Map

Map. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had always been this broken, this dark. It felt as though some part of me had always been scarred, even long before I found myself in this hellish position. Perhaps someone with a pure heart, someone whole and untouched by the harsh realities of the world, would have chosen to lay down the dagger and embrace the finality of death instead of taking another life. But not me. The blood was everywhere—soaked into the stone floor, staining the surroundings with the weight of an innocence I had shattered. It was hard to even breathe in the presence of it, the stench of death mingling with the air around me. My fingers, still clutched tightly around the dagger, trembled, the only thing that anchored me in this suffocating moment.

The High Fae youth lay before me, his body sprawled across the cold marble, lifeless and cold. I couldn’t escape the sight of him, couldn’t tear my eyes away from the consequences of my actions. My mind screamed for mercy, for relief from this torturous reality, but my body betrayed me. Amarantha’s voice, like a snake in the grass, purred from her throne, breaking through the haze of my thoughts. “Good,” she said. “Again.” Her words, so cold and detached, sent a wave of disgust through me, and I could feel my grip on reality slipping further. Another victim, another life to claim. Another ash dagger awaited me, its cold hilt a grim reminder of the path I had been forced to walk. The ritual was always the same, the sacrifice of another soul to fuel her twisted games.

This time, it was a female, her head bowed in submission, waiting for me to be the one to end her life. The words of the prayer echoed in my mind, a litany of death that I had come to know all too well. I knew what I had to do. I had killed before, and I would kill again. There was no room for hesitation, no time for mercy. In the name of freeing Tamlin, in the name of stopping Amarantha’s reign, I had become a murderer. And the worst part was that I didn’t know if I could ever forgive myself. My hands, stained with the blood of innocence, trembled as I raised the dagger once more. But the world around me seemed to blur, as though even reality itself was wavering under the weight of the choices I had made.

“Whenever you’re ready, lovely Feyre,” Amarantha taunted, her voice dripping with amusement as she watched me with cruel eyes. Her fiery red hair gleamed like a beacon of malice, a stark contrast to the horror unfolding before us. I could almost hear her taunting me, calling me a monster, and yet, I didn’t know anymore if I was the monster or if I had become something worse: a puppet controlled by forces beyond my understanding. The lines between me and Amarantha had long since blurred, and I no longer knew who I was becoming. The blood of the youth was still fresh on my hands, and it was hard to reconcile the image of the girl I once was with the killer I had become. A new layer of disgust washed over me, threatening to drown me in its depths, but I couldn’t stop now.

With my fingers shaking, I dropped the dagger. The clang of the blade hitting the ground echoed through the silence, mixing with the sound of blood dripping from the wounds I had inflicted. The blood splattered onto my boots, remnants of a life I could barely remember. I could feel the weight of my past slipping away, slipping further into the abyss, but the future seemed just as dark, just as uncertain. The female before me, her hood still in place, awaited her fate, her body unmoving as she braced herself for death. I reached for the second dagger, the cool steel biting into my hand, a reminder that there was no escape from what I had become. The guards removed her hood, revealing her face, and I couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking in her final moments. Did she fear me? Or was she resigned to the fate I had brought upon her?