#flight risk

Feyre does not want to be here.

Here—as in her family home, as in her city, as in her body.

Here, under the wretched mountain, where she cannot see the stars with any regularity. Not like her father, who gets to travel the Night Court to make trade deals and peddle his wares. Not like the High Lord and his cadre, who only come down here to make sure no one has staged a coup in their absence—and even that seems like a myth to Feyre, seeing as she hasn't laid eyes on them since she was perhaps two, a moment which she has no memory of.

Here, where she's being forced into a fancy dress and made up until she's nearly unrecognizable.

Her lady's maid scolds her with a sharp tch! when she shrinks away from the pain of pins being jabbed violently against her scalp to secure the needlessly complicated updo at the crown of her head. For the fourth or fifth time now. How is she supposed to stay still when her hair is being yanked this way and that and every thirty seconds, another pin is stabbed into the mess of curls, hard enough to hurt? Fingernails dig into palms, pinpricks of pain that she has control over, that are distracting enough to suffer through the rest of her hair styling.

After what seems like hours, she's finally handed a polished silver hand mirror to gaze over the final product.

She cannot deny that her family's staff has made her beautiful.

Her golden waves are piled up into a dignified mass of heat-forced curls atop her head, secured with pearl-accented hairpins, leaving a few tendrils left loose to frame her face. A face that she almost does not recognize as her own, so coated in powder and painted as it is. Porcelain skin, freckles covered by a careful hand so her complexion is even. Pinkness of vitality painted back onto her cheeks and topped with a shimmering dust. Lips of blood red, brighter towards the center. Her eyes are lined with kohl, thick and darkest black, painted into sharp wings extending from her lashline; silvery glitter coats her eyelids and falls into her darkened and lengthened lashes, shimmering in her peripheral vision.

Beautiful.

Ethereal.

Unfamiliar.

It's not as if she'd ever had any choice in the matter.

Standing to view herself as a whole, dress and all, Feyre understands the vision a little bit better. Her gown is strapless, smooth silk, black so dark it makes her skin luminous. Slits up both sides, all the way to her hips, baring the smooth skin of her legs and preventing her from wearing undergarments. A powder-blue sash accents her waist, aids the dress in lifting her breasts and displaying her cleavage. Matching blue gloves that rise past her elbows. Delicate black heels.

Staring back at herself from the mirror is a Lady fit for display.

Gorgeous.

Useless.

On offer.

Every ounce her father's daughter. Property. One and the same, really, in this shithole.

"You look beautiful, Feyre," he says, as if he loves her, but his gaze is the same one he wears when appraising jewels for the Steward. Exacting and avaricious. Calculating.

And she must be the perfect young lady he expects her to be, lest she be blamed for ruining whatever political or otherwise strategic match he wants to make for her. She demures. "Thank you, father."

He hands her a small jewelry box. Something precious. Shallow. Sparkling. Inside lays a pair of silver ear cuffs as well as matching diamond and sapphire earrings long enough to almost brush her shoulders when she wears them. Her father carefully slides the cuffs on, enhancing the delicate points of her ears as the silver fits snug to them. Entreats her to put on the hellaciously ostentatious dangling gems. There is no room in a good daughter's vocabulary for the word 'no'.

She has never been a good daughter, but tonight, she wears the mask.

The less of a scene she makes now, the easier it will be to slip away from the revel uncontested. Under the radar.

There is no Nesta or Elain to hide behind. Not yet, at least, though Feyre wouldn't put it past them to skip her presentation to the court. Just another revel, something that interferes with early preparations for the Solstice party. Just another 'inconvenience'.

No encouragement is spoken as her father guides her out the door to the waiting carriage. Black horses, built from shadow and nightmare, stand, impatient in their reins. Onyx cobblestone under obsidian hooves, anticipation thick in the air, streets silent and oppressive in their complete cover. Faelight lamps cast eerie shadows, providing just enough light to make way by, but never enough to see the cavernous black ceiling that Feyre knows lies above them—traps them. No latecomers rushing down the streets, only the steady rhythm of wheels over uneven ground, the rustle of the velvet curtains in the artificial breeze, the frantic tempo of her heart in her chest. Closer, though, some hurried footsteps and panting breaths, the distant sound of a crowd, insistent pounding of drums, rhythms of practiced dance steps on smooth black marble floors. Roar of voices, lilting music, discordant melodies. Traitorous lungs that continue to draw breath. Heart too frantic to discern one beat from the next. Slip of silk against itself between anxious fingers.

Armor shifting, guards bowing, stone creaking as the grand doors from the upper streets swing wide to allow them through.

A rippling hush falls over the crowd.

Musicians stop, tune transitioning to something more formal, less carnal.

Feyre sits perfectly still, wide-eyed and hating every moment.

"Please welcome to the Court, the youngest Archeron daughter, Lady Feyre," the Steward intones, bored as ever, as the carriage curtains are swept open and she is ushered out and into the open space left for her at the bottom of the grand dais. "Tonight, we celebrate her eligibility for marriage."

She swallows thickly. Curtsies. Keeps her gaze focused on the floor, lest she see the hungry eyes of too many males.

"Thank you, Lord Keir, for this opportunity." The words are soft, subservient. Practiced.

She does not mean them.

The early hours of the revel pass in a blur of male faces. All unremarkable, disappointing, or downright gross. She's asked about her hobbies, her aspirations, her dowry, her virginity, her powers. The last one stings, no matter how used to the ache she is.

Feyre, third Archeron daughter, all-around disappointment. Not sharp and cunning like Nesta, nor soft and gracious like Elain. Not near as beautiful as them either. Unable to summon silver flames and whisper in Death's ear; unable to catch glimpses of the future. Her free time is not spent on feminine, acceptable hobbies, like dancing or flower cultivation, but rather painting (which she returns from covered in a mess of color, unable to keep the pigment contained to just her palette and canvas) and sneaking out. A half-wild beast, Nesta had called her once, when she came to their mother's funeral.

Not wife material.

Glad of it, too, honestly. The males of this court were too covetous for her, too stifling. She would not survive a decade of marriage to one of them without drowning under the flood of their expectations.

But she's supposed to be wife material. An Archeron daughter. A name that means something, gets her into exclusive clubs, gets the guards off her back when they catch her shimmying through an alleyway with a knife she should not have. Youngest child of a powerful family—certainly not destined to be the most powerful of her sisters, but she should have inherited something.

All she seems to have gotten is a penchant for refusing to adhere to expectations and an itch under her skin that yearns for something more.

Face after face, name after name, sweaty palm after sweaty palm, Feyre brushes males off. Polite, but only the minimum amount necessary. Clearly disinterested. Glass after glass of exquisite sparkling wine, pressed into her hand until she has a hard time suppressing her giggles at the inane questions males are asking her. Eventually, the tide of would-be suitors begins to ebb, word spreading that she snubbed the sons of powerful families, the most handsome eligible bachelors in the city, people getting drunk and running to the floor to dance.

Dancing might be nice, she thinks, letting the golden haze of drunkenness surround her and gild the whole scene, if only she were allowed to dance alone.

But no, she's barely allowed to be alone here, her father coming up to her side, disappointment written in the flat line of his lips and gods, she's been good, hasn't snapped at any of the idiot males trying hopelessly to court her, has a smile on her face. "Feyre," he starts, all stern business, no paternal affection to be found. "Despite your best efforts to brush off all of the males you speak to, Lord Thanatos' son is still willing to take you as a wife, thank the Mother."

Her stomach drops to the floor. Throat squeezed tight, she can only stare at him, the man with Elain's eyes—in color only, none of the kindess—and try desperately to blink back tears. "What?"

"Markus Thanatos is willing to have you as a wife, Feyre, and you should be grateful I'm doing you the favor of letting you know before accepting the proposal."

Her marriage, her future, and she can't even bear witness to the proposal, the purchase offer, whatever the fuck it actually is, because it certainly isn't an engagement like in the novels she's slipped from Nesta's room. Not romantic. Whoever the fuck this Markus is—familiarity at the edge of her inebriation, something to do with a family close to the Steward himself—might as well forgo a ring and just literally chain her down like everyone wants him to. No room left to object, to decline, as her father nods decisively, once, and hurries away, quickly lost in the crowd of writhing bodies.

Gods, but she can't cry here. Can't stay here.

In the corner of her vision—blurry, swimming—she spies someone slipping out of a side door.

Right. That's her plan, now. Leave. Go home, or perhaps up to the hidden passageway she'd found years ago, the one that leads to the stars. Anywhere but here.

Anywhere she can pretend that this was all just a bad dream.

The inebriated crowd is laughably easy to slip through unnoticed, even when she totters on her heels and nearly crashes into a servant carrying a tray of wine glasses around, even when brimming tears blur her vision and she accidentally walks half-into another fae. She follows the ambiguous tug of instinct in her chest to one edge of the room. No one seems to pay her any mind, as she lingers at the wall for a long moment before slipping through a small door while no one is watching.

Staring out at the street in front of her, baffled by the familiar, yet incorrect sight. This is not the side of the hall she had entered from, not the side of the hall that opens onto the main thoroughfare home. This street is narrower, with gnarled trees of crystal and luminescent moss decorating the small lawns between the street and the townhouses.

An ache, deep in her soul, as she sees small sculptures crafted talentlessly and splattered with colorful paint lining one windowsill. Made, clearly, by small children's novice hands. There is love there, a flavor of it that she has never known: unconditional.

That is the stoop she elects to sit down on in order to wrestle her heels off without unbuckling them.

To attempt to prevent a flood of tears.

Faelight, soft and blue, illuminates her way as she meanders this neighborhood of families she does not know, gaze flitting between houses hewn directly from the black rock of the mountain and the invisible ceiling above, where she knows stalactites linger in wait. There is no logic driving her path down the smoothly paved sidewalks towards the outskirts of the city; only the feeling that isn't really a feeling, so much as it is an instinct, in her chest, tied to her ribs. As she wanders, a few stray tears skitter down her cheeks, brushed away quickly, moisture and kohl staining the exquisite silk of her powder-blue gloves.

Raw stone townhouses give way to carefully crafted high-rises of shining obsidian and tinted glass, glowing flora growing rarer the further into the urban sprawl she goes.

Hours or minutes pass by, unacknowledged.

The industrialism of the city proper fades, too, eventually.

Crystals grow jagged out of stalagmite tree trunks, pink moss blankets the forest path she walks, soft under her bare feet, shoes abandoned long ago—and when had she stopped even carrying them along with her, gloved hands now empty—and the artificial faelight of society dims until she can barely see.

The glowworms light her way well enough, though, dangling from impossible heights or crawling across crystalline canopies, trailing luminescent silk behind them.

Feyre nearly stumbles when her moss-soft path ends, abruptly intersecting with marble tiles that gleam in faelight so dim she hadn't noticed it. The rough stone of the mountain arises violently upward on the other side of the tiled walkway; sheer cliffs, impenetrable walls, immovable barrier. Gold veins weave their way through the rich black marble, filigreed opulence inlaid. Some base instinct pings in the back of her mind. A warning. Dangerous territory, something so nice yet so inexplicable, so foreign to her.

What use is there for such a regal pathway between the forest's perimiter and the raw edge of the mountain? Who uses it? Does anyone know about it? Why was it built?

A bold thought: what if she could find out?

And why not, after all. She's already here, wandered without directions and little hope of finding her way back here again. The blood in her veins fizzes like the sparkling wine she'd had earlier, sweet and golden and limned in danger—violent in the afterburn. Intoxicating excitement suffuses her brain, happy and carefree and alone, finally alone—

She needs to go left.

There's startling clarity in the knowledge, as if pulled from the marble path itself rather than her brain.

Whatever she's looking for, waiting for, hoping for is there, somewhere, down the path to her left.

Cool stone under bare feet, soft grit of dirt between hardened skin and smooth marble. Silk catching on the rough wall as she carelessly caresses it with one hand. A calm, in the silence, radiating from her sheer solitude. Settled, finally, within herself.

Until she runs directly into something warm and solid.

Uninhibited giggles spill from her lips—alone and drunk and clumsy, tripping and now running into things she definitely should have seen.

The giggles stop abruptly when Feyre finally looks up at what—or rather who—she ran into.

A male who looks like he was born for—born from—the darkness, shadows caressing him like lovers, wrapping him in star-kissed night. The most beautiful male she's ever seen. A tanned face with regal features: sharp cheekbones, strong jaw, hooked, aquiline nose, prominent brow. His soft lips are pulled into a smirk, blue-violet eyes gleaming in the dim light, made brighter by the contrasting black kohl his eyes are lined with. Dark, wavy hair combed into purposeful dishevelment. Miles and miles of tan and tattooed skin on display, whorls and curling symbols in blue-black ink, stark and strong and still, somehow, delicate. Under the tattoos, Feyre notices, he's muscular. Contours of his body, clearly trained for violence, and in the low light the muscles that catch the light shimmer, a light dusting of glitter for a subtle touch of extravagance. As if the silk and lace cape fastened around his sturdy neck wasn't indulgence in and of itself. As if the tight pants were not perfectly tailored to every minute curve of muscle. He's really fucking beautiful.

Unforgettable. Devastating. Familiar.

She digs through her sluggish mind, grasping fruitlessly for that intangible familiarity, just beyond her reach—

"Rhys? Why'd you stop?"

Rhys. An answer to her question, but still unhelpful. She should know him, know Rhys, the reason frustratingly out of her grasp.

"Oh," the same voice chuckles, but there's danger in it, now, palpable, raising goosebumps on Feyre's skin. "What's this?" And then the owner of the voice steps out of the shadows, and she does not have to reach for his name.

The Lord of Bloodshed. Prince of Bastards, if you're being mean about it. Cassian. The Illyrian general himself, far larger than she ever could have imagined, stands just behind Rhys—the answer is here, it is—covered in the dark, scaled fighting leathers he apparently always wears, seven red siphons glowing in the darkness. Hazel eyes focused solely on her. Waiting, it seems, for some reaction.

Instinct has her wanting to cower, to hide from the most infamous warrior in Prythian, one of the deadliest males in the Night Court, save for—

Oh, she is so fucked.

—the High Lord himself.

Rhysand. Rhys, to those close to him.

She should be bowing, she thinks absently, but her body will not cooperate. So thoroughly unprepared. Out of her depth. Feyre must look ridiculous, eyes wide and lips parted in her disbelief, her shock. Standing upright, not greeting the High Lord properly, not playing at obesciance.

"There you are. I've been looking for you," Rhys—Rhysand, she reminds herself, he's the High Lord, not a friend she can refer to by nickname—practically purrs, looking down at her, one perfectly groomed eyebrow raised in question. "What's a sweet little thing like you doing all the way out here in the middle of the night? And dressed in such finery… you look fit for a revel, in fact. Perhaps a runaway from the one that's currently happening in honor of Lord Archeron's youngest daughter?"

He's been looking for her? Feyre doesn't like any of the implications of the statement she can collect in her wine-soaked mind. If he knows so much about the revel, she thinks, it might also be prudent to be able to recognize said daughter, although—is that why he's looking for her?

No, she's not important enough for that.

And what is she even supposed to say? She can't very well lie to her High Lord, the male towering over her, who could reduce her to nothing but a mist of blood with a single thought. Yet she can't very well tell him she ran away from her own celebration, can she?

Feyre chances a glance up at him, and his violet eyes are brighter, dancing with mirth, lips pressed together to stifle a chuckle, as if he could hear her thoughts. Realization slams into her with all the subtlety of a wyrm. The most infamous daemati in Prythian—perhaps the only one—and she'd forgotten, shields down and ignored in her drunken, carefree state. Quickly, she drags up her walls, solid adamant encasing her thoughts, preventing him from having unfettered access.

He almost looks… impressed?

"Lady Feyre, of course," he murmurs.

Hearing her name fall from his lips, in that voice of sumptuous midnight velvet no less, drags Feyre back to reality. She drops into a horrifically improper curtsey, deep as she can go, then rises again. "High Lord, my apologies. I simply… needed some air."

"Half an hour's walk from the throne room, darling?"

Her nose wrinkles at the nickname, automatically bristling at the presumptuous, almost flirtatious familiarity. "It took me… a lot longer than that to get here, I think."

Wrong thing to say. It had just slipped from her tongue without her permission, an easy retort, like she's talking to Nesta, not the fucking High Lord. Her cheeks burn in mortification, but she doesn't apologize.

Rhysand does her the grand favor of not smiting her where she stands. "You're a delightfully honest drunk."

"Yes, High Lord."

A flash of heat overtakes his expression, leaving so quickly she thinks she might have imagined it. His huff of laughter, though, is very real. Dark and dangerous, whiskey burn in her chest at the sound of it. "And so agreeable. Tell me, Feyre darling. Why did you leave your own party?"

There's a trap somewhere in the question. She's sure of it. He'd never be so casual with a citizen—especially not one he knows for sure is absconding from an official court event that he seems to have been planning to make an appearance at. A trap, a trick, something other than genuine curiosity. She can't lay a finger on it.

Something about him, ensconced in darkness, millions of stars shining in his eyes, makes her feel reckless. Free.

"My father seeks to marry me off." Venom in her voice, popping bubbles from the wine bringing the words up to her lips. "I had no say in the matter. And he accepted a fucking proposal on my behalf, to a male who's just… eugh."

A guffaw from Cassian practically echoes off of the stone around them, so loud and unexpected that she starts. It takes her a moment to collect herself.

"I didn't know what else to do. Couldn't stay there, at the very least. So I left. I don't know why I came here, though," she admits, voice smaller now, youth shining through. "I was just wandering, really, following this silly ambiguous feeling."

"Fascinating," Rhysand muses, staring at her now like a puzzle he cannot solve, but desperately wants to.

"Why are you here?"

Another laugh from Cassian. "You're bold, Lady Feyre. I like it."

"Well, I had been planning on attending the revel thrown by Lord Archeron in order to meet his daughter, but it seems I no longer have to seek out that gathering of the drivelling masses, as you've brought yourself right to me."

The words don't make sense. Not in the order he said them, not about her. "You wanted to meet me? Why?"

"Call it a hunch."

"Wow, I appreciate the clarity," she snarks. Then blanches.

And then her whole body fizzes with delight as he laughs, genuine and soft, at her impertinence. The small smile he allows himself lights up his face, and she wonders at the way everyone in the city is so terrified of someone so beautiful—though maybe that's the crux of it? "I have a sense of mystery to maintain, Feyre."

She huffs. A sense of mystery. Sure. More like he doesn't want to hurt her feelings by telling her some unfortunate truth, but fine. There are more important things to ask him. "Are you going to make me go back to that wretched party? My stupid fucking husband-to-be?"

"Cauldron, no. All the better if I can avoid it."

Huh.

Not what she expected, but what's that saying about gifts and horse mouths? Something about—oh, that's it—not looking gift horses in the mouth. She'll take the win where she can get it. And not having to return to the party… well, this is a perfect excuse, isn't it?

"Okay," she says, pausing to think, searching for something else to say, words that will keep the High Lord talking to her, looking at her, trying to puzzle her out. As uncomfortable as his attention makes her, she finds herself not wanting to lose it, craves his burning amethyst gaze on her. Blames her inebriation for the lack of fear, for the impropriety. "I still don't understand what's so interesting about me or what kind of hunch you'd have. I'm… well, defective. Or that's what my family calls it. No magic in me. No more than any other ordinary female you'd pass on the street. My sisters are the ones who have talents and skills with magic you could use. I don't have any." (Blames her inebriation for her self-pitying overshare.)

He does not respond.

A moment later, she feels a sharp talon drag itself along her adamantine mental walls. Curious, probing, almost sensual in the intimacy of her mind. Tapping against places that might be loose, prying into cracks that are not there—Feyre grits her teeth with the effort, but she does not let the High Lord in.

Well then, his resonant purr sounds on the outskirts of her mind, wisp of wind brushing the outer barrier of her invisible walls. Eerie, as if he had whispered in her ear, but even closer. Disconcerting. Your walls are incredibly strong, Feyre. Have you managed to train with a daemati, somehow?

A shake of her head. "No. Just… self-taught, I suppose."

Hm. Would you allow me in to take a little peek at the bit of your mind where powers generally originate? Promise I won't touch anything else.

"There's no way to know if you break that promise."

"There is," he finally says aloud. "We could make a bargain."

"I'm not stupid." A long pause, in which she realizes her error. "My Lord."

Cassian snorts indelicately. "No, you sure aren't. Get his ass!"

The bark of laughter that draws from her is so unladylike that her father might have succumbed to a coronary had he heard it. The quip is just so casual, so unexpected, so irreverent that she can't quite help it. And the Illyrian war general looks incredibly pleased with himself for making her laugh.

"I don't seek to trick you or bind you unfairly," Rhysand says.

It goes against everything she's heard about him. The High Lord of the Night Court delights in subterfuge and trickery, subjugation and violence, showing off his power just for fun. Or so they say. With alcohol buzzing through her veins and feet bare on the marble walkway, he doesn't seem so malevolent. Just… insistent.

Which should scare her.

Shouldn't it?

He should scare her.

She's alone in the woods at the very edge of the city with two strange, incredibly powerful men. She should want to run.

And yet.

There's a foreign feeling in her chest, a wild, inexplicable magnetism, that has her staying.

"Fine." Feyre bites. "Make your offer. I reserve my right to not accept it."

"In exchange for you allowing me access to the part of your brain associated with innate magical powers, I will promise to not touch any other aspect of your mind unless absolutely necessary."

It kind of sounds like a shit deal on her end. She tells him as much, and he laughs.

"What do you want, then, Feyre?"

A question she has long been asking herself. But right now, she'd really love to see the stars, and not have to worry about sneaking around and shimmying through narrow passageways to do so. Deeper than that, though—she desperately longs to be free of the constraints of this city. Of her future husband. That, though, is almost certainly too big an ask.

Her internal battle must show on her face, because Rhysand's voice is gentle as he looks at her. "Say what you really want, darling."

"To leave," she breathes, hardly daring to put the idea out into the universe. "I want to leave here."

When the High Lord frowns, confirming her thoughts about it being too much, she walks it back, stumbling over her words and apologies. "I know it's too much to ask in exchange, I-I'm sorry, you just— you asked what I wanted, what I really wanted, and that's… I guess that's what I've really been wanting for longer than I know. It's just so… dark. Small. Stifling. And I'm just stuck, unable to do much except bend to the whims of my traditionalist father, and— Mother above, I don't even want a husband; I think marrying most of the males down here would lead to—to my untimely demise whether they mean it to o-or not. This one…" She swallows thickly, fighting back the tears that prickle at the backs of her eyes. "Really, if I could just see the stars for a while, in exchange, that would be alright. And maybe—I mean, please, if it's not too much… don't tell my father I said… that?"

A softness in his eyes, one that doesn't belong.

It makes something ache behind her ribs.

"I will not bargain with you to leave, Feyre."

"Yeah, I know, so just— the stars, please, seeing them for a night would be enough, I swear—"

"—Darling, slow down and listen to me."

The command of a High Lord threads through his voice, and she is helpless to do anything but obey, words dying in her throat, thick like tears.

"I will not bargain with you to leave, because that would mean your leaving was contingent on doing something for me, and that's not— I can't abide by that, putting conditions on freedom."

Her brow furrows. "Isn't that, like, your whole thing, though?"

"It is what many think my 'thing', as you so adeptly put it, to be, yes."

"But…?"

"Cauldron boil me, Feyre, I'm trying to help you out here," he snaps, the tight leash of his frustration finally loosened. Ire in his voice, sharp and sour, but it doesn't scare her. Stupid, when she's drunk, truly stupid, to be goading a High Lord. At least she's managed to banish the thought of searching for magic she does not possess from his mind. "Your father is the biggest obstacle."

"No political assassinations," Cassian reminds, deadpan, then winks at Feyre.

She sighs. It was a nice try, but Rhysand is right: her father stands in the way of practically any attempt she could make to leave. He travels around the Night Court regularly enough that no town or city is a safe haven, nowhere is truly free from him. He hadn't managed to succeed in marrying Nesta off—but she had a preternatural strength of will, and so much power that she could scare men off with a single glance. That meant that he'd turned his focus onto Elain and Feyre, because two out of three is still pretty good. Elain, who is now stuck with the idiot son of a lord who cares more about conspiracy theories than actually functioning in court. Feyre, now soon to succumb to a similar fate. "If you'd recall, he is already setting up my fucking betrothal."

Weighted silence. Then, "What if you secure a more advantageous marriage to someone outside of the city?"

"I don't want to move to another court," she whines, petulant. An argument she's too familiar with, has nearly lost one too many times. "I want to stay in Night, just… not this city. I'm—" Tears fall properly now, slipping down Feyre's cheeks despite her best efforts to stem their tide. "I'm suffocating here, underground, without the stars."

Vision blurred with tears, she watches as the High Lord—her High Lord—slowly reaches out to cradle her jaw in his hands (large, so much bigger than hers). Tilts her head up to look into his eyes, violet and teeming with stars. Even a single glimpse of that is enough to loosen some of the chronic constriction around her chest. "Not to anyone from another court, Feyre. To me."

His words echo in her mind, and Feyre's sure she's dreaming or hallucinating or mishearing things because… because… Cauldron, the idea of a High Lord marrying some random lord's powerless daughter from a city he doesn't care about is so absurd she wants to laugh. A little snort escapes despite her efforts to stifle the giggles, and she's laughing now, outright, even as tears continue to trail down her cheeks, wrecking her meticulous makeup, and she must look patently insane, laughing and crying, barefoot in her finery at the edge of the woods in front of Rhysand himself, drunk enough to imagine he might have offered to marry her.

A stage whisper, Cassian's voice, hisses out: "Rhys, I think you broke her. Also, important question, are you out of your fucking mind?"

"Sorry, sorry," she giggles out, looking up at a baffled Rhysand, whose warm hand is still cradling her jaw. "I just—I think I misheard you."

His voice is clipped. "You didn't."

Oh.

Well.

As her jaw drops open in realization, his hand drops from her chin, and she immediately misses the touch, the open air cold in contrast to the heat of his hand.

"Why?"

She doesn't mean to be so insolent, it's just that—well, she's drunk, first of all—his words don't make sense. Him, marry her? A High Lord marrying some random, inconsequential female to help her out from under her father's thumb, to save her from a shitty marriage? It's ridiculous, really.

Add to that the black kohl tear-tracks tracing their way down her cheeks, her undereyes probably smudged to hell so she looks like a raccoon, and she looks like a total mess.

He sighs deeply, and Feyre wonders that he hasn't smited her on the spot yet.

"Why did you think I was going to your party, Feyre?"

This again? She rolls her eyes. "I don't know, because you wouldn't tell me, remember? You and your mysterious 'hunch'."

The grin that spreads across his face is heartbreaking in its beauty, and—no, she can't be checking out the High Lord, even if he does seem to be offering marriage. No matter how beautiful he is, how drawn to him she feels. He's the High Lord of her court, and she's just… a female. Plain. Unremarkable. "I've heard whispers, Feyre; I wanted to see you for myself. Now that I have…" His grin morphs into a feline smirk. "I understand better. And I find you particularly intriguing."

"Finding me intriguing is not a good—oh, what's the fucking word? Base?—wait—basis, that's it—for marriage, Rhysand."

A dangerous quirk of his eyebrow. Perhaps she should not have verbally wagged a finger at her High Lord or called him by his given name, but there are bubbles under her skin and a golden fog in her brain and she is invincible right now. Besides, despite the raised brow, his eyes are sparkling with all those stars, like he enjoys her being a little shit. "Is finding you beautiful a better one? Enjoying your company? Wanting to talk to you?"

Words of… praise, really, that burrow under her skin and warm her from the inside out, this foreign appreciation for her even in her drunk, messy state. The half-wild beast Nesta had oft accused her of being. And the High Lord likes her. Hah. Take that, Nesta. Feyre might let a little huffy laugh of satisfaction out at the thought, but she's not entirely sure, too lost in the sweet oblivion of alcohol and the drugging presence of Rhysand to truly notice.

"That's better," she admits, the alcohol-flush of her cheeks deepening to scarlet under his scrutiny. "But there's no way Father would ever just accept this."

"I'm the High Lord, darling. Certainly he can accept his daughter marrying that far up?"

"No, no, not that," Feyre sighs, frustrated. He's missing the whole point, maybe even on purpose, the obstinate bastard. "He wouldn't believe that someone like you could want someone like me. Not in a love match. And there's no other reason you'd marry me, not to him, because what would you get out of this from me other than a female to lay in your bed and show off as your wife? And I'm not… not worth it."

Is that pain echoing in his eyes? Gone too fast to be sure. "You are worth it, Feyre. And your father has to listen to me, considering I'm the High Lord of this godsdamned court. But if you want to make a spectacle of this… how long of a courtship would be acceptable, do you think?"

She blinks.

"You're, like, dead serious about this." Obviously he is; it just doesn't make sense to her.

"Yes, Feyre."

"But why?"

Before Rhysand can backhand her (or worse) for her impertinence, Cassian clears his throat. "Rhysie here has got a 'feeling'."

Cauldron, finally, someone who will give her answers. His playful energy has chased away her fear of his giant form, even though he still has a massive sword strapped to his back. So has his use of the nickname Rhysie, which she just can't think about right now or she'll burst into a fit of giggles and never be able to recover. More important things are happening. "What kind of feeling?"

"The kind of ambiguous feeling that something important is gnawing at his instincts. Can't explain it. He just… needed to come here for this—for you—and I'm assuming he feels like he needs to do this, too."

Rhysand nods, even as he cuts a scathing glance to his general.

A feeling. A gnawing of instinct. Like—

"Like a feeling you just know where you need to be? That you're following something but you don't know exactly what it is that you're following?"

"Yes, actually," he says, taken aback, and Feyre finds that he looks less like a High Lord now, and more like someone she'd try to dance with at a revel: interesting, handsome, hungry but not entitled to it. Hesitant, unwilling to hope.

Something settles within her chest, like a cat that had been pacing her ribs finally curls up and lays down to sleep behind her sternum. "That's the weird feeling that led me here."

There has to be something more about it, more consequential than just a beneficial arrangement for her marriage. The universe wouldn't conspire to draw her together with a High Lord just for this, would it? She's not—he's too important for this, there has to be a reason, one she's grasping for, fumbling within her mind, her body, uncoordinated, fingertips brushing up against something and then losing it again. Maybe it really is just coincidence. A stroke of luck, a fortunate tug of fate.

"Yeah, okay," she decides, shrugging off the uncertainty. If the handsome, powerful High Lord is offering to marry her, she'd be the biggest fool in Prythian to refuse him. "I'll marry you."