She wondered if she should approach like a supplicant, if she should kneel. Fife hadn’t, but Fife’s bargain had been more straightforward than Red’s would be.
She did neither of those things. Instead she stepped forward, looking up at him with her teeth set and her eyes narrowed, the same determination she’d once shown him in a library with a torn red cloak and a bloody cheek.
His shadow fell over her, and the form of it on the ground was a forest, the trees tall and straight. Antlers of alabaster wood sprouted from his forehead; ivy curled around his brow. His strange eyes peered down at her, amber surrounded in green, holding flickers of recognition. Like he knew her shape, but not the space she should occupy.
The Wilderwood had known her, and Eammon had known her. But when they were brought together, one made the other and indistinguishable, they’d become something new. Something that had no context for Second Daughters, no memory of embroidered cloaks and hair wrapped around bark. It was enough to make her falter, just for a moment.
Red drew herself up. Even before, she’d barely reached his shoulder, and now she had to squint to see his face.
When he spoke, his voice was vine and branch and root. “Redarys?” He said it like something forgotten, like he was straining to remember.
Red pitched her voice to carry, but still it came out small. “I’ve come to bargain with the Wilderwood.”
Silence. Something clouded his eyes, sorrow stretched to god-proportions and made unfamiliar.
In a move that might’ve been tentative, he stretched out his hand. Red placed hers in his green-veined palm. His scars were still there.
“What is it you wish?” Resonant, vibrating her bones.
She wished he’d never had to see his parents die. She wished the scars on his hands were from farming or blacksmithing or childish recklessness rather than cuts made to feed a forest. She wished that maybe they could’ve met differently, a man and a woman with no magic, no grand destiny, nothing but simple love.
And she wished to save Neve. She wished that this man she’d loved who’d become a god she didn’t know could reach down and pull her sister up from the shadows— the shadows Neve had chosen, in the end. A reclamation, a redeeming Red didn’t know the particulars of, but somehow, deeply, understood.
That same deep understanding let her know that simply bargaining to save her sister wouldn’t work. Her time tied to the Wilderwood gave her instinctive knowledge of its limitations, let her know you couldn’t just wish to pull someone from the Shadowlands. That door was closed, and opening it would take more than bargaining, would scour her heart in ways she couldn’t fathom yet.
There was so little she could do. But she could save Eammon. And maybe, together, they could find a way to save Neve.
“Give him back to me,” Red whispered.
The god cocked his head, regarding her through those eyes that were at once strange and familiar. The mouth she’d kissed parted. The hand that had been on her body tensed, and she felt everything, everything, a current of what they’d been running through them both like marrow through a bone.
“And what are you prepared to give?” he asked her in a voice that still held traces of Eammon’s, hidden in layers of thorn and leaf. “To bargain for a life requires binding.”
Red took his hand, pressed it to her heart, beating rabbit-rhythm. “I was bound once. Bind me again.”
The Wilderwood, golden and shining, looked at her through Eammon’s eyes.
“I love you, Eammon.” She pressed his hand harder, like she could imprint the knowledge on his skin. “Remember?”
And as roots spilled from his hand into her, she saw that he did.
A rush of golden light poured from Eammon’s fingers, finding holds in the gaps between her ribs, the hollows of her lungs. The network of the Wilderwood split itself neatly in two, roots stretching through her veins, blooming along her spine. It gave her itself, entire, making her the vessel instead of just the anchor, half a forest in her bones.
She gasped, and it tasted like green things, like Eammon. She heard his deep breath like an echo, felt as the Wilderwood melted away and left her Eammon in its place.
Mostly her Eammon. Mostly the Wilderwood melted away. But part of it wasn’t gone— it was in her. Wolves and gods, the lines between them not as firm as they’d once been.
Her eyes opened, and the world looked different. The colors brighter, like a freshly painted canvas. Her skin fizzed, and when she looked down at their clasped hands, she gasped.
A delicate network of roots pulsed visibly under her skin, spanning from right below her elbow to the middle of her hand. They swirled like ink, deep green against white. Her Mark, altered to represent the bargain she didn’t make as well as the one she did.
Her eyes rose to Eammon’s. He was still taller than before. Bark still sheathed his forearms, a thin halo of green around his amber irises, and two tiny points poked through his dark hair. They’d changed, both of them, crafted out of human and into something that could hold the whole of the Wilderwood between them, not just its roots.
But those eyes knew her. And when she met his mouth with hers, it knew her, too.
Behind them, where the Wilderwood used to be, there was only a plain forest. Autumn colors filtered through the trees, crowned with red and yellow leaves. It shone with the memory of magic, but there was none. All the power— the sentinels, the network that held back shadow— lived in her and Eammon.
She kissed him again, brushed her fingers against the forestcolored thrum of his pulse, and it felt like home.
Lyra’s voice cut through the golden shimmer they’d slipped into, a pocket of reality that ignored all others. “Godhood looks good on you, Wolves. Or should I call you the Wilderwood, now? Collectively?”
“Please don’t,” Eammon groaned.
Red turned, her smile sheepish. Lyra had an arm slung around Fife’s waist, keeping her upright. Her grin was tired but genuine, and she moved with only a slight limp. Next to her, Fife was quiet, eyes guarded.
His sleeve was rolled down, Red noticed.
“You’d know about godhood,” she said lightly to Lyra, stepping back from Eammon but keeping their hands knotted together. “Plaguebreaker.”
Lyra grimaced. “Not exactly the same, I don’t think.”
“Close enough,” Eammon rumbled, voice still holding a touch of that strange resonance. His eyes cut to Fife. The two men shared an unreadable glance.
Breaking away from Fife, Lyra rolled up her sleeve. Her brow arched, looking from Red to Eammon. “Unless I spilled a great amount of blood during the hour I was unconscious, I don’t think this should be gone.” A slight waver in her voice. “And what happens now, if I’m not tied to the forest anymore?”
Eammon shrugged, the movement a ripple of wind through treetops. “You lived long within the Wilderwood. You’ll live long outside it, too. Things once tied to magic don’t lose it easily.” His voice went softer, the flutter of a leaf to the ground. “Now you can make up for lost time.”
A grin picked up her mouth, elfin features brightening as she rolled her sleeve back down. “Well, then. I certainly plan to.”
Fife glanced at her sidelong and was silent.
On the hill behind them, Valdrek was waking up. Lear helped him stand on shaky legs, face a horror of blood from his head wound, though he seemed in good enough spirits. Eammon squeezed Red’s hand before crossing to the two men, conversing in low tones.
In the dry grass, Kiri still slumped unconscious, not stirring though her chest rose and fell. Next to her, Raffe looked down at the fallen priestess with undisguised contempt, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m putting her on the first ship to the Rylt,” he said as Red approached. “Shadows damn me, I’ll not show up with a catatonic High Priestess and tell them their Queen is missing. I’ll be dead before winter.”
Red pressed her lips together. The roots on her arm glimmered a faint gold.
“If Floriane gets w
ind of her absence, it will be chaos. And Arick . . .” Raffe shook his head, pointedly not looking at her when his voice wavered on the name. “Clearly, you have other obligations, what with becoming the vessel of the whole damn Wilderwood—”
“She’s still my sister, Raffe.” It came out harsher than she meant, and around her feet, the edges of the dry grass blushed verdant green. “I will find her,” she whispered. “I don’t know how, but I will find her, and I will bring her back. That is my obligation.”
He looked at her through narrowed eyes, taking in the Mark, the dead grass now turned green. Slowly, he nodded.
Red pointed her fingers at Kiri. Long grass braided itself into ropes and encircled the priestess’s hands and feet, steel-strong. Raffe picked her up before Red could ask if he needed help, turning toward the village with her deadweight across his shoulders. He didn’t look back.
She watched him until the flare of the sun blocked him from view, then went to join the others.
“So that’s it, then?” Valdrek’s voice was somewhat slurred, and his eyes seemed slightly distant, but other than that he seemed no worse for the wear. “The Wilderwood can’t hold us back anymore, because the Wilderwood is . . . you.”
Eammon shrugged. “More or less.”
“So we can return.” A smile picked up Valdrek’s mouth, eyes gaining more focus. “Kings and shadows damn me.”
“Not everyone will want to.” Lear ran the hand that wasn’t steadying Valdrek over his bloodied forehead. “Some will stay. Some won’t know how to live in a whole world again.”
Valdrek shrugged, gently shaking off Lear’s hand to stand on his own strength. “I think it’s a thing that can be learned.” He turned toward the forest. “No time like the present to find out, after we share the good news!”
Lear rolled his eyes, but it was good-natured. With a nod, he followed Valdrek into the trees.
Then it was only the four of them, as it had been at the Keep. There was some measure of distance among them now, a space carved by change and violence, and for a moment they were silent.
“We can go anywhere,” Lyra murmured. Fife’s lips tightened, but Lyra didn’t notice. She cocked a brow at Red and Eammon. “You can go anywhere. How convenient, to carry the Wilderwood around inside of you.”
“Convenient may be an overstatement,” Eammon muttered.
Lyra grinned. “While I understand the going anywhere part, in principle,” she said, “I find that I would like to sleep in my own bed tonight.” Turning, she caught Fife’s sleeve. “Come on. Give the gods a minute.”
Fife followed her into the forest, still quiet, though right before they reached the tree line he slipped his hand down her arm and tangled his fingers with hers.
Then they were alone.
Eammon grasped Red’s hand, and she leaned into his shoulder. Exhaustion weighed her limbs, and worry for her sister, and confusion over what might come next.
But for now, just for a moment, Red let herself feel content. She let herself feel done.
Her twentieth birthday felt like lifetimes ago. Red’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “Remember when we first met?”
Eammon turned to run his fingers through her hair, tiny strands of ivy now threaded in the dark gold. “When you bled on my forest,” he said, “or when you burst into my library?”
“I was thinking of the second one,” Red answered. “When you told me you didn’t have horns.” She reached up, tapped the small points that pressed through his dark hair, remnants of his antlers. “Ironic.”
He laughed then, and it sounded like wind through branches. Mouths met, warm and hungry, and he picked her up and swung her around, a fall of autumn-colored leaves chasing them.
Then he set her down, and rested his forehead on hers. They breathed the same air, the Lady and her Wolf, and for the moment it was all either of them wanted.
“Let’s go home,” Eammon murmured, and hand in hand, the Wardens walked through their Wilderwood.
Epilogue
Red
S trands of golden hair wrapped the mirror like rays around the sun. Blood streaked the frame, rusty against the gilt, and a pile of fingernail clippings rested on the wooden floor before it, the edges ragged from where she’d bitten them off. Red sat on her knees, hands balled in her lap, eyes wide and staring into the black surface, trying to will it into silver.
Show me my sister. Show me.
But the mirror was blank and flat.
Red raised her fist like she might strike it, might splinter the placid surface that refused to reveal Neve. But her fingers flexed out instead, and a low, pained sound rolled from her throat. Her hand fell back to her lap. Red closed her eyes.
“Nothing?”
Eammon’s voice, soft. He stepped up beside her, holding out a glass of wine. She took it, and his hand dropped to her shoulder, squeezed.
The alcoholic burn was soothing against the lump in her throat. “Nothing,” she confirmed.
He sighed, looking at the mirror like he wanted to shatter it as much as she did. “We’ll find her,” he said, the same reassurance he’d been giving her for a week. “We’ll find a way.”
From anyone else, it would sound hollow. With Eammon, she knew it wasn’t just words. He’d do everything in his power to help her find Neve.
But as days drifted past and they grew no closer, the comfort in that knowledge was wearing thin.
When Eammon offered her his hand, she took it. He pulled her up, brought her against his chest. A susurrus like falling leaves chased his heartbeat beneath her cheek.
“Come on,” he said, lips brushing her forehead. “You could do with some time out of the tower.”
With one last look at the mirror, Red let him lead her down the stairs.
They passed the gate, drifted into the forest hand in hand. The Wilderwood was in them now, but magic things didn’t lose their natures easily, and the forest blazed autumn colors though the rest of Valleyda had descended into winter. It wasn’t quite the eternal summer of the stories, but it seemed to suit them better.
The forest was quiet now, no more dear-bought words needed to communicate. But Red could feel it within her, a second, stranger consciousness running congruent to her own. A part of her held just barely separate, like looking at your hand in a mirror and seeing the minuscule ways the measurements were off.
Godhood was a strange thing.
They walked in comfortable silence until they broke the tree line, the walls of the Edge rising in the distance. The sounds of a city still clambered from within— Valdrek planned to lead a group of villagers into Valleyda in the next few weeks, but there were many preparations to be made before then. And Lear had been right, not everyone wanted to go.
Red’s brow knit. “Does Valdrek need help organizing again?”
“Not quite.” Eammon raised her knuckles to his mouth, kissed them. “I might have spoken to Asheyla,” he said against her skin. “About a replacement for a certain cloak.”
Her smiles had been few in the last week, but all of them had been because of Eammon. Red’s lips curved as they met his, the spark of her hope rekindling in her chest.
They’d find Neve. They’d fix this. Together.
Fingers wrapped around the Wolf’s, she let him pull her forward.
Neve
Gray. All she could see was gray. Gradients of it— light and dark, mist and charcoal— but all gray, only gray.
Except sometimes there was blue, peering down at her. The brightest blue she’d ever seen, surrounded by sweeping darkness, like long hair. She liked the blue. It was reassuring somehow.
Slowly, feeling came back into her limbs. She didn’t remember much— silver and shouting, growing trees— but she knew that lying here, in a sea of gray and sometimes blue, wasn’t what she was supposed to be doing.
It was a while before she realized she could move. First her arms, then her legs, pins and needles pricking up her muscles. Without thinking too hard about it, she
raised her hands, pressed on the glass that covered her. It rose easily.
Raising her arms made her notice the dark shadows over her skin, like she wore sleeves of black lace. She frowned at them a moment. There was almost a beat to the threads of darkness, a second set of veins. It twitched at a memory, but she couldn’t cobble the whole thing together.
In the quiet, it seemed like the darkness was in her head, too. Something crouched at the edges of her mind, together and yet separate.
Her legs swung over the edge of a stone slab. She sat up.
The room was circular. Four windows stood at equidistant points, the sills carved with sinuous lines like wafting smoke. Above her was a painted night sky, stars and constellations all in shades of gray behind a hanging paper moon.
Beyond the windows, the world was gray, too. A gray forest, branches growing down while roots grew up, disappearing into a thick sky made of fog. As she watched, something moved through the upside-down trees— immensely large, sliding snake-like.
It made her feel like cowering and pulling the glass over her again.
“Hello, Neve.”
Her head snapped around, wrenched from the upside-down forest to look at the man in the corner. His hands clasped between his knees, long hair falling over his shoulders. It was just as gray as the rest of this place, but if she looked closely, she could catch hints of brownish gold.
“You’re awake.” Blue eyes peered at her, fixing her in place. “I’ve been waiting.”
The story continues in . . .
For the Throne
Book Two of The Wilderwood
Acknowledgments
If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a metropolis to make a book. I owe so much to so many people who made it possible for Red and Eammon and the entire forest disaster crew to see the light of day.
First thanks goes to my husband, Caleb, who has gallantly dealt with me softly murmuring “Red and Eammon vibes” at every emo love song for nearly five years now and also made sure that I always had time to work on this book even when it was just something I was casually poking at, because he knew it made me happy. I love you, I love you, I love you.
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