Chapter Text
It was dark.
Always dark.
She had given up on counting the days and years as they passed. She had lost count too long ago.
She had tried at first, with little notches she would claw into the ground of her cell. Over 50,000 notches covered the floor and walls. But it was hard to tell when one day ended and another began. It was even harder to tell how long had passed each time she awoke from passing out.
She was numb. She locked her emotions away long ago as her last survival technique. Every now and again one or two would slip through her hardened walls. She missed them. Mother she missed all of them. She wasn’t even sure if they were all still alive. Not sure what happened to the rest after she watched her mother’s head fall away from her body with the slice of a sword.
That day burned into her mind- full of so many lasts that she hadn’t realized at the time. Her last time seeing the sky. Her last time flying, feeling the wind on her face and her wings on her back. The last time seeing her beautiful mother, hearing her laughing in pure freedom she only let loose far away from her mate and high in the skies. Her last time seeing him.
They were ambushed. They were on their way to surprise her brother for his birthday. Next thing she knows, an arrow pierces her wing. The pain was blinding. More arrows found their mark and her and her mother fell from the sky- right into the waiting arms of the Spring Court High family. She pleaded with the High Lord- first to save her wings. She thought losing them was the worst thing that could ever happen to her. It was almost comical now, how fast that thought was proven wrong. She begged him to let her mother go while he held that damn sword above her neck. He did not listen. Her mother’s scream still haunts her nightmares. Vivid depictions of her head being put in a box and being sent down the river- the current leading to where Rhys was stationed. She wondered if he ever got the worst birthday present ever- his mother’s head. Or if he missed the box, and it floated away into nothing.
Next thing she knew, a cloth dowsed in faebane was forced over her screaming mouth as the High Lord pulled her head back by her hair and whispered, “Don’t worry, we have other plans for you” , in her ear.
She awoke in the cursed ashwood cell. There were no windows, and it was cold. There was one door that remained bolted shut. In the right backhand corner, there was a slab of wood that used to have hay on it as a make shift bed. In the back left corner, a hole was carved into the ground to relieve herself. And on the opposite wall, there was a small woodened table. At random intervals, a glass of water and a plate of food (if you could really call the slab of mush food) appeared. It was laced with faebane. If she didn’t eat it within the first minute of it’s arrival- it would disappear.
For years, she was tortured for information on her court. The questions ranged from what Rhys had been like as a child, who his friends were, to what Amren was, to the layout of Hewn City, to the Illyrians. But the hardest questions for her always revolved around the infamous shadowsinger. Her shadowsinger.
She could barely remember what he looked, even in her dreams now she could only ever truly make out his eyes. But, she remembered how he made her feel- alive and loved.
The questions and “what ifs?” haunted her. And every time they went unanswered she died a little more. Were they alive? If no, what happened? If yes, where were they? Why had they not come to her? Why had he not come for her?
She tried to gain information from the questions they asked. Tried to piece together what it all meant and where she was. Her torturers did not look like they were from the Spring Court. Hybern was a name that popped up more than once over the centuries. But after a while- she had no new information to give. Nothing she knew was current anymore. So, they stopped asking her questions. She hated it. At least when they cut her open to learn details about Rhysand it meant that he was most likely still High Lord. Or when they whipped her back to demand how Azriel’s shadows worked that he was still alive. No questions meant no information.
She tried to beg for her freedom then. And on her weaker days, she begged for her death. Their answer was always the same, “you are our best kept secret, a bargaining tool like no other”.
So, she waited, and waited, but nothing ever came. And one day she realized that it had been a suspiciously long without someone coming to check on her or even smack her around because they could. Panic gripped her- they had forgotten about her. It had been at least a year- thankfully or unthankfully, the cell still delivered food. She had tried more than once to starve herself. At first it was to see if any power would fill her veins again. When it became obvious that wasn’t going to work, she tried to starve herself to death. But at the last second, when she was on the brink, something deep within her chest wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t allow her to end what had become an awful life, and she would shove the food down her throat.
And so she waited.
Until one day she was awoken to a shadow around her wrist and the door being blast open.