A Court of Stars and Winter

Chapter 1

•7 years earlier•
As the ship sailed away from the port , Feyre Acheron let out a long sigh. It had been months since her father, a merchant, last set sail to the Continent. And the last time he left, he came back with three new ships. Feyre knew that her father was risking all that he had by buying the ships, but she didn't tell him that. She trusted her father to make the decisions necessary to keep her, her sisters, and her mother alive. But he often didn't think before he purchased something that could either make or break their family. Even though her father had many flaws, she loved him all the same. Feyre had never really gotten along with her sisters, Nesta and Elain, nor her mother, but she could always talk to her father about the things she could never talk to the rest of her family about.
The weeks passed slowly as Feyre awaited her father's return. As each day drug on, she found herself less and less motivated to keep moving forward; so most of the time, she just stayed in her room and listened to her sister's gossip about the males that had been staring at them from a distance and how Nesta wished that they would court them. Feyre was as bored as ever when she heard a knock at the door. I wonder who that could be, she wondered. Since no one ever knocked on Acheron Manor's front door. As she approached, she kept racking her brain and thinking who could be at the door; but as she opened it, the person she was least expecting to see was standing right in front of her.
Her father.
Question after question puzzled her mind; what was her father doing back from his trip so soon? He was supposed to be gone at least six months, wasn't he?
Her father had only been gone for several months but as he stood in the doorway waiting to be let in, Feyre barely recognized him. His hair was unusually long, his beard was unshaven, he looked as if he hadn't taken a bath since he left four months ago, but the most concerning thing was that as Feyre moved aside from the door to let him in, he seemed to be severely wounded on his right side