"Her wings are made of starlight."
In which a mortal girl and an immortal Illyrian
are gifted neighboring cells Under The Mountain
and change each other's lives forever.
𝑨𝑪𝑶𝑻𝑨𝑹 -
...
𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓. chapter one; A New Neighbor " A name is a precious thing. I won't have it taken from me. "
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
NIXIE COULD HEAR a hushed conversation conspiring in the cell to her right. She heaved her heavy body onto the wall shared, grasping at any sign of life in that dark, cold place.
The only voices she'd heard regularly were those of Amarantha's cronies-- those without spines or twisted morals that had quickly fallen into her legion. The same voices that taunted and tortured, Nixie knew their accents and dialect like the back of her soot-covered hand.
These sounded new. Unfamiliar. She'd heard the news that Amarantha had brought Tamlin and the Spring Court under the mountain, so she safely assumed they were members of the Spring Court that had found themselves on someone's bad side.
She saw the man depart, his fire-red hair burning through the dark as he passed by.
He spared her a glance, an elaborate mask covering the upper half of his face, though still, Nixie could recognize Tamlin's right-hand man.
Lucien's eyes went wide for a moment. Despite the history between Tamlin and Rhys, he couldn't help but feel his heart sink.
Amarantha had done this. To Nixie. He hadn't even known she'd resided Under the Mountain, and the last time he'd seen the woman flashed in his mind.
If she could reduce that woman to this sad sight, all he could do was fear what Amarantha could do to his own friends.
Nixie wiggled her fingers in a wave, which seemed to snap Lucien out of his daze, his feet carrying him away from the girls quickly.
She leaned against the stone wall, wishing to reach out to the girl captured as she was. Until, footsteps approached her, light and nimble, and that soft thread inside her twinged to inform her that her High Lord approached.
"Rhys?"
The hoarse croak alerted Feyre, she spotted Rhysand approaching-- though her brows furrowed as he stopped at the cell before her own.
"I don't have much time, I'm sorry--"
I'm sorry. Something she had heard millions of times over the course of fifty years. He was sorry for bringing her, sorry for how he had to act, what he had to say, sorry for where she sat, sorry for her lack of food, sorry for her clothing.
"Seeing my brother once every few months enough to keep me going," Nixie admitted tiredly, pulling herself towards the front of the cell where Rhys crouched lowly.
Her wings dragged behind her, the woman unable to lift them.
Rhys had feared from the very first day that she would take them. Clip Nixie's wings, take away her freedom. But Amarantha had long ago decided to keep this as an option for another time. It was a threat when Rhys grew too confident, or when Nixie became irritable or otherwise useless.
