A Truce of Thorns

The crown's road ran out at a single black stone, and past it the Thornmarch began — a wood no king of Auzulas had ever felled, where the snow lay blue in the last of the light and nothing moved that Mara could put a name to. The escort halted at the marker and would go no farther. By the terms of the old peace, a truce-warrant crossed into the Hollow Court alone, on foot, and did not look back.

Mara stood at the stone and felt the cold climb up through her boots. Three nights, the chancellor had said. Three nights as the fae court's guest and its hostage both, until the renewal was sworn and the marches stood another seven years clear of war. Three nights, if nothing went wrong. She was no soldier. She was chosen, the chancellor had told her without quite saying it, because she could be spared.

The wind off the wood lifted her auburn hair and let it fall. Somewhere past the first trees a bell rang once — low, and very far in — and did not ring again. There were two ways to walk into a fae court, the old books said: as what you were, or as little as could be helped.