For the Wolf by Hannah F. Whitten

Chapter Thirty-Five

The tall, dying grass itched through Red’s dirty clothes. She sat silently next to Fife, both of them looking down at Lyra. Time had passed in an uncounted blur, and every time she blinked, all she saw was dirt closing over Neve’s face.

Lyra’s breathing was steady, her heartbeat sound. Still, Fife cradled her wrist in his lap and kept his fingers closed over it, counting up the signs she was alive, if not awake.

“Neve isn’t dead.” Raffe sat with them on his knees. After the grove had disappeared, he and Red had drifted toward Fife and Lyra, the four of them drawn together by loss like they could band against it. “I know she isn’t dead.”

“She’s alive.” Red’s lips barely moved, her eyes stayed fixed on the waving grass. “Just . . . trapped.”

“We have to bring her back.” Raffe’s face was tearstained, his jaw a hard line. He’d pressed his hands into the dirt, like he could dig his way to the Shadowlands. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know,” Red answered. “I don’t know.”

Silence. Then, Raffe swore, standing. “That’s not good enough, Red.” He stalked away through the dead grass, and all she could do was watch him go.

When the grove disappeared, it had taken the corpses of the priestesses with it. But Kiri’s body, not dead, still slumped in the grass a few feet away. Her chest shallowly rose and fell, her blood-crusted hands curled into claws. Red knew she should feel anger, revulsion. All she could dredge up was pity.

“I’m sorry,” Fife said quietly, still watching Lyra. “I’m sorry about your sister.”

Red opened her mouth but found no sound. She’d left Neve, again. Left her in a coffin, and let that coffin be pulled into the Shadowlands. Failed her, again.

She bit her lip against its trembling.

Fife’s swallow was audible. When he looked up, his eyes sparked, determination in the line of his mouth. Gently, he placed Lyra’s limp wrist in Red’s lap. “Stay with her,” he said. “There’s something I have to do.”

He got up, walking with purpose toward the tall, antlered figure at the edge of the forest. Red’s instinct was to close her eyes, to block him from her sight. But she took a deep, ragged breath and made herself watch. Made herself look at what Eammon had become.

What had replaced him.

The line of the forest-god’s profile was unchanged as it turned toward Fife’s approach, still angular, shadowed by dark hair. He only watched the other man for a moment before his newly green gaze fixed on Red.

There was no light of love in it. Barely recognition. Every beat of her heart was a pained rattle against her rib cage.

Too much. Red looked back down at Lyra. Her sleeve was still pushed up where Fife had checked for the Mark, her skin still unblemished. When Eammon had taken in the Wilderwood, become the Wilderwood, he’d let them go. Released them from the bargains they’d made.

Bargains. The word stuck in her head, bent her thoughts around itself.

Her hand closed over her own sleeve, where her Mark had been.

She knew it wasn’t there anymore, but she didn’t have the bravery to look. Instead, her eyes tracked to Fife, still striding toward the forest-god, and she knew exactly what he was going to do.

The same plan she was forming, both of them hoping it would be enough.

Her legs were coltish when she stood, stabbed with pins and needles. She felt guilty leaving Lyra alone, but the plain was peaceful now that the grove was gone, and nothing would bother her here. Stumbling, Red made her way over the field, hand still clutching her empty arm.

They were aches of two different kinds, Neve and Eammon, pulling at her heart. If she saved one, could she save the other? She remembered the glow of the Wilderwood in her bones, light to hold a shadow. The same shadow that trapped Neve now. The two people she loved the most, the two people she had to save. Light and shadow, snared together, horrific and beautiful and each taking something from her.

If she became something horrific and beautiful, could she take it back?

She stopped a few feet away from Fife and what had once been Eammon. The shorter man glared up at the god who was the Wilderwood with fire in his eyes. The Wilderwood looked down a crooked nose with minor curiosity.

His nose was still crooked. Still him, in there somewhere, lost in all that magic, all that light.

“You took my life once, bound it up for someone else. Take it back.” Fife pushed up his sleeve, bared his arm. “Give me the damn Mark, and heal Lyra. Make her . . .” He trailed off, swallowed. “Make her whole.”

The god cocked his head. “You wanted your freedom,” he said musingly, in a voice that held echoes of leaves falling and branches creaking in wind.

“All I want is her,” Fife replied.

A pause. “I understand.” There was something almost puzzled in that layered, forest-laced voice. The god understood Fife’s desperate want, his willingness to do anything to save someone he loved, but didn’t quite know why.

Red bit her lip.

An emerald-veined palm reached out, fingers closing around Fife’s arm. Fife gasped, just once, then gritted his teeth. When the god’s hand dropped, a new Bargainer’s Mark bloomed on Fife’s skin.

Behind them, on the ground where Lyra lay, there came a deep breath, stirring the grass.

No words, just a sharp nod. Then Fife turned, all but running to Lyra. The freedom he’d wanted so badly, finally earned and then traded away.

The Wilderwood watched him go. Then green-drowned eyes turned to Red.

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 wind 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.