The burning in Celesse's chest had faded to a dull ache, but the second heartbeat remained. She could feel it beneath her own pulse—steady, foreign, a constant reminder that her life was no longer entirely hers.
She pushed herself upright, Dacian's hands falling away from her shoulders. Blood stained her lips and chin. Her hands. The floor. Too much blood for something that wasn't a physical wound.
"Release it." Her voice came out hoarse. "Whatever you did, undo it. Now."
Dacian remained kneeling beside her, his expression carefully neutral. "I can't."
"You're the Wolf King. You command—"
"This isn't about authority." He stood slowly, his left hand still trembling. "Life-bonds can only be undone by the person who cast the original hex. The magic recognizes intent. If anyone else tries to break it, both parties die."
Celesse forced herself to stand, though her legs felt unsteady. "Then find them. The caster. Whoever did this to you."
"I can't reach them."
The words were too careful. Too measured. Celesse's mind, still sharp despite the trauma, caught the evasion immediately.
"Can't reach them, or won't?"
Dacian's jaw tightened. "Does it matter?"
"It matters when my life depends on it." She took a step toward him, anger burning through the fear. "You knew this could happen. The defenses. You warned me, but you didn't tell me I'd be bound if they triggered."
"Because you weren't supposed to touch the hex-core." His eyes flickered gold again, longer this time. "I told you not to touch anything without permission. You ignored that instruction."
"I barely brushed it—"
"And that was enough." His voice hardened. "The hex interprets touch as threat. It defends itself. You're lucky it only bound you instead of killing you outright."
Renna stepped between them, her hands raised in a placating gesture. "Fighting won't help. What's done is done. The bond exists now, and we need to focus on managing it."
"Managing it?" Celesse turned on her. "You said if he dies, I die. That's not manageable. That's a death sentence."
"Only if we fail to break the hex." Renna's voice stayed calm, professional, but Celesse saw the fear beneath. "You signed a contract. Ninety days to complete the work. The timeline hasn't changed."
"Everything has changed. I didn't agree to die with him."
"You agreed to break the hex." Dacian moved to the hearth, putting distance between them. "The bond doesn't change that task. It just raises the stakes."
Celesse wanted to scream. Wanted to run. But the second heartbeat in her chest reminded her that running was pointless. She was bound to this man, to his dying body, to his cursed blood. Trapped.
The door opened. Thane entered, his single eye immediately assessing the scene—Celesse covered in blood, Dacian's strained posture, Renna's pale face.
"What happened?" he demanded.
"The hex activated its defenses," Renna said quietly. "Celesse is life-bound now."
Thane's expression went cold. He crossed the room in three strides and grabbed Celesse's wrist, yanking it up to check her pulse. His fingers pressed hard against the vein, and she felt him counting—felt him notice the dual rhythm.
"How convenient," he said, releasing her with enough force that she stumbled. "A stranger shows up, triggers a binding, and now claims she's a victim."
"Thane—" Dacian started.
"No." The enforcer rounded on his king. "This is exactly what Grayclaw would do. Send someone with just enough skill to seem legitimate, have them bind themselves to you, then use that bond to gather intelligence. Or worse—use it to kill you from the inside."
"I'm not a spy," Celesse snapped.
"That's what a spy would say." Thane circled her like a predator. "You're unranked. No guild backing. No references. Just a convenient summons and a threadwalker who happens to trigger the one defense mechanism that creates a permanent connection to the King."
"I didn't know—"
"Didn't you?" He leaned closer, and she smelled pine and cold wind and barely contained aggression. "Threadwalkers see hex structures. You walked his dreamscape. You saw the defenses and touched them anyway. Either you're incompetent, or you're exactly what you were sent here to be."
Celesse's hands curled into fists. "If I wanted to kill him, there are easier ways than binding my own life to his."
"Unless your handlers are willing to sacrifice you for the greater goal." Thane glanced at Dacian. "Grayclaw has been pushing for an heir declaration. If you die without naming one, the succession goes to council vote. Marin has enough support to claim the throne. One spy's life is a small price for a crown."
The logic was sound enough to send ice down Celesse's spine. She looked at Dacian, hoping he'd dismiss Thane's suspicions, but the King's expression was unreadable.
"I'm not working for Grayclaw," she said. "I don't even know who Marin is."
"Alpha of the rival pack. Member of my council. Publicly supportive, privately ambitious." Dacian spoke without inflection, still watching her. "If Thane's theory is correct, you wouldn't know him directly. That's not how infiltration works."
"I'm not—" Celesse's voice cracked. "I came here for a job. For money. Not to die alongside a king I'd never met."
"Then you should have been more careful." Dacian's tone held no sympathy. "The bond exists. Regardless of how or why, we're both stuck with it now."
Stuck. As if she were a burden. An inconvenience.
Celesse forced herself to breathe through the anger. Through the fear. She needed to think, needed to find a way out of this nightmare that didn't end with her heart stopping in ninety days.
"The caster," she said. "You can't reach them. Why not?"
Dacian turned away, staring into the fire. "That's not your concern."
"It's absolutely my concern. My life depends on it."
"Your life depends on breaking the hex. Focus on that."
"I can't break it if I don't understand it." Celesse moved around to face him, refusing to let him avoid her. "Why can't you reach the caster? Are they dead? Imprisoned? Exiled?"
"None of those."
"Then what?"
His eyes met hers—amber bleeding to gold and back again, flickering with barely controlled power. "They're beyond my authority to compel. That's all you need to know."
It was a lie. Not a complete fabrication, but an omission so large it practically echoed in the null-zone's silence. Celesse had spent years reading clients, learning when people were hiding truths that mattered. Dacian was hiding something crucial.
But pushing now, with Thane watching her like prey and Renna documenting every word for her oath-logs, would only make her look more suspicious.
"Fine," she said. "Then tell me this: can I leave the palace?"
"Why would you want to?" Thane asked sharply.
"Because if I'm stuck here for ninety days, I'd like to know what my boundaries are."
Dacian shook his head. "The bond has distance limits. Separation causes pain—physical, not just discomfort. The farther apart we are, the worse it gets. Beyond a certain threshold, it could kill us both."
"How far?"
"I don't know exactly. Most life-bonds break at around fifty miles."
Fifty miles. Less than the distance between islands. She was trapped not just in the palace, but in Dacian's proximity. A prisoner without chains.
"So I'm confined here," she said flatly.
"You're confined to the neutral island," Dacian corrected. "The palace, the grounds, the port. That gives you some freedom. But you won't be traveling to the outer territories. Not alone, and not without guard."
"Guard." Celesse looked at Thane. "You mean surveillance."
"Call it what you want," the enforcer said. "You'll be watched. Every conversation, every action. Until we're certain you're not a threat."
"I'm life-bound to your king. If I were a threat, I'd be dead already."
"Or you're very patient." Thane crossed his arms. "Grayclaw plays long games. So do I."
Renna cleared her throat. "This isn't productive. Celesse needs rest and medical attention. The bond-trauma will take time to heal."
"There's no healing from this," Celesse said bitterly. "There's only breaking the hex before it kills both of us."
"Then you should start working." Dacian moved toward the door, his gait stiff. "Renna will assign you quarters. Thane will assign guards. In the morning, we'll discuss next steps."
"Wait—" Celesse started, but he was already leaving, Thane following close behind.
The door closed with a heavy thud. The null-zone swallowed the sound of their footsteps, leaving her alone with Renna and the drying blood on her hands.
"He's afraid," Renna said quietly.
Celesse laughed—a harsh, broken sound. "Of me?"
"Of losing control. Of the hex breaking him before you can break it." The oath-scribe began gathering parchments, her movements precise. "And yes, possibly of you. Dacian hasn't trusted easily since his mate was killed. Now he's bound to a stranger who might be exactly what Thane fears."
"I'm not a spy."
"I believe you." Renna met her eyes. "But belief doesn't matter here. Proof does. So prove it. Map the hex. Find the anchors. Break this curse before it breaks both of you."
She led Celesse out of the null-zone, through corridors that alternated between amplifying and dampening sound, until they reached a guest wing in the palace's eastern tower. The room was small but comfortable—a bed with clean linens, a desk, a window overlooking the river. A prison dressed as hospitality.
Two guards stood outside the door when Renna left. Wolf guards, Celesse noted. Thane's people.
She closed the door and leaned against it, finally alone.
The second heartbeat pulsed in her chest. Steady. Relentless. Binding her to a man who didn't trust her, who might have deliberately trapped her, who would die in ninety days and take her with him.
Celesse moved to the desk and pulled out her threadwalking tools. Her hands still shook from the earlier trauma, but she forced them steady. If she couldn't leave, couldn't convince them she wasn't a threat, then she'd do the only thing she could: work.
She prepared the trance carefully—moonflower oil on her temples, silk wrapped around her wrist, silver compass in her palm. Then she closed her eyes and pushed into the dreamscape.
The transition came easier this time. She landed in Dacian's forest, the too-tall trees and flickering sky spreading around her. The rust-red threads still wrapped everything, but now she felt them differently. Through the bond, maybe. Or through proximity to their source.
Celesse moved carefully, avoiding the hex-core. She'd learned that lesson. Instead, she followed the threads outward, tracing their paths away from the central pulsing heart.
Most hexes had one anchor—a single point in the waking world where the curse was rooted. Breaking that anchor broke the curse. Simple.
But as Celesse walked deeper into the dreamscape forest, she saw threads splitting off in multiple directions. Not one anchor. Many.
She followed the first thread to its terminus and found a stone—black, etched with blood-runes that glowed faintly. One anchor. She marked its location in her mental map and moved on.
The second thread led to another stone. Similar runes, similar glow.
The third. The fourth. The fifth.
Five anchors total, scattered across the dreamscape like the points of a star. Each one pulsed with rust-red light, each one embedded with complex binding magic that made her head ache just looking at it.
This wasn't a normal hex. This was architecture. This was deliberate, intricate, built by someone who understood curse-craft at a master level.
Celesse moved to the fifth anchor and froze.
The stone pulsed differently from the others. Not just rust-red, but with hints of black-violet—the color of vengeance magic, of active intent. As she watched, the stone's glow flickered and strengthened, as if someone were channeling power into it.
From the waking world. Right now.
Someone else was touching this anchor. Someone who knew where it was, who had the skill to manipulate hex-threads, who was actively working to either break or strengthen it while she watched.
Celesse tried to follow the thread back to its source, to see who was interfering, but the connection was shielded. Whoever they were, they knew how to hide.
She caught a scent though—dreamscape manifestation of waking-world presence. Ash and burnt sage, sharp and distinctive.
The same scent she'd noticed in the palace. On someone's cloak. On—
The memory clicked into place. Marin Grayclaw. The alpha Thane had mentioned. The one with ambitions and council support and every reason to want Dacian dead.
Celesse pulled back from the anchor, memorizing its location and the scent-signature. Then she forced herself awake.
Her body jerked upright in the chair where she'd been sitting. Dawn light filtered through the window—she'd been threadwalking for hours without realizing. Her head pounded and her mouth tasted like copper, but she was alive.
And she had information.
Five anchors. One of them actively being hunted by someone who smelled like Marin Grayclaw.
Someone on Dacian's own council was either trying to break the hex early—killing the King in the process—or trying to strengthen it to ensure he never escaped.
Either way, Celesse and Dacian weren't just racing against time.
They were racing against an enemy who was already ahead.