A Bargain of Thorns

Elara

There are three rules every child in Valewick learns before they learn to read, hammered into us by mothers who remember what the border used to cost.

Never enter the forest after dark.

Never accept anything offered by the fae.

And if one of them asks for your name, lie.

My mother added a fourth, her voice barely a breath against my cheek when I was six years old, crouched beside my bed with both hands wrapped tightly around mine.

If you see one, Elara, you run.

I believed her then. At twenty-one, I mostly believe the fae are stories parents tell their children to keep them from wandering into a forest filled with steep ravines, wild wolves, and enough poisonous nightshade to stop a grown man’s heart before supper.

Mostly.

Tonight, however, the forest is glowing.

I stop dead in the middle of the dirt path, my boots digging into the damp earth.

“Absolutely not.”

The words leave my mouth before I can swallow them back, flat and sharp in the heavy air.

My woven basket hangs heavy from the crook of my elbow, packed with two loaves of warm rye, a wedge of sharp hard cheese, three crisp apples, and the small clay jar of honey I spent far too much of my meager coin on because Mara likes it in her tea. None of those things explain why there are tiny, impossible blue lights floating between the ancient trunks.

I stare at them.

They hover in the gloom, and it feels entirely too much like they are staring back.

One spark drifts lazily around the rough bark of an oak. Then another appears, pulsing with a cold, ethereal light. Then another, and another, until the darkness beyond the tree line is choked with them. Little blue-white embers suspended in midair, indifferent to the wind.

“No,” I say, pointing a finger at them as though sternness will establish some kind of mortal authority. “I don’t know what you are, but no.”

One of the lights flickers.

I narrow my eyes at it. It flickers again.

“Don’t get clever.”

Gods. I am actually arguing with glowing insects. Or whatever the hell they are.

I need to go home. The sun disappeared behind the jagged teeth of the western mountains twenty minutes ago, and I shouldn’t even be within a mile of the tree line after dark. The path from the village skirts the edge of Blackthorn Forest for less than half a mile, but that short stretch is enough to make every sensible person in Valewick take the longer, rockier road around the ridge.

Usually, I do too.

Tonight I didn’t. Tonight I stayed late at the apothecary because Old Nan Hettie decided five minutes before closing that the grinding ache in her knee absolutely could not survive another evening without willow bark.

Because I’m an idiot.

The forest stretches out to my right, swallowed by a darkness so absolute it looks solid. No one knows how deep Blackthorn goes. Technically, the old maps in the village hall claim thirty-seven miles from Valewick to the northern mountains, but anyone foolish enough to cross the boundary swears the paths are alive, twisting and shifting when no one is looking. A hunter once walked east for three days and came out west of the village. Another man disappeared for a week and returned insisting he had only been gone an afternoon.

And seventeen years ago, a girl named Lysa Bell crossed the tree line to gather mushrooms for her mother's stew.

She never came back. Her mother still leaves a single tallow candle burning in her front window every single night.

Stories. That’s all they are. Just cautionary tales to keep us penned inside our little village.

I tighten my grip around the handle of my basket, my knuckles aching.

A branch snaps somewhere deep inside the timber.

My heart hits my ribs with a hard, violent thud.

“Nope.”

I turn on my heel and walk. Quickly. Not running—running implies fear, and I am not afraid, I am simply a sensible woman who deeply appreciates the structural integrity of her own front door.

Another crack sounds behind me, closer this time.

My pace increases. A cold wind slips through the canopy, carrying the sharp scent of pine and damp earth, and beneath it, something else.

Flowers.

I slow my steps.

That’s wrong. It’s late autumn. Nothing should be blooming in this dead, bitter soil.

The scent grows heavier, sweet and cloying, almost intoxicatingly rich. I glance toward the forest despite every primal instinct screaming at the base of my skull to keep my eyes forward.

The blue lights are following me.

“Oh, come on.”

They float parallel to the path, weaving effortlessly between the gnarled tree trunks as I move. My skin prickles, every hair on my arms standing straight up. I break into a brisk walk.

The lights speed up to match me.

“Stop it.”

They don’t.

“Seriously.”

One light darts ahead, blocking the narrow trail. Another follows, and then a dozen rush forward at once, swirling tightly around a massive oak directly beside the path. For a fraction of a second, their pale illumination washes over the bark, revealing a deep carving gouged into the wood.

A circle divided by seven jagged lines.

I’ve seen it before. Everyone in Valewick has. It’s stamped into the heavy boundary stones ringing the village limits.

The mark of the Seven Courts.

My stomach drops straight to my toes. I freeze in place.

The lights vanish. All of them, instantly. Darkness crashes back over the woods like a physical weight, suffocating and absolute.

And from somewhere in the blackness between the trees, a voice whispers my name.

Elara.

My blood turns to ice. Not because someone knows who I am, but because the voice didn't come from a single direction. It vibrated through the leaves, the rotting earth beneath my boots, the wind in the branches.

Elara.

I run.

I don’t care how ridiculous I look, how my wooden clogs slam against the dirt, or how my basket batters against my hip until an apple bounces out onto the road. I run until my lungs sear and the cold air tastes like copper at the back of my throat, not stopping until the forest thins and the warm, golden glow of our small cottage appears ahead.

I practically hurl myself through the wooden gate.

“Mara!”

No answer.

I scramble up the stone path. Our cottage is small, crooked, and badly in need of a new thatch roof, but right now it looks like heaven. Smoke curls lazily from the chimney. Good. She’s home. She’s fine. I’m just letting my imagination run wild because of a few stray fireflies and a trick of the wind.

I shove the front door open, breathless.

“Mara?”

Silence greets me.

The fire burns low in the hearth, throwing flickering orange light across the worn floorboards. Two wooden bowls sit neatly on the table, and a heavy iron pot of vegetable stew rests above the dying embers, still warm.

My shoulders drop an inch. The tight coil in my chest eases. She’s probably just outside in the shed, fetching more firewood or checking on the hens.

“Mara?”

Still nothing.

I set my basket down on the table with a thud. “Mara, if you’re hiding because you ate the last honey cake, I already know.”

Nothing.

I check her tiny bedroom. Empty. Mine is empty, too. The larder yields nothing but flour sacks and empty crocks. By the time I push back into the kitchen, a cold, heavy unease has wormed its way back beneath my skin.

Then I notice the back door.

It’s open. Just a crack, letting a sliver of autumn air drift inside.

“Mara?”

I cross the room and push it wide.

Our small, fenced garden stretches out behind the house, leading down to the chicken coop, the woodpile, and the narrow patch of earth where we grow our winter root vegetables. And beyond that—

The forest boundary.

My stomach twists into a hard knot.

“Mara!” I shout, my voice cracking on the edge of panic.

A solitary hen lets out a sleepy, indignant squawk from the coop. No human voice answers me.

I hurry down the wooden steps, my boots crunching on the frosted grass. Then I see something white crumpled near the edge of the low wooden fence.

I sprint toward it, dropping to my knees.

It’s her shawl. The thick wool one I stayed up late knitting for her last winter, dyed a pale cream with walnut husks. It’s snagged tightly on a sharp briar.

“No.” My fingers tremble as I rip the fabric free.

There is a dark smear along the fringe.

Not mud.

Blood.

My heartbeat shatters into a frantic, deafening rhythm in my ears.

“Mara!”

I vault the low fence, not caring about the thorns or the frozen mud soaking through my stockings. There are footprints pressed into the soft soil of the garden patch.

Small ones. Hers.

They lead straight toward the treeline.

“No, no, no.”

I follow them frantically. Twenty feet. Thirty. Then I spot another print beside hers.

Not a shoe. Bare.

Too large to belong to a woman, too narrow and delicate to belong to any local woodcutter or farmer I’ve ever seen. And beside it, another. And another.

They lead directly into Blackthorn Forest.

I skid to a halt right at the boundary stones. Every story, every whispered warning, every cold nightmare my mother ever gave me floods my mind at once. Children stolen from their beds. Travelers lured from safe roads. Women dancing beneath the moon until their bare feet bleed because some breathtaking monster told them they couldn't stop.

If you see one, Elara, you run.

“Mara!” I scream into the dark.

The forest gives me nothing back. No rustle of leaves, no answering cry.

I look down at the dirt. Her small footprints cross the stone boundary, cutting straight past the rune-carved markers into the shadowed underbrush.

My little sister went into Blackthorn Forest. After dark.

Sensible logic tells me to run back to the village, wake the constable, and gather every hunter with a pitchfork or a heavy bow. Do anything except follow her into that cursed place.

Then I hear it, faint and distorted by the wind.

“Elara!”

Mara.

Distant. Far away. Terrified.

I don't think. I don't give myself time to weigh the odds.

I cross the boundary.

The change is instantaneous and violent.

The biting chill of the autumn night vanishes, replaced by a sudden, oppressive warmth—not the comfortable warmth of a hearth, but the heavy, humid heat of midsummer. My breath catches in my throat. Behind me, the cold wind is still flattening the grass in our back field. In front of me, the leaves of the forest shimmer with an impossible silver iridescence under the moonlight.

White flowers are blooming furiously between the twisted roots, hundreds of them opening all at once, releasing that same sweet, intoxicating scent into my lungs.

It’s impossible.

I whip around, spinning on my heel to look back.

Our cottage is gone.

I freeze, my blood turning to slush. I step backward, my heel hitting nothing but soft, yielding moss. There should be a vegetable patch behind me. There should be a fence, a dirt path, a way out.

Instead, enormous, ancient trees stretch endlessly in every direction, their canopies blotting out the sky.

“No,” I breathe, spinning in a circle as my heart slams frantically against my ribs. “That’s not possible.”

The forest doesn't care.

Blue lights spark to life between the trunks. One. Two. Ten. Dozens of them. The exact same lights from before.

They drift toward me in a slow, hypnotic swarm.

This time, I don’t run. I can’t.

“Mara!” My voice dies, swallowed up by the thick, heavy air of the fae realm.

A light darts left. Another follows it, looping through the low-hanging branches. They’re forming a trail, drawing me deeper, marking a path through the dark.

Every logical thought in my head screams that I am walking straight into a trap.

So naturally, I follow them.

Branches claw at my dress, tearing the coarse fabric. Roots twist beneath my boots like sleeping fingers trying to trip me. I scramble deeper into the alien woods, calling my sister’s name until my throat burns raw and bleeding.

The farther I go, the more distorted the world becomes. Trees rise up around me wider than village houses, their bark gleaming like polished obsidian. Silver moths the size of my hand flutter past my face. Once, something colossal and shifting moves through the dense canopy to my right, heavy enough to make the earth tremble underfoot.

I don’t look. I refuse to look.

Then, a sound cuts through the rustling leaves.

Music.

I stop dead. Delicate, haunting strings, accompanied by the faint sound of distant laughter and singing. It shouldn't be here, echoing through a primordial forest, but it is.

The blue lights accelerate, darting ahead through a narrow gap in the brush.

I push after them.

The trees suddenly thin out, giving way to a sheer cliff edge. I break through the final curtain of heavy branches, stumble onto the stone overlook, and completely forget how to breathe.

A kingdom rises from the deep valley below.

No—calling it a castle doesn't do it justice. It is a sprawling metropolis carved entirely out of midnight and starlight. Spire-like black towers spear toward the heavens, their narrow windows burning with a fierce, golden light. Bridges of dark stone and glowing glass arc impossibly between the peaks, and massive waterfalls spill over cliff edges, turning into fine, sparkling mist long before they ever reach the canyon floor.

Above it all hangs a moon twice the size of the one over Valewick. A brilliant, silver orb casting an unholy, beautiful illumination over everything.

Music pours upward from the sprawling courtyards below, a hypnotic, steady rhythm of drums and strings.

I stand on the precipice, staring down in numb disbelief.

Every old wives’ tale was true. The fae are real. Their terrifying, glittering realm is real.

And Mara is somewhere down there inside it.

A twig snaps sharply beside me.

I whirl around, my hand instinctively flying toward the small iron skinning knife hidden deep in the lining of my cloak.

A man stands beneath the shadow of the trees.

At least, I think he is a man.

He is tall—too tall, standing head and shoulders above me, built with a lean, lethal grace. His clothing is pitch black from throat to boot, tailored with meticulous perfection, the dark fabric embroidered with fine silver thread that catches the moonlight like spider silk. Dark hair falls casually around a face so striking it genuinely makes my stomach turn.

Not handsome. Beautiful. Wrongly, impossibly beautiful. The kind of sharp, symmetrical face nature couldn't possibly have sculpted without cheating the laws of mortality.

His eyes are the color of pale, unpolished gold. His ears taper subtly into elegant, sharp points against his dark hair.

Fae.

My fingers dive past my cloak, closing around the cold, comforting hilt of my knife.

His golden gaze drops instantly to the movement. A slow, lazy smile curves his mouth.

“Human,” he murmurs, his voice a rich, low cadence that ripples right down my spine.

My fingers tighten around the iron hilt until my knuckles go white. “Where is my sister?”

His smile widens just a fraction, revealing teeth that are entirely too sharp to belong to a mortal man. Not quite fangs, but close enough to make me keep my distance.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

His dark eyebrows arch gracefully. “You’ve been in our realm for less than a minute, and already you accuse me of dishonesty?”

“Are you?”

“Of course.”

I blink, thrown off by the casual admission.

He lets out a low, smooth laugh. I hate him immediately.

“Where is she?” I demand, stepping forward.

“Perhaps you should tell me who you’re looking for first.”

I remember the cardinal rule. Never give them a true name. Never gift a fae a piece of your identity to hook their claws into.

“My sister.”

“How terribly specific of you.”

I draw the knife completely, the dull iron catching the silver moonlight.

His golden eyes drop to the blade again. A flicker of something that looks dangerously like amusement crosses his features.

“Adorable.”

“Tell me where she is, or else.”

“Or else what?” he asks, tilting his head with maddening curiosity.

“I stab you.”

He laughs again. An actual, genuine sound of amusement echoing through the quiet trees.

I grip the handle harder, heat flushing up my neck.

“I wouldn’t recommend that.”

“Why not?”

“Because iron irritates my skin.”

Good. Exactly what I was hoping for. I raise the blade higher, keeping my feet planted.

His grin twists into something sharp and wickedly predatory. “And irritation makes me hungry.”

I freeze, the threat landing with a heavy, sickening thud.

His golden gaze drifts slowly over me, lingering not with lecherous intent, but with the cool, calculating assessment of a wolf sizing up an injured deer. Then, something shifts.

The mocking amusement vanishes from his face entirely. His nostrils flare slightly, drawing in the air. His eyes sharpen into hard, glittering points of gold.

He takes a slow step forward.

I instinctively take one back. “What?”

He doesn’t answer. Another step closes the distance between us.

“Stay right there,” I snap, my voice trembling despite my best efforts.

He stops, tilting his head as he studies me with an intensity that feels physical. For the first time, he looks genuinely, deeply confused.

“What are you?” he asks, the mocking edge completely gone from his voice.

My stomach twists into a hard knot. “Human.”

“No.” The word is a quiet, certain breath.

I lift my knife higher, pointing the tip at his chest. “That’s unfortunate, considering I’ve been one for the entirety of my miserable life.”

His gaze moves deliberately over my face, tracking down my throat, lingering on my hands. For a fleeting second, something dangerously close to shock—or caution—flashes through his expression. It vanishes so quickly I almost think I imagined it.

Suddenly, a heavy, resonant horn sounds from the depths of the castle below.

Low. Ancient. Vibrating right through the stone under our boots.

The fae man’s head snaps toward the sound, his jaw tightening. Once. Twice. Three deep blasts rolling across the valley. His entire demeanor hardens.

“Well,” he murmurs, turning his gaze back to me.

“What?”

This time, there is zero humor left in his golden eyes. “Your sister has made a very poor decision tonight.”

My heart stops dead in my chest. “You do know where she is.”

He steps aside, gesturing with a gloved hand toward the sprawling, glittering expanse of the valley below. Hundreds of golden lights burn brightly against the dark stone architecture. And as I look closer, I notice movement swarming across one of the distant, elevated balconies.

People. Dozens of them. Spinning, laughing, moving in a hypnotic, chaotic rhythm.

A celebration. A grand gathering.

A masquerade.

Even from this distance, I can see the glint of jeweled masks flashing beneath the oversized silver moon.

“Where is she?” I demand, my voice shaking with rage and terror.

The fae smiles, thin and humorless. “At the palace.”

“Take me to her.”

“That would be profoundly unwise.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should.”

“I said, take me to her.”

He studies my face for one long, unblinking moment, weighing something in his mind. Then, with a slow, exaggerated motion, he dips into a deep, mocking bow.

“As you wish.”

He turns toward the descending path.

Every instinct in my body screams that I am walking straight into a slaughterhouse. But Mara is down there, trapped among monsters who treat human lives like playthings.

And I will tear apart every single beautiful, wicked creature in this realm before I leave this place without my sister.