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CHAPTER 1

POV: Briar

I smell the fear before I see it on their faces.

It’s a sour note, hanging just beneath the woodsmoke and morning dew. It clings to every house in Thornwick today that houses an omega, the anticipation of grief and death seeping from under doorframes and wafting through open windows. Women hang sprigs of dried rosemary and bunches of rowan berries above their threshholds, while men shoe their horses with iron and clutch their daggers close.

Protection rituals. For all the good they’ll do them.

The forge is my sanctuary on days like this, when the village reeks of desperation. Metal doesn’t lie, doesn’t fear. It yields or resists, honest in its response to my hammer. Right now, I’m grateful for its simplicity as I shape a horseshoe, each strike echoing through the empty workshop.

“That for Widow Harlow’s gelding?” Fergus asks, his wide frame filling the doorway as he enters, bringing with him the scent of barley bread and smoke. “Swore I just shod ‘im.”

I nod without looking up. “Third one this month. Beast keeps throwing shoes on the northern road.”

My mentor grunts, moving to stoke the fire. I catch him watching me as I work, his scrutiny intense yet subtle. He gives a small nod of satisfaction and pride as I finish up. I’ve earned that pride through a decade of apprenticeship, through blisters and burns and countless hours perfecting my skills as a smithy.

What no one knows, save Fergus and me, is that I shouldn’t be here at all. I should be one of the girls in white today.

The thought makes me tighten my grip on the hammer to the point of pain. I bring it down with more force than needed, the impact jolting up my arm. I’ve survived this long by controlling everything about myself: my scent, maked daily with bitter herbs; my body, strengthened beyond what is typical with any omega; my emotions, carefully masked at all times.

“You took your tonic this morning?” Fergus asks casually.

“Always do.” It used to annoy me, the way Fergus hovers over my shoulder. I realized as I got older and saw omegas disappear during the Wild Hunt that he was just afraid. “My cycle is still weeks away, though. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I will anyway. Especially… especially until the crimson moon passes for another seven years.”

There’s nothing I can say to that. So I plunge the horseshoe into water, savoring the sound of the hiss and the sudden steam that clouds my vision. When it clears, I see her—a ghostlike presence at the forge entrance, her white-blonde hair catching morning light like spun silver.

Willow.

My hammer stills mid-air, suspended in the sudden silence. Something fractures inside me at the sight of her—too thin, too pale, too ethereal. As if she’s already halfway to becoming a ghost.

“I’ll check our stock of nails,” Fergus mutters as he makes a quick exit to the storeroom.

Willow glides into the forge with strange, otherworldly grace that’s grown more pronounced as her illness progresses. Each step seems to cost her precious energy, but she moves with the dignity of someone who has made peace with their fate. Her leaf-green eyes find mine, and the smile that spreads across her gaunt face is luminous.

“I thought I’d find you hiding away in here,” she says in her soft, lilting voice.

I set my tools down and wipe my hands on my leather apron, suddenly conscious of my sweat-dampened hair and soot-streaked forearms, so contrasting to her pristine presence.

“I’m not hiding,” I counter, forcing lightness into my tone. “Someone has to shoe the horses while everyone else hangs up useless herbs.”

Willow’s smile doesn’t waver, but her gaze sharpens. We’ve been friends too long for my lightness to fool her. “They’re not useless. They bring comfort.”

“Comfort doesn’t stop what’s coming.”

She reaches for my hand, her fingers thin and soft against my callused palm. “Nothing stops what’s coming, Briar. We both know that.”

The unspoken truth hangs between us, heavy and painful. Willow is dying, has been dying by inches for months now. The wasting sickness has hollowed her from the inside out, turning her into a husk of the beautiful girl I grew up with, who was hale and joyful. The apothecary, her own father, has run out of treatments. Even the hedge witch’s spells have failed.

And now the selection ceremony.

“Your father,” I begin, an edge in my voice, “he didn’t have to go and?—”

“It was my choice too, Briar.” She grips my hand tightly with surprising strength. “If I’m going to die anyway, at least this way it serves a propose. The village gets seven years of protection. My family receives compensation.”

“You’re not cattle to be traded,” I hiss.

“No,” she agrees calmly, “I’m an omega who’s already dying. It’s simple math and you know it.”

But there’s nothing simple about offering your daughter up to the Wild Hunt, no matter how practical the reasoning. I know what’s waiting for her in the Bloodmoon Forest, what awaits any omega unlucky enough to be chosen. The brutal claiming, the violent deaths. The rare, tortured survivors whose minds never fully return from Faerie.

I part my lips to argue with her only for the village bell to toll before I can. Its somber sound cuts through the morning air, and Willow’s face tightens imperceptibly.

“It’s time,” she whispers.

I untie my apron abruptly, tossing it onto my workbench. Fergus emerges from the storeroom, his weathered face somber.

“I’ll finish Widow Harlow’s order,” he says, his eyes soft with understanding. “Take as much time as you need.”

He’s lost someone to the Hunt before—his daughter, years ago, before I came to love with him. The pain still lingers in the careful way he avoids the village square, even outside of selection years.

But I can’t avoid it. Not now, not when Willow needs me. I don’t know what I’ll do for her, but I do know that I can’t look away.

I walk beside her through Thornwick’s narrow streets, keeping my steps small to match her slow pace. The village has transformed overnight, crimson ribbons hanging from every tree branch and doorpost—symbols of sacrifice, of the bleeding moon to come.

Women whisper behind their hands as we pass. Men lower their eyes. Everyone knows that Willow is the obvious choice this year: a dying omega. Her sacrifice will benefit the entire community, and the truth is, they think of it as necessary.

I’ve never hated anything more than the willingness they have to sacrifice others for their own gain.

The town square fills up quickly, families clustered together with worried looks on their faces. I spot Maeve at the edges, the hedge witch’s wild hair adorned with feathers and bones. Her eyes find mine across the crowd, the amber of them piercing through me. She holds my gaze a beat too long, something calculating and cunning in her expression. I look away first.

Headman Lloyd strides onto the central dais and turns to us to speak, his voice booming across the hush of the crowd. “Once every seven years, when the crimson moon rises, we uphold our sacred covenant with the fae courts…”

I turn out his practiced speech about honor and duty and protection. I heard it seven years ago and I didn’t like it then. Instead I focus on the faces around me—the relieved mothers clutching daughters too young to present; the tight-lipped fathers calculating odds; the young women who, unlike me, aren’t able to conceal their omega nature, because the registry found them during their first heat.

My gaze shifts to the carved wooden box on the dais. Inside it rest the slivers of moonstone used for hte drawing, one for every eligible omega in Thornwick. A fair selection, they claim, equal for all.

But I know better than that. I’ve watched this ceremony unfold two times now, and the most recent I remember well. There are ways to weigh the odds so that the daughters of influential families stay safe and snug in their homes even as screams and snarls echo from the Bloodmoon Forest as alphas make their brutal claim.

“…and so we’re gathered here to select this year’s honored tribute,” Headman Lloyd concludes. “Who will come forward to represent Thornwick at the Gathering Circle?”

The crowd stirs restlessly. This is the moment for volunteers, rare but not unheard of. Some families with multiple omega daughters choose to control the inevitable. Some others, facing terminal illnesses or desperate circumstances, offer themselves to secure compensation for those they’ll leave behind. Rarer still are the ones who volunteer with pride, believing they’ll survive not just repeated knotting but fae pregnancy and childbirth. We have none of those in our modest village, but in other borderland towns they come willingly. It’s said they’re far more likely than others to return once the Wild Hunt is over, their fae babes left behind in Faerie but their bodies and minds still somehow intact.

The silence stretches like heated metal, thinning and tensing until an edge forms, and I almost think that?—

“We offer our daughter.”

Thaddeus Ambrose’s voice cuts through the hush, determined and clear. The apothecary steps forward, his shoulders squared and his chin up, though he should wither in shame at what he’s said. Beside him, Willow stands still and silent in a simple white dress, her hair loose around her shoulders—the traditional presentation for an omega tribute.

Murmurs ripple through the crowd. Approving. Grateful. The relief is palpable as families realize the drawing won’t happen this year. Their daughers are safe for another seven years, maybe even long enough to outgrow fae desirability, saved by Willow’s “generosity.”

I dig my nails into my palms until the pain shoots up my arms.

“Thornwick accepts your noble sacrifice with gratitude,” Headman Lloyd says, raising his hands in acceptance. “Come forward, child.”

Willow ascends the dais with her father’s assistance, each step delicate and careful. Up there, surrounded by the crowd, her illness is starkly visible. The sunlight illuminates the blue veins visible beneath her translucent skin and hollows at the base of her throat where her clavicles jut out harshly.

I should be up there. Not her, not sweet Willow. The thought burns through me with fierce clarity. If anyone has the strength to survive the Hunt, even temporarily, it’s me. Certainly not Willow, who can barely walk across the square without growing winded.

But I’ve spent my life making sure no one knows what I am. An omega masquerading as a beta, protected by Fergus’s reputation and a careful regimen of suppressant herbs. Stepping forward now would expose my deception and implicate my mentor, who has knowingly harbored me against village law requiring all omegas be registered for potential selection. Fergus would be executed, and I would be stripped naked, flogged, and sent to the Bloodmoon Forest for the fae to do with as they wish.

Headman Lloyd drapes the ceremonial white cloak around Willow’s shoulders—the Shroud, as it’s often called, because omegas return to their villages wrapped in them, the white fabric stained with blood—if they return at all. She stands tall despite her frailty, her eyes finding mine in the crowd.

Her lips move silently. Two words: it’s okay.

It’s the furthest fucking thing from okay that it could be.

The ceremonial horns sound off, marking the completion of the sleection ceremony. Around us, the tension dissolves into relieved celebration. Wine flows. Music starts. The village commemorates its continued safety with a nervous, guilty air, though I hear many whispers that it’s okay because she’ll be gone soon either way and this way she doesn’t suffer for months.

I slip away as the festivities begin, unable to stomach the merriment or the gossip. My feet carry me through familiar streets towards the edge of Thornwick, past the protective ward-stones that mark our village’s boundaries. The runes on their surfaces pulse with fading magic—protection purchased with past tributes, no weakening as the seven-year cycle nears its end.

Beyond them looms the darkness of the Bloodmoon Forest, its ancient trunks twisted and black against the blue sky. Even at a distance, I can see the silver sheen of the tree leaves catching sunlight, the distinctive gleam that gives the forest its other name: the Silverblood Wood. Beautiful and deadly, just like everything in the fae realms.

In three weeks, the crimson moon will rise over the night sky. When it does, Willow will enter that forest along with other tributes from other border villages. They’ll be given a one-hour head start before the Hunt begins—before the fae alphas are released to track, claim, and breed the human omegas driven into heat by the moon’s influence. They’ll be held down, knotted, and impregnated over and over again—often by multiple alphas, each fighting to be the one whose seed wins out—and only the strong survive.

But many say the chosen are lucky if they die quickly.

I stare at the forest until my vision blurs. A plan slowly takes shape in my mind. A desperate, foolish plan, the king born from equal amounts of rage and love. The kind of plan that could save Willow.

Tonight, once the celebration dies down and the village is in its drunken stupor, I’ll visit Maeve’s cottage. The hedge witch keeps secrets, spellbooks forbidden in more proper cities, and in their pages there must be a way to trick the Hunt.

If the fae want an omega from Thornwick, they’ll get one.

But it won’t be Willow.