The mist never left Emberline.
It drifted through the trees like memory, clung to the roofs of stone cottages, and pooled in the hollows of the earth like the village was a wound the world forgot to close.
Keira had lived in it her entire life, but this morning, it felt different. Thicker. Sharper. Like the forest was holding its breath.
Everyone else was, too.
She walked the dirt path to the well with her shawl pulled tight, fingers numb from the cold. Around her, the village was hushed, no laughter, no songs, not even the usual bickering of neighbors. Doors creaked open only long enough to peek out. Children were kept inside.
Tonight was the Choosing.
And no one wanted to talk about it.
The iron bucket hit the bottom of the well with a hollow splash. Keira let it fill, the sound of water rising the only thing that tied her to the present. Her mind kept drifting, back to the last Choosing, ten years ago. She had been barely twelve. Too young to understand why her mother clutched her so tightly, why her father stayed up that night with a sword in his lap and a bottle in his hand.
They were both gone now. So were her brothers.
Not from the lottery. From the Fae.
The ones the Treaty was supposed to keep at bay. The ones the Capitol now bowed to in exchange for peace. She had seen one once, in the trees, the night before the fire. Silver eyes. A smile like a blade.
Suddenly, a scream echoed behind her and Keira spun, her hand tightening on the bucket. Her heartbeat slowed when she saw Marah, boots muddy, skirts hitched, waving frantically as she ran.
"You could wait, you know," Marah huffed, out of breath as she reached her. "Or at least pretend to be afraid like everyone else."
Keira gave her a flat look. "What's the point?"
Marah grabbed the other side of the bucket and helped her carry it back toward the path. "Because it's the Choosing, Keira. Maybe pretend not to tempt fate?"
"I don't believe in fate."
"Then believe in bad luck. You've got plenty of that."
Keira smirked, just a little. They passed the baker's shop, noticing how its shutters were closed, and how flour footprints were still fresh on the steps. Even he wasn't working today. No one wanted to offer bread to the Capitol's messenger. No one wanted to be the one who looked too willing.
The Capitol would arrive tonight, and the silver basin would be placed in the square. Every family would submit a name. The basin would carry them, ten for ten regions, into the Fae's hands.
"One year of service," Marah muttered bitterly, as if reading her thoughts. "One year of what, exactly?"
Keira didn't answer.
Because they both knew.
The people who returned from the Midnight Court were changed, if they returned at all. And those who didn't? Their families never received bodies. Only compensation, in the form of gold coins pressed into silent palms by Capitol officials with stiff collars and blank eyes.
"I still think it's fixed," Marah said. "Or maybe it's punishment. For old sins."
"It's cowardice," Keira said softly. "We trade names for peace, and call it balance."
"And if you're chosen?"
Keira stopped walking. The bucket sloshed. "Then at least I'll see them again."
Marah went quiet. Her grip on the bucket slackened. They walked the rest of the way in silence, boots crunching over frost and fallen leaves.
At Keira's cottage, they poured the water into the cistern and stoked the fire together. Marah stayed longer than usual, her movements slow, distracted. She kept glancing at Keira like she wanted to say something but didn't know how.
"You could skip it," she said eventually. "The naming. Just don't show up."
Keira shook her head. "You think they'd let me?"
"You could hide. Run into the woods. The Capitol wouldn't waste soldiers chasing one girl."
Keira smiled, a bitter, thin thing. "The Fae would."
Outside, the sun had disappeared behind a bank of cloud, and the shadows stretched long and strange. Somewhere in the forest, an owl called too early. Keira stared out the window.
She remembered the night the Fae came. The fire. The screams. The way the sky had turned the color of split fruit. Her brother, Tomas, shoving her under the floorboards. Her mother's voice crying her name.
She had never found their bodies.