It had been a year since I had stalked through that labyrinth of snow and ice and killed a faerie with hate in my heart.

My family's emerald-roofed estate was as lovely at the end of winter as it had been in the summer. A different sort of beauty, though— the pale marble seemed warm against the stark snow piled high across the land, and bits of evergreen and holly adorned the windows, the archways, and the lampposts. The only bit of decoration, of celebration, humans bothered with. Not when they'd banned and condemned every holiday after the War, all a reminder of their immortal overseers.

Three months with Amarantha had destroyed me. I couldn't begin to imagine what millennia with High Fae like her might do the scars it'd leave on a culture, a people.

My people or so they had once been.

Hood up, fingers tucked into the fur-lined pockets of my cloak, I stood before the double doors of the house, listening to the clear ringing of the bell I'd pulled a heartbeat before. waited, unseen.

Behind me, hidden by Rhys's glamours, my three companions I'd told them it would be best if I spoke to my family first. Alone.

I shivered, craving the moderate winter of Velaris, wondering how it could be so temperate in the far north, but... everything in Prythian was strange. Perhaps when the wall hadn't existed, when magic had flowed freely between realms, the seasonal differences hadn't been so vast.

The door opened, and a merry-faced, round housekeeper -Mrs.Laurent, I recalled— squinted at me. "May I help..." The words trailed off as she noticed my face.

With the hood on, my ears and crown were hidden, but that glow, that preternatural stillness... She didn't open the door wider.

"I'm here to see my family," I choked out.

"Your-your father is away on business, but your sisters..." She didn't move.

She knew. She could tell there was something different, something off

"Mrs. Laurent?"

Something in my chest broke at {{user}}’s voice from the hall behind her.