Previously: Feyre is a murderer, so she's being taken to the fae land to um, I don't know what, by, um, I don't know who, because, um, a treaty.

--

"Every step toward the line of trees was too swift, too light, too soon carrying me to whatever torment and misery awaited."

Girl, I know the feeling.

Welcome back, my loves.

There is a horse waiting for them in the forest, and Not a Martax beckons Feyre to mount and follow. On their ride through the forest, Feyre thinks about what waits for her in the fae lands, all because she's a murderer.

"And once we went through the invisible wall, once we were in Prythian, there was no way for my family to ever find me. I’d be little more than a lamb in a kingdom of wolves. Wolves—wolf."

"Wolves. Wolves—wolf."

PLEASE, why is that SO BAD?? SJM really thought she did something there, huh? This book is definitely worth all the love it gets, and I am not salty about it at all. 

"Murdered a faerie. That was what I’d done. My throat went dry. I’d killed a faerie."

I'm not 100% sure, but I think she killed a faerie. Let me know in the comments if you think she killed a faerie. It's super not clear.

Now, lest you think this is Feyre feeling bad about the dead fae, she reminds us that she actually doesn't feel bad at all about killing a sentient creature and is in fact planning on killing Not a Martax. He did burn her only ash arrow, however, and she info dumps that knowing their ash weaknesses is the only way humans have survived this long. It was apparently a fae who betrayed their own and gave this information to the humans.

Feyre wonders again what kind of life awaits her. She tells us that she doesn't really know anything about Prythian or faeries.

"I’d never heard the specifics of what the lives of faeries or High Fae were like—never heard much about anything other than their deadly abilities and appetites."

In the next paragraph, she says:

"I’d learned most of the legends from villagers, though my father had occasionally offered up a milder tale or two on the nights he made an attempt to remember we existed."

And then she goes on to tell us all about the geography of Prythian and its government. BUT ONE PARAGRAPH AGO, SHE SAID SHE DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THEM.

File that away under more evidence that SJM immediately forgets whatever she writes and is the worst at continuity. 

But she's #1 in repetition. Here is what we got at the start of the chapter, on page 42: 

"Live with him. I could live out the rest of my mortal life on his lands. Perhaps this was merciful—but then, he hadn’t specified in what manner, exactly, I would live."

And then here we are, on page 44: 

"Live with him, I reminded myself, again and again and again. Live, not die. Though I supposed I could also live in a dungeon."

It's too much for me, personally. WE GET IT!!!! Especially since we are getting these circular thoughts while nothing else is happening. She's just on a horse in a forest she can barely see.

And in case you think I'm at all exaggerating about the repetition, Feyre thinks AGAIN about how she's going to kill Not a Martax whenever she has a chance.

"But it was not my own doom I contemplated as I let myself tumble into dread and rage and despair."

What do YOU MEAN, you are not contemplating your own doom????? I just highlighted two examples of you thinking about what YOU MIGHT BE DOOMED TO. 

Deep breaths. 

So Feyre says she isn't actually thinking about her own doom at all. 

"I alternated between a wretched smugness at the thought of my family starving and thus realizing how important I was, and a blinding agony at the thought of my father begging in the streets, his ruined leg giving out on him as he stumbled from person to person."

That girl, feeling smug about the possibility of her family, led by her disabled father, starving? That is, in fact, our heroine.

Feyre tries to detect any weaknesses in the way Not a Martax walks, you know, because she means to kill him, in case you forgot. She decides to ask him what kind of faerie he is, but he doesn't answer. She asks his name, but he asks if it even matters to her. Feyre doesn't respond and instead thinks about how she's going to murder him. I'M NOT JOKING, IT HAPPENS AGAIN. 

After that, she opens her mouth to ask his name again, but Not a Martax just... uses magic to knock her unconscious?? Like, he magically roofies her??? And she just wakes up two days later when they've reached Not a Martax's place?? 

WHAT A LAZY PASSAGE OF TIME. WE NEEDED ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THIS WHOLE CHAPTER, OH MY GOD. 

Here, let me help:

"It took us two days to reach his lands, a journey spent in silence as I contemplated what manner of life awaited me in Prythian." 

I'm not even gonna read that back either, but I'm confident what I wrote in 12 seconda has more narrative momentum than all of chapter 5.

That was 5 Kindle pages too many and 28 em dashes.

Next time: Not A Martax reveals his true beastly form in Chapter 06.

♥️

Mari