payment page
“I was as unburdened as a piece of dandelion fluff, and he was the wind that stirred me about the world.”
During the summer solstice celebration in Chapter 25, Feyre finds herself truly at ease in Tamlin’s company. The colorful and romantic scene marks a turning point in Feyre and Tamlin’s relationship as it deepens into love. Though Tamlin and Feyre do not declare their love for each other at this juncture, it is clear by the tenderness and vulnerability they display with one another. Tamlin’s love transforms Feyre, both physically and emotionally. When Feyre arrives at Tamlin’s manor house, she is malnourished from years of poverty and living in survival mode. Under Tamlin’s care, Feyre thrives physically, creatively, and emotionally. At the summer solstice celebration, Feyre lets go of her worries and inhibitions as she drinks faerie wine and dances freely. Tamlin’s love frees Feyre from the worries of her former life and allows her to grow into her own identity.
All you had to do was say that you loved him—say that you loved him and mean it with your whole useless human heart, and his power would have been freed. You stupid, stupid girl.”
Alis's frustration with Feyre in Chapter 32 is clear when she reveals that Feyre’s declaration of love would have ended the blight. The scene reveals the answer to the novel’s primary mystery surrounding the blight: the blight is a euphemism for Amarantha’s curse. Unbeknownst to Feyre, her love had the power to lift the curse and return Tamlin to his former strength and finally remove his permanent mask. In a very literal sense, Tamlin would have been transformed had Feyre told him she loved him before leaving Prythian. The cure for the curse clearly illustrates love’s transformative ability. Learning that Feyre held the key to lifting the curse all along devastates her, but it also spurs her to action. Feyre’s love for Tamlin is the primary reason she has returned to Prythian, and she does not give up because of a setback. Instead, Feyre stays the course, determined to utilize her love for Tamlin to free him and all of Prythian from Amarantha’s dark reign.
“I put a hand on Tamlin’s heart, and a steady beat echoed into my bones.”
In Chapter 46, Feyre feels Tamlin’s newly transformed heartbeat for the first time. Tamlin’s heart makes both a literal and metaphorical transformation from stone to flesh because of how deeply Feyre loves him. Tamlin’s stone heart could only be transformed by the love of a human woman who hated faeries. The fact that love is the only thing that can lift the curse is a metaphor for the transformative power of love. The message is reinforced when Feyre provides the word “love” to solve Amarantha’s riddle, forcing her to release Tamlin and all of Prythian from her clutches. Throughout the novel, Tamlin’s stone heart is hinted at but never explicitly revealed. As Tamlin and Feyre recover from their ordeal, she feels Tamlin’s heartbeat for the first time, revealing his stone heart was part of the curse and confirming the message that love has the power to transform.
