The full moon rose silver and cold over the Fenrial Crescent. Celesse stood at the water-gate watching the Tithe Bridge materialize—mist condensing into ice, freezing and spreading until a massive arch spanned the channel between territories. The bridge glowed faintly with residual magic, beautiful and deadly.
Thane appeared beside her wearing trader's clothes instead of his enforcer leathers. Ash-paste covered his neck and wrists—the scent-masking compound that would hide his identity from other wolves.
"Ready?" he asked.
Celesse nodded, pulling her hood lower. Her own scent was masked, her face shadowed. They joined the flow of travelers crossing toward the outer islands—merchants, pack members returning home, humans seeking trade opportunities during the monthly window.
The bridge's surface was slick ice, treacherous underfoot. Celesse gripped the railing as they walked, feeling the cold seep through her gloves. Halfway across, the toll-station appeared—a raised platform staffed by Grayclaw enforcers.
A scarred woman stepped forward as they approached. "Toll."
Thane offered a pouch of coins. The enforcer weighed it in her palm, then leaned close, scenting them both despite the ash-paste.
"You smell familiar," she said to Thane, her amber eyes narrowing.
"I've crossed before. Trade routes to the outer markets."
She grabbed Celesse's chin, forcing her to meet those predator eyes. "And you?"
"First crossing. Here for the moon-market."
The enforcer released her but gestured to another guard. "Search their packs."
Thane's jaw tightened, but he handed over his bag. Celesse did the same, praying they wouldn't find anything incriminating.
The second enforcer rifled through her belongings—clothes, a few coins, her threadwalking supplies. His hand paused, then emerged holding something Celesse had never seen before.
A Grayclaw token. Carved wood bearing the pack's crest.
"Interesting," the enforcer said. "Where did you get this?"
"I've never seen that before," Celesse said truthfully.
"That's what they all say." He showed it to the scarred woman. "Planted evidence or legitimate trader?"
"Neither." The woman's nostrils flared. "She's the one from the palace. The threadwalker." Her eyes snapped to Thane. "And you're Fenris's enforcer. I know your scent, ash-paste or not."
Thane moved before they could grab him. He twisted the male enforcer's wrist, sending the Grayclaw token spinning across the ice. The scarred woman shifted partially—claws extending from her fingertips, teeth sharpening—and lunged at Celesse.
Celesse ducked. The woman's claws raked across her shoulder instead of her throat, tearing fabric and skin. Pain flared hot and immediate.
Thane kicked the male enforcer away and drew his knives. "Celesse, now!"
She understood. While he fought, she needed to threadwalk. Find the anchor embedded in the bridge and mark its location so Thane could destroy it.
Celesse dropped to her knees on the ice, ignoring the sounds of combat around her. She closed her eyes and pushed into the dreamscape.
The transition was violent—entering the trance while physically endangered made everything sharper, more chaotic. The dreamscape formed around her with jarring intensity. She was still on the bridge, but now she could see the threads—rust-red filaments wrapped around the ice itself, woven into the bridge's structure.
She ran toward the keystone arch where the anchor should be embedded. Behind her, a voice called out.
"You shouldn't have come back."
The rival threadwalker stood on the bridge in the dreamscape, black-violet threads already forming in her scarred hands.
"This anchor is killing him," Celesse said, not slowing.
"All the anchors are killing him. That's the point." The rival moved to block her path. "He cast this hex to destroy himself. I'm just helping it along."
"Why?"
"Because some things are worse than death." The rival attacked.
Black-violet threads lashed out like whips. Celesse threw up defensive weaving, rust-red threads manifesting from her own hands to block the strikes. The threads collided in the dreamscape with impacts she felt like physical blows.
"You're getting better," the rival said, circling. "But you're still just a hedge-witch playing at real magic."
She wove a complex pattern—threads splitting into multiple strands, each one targeting a different part of Celesse's consciousness. Celesse defended desperately, but she was outmatched. The rival had decades more experience, training from someone who'd mastered the craft.
One black-violet thread slipped through Celesse's defense and wrapped around her arm. Pain exploded—not physical pain, but the agony of having part of your consciousness attacked directly.
Celesse grabbed the thread before the rival could yank it tight. Instead of trying to break it, she used a technique she'd developed tracking curses—reversal weaving. She channeled her own consciousness through the thread, sending feedback back toward its source.
The rival stumbled, clearly not expecting the counter. Celesse pressed her advantage, weaving her own attack pattern. Rust-red threads surrounded the rival, constraining her movement.
"You're learning," the rival said, almost admiringly. "You'll need that for what's coming."
"What's coming?"
"The truth." The rival's scarred face shifted, emotions flickering across it. "About who really cast the hex. About what it was meant to protect."
Before Celesse could ask more, the rival grabbed one of Celesse's surrounding threads and did something impossible—she consumed it. Drew the thread into herself, absorbing its power.
"Kael taught me that," the rival said, her voice changing, becoming layered. "Someone who loved the King enough to save him from himself."
"Kael's dead," Celesse said.
"Is she?" The rival's eyes gleamed. "Break the fifth anchor and find out."
She attacked again, this time targeting Celesse's life-bond with Dacian. Black-violet threads wrapped around the connection between them, squeezing.
Through the bond, Celesse felt Dacian roar in pain and fury. Felt him trying to reach her across the distance.
The rival found one of Celesse's own life-threads—the filaments that kept consciousness tethered to body—and severed it.
Agony ripped through Celesse. In the waking world, she felt blood pour from her eyes, felt her body convulsing on the ice.
But she still had enough control to do one thing. She placed her bloodied hand on the bridge's surface and sent a pulse of consciousness down, down, until she found the second anchor embedded in the keystone beneath them.
There, she sent to Thane through the blood-connection of their bond. Destroy it now.
Then the rival's final attack hit, and Celesse screamed.
She woke on the ice, Thane's hands on her shoulders, blood everywhere. It poured from her eyes, her nose, soaking into her clothes.
"Did you mark it?" Thane demanded.
She nodded weakly, unable to speak.
Thane pulled out his silver-edged chisel and dropped to his knees. He struck the ice with brutal force, cracking through layer after layer. The Grayclaw enforcers had retreated, unwilling to interfere with whatever dark magic was unfolding.
Celesse heard shouting from the shores—both human and wolf courts watching, witnesses to whatever happened next.
Thane's chisel struck something solid. The anchor stone—black, etched with blood-runes, pulsing with malevolent light even through the ice.
"Hold on," he said to Celesse, then brought the chisel down with all his strength.
The anchor shattered.
On the human shore, Dacian felt it through the bond. The second anchor's destruction sent feedback through the hex structure, and his control snapped like a broken rope.
He shifted. Not the careful, controlled transformation he'd spent years mastering, but a violent, involuntary change. His wolf form erupted from human skin—massive, gray-furred, eyes blazing pure gold.
Guards scattered as the Wolf King tore through them, driven by a single imperative: reach Celesse.
He raced across the palace grounds and dove into the water. Swam with powerful strokes toward the Tithe Bridge, where he could feel her agony through the bond like it was his own.
The massive wolf hauled himself onto the ice and skidded to a stop before Celesse's bloodied form. Feral. Trembling with barely contained violence. His lips pulled back from teeth designed to kill.
Celesse raised her shaking, bloodied hands. Through the haze of pain, she remembered the pack-sign language she'd been learning in secret from books in the palace library.
She signed: Pack-brother. Safe. Home.
The wolf's ears flicked forward. Recognition flickered in those gold eyes.
She signed again, slower: Alpha. Control. Choose humanity.
The wolf's massive head lowered. His breathing slowed. And slowly, agonizingly, he began to shift back.
Bones cracked and reformed. Fur receded into skin. When it was done, Dacian knelt naked on the ice, human again, gasping for breath.
"You learned pack-sign," he rasped.
"We got the anchor," Celesse managed. "It's done."
"At what cost?" He looked past her at the watching shores—hundreds of witnesses from both courts who'd just seen their King lose control and shift in public.
"Then we deal with it," she said.
Thane helped them both stand. As they stumbled toward shore, guards waited. Not to help.
To arrest them.