In Chap­ter 3, The cold bite of win­ter was unfor­giv­ing as Feyre and her sis­ters, Elain and Nes­ta, trudged through the snow-laden streets of their vil­lage, each step echo­ing the qui­et des­per­a­tion that had become a con­stant in their lives. The town, built of dull stone and weath­er-worn wood, bore the weight of harsh sea­sons and hard­er times, its peo­ple bun­dled against the wind, hag­gling for neces­si­ties they could bare­ly afford. Today, the mar­ket teemed with rare ener­gy, the usu­al still­ness replaced with the sounds of bar­ter­ing and the occa­sion­al cheer of a lucky sale, a fleet­ing dis­trac­tion from the ever-present hunger gnaw­ing at their bel­lies.

Clutch­ing the bun­dled pelts she had worked tire­less­ly to pre­pare, Feyre led her sis­ters toward the stalls, hop­ing the earn­ings would stretch beyond mere sur­vival to afford them a rare indulgence—perhaps a pinch of spice or even a bit of fresh meat. Their finan­cial strain was evi­dent in the way Elain longed for things they could nev­er afford, and in the sharp con­trast of Nesta’s hard­ened exte­ri­or, a pro­tec­tive shell carved from years of endur­ing hard­ship. The weight of their exis­tence pressed against them as they wove through the market’s nar­row paths, their worn boots bare­ly keep­ing the snow at bay.

Their jour­ney was momen­tar­i­ly inter­rupt­ed by a chance encounter with a group of young women draped in pale robes, their eyes alight with fer­vor as they spread their mes­sage to those will­ing to lis­ten. The Chil­dren of the Blessed, a sect that revered the High Fae as divine beings, moved among the vil­lagers, offer­ing promis­es of pro­tec­tion and sanc­tu­ary to any who would renounce their human lives and embrace servi­tude in the faerie courts. Feyre felt her stom­ach twist at the sight of them, their blind devo­tion a stark reminder of the divide between those who feared the fae and those who fool­ish­ly sought their favor.

Nes­ta, nev­er one to bite her tongue, met the acolytes with open dis­dain, flash­ing the iron bracelet she always wore—a tan­gi­ble sym­bol of resis­tance against faerie mag­ic. Her voice was sharp, laced with anger, as she dis­missed their beliefs as delu­sions, a stance Feyre silent­ly agreed with. Though she, too, despised the fae for what they had tak­en from humans, she knew bet­ter than to draw their atten­tion. The ten­sion between the sis­ters and the acolytes lin­gered in the air before they final­ly part­ed ways, leav­ing behind the dis­tant echoes of the Children’s impas­sioned pleas.

At the mar­ket, Feyre sought out the usu­al buy­ers, but it was a mercenary—a woman marked by scars and the pres­ence of wealth beyond what a vil­lager could attain—who caught her atten­tion. The stranger exam­ined the furs with a cal­cu­lat­ing gaze, her con­fi­dence radi­at­ing a kind of silent pow­er that made Feyre wary yet intrigued. She paid a gen­er­ous sum, more than Feyre had antic­i­pat­ed, and though the mon­ey pro­vid­ed relief, the woman’s words car­ried a warn­ing: the dan­gers lurk­ing in the woods were grow­ing.

The mer­ce­nary spoke of things that sent a chill down Feyre’s spine, of crea­tures that did not belong in the mor­tal world, their pres­ence a whis­per of some­thing dark­er creep­ing through the lands. Tales of the mar­tax, mon­strous beings with insa­tiable hunger, and the ever-grow­ing threat of faerie mag­ic, once kept at bay, now stretch­ing its influ­ence beyond Prythian’s bor­ders. Though Feyre prid­ed her­self on her inde­pen­dence, the weight of the warn­ing set­tled deep in her bones, a qui­et alarm she could not shake.

With their pock­ets heav­ier than expect­ed, the sis­ters made their way back through the snow, the ear­li­er ten­sion still lin­ger­ing between them. Though Nesta’s sharp tongue remained unchanged and Elain’s hope­ful gaze drift­ed toward friv­o­lous things, Feyre could not stop her­self from glanc­ing toward the dis­tant tree­line, where shad­ows stretched long and omi­nous beneath the set­ting sun. The world was shift­ing, and though she did not yet under­stand how, she could feel it creep­ing clos­er with each pass­ing day.