Chapter Text
Hunger.
That’s the first thing I feel as I silently go through the woods. The pang in my stomach has gotten familiar, but there are mouths to feed. And, with there being less and less deer, chances of sleeping with a full stomach are near to none. I only managed to catch two rabbits this week with the snares, and both were famished, just as I was. Relying on the market is no good either, as goods themselves are at a price we cannot afford. Too many marks, and there is nothing left in savings. Winter has not been kind to my family or the village, and though we generally suffer the most, everyone is hit hard. This winter has truly been unforgiving.
Everyone is going through their own conflicts and own lives. And yet, I can’t bring myself to feel sorry for others. Here, mostly everyone is on their own.
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“Marriage or starvation,” Nesta once told me, picking at her nails, not bothering to look at me. It was like I wasn't worth her time. “Perhaps Thomas will ask for my hand, or Greyson will ask for Elain’s.”
"Nesta, we can find another way." I pause, and then decide to go for the words. "You cannot run off with Thomas Mandray like some-"
"A what? A whore? Is that what you were going to say, Feyre?" Nesta accents my name with such a ferocious intensity that I almost believe she will incinerate me with like icy, but flaming gaze of hers. "Do not advise me on the decisions I make. Mother was right about you at some moments."
I can imagine the painting: Silver Flame. Like our mother, there is power in Nesta's gaze. Not literal, of course, but I can imagine it there if she were something Other. However, rage takes over once again. Nesta and I have been at each other's throats, even before our mother's death. I start.
"Nesta-"
"-Quiet. We need the money, Feyre. Do you not see? Do you not see that this is our only option? All that we have lost, we could gain once more. Our home, the ships, everything. What is it that you need to convey to me so with such urgency?"
I bite back a remark. Nesta hushing me like I'm some toddler does no good in quelling my anger.
"Open your eyes, Nesta. You're making foolish decisions! The Mandrays, they!-. . .What is it that you have done after all these months of poverty and. . ."
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My memories of that day are cloudy, but as much as Nesta irritated me to a point I could not put it into words, a tiny part of me did hope she was right when she said those things. Maybe someone would pull out of this miserable life and thrust us up into the world. We could be rich once and for all. My mother gave Nesta's lessons on etiquette. The slap of the stick was normal in the manor. Yet, Nesta never flinched at the pain and was always our mother’s favorite, for she saw her eldest as promising and most likely to have suitors at her feet. But there was no warm love in my mother’s gaze. Her look was almost imperious, like an empress would look at her heirs. To her, I was least promising. To this day, I am not sure what she saw in me while she was on her deathbed—as she was dying from the illness that ruined her body and devoured it in a ravenous manner. What did she see in me that night, as she grasped my hand weakly and told me, “take care of them”? I don’t have Nesta's steel, or Elain's gentle gaze. I am like mud—undesirable, stubbornly sticking to whatever it lands on but washes away just as easily. No one would want me or fall at my feet. No one would worship me like a goddess. That is the brutal truth.
“Not all of us are born for greatness,’’ Mother used to say when she was lecturing us. She would always hold my gaze a little longer than with my sisters, because my mother picked me out as the weed in the roses.
Weeds and roses grow on her grave now, unkept and untamed. No one has cut them in years.
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The river that I cross over to get to the hunting grounds is mostly frozen. The water is cold, instantly getting in my boots. The bridge, a rickety thing made of large planks, collapsed years ago, and I doubt the village has the money to have a new one built. The ice reflects my face at me as I peer into the frozen water. My skin has been dulled over the years, and I am thin in a way that would concern a stranger if they ever came across me. My hair is dull just as much as my skin, and the vibrant blues in my eyes have become a light gray. I look well-starved.
Here is the truth that I acknowledge: adoration and love are not for me. The closest thing to a lover is Isaac Hale, and all he will ever be is a stress reliever. Young like me, yet neither of us is full of love for the other. Fucking in a barn like animals, and everything else is mutual. Detached could be a better word for it. I chase the high because of the pleasure, nothing more. There is no connection between us, no soulmate nonsense like some strange people speak about in the marketplace. His family isn’t much better off than ours, and something tells me that he would not want me. There would be no flowers, rings, or money, not that I would consider myself greedy. The best I could marry would be a farmer, if I was ever lucky.
A rustle snaps me out of my train of thought. Food is the first word that comes to my mind.
The noise comes from a few feet away. Holding my bow in a ready position, I silence my steps as I walk through the snow. Luckily enough I am well hidden by a tree, so my position will not be given away. I would hate to scare away the only possible chance of dinner that me and my family have. During the summer, our chances were still low. They have been ever since the debtors stole everything. Our father has done nothing since the debtors damaged his leg so badly. The little wood carvings were a miniscule effort, something that did not assist much. Truly, I envy those who live with full stomachs and witness happy smiles. And the sight I came across would have made a younger Feyre—if nothing had gone wrong—smile with giddy glee.
It’s a doe. A doe and her fawn. Typically, deer would have been hibernating in their dens, safe from hunters, wolves or anything wanting meat in its stomach. I would have been trying to pet it, as I was a curious girl—always ready to take the risks and achieve my objective of the day. However, as I look over the prey with an eye that conveys how much a deer can feed, I know those days are gone.
I feel pity. Sudden, overwhelming pity. This is the part of me that still hopes, the one that still believes I can spare the mother and her offspring. But my stomach rumbles, and I know that I am hungry. So is Nesta. And Elain. And our father. Even though they do nothing to assist, I cannot fail them.
I raise my bow. Aim, draw, release. Aim, draw, release. Simple. Not difficult at all. I aim at the mother.
The part of me that thought life would get better and would involve me picking daisies with Elaine or arguing over dress with Nesta finally realizes something.
I release the arrow. The fawn bleats out a cry as its mother falls in the snow, the snow being stained with deep crimson. If I was young and unscarred, I would have wept upon the sight. The fawn stumbles before taking off, panicking and likely terrified. I ready another arrow, but it’s only to put the mother out of her mercy, just in case. Watching the fawn stumble away, I know the feeling of helplessness all too well—the day the debtors crashed into our manor, taking everything and harming my father as I watched his blood stain the wooden floors beneath him as I released bile all over those floor, wailing—screaming—for them to stop hitting him.
I ignore the fawn and pull out my knife. I need to skin the carcass before it becomes frozen. It’s best to do it while it’s still hot. It's easy for the salt to soak in the way for preservation. I make the first cut, but then my hand jolts, like how someone would move the arm of a puppet using strings. My entire body stiffens, and the knife slips from my hands. I swivel around towards the direction of the terrified fawn involuntarily. My expression might as well be matching the fawn's.
Both of us look terrified out of our minds.
‘I can't move,’ I think. 'I can’t, what is—oh, gods.'
I do my best to convince myself that it's all stories meant to scare children and get them to bed, but my fear spikes as I feel hands—solid, but not—touch me. One on my dominant hand, and one on the other. They feel like they are light, but heavy at the same time. They are cold, so cold to the point that it almost causes me physical pain. I don’t dare look behind me. I strain, trying to fight this, but I know. I know.
No mortal is a match for a creature that comes from beyond the Wall.
A let out a noise between a scream and a yell as the unseen hands make me aim toward the fawn, pull back the string, and fire. The bleating stops the moment I hear the THWACK of the arrow puncturing a heart. More crimson soaks into the snow. The forest is silent, but my scream echoes.
That hopeful part of me?
It was a fool.