We Don't Love Like Flowers & Growing Pains
Three hundred years after Under the Mountain, the High Lord of Night finally calls in his bargain with the newly widowed Lady of Spring. Vibes: angsty, with plenty of longing and political intrigue. Word Count: 34,000
Unwise and Undone
Feyre shows up to her second week at the Night Court critically ill, and against his better judgement, Rhys brings her to Velaris to care for her. Vibes: lots of hurt/comfort with emphasis on the comfort, and some smut. Word Count: 59,000
Bad Investment
Feyre catches her fiancé kissing another woman at his company holiday party. Thankfully, his hot boss is there to help. Vibes: NYC/Finance AU with revenge sex. Word Count: 13,500
A Formal Feeling
The last weeks of the first war. Vibes: Pre-canon whump. Written for Rhys Week 2026. Word Count: 5,200
The Awful Daring
Rhys’s POV of the night before the third trial. CW for noncon (between Rhysand and Amarantha). Vibes: just 6 pages of angst and pining. Written for Rhys Week 2026. Word Count: 2,600
An Illyrian Fever
Rhys returns from Windhaven with a fever, and Feyre makes him take a sick day. Vibes: soft, post-canon sickfic where Feyre and Rhys learn to take care of each other. Word Count: 3,700
The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep
In a world where Amarantha comes to Prythian fifty years later, Rhys searches the human lands for the painter from his dreams. Vibes: Strangers to lovers to enemies to soulmates. A medium amount of smut, not too much angst, and an eventual ending UTM. Chapter Progress: 11/12
House Rules
Feyre rents out Rhys's basement apartment. Vibes: modern AU with ddlg undertones. Chapter Progress: 3/4
Then Moon, Then Stars
For the first time in half a century—in maybe his entire life—Rhysand is truly happy. His family survived a war, his city has rebuilt, and he and his mate are expecting a child. But peace is fragile, and he’ll go to great lengths to protect the people he loves. Vibes: A canon-compliant first-person retelling of ACOSF from Rhys’s perspective. Chapter Progress: 8/21
Prince Nyx, Dragon Slayer
Feyre and Rhys indulge their toddler in a game of pretend. Written for Feysand Week 2025. Vibes: Unbearably cute and silly. Chapter Progress: 4/7
Reader, She Marries Him
When Feyre accepted a position as artist-in-residence at the secluded Hewnfield Hall, she’d never even heard of Rhysand Rochester. She certainly didn’t plan to fall in love. But Rhys is beautiful, his friends are kind, and his house is enormous. Unfortunately, there’s a red-haired woman locked in his attic. Vibes: Jane Eyre but make it Feysand. Chapter Progress: 3/15
“Twenty years old, huh?” Cassian bounced his spoon between his fingers. “Rhys doesn’t go for anyone under a hundred. My point being, if you go through the heat, I would be more than happy to—“
Heat?
I didn’t hear him finish that sentence because a blur flew across the table and sent him crashing backwards. The next thing I knew, Rhys was on top of Cassian with his hand in a fist, landing blow after blow in a way that didn’t appear sportsmanlike in the slightest.
A cozy ACOMAF rewrite that explores Feyre’s stubbornness, Rhysand’s yearning, and the limits of sexual tension
“Is there anyone I can call? A parent, or a boyfriend?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “No, no, I’m okay. I’m fine, I promise.”
“Shh, baby, it’s okay.” A warm, tender feeling burst in his chest. She had no one. She needed him.
Tarquin was easy to like. She tried to fantasize about what it would be like if he took her home. Something told her he was a bad kisser. He’d go down on her, but it wouldn’t quite get the job done. He’d ask is this okay? at least one too many times.
Rhysand would be a good kisser. For a moment last night, she’d deliriously thought he would kiss her, and she was still curious what would have happened if she’d accepted his invitation for a drink.
She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about him, though.
"The House of Wind stairs make no sense!" - a mathematically backed rant
(I meant to post this rant in the notes of my fic but it turned out... weirdly long.)
So listen! I know her name ain’t Sarah J. Math, but I DESPISE those stupid stairs with a burning passion. And I KNOW that she’s obsessed with the number ten thousand and didn’t think about it once when she slapped “10,000 steps” onto the page.
Because it makes no fucking sense!
Not only is it absolutely unhinged that you can’t winnow up to the HoW, but it would also take an insane amount of time to actually take the stairs to get up to the House (to, y’know, have an audience with your High Lord, because for some reason that’s his official residence).
And we already know it takes a long-ass time to get up the stairs, but I don’t think you understand just HOW long it actually takes.
So! Petty bitch that I am, I decided to do the math!
In this essay I will—
First off, even if you’re physically fit enough to take on 10k steps, it would take an absolutely ludicrous amount of time to get up or down.
There’s usually 21 steps in one floor, so that equates to the HoW stairs being 476ish floors tall. The sheer thought of doing nearly 500 floors on a stair master is enough to bring me to tears, honestly. For comparison, the Burj Khalifa has 163 floors. So you’d essentially be walking up three Burj Khalifas stacked on top of each other.
Now, we could keep calculating with the Burj Khalifa. But for the sake of simplicity, I’ve referenced the Tianmen Mountain Stairway (or the “Stairway to Heaven”) to calculate how long it would take to climb the cursed HoW stairs. The Tianmen Mountain Stairway has 999 steps and takes an average of roughly 30 minutes to climb. So assuming you’ll climb the 10k steps without a break and without tumbling to your death halfway up, it’s gonna take you 300 minutes, or 5 HOURS! Even if you’re a speedy climber and consistently take one step a second for the entire 10k steps, it’s still somewhere around 3 HOURS! And that’s ignoring the fact that the HoW having a spiral staircase is making the entire thing even more of a hellish experience.
Going down the stairs would be a little easier, because it usually takes about a third to half the time to go down the stairs, compared to going up. But going all the way down would still be 1–2.5 hours of continuous walking in spirals without pausing or tripping.
Now you might argue that Fae bodies are superior physically and that it probably doesn’t take a reasonably fit Fae that long. And you might be right, if those bitches were normal stairs.
But wait, there’s more! Because not only is it 10,000 steps, but they are “each a foot high” (ACOSF ch. 8). The standard riser height for stairs is somewhere between 5 and 7 inches. With one foot in height, those are insanely tall steps. And each step being one foot tall also means that the mountain itself is at least 10,000 ft high. So almost two miles.
Now how does anyone get up there, really, if you can’t winnow to the HoW? Do you just accept a 5 hour climb every time you want to appeal for a tax break? What if you’re sick and can’t walk all those stairs? Does every Fae in Velaris just have glutes of fucking steel? Just sporting an entire bakery? As a matter of fact, how did Rhys’s DAD get up there? Did he take the stairs every time he left the house? Did he have his wife/son/daughter fly him up and down? What did he do before he was mated to an Illyrian? Did he just winnow into the air above the House and free-fall to the balcony every time he had to get in? Every option just seems WILDLY impractical.
And… where is the library in all that? Because Nesta goes to work there every day, and she can’t even manage 200 of the stairs in the beginning, so the library seems to be right under the HoW. But then… how does anyone else get to the library? Do you have to take 9,500 stairs from the city in the valley just to go to the library? I know the priestesses don’t want to leave, but there seem to be people allowed into the library, even if they have to ask permission from the priestesses first. So… do those people have to take the stairs to the library as well? And are those the same stairs Nesta walks? Is there like… a secret elevator that no one told Nesta about?
What about the Starfall guests? Is there just a horde of Fae in fancy black-tie attire climbing those stairs for Starfall? In heels or dress shoes? Is there an Illyrian taxi service? Does Rhys just deposit a legion of Illyrians in suits in Velaris for Starfall to get all his fancy guests up to the HoW? Because in ACOSF, Kallias and Viviane were at Starfall when Viviane was heavily pregnant. And I doubt that she took the stairs or did the whole free-falling method while eight months pregnant.
Well, I guess at least with the mountain being two-ish miles tall you have plenty of time to question your life choices after jumping from that balcony to winnow out.
(The mountain’s height is nowhere close to consistent across the books btw. According to ACOWAR chapter 15, it’s only supposed to be a “thousand foot drop” from the HoW balcony to the valley. And while that would make a lot more sense for the mountain, mathematically, and would fix all the problems with the mountain’s height, it would also make the stairs EVEN MORE ridiculous. Because for there to be 10,000 steps in a 1,000 foot mountain, the stairs would have to be barely more than one inch tall each. Have you ever climbed stairs that flat? With a spiral staircase, that’s basically a very bumpy slide.)
Which brings me to another can of worms entirely! The mountain’s height. Especially when comparing it to Ramiel, the mountain on the Night Court’s insignia.
Knowing that Ramiel is one of the three sacred mountains in Prythian (alongside the UTM mountain and the Prison), you’d assume that it’s probably the tallest mountain in the Night Court, right? And that the random mountain next to Velaris can’t be anywhere close to the height of a legendary sacred mountain, right? Well, let’s do some more math!
Calculating anything with the HoW mountain is pretty easy, since we can assume Velaris is at sea level. So let’s compare Ramiel to the HoW mountain.
Easiest way to do that is by comparing climbing times. Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie climb Ramiel during the Blood Rite. During that climb, Gwyn’s leg is so injured that Emerie has to carry her part of the way. So for the sake of calculating, I’d say it’s safe to assume that injured Fae climbing speed = reasonably fit human climbing speed. In chapter 68 of ACOSF, they wake at the foot of Ramiel at dawn of the last day of the Blood Rite. And Gwyn and Emerie make it to the peak of Ramiel just before dawn the next day while Nesta fights off Bellius.
So, one full day to climb Ramiel.
Thankfully, I don’t need to do the full math for the HoW mountain, since the irl Mount San Jacinto (or the “C2C Hike”) is pretty much the perfect comparison. From its lowest to its highest point, it has an elevation gain of 10,352 ft, and it takes one day to finish (the recommended climbing time is 1–2 days since normal people have to do stuff like sleep, but it’s doable in one day).
So! Ramiel and the HoW mountain are probably around the same height, or rather Ramiel probably has a prominence of ~10,000 ft.
(On a Nesta-related sidenote, I know the stairs are supposed to be symbolic, but once she manages to get down more than a few hundred steps, HOW is it harder to take the rest of the stairs down than climb thousands of steps back to the HoW? I think at some point she makes it more than halfway down and instead of just going down the rest of the way she… takes more than 5,000 steps back… up? Have any of you ever tried climbing even a few hundred steps? Going down the same amount of steps is a BLESSING in comparison.)
By the way, with a normal riser height for each step (again, somewhere between 5 and 7 inches usually), the mountain would be at 4,100–5,800 ft. Which would be much more reasonable, even with the 10k steps, but unfortunately that number is backed by absolutely nothing in canon.
So I guess my point is that no matter how you look at those fucking stairs, they make no sense. At all. Either the mountain is FREAKISHLY tall, or the stairs are FREAKISHLY flat.
That’s the only two options. Either the mountain really is almost two miles tall and getting both to the HoW and the library is an absolute nightmare, or the mountain is normal sized at 1,000ish ft and the stairs are one-inch-neck-breakers.
One-Shot • 2.6k words • CW: Nonconsensual sex is depicted, but not gratuitously.
Just one more night. One more. Tomorrow, we’ll all be free, or we’ll both be dead.
For @officialrhysweek Day 5, "Masks:" Rhys's POV of the night before the third trial.
“I’m tired of you for tonight,” I say, smooth and sardonic. Like kissing her meant nothing, like the ink on my hands means nothing. Like my body isn’t screaming to drag her back, get her out.
I shove her toward the door and smile when she stumbles. “Go back to your cell.”
She looks over her shoulder, and for one treacherous heartbeat, I think she’s looking at me. But her eyes slide past, to where Tamlin stands at Amarantha’s side.
Whatever she sees makes her face crumple—Cauldron, this human can’t keep her emotions hidden for one godsdamned second—and she sulks out of the throne room, bare feet slapping on the cold stone, door thudding shut behind her.
If Tamlin had any sense, he’d ignore her.
If he really loved her, he wouldn’t be able to.
My own gaze lingers on the door for a moment too long. When I finally turn, Amarantha is grinning, and I can’t tell if it’s from genuine, wicked pleasure, or from having caught me staring. I let the cruelty linger on my lips, shooting her a smirk before sauntering toward the opposite end of the room, to a red couch tucked in the corner. She’ll find me if she wants to.
I can’t help but reach along the bond, gently enough that she won’t notice my presence. An unusual connection, our bargain. Probably because it’s tied to her life. I remind myself of this often, which is almost the same as believing it.
There’s anger on the other end. Disgust.
Tonight, it’s hard to remember that this is what I want. Disgust is better than apathy. Anger is less painful than torture at Amarantha’s hands. I should be grateful that she’s alive to hate me at all.
I slump in my seat and hope that I look merely lazy. Just one more night. One more. Tomorrow, we’ll all be free, or we’ll both be dead.
The green-skinned female from earlier is slinking across the throne room, perhaps keen to finish what we’d started. She’s new here. From Spring. She doesn’t yet know that no one has me but Amarantha.
I sit up straighter and beckon her anyway, encouraging her to crawl back onto my lap. In the throne room, it’s better to be occupied. Her fingers begin to trace over my chest, lingering at the buttons of my jacket, and I swallow a shudder. It’s natural to cling to whatever scraps of power we can down here, and even in this state, I have more to offer than most.
She smells like sea foam and freshly cut grass, and I breathe it in. She’s not the one I want, but she’s not Amarantha, either.
“What a stupid girl,” she croons in my ear. “Thinks she’s worth something.” But her glamour is poor, and her fear clogs my nostrils. Anticipation for tomorrow seeps like mud from around her mental shields.
“A silly human,” I agree. “Impatient and stubborn. Imagine falling in love with her.”
Rhys dunks in the championship basketball game and pays for it later on.
G- General audiences
1,345 words
This story was inspired by my own lived experience. My partner, who is 42, plays in an over-30 basketball league with some of his buddies. They're a great team and they have a great time. My partner also has an injury that is bothered by playing basketball, yet, as the saying goes "ball is life."
Anyway, please enjoy my submission of whump for @officialrhysweek (and my highlighting his creaky knee)!
Read on AO3 or below the cut.
With an accepted pass from Helion, Rhys raced up the court, bobbing and weaving between his opponents, the hoop completely open, his opportunity to dunk within sight.
His mind was made up - their de-facto coach, Kalias, encouraged him you’ve got it man go for it, Tarquin continuing to guard Eris while Cassian and Azriel took on Tamlin.
His eyes flicked to the scoreboard above the hoop, the numbers whizzing by 9-8-7-6-5, he advanced forward, ignoring the twinge of pain each step brought him. He had no choice, if he scored the tie would be broken and the Knights would be the season champs for the third time in a row.
4-3-2-1 and -
He takes a step, pushing all of his strength into his right foot to lift him off the floor, the sensation as if he grew wings to be able to fly just enough to land the ball through the hoop, the swish of the net matching his groan of victory - quickly followed by pain, lancing through him from his knee down to his ankle.
Cheers erupted from behind him, the stands full of friends and family of both teams exclaiming their glee and frustration at the sudden broken tie.
“And with a dunk from Rhysand Sterling, the Knights break the tie, becoming your division champions for the third year in a row!” The sound of the buzzer followed the announcers’ call, signaling the true end of the game. His teammates crowded around him, clutching on as they all jumped up and down, their whoops and cheers enveloping him.
The Knights and the Sentinels - consistent rivals in the over-30 league - lined up to high-five, wishing each other good game, great job. Despite every fiber in him wanting to shove into Tamlin, Rhys extended the sign of sportsmanship, joining his team at the announcer’s table to be presented with the trophy and take their picture, marking their championship status once and for all.
Rhys didn’t care about the trophy - not really, anyway. Of course, he was proud of their team and how they pulled together week after week. More than anything, he was grateful for the time with the guys and what it signified - that after years of friendship and life lived, they could still find time to be together.
After the celebration concluded, he scanned the crowd for the familiar blue-grey eyes of his wife, finding her immediately, the sight of her the icing on the cake of a perfect season finish.
Well, the sight of her and the sight of their two children, the boy possessing eyes like Rhys and the girl with eyes like her mom, Feyre.
He winced in pain, trying to fight the grimace by forcing a grin as he began to cross the gym towards them, wishing he could snap his fingers and be laid up in bed with his family already.
He could see that his wife wasn’t buying it before he got within three feet of her.
“Dad you dunked! You did it!” Their son, Nyx, cheered excitedly when Rhys got to them at last.
“Daddy I didn’t like the buzzer,” Luna, their daughter who was still rather young, complained.
Rhys chuckled, tried to kneel to meet his kids but thought better of it when his knee barked in protest. Instead, he opted to bend at the waist, picking up Luna and settling her on his hip before ruffling Nyx’s hair.
“I know baby, it’s very loud. But did you have fun?” Rhys asked, sneaking a glance at Feyre to find her lips fixed in a straight line.
“Yeah! You were so fast!” Luna exclaimed.
Rhys beamed before turning to Feyre, leaning in to place a kiss on her cheek. “Let’s take the kids for ice cream before you tell me all the ways I was reckless, hm?”
She rolled her eyes, mirth behind the gesture before reaching for his hand and wrapping her other arm around the shoulders of Nyx, leading them all towards the exit.
***
Rhys plopped against the mattress after dressing in his night clothes, the relief from the shower short-lived as the barking pain in his knee reared its ugly head yet again, his eyes screwed shut in response. He was able to mask most of his pain throughout ice cream with his family, but the walk home, up the stairs and climbing in the shower damn near did him in.
He groaned, futilely massaging the joint, regretting the decision to dunk earlier that evening all together.
The quiet steps of his wife made him open his eyes, knowing the inevitable couldn’t be put off any longer.
He sighed as he met her gaze, putting on his best front of a wounded-animal instead of the injured 42-year old he was.
“So, you decided tonight would be the night you’d dunk,” she started as she sat on the bed next to him, a caddy of miscellaneous first aid supplies in hand.
“Yes, and I am remembering why I stopped doing it after college,” he grunted in response.
She tsked above him, moving to settle his leg across her lap while swatting his hand away and taking over.
The smell of icy-hot hit his nostrils, relief beginning to find him once again as he felt her hands begin to apply it on his knee.
“There’s some Aleve on the nightstand for you. Take it and I’ll get this wrapped.”
He followed her instructions immediately, mindful not to jostle his leg too much. The knee injury was from high school and as the years went on, it got progressively worse. Manageable, but anytime there was a storm on the horizon, Rhys could feel it.
He couldn’t help it, though, when the guys wanted to start up a 30-and over team. He missed playing with his guys, and he wanted his kids to be exposed to as many hobbies and activities as possible.
Plus, he knew Feyre secretly loved watching him move up and down the court and took pride in the fact that her middle-aged husband “still had it in him,” as the wives of his teammates liked to say.
Right now, though, he didn’t know how she saw him as anything other than pathetic. What business did he have pushing himself to the limit like this, reigniting old injuries to the point that he couldn’t even kneel to talk to his own kids?
He grimaced at a particularly sensitive spot, Feyre’s actions bringing him back to the present.
He was in pain, but the sight of his wife, with her messy bun and baggy shirt (his shirt, he noted) - melted it all away.
Or it was the icy-hot but he didn’t care, relief was relief.
“You looked good tonight,” she murmured, her eyes trained on the wrap in her hands. Rhys could see the beginnings of a blush forming, turning the tips of her ears pink.
“Oh yeah?” He purred, infusing as much suggestion into his voice as he could through the pain.
She hummed, tightening the wrap in a manner tighter than was perhaps necessary. “Yes, I just love seeing my husband wreck his body needlessly.”
He snorted, then reached for her hand. “Feyre,” he whispered, her attention snapping to him immediately, her head tipping in encouragement to continue.
“Thank you for taking such good care of me.”
She fought a grin, his words melting her instantly. She set the caddy aside and crawled up to lay her head on his chest, tucked beneath his chin, arm wrapped around him.
“You know I’ve got your back,” she sighed, settling into him completely.
He carded a hand through her hair, placing a kiss on the top of her head.
As much shit as she liked to give him for trying to live out his glory days, he knew that she loved what it meant to be able to care for him like this. That they can both be vulnerable about whatever pain they felt, physical or otherwise, and still love and respect each other - that was a beautiful thing he would never take for granted.
“Feyre,” he called, her name sounding like a plea on his tongue.
For his sake—or for hers, she couldn’t tell, Feyre paused. She stopped right beside him, shoulders almost brushing as she stood facing the castle and the ball and the festivities, Rhys facing the gardens and the darkness and the loneliness.
“It is highly discourteous for a lady to be alone with the King’s…” Feyre hesitated on the word. “Shadow.”
She avoided the use of the word Assassin at every chance she got.
Rhys knew it, too.
“It has never stopped you before,” he replied quietly, fingers moving just slightly to brush against hers.
For @witchlingsandwyverns and @officialrhysweek 2026!
Summary: When Elain goes missing after being enthralled by the church's new priest, Feyre goes on the hunt. She's not prepared for what she finds.
Just a lil one-shot for Rhys week! I'm in love with evil Priest Rhys...please join me.
This one is for witchlingandwyverns for her beautiful art and inspiration she gives me all the time! Please enjoy my priest paper doll rhys and the fic below or read on AO3.
Propped up on the massive bed, the bindings dig deeply into the skin of Feyre’s arms. Holding still, muscles burning, she’s competing with her body to see what gives out first.
The priest sits across from her, his back to her plight, writing at his desk as if he didn’t just catch her rifling through it twenty minutes ago.
The bindings are not made of rope.
“You’ll never get away with this,” she whispers fiercely, more out of anger than any confidence in her plans.
The man is unphased. Still in his grand, embroidered vestments, the scratch of quill on paper doesn’t even pause at her words.
“Get away with what?” he asks, still turned away.
The devil wears many faces, her mother had once told the girls. Some friendly, some familiar, but always evil underneath.
Feyre clamps her mouth shut. Her mother had another invective: your temper will be the death of you. Still, it served to keep her above her fear so far, every moment he’s left her bound on his bed. Ignoring her.
If only she had told Nesta where she was going.
Three months ago, Elain had burst into their dreary tenement apartment, her face glowing, her arms full of bread. Exclaiming over the new priest at the parish, who preached fire and brimstone from the pulpit but gave soft smiles and generous offerings after mass. He’s so kind - high-minded, but fair, she had told her sisters, skeptical but with mouths full of fresh bread.
One week ago, Elain had disappeared.
And Feyre had entered the grand cathedral for the first time since their mother died.
When she first laid eyes on him - Father Rhys - stepping onto the pulpit, something had filled her - a stillness, a dread, something other inside her body. Her muscles went rigid as she had stared up - at his impossible beauty, the heavy cloaks draped around him like armor. Feyre had felt dizzy until the first words of prayer spilled from his mouth, and she finally took a breath.
Afterwards it had seemed so easy - to follow him down the busy, dark halls, to note which foreboding wooden door he went into. When he left for the evening meal, he didn’t even lock it behind him.
In retrospect, she has been a perfect fool.
Blinking out of her reverie, Feyre jolts to see him turned around, watching her. An amused smile alights his face.
“Where is my sister?” she demands.
A mischievous glint is in his eye. But there’s something else - some predatory darkness that keeps her muscles trembling. Deep down she has memories - nightmares - of when her mother forced them all to weekly mass, and she’d be taken out crying when the father had preached of fire-born demons coming for her soul.
The memory has her pulling at her restraints again, the motions useless. They’re so cold they burn against her skin. He hadn’t even touched her - one look at her in his room and he had simply closed the door, and then she was bound with nothing more than the flick of his fingers and a gust of wind flickering the candles. With the click of the door she was trapped with the inevitability of her fate - he is not human.
“Are you a believer, darling? Somehow I don’t think so. I would have noticed someone like you in the pews.”
“I know enough to know you blaspheme.”
He laughs, the rich sound filling the small, dark room. The words he spoke from the pulpit still echo in her mind - the sneer on his face, the way his fists pounded the pulpit as he told the story of their collective fates - bound to a distant, careless God.
“Has God provided for you and your sister? What has he done that was more generous than the loaves of bread I give from my kitchens? I see you - your face is sunken with hunger. Your clothes are worn and threadbare. And you came here alone to find her - knowing full well the polizia care nothing about missing urchins from the street. God has given you nothing. So why do you defend him?”
As he speaks, something changes in his face. The insouciant charm makes way to anger, a flicker of flame in his dark, amethyst eyes. Perhaps it is the light but she thinks his teeth grow longer, that his form expands as his chest heaves.
“Who are you?” she whispers, anger ebbing further away into fear.
Rhysand stands. His eyes are far away. On the bed her muscles ache, her thighs burning as she kneels on the soft mattress.
Walking to his closet, he takes his time undoing the buttons and ties of his grand vestments, heavy and curved over his shoulders. They hang on a hook in the shadows, looming like a sleeping winged creature. Next are his robes, embroidered and fine with red and gold threaded through black. The fire crackles in the corner. Heavy perfumes of frankincense and myrrh tickle her nose. Underneath his robes he wears plain clothes: wide black trousers, a buttoned tunic that hugs his shoulders. Simple, but finely tailored. Almost in the shape of a man.
Feyre wonders if he’s going to answer her at all when he finally returns to the foot of the bed. She has not yet cried out. She imagines it’s futile. He watches her with a fearful intensity. Flickering, the fire casts light upon his face - dark smudges under his eyes, his cheekbones sharp, his lips plush and sinful. A shadow dances, tethered behind him, wild as the flames.
“I was devout, once. I believed with a fervor to make the saints take notice. This was long ago, an age before your time. But God was still the same. Mysterious. Quiet. And he was never quieter than when my family - my mother and sister, were slaughtered without mercy.”
Feyre’s pulse pounds in her throat.
“I was the one who found their heads severed from their bodies. They were innocent - not that it mattered in the end. I fell to my knees in the cold mud and wept. My cries should have raised the angels. I offered him anything - everything - to bring them back. To ease my pain. And what was his answer? Only more blood. My father was dead the next night, chasing revenge. Chasing justice. Which God had failed to provide.”
Feyre keeps her heart from softness. “You haven’t answered my question.”
The priest smiles. His teeth are sharp. Absently, he pulls at his shirt cuff, rolling them higher as if he has work to do.
“God didn’t answer me that day, or any that followed. But someone else did. And they offered me the means for my revenge.”
In an instant, they unfurl - with a leathery rustling and the flames bursting high in the grate. A pair of dark bat-like wings spreading wide, wider, each tipped with a sharp talon at the joint.
Her breath wooshes from her lungs. Feyre screams, and writhes in her bindings, and falls back onto the bed.
She can't even catch her breath until he’s over her - wings broad, his eyes black as tar.
“Isn’t this what you came to see?”
Her whole body trembles, her knees pressing up against his ribs in her last line of defense. His body is fever-hot. His breath is sweet like incense. When he smiles, she sees two sharp fangs glisten in what’s left of the candlelight.
Is this the last thing Elain saw? Feyre chokes back a sob, and prays that Nesta doesn’t follow them both.
Instead of descending upon her, he pauses, his head cocked as if hearing some far off sound.
“Your sister isn’t dead.”
“What?” Her voice is a shaken rasp from her throat.
“She yet lives. She’s sleeping soundly, under the stones of this very church. But I have need of her.”
The words are out of her mouth before she can think. “Take me instead.”
She doesn’t miss the heat in his eyes as he looks at her, covetous and hungry.
“You don’t know what I need her for.”
It doesn’t matter. If Feyre can spare her sister this fate, torn apart at the hands of this demon, then she’ll do it.
She does not remember her prayers. Instead she has only a single plea on her tongue - “Please.”
A fingernail, sharp as a claw, scrapes down her cheek and she shivers.
“I’m not like him, you know. I do not demand sacrifice without thanks, or take what is not offered.” With a snap, the scent of ozone in the air, her arms are suddenly free. Feyre scrambles and braces her hands against his chest, the weight of him still bearing down.
She cannot trust a word he says. And yet - her heart still beats. He looks upon her strangely.
“Wh-what do you need me for?”
He smiles. Takes her hand. She waits to feel the scrape of his teeth but instead he presses a kiss upon her palm, soft and lingering.
Summary: When Rhys gets appendicitis, Feyre's got soup at the ready.
Warnings: None
Rating: General Audiences
Word Count: 842
For Whump Wednesday of @officialrhysweek, and also a get-well-soon gift for @popjunkie42! You can read it Here on AO3 or under the cut!
"Christ, Rhys, you really are in bad shape."
If the pain radiating through Rhysand's right lower abdomen hadn't been a telltale sign that the situation was dire, Feyre's use of his name certainly was. Not prick or Illyrian baby or bastard for once—just Rhys.
"They're saying it could be appendicitis," Rhys said, pulling a knee up to his chest in an attempt to get comfortable.
Feyre carefully balanced her long, thin easel bag on the chair, and paper crinkled as she she perched herself on the edge of the emergency room bed. Rhys ached to scoot closer, but the slightest movement sent another shooting pain through his gut.
Feyre's fingers, still covered in paint from the class she'd left in a rush, carded through his hair. A shiver of a different kind ran through Rhys—not one related to his fever, but the same awestruck reaction to Feyre's touch that hadn't abated after a year of marriage.
"If it is, I'm so glad they caught it in time."
Rhys didn't disagree, though privately, he doubted his appendix would burst in Feyre's presence. His wife could do anything she put her mind to, and he supposed that included keeping his organs from rupturing through the sheer force of her iron will.
It probably wouldn't get him out of surgery, though.
"I'm not allowed to eat or drink anything," he said, not that he had much of an appetite at the moment.
Feyre frowned. "I didn't see you have breakfast before I left this morning."
She'd threatened to force-feed him porridge if he kept it up; Rhys had called her an overbearing mother hen and kissed away her irritated scowl, and she'd hurried out the door before she was late for her first class of the day.
It had only been a few hours prior, but after a nearly collapsing in his office and dragging himself to the emergency room, it felt like a lifetime ago.
"I should have listened to you." In this, and everything else, honestly.
It was a perfect opening for Feyre to tease him, and in any other circumstances, she would have. But with him curled up in agony, it was obvious he didn't have the energy to banter.
The fingers she carded through his hair switched to gently scratching his scalp. Rhys sighed and relaxed into the touch.
They didn't speak a again for a while. Rhys didn't feel much like talking as he waited for exams and imaging and doses of medication. Feyre kept up the gentle, rhythmic strokes to his hair with one hand, while using the other to pull up poetry on her phone and recite it quietly to him.
She cycled through his favorites—Mary Oliver, ee cummings, John Donne—and Rhys let himself cling to her voice like a lifeline. Even through the haze of pain, he still marveled at how smoothly she read nowadays. It sounded effortless, as if Feyre hadn't once found literacy to be a frustrating, uphill climb.
His pride in all she'd accomplished edged out his misery, just a bit.
The next few days were the worst of his life—a rough surgery and an even rougher recovery. At times, Rhys started to wonder if he'd ever hold down food again. But Feyre was there through all of it, interrogating doctors and reading him more poetry and rubbing dry shampoo into his blue-black hair when he couldn't shower.
But he made it through, and Rhys had never been more grateful to find himself home. Sure, he couldn't lift anything heavier than a potato and his abdomen still ached around the staples, but it was all infinitely easier to bear in the townhouse, where Feyre's art hung from every wall.
He'd just made himself comfortable amid the mountain of pillows she'd arranged on the sofa when she appeared in the doorway. Steam rose from the tray in her hands, the smell of soup making his mouth water.
"Sorry I didn't make it from scratch," Feyre said, as if Rhys didn't know perfectly well that she was utterly hopeless in the kitchen.
He gave her a wan smile. "You have nothing at all to apologize for."
She crossed the room far more slowly than usual—his Feyre was forever rushing headlong into anything and everything—careful not to let the soup slosh. Rhys's stomach growled audibly; they both winced.
"To the chicken and stars that listen," Feyre said, gingerly placing the tray in his lap.
Despite his ravenous hunger, Rhys paused to peck her cheek as soon as Feyre had moved within kissing distance. She gave a half-hearted glare and made an impatient gesture towards the spoon.
Rhys took a sip of broth, letting it warm him from the inside out. After so much jello, the faint taste of chicken and carrots—real food—nearly made him groan in pleasure. It was all he could do not to start shoveling the star-shaped pasta into his mouth with reckless abandon.
Between bites, he continued, "And the dreams that are answered, Feyre darling."
“Oy! There’s an Illyrian prisoner over here!”
“Alive?”
“Not sure.”
For @officialrhysweek Day 4, "Whump:" The last weeks of the first war.
From his place at the edge of the treeline, Rhys saw Jurian swing for her head with his ash-edged sword. Saw him miss.
Rhys wouldn’t have missed.
Amarantha didn’t miss, either. And when she’d taken his finger and his eye and dragged him, screaming, somewhere into the trees to the north, Rhys was grateful, because Amarantha’s life was still his to take.
Distracted with a new prisoner, the Hybern soldiers left Rhys alone for long enough that the lashes on his back clotted and his thoughts turned to revenge. Long enough that, when no one came to offer him water, he stopped pissing himself in the mud.
Jurian’s screams were unceasing.
By the third day, a chill had settled deep in his bones, his shivers beginning at the ash spikes driven through his wings and ending at his bound wrists. Perhaps the tremors continued to his fingers, but he couldn’t feel anything past the blue-stoned chains.
The screaming guttered for a moment before reaching a new intensity. It wouldn’t be much longer, now.
Rhys spluttered, choked, then forced his muscles to contract around the trickle of water being poured down his throat. The water was tepid, but he latched his cracked lips onto the mouth of the water bladder and suckled like a shameless, starving babe.
Too soon, it was pulled away, and he chased the final drop down his chin with his tongue.
The Hybern soldier snickered. “Her majesty might be obsessed with the human snot, but I haven’t forgotten which of our prisoners has the information we need.” A whip appeared in his hand and cracked in the air. “And when I get you to yield, I’ll be rewarded.”
Rhys only felt the pain of the first lash.
He woke to the fresh crack of a whip, and to water pelting his wings like tiny needles. Jurian was still screaming.
The dusk was cleaved by a flash of light, then by another crack, and he thought he saw Illyrians in the grey-green sky.
Impossible. No warrior would risk flying in a storm.
The absence of screaming was so profound that it took several heartbeats for him to realize the war camp was not entirely silent. The rain had stopped, and the ground was steaming in the inland heat. All around him, Hybern soldiers crouched in the mud, shoving weapons and food into bags. The ones who had finished packing were running. The ones who could winnow were already gone.
A yell sounded from the other side of the clearing. Not Jurian’s.
“Over here!”
Rhys blinked, trying to force away the hallucination of aerial soldiers, swooping low to land in the clearing. Their wings were Illyrian.
More Night Court forces swarmed the clearing; too many of them for his imagination to possibly maintain at once. Illyrians navigated their way through the tree branches, and Darkbringers entered on foot. The remaining Hybern soldiers were already being forced to the ground. A few were selected, wrists bound, and led away. The rest were beheaded.
Rhys should have hoped for more mercy from his own court. Should have regretted the brutality of it.
“Oy! There’s an Illyrian prisoner over here!”
“Alive?”
“Not sure.” A footsoldier crouched in front of him. He wore no helmet, and his hair was caked in sweat and blood. He nudged Rhys with a bent knee, and Rhys managed to groan. “Yeah. Wings are fucked though.”
“Are there others? We can’t carry out more than a couple of injured.”
a drabble for @officialrhysweek day three: illyrian baby.
or, a tale of two high lords.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. ✧・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
A citrus-scented breeze wafts through an open window, rustling the sheer curtains framing the night sky. The High Lord breathes deep, looking down at the newborn cradled in his arms. His mate sleeps soundly in the adjoining room, recovering.
It had been a difficult birth.
Were it not for the healer, he could have lost them both.
The babe scrunches his forehead, still sleeping, and the High Lord watches, transfixed. His son, his heir. With a smattering of dark, downy hair on his head, and a pair of wings in perfect miniature tucked into his back.
An Illyrian babe.
Not what anyone would have imagined, least of all Gerallt. The Hewn court will have words for him, no doubt. They've already had words about his mate — swiftly dealt with, the price for dishonoring the High Lord and his consort paid in blood.
The denizens of the Night Court — all of the Night Court — will learn to respect their prince.
Rhysand. Aderyn named him as soon as the healer brought him to her breast. He didn't fight it, content to let her chose.
Rhysand.
Future High Lord of the Night Court.
While there's a possibility, of course, that the Mother could chose differently, he knows. Knows down to his bones that this sleeping babe is his heir in every sense of the word. Night-kissed power diffuses into the air from his tightly curled fists, power that will rattle the stars.
All there is to do now is mold it.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. ✧・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
A shrill cry cracks through the peaceful night, and Rhysand groans. He hasn't had more than an hour of sleep, stolen here and there, in two days. But Feyre — he won't let her lift a finger, not after what happened.
Not after nearly losing her, and their son.
Their son.
Rhys sits up, careful not to disturb his still-sleeping mate. Somehow Nyx's cry hasn't pulled her from dreams, a blessing from the Mother that Rhys doesn't intend to ignore. He's out of bed and across the room as quietly as a cat on the prowl
In the bassinet, Nyx squirms, his face contorting clumsily into approximations of discomfort. Perhaps rage. There's a lot of squinting going on in either case. When he holds the babe in his arms, the weight is a balm. A comfort. His son's warm, breathing body helps wash away the image of a too-small babe, not moving.
Of Feyre, bleeding to death.
Of the thought that he only had mere moments before he, too, would be ripped from the world.
Padding through the door to Nyx's nursery, Rhys says softly, "I think we ought to buy your aunt a particularly ostentatious gift for her mating ceremony, don't you?"
Nyx gurgles.
"Yes, we can pick it out together."
He settles in an upholstered rocker near the window, Nyx peering up from the crook of his elbow. The High Lord of the Night Court and its prince stare at one another, transfixed. Rhys lets himself memorize every hair on his head, every wrinkle in his wings.
His throat goes thick as he rocks his son back to sleep.
Chapter 5 - Can We Always Be This Close Forever and Ever?
Read now on AO3
not beta read becauseeeee it's an epilogue and it's completely and totally self indulgent and I just :) :) I hope you enjoy
want to again thank @lady-bluebird-luv and @popjunkie42 for their help throughout this process. this was so fun and I think I need to not get in my own way about my ideas and what I like and just go for it!!!
Snippet below the cut :)
Rhys waited as long as he was physically able to before proposing to her, according to him.
Rhys had been cryptic about his plans for the evening, laying out a lavender linen dress and sandals in their room one late-August day, with a simple note saying ‘For tonight.’
She dressed, ready for him by 6:00 when he would be home from work. He was nervous, that much was clear. But, the car was packed with the supplies needed for the night, he just needed to change into his dark jeans and henley and he would be ready.
They drove for an hour, a playlist of their favorite songs playing in the background, chasing the sun as it made its descent below the horizon.
He parked them in a clearing that had clearly been ready for them, complete with string lights, flowers, a blanket and pillows - all Rhys had to bring out was the basket of food he had discreetly hidden from her and a small bluetooth speaker.
It struck her then that this was intended to be something more special than just a sunset dinner, and tears began to prick at her eyes at the thought.
Rhys laid their picnic dinner out before them, explaining that he had wanted to plan a special dinner for the two of them, and that there was a meteor shower that night he wanted to watch with her.
It made her blush, his fascination with the stars and understanding the galaxies beyond. One couldn’t guess, just looking at him, that he spent free time studying the stars but talking to him under a blanket of them - it became abundantly clear the reverence he had for them.
They enjoyed their meal as they watched the sunset, Rhys refilling her wine when it got just a little too low.
Once the first stars began twinkling in the sky, the music shifted - the dinner jazz changing instead to one of their romantic favorites, Rhys encouraging Feyre to stand and dance underneath the stars with him.
When he started speaking, Feyre got confirmation that this wasn’t just any ordinary date night.
“At a certain point in my life, I was convinced that the door to my romantic life was closed, and I was content to enjoy time with my family and let that be all I had. Until I met you. And while our beginning was… Unconventional, I’m grateful every single day that you decided to ask me to help you get revenge.” She laughed, the tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes.
“I never thought I would be so lucky to have a chance with you. And now that I have, I don’t want to let you go.”
He got to one knee, producing a black velvet box from his jeans pocket. His eyes met hers, glimmering with nerves and excitement.
Feyre felt fully formed tears in her own, then, her heart racing, feeling unsure of what to do with her hands suddenly.
His voice was thick as he rested a hand on her hip - always touching her, it was constant, these days - and continued. “I love you, Feyre darling, more than I have words to say and more than I can contain in my heart. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I want to spend the rest of my life proving to you how worthy I am of your love. Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
Feyre choked out a sob, bringing her hands to cover her mouth briefly before dropping them back to his wrists. “Yes - Rhys, yes,” was all she managed to say.
Through tears of his own, he slipped the sapphire rock onto her left hand as she kneeled down to meet him, crashing her lips to his, a mix of salty tears in between them.
Underneath the meteor shower, they made love and promises of a life devoted to each other.
Are you ready for Rhys week yet? If not, the brilliant @witchlingsandwyverns has created a treat - paper doll Rhys with a closet worthy of a High Lord!
This week we will drop a digital file to build your own outfit as well as some print-and-play versions for you to create your fave High Lord looks. Use our daily prompts as inspo or let the creative juices flow!
To get started, check out some of our favorite pre-built looks. Save the files to color or print and make it your own! Share your creations with us by tagging @officialrhysweek and use the tag #rhysweek2026.
Start off with some AU Rhys looks on our shared folder!
Basement Apartment for Rent: Private Entrance, $1200 per month
Garden-level studio available in a Victorian-era townhouse three blocks from the Rainbow district. Owner lives upstairs, travels often.
Apartment has a full bathroom and a small kitchen. Trash and water included, tenant pays gas, electric, and internet. No laundry on-site.
Available immediately. Please message [show contact info] to schedule a showing.
