Thane returned to escort her, silent and watchful. They climbed stairs that spiraled upward through the palace's heart, passing guards and courtiers who stepped aside at the enforcer's approach. Celesse caught fragments of conversation—whispers about trade negotiations, complaints about the colder weather, speculation about the next Tithe Bridge crossing.
No one mentioned the King's illness. Either they didn't know, or they knew better than to speak of it aloud.
They reached a corridor that felt different from the others. Quieter, even in the normal sense. Fewer people. Thicker doors. Thane stopped before one made of dark wood bound with silver, his hand resting on the latch.
"The null-zone," he said. "Once you're inside, no sound carries beyond these walls. Scream, whisper, doesn't matter—no one outside will hear you. Understand?"
Celesse nodded, though unease prickled along her spine.
"One more thing." Thane's single eye fixed on her. "The King is... not what he was. You'll see why. Don't stare. Don't pity him. And don't lie. He'll know."
Before she could ask what he meant, Thane opened the door and gestured her inside.
The room beyond was circular, the walls lined with dark wood paneling that absorbed light and sound alike. A fire burned in a hearth carved from black stone, providing warmth but little brightness. Shelves held books and scrolls, a map of the Crescent dominated one wall, and in the center stood a man.
Dacian Fenris. The Wolf King.
He stood with his back to her, studying the map. Even in stillness, he commanded the space—tall and broad-shouldered, wearing dark wool and leather that suggested both formality and practicality. His hair was dark with threads of silver, pulled back from his face. When he turned, Celesse caught her breath.
The strain was visible. His face was handsome in a harsh, weathered way—strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, a mouth pressed into a grim line. But his amber eyes flickered. Not metaphorically—they literally flickered between human amber and wolf-gold, shifting every few seconds as if he were fighting to hold one form. His left hand trembled against his thigh, the fingers curling and uncurling involuntarily.
And beneath the scent of wool and leather and wood-smoke, she smelled blood. Fresh, like he'd been cut recently.
"Celesse Threadwalker." His voice was deep and controlled, but she heard the effort it took. "You signed Renna's contract."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Drop the title. We're in the null-zone." He moved closer, and she saw the tension in his jaw, the way his shoulders held too rigid. "In here, formality is a waste of breath. Call me Dacian."
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
He studied her with the same assessing intensity Thane and Renna had shown, but deeper. As if he were looking past her clothes and posture to something underneath. "You've been threadwalking how long?"
"Eight years."
"Trained?"
"Self-taught."
"Why?"
The question caught her off-guard. "Why did I teach myself, or why do I threadwalk at all?"
"Both."
Celesse hesitated. The truth felt too raw to speak aloud—that she'd been desperate for something to make her valuable, that threadwalking was the only magic she'd ever been able to do, that she'd taught herself because no guild would take her. But something in his expression said he'd know if she lied.
"Because I was good at it," she said. "And because no one else was willing to teach me."
Dacian's mouth quirked—not quite a smile, but close. "Honesty. Rare in a court. Good."
His hand trembled harder. He pressed it against his thigh, and Celesse saw his jaw clench. The scent of blood strengthened.
"You're hurt," she said before she could stop herself.
"I'm cursed." He said it flatly, without self-pity. "The hex is... degrading. Faster than expected. I need you to assess it before we discuss breaking it."
"Assess how?"
"Threadwalk. Map the hex structure. Tell me what you see." He moved to a chair near the fire and sat, the movement careful. "I assume you've walked hostile dreamscapes before?"
"A few times."
"This will be different." His eyes flickered gold again, longer this time. "The hex has defenses. If you trigger them, you'll be hurt. Possibly killed. I need to know you understand that before you agree."
Celesse's throat went dry. "Renna didn't mention defenses."
"Renna doesn't know everything about this hex." Dacian leaned back, his expression unreadable. "Very few people do. That's intentional. Can you handle it, or should I send you back to whatever port you crawled out of?"
The words should have stung. Instead, they felt like a test. Celesse met his flickering gaze and didn't look away.
"I can handle it."
"Then prove it." He closed his eyes. "I'll drop my mental guards. Enter my dreamscape and tell me what you see. Don't touch anything unless I tell you to. Clear?"
"Clear."
Celesse knelt on the floor beside his chair, setting her bag down and pulling out her tools—the silver compass, a small vial of oil made from moonflower petals, a strip of silk to tie around her wrist. Preparation helped focus the trance, made the transition smoother.
She rubbed the oil on her temples—the scent sharp and floral, cutting through the smell of blood and smoke. She wrapped the silk around her wrist and held the compass in her palm, watching the needle spin lazily. Then she closed her eyes and pushed.
The transition was always jarring. One moment she was kneeling on a wooden floor, the next she was falling through darkness into the dreamscape—that space between sleep and waking where consciousness became landscape.
Dacian's dreamscape materialized around her.
It was a forest, but wrong. The trees were too tall, their trunks too thick, their branches reaching toward a sky that flickered between day and night. The ground beneath her feet felt soft, like she was walking on moss, but when she looked down she saw stone. Contradictions everywhere, as if the landscape couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
And the threads. Gods, the threads.
They wrapped around everything—rust-red filaments that pulsed with sickly light, binding the trees together, stretching across the ground in elaborate lattices. She'd never seen a hex this complex. Most curses were simple: a single thread anchored to a single point. This was... architectural. Purposeful. Built with precision.
Celesse moved closer to the nearest tree. The rust-red threads wrapped around its trunk in spiraling patterns, digging into the bark like parasitic vines. She knelt and examined them without touching.
Binding magic. She could taste it in the air—the metallic tang of iron, the bitter aftertaste of pain. Whoever had cast this hex had used blood. Their own blood, probably, given the intimacy of the working.
She followed one thread toward its anchor point. It led deeper into the forest, where the trees grew denser and the light dimmed. In the distance, she saw something pulsing—a core of some kind, wrapped so tightly in rust-red threads it looked like a cocoon.
That was the heart of the hex. If she could reach it, map its structure, she could tell Dacian how to break it.
Celesse stood and walked toward the pulsing core. The threads grew thicker the closer she got, forming walls and barriers that she had to navigate around. Her dreamscape-body felt light, insubstantial, but the hex-threads looked solid enough to be real.
She reached the core finally. It pulsed like a heartbeat—slow, labored, painful. The rust-red threads wrapped around something inside, hiding it from view. She needed to see what was underneath, needed to understand what the hex was protecting or suppressing.
Just a quick touch. Just enough to peel back one layer.
Celesse reached out and brushed her fingers against the nearest thread.
The hex screamed.
Light exploded around her—not rust-red anymore but blindingly white, hot and sharp as shattered glass. The threads erupted, unfurling from the core like striking snakes. They wrapped around her wrists, her throat, her chest, tightening with crushing force.
She tried to pull back, tried to wake herself, but the threads held her in place. One of them wrapped around her heart—she felt it constrict, felt something inside her chest burn with sudden, agonizing heat.
Celesse screamed and woke violently.
Her body convulsed. She pitched forward, coughing, and tasted copper. Blood hit the floor beneath her—bright red, too much of it. Her chest felt like it was on fire, like something had reached inside and set her ribs alight.
Hands grabbed her shoulders. Dacian's voice, close and urgent: "Breathe. Celesse, breathe."
She couldn't. The burning in her chest intensified, spreading outward through her limbs. She coughed again and more blood came up, spattering across her hands.
The door burst open. Footsteps—Renna's voice, sharp with panic: "What happened?"
"She triggered the defense." Dacian still held Celesse's shoulders, keeping her upright. "Renna, check the bond. Now."
"Bond? What bond?" But Renna was already moving, grabbing Celesse's wrist and pressing her fingers against the pulse point.
Celesse felt it then—beneath the burning, beneath the pain. A second heartbeat. Not her own. Steady and strong, beating in time with hers but separate. Distinct.
"No," Renna whispered. "Oh gods, no."
"What is it?" Celesse gasped.
Renna's face had gone pale. She looked at Dacian, then back at Celesse, and when she spoke her voice shook.
"You're life-bound to him," she said. "The hex wrapped around your heart. It thinks you're part of him now."
"Undo it," Celesse managed. "Break the binding."
"I can't." Dacian's hands tightened on her shoulders. "Only the caster can undo a life-bond. And the caster..." He hesitated, then finished grimly, "Isn't available."
Celesse stared at him. At his flickering eyes, his trembling hand, the blood-scent that clung to him. Understanding crashed over her like cold water.
"If you die," she whispered.
Renna answered, her voice quiet and devastated. "If he dies, you die with him."
The room spun. Celesse felt the second heartbeat in her chest—steady, relentless, binding her to a man she'd met less than an hour ago. A man who had ninety days left to live.
She'd come here for money. For legitimacy. For a way forward.
Instead, she'd found a death sentence.