Three days passed in uneasy preparation. Dacian's condition stabilized—barely—but the tremors worsened and his shifts became unpredictable. Twice Celesse felt the bond flare with sudden pain, jolting her awake to find her vision flickering gold.
They needed to move. To find and break the first anchor before Marin's interference collapsed the hex entirely.
"The foundation stone," Dacian said during their fourth strategy session in the null-zone. He'd spread architectural drawings across the table—original palace blueprints from twenty years ago. "I buried the first anchor here, beneath the throne room, during construction."
Celesse studied the drawings. "How deep?"
"Eight feet. Embedded in the keystone that supports the throne platform." His bandaged hand traced the location. "It can't be excavated during the day. Too many people, too much attention."
"When?"
"Tomorrow night. The court will be occupied with preparations for the upcoming Tithe Bridge crossing—still a week away, but the administrative work is extensive. The throne room should be empty except for minimal guard." He looked up, eyes tired. "We'll have maybe four hours before anyone notices."
"And if someone does notice?"
"Then we have bigger problems than an excavation." Dacian rolled up the drawings. "Thane will help. He doesn't trust you, but he trusts me. And he understands what's at stake."
Thane proved easier to convince than Celesse expected. When Dacian explained what they needed, the enforcer simply nodded and started gathering tools—shovels, pry-bars, a silver-edged chisel for breaking curse-stones.
"You're sure about this?" he asked Dacian privately, though Celesse could hear from where she stood near the null-zone's hearth. "Breaking the anchor could accelerate the degradation."
"Leaving it in place guarantees failure." Dacian's voice was flat. "We're past the point of safe options."
The following night, Celesse joined them in the throne room after midnight. The chamber was vast and empty, the domed ceiling painted with constellations that seemed to move in the candlelight. The throne itself sat on a raised stone platform—exactly where the architectural drawings indicated the anchor was buried.
"We'll need to move the throne," Thane said, examining the platform. "It's bolted down, but the bolts are accessible."
They worked in silence, removing the bolts and using wooden levers to shift the throne aside. The stone platform beneath was solid granite, seamless except for a small maker's mark in one corner.
Dacian knelt and pressed his hand to the mark. "Here. The keystone is directly below."
Celesse prepared for the threadwalk—she needed to confirm the anchor's exact position before they started digging. If they broke the wrong stone, the feedback could kill Dacian instantly.
She entered the dreamscape and found herself in the familiar forest of rust-red threads. This time she moved with purpose, following the thread that led to the first anchor's location. It took her down, through layers of dreamscape earth, until she found the stone.
Black, etched with blood-runes, pulsing with malevolent energy. But there was something else—a secondary thread wrapped around it, thin and violet-black. Fresh. Someone had been here recently in the dreamscape, touching this anchor.
Celesse memorized the stone's position and pulled herself awake. "Eight feet down, slightly northwest of center. But there's a problem."
"What problem?" Dacian asked.
"Someone's been tampering with it. There's a secondary thread—vengeance magic, recently added." She met his gaze. "If we break this stone, the secondary thread might trigger a defensive hex."
"Can you disable it?"
"Not from here. I'd need to be in the dreamscape while you're breaking the stone. I can cut the secondary thread right before you destroy the anchor."
"That's dangerous," Thane said. "If something goes wrong—"
"Everything about this is dangerous." Celesse picked up her threadwalking tools. "We do it carefully, or we don't do it at all."
They began digging. Thane and Dacian took turns with the shovels, breaking through the granite platform piece by piece. It was brutal work—the stone was thick and magically reinforced. Sweat soaked Dacian's shirt within the first hour, and Celesse saw him struggle to maintain control. The physical exertion triggered his wolf, made his eyes flicker gold, made his hands tremble with suppressed shift.
Through the bond, she felt it. Her own bones ached sympathetically, her vision blurred, her breath came short.
"Stop," she said when they were six feet down. "You need to rest."
"We don't have time—"
"If you shift now, you'll kill us both." She took the shovel from his hands. "Let me dig for a while."
To her surprise, he didn't argue. He sank against the edge of the excavation pit, breathing hard. His shirt was stained with sweat and dirt, his bandaged hand bleeding through the linen.
Celesse dug. The shovel felt heavy and awkward—she was built for threadwalking, not manual labor—but she forced herself to keep going. Thane joined her, and together they broke through the last two feet.
The keystone appeared at eight feet exactly—a black stone carved with runes that glowed faintly in the darkness.
"That's it," Dacian said from above. "Don't touch it yet."
Celesse climbed out of the pit and prepared her trance. "I'll go into the dreamscape. Once I've cut the secondary thread, I'll signal you. Then you break the stone. Fast and clean. Understood?"
Thane handed her a length of rope. "Tie this around your wrist. When you're ready, tug three times. That's our signal."
She tied the rope and entered the trance.
The dreamscape solidified around her. She descended through the earth-layers again, found the anchor-stone, found the violet-black secondary thread wrapped around it like a strangling vine.
Celesse reached out carefully and touched the thread. It resisted—whoever had placed it knew defensive weaving. But she'd been threadwalking for eight years. She'd learned to cut through resistance.
She pulled at the thread, unraveling it from the anchor stone. It fought her, twisting like something alive, but she persisted. Slowly, carefully, she peeled it away until the anchor stood exposed—just the original rust-red binding, nothing else.
In the waking world, she tugged the rope three times.
Thane's voice reached her faintly: "She's ready. Do it."
The chisel struck the anchor-stone. Even in the dreamscape, Celesse felt the impact—a shudder that ran through the hex structure like a plucked string. The rust-red threads recoiled, writhing.
Dacian's voice, strained: "Again."
Another strike. The anchor cracked. The threads screamed—she heard them in the dreamscape, a high keening sound that made her ears ring.
Through the bond, pain exploded.
Celesse gasped and nearly lost her hold on the dreamscape. Dacian was hurting—badly. The anchor breaking was tearing something inside him, and she felt it echo through her own chest.
"One more," Thane shouted. "Hold on—"
The final strike shattered the anchor. The threads erupted, whipping through the dreamscape like severed cables. Celesse tried to duck, to shield herself, but one of them caught her across the face. Burning pain lanced through her cheek.
She woke screaming.
And found chaos.
Dacian had shifted. Not partially—fully. His wolf form thrashed in the excavation pit, massive and gray-furred, eyes blazing gold. He snarled at Thane, at the broken anchor, at everything. The wolf was fractured, incoherent, operating on pure instinct.
"Dacian!" Thane backed away, silver-edged chisel raised defensively. "Control it! Now!"
But Dacian wasn't in control. Celesse saw it in his eyes—the human consciousness was gone, submerged beneath feral rage. He lunged at Thane, jaws snapping.
The enforcer dodged and brought the chisel down across Dacian's flank—not deep, just enough to sting. Silver burned wolf flesh. Dacian yelped and rounded on him, preparing for another attack.
"No!" Celesse stumbled forward, putting herself between them. "Dacian, stop! It's me. It's—"
He looked at her. For a heartbeat, she thought he'd attack. Thought she'd die here, torn apart by the man she was bound to.
Then something shifted in his eyes. Recognition. Horror.
Dacian backed away, shaking his massive head. He shifted—agonizingly slow, bones cracking and reforming, fur receding into skin. When he finally returned to human form, he collapsed naked on the stone floor, bleeding from where Thane's chisel had struck him.
And through the bond, Celesse felt his pain. Felt the silver burn scoring her own side, felt the exhaustion that came from forced shifting, felt the terror of having lost control completely.
"The anchors aren't just holding the hex," Dacian rasped, his voice raw. "They're holding *me* together. Every one you break brings me closer to feral."
Thane pulled off his coat and threw it over Dacian's shoulders. "We can't do this four more times. You'll be completely feral before we finish."
"We don't have a choice." Dacian forced himself upright, leaning heavily on Thane. "If we leave the anchors intact, Marin will use them to kill me faster. At least this way, we're taking control of the timeline."
Celesse touched her cheek where the dreamscape thread had struck her. Her fingers came away bloody—waking-world manifestation of dreamscape injury. "The next anchor will be worse. The secondary threads are getting stronger. Someone's actively reinforcing them."
"Then we need to move faster." Dacian met her eyes, his amber gaze exhausted but determined. "The second anchor is on the Tithe Bridge. When's the next full moon?"
"Seven days," Thane said.
"Then we have seven days to plan. To figure out how to break it without killing me in the process."
Before anyone could respond, the throne room doors burst open. Guards poured in—both human and wolf, armed and alert. Behind them came Chancellor Vorin and Marin Grayclaw.
Vorin's face was stone. "What is the meaning of this destruction?"
"We're breaking the curse," Dacian said, pulling Thane's coat tighter around himself. "One anchor at a time."
"By destroying royal property? By shifting uncontrolled in the heart of the palace?" Vorin gestured to the excavated pit, the displaced throne. "This is exactly the instability we feared."
Marin stepped forward, his amber eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "The servant who reported your illness has been monitoring you. When unusual sounds came from the throne room tonight, he alerted us immediately."
A trap. They'd been watched the entire time.
"Arrest them," Vorin ordered. "All three. Charges of destruction of crown property and reckless endangerment."
Thane reached for his knives, but Dacian grabbed his arm. "Don't. We can't fight the entire guard."
"Smart," Marin said. "King Dacian, you're hereby placed under house arrest pending investigation. The threadwalker and enforcer will be held as accomplices."
Guards moved to restrain them. Celesse felt cold iron manacles close around her wrists—not silver, but heavy enough to restrict movement. Through the bond, she felt Dacian's rage and despair mixing with physical pain.
As they were led from the throne room, Celesse caught Marin's whispered words to Vorin: "One anchor down, four to go. By the time they break the third, he'll be too feral to save. The problem solves itself."
They'd broken one anchor. Four remained.
And now they were prisoners with a seven-day countdown to the next full moon—their only chance to reach the second anchor before time ran out completely.