feysand-hivemind

[feysand-hivemind]

Our next chapter is here!!!!!

Time Won’t Fly (It’s Like I’m Paralyzed by It)

Chapter 18: A Lesson in Temperance (Loop 75)

Read on AO3 · Fic masterlist

Chapter summary After a series of particularly punishing loops, Rhysand falls back to a more conservative approach: staying out of fate’s way. It works well—until Feyre spends one evening draped in his lap and chipping away at his self-restraint. Eventually, his needs outgrow his ability to stay seated. Five dirty minutes alone won't reset the loop, will it?

Can’t tell you how honored I am to be a part of this project! Thanks to @popjunkie42 for the beta read and to everyone in the @feysand-hivemind for having me <3

The difficulty of seeing her is that he knows. He knows what it’s like to have her sleep soundly in his arms, to hear her murmur his name without vitriol, to sink himself into her and make her eyes roll back in pleasure. He’d thought it would make it all the more bearable—that the previous loops would tide him over, give him the strength and purpose to keep his hands off of her through the third trial. But no, it’s made it worse. It’s made him weaker, more likely to give in and do something that results in his death—or worse, Feyre’s. He clenches his fist, unclenches it, clenches it again. Just don’t be an idiot, he says to his reflection, not for the first time. His own hardened eyes peer back in silence.   The mind-numbing repetition of the loops may render him powerless over his fate, but within the confines of each loop, what he does have is his will. He intends to continue to exercise it. It’s all he has, the ability to control what little he can: himself.

Read on AO3

[feysand-hivemind]

Surprise new author reveal!!! Next chapter is up!

Nothing Ever Matters

Chapter 17 (Loop 67) of Time Won't Fly (It's Like I'm Paralyzed By It)

E | 13.5 K | Dub-con

for the incomparable @feysand-hivemind. Cheers to @gaeleria for having this delicious idea in the first place <3

—

His eyes open to blood-red curtains, and a dull roar begins somewhere deep in the back of his mind, growing louder, and louder. Again. Again. Again.

—

Read on AO3 / Timeloop Masterlist

tw: canon-typical UtM violence, dubcon elements, depictions of depression/suicidal ideation/mental illness (further cw listed in fic)

[feysand-hivemind]

Hi friends - this is just a note that due to recent data scraping of AO3, our writers have chosen to make the fic available to AO3 account holders only. If you need an account to read you can find an invitation request online!

[feysand-hivemind]

Next chapter is up!!!

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Chapter Sixteen: The Wyrm (Loop 66)

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter. Until one day, it doesn't. Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up on the same day - over and over. Now, Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact. A "round robin" style fanfiction with different authors. This work is meant to be read from beginning to end, but each chapter is written by a different author with their own spin on the time loop prompt.

Part of the @feysand-hivemind

Fandom: A Court of Thorns and Roses

Pairing: Feyre/Rhysand

Rating: Teen

Triggers: Major Character Death, Suicide

Length: 1,040 words

[Hello again! Back to provide some emotional catharsis this time instead of silliness. Truthfully, I've had this chapter written since June of 2024 and it's just been sitting in my drafts all this time, waiting to be unleashed. So I'm glad I can finally share it with you all!]

Tumblr Masterlist | Read on AO3 or below the cut

Rhys felt like he was on the edge of a panic attack. 

(Then again, this whole time looping madness had felt like one very long, endless panic attack.)

No matter how many times he’d lived through this exact moment he still couldn’t help but fight the wave of anxiety that gripped his heart as his mate—still glaring daggers at Amarantha—was snatched up and dropped into the arena like a sack of potatoes. 

The fact that he’d gotten her this far was, quite frankly, a miracle. After his last few cycles he’d nearly given up hope of getting her to this point again. He was tired. And terrified. And he just wanted this all to be over. For he and Feyre to escape this mad, spiraling time loop and Amarantha and her horrors and then…and then…

He didn’t dare think of that nebulous what-if. It felt so out of reach. So fragile. As if just thinking it would pop it like a soap bubble. 

Below, he watched Feyre sprint through the mud as the wyrm was released. Good. She understood the danger. Now all she had to do was—

Where was she going?!

Rhys watched helplessly as Feyre turned left…straight into the path of the wyrm. He had no more than a single moment for horror to take hold before he saw the wyrm open its gaping maw…and swallow his mate whole. 

She didn’t even have time to scream before he felt her life—that beautiful, brilliant light that shined like a star in his mind—snuffed out as she was crushed between the wyrm’s teeth. 

No. 

No. 

Not again. 

Not. Again. 

No matter how many times he’d seen his mate die, it still felt like his heart had been torn from his chest, raw and bloody and still beating. His hands shook. He couldn’t breathe. He wanted to scream. He wanted to shred the very fabric of this reality and put it back together so that she would be there again, safe and sound and alive. 

He wanted to…ah. Yes. There was that panic attack he’d been waiting for. 

“Such a pity,” Amarantha said, clucking her tongue mockingly. She slumped back in her throne with a disappointed sigh. “I was hoping for a little more entertainment today.”

Normally, this was when Rhys was expected to swallow his horror and disgust and reply ‘Yes, such a pity’ and ‘Humans are such pathetic little creatures aren’t they?’.

That is not what he said. 

“Has anyone ever told you what an insufferable creature you are?”

She paused, almost as if in shock. Rhys had never spoken to her like this before. Not in all his fifty years under this godsforsaken mountain. He had always been such a good boy to her face. Ready to bow and scrape and offer up whatever she desired. His coy commiseration. His power. Even his body. 

But none of that mattered anymore. Not without her. 

His mate. 

Feyre. 

Besides, it wasn’t as if she would remember any of this anyway. 

“Oh, forgive me,” he continued. “Were you not expecting that from me? Have I played your adoring pet for too long? Well let me set the record straight here and now. You repulse me.” His face twisted into a snarl. He was sure he looked more wolf than fae in that moment. 

Amarantha said nothing, still caught by surprise. Around them, the arena had gone silent. No one dared make a sound as Rhys voiced everything no one else was brave enough to say out loud. 

“You’re pathetic. Whatever happened to that great and ruthless general I wonder? The one who struck fear into the hearts of her enemies? Are you so helpless and pitiful now that you had to bind all of Prythian through trickery? Have you grown so miserable and weak that you are reduced to playing games with a human? A child?”

It felt so good to say this out loud. To finally tell her what a vile little cretin she was. 

“I’ve met rodents more appealing than you.”

Anger flared across that perfect face. She was upset. 

Good. 

“Seize him!” Amarantha called, her fingers bone white as she clutched the arms of her throne. 

Rhys laughed. He felt manic. Wild. Reckless. He didn’t bother fighting the attor as it grasped ahold of his shoulders and thrust him to his knees. 

What did it matter now?

“Look at you. So afraid of a few words. Because you know they’re true. You know you have no allies. No friends,” he laughed, a frenzied edge to his voice. “You know all of us want you dead. You will never know peace. Never know freedom. Never know love. Even your beloved Tamlin can’t wait to rip your throat out.”

He saw the way that last barb cut deep. How her eyes briefly flickered towards the fae in question. And Tamlin, confirming her worst fears, only had eyes for the slithering, blind creature below—as if waiting for the fierce little blonde human to walk out of its jaws, perfectly hale and whole once more. 

If only. 

“I can’t wait for you to suffer the way you’ve made us all suffer these many long years.”

She plastered a cruel smile onto her face. “I hope that thought will sustain you through what I have planned for you.”

“Ah, but I don’t have to hope, Amarantha, my dear,” he said with a manic grin. “You see, I’ll make it happen.”

A flash of doubt crossed her face and Rhys’s smile widened. Below them, he heard the wyrm slither close, looking for another meal. 

“What are you—”

Quick as a viper, he wrenched himself free and for one shining, beautiful moment he saw a flicker of fear in Amarantha’s eyes. He didn’t need to read her mind to know what she was thinking. 

Is he going to kill me? Can he kill me?!

His smile was all teeth. 

“See you soon my dear.” It was a promise. 

An omen. 

Then, to the shock of all, he flung himself off the platform and into the path of the wyrm. 

I’m coming my love. 

It was his last thought before the wyrm opened its jaws wide and—

Enjoy this fic? Check out some of my other Feysand time travel fics (Let Us Cling Together As The Years Go By and The Nights Grow Long) or fics from the many other talented writers on this project who can be found here.

Or, alternatively, check out my ACOTAR Fic Masterlists.

Thanks for reading! 💜

[feysand-hivemind]

Our next chapter is here!!!!

time won't fly (it's like i'm paralyzed by it)

Chapter 15: she can be my jailer (loops 60-61)

Read on AO3

Tags: Descriptions of violence, canon-typical UTM violence and angst, character (temporary) death

Summary: Facing the never-ending loops with dread and perhaps a growing boredom, Rhysand decides instead to enjoy the company of his mate.

Thank you to @climbthemountain2020 and @rosanna-writer for the beta reads and all the @feysand-hivemind for the endless support and genius inspiration!

So excited to share this next timeloop chapter with you all!

Read on AO3 and find a clip under the cut.

The first long note of the violin threatened to crack his mask in two.

Amarantha’s small collection of musicians launched into a mournful tune.

A song his heart knew before his mind could catch up. An old song from the war, from the human slave armies. When they freed the first large slaver city on the Continent and moved more freely for a time, the song had spread through the human-fae alliance like wildfire. A relic of the mortal lands surviving centuries past, kept alive by the fae across the wall. A song of pain, a song of defiance.

He remembered the sound of the voices of hundreds rising together as they marched across scorched earth, human and fae armies as one.

Amarantha had no taste for music, the idea of a creative pleasure not involving violence or dominance a strange and bewildering concept to her. Whether the musicians tonight were rebels, foolish or just ignorant to the song’s history, he didn’t know. But he felt the rush of those memories of a different time, a different place. A different version of himself.

The song pulled him through the long centuries - through the weight of this mountain overhead, even free of the endless loops of struggle and death - into another time. They had prevailed then. Long years of suffering and death but Prythian had lived on - some justices righted. Human and fae, joined in one purpose, not yet divided by a wall.

He extended a hand to Feyre, standing in front of a few fae dancing. It was more common to see them copulating than performing a waltz in this room, but it was still early in the night.

He could take it. He could suffer. Pinned as he was once, crucified on spikes and tortured with the death of his loyal legion - he had survived, had returned to his family, had found joy and the stars again.

And now - for all the pain and terror under Amarantha’s thumb - he had Feyre.

His mate was here with him. A human come to rescue a fae.

That had to count for something. It had to mean something.

Feyre regarded his outstretched hand like it might snap at her, but he let the mask slip just a little bit and gave her a hopeful smile.

If he could hold Feyre against him, maybe she could help him keep the fraying edges together.

He found that little wisp of a connection between them and tugged.

Frown lines formed on her face. But she took his hand and stepped into him.

Whispered, “I don’t know how to dance.”

“Of course you do, darling. You just were. So beautifully.” She blinked a bit, stumbling on his feet.

Maybe the Mother would forgive him, if he was a little shameless in banding an arm around her waist and pulling her close to his body. Holding her up so her feet rested on top of his, their bodies sliding against each other.

He started moving them across the marble as she tensed and dangled off of his neck. It was hard for her to relax, to trust him. And he couldn’t blame her. He walked them through some loose steps - something too formal would be out of place here, but he found the gentle rhythm of the song. Her eyes never left his face.

Their little performance had gone too far. He didn’t have to break through Amarantha’s shields to feel the bloodlust roiling off of her as he danced delicately with her human prisoner in front of all to see.

“Do you know, Feyre,” he said, watching the Attor stalking towards them behind Feyre’s back, “I think that I’m completely and utterly in love with you.”

His heart was pounding as he soaked in the scene - her wide, slate-blue eyes, wine-stained lips parted, gooseflesh on her back where his palm rested once again. Behind her was a flash of red hair and a beastly snarl that he blocked out quickly with a shield. Catching Feyre’s chin before she turned to look, he pulled her towards him and crashed his lips into hers.

He would savor this moment, the taste of her, the almost imperceptible way her fingers tightened on his jacket. The way she melted further into him, as if he were somehow capable of keeping her safe.

She broke from his lips when the rough claws of the Attor began to pierce his weak shield like shattering glass, and before she could look he wrapped her in his arms, closed his eyes, and willed everything to dust.

[feysand-hivemind]

Hello hi, yeah, how do you guys work? :) this place looks so exciting and I've not seen these many FEYSAND writers in one place in like ever, like I'm yours. Legit take me... make me blood sacrifice

Whaat who said that👀

Hi anon! We're flattered by the interest <3 Unfortunately, we're not able to add more people. A collaborative project like this requires a lot of trust and coordination to work, and it's already planned out to the end.

[feysand-hivemind]

A little sneak peek from one of our yet-to-be-revealed authors! Any guesses who it might be? 😉

She’s so beautiful, even bloodied and bruised and covered in filth. The thought makes the corner of his lip lift, and she blanches, clearly reading the thoughts in his eyes as he takes his time perusing her. A part of him craves that recognition, craves knowing that he’s not alone in this—but he knows better than to hope. ‘I suppose you’ll be happy to learn most of my court lost a good deal of money tonight,’ Amarantha says, picking up the same piece of parchment she always does. ‘Let’s see,’ she goes on, reading the paper as she toys with Jurian’s finger bone at the end of her necklace. ‘Yes, I’d say almost my entire court bet on you dying within the first minute; some said you’d last five, and’—she turns over the paper—‘and… just one person said you would win.’ He pastes a sly, malicious grin on his face, stifling the small lurch in chest as he breaks the script in a way he has not before. ‘I would ask to trade my winnings for a boon, my lady.’ Amarantha’s brow raises, eyes narrowing in suspicion. ‘Oh? And what would that be, Rhysand?’ ‘It’s been centuries since mortals were kept as slaves in Prythian,’ he begins archly. ‘I rather miss having a pet.’ Laughter rolls through the court, echoing off the jagged, stone walls, and his gaze slides to Tamlin. He watches the blood drain from his face with ill-disguised contempt as Amarantha's smile widens.

[feysand-hivemind]

if i was trapped in the time loop i would do the correct sequence of actions to break out of the time loop on my first try, thus resulting in me unaware of there being a time loop in the first place

[feysand-hivemind]

Do you have a rough idea of how many chapters there's going to be (I don't know how much more tortured Rhys I can take😭)

We've avoided putting a total number of chapters on the fic because our outline is always in flux. But as of now, we're more than halfway through. We have approximately ten more planned; the total number might change, but our plan for a definitive happy ending will not!

[feysand-hivemind]

Read on Ao3 // Fic Masterlist

Fic Summary: Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter.

Until one day, it doesn't. Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up on the same day - over and over. Now, Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact.

AN: Bet you didn’t expect to see me here, but I somehow managed to weasel my way in with the cool kids. So here I am, an official member of the brilliant @feysand-hivemind! I'm so honored to be writing beside the absolute icons on this project.

Thank you @sajirah, @popjunkie42, and @tunaababee for the beta reading!

Chapter XIV: Traitors Never Win (Loop 57)

Chapter Summary: Rhys manipulates this loop to once again try to convince Feyre he's an ally, only for it to fall apart when they are caught conspiring Under the Mountain.

CW: Temporary character death, Implied dubious consent

Rhys sensed Feyre breach his wards the moment she stumbled over the threshold to his rooms, his magic caught between tension and satisfaction that his mate was in his space. Still, it took far too long to disengage from his frankly gruesome obligation to return to his rooms—pretend he needed to investigate the how and why she’d been escorted from her cell to his chambers. He’d been painstakingly cautious navigating this loop to make it this far. Raising suspicions just to speak with Feyre wasn’t a mistake he could afford to make. Not after how they’d been discovered in the loop Feyre was conscious of. Between what that Feyre had shown him and the vision the Suriel had shared, he was done using the loop as a crutch to lean on.

He’d tested each reset carefully. Hoped there was another chance to hold the woman who knew and came to love him through her own series of trial and error, but that blessing was short-lived, and maybe they were better off for it. Maybe he wouldn’t have to see his mate turn a knife on herself again.

Play the game, keep her riled enough she didn’t break, earn her trust while showing the wretched court she was nothing more than a human plaything. And painful as it was to never feel that glorious possessiveness from his huntress, don’t let things slip far enough they risk exposing the bond. There was no timeline where Her Majesty would be willing to share the toy she got her claws into.

Winnowing directly to the bed, Rhys watched his mate—coated in grime by now—sifting through old ash to fish out the lentils planted there for her.

“As wonderful as it is to see you, Feyre, darling,” he purred, reclining on the mattress to repeat their increasingly familiar song and dance, “do I want to know why you’re digging through my fireplace?”

She’d already whipped around to face him, ash shaken loose from her sleeves to dust the stone beneath her feet. Her face was pinched slightly, her chin high. “This wasn’t your idea then?” He raised a brow and she scoffed. “One of your mistress’ household chores, I suppose. Clean the lentils from the ash or have my skin peeled off in strips.”

Whatever missteps Rhys may take, one thing never changed. His mate certainly had a mouth on her. So he was left to complement it. Objective two: keep her riled. “Interesting. A bit messy for my taste, but effective. Tell me, darling, how far did you get?”

Feyre scowled, gripping the poker she held just a hair tighter, chin still jutting out stubbornly, refusing to seem cowed in the presence of a predator. Good girl. “I don’t care for your games, Rhysand. Since you don’t intend to skin me, I’d like to return to my cell.”

Rhys cocked his head. “Don’t feel like playing, darling? Pity.” He sighed, smoothly rising to his feet before taking a few steps closer. “I find your little quips quite entertaining. Very well. If you won’t indulge me, we can get straight to business. We don’t have long before the guards return, after all. You need an ally down here and neither your beloved or his emissary seem keen to step up to the plate.”

“And you think I trust you enough to call you an ally?”

He chuckled. “Oh, I would dare wish it, darling. Lady Luck abandoned me centuries ago and you’re too smart to not suspect my motives. This time, though, I simply ask you respect that everyone Under the Mountain has an independent agenda and mine rarely aligns with the witch.”

Feyre’s eyes narrowed. “You’re plotting to move against her.”

“In a sense.” He dared another step, close enough to pry the poker from her hands and toss it behind him. “One day she’ll fall. But in the end, I won’t be the one to ensure it.”

The Suriel had made that clear enough upon its capture. He needed Feyre on his side, one way or another. He wouldn’t make it through this hell cycle without her. 

“What would you expect of me, then? Why would you think I have the means to help you succeed? Killing the worm was a challenge, but hardly on par with—”

He cut her a hard glare before easing into her mind with a tenderness even beyond what he’d granted her in Spring, now so well acquainted with the fragility of her human mind. “Even the walls have ears, Feyre. Enough has been said aloud as is.”

There was a sharp knock on the door, two guards waiting beyond it. “Tomorrow night I will send the wraiths for you. You will not argue. They will be acting under my orders. We’ll see where things go from there.”

If Amarantha doesn’t sniff out his plot once again.

He sighed, moving towards the door. “Wait,” she said. His hand stilled over the knob. “The riddle… Do you know the answer?”

“Yes. And no, I cannot reveal it to you. No soul Under the Mountain can, so don’t be a fool and seek out the fox, either. We’ve all been ordered to keep quiet—not to help you solve it. Even if Lucien could speak of it, he’s far too closely watched after that stunt he pulled, helping you in the wyrm’s lair.”

Watching her face fall, Rhys’ chest tightened with guilt. Still, he made himself maintain his mask and opened the door to let the two guards into the room, each of them closing a single hand over Feyre’s biceps.

Something hot and vicious coiled inside him, flaring when he saw her try to hide her flinch. It took so little effort to claim their minds in a mental talon-tipped fist.

“You’ll remove your hands from the lady, now.” They obeyed. “These meaningless tasks—the chores—are to come to an end. Each morning and evening you will provide her with a hot meal. No more molded bread and water. If you speak of these orders, defy them, or harm her…” His lips tilted up in a cruel grin, “…you’re to slit your own throats. Get out of my sight.”

Free of their hold, Feyre held herself back long enough she would trail behind them, rather than be caught between them. “Until we meet again, Feyre darling.”

It was hardly the first time Rhys had had his mate in his lap, but he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the the tenuous balance of guilt and need it brought, granting her one glass of wine after the next as she writhed in his lap, teasing the hard line of his erection with each pass of her hips.

Still, he mastered himself even as the paint gracing her waist and hips was smudged beyond recognition night after night. As for the path of his mouth, every word of his tongue was a tangle of praise and mockery, honey sweet and sharp as a blade. His mental coos became the tiny pieces to a grand plot, carefully placed to linger when she woke in the morning.

It started with little keys to lead her to the riddle’s solution. Hints to make sure she stayed on course through the second trial. The more risky bits of information he saved for the evenings, trusting she was back in her right mind. The roles he would have to play, the lines he would walk—that he wouldn’t risk sharing. The more Feyre knew, he’d discovered, the more likely one of them was to slip up. And the more likely Amarantha was to discover his disloyalty. Suffering this wretched cycle again and again, he’d seen enough of his mate’s torture to haunt him for a lifetime. 

A soft breath at his ear drew him back to the present. “What’s wrong tonight?” Feyre whispered, voice just barely audible under the music, conversation, and entertainment of the solstice revelry. It was a rare show of empathy and he clung to it the moment it was presented, even if that softness was nothing more than a drunken falter in her disgust with him.

He sighed, thumb curving along her thigh as he slipped into her mind. “Other than the fact I just killed a male acting on his High Lord’s orders to secure their freedom? To put it simply, darling, it’s been an excruciating forty-nine years. I’m also considering the risk of your second trial. Whatever it is,” he suggested, playing dumb, “your success with the wyrm will not be forgotten. The second challenge will be an entirely different test.”

He’d been more careful about her wine intake this time around, considering the trial she’d face tomorrow, even if he’d have to help her through the grasshopper riddle. But her eyes were still glazed and Rhys doubted she heard the warning in his voice. She dipped her chin all the same, shivering when the next sweep of his thumb dragged across the smooth skin closer to her center before he spread his legs enough she straddled one thigh. She ground down almost immediately and it was an effort not to clench his jaw. “Enough talking, pet.”

She tipped forward, her forehead falling to his collarbone. “I need…” He glanced down, watching her loose a ragged breath. “I don’t know what I need anymore. A distraction. Not another drink or dance or… Just a distraction.”

Rhys leaned down, mouth grazing her ear. “Well then, allow me the pleasure of distracting you, darling.”

It had been a risk to the loop, of course, taking Feyre to his bed again. But he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Not when she was still wrapped around him in the early hours of the morning, one leg thrown over his hip as if it wasn’t the most natural thing to fall asleep and wake together.

Cauldron, he needed to be free of this hellscape.

He reached to stroke her hair out of her face, intending to savor the few moments before dawn, when he would have to wake her to return to her cell before her trial. When she would gather her senses and realize what they had done. What she had done after spending the past months navigating her dangerous bargain with Amarantha for her lover. 

He wasn’t sure he was prepared to face the regret and anger that waited for him. He could only hope it wouldn’t affect her when it came to the riddle. If her resentment played any sort of aide, she might manage to raise a mental shield to block him out before he could help her.

Realizing his mate was beginning to wake, he carefully eased her leg down from his hip. “Good morning, Feyre darling.”

“What—” Her eyes darted around the room, first raking in the scattered clothing, then her own bare figure, paint smears and all. She clutched the sheet to her chest, face twisting with her horror. “Oh, gods. Tamlin. I didn’t—” 

Feyre scrambled from the bed, her disgust with the whole situation laid bare. “You were hardly an unwilling participant last night,” he told her, his smugness not entirely for show. They’d been so damn lucky the bond hadn’t snapped. The way she’d felt around him—clung to him with each slow thrust… Lucky didn’t begin to cover it. 

“I was drunk,” she hissed back. “I didn’t ask for that.”

“You asked for a distraction, sitting so pretty on my lap. So, I gave you the one distraction I could manage. I don’t see your beloved offering such an escape.”

She jerked back as if he’d physically struck her, a fresh fire in her eyes. Good. She couldn’t afford to show weakness today.

Rhys stood from the bed, donned his usual pants and jacket before cleaning her of any evidence with a bit of lesser magic and dressing her too. “If you’re ready to face your cell again, darling.”

His summoning was an aberration. One that sent his pulse thrumming double time. “My queen, how may I serve you?” he asked, paranoid now that Feyre’s scent had lingered on his skin. Or his had been found when she was taken from her cell for the second trial.

“You were so careful to tell your little pet to mind her mouth. What is it that you keep telling her at my little parties?” Amarantha mused, brushing her cheeks with rouge, a saccharine smile curling her lips. ‘The walls have eyes and ears, darling’?"

He stilled, almost letting his mask slip. “My queen, what would the warning matter, when her mind is so open to me? If she were plotting against you—”

“And if you were plotting against me, Rhysand?” Dread settled heavy in his stomach. He’d get another chance, yes, but it didn’t make the defeat any easier to swallow. “Don’t get any ideas about helping her with the riddle I trusted you with. It’s long since changed. You’d best hope the little human can think quickly.”

Less than an hour later, Rhys found himself forced to his knees with a blindfold tied behind his head. A roaring crowd was their only preparation before the scalding heat began to make its descent. “I’m sorry, darling. I tried.”

His mate’s panicked pleas were still ringing in his ears when he woke beside the wicked queen once again.

[feysand-hivemind]

Author reveal! Enjoy chapter 13 by the talented @itsthedoodle! ❤️

time won't fly (it's like i'm paralyzed by it) - Chapter 13/Loop 55

every bond you break, every step you take (i'll be watching you)

Chapter Summary: Rhys, thinking things can't possibly get worse, is once again proven wrong in the worst possible way.

Warnings: NSFW, temporary major character death, implied/referenced rape/non-con

Rating: Explicit

Notes: You didn't really think i wouldn't be part of an unhinged project, did you? Surprise! I love you @feysand-hivemind, you guys have been so wonderful, hot, talented, and unhinged during the whole process <3

Big thanks to my beta @xtaketwox for reading the stuff my 9 months pregnant brain wrote last July and never once asking me "Girl, what the actual fuck did you smoke?".

Read on AO3 here.

Drip drip drip…

The sound echoed everywhere in this damned place: the stone walls, the stale air he could no longer stand to breathe, even his head and heart. He hated this place. He hated the fact he had been staring at the same faces for the last five decades. He hated how he had to pretend he enjoyed whoring himself out every night. He hated how he couldn’t stand to look at red hair or long fingernails. He hated how this whole thing had been modeled after part of his court.

Most of all, Rhys hated himself for not realizing her trap from the start. He had been so foolish, so eager to believe that everyone had an ounce of goodness in them. 

The red haired bitch was talking to someone he couldn’t bother to name at the moment, the poor creature so clearly uncomfortable in his captor’s presence. To every question asked, Rhys nodded and agreed with Amarantha — he had absolutely no desire to pay attention to anything that didn’t serve his purpose.

Rhys was tired, so tired that he didn’t know how much longer he could take this. Forty-nine years was a long time to be dealing with the same things day in and day out, even for a Fae, and that was without the loop situation stressing him the fuck out. 

His thoughts strayed to Feyre. She had already won two out of the three trials, though he had to admit that he had had his doubts for a moment during the second one. Forcing back the tears threatening to fall, he made himself snap out of his melancholy. This wasn’t home. The sky was the same, and the stars were pretty, but nothing compared to the glimmer of the Night Court sky. The stars hadn’t been shining the same in nearly five decades, and he hadn’t seen his family in just as long. 

Rhys was all alone.

He made himself follow another trail of thoughts instead, one of arrows and brushes and the night sky painted on a dresser. Of the hands of a painter, but also the hands of a survivor, someone who hadn’t felt a sense of security in years. Someone just as lonely as he was. He scanned the room for her, expecting to find her near the fae wine—

She wasn’t there.

He looked over at the food table — she wasn’t there either. Now alert and on edge, Rhys tried scanning the room for her general presence, drunk on wine as she was. Something was wrong, very wrong, and he couldn’t believe he had fallen so far into his misery that he had lost sight of Feyre.

Slowly taking a deep breath and trying to calm his racing heart, Rhys glanced around to see whether anything else was amiss.

Everyone looked miserable. The Attor was accounted for, the bitch standing next to him. Every High Lord was present—

Almost everyone, he thought to himself, resisting the urge to growl. Tamlin was unaccounted for.

He cast his mind all over this sham of a court, the usage of his powers draining him more and more by the day, until he found both of them, their presences next to each other. Tamlin’s mind was a fortress, but Feyre’s… she was screaming every thought down the bridge between their minds.

More, more, more

Tamlin moved his lips down her throat, sucking on her collarbone, his hands everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She rolled her hips, so desperate for any sign of friction, happy for any sign of affection from her High Lord after more than two months of being ignored by him day in and day out.

Tamlin loved her, of that she was sure. He had to ignore her to protect her. He felt the same way for her as she did for him, the way he was touching and kissing her more than enough proof of that.

Stolen moments would have been more romantic if they weren’t both stuck under a piece of rock, prisoners to the whims and boredom of a deranged maniac.

Rhys snapped back into his own mind, his mind racing a million miles a second. He tried extracting himself from Amarantha, but her grip on him was so strong, her attention so sharp, that he couldn’t do it without making her suspicious. He tried being a lively participant in whatever shit she was talking about, giving her the most lustful look he could muster while pressing down his nausea at the situation.

My mate my mate my mate.

Amarantha leaned in, licking the back of his ear, her hand drifting down the front of his pants, grabbing him in plain sight of everyone. “You look delicious tonight Rhysand. I am going to take my sweet time with you after we’re done here.”

He swallowed down his disgust and gave her the best smirk he could muster. “I can’t wait.” He lied through his teeth, thankful when she turned her attention to someone else.

Rhys checked in on Feyre again.

“You have no idea how much I missed you. How much I need you.”

Rhys felt himself on the verge of throwing up, but the effect those words had on Feyre were the exact opposite.

“I missed you too.” she said. “Every day is torture without your touch.”

Her hands went to the waistband of his pants, unfastening them as best as she could.

“Quick,” Tamlin said, “we don’t have much time.”

Rhys breathed out a sigh of relief. He was trying to get her out then. If he managed this, Rhys was willing to forget all the years of animosity between them.

Anything for Feyre. His mate was worth forgetting every grievance, no matter how severe.

Tamlin resumed kissing Feyre, who was in turn stroking him with a sense of urgency Rhys had never seen on her before.

No. This was not supposed to be happening. He was supposed to get her out, he was supposed to get her to safety, not take advantage of five minutes of Amarantha’s distraction. 

He heard Feyre’s sigh of relief and felt like dying. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. His mate and the male who had already taken everything he loved from him.

Rhys kept mental tabs on them, just to make sure she would eventually get out and would eventually make it to safety, once Tamlin realized that her safety was the only priority.

In, out, moan. In, out, moan. Everything felt like a sharp stab to his heart.

Mate. Your mate. Not Tamlin’s, yours, screamed the one sided mating bond, and he wished he could drown out the noise, wished he could leave this body and be there to stop it from happening.

“Feyre, yes, you take it so good.” Tamlin whispered with every movement, his hands all over her.

Feyre felt like she couldn’t breathe, like everything began and ended with Tamlin, like the feeling of him pinning her against the wall was searing her entire being. She tried to get oxygen into her lungs as she felt her orgasm — and his — approach but felt like there was something binding her airways shut. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This hadn’t happened the last time they’d done this.

“Tamlin, wait. I’m not feeling good.”

But Tamlin was too far gone and kept pounding into her relentlessly, like he was chasing the seconds they didn't have. He bit into her shoulder and groaned, pushing one last time, before spilling himself into her. 

Feyre came with a scream, her mouth opening wide, desperately trying to catch her breath, her consciousness minutes from slipping away. She felt her tongue swelling and heart racing. She didn’t know what was going on.

Rhys snapped back in his head, counting his breaths.

In, out. In, out. In, out. He glanced at Amarantha, glanced at everyone else, everyone oblivious to the internal panic he was going through. 

“I’ll fetch you a drink,” he said, though he wasn’t sure whether Amarantha had heard him, and left as quickly as he could. 

He winnowed to where Tamlin and Feyre were once he was out of sight, and the scene before him was worse than anything he had ever lived through.

“You idiot,” he screamed, not caring whether Tamlin responded. “What did you do?”

Tamlin pulled at his hair, the look on his face one of panic and fear so extreme it was oozing off of him in waves.

Feyre was lying on the floor, face blue, clawing lines at her throat in a desperate losing war to get more oxygen into her system.

“Feyre?” he said, lifting her upper body and resting it on his lap. “Feyre do you hear me?”

Feyre’s hands went limp, and he heard her heart stop.

The beast in him roared. “She told you to stop,” he said slowly, directing all of his ire at the High Lord who had taken yet another person he loved away from him. “She told you to stop. You were supposed to get her out.”

“I- I thought she was enjoying it.” Tamlin’s voice broke. “She enjoyed it last time.”

“Pathetic,” he heard the voice of his nightmares behind him. “Males are so pathetic.”

Tamlin was now on the floor, crying next to Feyre. Rhys placed her on the floor, like she was a fragile piece of glass, and slowly turned.

“My queen, I just got here,” he said with a calmness he wasn’t aware he possessed. “They—”

“Save it Rhysand,” she said, poking Feyre’s head with the tip of her shoe.

Rhys wanted to murder her. He wanted to take her apart piece by piece, limb by limb, until there was nothing left of her, not even her name.

“I thought something like this might happen, which is why I’ve had Tamlin unknowingly consume a special plant that is toxic to pathetic beings like humans. I guess you could say she was allergic to him. And now my entertainment is gone.” she sighed. “I guess you have to find us something else,” she said, approaching him.

Rhys was rooted to the spot, unable to move, breathe, or speak. The beast inside was out of control, but without his powers, both he and Tamlin were nothing more than a cosmic joke.

She placed a pointy nail on his chest and pushed him back until he hit the brick wall behind him. Amarantha ran her nose along the column of his throat, running her tongue from his collarbone up to his ear, her hand drifting down his chest, beneath the waistband of his pants, gripping and stroking him. With his traitorous body responding to her touch, Rhys felt like dying.

His mate was gone, and he hadn’t been able to do anything to stop it. 

“I told you I was going to take my sweet time with you tonight.”

She pushed him down, and Rhys was far too gone to wonder whether she realized the state he was in, or whether she even wondered what had caused it. He hit the floor with a thump, knees bent, and stared at nothing.

Amarantha lifted her skirt and lowered herself on his face. “Lighten up, Rhysand,” she said, bringing her fingers to his hair and tilting his head so his lips were on her, rubbing herself on his face and moaning. “Next time you decide to take a liking to one of my pets, remember you’re nothing but my whore, and that your only purpose in life is to pleasure me.”

Rhys was indeed all alone, and he didn’t know how much more of it he could handle. 

Closing his eyes, he prayed darkness would come to save him.

[feysand-hivemind]

It's a week of milestones!

One year ago this week @gaeleria had a little idea that the hivemind just couldn't let go of. After obsessing, cracking up, and creating a truly chaotic shared doc, a plan was formed and the first chapter was published four months later!

Today, we are still having fun, causing angst, and so so thankful for our readers and fans of the story we love!

One year later and we have:

10 (revealed) authors

68,000+ words

5000+ hits

12 chapters

and more to come!

And as a fun treat, we want to share this gorgeous commission that is being transformed into a digital book cover for our little project! The original artwork is by the fabulous and talented @millyillus/millyillus and inspired by our love of vintage fantasy/scifi paperbacks and movie posters.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the kudos, comments, love and support! And stay tuned for more heartbreak and chaos to come! As always you can find our Masterlist on the blog or read on AO3!

[feysand-hivemind]

The next chapter has arrived!!

time won't fly (it's like i'm paralyzed by it) - Chapter 12

All My Days, I'll Know Your Face

Chapter Summary: When the Feyre from this loop isn't what Rhys is expecting, things pan out a little differently. Warnings: canon-typical violence, NSFW

Rating: Explicit

Chapter Word Count: 11.5k

Notes: Surprise it’s me again! @feysand-hivemind for life, honestly.

Thanks to @popjunkie42 @witch-and-her-witcher for beta reading this literally last June lol.

Tumblr Masterlist | Read on Ao3 or under the cut.

Rhys started awake, the sharp inhale of breath cold in his lungs. It was dark. It was always dark here. 

The black gossamer curtains surrounding the bed made everything hazy and macabre, but there was nothing quite as nightmarish as the female by his side. She looked nearly docile in sleep, blood red hair mussed and her perpetual grimace smoothed out into placidity while she slept. 

Rhysand rose from the bed, quietly shuffling over to the edge and placing his feet on the floor. He ran his hand over the back of his neck, grimacing at the skin sticky from sweat that wasn’t his alone. 

He wanted to kill her. Every day, he wanted to kill her. 

As the rest of his mind caught up to him, he felt the memories rushing back in.

Feyre. 

They pulsed in slowly, filling his mind as they did every time the loop had failed. 

What had it been this time? The details got blurred, sometimes, the specifics growing fuzzy. How many mornings had he relieved this exact waking nightmare? How many more times would he have to?

If he actively sought her out early, the loop would fail. If he tried to speed things up or skip entirely over certain events, the loop would fail. For some reason, those seemed to be backfiring the most spectacularly. He was getting his footing, though, slowly but surely. Certain things, he now knew, would lead to a near immediate failure – Tamlin finding Feyre on Calanmai, Rhys trying to intervene before Tamlin showed up, if she broke a bone other than her arm in the first trial – it was all no good. He was figuring out now, bit by bit, what worked and what stalled them out. The small steps forward were the only things getting him through this repetitive hell. 

He ran a hand through his hair as a soft murmuring behind him started up and made him flinch. 

Fuck this. 

He winnowed out, not bothering to say goodbye. It wouldn’t matter – he did this more often than not, silently creeping out from the cage of her rooms before she awoke. If she cared, she never commented on it. As far as she knew, Rhys just wasn’t particularly affectionate, which was exactly what he’d hoped to convey. 

It had taken everything he’d had at the beginning to hide his disgust with her, but the mask he’d slid into place forty-nine years ago had been cold and cruel and complacent and exactly what he’d needed. He was able to serve his way into her good graces, despite his unending disgust for himself, while the expectations for his servitude hinged solely on loyalty to her court and servicing her in bed. As much as it had pained him at the start, he’d all but numbed to it now, feeling more gracious than anything that she hadn’t demanded more from him. 

He stepped through the weighted darkness into his personal rooms, just as empty as they’d been for the last forty-nine years. He’d added a few personal touches, silk sheets, some paintings he liked, but otherwise it was just another cell for him. Still naked, he walked immediately into the bathroom, filling the tub with an errant wave of his hand and refusing to look in the mirror as he waited. Waiting, waiting, waiting . He’d been waiting for decades, simply biding his time. 

He’d been content to do it, too, until he’d started dreaming of his painter. 

The dreams had begun long ago, but the first time he’d met her had been something entirely different. She was so perfect, her face in his mind at all times. 

His mate, his darling Feyre.

He thought of her smell, pears and lilac and the sweet breeze of night air across his wings as he flew across the starry skies of Velaris. He thought about what the Suriel had told him, pictured their child, a son… It was so close and clear an image in his mind that he could almost see it as a memory – a little boy, chubby wrists and blonde hair and violet eyes and freckles across the bridge of his perfect little nose. He’d rock him to sleep in the old chairs on the back patio of the townhouse. He and Cassian and Azriel would teach him how to stretch his wings, what exercises to do to build the muscles so he could fly as far and as wide as he wanted. Until then, he’d take him out himself, small, excited body wiggling in his father’s safe arms as he flew him over the city just as Rhys’s mother had once done for him. 

The dreams kept him sane– the hope kept him holding on. 

Being with Amarantha intimately had become impossibly more insufferable, everything feeling like a betrayal as he held tightly to that limp and unanswered bond in his chest. 

The dreams always got more vivid when she returned to Prythian. But this loop was going to be different–he was going to be different, too. He had a new plan, and that plan was Calanmai. 

He’d gone through it before, both with successes and failures, but this time, he was going to let the picts run their course with Feyre until the last minute. Perhaps, if she was more afraid of the picts than she was of him, she’d be more receptive to speaking with him. If it worked, he could find a way to avoid taunting Tamlin when Feyre was in the manor, even avoid it altogether if he could use his body to distract Amarantha long enough. Maybe, then, when they met again Under the Mountain, she wouldn’t have only memories of fear. If she came into it viewing him as a friend, as a partner , or even as someone simply working towards the same goals, he could avoid so much of the anguish and horror of their early days. His goal this time would be that tentative allyship, and she could arrive Under the Mountain and see how powerful they could truly be together. 

When Calanmai arrived, Rhys winnowed into the edges of the Spring woods, the acrid smell of bonfire smoke hitting him immediately. The air was warm and heavy on his skin, and he absently pushed his hair off his brow. After the length of time he’d been alive, Rhys found very few things made him nervous, but he’d quickly discovered Feyre was always an exception to this rule. His heart pounded in his chest, the nerves lighting sparks down his flesh like pinpricks. 

It didn’t matter how many Fire Nights he attended within these hellacious loops, being so close to her, feeling the humming of the primal magic down to his very bones, it all made it feel brand new each time. Though he knew he was still on Amarantha’s leash, the possibilities of the night felt endless, precious. 

He skirted around the woods for a time, knowing that at any moment, he would watch Feyre walk up the hillside coming from the bonfires towards the woods. She’d look for a better view of the cave, and inadvertently garner the attention of the picts. Even with all the variations, if they made it to Calanmai, it almost always began this way. Rhys found a tree to lean against as he waited, his calm demeanor belying the maelstrom of emotions rushing through his mind and causing him to force his breathing back into an even pace. 

Any moment, and she’d be here. 

And suddenly, there she was, cresting the hillside as she always did. His heart soared into his throat, the rush of emotion at her presence nearly overwhelming him. His body went to surge forward before his mind could catch up. 

Stop. She needs to deal with the picts first. Stick to the plan.  

He slunk back to the woods, finding his tree and letting his eyes find Feyre. But… but this time, she wasn’t going towards the cave. 

Had something already changed? 

She was walking – no, stalking – with purpose. She avoided the cave entirely, choosing instead to patrol around the far edges of the crowd and cut towards the woods. Towards him. 

His breath caught in his throat, catching him entirely off guard as he croaked involuntarily, the sound echoing embarrassingly through the woods around him. She was coming straight for him. 

What should he do? Run? 

Rhys was doing something he never did – he was panicking, but he couldn’t think, couldn’t form a plan or a word or a thought when she was barreling straight towards him, her hair gleaming in the firelight. What was he to do if she stumbled upon him first? Pretend they’d just run into each other and stumble off like a stranger? He could see his plans for an allyship flying away on a stiff breeze. 

Just as he was about to winnow out, preservation and nerves overtaking his need to see her, touch her, hold her, lecherous laughter cut off her single-minded stride. Rhys had been saved by the picts arriving just then, avoiding disaster at the last possible moment. Something about the shift must have moved them, too. 

Rhys paused, tucking himself behind a large oak to watch from the shadows. 

Az would have a field day with the display he’d just put on. 

The thought almost made him laugh before the familiar grief tore through him. 

Focus . 

“Human woman. We’ve not seen one of you for a while.” 

This was how it always began, the line giving him more nightmares than he’d have liked to admit. He knew his cue, knew the role he would have to play when it was at last his time to step in.

But this time, Feyre didn’t even pause. She threw a hand up at them, growling. 

“Fuck off, thanks,” she bit out, not even once breaking her pace as she continued on straight into the precious safety of his hiding place. There wasn’t time to flee. Her stormy blue eyes met his violet ones, and his chest clenched painfully. 

She stopped just short of him, their bodies barely inches apart, her breath mixing with his in the air between them. 

She smiled up at him, and he wondered if the world hadn’t changed entirely. 

What in the Cauldron’s name was happening?

“There you are,” she said, grinning broadly. “I’ve been looking for you.” Rhys felt as though all the air had been punched from his lungs, and he couldn’t help the incredulous laughter that blasted out from his throat, near hysterical. He thought he might have felt tears burning at the backs of his eyes as her face reflected joy at the sound. “Get rid of the picts for me?” 

He nodded, putting an arm around her shoulder and nearly shivering at the contact as she turned around, facing the picts who had now closed in, angry at her blatant rejection. They beheld him then, the dark magic swirling threateningly around them both and rising above his head like vipers ready to strike. The three lesser faeries paled, their dark eyes wide. “Thank you for finding her for me.” He relished the terror in their eyes. “Enjoy the Rite.” There was enough of a bite beneath his last words that the faeries stiffened. 

Without further comment, they scuttled back to the bonfires. 

In the brief moment of reprieve, he’d found his footing, slipping easily back into his carefully curated persona. The words took off from his lips before he could stop them as he leaned down into her ear to whisper, his lips glancing the outer shell. 

“Hello, darling.” He swore he saw her shiver. 

She stepped away from him then, turning in the moonlight, and his breath caught. She was beautiful, so stunning. He felt that even though he’d only just seen her, it was like seeing her for the first time all over again. The impulse to creep into her mind to hear those first, unfiltered thoughts of hers about him nearly crippled him. He wouldn’t intrude upon her privacy that way, though the versions of him a few loops back might not have hesitated. Now though, he would never disrespect his mate in such a way. 

He thought his knees might give out at the closeness of her, the floral scent of her strong on the breeze, but he placed a perfectly practiced smirk on his face instead, lifting a brow and forcing nonchalance on his face. He’d used that smirk so often during the past five decades he was almost certain muscle memory had him doing it in his sleep. He normally felt nothing but a responding emptiness when he did it beneath the mountain. 

“Hello, Rhys.” Her smirk matched his as his heart did stop momentarily. 

My name. How could she know? 

He couldn’t move, let alone form words, his jaw slack and eyes wide. She took a step closer, closing the gap between them and reaching up to cup his jaw. Her hands were so soft, so gentle, just as he’d remembered. 

“Tell me, love, do you know me?” she whispered.

She remembered. She knew him. 

Something like a sob broke free from his chest unbidden as he collected her into his arms, her huff of breath turning into a laugh into the crook of his neck. He’d never felt anything as good as her arms closing around him in response, never heard anything as lovely as when she mumbled I’ve missed you into his mind effortlessly as she took in a deep, audible breath of him. His chest nearly cracked open, heart pounding with something so far beyond relief he didn’t even have a word for it. Her hands raked through his hair, her laughs becoming wet with the salted tears he could smell and the relief of the bond thrumming brightly in his chest. 

She knew him. She knew him.  

He stepped back but didn’t let her go, leaning against the tree with her still clutched tightly to him. 

“Can I take you somewhere?” The words were out before he knew what his plan was. He hadn’t anticipated any of this–didn’t know what he could possibly say or do from here. He just knew he wanted her alone. She pulled back, blue eyes meeting violet again as she nodded emphatically, and they were gone. 

They reappeared on a grassy hill on the other side of the woods, the trees at their backs and the fires so far in the distance that they could barely see their flickers on the horizon. This was as far as he could reasonably go with his magic twined the way it was, but the impulse to take her home all the way to Velaris, shove her safely within the wards, and leave her there, furious but out of harm’s way, was overwhelming. 

“How do you know me?” He was breathless. She smiled at him coyly, a new version of Feyre he hadn’t gotten a chance to know yet. 

“I know many versions of you, Rhys.” Her voice was like honey, a slow, smooth melody that could both rile him up and put him straight to sleep. There was no awkwardness, no nerves or hesitation.

What loop had she come from? She didn’t seem like any Feyres he’d met yet. 

“What do you remember?” he asked softly, as her hand snaked up his neck to wind through his hair gently, her wide eyes taking in every detail of his face as though she were memorizing it. As though she might be saying both hello and goodbye. 

“Nothing that you do.” 

“Will you ever stop speaking in riddles?” And she tilted her head back at that and laughed, really laughed, and he felt as though his heart might have burst forth from his chest at the sight and sound. She was always breathtaking, but the image of her filled with joy and mirth, here, in front of him, touching him like someone she knew, someone she loved, was threatening to undo him entirely. 

“Forgive me, love. Everything is a riddle to me now. I’ve been…” she paused, as if to choose her words. “I’ve been stuck, for months now, maybe years? Every time it begins the same, and I’m stuck in that blasted cabin in the woods with my sisters and no magic. No matter what I change, the second you or I die, it begins again. I remember everything, but you never do.” 

Rhys couldn’t believe it. This Feyre was experiencing the same thing as him. She knew what he was going through, could understand the desperation, the agony. 

“Feyre…my Feyre.” He couldn’t help but lean forward and press a kiss to her lips which she hungrily returned, a whimper set free into his mouth from hers. His heart was beating frantically and giddy in his chest, the grazing of their tongues so freeing and gratifying that he felt he might materialize his wings and take flight against his better judgment if he thought on it for too long. 

They parted, but remained with their brows pressed together. 

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, Rhys.” 

He laughed, but it came out in a punch, the sound frayed at the edges like his nerves, raw and exposed and suddenly so visible. 

She knew. She understood.  

“Oh, but I do, Feyre darling.” She tore herself away to look at him. “The loops are happening to me, too. Most times, you still hate me when one of us dies. You’ve never known me before.” 

The shock in her eyes only lasted a moment. Of course this Feyre, his Feyre, understood. 

“So you understand then? I needed to see you. I’ve fought every possible outcome just to hold you again,” she whispered. 

His knees threatened to collapse, and he could feel the hot tears on his cheekbones.

“I understand completely. You consume my every thought, waking and dreaming, Feyre. You’re everything.” 

“My last loop let us live out an entire life together before dying millenia from now. We were old. We grew old side by side. I thought we’d beaten it; I thought we’d won.” He could feel the anguish fading in and out from her side of the bond, and the exchange of emotion nearly took his breath away. “When I woke up again in the cabin, I wished that I could just die. I couldn’t do it anymore. We’d had children–an entire lifetime together, and none of it was real.” She began to cry as he held her close. 

Children . 

Flashes of that child he’d imagined ran through his mind, the excitement and joy at the thought impossible to snuff out, despite her grief in front of him. Not just the one child, but more. An entire lifetime. 

“I haven’t gotten that far yet. Could you show me what it was like? Give me something to look forward to?” She nodded again, holding him close. As he pressed gently into her mind, she opened it wide for him with no preamble, as though she’d done so millions of times. 

Abruptly, he was swimming through hundreds of lifetimes, thousands of variations of him, of them, all swirling wildly through his mind. At first, they were just snippets of her and him, dancing under Starfall many different times, their mating ceremonies, so much intimacy between the two of them that his world spun to behold it all with the emotion swimming from her side of the bond. 

She remembered days of cooking with him, flour covering them both and every surface as they touched and kissed and smiled against each other. There were images of a laughing Cassian and an amused but stoic Azriel, a dancing Mor and a scowling but proud Amren, the images turning his streaks of tears into outright sobs as she showed him the bright skies of Velaris that he missed so dearly. She showed just the briefest of glimpses of him holding a baby blanket with the tiniest wings peeking out, the shock causing him to intake a sharp breath. 

Their son . 

Black hair and Feyre’s beautiful eyes, so different from what he’d imagined, but the loveliest thing he’d ever beheld. 

The images faded, and he realized with surprise that they’d fallen to the grass, him leaning against a tree with Feyre straddling his lap, her head bowed and pressed lovingly to his chest, as though she’d spent every night of her life sleeping there. 

He supposed, in another life, she had. 

“I’ve missed you so much.” Her voice was a quiet song in the wind. 

She looked up at him, eyes glinting in the starlight, and it felt like home. 

“Kiss me.” The hunger flared back to life as their lips met, her hips pushing down to meet his as his hands found their way through her long, beautiful hair. It felt like muscle memory to him, the ways she wanted to be touched, the ways they enjoyed each other, as though her memories of a lifetime were becoming blurred with his own. He was suddenly treated to another onslaught of images, the two of them touching in the dark, on the sand of a beach, on a grassy mountaintop, in a bed of the moonstone palace, hands grasping at silken sheets. He watched as she stroked his wings in her mind, the feeling echoing on phantom limbs of his own. He shuddered at the thought of a time where it would be calm enough, safe enough, for them to spend their days and nights falling comfortably into each other with a familiarity so solid. He could feel them swimming together with his memory of them at the starlight pool, all the visions blurring together and becoming one as her hips pressed against his own. 

He grazed his fingertips up and down her sides, feeling her shiver as she whined quietly into the hollow of his throat, barely pausing to pepper hot, open-mouthed kisses along the column of his neck as he groaned. He could feel her heart beating against him in time with the far-distant drums of Calanmai thrumming lightly through the earth beneath them, seeming to urge them on in time. 

He slid his hands up her thighs, warm to the touch and riddled with goosebumps as he pushed up her dress, fingers teasing along the outer edges of her underwear. She surged lightly forward into his hands, allowing his broad palms to slip back and grip her ass while she pushed against him. One by one, her deft fingers undid the buttons of his tunic while he watched her intently, his eyes unwilling to leave her for even a moment. His touch danced along the seams of her inner thighs, feeling the heat there as she bucked involuntarily against him and pushed his shirt down off his shoulders. The cool night air kissed his skin and he surged towards the warmth of her again, removing the straps of her dress from her shoulder with his sharp teeth as she gasped into his hair. 

They moved together as though their bodies knew the dance already, and in a way, he supposed, they did. She found the hair at the nape of his neck and tugged just the way he liked, his head tilting back as she kissed him deeper while he slid his fingers past the gusset of her underwear, feeling the wetness pooling inside as he smiled against her mouth. She huffed a half-indignant breath at him, but pushed down onto his fingers so unexpectedly that he was the one gasping for air while she grinned against his lips. 

“All this for me, Feyre darling?” She hummed and he felt the vibrations to his toes. 

He tore the garment apart in a single swift motion, tossing it to the side in the dewy grass and returning his hands to her hips while she kissed his neck. 

“Please,” she whispered, notching herself against him. He wouldn’t make her ask twice, and as she sunk down onto him, that golden tether he’d only recently become accustomed to snapped so violently that he felt a physical yanking on his ribs. 

Feyre tossed her head back, pulling him closer to her as she bottomed out. 

“Gods, I’ll never tire of that.” Her acknowledgement of it, the steady, strong thrumming of it between them, and the tight, hot vise of her around him was nearly enough to send his mind spinning. He was gone then, over the edge and untamable, the bond a golden band of flashing, solid steel between them. His fingers pressed into the soft flesh of her hips as she swiveled them over him. It was the best he’d ever felt, the best he ever would, he had no doubt. He would never tire of this, never have enough. She completed him – his mate, his other half – and he could only think of how much he wanted her and her alone.

“Then take me, love” 

And Rhys did. 

+++

“It’s strange,” she whispered into his shoulder, still perched on his lap, body entirely relaxed into his. 

“Hmmm?” His response was a contented hum into the soft floral notes of her hair as his hand traced patterns up and down her spine, reveling in this moment of rare bliss, of joy. 

“There’s no one in this universe who could more entirely understand what each of us is going through. And still, neither of us has the same experience.” Rhys noted how isolated Feyre sounded in that moment, the voice in all his memories that she’d had when she had given up. He was intimately familiar with that tone, the way it often mirrored in his own thoughts.Though Rhys had heard the lilt of amusement she’d forced into her voice anyway. He held her a bit tighter, the emotions of comfort and home leaking through the bond so warmly and kindly it felt like a blanket over his very soul. 

“Once you were killed by a cookie. Repeatedly. You just kept doing it.”

Feyre deadpanned. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. I wondered if those would ever end.” 

She laughed. “You’ve had some fairly ridiculous circumstances in mine, as well. Some loops have been so short, others so long I believe we’ve finally won. The long ones are the best, because we’re more likely to get close, but it’s also harder at the end.” Her voice quieted.  

“I like the ones where we fight on the same side. The ones where we win small victories hand in hand.”

“Me too,” she agreed quietly. “I’ve fallen in love with so many versions of you, Rhys. Nothing has been able to change that.”

The emotion is Rhys’s throat hung like a hand wrapped around it, threatening to choke him. He’d woken up this morning in Amarantha’s bed, feeling every bit the whore, the tool, the weapon he’d had to make himself into during these dark, horrid years. And now, not even a full day later, Feyre was here, in front of him, looking at him like he’d hung the moon. This perfect, beautiful, strong, lovely female–woman–who said she loved every version of him. He felt the tears stinging the backs of his eyes again and fought to clear his throat. 

“How have things been in Spring this time around?” 

“Well, I found a few loops back that a little more than half the time things go better when Tamlin never believes that there’s hope for us. I try to make a habit of implying right away, though the loops don’t seem to like us discussing it outright. Or rather, if I say too soon or too explicitly that I know about her or the blight, the loop tends to end rather swiftly.” This was news to Rhys. He hadn’t even considered that the restrictions Amarantha had placed would include Feyre as a human.

“So this time, he knows?” 

She laughed. “Oh yes, I think I have implied heavily enough that they’re aware I have more knowledge than I should. It’s always a balancing act to get them to understand I know about her without outright saying it. Sometimes I give too much away and it tips the scales so that Tamlin does something stupid and the whole loop gets scrapped.” 

“How can you possibly keep track of all this in your head?” 

She shrugged. “It’s not like I can take a notebook with me.” 

“No, it isn’t. I hope we find our solution this time so we can stop having to work quite so hard.” 

She smiled and nudged him with her elbow. “What? Already exhausted from courting me?” 

“Never, darling.” And his smile felt genuine again for the first time in a long time. 

“What will you do until you arrive Under the Mountain?” 

“Train. Bide my time.” She shrugged. “I’ve done my research in many other loops, and I’ve beaten the wyrm enough times now to know all of the possible ways that I can. Mostly I just enjoy the scenery and food in Spring until it’s time to go. Sometimes we miss Calanmai–those are always the loops that are hard to get through.” 

He tugged her closer, pressing a kiss to her temple out of something that felt strangely like habit already. Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. He’d come here tonight with the goal of becoming allies–perhaps he could still work that angle. “What if I come back? Perhaps I will be able to tell Tamlin and Lucien the truth, and we can come up with a plan? Work together instead of actively against him?” 

She pushed up, her hair falling beautifully around bare, freckled shoulders as her eyes met his. “It could work.” 

“In mine, I’ve come before and Lucien glamours you to hide you. I always appear as the villain, but what if we approached it differently? I come as an ally, and you admit you know me to back it up. Even if there are some things we cannot tell them, perhaps it will be enough to convince them we’re fighting for the same goals.” Feyre was quiet for a moment, appearing to think, then nodding. 

“That might actually…work? It isn’t something we’ve tried before.” 

“Of course, you’ll need to be the one. Only you could reason with such a brute, Feyre.” She smacked his chest and rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. 

“Hey, if we fail, we’ll just start from scratch, right?” There was a humor in her eyes that did something to a deeply primal part of him, and he leaned in to take her lips in his again. 

When they were done, the fires were already settling for the night as he winnowed them back to the edge of the woods near the Spring manor. He could feel the drag on his magic, but he refused to let her return alone.

Rhys sketched a brief bow, pressing a kiss to her hand as she scoffed and pulled him closer, winding her arms around his neck tightly and kissing him again. She tasted sweet. She tasted like hope.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks, love.” 

“Be safe, Rhys.” One more kiss pressed sweetly to the corner of his mouth, and she was bounding back through the wrought-iron manor gates. He watched her go, golden hair swishing and catching the moonlight behind her. 

They would do it this time. They would . 

And then he was gone. 

+++

Rhys was nervous as he winnowed out, the destination clear in his mind but his anxiety spiking with the thought of being close to her again since Calanmai weeks ago. 

The interim had been hard, harder than Rhys was anticipating, but he’d made it through. He’d glamoured the bond thoroughly that night as he bathed upon his return Under the Mountain, feeling as though he were committing a sin by washing the scent of her from his body. But still, every time Amarantha had touched him since, he’d wanted to physically recoil at the wrongness of it all, the bond humming and feeling like a lovely and constant reminder of Feyre in his chest, contrasting horribly with Amarantha’s sharp nails and horrific voice. 

The future Feyre had shown him was all that kept him going. 

My mate. Us. Our son. Our family. Our home.   

Tonight, as they’d planned, he would arrive in Spring on orders from Amarantha to go and taunt Tamlin about his dwindling time. Though Rhys had known it was coming, he still couldn’t quite believe his luck at the perfect excuse–a sanctioned reason to see her again. 

He touched down on the gravel drive of the manor, straightening his lapels and striding forward with great, confident steps, not at all mirroring the slamming of his heart against his ribs. 

Feyre. Feyre. Feyre. 

A mantra, a chant, a hymn. 

He threw open the doors and was met with no resistance – he hadn’t expected any. Like a moth to a flame, he could sense her, hear the light and fast pitter-patter of her human heart through the walls. He reached out. 

Hello, darling. 

Her response was instantaneous, and he grinned wickedly. 

Hello, love. I worried you’d forgotten me. 

He could hear the responding smile in her voice, and he nearly sighed at the comfort her familiar and soothing timbre pushed through his veins. She took to speaking mind-to-mind with him like a habit, and the thought of it both excited and calmed him. 

Where are you? 

The dining room, to the left of the entry. Lucien is hiding me. See you soon. 

He redirected his route, pivoting sharpy, suddenly feeling the immediate need to have her back in his arms as he shoved open the great oak doors. 

“High Lord,” Rhys crooned, hoping to edge his way beneath Tamlin’s skin a bit for old time’s sake. 

“What do you want, Rhysand?” The distant grinding of teeth told him it had been a success. 

“Rhysand? Come now, Tamlin. I don’t see you for forty-nine years, and you start calling me Rhysand? Only my prisoners and my enemies call me that.” He let the predatory grin find its way back across his face, showing his fangs. 

“A fox mask. Appropriate for you, Lucien.” Actually, he’d always rather liked Lucien, but he couldn’t help getting a good ribbing in there, too. It was always too easy. 

“Go to hell, Rhys.”

“Always a pleasure dealing with the rabble.” 

His eyes immediately fell to the third plate and a thrill rattled through him. 

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” And she did, springing from behind Lucien as he lurched instinctually for her, a mischievous grin spread across her face as she bounded towards him. 

Rhys had endured many terrors Under the Mountain, in his life in general, but he’d never been more compelled to believe them all worth it than he was watching the abject horror and confusion spreading across Tamlin’s face as Feyre threw herself into Rhys’s arms. He twirled her around once for good measure as he looked into Tamlin’s eyes over her shoulder. 

“It’s so good to see you again, dear,” he said, voice low. She giggled, pulling back and smiling broadly. 

“You two know each other?” Lucien asked incredulously. 

“You could say that,” Rhys said, shifting Feyre in front of him and holding her back to his chest. 

“We met on Calanmai,” she all but chirped, Rhys really riding the high of the appalled shock on Lucien and Tamlin’s faces. 

“You met on Calanmai?” Tamlin’s eyes were ablaze when he growled out the words, and before Rhys could stop himself, that primal, possessive part of him bristled and he snarled. 

“You will not speak to her in that tone.” His arms were around Feyre, holding her tightly to him, and he could feel her shiver beneath him. 

I liked that. 

His mind hummed in satisfaction at her admission. 

Did you now?

He lightly pinched her side as he decided to file that information away for later. 

But it was Lucien’s voice that rang out first. 

“I…I don’t believe it.” All eyes shot to him. “He’s your mate ?” He nearly spit the word, eyes wide with astonishment. Rhys had always wondered what that mechanical eye could see. He guessed now he knew. 

Tamlin shot to his feet immediately, a roar gathering in his chest before a single commanding look from Rhys, shadows rising in aggression behind him, backed him down. Feyre just turned wordlessly, rising up on tip toes and pressing the gentlest kiss to the corner of his mouth. He almost couldn’t contain his sigh at the action. 

“In this world and every other.” He could have melted at her words, at the sweet love in her eyes as he beheld her. 

“I don’t believe it.” Tamlin rose and stepped forward, testing Rhys’s last bit of patience. 

“Can we show you?” 

Bless her , he thought, her voice as sweet as ever. 

Show us how ?” Rhys still bristled at the demand in Tamlin’s voice as he spoke to her. 

Can you show them parts of what you’ve seen?

Her voice was sweet as sugar in his mind as he nodded, reaching those mental talons into Lucien and Tamlin’s minds, intentionally bumping around a bit to make sure they knew he was there. Pleased as he watched them both grimace, he began to project his and Feyre’s shared memories. 

He chose carefully what he showed, selfish about the memories of his painter, his mate. Instead, he showed them the first time he’d woken again after dying, immediately dying again only to understand he was waking up each time reset in Amarantha’s bed. This loop in particular, where he ran into a very different Feyre than he remembered on fire night, and the discussions they’d had. He watched as Feyre gave him memories to show them of her own loops, time and time again where they tried everything and failed. He didn’t want to share any of it, but if this was to work, he needed their understanding. If it didn’t, he supposed, they wouldn’t remember any of this anyway.

When it was finished, the two appeared rattled, but Feyre simply pulled his arms tighter around her. 

“I’ve been trying to tell you both since I arrived, but as with...the blight …there are certain things that magic beyond my understanding doesn’t like me to discuss.” 

“How many times have you met us?” Lucien asked, appearing to be working through his thoughts while Tamlin sat back down and quietly seethed into his wine glass. 

“Enough to know a good bit about what will happen if we go Under the Mountain without a plan.” Lucien nodded, seeming to understand, and Rhys was bolstered by the thought that going into this with them all on the same side might very well be enough to sway the odds in their favor. 

“Can you not just tell Tamlin you love him?” But Feyre shook her head adamantly. 

“The curse knows when it isn’t real. I’ve tried before, and if I don’t truly love him when I say it, nothing changes.” Lucien sat heavily at the table, gesturing for the two to sit down in the remaining chairs where they settled in one together. Tamlin appeared to be having a crisis as he finally spoke. 

“What sort of outcomes have been most ideal, Feyre? And how have you reached them?” 

“Well, often I get the closest to freeing us by getting through all three tasks. There doesn’t seem to be much of a workaround where we’re able to avoid it. We have to make Amarantha believe I love you the entire time, or things fall apart.” 

“Have you tried where I simply acquiesce? Would it set everyone free?” 

Rhys hadn’t thought to ask it, but it made sense. Would Tamlin be willing to lay himself down in such a way? 

“We have. But she just keeps everyone Under the Mountain anyway. Nobody wins unless I die.” The words were ice in his veins. 

“Unless you die ?” Rhys turned her abruptly in his arms. 

“I need to die upon completing the third task. I answer the riddle and Tamlin kills me, it releases you all, you hold me through the bond, and then every High Lord contributes magic to save me. It’s the only way I’ve ever made it out from Under the Mountain.” He couldn’t quite make his brain catch up to his mouth as he processed the information. 

“No. Absolutely not. It’ll reset the loop. Are you mad?” 

“Rhys, this is the only way we’ve gotten close.” He felt like an animal pacing a cage. 

“But it was wrong. ” He could feel the hysteria rising. “We got old together, but it still reset. It was still wrong , Feyre.” 

“If you know the answer to the riddle, why not answer it straight away?” Lucien asked, as though trying to think of a way around. 

But Feyre shook her head. “If I answer it before I’m dying, something always kills me permanently and the loop resets.”

Rhys scrubbed a hand roughly over his face. 

“What if I simply, somewhat , give in to her? Just as a distraction?” Tamlin’s suggestion turned all their heads towards him. “I don’t agree fully to her terms, but I play her game. Allow her to think she’s swaying me just the smallest amount so she’s not paying as close attention to Rhysand and then he can focus on keeping Feyre safe. I pretend to still be saving myself for you in front of everyone, but let her think I am still interested enough to come to her at night.” 

They all thought in silence for a moment.

“Why would you do that?”

His sigh was deep and he looked every bit his age then. “If it gives us the best chance at getting everyone out, I would.” Rhys could feel the graciousness pouring through the bond from Feyre.”I don’t like the way I looked in your memories.” His voice was quiet. 

Feyre stepped forward, a hand still on Rhys. “Tamlin…” 

He held up a hand. “My only goals are getting everyone their freedom back, and seeing Amarantha dead. I will not be another villain in this story.”

“We will need to glamour the bond. If she has even the slightest idea…” He didn’t even want to imagine what she’d do, how she’d react. The thought turned his stomach, and that wasn’t an easy feat. 

“I won’t go back to the cabin this loop – all it does is waste time. My sisters are fine, and they’ll stay safer if I remain here.” She turned to Tamlin. “Is there a place I can hide within the manor that they’ve no chance of finding me when they come to collect you both?” 

“There’s a hideaway in the cellars.” 

Rhys knew about it. Knew it was where Tamlin used to hide from his father and brothers. He chose to keep his mouth shut, but Tamlin’s eyes still flicked to his briefly. 

“It will keep you out of harm’s way until it’s safe to come back out, then you can wait a few days and join us beneath the mountain. We’ll leave you the maps.” Feyre nodded, slipping her warm hand back into Rhys’s, the gesture disarming him momentarily. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to these casual displays of affection, not sure they’d ever become commonplace for him, not sure if that was even a bad thing at all. He loved the way her little movements made his heart surge in his chest. 

She smiled back at him like she’d heard, her broad grin lighting up her entire face. 

You’re being very loud. 

He huffed a small laugh, but simply pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“So we’ll plan to move forward as if nothing has changed. She’ll send for you next week at the curse’s end, I’ll send as much of a warning as I can, and Feyre will hide.” Lucien and Tamlin nodded, and Rhys felt Feyre squeeze him closer as Lucien spoke.  

“If we play our cards right, we may all survive this.”

“There’s one final thing we must discuss.” Feyre spoke with conviction. “We need a plan for Clare Beddor.” 

+++

It was time. 

The past week had flown in a flurry of slapdash plans and forced confidence in them. Rhysand had played his part, beautifully he might add, especially considering that Feyre was all that consumed his mind. 

When he’d returned Under the Mountain, he’d reported back to Amarantha that he’d seen evidence of a human girl having been in Spring, but that she’d been long gone when he arrived. He’d taken it upon himself to force the answer out of Lucien: a farm girl in a town south of the wall named Clare. To Amarantha’s great thrill, he’d also taken the liberty of bringing her charred corpse to throw at Amarantha’s dais while he displayed a broad and feline grin. 

“You couldn’t have saved some fun for me, Rhysand?” Her flirtatious pout made him more nauseated than the charred remains, but he smiled anyway, flashing his fangs in the gleaming low light. 

“Apologies, I got a bit…carried away.” He looked at the body and forced a sparkle into his eye as she nodded smugly, acting as though they were in on some sort of inside joke together. Then she waved him away and commanded the attor to hang the remains on the wall of the cavernous throne room. 

Another problem solved, and with only days to go before Tamlin would fail at his end of the curse and answer to Amarantha forever. 

What had actually happened was that Rhys had painstakingly winnowed to the human lands immediately upon leaving Spring. He’d interrupted the Beddors during their dinner, much to their surprise and horror, glamoured them all into running to the continent as he shoved sacks of coins into their hands. He told them their new last name was Linnear and that they were never to return here, use their true names, or think of him ever again. 

He’d taken a quick trip to the mortuary, stolen a corpse of as similar description as he could, and burned it beyond recognition before flying back to the caves in small bursts, the horrid smell of burnt flesh keeping him alert and aware of the dangers were he to fail at pulling this off. 

With Amarantha satisfied, it was simply a waiting game until Feyre arrived Under the Mountain, his nerves on end every time he thought of how things might go. He tried to talk himself down, tried to pulse a sense of calm through his heart at the near-crippling worry. 

Feyre had trained. Feyre had done this before. Feyre was smart, and brave, and kind, and funny, and his , and she was going to get them out of this alive. Once Tamlin arrived, the countdown was on, though neither of them even spared the other a passing glance past the posturing as Amarantha showed him his “lovely human girl” attached to the walls of the throne room while Tamlin did his best to look sick. Perhaps he was sick; it was a disgustingly marred and charred corpse. 

When Feyre, his darling Feyre, finally arrived, it was nearly impossible to stop his heart from slamming through his ribcage. Her chin jutted out stubbornly, confidently, as though she were a queen addressing her people. She’d never been more beautiful to him, never felt more suited to be his mate. 

Good to see you again, darling.

“I’ve come to claim the one I love.”

He watched her fight the smirk while she dove in with Amarantha, meeting her snide tone as though she’d done it a thousand times before, which, he guessed, she had. She was careful to not be too over the top, tried to dumb down her confidence so that she still seemed human. Rhys watched the intricacies of her behavior in awe – she was truly a sight to behold. 

Technically, I’m not lying. 

She loved him – at least, some version of him, or an amalgamation of such. It was enough to solidify that he’d do anything to keep her safe here. Everyone already saw him as the villain. What were a few more months of that soul-rending behavior going to cost him if it meant leaving this godsforsaken place with the woman he could spend the rest of his life with? 

The agreement was swift on Feyre’s part, nodding and clarifying the terms of the bargain, knowing what she needed to do and how she needed to spin it to get the most favorable outcome. Rhys once again let that dangerous hope begin to bloom in his chest, sparking strong and bright with the confidence he felt flowing freely through their bond, dampened beneath the dark and fuzzy coat of his glamour as she was led away to the dungeons. 

They could pull this off. They could leave here.  

Though Rhys had to hold his tongue through hours of Amarantha’s definition of entertainment, it had been worth it to see the fledgling pieces of their plan begin to unfold. Rhys had to, begrudgingly, admit he was impressed with Tamlin; he’d done an almost imperceptible job of acting like he was fighting some sort of attraction to Amarantha. Rhys nearly smiled to see it as Amarantha’s snakelike eyes lit up at the feigned interest while she fell for it hook, line, and sinker. 

Perfect . 

The attention would be off them just long enough for Rhys to procure every bit of safety that he could for Feyre. As he left the throne room, abandoning Tamlin to whatever the next step of his plan was, he slunk through the darkened halls to the dungeons where he knew she’d be, delving quickly but efficiently into the minds of everyone he encountered along the way to make sure he made it there unseen. He traveled the last bit through the shadows, winnowing directly into her cell and finding her curled on the makeshift bed. 

She wasted no time launching herself into his arms as though she’d been counting the seconds. His heart melted a bit to think perhaps she had been. 

“I missed you.” The words sounded tight in her throat, and he held her closer. 

“I missed you, too. Come, you’re staying in my room.” She went to protest, but he was already winnowing them to the outside of the cell door, approaching the guards and gripping their minds, molding them like putty before they even detected his presence as Feyre shivered beside him. 

He grinned like a cat as they winnowed away again into the dark. 

+++

Under the soft, satin sheets, he wound his body around hers. The peace was tentative and fragile, but it was all they could ask for in the current circumstances. It had been two weeks since she’d arrived Under the Mountain, but they’d made the most of it, Tamlin abiding by his end of the deal and Rhys all but forgotten and able to keep Feyre safe in his bed at night. Without fail, each morning, she’d arrive back in her cell, no one else the wiser. The first trial would be tomorrow, but they were as ready as they could be. 

“I know I can do this. I can beat the wyrm. I’ve done it so many times, it’s almost second nature now.” She tried to laugh with him as he tugged her closer with the arm around her waist. 

“Hmm, I know you can. I just hate the idea of watching you in danger. I know you can do it, I just wish you didn’t have to.” She turned, rustling the sheets to look back and up at him, her blue eyes twinkling in the low light. She’d told him of all her experiences with the tasks, and they always made him cringe. 

“Soon, we’ll be free of this. We’ll beat her, we’ll beat the curse, we’ll be done with these abhorrent loops, and back in Velaris with our family.” The determination in her voice, the courage, still never failed to nearly knock him over. 

“Go over it with me again.” 

And she sighed, but she did. The path through the maze that she’d done so often now she could run it in her sleep. The exact path to both flee and find the lair, how she’d stack the bones and make a ladder. She knew that she’d need to sprint while luring it back, using broken bones to swing around the corners, and she even knew when to anticipate it so that she could coax it back on her own. In one of her loops, it had nearly caught her out, only Lucien screaming out at the last minute had saved her, and he’d paid dearly for it. 

“I know how to read now, I know the riddle, and I know about Tamlin’s heart. We just need to hold on to each other and be patient, and we will make it out of here.” She pushed up slightly, pushing a kiss to his lips that he ached to deepen, but he held himself back. They both needed their sleep. 

“I can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together, Rhys. For real this time.” 

“I can’t wait to bring you home. I can’t wait to meet our son.” He breathed in and out behind her, the soft smell of pear and lilac soothing him into sleep as he held her close. 

+++

Feyre and Rhys had awoken long before dawn, fleeting touches and hurried kisses exchanged as he fed her as much as he could get away with. He winnowed her back to her cell, glamouring her to look as though she’d been there the entire time and covering their mixed scent, the scent of the bond, and begrudgingly went back to their room.

It would be hours before the trials began, and he was fidgety. The exhaustion cut into him like a knife – to be fair, he and Feyre hadn’t been doing much sleeping. The black shadows of the room seemed to twist and turn with the blurriness of his eyes, the rhythmic crackling of the dying fire’s embers lulling him to sleep against his will. He thought he might lay down for a while, just resting his eyes a bit, before he needed to report to the throne room to watch Feyre bring down the wyrm. He wouldn’t bet on her this time; he feared it would be too obvious with Amarantha, and Rhys wouldn’t risk her finding out about the bond. 

Gods only knew what she’d do if she did. 

He shrugged off his shirt and sank back into the sheets that still smelled of Feyre. His beautiful Feyre. And before he knew it, he was out cold. 

+++

Rhys woke up to darkness, but it wasn’t the familiar darkness of his bed. The sharp smell of patchouli and nutmeg met his nose and turned his stomach within him. 

When had he come to Amarantha? 

“Rhysand, did you truly think me such a fool?” 

And the floor dropped from beneath him as the blindfold was ripped from his eyes.

He tugged his arms, but it was no use as he found they’d been restrained. Her voice was sickly sweet, but he was all too familiar with the vitriol behind that saccharine tone. 

“Think I wouldn’t smell her on you? Think I wouldn’t notice your distance with me?” She rounded on him and took his jaw forcibly in her skeletal hand, forcing him to look forward. “Did you think I wouldn’t find your mate under my mountain?” Her eyes were glowing with rage and betrayal and embarrassment, and all Rhys could summon was terror. If she knew, Feyre’s death was imminent. There was no way she’d be leaving here alive. 

He refused to speak, wouldn’t give in to her games. If they’d been caught out, then let her kill him. What difference did it make? He’d wake up right here again, not even ten feet away, as though none of it had happened. Something fractured in him, though, even as he thought it, because it would be the end for him and this Feyre. 

It was the closest he’d come to joy, to relief, to a future since this nightmare had begun. 

Feyre had loved him too, had craved and needed and wanted him with her just as badly. For once, even in a loop with her, he hadn’t been alone. For the first time in almost fifty years, he hadn’t felt the aching despair of loneliness. His heart cleaved in two at the thought. He loved her, this Feyre, and he’d be losing her again. He had no doubt in his mind this one would hurt more than the rest. 

“It’s just fine, High Lord of Night ,” she said mockingly, “if you don’t want to talk. We’re past talking now. But you’re going to be a good boy, and open up.” She grabbed his jaw and wrenched it open, ruby nails prying into flesh and bone as she forcibly tipped a small, blue vial into his waiting mouth. The taste was strong, sharp cranberries and cloves and the smell of moss, and she held his nose until he swallowed it. 

Had it been poison? Would it at least be quick? He hoped it would be quick for Feyre, too. 

She ripped the bindings from his body so that he could freely move, but his body wouldn’t listen to his mind. His control was no longer his own, and his body slumped in defeat. 

They’d been so close. 

“Now come along, the first trial awaits.” Her eyes flashed maniacally as his body moved forward without his permission. Alarmed as he was, he couldn’t fight it, couldn’t stop his feet from approaching, one in front of the other as he walked behind her like a beaten animal, a pet  on a leash through the halls of the mountain until they reached the massive doors of the throne room. 

The attor awaited, along with several other of her ghastly guards. Two other figures, burlap sacks over their heads, quivered huddled up by the walls of hewn stone. He knew he was fucked, but he couldn’t even begin to contemplate how bad it was going to be. 

Amarantha valued nothing above her power and pride, and to have bested her in both under her very nose, to have embarrassed her so thoroughly, there would be no reprieve. When Amarantha came back around, she pressed a gag into his mouth, grinning excitedly all the while. 

“No more charming words from the mouth of the viper, Rhysand. Your tricks have reached their final resting place.” He just closed his eyes, defeat beating wildly through his chest. A twirl of her fingers changed his clothes from the deep darkness of Night to the swirling greens and golds of Spring, and suddenly, as the constricting bag came over his eyes, he knew what she intended to do to him and Feyre. 

Feyre. My Feyre. 

The only thought that rang through his mind as he heard the heavy doors swing open and the bustle and jeering of the crowd within. Feyre would be expecting the wyrm, she’d prepared for the wyrm, but Rhys knew this was the third task. Amarantha had already had it planned, and would sub him out for Tamlin instead. She would make Feyre kill him, but he knew Feyre wouldn’t walk from here alive either. 

The anguish tore him apart, his stomach a writhing mass of nerves as he felt the urge to fall to his knees and cry. He’d lost her so many times now, but this time was different. This time was so much worse. 

This was his Feyre. They’d fallen in love. He’d felt hope. She’d shown him a future, their future together. Their child. 

If he focused hard enough, he could summon her scent, the deep inhales he took of her hair as they awoke in the mornings. He could feel the warm thrum of her skin beneath his fingers as they explored, moseying along the hills and valleys of her beautiful body as he worshiped her. He could see the bright blue sky of day that he missed so much, the sun shining on the Sidra, if he looked into her eyes long enough. This was his Feyre, his light, his love, his mate. It was the first time he had loved her.

Now, she was going to die. 

He could feel the sting of tears beneath the burlap, roughly scratching at his skin as he was shoved forward and down to his knees, the jostling of the fae next to him bumping his shoulder violently. 

The sounds of the crowd were changing as Feyre was undoubtedly led in. He tried desperately to warn her. Against all odds, he pushed at the walls of his own mind and into hers as he had so many times before, but they didn’t budge. He tried yanking helplessly on the golden cord wound tightly around his heart, but everything was rendered fuzzy and useless. They were entirely muted in the wake of whatever toxin Amarantha had forced down his throat. He knew Feyre would be looking for him. Would she think he’d willingly abandoned her until she learned the much more painful truth?

“One trial awaits you today. I wonder if it will be worse to fail now, at the start, or to fail all the way at the end—when you are so close. Any words to say before you die?” 

“I love you.” Rhys heard the words, knew they were spoken to Tamlin but intended for him. They swam through his veins, warming him like a blanket on a cold night. It might be some of the last words he ever heard, but they were the ones he would choose if given the chance. “No matter what she says about it, no matter if it’s only with my insignificant human heart. Even when they burn my body, I’ll love you.” 

He heard it in the way she spoke the words. She’d figured it out when the tasks were wrong. She knew how this would end, too. 

“You’ll be lucky, my darling, if we even have enough left of you to burn,” Amarantha purred. Rhys had never wanted someone dead more. 

“Get it over with,” Feyre growled. 

“Your task, Feyre, is to stab each of these unfortunate souls in the heart. They’re innocent — not that it should matter to you, since it wasn’t a concern the day you killed Tamlin’s poor sentinel. And it wasn’t a concern for dear Jurian when he butchered my sister. But if it’s a problem …well, you can always refuse. Of course, I’ll take your life in exchange, but a bargain’s a bargain, is it not? If you ask me, though, given your history with murdering our kind, I do believe I’m offering you a gift.” 

Rhys could almost see the silence, could taste the hesitation as Feyre tried to figure out a loophole – a way around it. 

“Well?” Amarantha demanded. 

A rustling, then, with a violent flash of light, the bag was ripped from his head. He was glad in that moment, beholding the horror apparent on her face, that he couldn’t feel the bond – it might have broken the very last pieces of him. He sent her the most apologetic look as he could muster through the tears cutting hot tracks down his cheeks. Their eyes locked together, a million words passing through them silently, communicating wordlessly in a language older and stronger than any corrupt magic that Amarantha could summon. 

He’d failed them – hadn’t been careful enough, convincing enough. He’d ruined their chances of a future. Their chance to meet their son. 

“Did you think, sweet Feyre, you’d be able to hide from me? Think you could take my plaything and make him bow to you and suffer no consequences?” Amarantha’s words were cutting, but Feyre didn’t look at her. Rhys met Feyre’s eyes and held them as tears welled there, the panicked rising and falling of her chest unmissable. 

“Love. The answer to the riddle is love. Let him go.” Still, she did not look away from him. Amarantha’s laugh was caustic and cold. 

“Oh, no, foolish girl. That was our deal before he betrayed me. I can’t trust your answers now that I know he’s been going behind my back to get to you.” He could see the defeat washing over her, the despair, the horrifying acceptance.

“Did you truly think you’d get away with this?” Amarantha leaned forward on her throne, but neither of them were looking at her anymore. 

I love you. I love you. I love you. 

He willed it towards her with everything in himself, despite the muted, dull gold of the lifeless bond. 

“Answer me, Feyre. Did you think you would leave here with him? Live a life together? How precious.” The crowd laughed with her, but Rhys couldn’t find it within himself to care. He couldn’t care about anything but the glow of her cerulean eyes, the hand that had come to caress his jaw. He didn’t fight the urge to lean into it as he closed his eyes. 

“ ANSWER ME .” But she wouldn’t. 

In a last act of defiance that both Rhys and Feyre knew would be their final contribution, she reached to pull Rhys’s gag away, bending forward to press a feather-soft kiss to his lips as her warm hands caressed the sides of his face. It was chaste, quick, but he felt as though he could see eternity. 

“I love you.” Her words were whispered, sweet and quiet, and yet they broke open the yawning chasm of grief within him. “Every version, every time.” He could almost speak, the toxin already burning out of his blood, but the words were still clamped inside. He shut his eyes and nodded, hoping he could convey every last bit of affection he held in his heart for this lovely human woman who had bewitched him entirely. 

He closed his eyes and waited for the knife to pierce his chest. He wasn’t afraid of the pain; he’d felt worse, but he was scared of what would happen to Feyre after. He didn’t care about himself, but he’d do anything to spare her from this. With one last press of her lips to his brow as a rattling sob escaped his chest, she whispered quietly enough that only he would hear it. 

“I’m so sorry. I’ll be seeing you soon.” His eyes snapped open, but it was already too late, the knife slid into her chest without preamble, the scream frozen on his lips. Horror flushed his veins as she fell to the ground, her heart pumping the last of her precious blood out, out, out onto the stone floor. The crowd was yelling and people were moving, but Rhysand saw none of it, only her. 

She’d said she’d loved him in all the loops, and he was beginning to understand her anguish. Would he have to lose every version of her that he fell in love with? Was he doomed to this for the rest of eternity for the sins he’d committed? Was that what he deserved? 

Without a moment of hesitation, he pulled the dagger from her chest, cradling it in his hands as her still-warm blood coated them. He could move of his own accord now, too late, but what was the point?

He heard Amarantha’s distant screams as he wordlessly raised it and pulled it across his own throat.

[feysand-hivemind]

I'm so excited to share a chapter as part of the @feysand-hivemind!

Read on AO3

Chapter 11: End Game (Loop 42)

Summary:

“Why do you need me anyway?” She whispered, eyes turning away to scan through the darkness again. “I would think a High Lord with mind control powers could just…command the Suriel to come.”

“One does not command a Suriel. Their minds…aren’t like ours. And I need you for your track record of success. I’ve tried this before and have failed.” She raised her brows at him. “And you’re asking the wrong questions. What you really should be asking is: if a Suriel is an all-knowing creature, how could one ever catch it unawares?”

Her brow furrowed. “Are you saying it lets itself be caught?”

He shrugged a shoulder, a careless, elegant gesture. “If that’s true,” he said, eyes ahead and pointing towards the creek with a lift of his chin, “it likes you more than it likes me.”

Given a rare night outside of the Mountain, Rhysand takes Feyre to capture a Suriel to help solve their time loop predicament. But Rhysand finds more than he was looking for.

timeloop has my whole heart and I hope you enjoy this chapter. A million thanks to @witch-and-her-witcher, @climbthemountain2020, @rosanna-writer and @tunaababee for the beta reads!

Read on AO3 and a preview under the cut!

It was the dripping of water, Feyre decided, that would truly do her in.

Not the torture or the screams or the ever-pervasive feeling of death lurking around every corner.

But these steady, constant drips on the floor.

Water pooled on the ceiling, gathering from some unknown source in the rock. It shimmered, suspended, black as ink with an oily sheen that glistened in the dim light.

Feyre’s neck was craned up to the rough-hewn dark ceiling. It still had the sharp gouge marks of carving tools - as if the architects of this place knew there was no need to perfect their work for the poor souls of this room.

Plink.

It fell to the floor, splashing in a small puddle, a foul smell blooming in the air.

Two hundred and thirty-seven drops, since the last guard’s rounds. Her neck ached with the strain of staring at the ceiling. But she stayed there, on the cold dungeon floor, counting.

She wondered, not for the first time, how deep underground she really was.

In her worst moments, she spent too much time thinking about it. Inevitably her breathing got sharper, and she felt the weight of the earth pushing down, the ceiling dropping, closing in –

Just as her breathing began to get ragged and quick, the darkness around her rippled, and she sat up as a now familiar figure took shape in her dank cell.

Rhysand.

He looked her over once, head to toe, as if he might find some change in her appearance from the night before.

As if anything changed here, other than the depths of her misery.

She wore her filthy tunic and pants, dark stains from Wyrm mud and old dried blood caked across them. Her eyes moved over the lines of his impeccable black suit, and she glared.

“What do you want?”

His jaw set hard. Feyre took a moment to really look at him, and didn’t particularly like what she found. He had a sharper look tonight, eyes dark and sunken, hair lightly disheveled, the taunting smirk gone.

A monster, looking right at home in this dark underground place without a sun.

“Always a pleasure, Feyre.” With a graceful turn of his wrist, he extended his hand to her. Feyre regarded it as one might a toad or snake.

“Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“She’s away,” he said, as if unwilling to speak the Queen’s name aloud. “Some Summer Court drama she wouldn’t tell me about that may not keep her away very long. So we have a small window to accomplish something that I believe would be beneficial to the both of us. Can you trust me, Feyre, for just one night?”

Her eyebrows couldn’t go any higher, and she scoffed. “Seriously?”

Rhysand winced as a drop of oily water landed on his head, a dull thwack so different from the drips in the growing pool she had been charting all night.

The oily substance dripped slowly down his forehead.

Feyre laughed.

Laughed and laughed. Doubled over as she gulped in breaths in between and felt her stomach muscles cramping.

The sour look on the High Lord of the Night Court’s face as he swiped fingers through his hair only set her off further. She laughed at the way he scowled at the filthy iridescent sheen coming off on his fingertips. Poor High Lord with his perfect, beautiful fae hair ruined in her dungeon cell.

Feyre laughed until tears were coming from her eyes, and her stomach hurt. A heady euphoria was spreading through her whole body. Rhysand glowered at her, watching without a sound.

When she finally began to hiccup and take deeper breaths, he offered his hand to her again with a raised brow.

“Are you quite finished?”

This time she took it, her cheeks aching as he effortlessly pulled her from the floor.

“Why do you think I would ever trust you?” she asked, regaining her composure.

Rhysand sighed, his breath a puff of mist in the cold, damp air. “Isn’t it enough that I need your help?” Feyre shrugged. “If I let another drop of this filth fall on me, would you come with me without any more questions?”

She did smile at the thought. “No.”

“What are you afraid of? Surely you can at least believe by now that I am not trying to hurt you. Amarantha would have me killed if her little mortal plaything died before she had all her fun.” He regarded her curiously. “Is a night outside of this cell not enough temptation to risk my company?”

She didn’t like this. His strangeness, the gentle persuasion. He might not want to kill her, but there were a thousand ways he and Amarantha could torture her while still letting her make it to her final task.

Trusting him was foolish.

But tempting.

Even worse, she could tell he knew it.

“You underestimate how much I despise you.”

He sighed. “I truly do not.”

Violet eyes scanned her cell idly and she could see his artful mind churning. “What about a bargain? In exchange for your company and the smallest modicum of willing participation, I swear to do everything in my power tonight to keep you from harm, and to share with you all the information we discover today.”

It was her turn to assess him, her eyes hard. He seemed strangely…sincere. But why would he need her help at all? “Time away isn’t enough for me. There are things I want.”

“Such as?”

Her mind raced as she fought off the sluggishness of hunger and cold. These days she always felt feverish, her body’s fight for equilibrium taking up all her energy. “A blanket. And shoes. No more nights in the throne room.” She paused, her tumble of desires catching up with her voice. “And…paper, with charcoal.”

Her chin was held high, the stubborn inhabitant of a ten by ten dank prison cell, the floor glistening wet in the flickering candlelight. But at her request, she saw a little spark return to his eyes, just a hint of mischief on his face.

“No more nights as my lovely guest? But won’t you miss me, Feyre?”

“How badly do you need me to join you tonight? If we’re bargaining, perhaps I should ask for you to never speak to me again.”

“Ah - that’s one thing about fae bargains, darling. You can’t ask for the impossible.”

Feyre scoffed.

He blinked and seemed to come back into himself. “I can provide the items, if you keep them hidden, and agree to tell no one where you got them. As for our little parties, I’m afraid I can only give you a reprieve for one day a week.”

“Two.”

“Fine. Two days a week, of my choosing. Do we have a bargain?” She eyed him, still wary. “Since this agreement will be completed by the end of tonight, the mark will go away as long as we both fulfill our obligations. Although I could come up with another beautiful addition to your fine skin, if you’d like to expand our deal further.”

Feyre looked at his outstretched hand, going over the wording in her mind, looking for any traps or loopholes she needed to tighten.

When she finally took his hand, the quick sting of magic on her leg was forgotten completely as she felt the world fold and disappear under her feet.

[feysand-hivemind]

time won't fly (it's like i'm paralyzed by it) - chapter 10 // we'll sing a chorus (loop 38)

read on ao3 // rating: e // @feysand-hivemind

fic summary: Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter.

Until one day...it doesn't.

Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up in Amarantha's bed Under the Mountain - over and over. Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact.

chapter summary: After having the bond snap in the last loop, Rhysand can't help but yearn for his mate. After manufacturing a meeting near the starlight pool, he attempts to show her exactly what she means to him - and to Prythian at large.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　♡　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

surprise! i'm part of the hivemind!! this is my first dabbling in any sort of canonverse, so i truly hope i've done our beloved pair justice. this project has been a labour of love from everyone and i hope that you all enjoy. even if it's painful. :)

you can read a snippet of my chapter below the cut, or in full on ao3!

chapter title and starting quote are from Forest by Twenty One Pilots.

“And then when just enough light comes from just the right side, and you find you're not who you're supposed to be?”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Rhys jolted awake in bed, sitting almost ramrod straight, tear tracks still staining his face and his throat hoarse. He could feel the warmth of Amarantha’s body beside him, the chill of the cool night air on his skin once more… But there was something else. Something new crawling underneath his skin - that everlasting golden thread and the lacking sensation it had left behind. His mind and thoughts rewired around the knowledge of Feyre and her presence. The empty feeling it had carved out in the hollow of his chest now that he and Feyre were apart.

That he and his mate were apart.

The thought was almost enough to drive him insane – he had been so alone for so long, only to find his match and his equal somewhere so unexpected, that he had half a mind to try and slay Amarantha right now.

While he couldn’t feel its weight against his rib, he felt the remnants, the shape of its ghost. A nagging sensation, a barely-formed idea in the back of his head throughout previous loops had unfurled within his head and his heart. The knowledge that a connection so deep and true he never thought he’d have, let alone deserve, was out there simply waiting for him. 

As much as the fury and desperation coursing through his veins urged him to leap from where he lay and go get her, he ultimately knew better. 

To go and tear a path from here directly to Feyre would be tantamount to giving them both another inevitable death sentence, and he didn’t think his heart could take it. That didn’t mean he was going to sit there and wilt away under Amarantha’s thumb while Feyre was busy whiling away the time in the Spring Court unawares.

[feysand-hivemind]

chapter 9/Loop 37: died on the altar waiting for the proof

Chapters: 9/? Fandom: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Feyre Archeron/Rhysand Characters: Feyre Archeron, Rhysand (A Court of Thorns and Roses), Tamlin (A Court of Thorns and Roses), Amarantha (A Court of Thorns and Roses) Additional Tags: Temporary Character Death, Under the Mountain - Freeform, Time Loop, Time Travel, Angst, Romance, Smut, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Blood and Violence Summary:

Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He’s been down there so long, it’s starting to feel like time doesn’t matter.

Until one day, it doesn’t.

Feyre’s death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up on the same day - over and over. Now, Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact.

A “round robin” style fanfiction with different authors. This work is meant to be read from beginning to end, but each chapter is written by a different author with their own spin on the time loop prompt.

I am THRILLED to post this at last, it’s been so much fun to write, and I adore being a part of this group of insanely talented writers and creators @feysand-hivemind. My eternal thanks to @popjunkie42 for all her help, and to @rosanna-writer for her betaing help!

[feysand-hivemind]

Please tell me you haven't abandoned this! I just got caught up and didn't realize it was still in progress and hasn't updated in awhile 😫😫😫

This project is absolutely not abandoned! We took an extra long break for the holidays with so many of our authors being busy celebrating or participating in gift exchanges. But we have several chapters ready to go - the next one has already been sent to beta readers, so we’re hoping to post soon.