Kael Morrow peeled back his left glove and saw the bark had climbed past his wrist. Rough gray ridges circled his forearm now, hard as tree skin. Three days ago the curse stopped at his knuckles. He pressed a thumb against the edge and felt nothing. The dead line was moving toward his heart, and he had maybe a week before it reached his chest. He was a blacksmith with gold-flecked skin and no eyebrows, and everything his bare hands touched turned to solid wood. But the curse no longer cared what he touched. It wanted him. He had ridden two days into the forest to find the spirit that marked him. His father called it a bargain gone wrong. Kael called it a death sentence he meant to unmake. The trees grew thick and quiet. Then the branches above him twisted into a single low ceiling beam, gnarled roots braided together like rope. He had not built it. Nothing here was built. It had grown into place to greet him. Beneath the root beam stood a willow with pale, drooping branches. They swayed though no wind moved. Kael stepped under them and called out. "I know you can hear me. I want to trade." The willow branches parted. A great elk walked through, taller than any horse, gold marks glowing along its legs and antlers. It fixed one dark eye on him and did not blink. Kael understood without words that this was the spirit, or its face. "Take back the curse," Kael said. He held up his bark-crusted arm. "I'll give you my gift. Every forge, every blade. Just stop it before it kills me." The elk lowered its head. Its antler touched the bark on Kael's arm. The gray ridges softened. The dead line crept backward, down past his wrist, down to his knuckles where it had begun. His heart hammered with relief. Then the elk pulled its antler away, and the retreat stopped there. The bark held at his knuckles, frozen, no longer climbing. He understood the price a beat too late. His right hand throbbed. He tore off the other glove. That hand had turned fully to bark, fingers stiff as dry roots. The spirit had not taken his gift. It had traded him a slower death for the loss of the hand he hammered with. "That wasn't the deal," Kael said. The elk stepped back under the willow. In his mind he heard the terms plainly, though its mouth never moved. The curse would climb no more, but only while he stayed inside the forest. Leave the trees, and the bark would race for his heart again. The branches closed. The elk was gone. Kael stood alone under the twisted beam, one hand of wood, one hand of flesh, trapped in the forest that owned him. He had bought time. Now he had to find a way out that the spirit had not sealed.