The betrothal date came two weeks early, and Nari learned it from a servant who would not meet her eyes. She stood in the throne hall of the crystal palace, still barefoot, gold charms clicking in her locs. Her mother had signed the papers that morning. In three days, Nari would be bound by the old pact to a stranger she had never chosen. Faeling royals did not marry for love. They married for treaties. Nari had spent her whole life planning to break that rule, and now the rule was breaking her. She found her betrothed waiting in the east gallery. Prince Glacier Frostborne stood with his back to her, watching frost creep across the window glass wherever his hand rested. White hair spilled down his silver armor. He did not turn when she entered. "They moved the ceremony," Nari said. "Did you ask them to?" "I asked for nothing." His voice was flat and cold as the frost he made. "My father sent me. Yours accepted. We are both cargo, princess." That surprised her. She had expected cruelty, or hunger, or pride. She got a boy as trapped as she was. She stepped closer. "Then help me stop it." Glacier finally looked at her. His blue eyes held no warmth, but no lie either. "The pact binds by presence. If neither royal stands in the hall, there is no ceremony. Only a broken vow, and war." "Then I break the vow," Nari said. "Not you. You stay. You tell them I ran." "They will hunt you." "Let them." He studied her a long moment. Then he did something she did not expect. He pressed his palm to the great window and froze the lock of the servants' door across the hall, sealing it shut. "The guards change at dusk," he said. "That door will not open for an hour once I close it. Use the hour. Do not thank me. I am buying time for myself, not you." Nari did not thank him. She ran. She took nothing but the clothes she wore. In the lower stables she found her kitsune waiting, the forest fox with green-tipped tails who had known her since she was small. It pressed its head to her knee. "We're leaving," she whispered. "Now." The fox led her through the kitchen gardens, past the frozen door, into the dark tree line beyond the palace wall. Behind her, a horn sounded. Someone had found the sealed hall. Nari ran until the palace spires vanished and the trees closed over her head. At last she reached the woodland sanctuary, a small clearing strung with fairy lights, alive with quiet birds and a still pond. She sank against a mossy post and caught her breath. She was not married. She had bought herself time. But she was a runaway princess now, hunted by two kingdoms, with only a fox and a cold prince's silence standing between her and the pact she still had to break.