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English
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Published:
2026-02-20
Updated:
2026-05-21
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9,726
Chapters:
4/?
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3
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Between the Nest and the Fall

Summary:

“Evil lurks in the most unlikely places, wearing many faces,” he said, his gaze hollow and haunted. “It takes the ones we love and leaves behind nothing but longing and remorse. At least, that is how it goes most of the time. He needs to hatch.”

“No, we need to hatch him. Have you forgotten?”

“Impossible, little princess. There is not a single day you do not speak of this. Life would be far easier if those two were still here.”

“Seems we agree on something at least once a week, Lilia.”

Half human, half fae, raised under the protection of a crow who was never meant to grow attached to her, Rose grows up watching her family fall apart as she is taken to Briarland, her true nature kept hidden in the shadows.

Caught between a political marriage imposed by Maleanor, Levan’s absence, and her forced coexistence with Lilia, Rose must learn how to survive both the war and what her loved ones have left behind.

Twisted Wonderland AU based on Book 7, featuring an OC, dark pacts, and distorted family bonds.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

October 30th, 1600

I can still recall the first time I saw you: a blur upon my windowpane, a small creature cloaked in black, glistening feathers. We lingered there, caught in a quiet standoff. You watched me with those grey orbs, and I was utterly captivated. How old was I then? Five? Ten? I cannot remember with any certainty.

I only know that I grew differently from the other children, slowly, painfully so.

In truth, it took me ten long years to learn how to walk, something ordinary infants accomplish within their first cycle. Yet, as I would later come to understand, ordinary infants do not spend half a decade trapped within a body so small it cannot even lift its own head. Perhaps that is why you came to visit me night after night, rocking my cradle as I listened to the familiar quarrels of my parents in the chamber next door.

Time was cruel to me. Winter after winter, my younger siblings seemed to grow ever taller, while I remained unchanged, bearing the same small features as always. But you told me this was common among “our kind.”

And this was our secret. Though “our kind” belongs far more to me than it ever did to you. After all, I am something truly singular: born of one world, daughter of another, belonging nowhere at all.

And the one I believed stood at my side simply vanished. You left me. You abandoned me.

Here I am now, clad in black, a collar fastened around my neck, waiting for her to look down upon me. You know… the fact that she loathes me is your doing. This is all your doing. And standing before me will be my betrothed, who made it clear he would rather wed a sheep than call me his wife. You brought me into a hateful nest. You knew that, did you not? And then you abandoned me. You, of all beings, who swore you would care for me until time itself ran thin.

I hope you are able to read this letter from beyond, for I shall burn it so that it may reach you, Duke of the Dragon’s Eye. I wished to tell our story to someone, and this time it shall be from my own point of view. Perhaps, in time, I will share further tales of my most likely sorrowful life as a wife.

Yours sincerely,

the one who is no longer so dearly beloved by you,
whatever it was that I once was to you.