The church bell tolled hollow across the village, its iron tongue dragging through the gray air. Each note seemed to sink into bone rather than ring across it, reverberating inside ribcages like a warning. Doors creaked, shutters opened, and the people filed into the chapel one by one, their boots scuffing stone, their voices hushed.
Isolda slipped into the back pew, more to silence her father's curses than out of faith. His slurred command had been simple—"Go. Or they'll come pounding here." And so she went, her shawl tight around her shoulders, her jaw set.
The benches were crammed shoulder to shoulder, bodies pressed close enough that their breaths clouded the same air. The smell of earth and smoke clung to their clothes, mixed with the sharper tang of fear.
Father Odran stood at the altar, robes frayed at the hem where they had dragged through too many muddy streets. His face was gaunt but his eyes burned bright, hotter than the flickering candles that struggled to stay lit in the drafty nave.
"Ninety-nine years," he thundered, and his voice rolled through the rafters like distant thunder. "Ninety-nine years since the last bride walked willingly into the thorns."
A rustle moved through the congregation. Some crossed themselves, some bowed their heads, others only tightened their lips and kept still, but all of them listened.
"You have seen the signs," Odran pressed on, his hands raised. "You have heard it in the groan of your rafters, in the rot of your fields, in the stillbirth of calves and lambs. The forest stirs. The curse does not sleep forever."
Mothers clutched children closer. Men stared down at their boots.
"If no bride is given, the thorns will come as they please," the priest declared. "They will creep through your gardens, through your barns, through the very cracks of your homes. They will take children, take cattle, take the marrow from your bones. But one sacrifice—one bride—spares us all."
The word sacrifice seemed to thicken the air. And then came the worse word—willing.
"The bride must walk freely," Father Odran said, quieter now, but with such intensity that every soul in the chapel strained to hear. "If she goes weeping, the forest will weep with her. If she goes unwilling, the thorns will follow. But if she goes smiling… we are safe another hundred years."
The silence after those words was more suffocating than the sermon itself.
Isolda felt the shift before she saw it: heads tilting, eyes sliding sideways, cautious at first and then bolder, faces turning as snow falls—soft, inevitable, one after the other. The weight of every gaze pulled to the back pew. To her.
Her chest tightened. She sat straighter, her chin lifting, though her hands balled into fists against her lap. If they wanted to name her silently, let them. If they wanted to brand her with their stares, she would not bow her head like a lamb.
At the altar, Odran's gaze found hers. For a moment the world narrowed to the line of his mouth. He did not smile, not exactly, but there was a curve there, something not quite pity, not quite satisfaction. Something hungrier.
"The Thorn King waits," he said, softer now, almost tenderly. "And we will answer him."
The villagers murmured, a ripple of agreement—or perhaps fear masquerading as faith. Either way, Isolda felt it coil around her like a noose.
---
The words followed her home like burrs caught in her shawl. She shoved open the door, letting the damp cold spill in.
Her father was already at the table, cup in hand, eyes bleary and unfocused. He looked up sluggishly. "You went."
"I went," she snapped, throwing her shawl aside. Her voice came sharp with the heat she'd been choking down in the pews. "And I heard him. Do you know what he said? That the bride must go willing. That she must smile and walk into death like a gift. And do you know what else? Every last one of them turned to look at me."
Her father's jaw worked, his hand tightening on the cup. "Then you'll do it."
The laugh that tore from her was sharp, almost bitter. "Do it? March to my death because the priest tells me?"
"Because it keeps the rest alive!" His voice cracked, rising with a desperation that stank of ale and fear. He slammed the cup down, liquid spilling over the rim and dripping to the floor. "Do you think I don't hear them whisper? Do you think I don't know what they call you—what they call us? It'll be worse if you fight it. Better to go… willing."
Her throat burned. "Better for you, you mean. So you can drink yourself hollow without me here to remind you of what you've lost."
His eyes glistened, bloodshot, but he said nothing. He looked away, as if the sight of her scorched him worse than the drink ever could.
The silence yawned between them. Only the drip of spilled ale filled it.
Isolda spun on her heel, flinging the door open so hard the hinges groaned. The night air hit her face, raw and cold, and she welcomed it. Better the bite of frost than the suffocation of his cowardice.
---
The days after blurred together, but not from peace. Every cluck of the hens, every squeal of the pigs, every scrape of a cup against wood sounded like a countdown. The priest's words rang in her ears with every breath: a willing bride spares us all.
And then came the night of the fire.
The villagers gathered in the square, a dark press of bodies. In the center, a heap of thorn branches waited, dry and tangled, sharp as teeth.
The torch touched it, and at first the fire spat weakly, reluctant. But then one branch caught, and the blaze roared upward, fierce and hungry, sparks spinning into the night like furious stars. The smoke bit her throat with resin, sharp and bitter.
They sang, voices low, almost trembling, the same dirge they had sung every year since memory began:
"Bride to thorns, bride to flame,
Bride to keep the forest tame…"
Children hid their faces. Men hurled branches into the blaze with grim arms, as though the violence could disguise their fear. Shadows leapt madly across their faces, twisting them into something other than human.
Isolda stood at the edge, shawl drawn close, the fire's heat licking her face while the night's cold gnawed at her back. She saw no joy here—no festival, no revelry. Only fear dressed in ritual, fear sung until it sounded like devotion.
"Next year," someone whispered behind her. "It'll be her. The bride herself."
The words crawled over her skin. She did not turn, but her eyes stung as she stared into the fire until her vision blurred and the flames seemed to lean toward her, hungry.
When the last embers died and the crowd scattered, the smoke followed her home, clinging to her hair, her skin, her very breath.
She had just reached her gate when her steps halted.
There—along the fence by the pigpen—something black curled across the wood. Vines. They hadn't been there that morning. They sprawled now, slick in the moonlight, their thorns gleaming like teeth.
Her breath caught, chest tightening.
The vines moved. Not in the wind—there was no wind. They shifted like something alive. One curled slowly, deliberately, toward her boot.
Isolda stumbled back, heart hammering so loud she swore the pigs heard it too. They squealed and battered the pen, restless, panicked. The hens clucked furiously, wings flapping against their roosts. Even the beasts had seen it.
The vine kept reaching, thorn by thorn, like a hand extending.
Isolda tore her gaze away and bolted for the door, slamming it shut, ramming the bolt into place with a force that rattled the wood.
But upstairs, in her narrow bed beneath the warped glass, she could not shake the image: a thorn curling like a finger, reaching for her ankle.
Not random. Not accident.
As if the forest itself had chosen her.