For the Wolf by Hannah F. Whitten

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Red’s cloak drew all the attention she’d feared and more as they moved through the halls. Servants and nobles alike stopped to peer, then outright stare as they recognized her. The Second Daughter, returned from the Wilderwood.

Neve paid no mind, tugging Red along by the hand like the girls they’d been before, not the Queen and the Lady Wolf. She gestured to a passing handmaiden. “Have dinner brought to my rooms, please. For three.”

The handmaiden gaped even as she nodded. “Queen Neverah . . . and, um, your . . . Redarys . . .”

“My sister has returned.” Neve’s voice was achingly sincere. “Well and whole.”

Well and whole. Red tried to smile, but the pressure of these familiar halls was almost a physical weight. The atmosphere buzzed over her skin, a frequency at odds with the rhythm of her heartbeat, like Valleyda itself recognized she didn’t belong anymore.

The handmaiden’s mouth worked soundlessly. “That’s . . . that’s wonderful.” She could have exchanged wonderful for terrifying without altering her tone.

Neve didn’t notice. “Tell Arick to meet us.” She swirled away in a froth of skirts and silver.

“I’m not particularly hungry,” Red said, pulled along behind her. “I was wondering if maybe we could go to the Shrine, before dinner?”

That made Neve stop. She turned, brows knit. “You want to go to the Shrine?”

Neve had always been the cunning one, and Red only blunt. She shrugged. “It’s been a long time.”

Her twin’s dark eyes narrowed, the corner of her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth, and Red thought of that strange exchange in the Temple. Kiri and Neve, united in whatever they were doing to the Wilderwood.

She’d known this wouldn’t be as simple as showing her sister she was fine and asking her nicely to stop, but now that the reality stared her down, Red’s spine felt like a sapling buried under frost.

Neve stared at her a moment longer. “Not now,” she said finally, turning to hurry down the hallway. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

She didn’t know how to do this. Red was no stranger to keeping secrets from her sister, but the careful modulation, the hemming of truths— they weren’t things that came naturally, especially not now. Part of her wanted to spill the whole story, to spell out the history and what was happening and how Neve had to stop. But then she thought of what she’d seen in the mirror, of Kiri’s words only moments ago, about plans and fruition and how Red was only part of it. The path here was complex, littered with traps, and putting a foot wrong could bloody them both.

The best plan seemed to be to get to the Shrine. To see exactly what Neve had done.

More courtiers and servants passed them by, more wide eyes and shapeless whispers. Red’s shoulders hunched toward her ears, like she could make herself smaller.

“They seem surprised.” Red wasn’t sure what reaction she’d expected. She wasn’t sure what anything she’d expected. All her thoughts were bent only toward stopping the disappearing sentinels, toward helping Eammon. Now it felt like she was stumbling along to keep up, everything rushing and tangling too quickly to make sense of.

“Of course they do.” Neve pushed open the door to the same rooms she’d had since they moved from the nursery. “They thought you were dead.” Her voice was brittle. “But we knew you were alive. Arick and I knew.”

Arick. His name should’ve been a comfort, but instead disquiet curled around Red’s spine. When she tried to remember his face, it was still the shadowy thing that had come for her at the Keep’s gate, and her memories of his body had narrowed to only his possessive hold on her wrists the night of the ball.

The sunlight through the window highlighted the hollows in Neve’s cheeks, the jut of her collarbone. Her hands went to the silver circlet, all but wrenching it from her hair; she set it on the dressing table and rubbed at her forehead as if it pained her. Shadow pooled along the circlet’s curve, warping the room’s reflection. It was similar to the one she’d worn as the First Daughter, but more ornate— delicately filigreed, inset with tiny diamonds. Red remembered Isla wearing it, and the thought was a lurch in her chest.

“I’m so sorry,” Red murmured. “Neve, I’m so sorry you had to go through it alone.”

Neve’s distorted reflection in the circlet went rigid. “It was . . .” Her mouth worked like she might say more, but nothing came out. She tucked a stray lock of black hair behind her ear as she folded into the chair at her desk. “It was difficult.”

The chambers had a sitting room off to the side that Neve never used; Red pulled over one of the heavy, brocaded chairs to sit next to Neve’s desk instead. For a moment, they sat in silence, two sisters and the ghost of a mother. Neve looked at the carpet instead of Red, a slight indentation in her skin where the circlet had weighed heavy.

“I’m glad to be Queen.” She said it like a confession. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling guilty for that.” Her spine straightened, eyes raising. “But you’re here now. I saved you. That makes it all worth it.”

It made Red’s skin feel too small, this declaration that she needed saving. She knows she needs me to disentangle you fully.

“How did you do it?” Kings, she could barely keep her face schooled to mere curiosity, could barely keep the accusing edge from her voice. Here was her sister, whom she loved down to her bones, but the air between them was thick with secrecy and things misunderstood. “How did you weaken the Wilderwood so I could . . .” She couldn’t finish it. Escape wouldn’t hold its shape on her tongue.

Neve’s dark eyes flickered up from her pale, knotted hands, a line between her brows. Like Kiri before, her gaze was searching. As if she was looking for something in Red, some abnormality hiding just out of sight.

The moment passed. Neve blinked, and the calculating light in her eyes went out, replaced instead by relief. “It doesn’t matter.” A smile, more brilliant for how pale and wan she looked otherwise. “You’re here now. Whatever else we have to do to make sure you’re safe, we’ll do it.”

Red shifted nervously.

Neve put a reassuring hand on her knee, mistaking the reason for her discomfort. “There’s no need for worry, Red. The Wolf can’t reach you here, and we’ll root out the rest—”

“I’m not staying.” It came out sharp, and she knew she should’ve swallowed it the moment it left her mouth. But there was so little truth between them, it was almost unbearable.

Maybe her own honesty could wrench some from her sister.

Neve’s brow knit, uncomprehending. “If you’d rather go to one of the other holdings, I can arrange that, too. I understand not wanting to be in the capital.”

“No.” Red winced. This could only sound graceless. “Neve, I . . . I’m going back to the Wilderwood.”

Disbelief fell like a shadow, dimming Neve’s eyes. “What?”

Red didn’t know where to go from there, how much to safely share, and she hated it. “I came back because I wanted to see you. Because . . . because I wanted to know what you were doing.” She didn’t say because she wanted to stop it, unsure if she could admit that or not, unsure what Neve might do. “But I want to go back. Eammon—”

“Eammon?”

“The Wolf. His name is Eammon. Gaya and Ciaran’s son.” A pause, a deep breath. “Neve, so much is different than—”

“Stop.” Quiet, but with enough gravitas behind it that Red’s teeth clicked shut. Neve’s hand was up in the air between them, a slight tremble in her fingers. She took a deep breath of her own, let it out with her eyes closed. “You’re on good terms, then. Good terms with the Wolf. Good terms with the Wilderwood.”

The cold in her voice sent heat to Red’s cheeks, an inverse reaction. She reeled truth back into her mouth; it was obvious Neve didn’t want to hear it right now. “You could say that,” she murmured, nervously tugging at the hem of her cloak.

The movement drew Neve’s eye. For the first time, her twin took stock of the cloak, mouth drawing tighter. “That isn’t the one you left with.”

The embroidery pressed against Red’s skin, grounding. “Not technically, no.”

Silence, silence, a well of it they couldn’t fill. Then Neve’s voice, tremulous: “What have you done, Red?”

She’d asked herself the question, more than once. She’d married the Wolf of the Wilderwood. It was a massive, frightening thing, and one she’d do again in a heartbeat.

“Nothing I didn’t want to,” she answered quietly.

Her sister’s hands knotted tighter, knuckles blanched white. Across the room, the ornate mirror shone them back at themselves. Golden and dark, reflections of each other.

Neve’s eyes pressed closed. “Don’t worry.” It was a murmur, a reassurance for herself as much as for Red. “We expected . . . not this, but something. We’ll fix it.”

“What do you mean?”

But whatever answer Neve might’ve given was interrupted by the opening door.

Servants pushed in a dinner cart to Neve’s forgotten sitting room, enough food for five people with place settings for three. They were in and out in silence, staring wide-eyed at Red’s cloak, avoiding her face. As they left, a lone figure filled the doorframe.

“The prodigal returns,” Arick said.

He stood straighter, was a trifle thinner. He’d taken to wearing his hair differently in the time she’d been gone, curling long over his collar. Red stood, though her legs felt stiff, forcing a smile and pushing Neve’s strange behavior aside, something to be dealt with later. “Hello, Arick.”

Smiling, he pushed off from the doorframe, met Red in the center of the room, and folded her in his arms. The embrace felt oddly clinical, so unlike what they’d shared before. Arick smelled different, too. Maybe he’d switched cigars, or his valet had stopped packing mint leaves in his pockets. She couldn’t name this new scent, only that it was cold.

“You look well, Red.” Arick’s hands rested on her shoulders, and the part of her that remembered the alcove wanted to squirm away. Gloaming light through the window dimmed the edges of things, but she didn’t miss the searching way his eyes flickered over hers. “Or should I call you Lady Wolf? That’s the title you gave Noruscan, I heard.”

Neve made no sound behind her, but Red still glanced over her shoulder, like the jolt through Neve’s spine rattled hers, too. Her twin froze for half a moment before going to her sitting room, sinking to the couch.

“Just Red is fine,” Red murmured.

The corner of Arick’s smile sharpened. He released her shoulders and crossed the room to stand next to Neve. She visibly relaxed at his presence. One hand feathered over her forearm, a light, reassuring touch.

Tentatively, Red took the seat across from them. “Is Raffe joining us?”

The name made Neve stiffen. “No.”

“Raffe returned to Meducia.” Arick opened a pot on the cart. His eyes flashed as he glanced at Red, and for a moment, they didn’t look green. “Pheasant, Red. Your favorite.”

The scent made her stomach growl. It’d been a long time since breakfast in the Keep. “Seems a strange time for him to leave.”

She couldn’t imagine Raffe abandoning Neve so soon after her coronation. Not when every line of her frame spoke of struggling, not when their feelings were so clear. When Raffe and Neve were in the same room, the only time their eyes weren’t on each other was when the other was looking.

The fact that he was gone made the unease in her stomach crawl up toward her throat.

Arick handed Neve a full plate; she took it listlessly. “He hadn’t been home in so long,” he said, with a brief, hard laugh. “Can you blame him, wanting to be there instead of freezing Valleyda?” He filled another plate and held it out to Red.

She took it, balanced it on her lap. “I suppose not.”

“You just missed him,” Neve said. “He left three days ago.”

“I hate I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

Neve’s eyes shuttered and turned back to her plate. She picked up her fork but never brought it to her mouth.

Arick glanced at Neve with genuine worry, but when his gaze came to Red, it was cold. He glared at her like he felt her guilt, like he wished for more of it.

She didn’t know how to move here, didn’t know how to act. The frames of these relationships had twisted in her absence, subtly changed in ways she couldn’t make any sense of.

Red ate quickly and without tasting. She took a gulp of wine— Meducian, of course, and going to her head in one swallow. She’d grown used to the watered-down stuff Eammon bought from Valdrek.

Eammon. Every thought of him delved in like a thorn.

Night fell beyond the window, and guttering candles cast the only light. It muted the angles of Arick’s face, made them nearly unrecognizable. “Surely you have adventures to regale us with, Red.” He sipped his wine and sat back in his chair, casting his face in shadow. “What terrible things have you seen in the Wilderwood?”

Red took another unladylike gulp. “It’s not all terrible.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t think so.” This from Neve, still and quiet. She’d barely picked at her food.

Red’s own tasted like ashes. She set her plate aside.

Arick rested a steadying hand on Neve’s knee, just for a moment. “Tell us about it, then, if it’s not so terrible after all.” Candlelight gleamed over his teeth. “Is it less frightening, once the Wilderwood has you?”

More. But Red couldn’t say that, not with Neve right there. Neve, scared and trying to help, even though her help only whetted a blade.

And something about the question seemed strange. Leading.

“It’s always twilight.” She let her voice slip to storybook cadences— tell the beauty, take out the teeth. “The walls of the Keep have moss on them. There are trees big as houses. And fog, always fog.”

Neve watched her through wide, dark eyes. A bittersweet shard of memory, the two of them as children listening in rapt attention to a tale of the Wilderwood, illustrated on window glass. Something contracted in Red’s chest.

“And what’s he like?” Arick’s gaze tracked over her cloak, mouth quirking. “It’s unprecedented for a Second Daughter to return. Did you hate each other that much?”

“No.” It cracked out of her, too sharp to be nonchalant.

Arick said nothing, face still shadowed, but she could see his grin. Next to him, Neve’s teeth worked at her lip.

Weariness piled up like stones. Between the wine and her long, strange journey, it was an effort to keep her eyes open. Red couldn’t string together the niceties of excusing herself. “Where would you like me to sleep, Neve? I’m sure my old room is being used for something else.”

“It’s not.” Neve’s eyes were almost shy. “It’s exactly as you left it.”

Red chewed the corner of her lip.

As if it was a cue, Arick stood. “Kiri asked that you meet her at the Shrine, Neve.” A muscle flickered in his jaw, eyes momentarily flinty. “I’ll accompany you, of course.”

Finally. Red straightened expectantly.

“In a moment.” Neve’s gaze flickered to Red, then away, standing with Arick’s proffered hand. “I want to get Red settled first.”

“I’d be happy to go to the Shrine with you.” Too eager— Arick’s face darkened. Red shrugged. “Whatever it is you have to do there. So we can spend some more time together.”

Far from encouraged, Neve’s eyes fluttered closed, a weary blink that sank her shoulders. “No. Not right now.” Straightening, shaking off whatever pall had fallen over her. “Besides, I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

Red knew a lost argument when she saw one. She nodded. “Tomorrow, then.”

A quick glance between the Queen and her Consort Elect. “Tomorrow,” Neve agreed.

Turning, Arick sketched a bow at Red. “Lady Wolf.” Then he was gone, disappeared into the dark maw of the hallway.

Neve led the short way to Red’s room next door. Nothing had changed from the morning Red left. Her nightgown was still crumpled in the corner.

The wood of her old wardrobe was painted white and silver, so different from the scratched thing in the room she shared with Eammon at the Keep. Neve gestured to it. “All your clothes are there. Anything you might need.” She crossed to the corner and picked up the discarded nightgown. “I did have them change the bed linens, at least, so you should be comfortable.”

The air between them felt heavy, like something waited in it. “I was telling the truth, Neve,” Red finally said, standing awkwardly in the center of the room that no longer felt like hers. “I came back to Valleyda because I wanted to see you.”

Neve made a mirthless sound. “You say it like it’s some great journey rather than just returning home.”

“This isn’t home anymore.”

The nightgown in Neve’s hands fluttered, the only tell of the tremble in her hands. “I see.” There were layers to her voice, a depth the two words didn’t properly illuminate. But when her eyes rose to Red’s, the shine in them was determination, not tears. She handed over the nightgown. “I’ll see you in the morning. We can go to the Shrine then.”

Neve nearly fled the room, skirts flashing around the doorframe. Red stood alone in Valleyda for the first time since she’d returned, and the air itself felt unfriendly.

The nightgown fit perfectly, but the fabric itched. Her bed smelled like roses, so different from the coffee-and-leaves scent she was used to now. Red was a warped puzzle piece, her changes nearly too subtle to see, but enough to keep her from fitting back into the place she’d left.

Still, she fell asleep nearly as soon as she closed her eyes, exhaustion pulling her down into the dark.