into the dirt.
Then she had entered a new phase: feeling quite sorry for herself. Her arms, bound behind her tightly, didn’t even let her wipe away the tears streaming quietly down her face.
It was frozen under the earth, the only light a sliver of a cloudy transom window that barely let her chart the movement of the sun. Her toes were a concerning shade of blue. The Alderman’s men had thrown her into a dress while she bit and kicked at them, only to be shoved into light summer linens with short sleeves. Even in her misery, she knew she needed to get up and pace again before she lost all feeling in her extremities.
Dammit, she needed out of here - she needed her magic.
Her fingers had gone numb long ago - tied tightly behind her with coarse rope and flattened upon wood boards, to keep her from using her hands in any spellwork.
It was surprisingly, gratingly effective.
And there was nothing in here - the shelves hastily cleared out - not even a branch or a root to fashion into a makeshift wand, not a speck of anything beyond cold, frozen dirt.
Rhys had been right. He’d been right all along, and Nesta too, and now she was paying the price. Freezing up when it was most important - letting all the precious spells just eke out of her brain the minute she needed them most.
Not that she had learned more than pieces of everyday spells. What good would a spell that helped her find eggs in nests do, or one that cleared muddy waters? She had never thought she would need more than those simple magics.
Even now she circled through the memories, the imperfect snatchets of words she could remember from her spellbooks. She couldn’t call upon fire, not without a wand and with nothing for it to catch but her snow-damp skirts. No - she was helpless here, just as they wanted her.
Until she faced her fate.
Judgement at the hands of these men.
Feyre slumped back onto the ground, cold, bruised and defeated.
She couldn’t tell which bruises were from her demon and which were from the mob that had dragged her from her house.
It felt like the worst sin of all.
She couldn’t feel it anymore - not a shred of their bond. Even when she called for Rhys, screamed inside her head for him to answer.
He couldn’t save her, and tied here, she certainly wasn’t coming to save him.
They would kill her - no doubt in some gruesome, terrible way as a warning against others like her. And Rhys would be a slave again. Or worse, simply entrapped until the end of time in some little box by a frightened man who knew a little Latin.
Splinters pressed along the skin on the back of her hands. She couldn’t as much as twitch a finger. Aborted spells filled her mouth like ash.
Rhys had laughed at her wands. What had he said? Something ridiculous about channeling the air itself - as if she wasn’t still struggling with her basic conjurations. All she remembered now was being angry at him, and that horrible, taunting smirk she now missed so much.
Mother, watch over me. Protect me from those that would do me harm.
It seemed like that was the entire world today.
Tell me what to do. Please. Please help me.
The dirt cellar was silent. Too cold even for the worms to burrow through.
For just a moment she thought about her sisters. This was everything they had tried to avoid: discovery and censure. Would they ever find out her fate? Her heart ached to think of their faces.
She put her head on her dirty knees and sobbed.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
The light was fading quickly. Feyre blinked against the darkness. She worried, for a while, that they meant to leave her there all night, while her toes froze one by one.
But there it was - the flicker of a torch under the heavy wood door, the shadows of large feet.
He swung open the door. The Alderman stood - tall and menacing, but she still squinted at the light streaming in around his shoulders.
Something in her quailed. She wasn’t ready to die.
Still, her heart thundered - if I do go tonight, let me take this man with me.
He stared at her - his face hidden by shadows. She never wanted her magic more than at this moment. Ice crackled in her teeth, lightning through her fingers. Feyre felt she could will the power from her hatred of him alone.
“Did you kill Richard Cooper?”
“No.”
“Did you order your demon to do it?”
“No.”
“But did he possess her?”
Feyre kept her mouth shut, the silence growing.
“What did you do to her?” Feyre asked.
The Alderman frowned. “Perhaps she can keep her life to atone for her sins. If you confess she was possessed and not acting of her own will.”
He held a chokehold over this town with nothing more than violence. She hated that he had done it so well - that every head bowed to him, the men following his lead. When she looked at him all she saw was the sad, scared man he was.
And he had her trapped as well. How could she let Isabelle Cooper suffer in her place?
“Richard Cooper is already dead. No one else has to die because of him.”
The Alderman frowned. “I have to protect my people.”
“You haven’t protected anyone. You protect yourself, and your power. You’re a sad little man who only uses his fists on those smaller than him…”
And he did raise his fist to her - but instead of flinching, Feyre sneered.
She watched the anger flash in his eyes. Half a breath and he had turned, smashing his fist into the hard wall.
He leaned up against it, breathing heavy. Though she was no stranger to his violence, it gave her pleasure to get under his skin, to enrage him even now. “I see now you were lost before you even came to us,” he said, his voice rough. “I thought if you submitted to me, if you let my hand guide you -”
“I would bite off your hand and use your bones for my spells!” she thrashed at him.
Of all the men in all the world - that she was under the power of this stupid one filled her with unending rage.
She had to be smarter - had to get her temper under control. She stilled herself, took a deep breath.
“Be brave for once in your life, Alderman,” she said, her voice honey sweet. “Bet your hand against mine. Why keep me tied up when you’ve already captured me? Surely you can’t be afraid of me.”
She could feel him quivering across the room. “I’m not afraid. I’m disgusted.”
Feyre laughed, the cold and hunger and fear coalescing into something manic inside of her. “I did nothing more than try to live my life in peace, and heal a few people along the way. How could that disgust you?”
“You’re too wayward, too unmannered. You needed a husband to guide you, and instead you chose that.”
Something triumphant rose in her chest. She wanted Rhys to be here, so she could tell him how Hawthorne sneered, how deeply he hated him. They would laugh together.
“I wasn't impressed with the other options around, I suppose.”
The Alderman’s eyes blazed with warning anger.
“He’s evil - a monster.”
“He’s someone who loves me. Who sees me. Who wouldn’t put hands on me except for pleasure -”
The slap wrang across her face, a jolt through her teeth.
Her vision blotted out and she let her neck hang limp a moment.
Then she laughed.
“See? Just like that.”
He was rotted to the core. When Feyre looked at him, all she saw was death - life choked out by his own hate and fear. And the impossible choice he left her with - her life, or Isabelle’s.
Please mother: if I ever get out of here, I will learn all the spells. Spells to pluck out his eyes and melt his skin. Spells so no one will lift a hand to me again…or any other woman.
Hawthorne’s shoulders heaved under his deep breaths. “Get up and face your fate. I can help you no more.”
Please mother: give me my revenge.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Bound and tied in front of the village - all Feyre could think about was how godsdamn cold it was.
She was seated upon the platform in the town square - where the markets set up, where the scant performers came to play on their travels.
Now, set for an inquisition.
Coward that he was, the Alderman had bound a rag over her mouth. For their protection, he said.
Cold, weak with thirst and hunger, and in the throes of despair, Feyre sat through her trial bound and mute. She felt as if she was somewhere in the air, floating above her body.
The sun was nearly down and the winter wind whipped at the torches and the small fire lit in the square, but every single person in the town was there.
“Feyre Archeron told me to bewitch my husband. She offered a potion made from lamb’s blood to control him.”
“Miss Archeron t-t-told me she could make Tommy fall in love with me. If I prayed to the devil.”
They paraded them all in front of her, her mouth gagged as she listened - the women of the village telling false tales of her evil deeds.
She couldn’t speak, only stare at them - the ones that looked at her with black hate simmering in their eyes, the others who couldn’t meet her gaze, shamefully watching the ground.
No one outside this village knew her name. No one watched the procession besides the village and the sliver of the new moon overhead. They lied to humiliate her - just before they would take her life.
So unnecessary. Her anger turned to deep sadness - for all the good she had tried to do, she hadn’t been able to save these women. And now they were forced to participate in this farce.
The parade of lies continued until her mind faded out, almost asking them to just get it over with.
Finally, the Alderman stepped forward, his boots heavy on the wooden stage.
“Feyre Archeron - on behalf of the people of our village, I accuse you of murder. Did you command your demon slave to use the body of Isabelle Cooper, to murder Richard Cooper?”
Feyre swallowed, willing moisture back into her mouth. Her frozen skin stung in the wind. When she finally spoke, her voice hardly carried. “I did. Isabelle is blameless. And he’s not my slave.”
Isabelle stood aside, drooping and small in the cold, the bruises on her still fresh and darkening.
Feyre swallowed. “And he deserved every inch of that blade.”
The gag was shoved back into her mouth.
The Alderman stood, his back to her, his arm outstretched over the village.
All of them servants to his whims - his violence, his bullying, his grandiose stupidity - the power they would let him hold over them forever.
Her fingers twitched against her bindings.
“Feyre Archeron - I condemn you, through the power given me by these people, to death. You are a witch, a temptress, and a fallen woman who plots the death of our innocent men. You will be burned at the stake.”
Even now - numb and exhausted, she trembled under the words. The elders stepped in front of the platform and raised up a wooden stake - tossing tinder all around.
Her breaths were ragged and fast, and her lungs fought her in a panic.
No - no, she wasn’t ready. Last night she had been in Rhys’s arms, thinking about the future. Now harsh hands gripped and bruised her on the way to the stake.
She couldn’t - she wouldn’t. She couldn’t die here and give them all the satisfaction. She wouldn’t leave Rhys to his fate. Uselessly she kicked her feet as she was picked up and tied upright.
Feyre reached inside - pulled. Closed her eyes. Even the bellowing voice of the Alderman couldn’t get through.
She thought about frostbite nipping her skin. The rough rope burning her palms. The creak of old wood under her feet. The wind, blowing cold through the forest - and if she only knew how, if she only knew the right words, she could turn into wind too and fly away…
Instead, Rhys’s voice reached out to her, as if traveling back from that day: You can use a wand to channel, but a wand is just a tool. One day you will feel your power in your very blood, and can channel it through the whole world - the air, the dirt, the rain. It’s right there, waiting for you to take it.
She blinked. The Alderman was still speaking. “...so the world may not be polluted by your remains lest they continue to infect our holy village…”
Every last string, last hair of the rope against her hands were charted by her skin. The wood on her palms creaked, the knots groaning.
The frightened cleric approached her, and he had the temerity to look ashamed. The cowed man took small hustling steps as he tipped a torch towards the kindling, dripping in the foul-smelling oil.
With a bright flash, the flame caught. It licked around her. For a moment, she sighed - the chill in her bones finally subsiding.
Ignem voco - that was it - the words for a simple fire, what Rhys had used to snap a spark to life in the hearth, to make it grow without a single breath.
Now or never.
When the flames licked closer and singed her skin, she was on the verge of panic.
Until she pulled. She called. She listened.
One day you will feel the fire in your very blood…her palms pressed against wood and she felt the whorls, the ancient circles, the pith and the bark. She channeled her power through it, like a wand. It lit up with her, every fiber.
She worked the gag out of her mouth. Her body sweat and burned, but it didn’t hurt. The flames felt like tingling magic on her skin, powerful and familiar and right.
The Alderman saw her. Their eyes locked. The gag dropped, flames licking higher and higher but not touching her - waiting.
“Ignem voco,” she said.
The Alderman paled - and yelled something she couldn’t hear over the blaze.
The flames bowed to her, danced in joy, rose high and bright for her delight.
And then - the blaze exploded.
And everyone screamed.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Rhysand’s immaculate black boots squelched in the mud of the square of the village.
What wasn’t charred by fire was drowned by melted snow in a grand circle that took trees, homes and even the brown winter grass.
He aimed for dead center.
Feyre sat there, amidst the charred embers of some wooden structure. Her clothes were nearly singed off, but her skin glowed rosy from some once-grand forge. Steam still rose from her hair, and she was smudged with soot from head to toe.
She didn’t even look at him. He checked she was breathing. Ignoring his creaky knee, he fell into a crouch at her eye level.
“Feyre.”
A light snow had started, flakes circling around her. There were skeletons, not bodies, scattered around the rubble, giving the whole thing the appearance of a graveyard more than a recent massacre.
Everything was quiet in the winter twilight. Only the wind made noise as it whipped through the barren trees. Feyre didn’t blink, her eyes far away.
He reached for her hand, just two fingers resting on her skin. She was hot as a brand.
Finally she noticed him. He watched as recognition slowly lit in her dull eyes. She opened her lips but they were cracked, her tongue covered in ash, and she seemed to try and speak but only a low grunt came from her throat.
With a flash of his magic he held a cup of clear water in front of her, helped to tip it down her throat until she coughed.
“You’re free,” she said with a rasped voice, not moving from her place in the ashes.
“Yes, darling. Are you all right?”
She was beyond comprehension. Her eyes drifted again to the charnel house around her, landing on a pile of bones charred so black they would crumble at the next burst of wind.
“I killed them.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes darted around again, aimless, as if looking for answers.
“I’ve never done that before.”
“Yes.”
He watched her mind wander, her eyes suddenly darken. “I killed him.”
Rhys had seen the body of the Alderman, bloated as if it had burst from within, laying face down on the edge of the town, as if he had run. With a flick of his hand he had taken the head and dropped it in a pocket dimension, in case Feyre wanted a trophy.
“You did.”
“I wanted to.” Her voice was a whisper, urgent. Then the words tumbled out of her all at once. “The others - it was for protection, they were too close and the fire took them. but him…he ran. and I could have let him go. But I stopped his heart.”
His hand was on hers again, rubbing against blistered skin. “I would have done it too.”
Feyre blinked. He watched her eyes change, as slowly she came back from the deep place she’d buried herself. Her eyes finally noticed the bluster of snowflakes around her, the cold stars sparkling overhead. Something like exhaustion creeped into her face.
He knew her pain still lived on - she would have to reckon with it some day. You are worth a thousand of these wretched men, he wanted to say. Worth more than the whole human lands. But he knew she wouldn’t hear him now - would have to figure it out for herself.
Her breathing slowed to normal. She motioned to him, and he helped her drink the rest of the cool water, slower this time, and after she licked at her blistered lips.
“You’re free too, you know,” he said softly.
Her eyes alighted to him, fast and aware, he was pleased to see. “What do you mean?”
“Of our bargain.”
Her face went blank, unable to understand. “What?”
“There wasn’t much of a trick. The language was simple enough. Free me from enslavement. The oaf who cast that binding spell knew nothing. It lifted as soon as he stopped taking breath. At your hand. Thus - our bargain is fulfilled.”
Her face looked drawn, panicked. “But…”
“But what?”
Gaping like a fish, she grasped at words. “We’re still…married, aren’t we? Even without the bargain?”
Her eyes were so frightened he felt the panic himself, and he rushed to assure her. “Of course we are, darling. Of course.” She breathed and nodded. Her worry made something preen in his chest. “You’ll have to do more than that to get rid of me.”
When an almost smile tugged at her lips, he moved.
A coat of wool fell around her shoulders, not hers but his - oversized and warm. Rhys stooped and wrapped strong arms under her, around her back, and lifted into the air and out of the muck.
He didn’t say a word, not a hint of a smirk, as she relaxed in his arms, as she leaned her head against his chest to listen to his heartbeat.
The village was quiet. The women, children, and other men not on that podium had run - they would scatter to the surrounding villages, spreading the story. It wouldn't be long until someone came, looking for proof.
“Where are we going?” she finally whispered, exhausted, into his shirt.
“Back to the cabin.” She tensed in his arms, but he knew her worries. “I’ve set everything to rights, darling, don’t you worry. Not a trace of those brutes remain." She relaxed. “And I took the liberty of putting up a few wards. Just until you learn to do your own.”
Feyre of yesterday would have fought him, but she was tired and falling fast in his arms. “Oh. Thanks.”
He could winnow them - but he thought this time was important, her thoughts lumbering to catch up, her heart still beating wildly. The snow was lovely and the forest glowed with a little moonlight as the town behind them faded away. In his arms, she burned almost as hot as he was, magic still coursing through her veins.
“Rhys?”
“Yes, my love?”
“I liked it.” She looked at her hand, letting snowflakes dance between her fingers. “I liked my tattoo.”
Something in his heart swelled, what was once an unfamiliar feeling until he entered the service of this witchling. “Then we’ll have to make another bargain.”
She frowned, and he was happy to see her displeasure at him return. “Like what?”
“Hmmm. How about you’ll always forgive me every time I take the sheets in our bed.”
Feyre picked at his shirt, displeased. “Not interested. What else?”
“You could owe me a kiss every time I replenish the firewood.”
“A bargain is supposed to benefit both of us. What am I getting out of any of this?”
Around a bend, the cabin came into view. It looked like magic itself - untouched snow heaped all over the roof, softening everything, cast in a glistening glow. The windows blazed warm and red from the fire lit within, lazy smoke coming steady out the chimney. He knew she could smell it too - the scents of tea and pine and herbs and bread. It smelled like home.
“What about the old human marriage vows - to have and to hold, ‘til death do us part?”
Feyre was quiet, thinking. The cabin was close. The owl in the oak tree hooted a low welcome to them both.
“You really want to stay?” she asked.
They reached the door. He could almost hear the fire crackling inside. He thought of laying her down in the warm sheets, holding her close as she slept.
He saw now how it could be to care for her - to take care of her, not a master and slave, but the treasure and the treasured.
“Speak the words with me,” he said.
“To have and to hold.”
“Through sickness and in health.”
“Til death do we part.”
The mended door opened smooth and quiet under his hand. With Feyre’s sea-blue eyes looking up at him, he crossed the threshold. Deep blue ink threaded through the veins of their hands, wrapping around skin in the seal of a bargain. The door closed behind them, shutting out the cold.
“Welcome home, wife.”