A Court of Thorns and Roses

The forest was cold and silent. Nineteen-year-old Feyre Archeron moved through the trees near the border wall, her bow drawn, her eyes fixed on a doe ahead. She had been tracking it for hours. Her family was starving.

Five centuries earlier, enslaved humans had fought a brutal war against their faerie overlords. The treaty that ended it divided the world with a magical wall, cramming all of humanity into the southern lands. Feyre's village sat at the southern tip of a massive island. Most of that island lay north of the wall, in the faerie realm called Prythian. The ancient treaty held, but hatred still ran deep. Humans feared faeries, and faeries—according to the stories—had every reason to despise humans.

Feyre didn't care about any of that right now. She cared about the doe. About the empty cupboards in the cottage she shared with her father and two sisters. About the promise she had made to her dying mother: that she would take care of them.

Her father had once been a wealthy merchant. Then his ships sank, creditors broke his kneecaps, and the family lost everything. Now he spent his days carving small wooden figures, too injured to work. Her eldest sister Nesta was bitter and vain, doing nothing to help. Elain, the middle sister, preferred tending her flower garden to chores. So Feyre, the youngest, became the provider. Every morning she went into the woods. Every evening she returned with whatever she could kill.

The doe was close now. Feyre drew back her arrow, steadying her breath. But before she could release, something massive moved through the trees.

An enormous wolf emerged from the shadows. It was the size of a pony, with fur like gray iron and eyes that held an unnatural intelligence. Feyre's blood went cold. There had been rumors of giant wolves near the border—faeries in disguise, some said. She had dismissed them as superstition. Now she wasn't so sure.

She had a choice. She could run, leave the doe, return home empty-handed. Her family would go another night hungry. Or she could kill the wolf and take the risk.

Feyre made her decision. She loosed her arrow.

The shaft struck the wolf's side. The creature stumbled but didn't fall. Feyre nocked another arrow—this one made of ash wood, which she had heard slowed faerie healing. The wolf turned toward her, blood matting its fur, and let out a sound that was almost human. She shot again, this time through the eye. The wolf dropped.

Feyre didn't waste time on guilt. She killed the doe, then dragged both carcasses to a clearing. She skinned the wolf, working quickly despite her shaking hands. The pelt was magnificent—thick, dark, worth more than any deer hide she had ever taken. She rolled it up, slung the doe over her shoulders, and headed home.

The cottage was cramped and cold, lit by a single fire. Her father sat in his chair, carving. Nesta and Elain were arguing about what to buy with the money from the hides. Feyre ignored them. She sold the meat and the wolf skin at the village market, then handed her sisters some coins. They complained it wasn't enough.

That night, as the family ate the stew Feyre had made, she thought about the wolf. About its eyes. About the way it had looked at her before she killed it. She pushed the thought away. She had done what she had to do. Promises were sacred in her world—the High Fae themselves had once sworn an oath to protect the treaty, and humans had learned to hold their word just as tightly. Feyre had promised to care for her family. She would not break that promise.

But the next day, something came for her.

An enormous beast crashed through the cottage door. It stood as tall as a horse, with golden fur, elk horns, and a face that was part lion, part wolf, part bear. Feyre grabbed her knife, but she knew she couldn't fight it. The beast spoke.

"Who killed my friend?"

Its voice was ancient and terrible. Feyre understood immediately. The wolf had been a faerie. And she had murdered him.

She could have lied. She could have tried to bargain. But something in the beast's eyes told her the truth was the only path forward. "I did," she said. "I killed the wolf. I didn't know he was one of you."

The beast—later she would learn his name was Tamlin, High Lord of the Spring Court—offered her a choice. She could come with him to Prythian and live out her days there. Or she could be killed, as punishment for breaking the treaty.

Feyre looked at her father, frozen in his chair. At her sisters, pale with fear. She thought of the promise she had made to her mother, and how she had already failed to keep her family safe. If she went with the beast, at least they would live. Maybe Tamlin would even provide for them, as the treaty required.

"I'll go with you," she said.

Her father told her to leave and never return. Nesta said nothing. Feyre walked out into the night, following the creature that had come to claim her.

As she crossed the border into Prythian, she felt a metallic tang in the air—magic, she would later learn—and then she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When she woke, she was in a world of eternal spring, surrounded by beauty she had never imagined and dangers she could not yet see.

She had killed a faerie to save her family. Now she would pay the price.

What kind of world would she find on the other side of that wall? And what kind of monster had she bound herself to?