Zara Grayson wanted a mate before her thirtieth birthday, and her love magic had just called a fencepost her soulmate. The spell flared pink, then wrapped its glow around a rotting wooden post outside the elven village. Zara glared at the post. The post did not glare back. "You are not my husband," she told it. This was the third dud in a week. Her love-divining charm was supposed to glow bright over a true match and stay dark over a dud. Lately it glowed over everything. A baker's cat. A puddle. Now a fencepost. Zara could no longer tell a real spark from nothing at all. Without a working charm, she was picking mates blind, and she refused to do that again. She pulled the charm from her pocket. It was a small green stone on a chain, warm and buzzing wrong. Her grandmother had made it. Her grandmother had also warned her that borrowed magic curdles if you feed it fear. Zara had been afraid of dying alone for months. She had poured that fear straight into the stone, night after night. So the fix was simple and horrible. She had to empty it and start clean. Zara walked to the elven gatehouse, where the wood curved like grown branches and green vines climbed the posts. Elven craft held old, steady magic. She pressed the stone against a carved pillar. "Take it back," she whispered. "All the scared parts." The stone burned hot. Zara gritted her teeth and held on. Every fearful wish poured out of it and into the ancient wood. Her fingers ached. The pink glow drained away until the stone went dark and cool in her palm. She held her breath and lifted the charm toward the fencepost. Nothing. No glow. The stone stayed dark over the dud, exactly as it should. Zara laughed out loud, sharp with relief. The charm worked again. She could finally trust it. Then the stone twitched. It tugged on the chain, pointing back through the elven gate. A faint green light woke inside it, steady and true. Not a fencepost. Not a cat. A real match, and the charm pointed straight into the elven village. Zara's stomach dropped. She had spent her whole life outside these gates. She knew no elves. She did not know their customs, their language, or whether a witch would even be welcome past that beautiful arch. But the stone did not lie now. She had made sure of that. Her true match waited somewhere beyond the elven gate. Zara tucked the charm away, squared her shoulders, and stepped under the carved arch into a village that was not hers.

Inside the elven village, Zara held the charm high and followed its green light. The stone pulled her down a lane of stone houses. Then it flickered. The steady glow stuttered, dimmed, and sparked again. Zara stopped cold. She knew that flicker. Fear did that. Some scrap of her old dread still clung to the stone, and if it grew, the charm would lie again. She could not walk up to a stranger and call him her mate on a broken spell. "Steady," she whispered to the stone. "I emptied you. I did." But her hand shook, and the light shook with it. She pressed the charm to her chest and breathed slow. The glow smoothed for a moment, then jumped once more. Her doubt fed it. The harder she tried to calm down, the more she thought about failing, and the more it flickered. "That charm's contaminated." A man leaned against a tree near the lane, arms crossed. He was tall and tan, with a scar cut down one cheek and white hair falling past his shoulders. A crossbow scar, she guessed, from the way he watched the rooftops. He did not smile. "Excuse me?" Zara said. "Fear leaks into charms. Yours is flickering. Means fear." He pushed off the tree. "You a witch?" "Zara. And you're rude." "Fabin." He nodded at the stone. "You want it clean, stop fighting the fear. You can't. Move it somewhere else." Zara stared at him. She had done exactly that once, poured her dread into old wood. But she had nothing here to pour it into. "Move it where?" Fabin held out his hand, palm up. It was scarred too. "Into me. I've got worse than your leftover doubt. A little more won't matter." It was reckless. She knew nothing about him. But the charm sputtered again, and she was out of time before her true match slipped past on this dying light. Zara set the stone in his open palm and gripped his wrist. "Take the scared part," she said. "Just that." The stone flared hot between their hands. Zara felt the doubt drain out of it, out of her, sliding into his skin. Fabin's jaw tightened. He did not pull away. The green light steadied, then burned clean and bright. No flicker. It pointed past his shoulder, straight down the lane toward the tall palace at the village center. Zara laughed, shaky with relief. "It works. It really works now." Fabin looked at where the light pointed. His face went hard. "That's the palace. My father's palace." He handed the stone back. "They shot at me this morning. Six crossbows. Forty feet." Zara's stomach dropped. Her true match waited inside a palace that shot people on sight. And the only elf who might get her past those gates was the one they had just turned away.

Zara stared at the palace, then at Fabin. He was a stranger. He had drained her fear once, and it had worked. But she knew nothing about him. Trust the wrong scarred elf, and her charm could sour again. Still, he was her only way past those gates. "You've got a reason to hate that place," she said. "Give me one reason to trust you." Fabin didn't blink. "You don't have to trust me. You have to move." He pointed down the lane. "There's a side path. Old blossom grove. Less watched." He started walking. He didn't check if she followed. That, more than any promise, made her go. He led her to a tree heavy with red blooms. The petals glowed faintly, alive with old magic. Fabin crouched behind the trunk and waved her down. "Wall's low here. Guards change at the bell." He tapped his scarred cheek. "I got this the last time I climbed it." "Comforting," Zara said. "It isn't." She almost laughed. He gave her a leg up. Her fingers caught the wall's top. For one breath, the charm burned warm against her chest, steady and bright, pointing straight through the palace stone. Her mate was close. She hauled herself higher. A bell rang. Not the guard change. An alarm. "Down," Fabin snapped. Too late. Along the palace wall, shutters flew open. Crossbows swung out, six of them, aimed at the grove. Zara froze on the wall's edge, wide open. A man stepped onto the high balcony. Old, crowned, robed in green and gold. He looked at Fabin below, then at Zara clinging to his wall. His face twisted with something worse than anger. Recognition. "The prince returns," the old king said. "And brings a witch to my gate." He raised one hand. "Fire." The bolts came. Zara threw herself sideways off the wall. Fabin caught her arm and yanked. They hit the grass together. Bolts thudded into the tree above them. Red petals rained down. One bolt grazed Zara's shoulder and drew a hot line of blood. "Move!" Fabin dragged her behind the thick trunk. More bolts struck the far side. The blooming tree took every shot meant for them. They ran. Out of the grove, back down the lane, until the bell faded behind them. Zara pressed her torn shoulder and gasped for air. The charm still glowed, still pointed back at the palace, mocking her. Fabin leaned against a stone wall, chest heaving. Blood dotted his sleeve where a splinter had cut him. He looked at her, and for once his flat face cracked. "That was my father," he said. "He knows my face now. And yours." He pulled a folded paper from his coat, edges burnt. "The deal I made. He'll use it against us both now." He held it out to her. "You're in this. You should read what I signed." Zara took the paper. Her way in had just become her way into his war.

Zara held the burnt contract, but her eyes stayed on Fabin. His father knew both their faces now. Then a howl broke the quiet. Two shapes tore up the lane. Werewolves, fur bristling, claws out. The king had sent hunters. One lunged straight for Fabin. Fabin drew a knife. Too slow. The beast slammed him to the ground. Its jaws snapped near his throat. He shoved a forearm against its neck and held. "Down!" Zara shouted at him. She spread her hands and called. Two crows dropped from the grey sky. They dove at the beast's eyes, wings beating, beaks stabbing. The werewolf jerked back, blind for one breath. Zara chanted fast. Wind ripped from her palms and threw the beast off Fabin. He rolled up, gasping. "The other one." The second werewolf circled behind her. Zara spun and hurled a bolt of green fire. It struck the beast's shoulder. Fur burned. The thing screamed and staggered. But the first one wasn't done. It seized a fallen bolt from the grass and flung it, hard and flat. Not at her. At Fabin's chest. Zara saw the line of it. She threw herself in front of him. The blade grazed her cheek. Hot pain. Blood ran down her jaw. She hit the ground beside Fabin, one hand pressed to her face. Her crows didn't stop. They dove again, screeching, tearing at both beasts' eyes. Zara pushed up to one knee and raised both arms. She pulled every last spell she had and slammed them out at once. A wall of wind and fire rolled across the lane. The werewolves broke. They ran, howling, back toward the palace. The crows chased them to the wall, then wheeled and returned. They settled on Zara's shoulders, feathers slick, breathing hard. Silence. Only her own blood dripping. Fabin knelt beside her. He looked at her cheek. A clean red cut ran from cheekbone to jaw. He touched his own scar, the twin of it now. "You match me," he said. "Don't flatter yourself." Zara wiped blood with her sleeve. Her hand shook. He didn't smile. He didn't look away either. "You stepped in front of a blade for me. For a stranger." "It was aimed at you." She swallowed. "I need you alive to get inside." "That's not the whole reason." He said it flat, like a fact he'd measured. Zara pressed the charm at her chest. It burned warm, still pointing at the palace, at whoever waited inside. But her heart pounded for the elf right in front of her, bleeding beside her in the grass. The charm and her pulse pulled two different ways. She stood. The crows stayed on her shoulders, watching Fabin. "We move," she said. "Before he sends worse than dogs." Fabin rose. He kept close now, closer than before. The wound on her face had changed something, and they both knew it.

They stopped by an elven gate at the edge of the village. Graceful wood curved overhead, carved with leaves and vines. Zara pressed her hand to the post and caught her breath. Her cheek still bled. Beside her, Fabin stood too close, and her charm burned hot against her chest. It pointed past the gate, toward the palace. But her pulse pointed at him. She had to know which one was true. Her crows landed on the gate's arch, watching them both. Zara pulled the charm out and held it flat on her palm. "I need to test this," she said. "On you." Fabin looked at the small stone. "It says the palace." "It said a fencepost once. And a cat." She wiped blood from her jaw. "It lies when it's scared. So I'm going to hold it against you and see." He didn't move. "And if it goes dark?" "Then you're a distraction." Her voice cracked on the word. "And I stop wasting time on you." She pressed the charm to his chest, right over his heart. Her hand shook. The stone flickered. It dimmed, then flared, then dimmed again. Not a clean glow. A stutter. Zara's stomach dropped. A stuttering charm meant fear had crept back in. Her fear. She pulled her hand back. "It won't answer. It's scared again." "Whose fear?" Fabin asked. She couldn't say it. If he was the wrong one and she let herself want him, she'd doom the real mate waiting behind those palace walls. That was the fear rotting the charm. Hers. Fabin took her wrist. He'd done this once before, in the village, when he'd pulled her fear into himself so the stone would work. He did it again now. He closed her fingers around the charm and held them shut in his own. "Give it to me." "Fabin—" "Give it to me." His grip tightened. "So you can trust what it shows." Warmth drained from her chest into his hand. The knot behind her ribs loosened. When he let go, the charm sat cool and clean in her palm. It glowed. Steady. Bright. And it pointed at Fabin. Not the palace. At him. The light bent away from the gate and settled on the elf bleeding beside her, scar to scar. Zara stared. "It was you." The words came out small. "The whole time. It sent me to the palace, but the palace led me to you." Fabin looked at the glow on his own chest. He touched his scar, then hers. "You matched me first," he said. "The stone just caught up." Her crows lifted off the arch and circled once, screeching. The gate stood open behind them, the palace beyond it. Her mate was found. But he was the king's shut-out son, hunted by his own father, bound to a deal that would kill someone if it stayed unbroken. Finding him hadn't ended the danger. It had chained her to it.

The charm still glowed on Fabin's chest. Zara closed her fist around it. Finding her mate had chained her to his deal, the one that would kill someone if it broke. She needed the terms. Without them, she could not free him. "Tell me the deal," she said. "All of it." Fabin's jaw tightened. "I can't." "Can't or won't?" "Speak the terms aloud, and the price comes due." He looked at the gate, at the palace beyond. "That's the first rule. My father made sure." So the words themselves were the trap. Zara paced under the carved arch. Her crows shifted overhead. If Fabin couldn't say the deal, she'd read it another way. She'd read it off him. "You made this deal with fear in you," she said. "Fear you'd lose your place. Fear you'd fail. That fear is still there. I can pull it out, like you pulled mine." "That's your trick, not mine." "It runs both ways." She stepped close. "Give it to me. The fear, and what's bound to it. I'll see the shape of the thing without you saying one word." He understood. He always did, fast, with no wasted breath. He took her wrist and pressed her palm flat to his chest, over the scar and the glowing stone. "If this kills you," he said, "I'll be angry." "Noted." Zara pulled. Heat rushed up her arm. Not warmth this time. A cold, coiled weight, heavy as wet rope. She saw it as she drew it in. A blossoming tree in the palace grounds, red flowers bright against the dark. The deal was rooted there. Break it, and the tree dies. And bound to the tree, a life. Not Fabin's. His father's. The old king had staked his own heart on it. If Fabin ever forced the deal open, the king would fall. Zara gasped and let go. The cold sat behind her ribs now, hers to carry. Fabin swayed, lighter, freed of the thing he'd hidden. "It's the king," she said. "The someone who dies. It's him." Fabin went still. "You saw it." "A tree with red flowers. His life tied to its roots." She pressed a hand to her chest. "You've been trying to get back inside to break the deal. It would kill your father." "He'd rather I not know that." "Now I know." Her voice shook. "And I can't unknow it." A horse's hooves struck the packed ground beyond the gate. Fast, coming closer. Zara turned. A tall chestnut mount rounded the wall at a hard gallop, no rider she recognized, tack marked with the king's crest. Someone had seen them at the gate. Someone had ridden to report it. The terms were hers. So was the weight of them. To save Fabin, she'd have to let his father live, or choose to let him die. And the king already knew where they stood.