#ferrhys

She was usually young enough, low-status enough, or quiet enough to go entirely unnoticed in the Autumn Court annex, too. Being easily overlooked was a skill she had spent her entire life honing to a fine, keen edge.

Marriages were uncommon Under the Mountain anyway. It was just her luck that she was born into Beron Vanserra's old-fashioned court, where the traditions of Above were still observed Under. She was often jealous of the other courts, where everyone else was usually too busy trying to drink or fuck or scheme enough to forget about the sword dangling over their heads to consider marriage.

No, Feyre Archeron did not want to get married, and she had some small hope that she wouldn't have to.

Until her father started to act strange.

His restlessness had agitated Feyre's eldest sister into launching a vicious interrogation. But despite Nesta's relentless needling, he hadn’t revealed the truth until it caught up to him in the form of three picts with bludgeons and a grudge. When the healer finished tending to his wounds, he finally told them, his brown eyes watery and regretful: their fortune was gone. What remained in his vaults after fifty years in captivity Under the Mountain had all been frittered away on betting rings and card games. Perhaps worse than that, he still owed several thousand gold coins to various collectors.

Marriages were uncommon, yes. But so were the three daughters of an uncommonly fertile female. That they were all raised in near-seclusion in the Seasonal wing of the Mountain? All shining, tempting curiosities to the Fae who had gotten sick of seeing the same faces day in and day out? The Archeron sisters were the closest thing approaching novelty Under the Mountain, and their father knew it. They would fetch a handsome bride price, and he would pay off his debts before anything worse could happen.

And Under the Mountain, worse typically meant something far beyond what any decent imagination might be able to conjure.

Elain had murmured in quiet horror, but Nesta didn't bother to bite her tongue before she asked, bitter and sharp as she had been since their mother's death, "Why don't you sell us as meat for the Wyrm and be done with it?"

Father had grimaced.

Like he'd considered it.

The guilty set of his mouth did nothing to cover the raw avarice gleaming in his eyes.

When Elain gasped, Nesta's tirade had died to unforgiving silence as her icy expression shuttered. And Feyre...

Feyre still didn't know how she felt about that. At the very least, she was glad Nesta didn't possess any skill for spellwork; she would have cursed their father so soundly that he died a thousand agonizing deaths that even the Attor couldn't devise. Nesta would have regretted that eventually, even if Feyre herself secretly thought for a split-second that their father might deserve it.

There was nothing to be done, Father told them. He'd already informed their High Lord of his intentions, and the High Lord had informed Amarantha.

So Feyre and her sisters had no choice. In no time at all, they were summoned, washed, coiffed, and gowned in their finest dresses. Their father had inspected them in the long gallery at the heart of the Autumn annex in two before they were marched them into the High Queen's throne room.

The vast space was the largest Under the Mountain, and the distinct feeling of being entirely exposed for the first time in her life threatened to upend the contents of Feyre's stomach. The leering Fae males lining the hall, dwarfed by the pillars carved with a mockery of Prythian's history, undoubtedly contributed to that feeling. When she dared a glance upward at the glittering chandeliers, avoiding their eyes, her stomach swooped; the ceiling was so far away, stretching up and up until it faded into shadow. It was so high that she wouldn't be surprised if gravity simply let go and dropped her into that inky darkness. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to run back to the dim, cozy niches, warm hearths, and beautiful tapestries that made up most of Autumn's quarters.

That the vast hall was emptied of all but High Fae was a minor mercy; Feyre thought Elain might have fainted outright if they had to stare down the Attor's slimy cabal and the wall of bodies while they were presented. Her heart squeezed. Terrified as she was for herself, for Nesta, Elain had always been meant for more. Love and beauty, their mother used to say. It was true, too. Elain was love and beauty personified, a strangely bright light for someone born into darkness, and she was meant to marry for nothing less.

Perhaps Elain wouldn't marry for love, but Feyre was sure that she and Nesta could ensure she was matched with someone tolerable.

To the left stood a crowd of strangers, all bearing ashen, sun-starved skin and clad flowing robes—the Solar Court Fae. Feyre recognized only one or two faces from Dawn and Day whom she knew to be the messengers or high-status lords that sometimes met with Beron. There was another small blessing; the High Lord of the Night Court, Rhysand, attended Amarantha's masquerade alone all those decades ago, and his cruel courtiers were still tucked away in their own mountain to the north.

To her right, Feyre found a more familiar set of faces in the seasonal Fae who came and went in the carved warrens surrounding Autumn's annex every day. Only those in the far back, who didn't yet know they needed shove and grapple for any advantage Under the Mountain, were unfamiliar. Still, she couldn't really hope to recognize any individuals among them anyway, given the masks.

The Spring Court, with their ridiculous golden masks and their useless High Lord. Feyre fought to beat back the frustration that crawled under her skin. Just the thought of him had made her want to scream every minute of every day since the chirpy, genteel lot was dragged down into the dark. By the time she was born, no one believed Tamlin would actually succeed in breaking the curse, but hope sprang eternal, especially in the minds of three little girls who wanted to see the jewel-box forests and ice cities that shone like diamonds in their parents' home courts with their own eyes.

At least until Rhysand had dragged him Under the Mountain by the scruff of his neck three months ago. Ever the obedient sycophant, the other Autumn courtiers said that he deposited Tamlin on the throne beside the High Queen with a wide, rare smile. No doubt he was pleased to complete Amarantha's collection of all seven courts Under the Mountain.

But if the males and the ceiling made her want to run, the naked, rotting bodies nailed to the wall surrounding the door made her wish she could winnow. Feyre knew they were there, knew she should avoid them, but morbid curiosity made her look; ending up on the wall was a favorite warning whenever she and her sisters had been loud and annoying enough to disturb Autumn's peace growing up. She took only one glance before her head began roaring loud enough to drown out the crowd.

Oh gods.

High Fae, nymphs, nixies, brownies, even a couple of humans—all burned and sliced and pinned to the wall.

This could be you, the empty eye sockets seemed to say to her. This could be you if you displease the Deceiver.

The putrid stench of death, so commonplace that Feyre never truly noticed it unless the corpse in question was fresh and wet and steaming in a nearby corridor, filled her nostrils and clogged her throat. Her legs ached with the renewed instinct to run. She would go until she found her way Above the Mountain. She would run until the Queen's Guard found her in the mouth of some cave. Just one breath of fresh air might be worth it, if it were as nice and clean and devoid of death as the Fae born Above said... 

But then she heard father's new cane tap-tap-tapping on the polished red marble floor, and Elain let out a near-silent whimper beside her.

No, she couldn't run. What of her sisters? Marriage was nothing compared to what the picts might do if her father couldn't pay them. This farce paled in comparison to anything the queen would do if Feyre disrupted her fun.

And who knew who else her father owed money? Rhysand sometimes liked a good bet, and though Feyre had never met him, she had heard in excruciating detail they way he liked to play with his prey. Several of the bodies on the wall likely belonged to him, and none were a pretty sight to behold.

No, it wasn't her debt to pay, but the thought of that monster anywhere near her sisters...

Feyre ground her teeth and clenched her fists in her flowing skirts.

On the other side of Elain, Nesta growled under her breath. Feyre dared a glance at her, dared to follow her gaze to the crowd of red-and-gold Autumn courtiers.

Under normal circumstances, Nesta was less opposed to marriage than Feyre, but Feyre knew she spent her time strategizing, creating intricate plots that would only play out when she willed it. But now even Feyre could feel Eris Vanserra’s gaze as it speared across the throne room to her sister. Nesta had never liked Eris quite as much as Eris liked her, and if Eris were to ask for her hand, Feyre was sure many of those careful threads Nesta spun would unravel.

And, Feyre thought, glad to be distracted by something so trivial, marrying a male who watched you grow up would be so…

She did her best not to wrinkle her nose in front of the crowd. Now that their father's mistakes were common knowledge, Nesta would be Cauldron-blessed indeed if Beron allowed his heir apparent to court her.

Feyre loosed a breath, and then they were at the front of the vast hall.

And there she was, seated on her black throne in front of the ogling crowd.

The High Queen of Prythian.

Amarantha.

An amused, indulgent smile turned up her ruby lips.

The idle way she lounged on her throne belied the leashed magic of seven High Lords thrumming in the space around her. It crackled and whipped in the air unseen, unheard, but the hair on Feyre's arms stood on end and her tongue tasted of ether—of pure, raw power. Something in it seemed to call to her, like some bit of that web of power wanted to tangle around her wrists and pull her deeper into the spider's web.

Feyre's blood went cold as primal, animal fear gripped her mind. To take one more step without Amarantha's express permission would be signing her own death warrant, that much she knew.

Dangerous. This female was so, so dangerous.

She counted herself lucky that in nineteen years, she had only seen Amarantha three times before today.

Once when she was four, and Amarantha stormed into the Autumn annex in a rage that shook the Mountain. That time, her mother hid her under her skirts so quickly that Feyre thought they were playing a game, and Nesta had to pinch her hard enough to draw blood to keep her silent.

The second time on the night of her tenth birthday, when Feyre sneaked out of her quarters. She thought herself quite old enough to spy on one of the parties held every night in the throne room. She caught only a glimpse of red hair before a Winter Court sentry spotted her hiding in the shadows of the enormous doors and carried her home.

The third, from a high balcony cut into the wall above a dark, forgotten corridor when she was sixteen. Feyre still got nauseous just thinking of it, but the memory was enough to jolt her out of her terror.

She blinked hard to dislodge the tunnel-vision haze from her eyes.

The High Lords. She could focus on them. Masked Tamlin, seated on the throne beside Amarantha. Stern Beron, scowling at Elain's fidgeting hands to his left. Kallias and Tarquin—both barely ten years in their positions—behind him. Helion, another new High Lord, and calculating Thesan stood side by side behind the queen's throne.

And sly, cunning Rhysand, at Amarantha's right hand.

Feyre didn't look at him. It was common knowledge that he was a daemati, and she had been trained long ago not to tempt anyone with those gifts to slip into her mind by meeting their eyes.

But all seven High Lords were looking down at her and her sisters, and Feyre willed herself to stay completely motionless. It was a hunter's stillness, she told herself. A hunter's calm, not the fear of prey.

At the foot of the dais, the Lady of the Autumn Court was already waiting. She threw all three of them a pitying glance and then turned.

“Your majesty.” She curtsied for Amarantha, graceful and demure. “I humbly thank you for receiving myself and the young ladies of my court today.”

Like any of the carefully cultivated ladies of the Autumn Court, Lady Helaine’s words were quiet, measured, and her eyes remained obediently trained on the stone floor beneath her feet. Behind Amarantha’s shoulders, Beron's shoulders stiffened as his wife recited the formal script every elder female gave before tossing fresh meat into the marriage market.

Even without the ability to read his mind, Feyre knew what he was thinking. Helaine should be the one seated in a place of honor above the three girls lined up behind her. She should be the leader of the ceremonies in the formal reception hall of the Forest House; those words should have been said to her.

But Lady Helaine had no power here. Feyre had never set foot Above the Mountain, much less made it to the wheat fields her father managed or the seat of Autumn's power.

“Well met, Lady Helaine.” Amarantha inclined her head, her own head of red-gold hair shining in the light cast by the chandeliers. Despite the welcome, her black eyes were cold. “What brings you all before me today?”

“I present them in their late mother’s stead and with the blessings of their father in the hopes of securing a marriage for each,” Helaine continued. Her own shoulders were stiff with fear.

"Their father..." Amarantha mused, deviating from the traditional script, and then Father was beside Feyre.

Helaine sniffed at the sight of him, but said, "Arwel Archeron, your majesty."

Father murmured nonsense to the marble floor, and Amarantha waved him away with a bored gesture.

"Very well, Lady Helaine, you may proceed."

“I present the eldest, Lady Nesta Archeron,” Helaine announced. She said it with a slight wince, as if she had also heard the fit Nesta had put up when the sentries arrived to escort them out of the annex and jostled Elain too harshly when her knees gave out. Given how small Autumn's quarters sometimes felt, Feyre realized, she likely had.

Nesta stepped forward, now the picture of peace, and everyone’s eyes slide to her and then away. Unlike she and Elain, Nesta had been in attendance at court for several years; once she was too old to keep hiding in the nooks and crannies in the Seasonal wing, she was tapped to join Helaine’s retinue. Amarantha had summoned her to an evening revel soon afterward, and Nesta had been required to attend every night since.

Her frigid gray eyes and the severe braid atop her head were not softened by the dress she wore. All silver silk and white, Winter Court fur, it had been saved from their mother’s wedding. If anything, Nesta looked like a sharp, polished blade in it, rather than a bride. Feyre watched, impressed, as she deliberately softened her face and curtsied. As she dipped, she briefly gazed up at Lady Helaine from beneath her lashes, feigning an air of kind-hearted gratitude as she waited patiently to be allowed to rise.

“Very nice.” A single, magnanimous nod of that crimson head released Nesta from her curtsy, and she rose and stepped back in line without so much as a relieved sigh or slump of her shoulders.

Brilliant as her performace was, Nesta's eyes glittered dangerously as Helaine held out a hand to Elain.

“My namesake, Elain Archeron.”

Elain stepped forward, her doe-brown eyes wide, and voices rose from the crowd as males pushed and shoved to catch a glimpse. Nesta seemed as reluctant as Feyre to let her step forward, a sly hand reaching out to let the silk of Elain's skirts drag through her fingers as she passed. Beron clicked his tongue at her trembling, but she was the very picture of a submissive Autumn Court female with her golden hair braided neatly and her brown eyes cast to the floor.

A Goddess of the Harvest, Helaine and her ladies-in-waiting sometimes liked to tease. Despite having the tendency to get trapped in her own wandering thoughts, Elain had always been a favored pet of most of the Seasonal courtiers.

She certainly looked it in her gown, the same cloth-of-gold as Feyre's. Feyre thought her own dress washed out her sickly skin, but Elain's seemed to reflect the sparkling light of the chandeliers back onto her face and make her glow.

“My queen,” she was brave enough to murmur in her musical, lilting voice as she reached the lowest point of her curtsy. 

“Lovely,” Amarantha cooed, softening, as enchanted as everyone who had ever met Elain. A nod, and Elain rose.

Elain dipped her head once more and stepped backwards. 

Amarantha’s sharp nails tapped thoughtfully on the arm of her throne, and the sound pooled at the base of Feyre's skull and trickled down her spine.

She tilted her crimson head, as if testing the weight of her hideous, spiked crown, and said, “You shall make a most advantageous match, I think, my pet.”

Their father was idiot enough to smile, though Feyre’s mind keened in acute horror. But Helaine was already looking back at her as Amarantha's eyes slid away from Elain, and Feyre's heart turned to lead, heavy and hard.

“And the youngest, Feyre Archeron.”

She glared at her father before stepping forward. Her curtsy was neat and unembellished, but the weight of Amarantha's black gaze made her neck ache.

“Fay-ruh,” Amarantha sing-songed, and Feyre’s eyes shot up to catch the queen's lips curl upward. “Feyre. An old name—from our earlier dialects. How curious. Come here.”

Amarantha crooked a finger at her, and the crowd hushed.

Feyre rose from her curtsy, and the heeled slipper on her left foot caught in a crack in the red marble floor. She stumbled, and Elain drew in a sharp breath behind her. 

Her heartbeat returned, stronger and faster than ever, threatening to pound her breastbone to dust. The combined attention of all of the High Lords and the High Queen was fixed on her. When she paused at the base of the dais, and Amarantha crooked her finger again. Gathering her skirts in one hand, Feyre took a breath, sent up a silent prayer to the Mother, and ascended the steps. 

Every hair on her body stood on end. Even her hearing seemed to sharpen, attuning itself to every whisper of breath and surprised murmur in the throne room. Amarantha's legs rustled the material of her gown as she adjusted them, and Feyre willed herself to focus her attention on the gleam of emerald taffeta in the faelight and not the dull bone pendant on the necklace she wore over it.

On the throne beside Amarantha, Tamlin stared straight ahead through his golden mask. The other six High Lords arranged in a semi-circle around them stared openly. From the corner of her eye, Feyre could see Beron's broad shoulders roll, his chin lifting as his mouth pressed into a severe line.

“Did your mother tell you why she named you Feyre?”

Feyre returned her attention to Amarantha, swallowing at the mention of her mother. 

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

“It is another name for our people,” Amarantha told her in a quiet, intimate voice. “The fair, beautiful folk. Feyre. Fae. Do you see?”

A nod. She managed only a nod.

Up close, Amarantha herself was not nearly as beautiful as she had always thought when she caught a rare glimpse from a distance; the queen’s snow-white skin was finely creased around her eyes and her mouth, and the golden overtones in her red hair were artificial, a harsh line marking where she last applied the dye.

The dark had that effect on the people born Above. Too little light and they faded like dying embers. It was a favorite complaint from those lucky enough to go Above to soak in the sunshine and celebrate the holidays every few years.

She was lovely nonetheless, her straight teeth so white they glowed and her eyes clear and bright, but... There was something repulsive beneath her fading beauty. Something that made Feyre's gut clench with warning.

“I saw the look you gave your father,” Amarantha said next, her voice lowered to a conspiratorial lilt. It was laughable to think it a private conversation, when the normally rowdy Fae around them were near-silent as they strained to listen. “Do you not agree with his decision to present you and your sisters today, or do you just not like him?”

“I…” Feyre hesitated. 

What could she say? How could she possibly justify what she had done? It was a transgression that had gotten even Eris Vanserra whipped in the middle of the gallery. Already, Beron’s hard gaze was hot enough to burn.

A red, arched brow lifted. “Yes?”

“I do not like the thought of marriage, my queen.”

Amarantha tipped her head back and laughed—a raven's caw. “What a pity for the eager males assembled here today! What do you like the thought of then, Feyre, if not marriage?”

Feyre glanced at the High Lords behind Amarantha, and several of them finally looked away, as if they were uncomfortable for her. Rhysand wasn't even looking at her; he was leveling a cruel, dark look at the crowd. Like Amarantha, Feyre had only ever seen him a handful of times in the dark halls of the Mountain, usually from a great distance, but that look…

It was death. Painful, inescapable death.

It took all of her effort to tear her eyes away, but she managed to say, “I like to paint.”

“Oh, an artist!” Amarantha clapped. Her delight was strangely contrived, as if all the centuries she spent reveling in gore and death made her incapable of truly experiencing such simple joy.

A warning voice that sounded like Nesta’s rang in her mind, and Feyre clasped her hands in front of herself. “Only an amateur.”

"Do not sell yourself short, precious." Amarantha shook a warning finger at her, like she was no more than a charitable friend dispensing advice. “However, you are aware that you can still paint when you’re married, correct?”

Though she didn't want to, Feyre nodded again.

Amarantha tapped that finely manicured finger on the arm of her throne. “I’ll tell you what, Feyre fair. I will help you find a husband who will buy you all the paints in the world."

All thoughts emptied from Feyre's mind.

"Why?"

The benevolent smile disappeared, and Amarantha angled her head. “Do you question your queen?”

Feyre's lips were sewn shut with her own horror. She shook her head.

"Good. Come to tea with me this afternoon, and we shall discuss this further." Amarantha reached a ringed hand up to trace the line of Feyre's cheekbone. Her skin was too-warm and calloused, her nails sharp enough to draw blood if she applied the slightest pressure, and the horror grew as the eye trapped in that evil ring swiveled and stared directly into Feyre's. "I would like to get to know you better, so I can select suitors worthy of such an interesting young lady."

Again, Nesta's voice sounded in Feyre's ears, and she bowed her head again, murmuring her thanks even as her thoughts began to shriek.

Tea.

Tea with Amarantha.

It was so mundane and yet so deeply, bone-chillingly terrifying that Feyre almost laughed outright.

The queen sat back in her throne, and her eyes finally left Feyre, skimming over the crowd in silent dismissal. “Bring a painting, dear. I want to see for myself whether or not you are truly an amateur, or if it is time to commission a new portrait."

The guards at the door were laughing at her when they exited the throne room.

It was Nesta who hissed at them through her teeth, vicious enough that they quieted. She turned that fury toward their father as soon as he slipped through the doors behind them. Feyre only glanced back at the queen on her throne and the seven High Lords assembled around her like trophies in a case.

“We don't have much time," Nesta was saying. "She will send a servant to fetch you soon.”

Elain was twisting her hands, and the scent of fresh blood cutting through the rot of death in the air as she bit through her lip. “Oh, Feyre…”

But Elain wasn’t addressing her; her sister's eyes were vacant, sad, and she spoke as if she were already dead.

“It doesn’t matter.” Nesta grabbed Elain's arm and shoved her forward. “Walk.”

Their father opened his mouth, his proud grin having faltered as he looked Feyre up and down. She was not a pretty, sweet-tempered sister like Elain, who was universally adored. She didn’t possess the cutting temper and shrewd intellect that sometimes startled a laugh out of Beron and made Nesta so well-suited for court at just thirty-two.

She was Feyre. Nineteen-year-old, paint-splattered Feyre, who hadn’t yet attended a single one of Amarantha’s revels and got into more trouble than she was worth when the sentries weren’t watching. Elain was Goddess of the Harvest, but Feyre had been feral Feyre behind closed doors from the time she could walk.

“Be silent,” Nesta snapped at him.

Until their father drove up his gambling debts and decided to sell his daughters on the marriage market to pay them off. The idiot simpers and scrapes at the edge of the proceedings, and it is easy to pin The Prince of Fools with a single glance.

She is the last to be presented, and when she is, he feels a phantom thread between his soul and hers stretch out toward her.

She is his mate.

Fay-ruh, the Deceiver croons, testing the name and the young female before her.

Amarantha beckons the girl closer, and Feyre Archeron’s High Fae blood betrays her when she rises awkwardly from her curtsy. Nevertheless, her steps are sure and graceful as she ascends the steps of the dais to stand before the High Queen of Prythian’s throne.

Her sisters are snubbed, but this one, the one who didn’t keep her eyes fixed on the floor beneath her feet long enough, will attend a tea with Amarantha this afternoon to discuss her prospects. She accepts the invitation with a tilt of her head, but she chews on her lip absentmindedly, nervously.

His own sneer is fixed, his lip curled, but behind the mask of the Lord of Nightmares, his heart freezes.

In time, the girl and her sisters are dismissed, the pretty one cringing away from the rotting corpses pinned to the wall and the eldest baring her teeth at their father the second before the tall doors close behind them. Amarantha's new plaything seems frozen, daring a final look back into the throne room before the vicious sister grabs her and drags her away.

Amarantha laughs at the image they make and then stands, sweeping her eyes over the assembled High Lords behind her. A flick of her wrist, and they are dismissed too.

He uses the little power that remains available to him under the bitch's curse to winnow away the second that loathsome head of crimson hair disappears around the corner. He barely makes it to his private quarters before he is on his knees, retching.

She is his mate.