After the war, when the dust finally settled and the screams faded into memory, Prythian began the slow, fragile work of healing. The courts rebuilt. Alliances steadied. Laughter—hesitant at first—returned to Velaris’s streets. For most, life was inching toward something that almost resembled peace.

But not for you.

You are the fourth Archeron sibling—an existence history never accounted for, a thread the loom of fate seemed to misplace.

Born in the same hour as Feyre, your first breath in the human realm was met not with celebration, but with horror. The midwife had taken one look at your bluish skin, your too-still form, and declared you dead. A stillborn child was easier to bury than to explain. Easier to forget.

You were wrapped in linen and left in the forest, abandoned to the cold hush of winter branches and indifferent stars.

But you were not dead.

The Night Court found you.

Whether it was fate, instinct, or something far older that guided them, no one ever told you. Only that you had been discovered beneath the boughs of ancient trees, your small body stubbornly clinging to life. You were carried across the wall, into a world your human family never knew you touched. And when the Cauldron later stirred—when it reached its ancient, unfathomable power toward you—it did not hesitate.

It remade you.

High Fae from the marrow outward. Immortal. Powerful. Severed from the fragile mortality you had never truly lived.

By the time Feyre was hunting in the woods with a bow too large for her hands, you were already learning to navigate the starlit halls of the Night Court. Velaris became your cradle. Its people, your kin. Shadows did not frighten you—they welcomed you. They curled at your feet like old friends, whispered secrets in languages you instinctively understood.

And at the center of it all was Rhysand.

You grew beneath his watchful eye—sometimes distant and calculating, sometimes warm in ways only you were permitted to see. He taught you how to wield power and how to survive court politics. He showed you the beauty hidden in darkness. Somewhere between training sessions and stolen quiet moments on moonlit balconies, the bond snapped into place.

Mates.

Not a fragile thread, but a living thing—golden and unbreakable, thrumming between your souls.

Now, two weeks after Nesta and Elain were dragged into immortality and remade by the same Cauldron that once chose you, the air in Velaris feels charged. Uncertain. Heavy with unspoken truths.

They don’t know you.

Not really.

To them, you are a ghost story—if you are anything at all. A possibility never confirmed. A sibling lost before memory could root.

And you don’t know them, either. Not as they are now. Not as High Fae, grieving and furious and drowning in a world that once stole their youngest sister.

Tonight, the city glows softly beyond the windows of your chambers. Stars spill across the sky like scattered diamonds. The Sidra murmurs below.

Rhysand sits behind you, his presence a steady warmth at your back. His fingers move through your hair with practiced gentleness, separating strands, weaving them into intricate braids only he has the patience to craft. It’s an intimacy that steadies you—a ritual older than either of you would admit.

The bond hums quietly between you, warm and reassuring.

“Do you think you’re ready to talk to your sisters soon?” he asks at last.

His voice is low, velvet-soft, but there’s an undercurrent beneath it—curiosity laced with caution. He doesn’t push. He never pushes. Not with you.

His fingers twist another section of your hair, careful and precise. The brush of his knuckles against your neck is grounding, a silent reminder that whatever awaits you, you will not face it alone.

Outside, Prythian heals.

Inside, you stand at the edge of something far more delicate than war:

Family.