Chapter 1:

Inspired by Billie Eilish's song "When I was older"

Chaos was shaped like an avalanche, Nesta thought, for the more she looked at the houses below, the more she realized how unaware they all were. One minute, a lure of heartbeats, and another swallowed cries. It was odd to think the Illyrians prided themselves on being ready for anything, training for every battle that might or might not occur, and yet, at any moment they could be buried under those mountains they loved so much.

In fact, Nesta didn't mind at all if the mountains rained down upon them. Standing above them made her feel powerful, and the humming wind seemed to agree. Seemed to race up her spine and whisper in her ear that it all deserved to crumble—to be reduced to ash.

She narrowed her eyes at the small, sheltered city. Tents encroaching the center, like little cockroaches that kept running up the partitions, hiding in crevices of cracked drywall. She counted all of the houses, all of the training fields that littered the forests. Nesta could even see the small cabin, hidden behind tracks of snow and mud as if it were stain on a favorite garment that she'd have to squint at to see.

To be burned or buried? Nesta so often wondered…

Sometimes, she wished to see it burn. All of the buildings. All of the tents. All of the people who did nothing but watch and wait and wonder. Something inside of her begged for it—hoped she'd hear the screams and smell the burning flesh.

But not that cabin… Never that cabin.

Even from this distance, she could make out its shape. Alone in its miles of trees. Nesta wished to stomp on it herself if she were tall and grand enough, but there it lay and there it would remain.

Windhaven; a camp of nothings, no ones, and nobodies.

Nesta stared at the skyline, the smoke from the bonfires snaking into the clouds. A heavy grey enveloping all that encroached, except for a piece that the sun shone through. It gleamed and glared at her menacingly.

She could never understand how anyone could look it, its brightness and unblinking gaze, and not see a mouth. The swollen light with its rows and rows of teeth, sharp and yellowed with age. Did it watch her with its burning irises? Did it blink back with salacious, wide eyes curious as to what she offered—what she hid? Maybe it could look past the skin, see the bones beneath, hear the echo of a body that should have been filled, and full, and beating.

Nesta wanted to ask it so many questions as she stood there.

Did it see a high fae? A once-called witch? A shadow walking? A severe ache crawling—speaking on her behalf? Did it see a once-born human who'd never forgotten the taste of stale air and poverty?

Or did it only see a piece of her? An unshaded, pale sliver of the moon.

Perhaps—worst of all—did it see nothing? No one at all… Every good and decent thing so dismal it could be hidden in the recesses of her skin and the deep folds of her dress.

Nesta covered her eyes—suddenly all too aware of the parts of her that could be scrutinized. She looked at the mountains in the distance. The forest. All of it below her as if she was standing above it all. As if she could do such things.

Her father would have liked it here. Nesta nearly shuddered at the thought.

Her father who had seen it all… would he have rushed home to tell her this? Would he have created some story that encompassed all of its appeal, drew maps for her to trace her fingers along, or tell her she'd have to see it for herself as he so often did when she was young?

What would he think of Illyria, where cold snipped at her cheeks and the wind barked? Would he rejoice in childlike splendor? Learn each name of every resident, every type of evergreen and conifer? Or would he think like she did? That the forest around them made good kindling. That the smoke that rose from chimneys was a taunt, a risen middle finger to death and chaos and shame.

Her father had been born brave, had carried courage on his sleeve, and weaved stories into her wandering heart. Nesta wanted to be like him. The person who built cities in her eyes, who traced and named every land she could only ever begin to dream of.

What would he think of her like this? Standing on this mountain, nowhere near the top and too far from the bottom. Trapped somewhere in the middle, because she couldn't go any further, and she couldn't go back.

What would she tell him she'd seen? Smoke wafting from chimneys. An endless amount of trees, that spanned so much of the horizon Nesta wondered how the ground wasn't suffocating. Would she tell him she'd only seen a tiny part of the world and already it was too vast to take in? That she had woken up to sunshine and instead of it being from her bedroom window, it was the light that shined from above, and even that scared her. Just the light and the bitter feeling that she was walking without being aware, talking without control. How many other things did she do without noticing she was doing them?

It was this body, Nesta argued. Defective from the start.

Stick her in another one and maybe she'd explode. Light blaring from an innocent star. Fire and anger erupting in that deep, dark place. That's what her body should have done that day. Combusted in that dreadful cauldron until even it couldn't handle containing her.

Maybe she'd explode and the whole world would be lost. Maybe it wasn't about being burned or buried, maybe it was about disappearing. One minute there and gone the next.

The space of a few blinks.

It was always hard to tell whether she was dreaming, if she should hinder the thoughts that formed malignant mountains that caved in when she screamed. Sometimes she didn't care. Sometimes she cared too much.

As the wind rushed around her Nesta cared for nothing at all. Her hair tumbling out and around her face, still in methodical braids atop her head.

A crown to rule, she imagined, over all those people who had disappointed her. Over and over again.

Nesta looked at that far off cabin one more time.

"Crush them," She heard herself say. Her own voice a roaring storm that got lost in the harsh wind.

The ground rumbled under her feet, but she paid no mind.

Let them be buried under the rubble of her dreams, Nesta mused. Let them try and climb their way out.

There was a storm coming. Nesta could smell it.

It was the same scent she breathed in all those years ago across the wall. The wind so cold in those freezing winters that it made her lungs feel as if they were filled with smoke. A part of her wanted to rush back in the house and burrow into her blankets where the sound of aching coughs didn't float around on whirring winds. Some half-forgotten memory clinging to her as sure as the snow in her hair.

Nesta pulled her coat tighter around her, her feet crunching the ground beneath her like snapping twigs… or broken limbs. The path as white as bones and yet not as fragile. She had already tripped twice. Her fur-lined boots warm but not practical for Illyrian winter.

Nesta huffed, watching a cloud bloom and then disappear in the morning sun. Already heavy and bright. She had almost reached the center of town and yet it still seemed miles away. By the time she spotted the tents on the rolling landscape, she was sure she'd be coated in sweat. Nesta was always too warm when she made it to the kitchens, her jacket half-askew and her gloves tucked away in its pockets.

She squeezed her hands into fists, feeling them ache as she clamped them together. It took most of the morning to walk from the cabin to the village, a distance Nesta knew took Cassian only moments. Nesta tried not to feel too envious, but she was already tired. Had been when she had walked out that door. Her only hope for the day was that it would end with a blink. All of it passing her periphery like moon-drunk dreams and… half-forgotten memories.

She'd have to do this again tomorrow, Nesta reminded herself, but that was another day's problem. Another day. Another sun. Another Nesta, entirely.

Nesta refused to believe this was her life. The miles and exhaustion, never-ending.

As the first tent made it's appearance, Nesta breathed a sigh of relief. She'd counted twenty-two tents when she first made the trek, all different sizes of various shades of black, brown, and cream. The more inlaid she went, the more those tents turned into houses. She had not asked why some had houses and others tents, but Nesta figured like all places, there were some who could afford luxuries like secure walls and plumbing and those who could not and never would.

Nesta passed only a few shops on her way to the kitchens, the windowpanes decorated with poinsettias and pine. Leftover from the Solstice celebrations weeks before and still persisting through the frigid wake. She could see the red poking out from beneath the snow.

She had not passed one Illyrian, though Nesta checked that off to training and drills. Most of the males probably on the outskirts of camp in some field or another fighting like buffoons. Cassian was probably with them. Nesta couldn't imagine any other place he'd go at the stroke of a sunrise. However, that only explained half of the population. The rest of the Illyrians, the female counterparts to the rampaging soldiers, could have been anywhere. Nesta knew of only a few.

She tried to look for some essence that told her this place was alive, but it was disturbingly quiet. No children running around, no shopkeepers bustling about with weapons and shiny things. No females doing… whatever females did on a regular morning. She had only the buildings for company and if the wood could speak Nesta imagined it'd tell her to head back to the cabin, collect what little she owned, and walk a thousand paces to who knows where.

Better there than where she was heading.

Nesta twisted her way to the back door of the dining hall. It was large in appearance with long tables in the center, but it didn't look like what she imagined a dining hall would be. Nesta thought it looked more like a tavern, and she'd been in enough of those to recognize it when she saw one.

Indeed, it was a tavern late into the evening after supper and training past. But, Nesta never stayed long enough to note all the differences and besides, she doubted they would let her drink with them or be near them… Such human rules for fae people.

The kitchens, themselves, weren't all bad. She'd been in situations that were worse, so Nesta shouldn't have complained so liberally about them. But, she was tired, another bout of bad dreams keeping her from sleeping peacefully.

She was certainly too tired to spar with the Illyrians.

Nesta pushed past the gaping double doors, the hinges swinging just enough that she heard one of the frame's edges bang on a table. The two Illyrians startled at the noise.

She did not greet the female who looked up from over a pan of sizzling sausage, who all but sneered as she made her way to the wall. The aprons dangling from the racks. She did not wave hello to the young Illyrian in the corner peeling potatoes with a bucket and a basket at her side. They were not her friends, and Nesta was not friendly. She did not care at all if they liked her or not.

Nesta watched as the female kept her eyes on the knife, quickly swiping the peel away as it landed in spirals on the table. She grabbed an apron, tied it around her, and took a knife from the block along with a basket of carrots. Nesta could feel their eyes on her as she moved to the back counter, facing the wall. The jade-colored wallpaper with its baby breath print mocking her as she settled in the place she had worked every day since coming here.

Nesta fell into the methodical rhythm. The knife through the carrots, the carrots falling to the cutting board, her hand swiping the contents to a wooden bowl. It almost made her forget that there were people around her. Females whose numbers were added as the time moved still, so pointedly silent that Nesta gripped the knife tighter.

One crunch and then another. One snap and then an ill-timed bang.

It all sounded like bones to her.

She could imagine fingers under her knife, could imagine fingers on the board, and hands, and legs, and… heads. So many bodies sliced through, cut finely, piled one on top of another in a large wooden bowl—

A sharp laugh broke out behind her and Nesta dropped the knife, the clatter making her jump out of her skin.

She looked down where the blade had landed and bent to retrieve it, but blood dripped from her palm. It splashed with red inky droplets on the floor.

Nesta cursed and ran to the faucet. The running water ice-cold as she plunged her hand in.

Unsurprisingly, when the blood had washed away, the wound had healed. Her skin as pure and untainted as it had been before.

As if no pain had existed at all. As if there wasn't even a wound to begin with.

Yes, Nesta thought. She wished to see it all burn.

Nesta stared into the night, the stars blinking back. Little eyes all over its dark body.

That was another difference she noted.

The night was boundless in Windhaven, not limited to Velaris's bright cityscape or its happy show tunes. It was infinitely colder, more sterile somehow, and as Nesta moved along the winding roads, stumbling and squinting her way along, she resented the universe.

One, because Illyrians were born with wings and she wasn't—had not even been gifted them in that lecherous cauldron. Two, because those same Illyrians didn't think to pave their roads or install fae lights on every corner. As if they could move around without any inconvenience at all.

Nesta scoffed, hiking up the skirts of her dress where it pulled at her boot.

Also, the hills, Nesta thought. The hills were on her hate list.

It was too dark in Windhaven and it was too quiet. Every day it had been the same. It was never-ending, never changing. With the buildings that turned to houses and the houses that turned to tents and on and on. One day after another. One Nesta after the next. She was sick of it!

She raised her nose at them all. Let them be buried, Nesta decided.

But then… she heard a snap.

A quick break of a limb. A rustle.

Nesta looked all around her but saw nothing but trees, veiled behind shadows and snow. She looked behind her, the tents just measly blocks of stardust. She was far enough away that she couldn't even see the soldiers pacing back and forth, guarding that village she hated so much. Not that they would help her if she asked.

Damn Cassian, for not having a house closer to town.

She kept walking. Her head held high, her heart thumping wildly. The pride keeping the ice in her veins from thawing into puddles and goo.

But the noise sounded again and this time, it was accompanied by a growl.

Nesta did not wait to see where the sound was coming from. She was not ashamed to leave, to preserve herself and what little life she had left.

She was not afraid, Nesta asserted.

When she heard the snap again, her stomach squeezing tightly in her fists, Nesta was too ashamed to admit she wanted to run all the way back to Velaris.

Cassian was already back by the time she arrived and Nesta braced herself for the onslaught of questions she never deigned to respond to. How was your day? What did you do? Did you enjoy your time? As if she could forget she was forced here against her will. Just the thought of it made her want to head back into the woods and take her chances with the gnarling twigs.

Nesta tried to settle her breathing, her face surely flushed from the run. She patted down her hair, her braided coronet coming undone at the edges. She dipped her head back and sighed before twisting the knob.

Cassian, as she predicted, was waiting for her. Like always.

He looked good, though Nesta dismissed the thought, with loose pants and a simple white shirt, his hair wet and hanging loosely around his shoulders. Smelled good even, with some fragrance she couldn't name permeating the entranceway.

"I made roast." He said an attempt of a greeting.

Indeed, he had oven mitts on, a pan of steaming meat in his hands.

She looked him over, made sure to flick her eyes to his and away once more. Dismissive and petty, but just enough to have him seeing red.

"I'm not hungry." Nesta declared.

A lie, she thought, because she hadn't eaten all day. He had even left her breakfast this morning, but she threw it away like she always did every morning.

Nesta didn't wait for him to respond, walking past the kitchen and the smell of food to the one other place that didn't make her want to bang her head against the wall.

She threw her bag on the side table, peeled her coat off, stuffing it into the armoire, and plopped on the bed. A headache already forming as she closed her eyes.

Sleep would come, Nesta knew. The prospect didn't offer any relief. She never had trouble sleeping. It wasn't what worried her.

It was what came after the sleep…

The moment Nesta opened her eyes again, who knows what she'd see.

AN:

This is just me playing with characters and themes and storylines because I've thought about this book A LOT in the last two years. So, I'm just here to keep it interesting! Also I just love writing Nesta as annoyed and inconvenienced about everything. It's fun :D

Comment and favorites always welcome!

Tumblr: VidalinaV