Quantum77

First off, even if you’re physically fit enough to take on 10k steps, it would take an absolutely ludicrous amount of time to get up or down.

There’s usually 21 steps in one floor, so that equates to the HoW stairs being 476ish floors tall. The sheer thought of doing nearly 500 floors on a stair master is enough to bring me to tears, honestly. For comparison, the Burj Khalifa has 163 floors. So you’d essentially be walking up three Burj Khalifas stacked on top of each other.

Now, we could keep calculating with the Burj Khalifa. But for the sake of simplicity, I’ve referenced the Tianmen Mountain Stairway (or the “Stairway to Heaven”) to calculate how long it would take to climb the cursed HoW stairs. The Tianmen Mountain Stairway has 999 steps and takes an average of roughly 30 minutes to climb. So assuming you’ll climb the 10k steps without a break and without tumbling to your death halfway up, it’s gonna take you 300 minutes, or 5 HOURS! Even if you’re a speedy climber and consistently take one step a second for the entire 10k steps, it’s still somewhere around 3 HOURS! And that’s ignoring the fact that the HoW having a spiral staircase is making the entire thing even more of a hellish experience.

Going down the stairs would be a little easier, because it usually takes about a third to half the time to go down the stairs, compared to going up. But going all the way down would still be 1–2.5 hours of continuous walking in spirals without pausing or tripping.

Now you might argue that Fae bodies are superior physically and that it probably doesn’t take a reasonably fit Fae that long. And you might be right, if those bitches were normal stairs.

But wait, there’s more! Because not only is it 10,000 steps, but they are “each a foot high” (ACOSF ch. 8). The standard riser height for stairs is somewhere between 5 and 7 inches. With one foot in height, those are insanely tall steps. And each step being one foot tall also means that the mountain itself is at least 10,000 ft high. So almost two miles.

Now how does anyone get up there, really, if you can’t winnow to the HoW? Do you just accept a 5 hour climb every time you want to appeal for a tax break? What if you’re sick and can’t walk all those stairs? Does every Fae in Velaris just have glutes of fucking steel? Just sporting an entire bakery? As a matter of fact, how did Rhys’s DAD get up there? Did he take the stairs every time he left the house? Did he have his wife/son/daughter fly him up and down? What did he do before he was mated to an Illyrian? Did he just winnow into the air above the House and free-fall to the balcony every time he had to get in? Every option just seems WILDLY impractical.

And… where is the library in all that? Because Nesta goes to work there every day, and she can’t even manage 200 of the stairs in the beginning, so the library seems to be right under the HoW. But then… how does anyone else get to the library? Do you have to take 9,500 stairs from the city in the valley just to go to the library? I know the priestesses don’t want to leave, but there seem to be people allowed into the library, even if they have to ask permission from the priestesses first. So… do those people have to take the stairs to the library as well? And are those the same stairs Nesta walks? Is there like… a secret elevator that no one told Nesta about?

What about the Starfall guests? Is there just a horde of Fae in fancy black-tie attire climbing those stairs for Starfall? In heels or dress shoes? Is there an Illyrian taxi service? Does Rhys just deposit a legion of Illyrians in suits in Velaris for Starfall to get all his fancy guests up to the HoW? Because in ACOSF, Kallias and Viviane were at Starfall when Viviane was heavily pregnant. And I doubt that she took the stairs or did the whole free-falling method while eight months pregnant.

Well, I guess at least with the mountain being two-ish miles tall you have plenty of time to question your life choices after jumping from that balcony to winnow out.

(The mountain’s height is nowhere close to consistent across the books btw. According to ACOWAR chapter 15, it’s only supposed to be a “thousand foot drop” from the HoW balcony to the valley. And while that would make a lot more sense for the mountain, mathematically, and would fix all the problems with the mountain’s height, it would also make the stairs EVEN MORE ridiculous. Because for there to be 10,000 steps in a 1,000 foot mountain, the stairs would have to be barely more than one inch tall each. Have you ever climbed stairs that flat? With a spiral staircase, that’s basically a very bumpy slide.) Which brings me to another can of worms entirely! The mountain’s height. Especially when comparing it to Ramiel, the mountain on the Night Court’s insignia.

Knowing that Ramiel is one of the three sacred mountains in Prythian (alongside the UTM mountain and the Prison), you’d assume that it’s probably the tallest mountain in the Night Court, right? And that the random mountain next to Velaris can’t be anywhere close to the height of a legendary sacred mountain, right? Well, let’s do some more math!

Calculating anything with the HoW mountain is pretty easy, since we can assume Velaris is at sea level. So let’s compare Ramiel to the HoW mountain.

Easiest way to do that is by comparing climbing times. Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie climb Ramiel during the Blood Rite. During that climb, Gwyn’s leg is so injured that Emerie has to carry her part of the way. So for the sake of calculating, I’d say it’s safe to assume that injured Fae climbing speed = reasonably fit human climbing speed. In chapter 68 of ACOSF, they wake at the foot of Ramiel at dawn of the last day of the Blood Rite. And Gwyn and Emerie make it to the peak of Ramiel just before dawn the next day while Nesta fights off Bellius.

So, one full day to climb Ramiel.

Thankfully, I don’t need to do the full math for the HoW mountain, since the irl Mount San Jacinto (or the “C2C Hike”) is pretty much the perfect comparison. From its lowest to its highest point, it has an elevation gain of 10,352 ft, and it takes one day to finish (the recommended climbing time is 1–2 days since normal people have to do stuff like sleep, but it’s doable in one day).

So! Ramiel and the HoW mountain are probably around the same height, or rather Ramiel probably has a prominence of ~10,000 ft.

(On a Nesta-related sidenote, I know the stairs are supposed to be symbolic, but once she manages to get down more than a few hundred steps, HOW is it harder to take the rest of the stairs down than climb thousands of steps back to the HoW? I think at some point she makes it more than halfway down and instead of just going down the rest of the way she… takes more than 5,000 steps back… up? Have any of you ever tried climbing even a few hundred steps? Going down the same amount of steps is a BLESSING in comparison.)

By the way, with a normal riser height for each step (again, somewhere between 5 and 7 inches usually), the mountain would be at 4,100–5,800 ft. Which would be much more reasonable, even with the 10k steps, but unfortunately that number is backed by absolutely nothing in canon.

So I guess my point is that no matter how you look at those fucking stairs, they make no sense. At all. Either the mountain is FREAKISHLY tall, or the stairs are FREAKISHLY flat. That’s the only two options. Either the mountain really is almost two miles tall and getting both to the HoW and the library is an absolute nightmare, or the mountain is normal sized at 1,000ish ft and the stairs are one-inch-neck-breakers.

With an accepted pass from Helion, Rhys raced up the court, bobbing and weaving between his opponents, the hoop completely open, his opportunity to dunk within sight. 

His mind was made up - their de-facto coach, Kalias, encouraged him you’ve got it man go for it, Tarquin continuing to guard Eris while Cassian and Azriel took on Tamlin. 

His eyes flicked to the scoreboard above the hoop, the numbers whizzing by 9-8-7-6-5, he advanced forward, ignoring the twinge of pain each step brought him. He had no choice, if he scored the tie would be broken and the Knights would be the season champs for the third time in a row. 

4-3-2-1 and -

He takes a step, pushing all of his strength into his right foot to lift him off the floor, the sensation as if he grew wings to be able to fly just enough to land the ball through the hoop, the swish of the net matching his groan of victory - quickly followed by pain, lancing through him from his knee down to his ankle. 

Cheers erupted from behind him, the stands full of friends and family of both teams exclaiming their glee and frustration at the sudden broken tie. 

“And with a dunk from Rhysand Sterling, the Knights break the tie, becoming your division champions for the third year in a row!” The sound of the buzzer followed the announcers’ call, signaling the true end of the game. His teammates crowded around him, clutching on as they all jumped up and down, their whoops and cheers enveloping him. 

The Knights and the Sentinels - consistent rivals in the over-30 league - lined up to high-five, wishing each other good game, great job. Despite every fiber in him wanting to shove into Tamlin, Rhys extended the sign of sportsmanship, joining his team at the announcer’s table to be presented with the trophy and take their picture, marking their championship status once and for all. 

Rhys didn’t care about the trophy - not really, anyway. Of course, he was proud of their team and how they pulled together week after week. More than anything, he was grateful for the time with the guys and what it signified - that after years of friendship and life lived, they could still find time to be together. 

After the celebration concluded, he scanned the crowd for the familiar blue-grey eyes of his wife, finding her immediately, the sight of her the icing on the cake of a perfect season finish. 

Well, the sight of her and the sight of their two children, the boy possessing eyes like Rhys and the girl with eyes like her mom, Feyre. 

He winced in pain, trying to fight the grimace by forcing a grin as he began to cross the gym towards them, wishing he could snap his fingers and be laid up in bed with his family already. 

He could see that his wife wasn’t buying it before he got within three feet of her. 

“Dad you dunked! You did it!” Their son, Nyx, cheered excitedly when Rhys got to them at last. 

“Daddy I didn’t like the buzzer,” Luna, their daughter who was still rather young, complained. 

Rhys chuckled, tried to kneel to meet his kids but thought better of it when his knee barked in protest. Instead, he opted to bend at the waist, picking up Luna and settling her on his hip before ruffling Nyx’s hair. 

“I know baby, it’s very loud. But did you have fun?” Rhys asked, sneaking a glance at Feyre to find her lips fixed in a straight line. 

“Yeah! You were so fast!” Luna exclaimed. 

Rhys beamed before turning to Feyre, leaning in to place a kiss on her cheek. “Let’s take the kids for ice cream before you tell me all the ways I was reckless, hm?”

She rolled her eyes, mirth behind the gesture before reaching for his hand and wrapping her other arm around the shoulders of Nyx, leading them all towards the exit. 

***

Rhys plopped against the mattress after dressing in his night clothes, the relief from the shower short-lived as the barking pain in his knee reared its ugly head yet again, his eyes screwed shut in response. He was able to mask most of his pain throughout ice cream with his family, but the walk home, up the stairs and climbing in the shower damn near did him in. 

He groaned, futilely massaging the joint, regretting the decision to dunk earlier that evening all together. 

The quiet steps of his wife made him open his eyes, knowing the inevitable couldn’t be put off any longer. 

He sighed as he met her gaze, putting on his best front of a wounded-animal instead of the injured 42-year old he was. 

“So, you decided tonight would be the night you’d dunk,” she started as she sat on the bed next to him, a caddy of miscellaneous first aid supplies in hand. 

“Yes, and I am remembering why I stopped doing it after college,” he grunted in response. 

She tsked above him, moving to settle his leg across her lap while swatting his hand away and taking over. 

The smell of icy-hot hit his nostrils, relief beginning to find him once again as he felt her hands begin to apply it on his knee. 

“There’s some Aleve on the nightstand for you. Take it and I’ll get this wrapped.” 

He followed her instructions immediately, mindful not to jostle his leg too much. The knee injury was from high school and as the years went on, it got progressively worse. Manageable, but anytime there was a storm on the horizon, Rhys could feel it. 

He couldn’t help it, though, when the guys wanted to start up a 30-and over team. He missed playing with his guys, and he wanted his kids to be exposed to as many hobbies and activities as possible. 

Plus, he knew Feyre secretly loved watching him move up and down the court and took pride in the fact that her middle-aged husband “still had it in him,” as the wives of his teammates liked to say. 

Right now, though, he didn’t know how she saw him as anything other than pathetic. What business did he have pushing himself to the limit like this, reigniting old injuries to the point that he couldn’t even kneel to talk to his own kids? 

He grimaced at a particularly sensitive spot, Feyre’s actions bringing him back to the present. 

He was in pain, but the sight of his wife, with her messy bun and baggy shirt (his shirt, he noted) - melted it all away. 

Or it was the icy-hot but he didn’t care, relief was relief. 

“You looked good tonight,” she murmured, her eyes trained on the wrap in her hands. Rhys could see the beginnings of a blush forming, turning the tips of her ears pink. 

“Oh yeah?” He purred, infusing as much suggestion into his voice as he could through the pain. 

She hummed, tightening the wrap in a manner tighter than was perhaps necessary. “Yes, I just love seeing my husband wreck his body needlessly.” 

He snorted, then reached for her hand. “Feyre,” he whispered, her attention snapping to him immediately, her head tipping in encouragement to continue. 

“Thank you for taking such good care of me.”

She fought a grin, his words melting her instantly. She set the caddy aside and crawled up to lay her head on his chest, tucked beneath his chin, arm wrapped around him. 

“You know I’ve got your back,” she sighed, settling into him completely. 

He carded a hand through her hair, placing a kiss on the top of her head. 

Propped up on the massive bed, the bindings dig deeply into the skin of Feyre’s arms. Holding still, muscles burning, she’s competing with her body to see what gives out first.

The priest sits across from her, his back to her plight, writing at his desk as if he didn’t just catch her rifling through it twenty minutes ago.

The bindings are not made of rope.

“You’ll never get away with this,” she whispers fiercely, more out of anger than any confidence in her plans.

The man is unphased. Still in his grand, embroidered vestments, the scratch of quill on paper doesn’t even pause at her words.

“Get away with what?” he asks, still turned away.

The devil wears many faces, her mother had once told the girls. Some friendly, some familiar, but always evil underneath.

Feyre clamps her mouth shut. Her mother had another invective: your temper will be the death of you. Still, it served to keep her above her fear so far, every moment he’s left her bound on his bed. Ignoring her.

If only she had told Nesta where she was going.

Three months ago, Elain had burst into their dreary tenement apartment, her face glowing, her arms full of bread. Exclaiming over the new priest at the parish, who preached fire and brimstone from the pulpit but gave soft smiles and generous offerings after mass. He’s so kind - high-minded, but fair, she had told her sisters, skeptical but with mouths full of fresh bread.

One week ago, Elain had disappeared.

And Feyre had entered the grand cathedral for the first time since their mother died.

When she first laid eyes on him - Father Rhys - stepping onto the pulpit, something had filled her - a stillness, a dread, something other inside her body. Her muscles went rigid as she had stared up - at his impossible beauty, the heavy cloaks draped around him like armor. Feyre had felt dizzy until the first words of prayer spilled from his mouth, and she finally took a breath.

Afterwards it had seemed so easy - to follow him down the busy, dark halls, to note which foreboding wooden door he went into. When he left for the evening meal, he didn’t even lock it behind him.

In retrospect, she has been a perfect fool.

Blinking out of her reverie, Feyre jolts to see him turned around, watching her. An amused smile alights his face.

“Where is my sister?” she demands.

A mischievous glint is in his eye. But there’s something else - some predatory darkness that keeps her muscles trembling. Deep down she has memories - nightmares - of when her mother forced them all to weekly mass, and she’d be taken out crying when the father had preached of fire-born demons coming for her soul.

The memory has her pulling at her restraints again, the motions useless. They’re so cold they burn against her skin. He hadn’t even touched her - one look at her in his room and he had simply closed the door, and then she was bound with nothing more than the flick of his fingers and a gust of wind flickering the candles. With the click of the door she was trapped with the inevitability of her fate - he is not human.

“Are you a believer, darling? Somehow I don’t think so. I would have noticed someone like you in the pews.”

“I know enough to know you blaspheme.”

He laughs, the rich sound filling the small, dark room. The words he spoke from the pulpit still echo in her mind - the sneer on his face, the way his fists pounded the pulpit as he told the story of their collective fates - bound to a distant, careless God.

“Has God provided for you and your sister? What has he done that was more generous than the loaves of bread I give from my kitchens? I see you - your face is sunken with hunger. Your clothes are worn and threadbare. And you came here alone to find her - knowing full well the polizia care nothing about missing urchins from the street. God has given you nothing. So why do you defend him?”

As he speaks, something changes in his face. The insouciant charm makes way to anger, a flicker of flame in his dark, amethyst eyes. Perhaps it is the light but she thinks his teeth grow longer, that his form expands as his chest heaves.

“Who are you?” she whispers, anger ebbing further away into fear.

Rhysand stands. His eyes are far away. On the bed her muscles ache, her thighs burning as she kneels on the soft mattress.

Walking to his closet, he takes his time undoing the buttons and ties of his grand vestments, heavy and curved over his shoulders. They hang on a hook in the shadows, looming like a sleeping winged creature. Next are his robes, embroidered and fine with red and gold threaded through black. The fire crackles in the corner. Heavy perfumes of frankincense and myrrh tickle her nose. Underneath his robes he wears plain clothes: wide black trousers, a buttoned tunic that hugs his shoulders. Simple, but finely tailored. Almost in the shape of a man.

Feyre wonders if he’s going to answer her at all when he finally returns to the foot of the bed. She has not yet cried out. She imagines it’s futile. He watches her with a fearful intensity. Flickering, the fire casts light upon his face - dark smudges under his eyes, his cheekbones sharp, his lips plush and sinful. A shadow dances, tethered behind him, wild as the flames.

“I was devout, once. I believed with a fervor to make the saints take notice. This was long ago, an age before your time. But God was still the same. Mysterious. Quiet. And he was never quieter than when my family - my mother and sister, were slaughtered without mercy.”

Feyre’s pulse pounds in her throat.

“I was the one who found their heads severed from their bodies. They were innocent - not that it mattered in the end. I fell to my knees in the cold mud and wept. My cries should have raised the angels. I offered him anything - everything - to bring them back. To ease my pain. And what was his answer? Only more blood. My father was dead the next night, chasing revenge. Chasing justice. Which God had failed to provide.”

Feyre keeps her heart from softness. “You haven’t answered my question.”

The priest smiles. His teeth are sharp. Absently, he pulls at his shirt cuff, rolling them higher as if he has work to do.

“God didn’t answer me that day, or any that followed. But someone else did. And they offered me the means for my revenge.”

In an instant, they unfurl - with a leathery rustling and the flames bursting high in the grate. A pair of dark bat-like wings spreading wide, wider, each tipped with a sharp talon at the joint.

Her breath wooshes from her lungs. Feyre screams, and writhes in her bindings, and falls back onto the bed.

She can't even catch her breath until he’s over her - wings broad, his eyes black as tar.

“Isn’t this what you came to see?”

Her whole body trembles, her knees pressing up against his ribs in her last line of defense. His body is fever-hot. His breath is sweet like incense. When he smiles, she sees two sharp fangs glisten in what’s left of the candlelight.

Is this the last thing Elain saw? Feyre chokes back a sob, and prays that Nesta doesn’t follow them both.

Instead of descending upon her, he pauses, his head cocked as if hearing some far off sound.

“Your sister isn’t dead.”

“What?” Her voice is a shaken rasp from her throat.

“She yet lives. She’s sleeping soundly, under the stones of this very church. But I have need of her.”

The words are out of her mouth before she can think. “Take me instead.”

She doesn’t miss the heat in his eyes as he looks at her, covetous and hungry.

“You don’t know what I need her for.”

It doesn’t matter. If Feyre can spare her sister this fate, torn apart at the hands of this demon, then she’ll do it.

She does not remember her prayers. Instead she has only a single plea on her tongue - “Please.”

A fingernail, sharp as a claw, scrapes down her cheek and she shivers.

“I’m not like him, you know. I do not demand sacrifice without thanks, or take what is not offered.” With a snap, the scent of ozone in the air, her arms are suddenly free. Feyre scrambles and braces her hands against his chest, the weight of him still bearing down.

She cannot trust a word he says. And yet - her heart still beats. He looks upon her strangely.

“Wh-what do you need me for?”

He smiles. Takes her hand. She waits to feel the scrape of his teeth but instead he presses a kiss upon her palm, soft and lingering.