Chapter Text
Clare Beddor's days always began the same way, immersed in the predictable calm of a life without major upheavals. She would wake to the pale morning light, hear the familiar sounds of the servants tidying the manor house, and find the comfort of a routine that seemed protected from any evil of the outside world.
Winter had arrived early that year.
Frost covered the fields around the Beddor estate like a second skin, crystallizing the dry leaves and making the world too silent. Inside, however, the manor house remained warm, the crackling of firewood in the fireplaces mingled with the distant clinking of porcelain and the sweet smell of freshly baked cinnamon bread coming from the kitchens. The warmth inside seemed to fight against the ice that tried to seep in through the cracks.
Clare Beddor observed the gray landscape through the high window of her room while distractedly twirling the small pendant around her neck. The dark stone attached to the chain tapped lightly against her fingers, smooth and worn by the years. It was her mechanical safe haven. Whenever she felt lost in her own thoughts or anxious about the future, her fingers sought the texture of that stone, as if the object's solidity could anchor her to reality.
It was a simple object. Without shine, without ornaments, or any apparent value.
Yet, it had passed through the women of the family for generations.
Her grandmother used to say it belonged to the Beddor family long before any of them were born. Her mother would just laugh when the subject came up and repeat that certain traditions existed because no one wanted to be the one responsible for breaking them.
So Clare continued to wear it. More out of habit than attachment.
Behind her, soft footsteps and the metallic sound of a tray broke the silence of the room.
"Miss Clare?"
She turned, letting the pendant fall back against the fabric of her dress.
Azalea stood by the door, holding a tray of steaming coffee and a few slices of cake in her hands. The pale morning light touched her dark hair and softened her delicate features.
"You didn't come down for breakfast," she said, approaching and placing the tray on the bedside table. "Your mother asked for you twice. And the bread will get cold."
Clare smiled slightly, feeling the warmth of the room increase with her presence.
Azalea was always there.
More present than the sound of rain on the roof during winter. More constant than family dinners or weekend masses. Since they were little, when they shared secrets hidden behind the curtains of the living room, their days seemed to follow the same silent order, Azalea straightening dresses, sorting books, complaining about the mess in her room. There was a deep comfort in that shared routine.
"I'll be right there," Clare replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
Azalea didn't move immediately.
Her gaze lingered on Clare for a few seconds, analytical, as if reading between the lines of her posture.
"Are you alright, Miss?"
Clare raised an eyebrow, letting out a nasal laugh.
"Of course. Why?"
Azalea hesitated, her knuckles lightly tightening around her clean apron.
"I don't know… it just seems like something happened. Your eyes seem distant today."
A sudden, cold wind surged through the cracks in the window, making the candle flame on the counter flicker.
Clare clutched the stone pendant unconsciously, feeling an involuntary shiver run up her arms. For an instant, just a millisecond, a strange, suffocating sensation washed over her, as if the ground beneath her feet had vanished by a hair's breadth.
She blinked, pushing away the discomfort.
"It's just the cold, Azalea." She smiled, “Let's go downstairs before my mother comes and gets me by the ears.”
Clare came down for breakfast a few minutes later, followed by the soft sound of Azalea's footsteps.
The hallways of the mansion were already fully awake. Servants crisscrossed the path carrying wicker baskets full of bread and steaming jugs of milk, low voices and laughter echoed from the neighboring rooms, and from somewhere far downstairs came the terribly out-of-tune sound of one of the stable boys trying to play the lute.
Everything was so familiar it was almost suffocating, but it was the kind of suffocation that brought peace.
She ran her fingers along the polished, worn wood of the banister as she descended the stairs, feeling the grooves of the material under her palm. The morning sun streamed in through the tall windows, drawing warm, golden streaks across the stone floor. It was a beautiful, silent spectacle.
When she entered the dining room, the smell of fresh coffee and butter enveloped her. She found her mother seated at the head of the table, organizing mail while taking a sip of her herbal tea. Lady Beddor was the type of woman who never seemed disheveled, even early in the morning, the loose strands of her hair seemed to be perfectly in place.
On the other side of the table, a girl of about twelve was completely focused, oblivious to the rest of the world.
Screws, golden metal pieces, a twisted spring and a small disassembled object cruelly scattered on the white linen tablecloth.
Clare narrowed her eyes, approaching with silent steps.
"Clemence."
The girl raised her head immediately, a jolt wiping the guilt from her face for a second.
"I can explain."
"I haven't even asked anything yet," Clare retorted, pulling the chair beside her.
"Great, because I'm still formulating the explanation in my head."
Lady Beddor closed her eyes for a moment, massaging her temples elegantly.
On the table, among the porcelain breakfast plates, lay what had probably once been a beautiful pocket watch belonging to their grandfather. Now, it looked like the victim of a mechanical massacre.
"Clemence found this broken yesterday in the library cupboard," said their mother, her voice too tired to sound truly angry. "And she decided to take it apart during breakfast, on top of her food."
"I'm not destroying it, I'm trying to fix it!" protested the youngest, her cheeks flushed with indignation.
"You took half of it apart, Clemence."
"Exactly. That's how you learn how things work on the inside."
Clare stifled a laugh with her hand, sitting down and helping herself to a slice of bread. Without resisting, she stretched out her arm and affectionately ruffled the brown hair that escaped her sister's braid. Clemence grumbled, but leaned slightly toward Clare, accepting the affection.
Near the door, Azalea quickly turned her face away, hiding a knowing smile that Clare caught in a glance.
Clemence resumed fiddling with the parts, her fingertips stained with grease, her brow furrowed with almost fierce concentration.
Small. She was still so small and full of genuine curiosity. Clare felt a warm pang in her chest as she looked at her. She wanted to protect her from the harshness of the world forever.
"Your brother sent another letter," her mother commented, breaking the silence and extending a piece of paper.
Clare looked up, wiping her fingers on the napkin. Lady Beddor separated one of the letters and handed it to her eldest daughter. The blue wax seal of the capital was still intact on one end.
"Clovis wrote last night."
Clemence immediately abandoned the gears, her eyes shining.
"He mentioned me? Did he buy the picture book he promised me?”
"I haven't read it all yet," replied the mother.
"That's an injustice of real proportions.”
The father, who had just entered the room quietly, smiled discreetly at the sound of his youngest daughter's words. He walked over to his wife, placing a soft kiss on the top of her head before helping himself.
"He asked if Clare still spends too much time locked in her room reading," Lady Beddor continued, pointing to the paper.
"Traitor," Clare muttered, though a genuine smile had appeared on her lips. She missed the literary discussions with her brother.
"He also complained about his studies," added her father, cutting a piece of cheese. "Apparently the professors at the Royal Academy insist on making them wake up before sunrise for rhetoric classes."
"That's inhumane," declared Clemence with absolute solemnity, before returning to fitting a tiny metal piece with the help of a butter knife.
Clare unfolded the letter, smelling the familiar scent of the paper Clovis used. His handwriting was as neat and firm as she remembered.
Winter in the capital is terrible, Clare. The wind cuts my face like a razor. I can't believe I would miss homemade bread until I tasted the stone they serve here in the cafeteria. I also report that I survived the third politics class without sleeping, which I consider an extraordinary feat worthy of a medal.
She smiled unconsciously, her heart warmed by her brother's voice echoing in her mind through those lines. Clovis always wrote like that. As if he were talking. As if he were still sitting at that table, stealing the jams from their plates.
Her gaze drifted down the final lines.
Tell Clemence that taking things apart isn't the same as fixing them. If she breaks Grandpa's clock, I'll know.
"He really wrote that?" Clemence asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.
Clare laughed loudly, waving the paper in the air.
"Word for word. He knows the piece he has at home."
"Definitely a traitor. I'm going to write a terrible reply for him."
Lady Beddor sighed, but there was sweetness in her eyes. Azalea finally let out a small smile as she gathered some empty cups, moving with her usual grace around the room.
The conversations continued lightly for a few more minutes, filled with the sound of winter howling softly outside and the warmth of home inside. Clemence had abandoned any attempt to hide what she was doing, small gears and screws were meticulously arranged beside her plate, while the skeleton of the disassembled clock occupied a considerable space on the table.
Lady Beddor observed everything with the comfortably weary expression of someone who had already accepted certain daily battles as lost.
"I received news from the village this morning before coming here," commented Lord Beddor, wiping his mouth with his napkin and breaking the rhythm of the laughter.
Lady Beddor raised her eyes from her teacup.
"Something important, dear? Any problems with the crops because of the frost?"
"Not exactly. Just comments." Mostly tavern gossip.
He set one of the business letters down on the table, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening slightly.
"They're still talking about the Archerons."
Clare looked up from her slice of bread, pausing her movements. The name seemed familiar, echoing somewhere in her mind, though she couldn't quite place where she knew it from. A strange, cold, subtle sense of déjà vu pinched the back of her neck.
"The merchant family that went bankrupt?" asked her mother, adjusting her posture in her chair.
Lord Beddor nodded, his voice dropping a tone.
"It seems so."
Clemence momentarily abandoned her gears, wiping her dirty hands on her dress before her mother noticed.
"What happened to them? Were they evicted from the cabin?"
"Nothing new," replied her father, staring intently at the contents of his cup. “They just still find the whole situation very strange.”
“Strange what, Father?” insisted the girl, leaning forward.
Lady Beddor set her tea down with a soft click against the saucer.
“Their youngest daughter, Feyre, disappeared some time ago. They said she was taken by a monster or something.”
“And soon after she vanished, the family recovered all their fortune,” added Lord Beddor, shaking his head skeptically. “They bought new lands, businesses on the coast, servants, fine clothes. They went from utter poverty to opulence.”
Clemence blinked, her eyes wide with childlike curiosity.
"Overnight? Like magic?"
"Pretty much."
She looked to Clare for support.
"That's very suspicious. Clearly there's witchcraft involved, or pirate treasure."
Clare rested her elbow on the table, chin on her hand as she watched her sister's fertile imagination.
"Or just an amazing stroke of luck, Clemence. Old business finally paying off."
"You always choose the most boring and realistic option," the girl huffed, crossing her arms.
Clare let out a small laugh, the sound echoing softly through the hall.
Lady Beddor, however, seemed less amused. Her eyes held genuine empathy.
"I still find it sad," the mother commented softly. "It doesn't matter the money. The girl disappeared into the forest. A daughter is priceless."
The father nodded silently, covering his wife's hand with his own on the table in a quick gesture of mutual support.
For a few seconds, the vibrant conversation died down, giving way only to the sound of the wind blowing strongly against the tall windows, reminding them of the icy immensity of the outside world.
Clemence, bored with the serious atmosphere, returned to carefully turning the gears.
Azalea approached silently and served Clare more hot tea. When their eyes met for a brief moment, the maid gave an almost imperceptible nod, a gesture of silent comfort that Clare returned with a grateful smile.
Clare slowly scanned the table, engraving that image in her mind without knowing why.
Her mother, elegant and tender.
Her father, the safe haven of that house.
Her younger sister, her fingers stained with grease, completely bent over the disassembled clock.
Clovis's letters lay near the plates, full of life and promises of return.
An ordinary moment. One of those simple, warm moments that seemed insignificant while they were happening, but which held within them everything that truly mattered in the world.
After breakfast, the day slipped by with the slowness typical of the cold months.
In the afternoon, when the pale winter sun reached its highest point in the sky, Clare sought refuge in the estate's conservatory. The place was an iron and glass structure that protected the few surviving rose bushes and some stubborn vines. Inside, the air was slightly milder, and the silence was absolute, broken only by the occasional sound of melting ice dripping from the glass ceiling.
Clare settled on a stone bench covered with a thick woolen blanket. In her lap rested a worn leather-bound book about the ancient legends of the continent.
She tried to read, but her eyes insisted on wandering across the pages without truly absorbing the words. Her fingers, purely by reflex, returned to the pendant around her neck. She twirled it between her thumb and forefinger. A strange, almost too dense, calmness hung over the estate. It was the kind of peace that seemed suspended in time, as if the world were holding its breath.
“I knew I’d find you here.”
Clare looked up and smiled as she saw Azalea approaching. The maid carried a steaming ceramic mug, from which rose the strong aroma of cloves and apples of a hot infusion.
“Did my mother send you?” Clare asked, accepting the mug. The warmth of the baked clay instantly warmed her hands.
“Not yet,” Azalea sat at the opposite end of the bench, adjusting the skirt of her simple dress. “But your sister is about to make your grandfather’s clock explode in the library. I think Lady Beddor will need reinforcements soon.”
Clare chuckled softly, taking a sip of her tea.
“Let her try. Clovis will have a meltdown when he returns from the capital and sees the damage.”
Azalea smiled, but the gesture didn’t fully reach her eyes. She gazed at the gray sky through the glass ceiling, her expression thoughtful.
“The wind has changed direction,” the maid commented, her voice almost a whisper. “The smell is different. Heavier.”
Clare frowned, observing her friend’s profile.
“It’s just winter settling in, Azalea.”
“Perhaps,” she murmured, looking away and focusing on the book in Clare’s lap. “What are you reading?”
“Ancient stories about the times before the walls, about the faeries.” Clare ran her fingertips across the yellowed page. “I was thinking about the gossip my father brought back from the village. About the Archerons. Do you really think the girl disappeared?”
Azalea tensed her shoulders for a millisecond, a movement so quick anyone would have missed it. But Clare knew her too well not to notice.
“The world beyond our lands is dangerous, Miss Clare,” Azalea said, her voice suddenly serious, stripped of its previous lightness. “Sometimes monsters really do take people. And sometimes, the price to save those we love is too high.”
Clare blinked, surprised by the intensity of the response. Before she could question it, Azalea stood abruptly and brushed her apron with her hands.
"I'd better go back. Dinner isn't going to arrange itself, and it's getting colder. Don't stay out here until nightfall, please."
Clare simply nodded, watching the maid walk away quickly. She looked back at the book, but the feeling of peace had evaporated. The pendant on her chest seemed, for a moment, to grow subtly heavier against her skin.
The sun set early, tinging the sky with a melancholic, violet hue before giving way to a starless night.
At dinnertime, the family gathered again in the candlelit dining room. The clatter of cutlery, Clemence's chatter about gears, and her parents' low laughter created a bubble of safety so dense that Clare allowed herself to forget the strangeness of the afternoon. She watched her father pour the wine, her mother smile at the youngest child, the empty place Clovis would soon fill.
She felt infinitely grateful for that simple life. She didn't know that this would be the last time she would see her family breathe.
The break was abrupt.
There was no warning. No knocking on the door.
Following ten o'clock at night, the air inside the mansion suddenly changed. The warmth of the fireplaces vanished in a second, replaced by a frigid breath that smelled of ozone, smoke, and something terribly old. In the distant stables, the horses began to neigh in a deafening despair, abruptly cut short by the sound of necks being torn apart.
"What is that?" Lord Beddor leaped from the table, his hand instinctively reaching for his steak knife, his eyes fixed on the entrance.
Before anyone could move, the large oak doors of the entrance shattered with a thunderous sound.
Panic set in. Clemence let out a sharp scream, dropping her silverware. What had invaded the hall were not men, nor highwaymen. They were monsters. Creatures with colossal claws, sharp teeth, and enormous webbed wings flanked a figure that walked with terrifying, predatory elegance across the stone floor.
Clare froze in her chair, the air freezing in her lungs. The man in the lead had hair as dark as the depths of night and eyes of a deep violet, shining like cold stars, but devoid of any human warmth. The magical pressure he radiated was so overwhelming that Clare felt a violent nausea.
Fae. The monsters from the stories in her book were real.
"Well, well," the violet-eyed man's voice echoed through the hall. It was soft, musical, and utterly terrifying. "We've found the nest. Kill the others. Keep only the eldest."
"No!" Clare's father cried, lunging desperately with his knife.
The violet-eyed fae didn't even move. With a mere careless wave of his hand, a blade of pure darkness cut through the air. The impact decapitated Lord Beddor instantly. Clare's father's body fell forward with a dull thud, while blood gushed violently onto the white linen tablecloth, mixing with the food.
"Darling!" Lady Beddor let out a heart-rending scream, but before she could take a second step, one of the winged creatures sank its claws into her chest. The monster lifted Clare's mother off the ground and, with a brutal tug, ripped her body in two. Guts and blood bathed the stone floor.
Chaos was absolute. Clemence wept in shock, paralyzed in her chair, her eyes wide with pure terror as she watched the massacre of her parents. One of the monsters lunged toward the twelve-year-old girl. Clare tried to stand, tried to scream, but her voice died in her throat. She saw the winged creature grab Clemence by her brown hair, pull her head back, and tear her throat open with a brutal bite. The sound of blood bubbling in her younger sister's vocal cords echoed through the hall before she fell lifeless.
In the corner of the room, near the sideboard, Azalea moved.
Her eyes showed more than just the common fear of a human. There was recognition there, an ancient hatred. Azalea let out a low growl, a savage sound, and lunged toward the violet-eyed faerie, brandishing a kitchen knife. Her movements were too swift for an ordinary human.
The dark-haired man turned his face toward her for a split second. His violet eyes flashed slightly, surprised by the maid's speed.
"A half-breed," he muttered, bored.
With a snap of his fingers, Azalea's own shadow came to life. Dark tentacles emerged from the floor, wrapped around Azalea's neck and limbs, and began to squeeze. Azalea's bones cracked horribly under the pressure. The fae clenched his fist, and the shadows smashed Azalea's skull against the porcelain sideboard, scattering blood and bone fragments across the fine china.
Clare was soaked in her family's blood. The smell of iron and death permeated the heated air. She trembled violently, tears washing away the blood of others from her face.
The fae walked slowly toward her, his elegant boots stepping into the red puddles. He stopped before Clare and coldly assessed her, his head tilted, completely ignoring the mutilated corpses around him.
"You'll do," he said, his voice devoid of any pity or remorse. "Amarantha will love the gift."
Before Clare could form a thought, dark, cold claws seized her arms. The world spun in a suffocating whirlwind of wind, shadows, and the smell of her family's dead flesh, tearing her from what remained of her home and throwing her straight into the darkness.
When Clare regained consciousness, she wasn't in a dungeon.
The rhythmic movement beneath her body indicated that she was thrown across, like a disposable sack of meat, on the back of a winged faerie mount. The creature moved slowly through a dense, isolated clearing on the human continent. The night wind cut into her frozen skin, but what truly made her gag and vomit sour bile onto the grass was the smell. The thick, metallic, crushing smell of her parents' and Clemence's dried blood impregnated in her own clothes.
Ahead of her, walking with an exasperating calm as if simply enjoying a nighttime stroll under the stars, was the violet-eyed fae. He simply wasn't in any hurry. Each of his steps exuded the boredom of someone who had all the time in the world and was enjoying free time away from pressing obligations.
Clare tried to move, but her joints protested with sharp pain, and the snap in her own wrists reminded her that her hands were bound by leather cords tightened to cut off circulation.
“You woke up sooner than I expected,” his voice echoed through the silent clearing. It was soft, musical, which made everything even more bizarre after the terrible massacre he had commanded.
Clare tried to gasp for air, but her lungs collapsed in a stifled sob. The taste of iron mixed with pure panic choked her throat. Tears blurred her vision, but the silhouette of that fae remained clear, a stain of pure evil against the night.
“Why…” her voice came out torn, a sharp crack of pure despair. “Why did you do that? They were… they were all I had! Clemence was twelve years old! Why did you attack us? Why did you kill them in such a… such a monstrous way?!”
The fae stopped walking. He turned slowly, maintaining the impeccable posture of an aristocrat that caused disgust. His violet eyes gleamed in the twilight of the forest, cold and devoid of any trace of remorse.
“Because you’re human,” he replied simply, tilting his head to the side, as if explaining an obvious law of nature to a child. “And humans are malleable tools. Amarantha needed a distraction, a new toy to extract information from and pass the time. You were just unlucky enough to be in the path.”
“You’re a monster!” Clare spat the words, her body trembling violently on the horse’s back. “A damned cowardly monster! I hope you burn in hell for every drop of blood you spilled in that room!”
The faerie let out a short laugh, a cold, disdainful sound that echoed through the trees. He took two slow steps toward her, closing the distance predatorily. The magical pressure around him expanded like invisible claws, crushing Clare’s chest and making the air too heavy for a mortal’s lungs.
“Monsters are a matter of perspective, girl,” he murmured, stopping millimeters from her face. His violet eyes were two vast expanses of pure wickedness. “But I admit your voice is starting to irritate me. And I detest noise.”
Before Clare could turn her face away, the fae raised his right hand. He didn’t strike her. Instead, he pressed the tips of two fingers against her forehead with sadistic slowness.
The effect was devastating. There was no physical pain on her skin, but rather an absolute violation of her very soul. Clare felt as if claws of black smoke and pure mental power had pierced her skull without asking permission, tearing down her psychological barriers.
Clare’s mind was invaded by a violent and overwhelming force. She felt his thoughts rummaging through her most sacred memories, trampling her childhood, her love for her parents, and her most intimate secrets, ripping away her mental defenses one by one with surgical contempt. An excruciating headache, as if her brain were being squeezed and reduced to dust, made her arch her body in the saddle in a convulsion of agony. She tried to close her mind's eye, tried to scream for help within her own consciousness to expel that damned invader, but the Daemati's power completely silenced her.
"Be quiet," his voice echoed directly within Clare's mind. It wasn't a whisper, it was a thunderous, authoritative command, laden with a cruelty that made her bleed mentally. "Forget the pain. Forget the noise. Bow down. Sleep."
His will crushed hers effortlessly, obliterating her individuality. The panic, the hatred, and the images of her younger sister's blood bubbling in her cut throat were forcibly pushed to the bottom of a dark abyss by that invasive and dominant magic. Clare's consciousness began to fade, swallowed by a sea of black smoke. The last thing she experienced in the real world, before the induced darkness took her, was the absolute horror of those unfathomable violet eyes watching her total and humiliating capitulation.
When Clare awoke again, the open sky and the forest had vanished.
Beneath the Mountain, time was measured in pain.
The loss of her family and the violation of her mind had left her completely hollow inside, but the faeries didn't care. Clare was thrown into a damp, cold, and fetid cell, where the stone floor seemed to suck the last of her mortal strength. In the days and weeks that followed, she was dragged through dark corridors where mocking cries echoed, the crack of whips rang out, and the despair of other captives rang out. She was just a human among cruel gods. A bargaining chip. A worthless toy.
She was interrogated about things she didn't understand. She was tortured in ways her human mind couldn't even process. Every bone in her body seemed to be broken and remade by the magic of the faerie executioners only to be broken again the next day. She begged for mercy in the language of men, but the creatures only laughed at her bloody fragility.
And the violet-eyed faerie was always there.
He remained nearby, watching her suffering with a perfectly neutral and impassive expression. An ice statue before the purest cruelty. Every time Clare's eyes met his, she relived the violent invasion of her mind and the massacre of Clemence. He showed not a shred of remorse for having destroyed her life, acting only as the silent executioner of that cursed court. Clare didn't know his name or his title. To her, he was just the violet-eyed monster who had condemned her family to death.
Until the final day arrived.
Dragged by her hair to the immense throne room, Clare could barely maintain consciousness. Her clothes were filthy, bloodstained rags, her dignity had been reduced to dust. The stone floor was cold against her wounded skin.
On the carved throne, the red-haired queen watched her with a mocking smile that made Clare's blood run cold. Clare deduced that this cruel and imposing woman could only be the Amarantha that the fae had mentioned in the clearing. Beside the throne, arms crossed and with the same aristocratic posture as always, the violet-eyed monster watched the scene indifferently.
"Pathetic creature," the red-haired woman scorned, confirming Clare's worst fears with a venomous sweetness that echoed through the stone hall. She rose slowly from her seat, walking toward Clare with the grace of a predator. "You are nothing but an empty shell. You are no longer of any use to me or my spies."
The queen approached with light steps, the fabric of her dress brushing against the floor. Her cold, heavily jeweled fingers touched Clare's chin, forcing her to raise her head and look up. Clare sought the violet-eyed faerie's gaze for one last second, begging for a spark of humanity, but found only the emptiness of a monster. “Let humans learn their place,” murmured the queen.
With a swift, clean, and utterly indifferent movement, Amarantha’s hands closed around Clare’s already bruised and frail neck.
A dry, brutal crack echoed through the stone hall.
The pain was sharp, absolute, a lightning bolt of agony that instantly extinguished the last of her strength. Life drained from Clare Beddor’s body as she fell to the cold floor like a discarded rag doll before the faerie court.
Clare Beddor closed her eyes and died beneath the mountain.