For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten (freda ebook reader .txt) 📕

on the hilt of her tor. “Everything was fine, then all of a sudden, it . . . tore.”

“It sounded like the trees were screaming.” Valdrek shook his head. “I’ve never heard the forest make that sound before.”

“We have to go to the border,” Raffe said from the shadow of the staircase. “We have to, if that’s where he has Neve.”

“The Wilderwood won’t let us out. Not now that I have the roots, too.” Red stood, though the effort drove her teeth together. “You’ll have to find her, Raffe.”

He nodded.

“Eammon, Fife, Lyra, and I can go as far as the tree line,” she continued. “Raffe will go look for Neve, and we’ll heal whatever breaches are close until he finds her.”

Eammon shook his head, slightly, like the movement hurt. “Solmir is there, Red. You can’t get that close—”

“My sister is there.” It was nearly a whisper, though part of her wanted to scream it. “There’s no time. We have to go now.”

He shut his mouth against further protest, chin dipping forward as if the weight on his shoulders had increased tenfold.

Valdrek’s eyes flickered over them. “So of the five of you,” he said slowly, “only one can leave the forest.” He pointed to Raffe. “I assume you came in during the brief period where the Wilderwood seemed to have its shit together.”

“It opened the border,” Red said softly. “When I took the roots, when the Wilderwood was healed, the Valleydan border opened.” It made her throat ache, to think of how close they’d been. How briefly everything had been balanced, only to be knocked sideways again.

A pang of longing twisted Valdrek’s face, just for a moment. “Well,” he said, looking to Lear, “we’ll come, then, and try our luck.”

“It won’t let you out.” Eammon’s words came strained.

“Maybe not. But the Wilderwood is held by two now, and differently than before.”

“It should just be me and Raffe,” Eammon argued. “Even if it did let you through, there’s too much risk—”

“We owe it to everyone in the Edge to make an attempt. And if the forest does let us out, and there’s a part we can play in healing it, we have to try.” Valdrek shrugged. “You’re getting our help, Wolf, whether you like it or not.”

Red stood, covering Eammon’s hand with her own. She glared up at him. “No more keeping yourself alone,” she hissed. “You asshole.”

Worry lit his eyes, but Eammon turned his hand over under hers, laced their fingers together.

Lear chuckled, but it was a hard thing. “Maybe we’ll even kill this Solmir fellow. That would be enough to have a ballad written, eh? Killing one of the Kings?”

Firelight gilded Lyra’s curls as she stepped forward. “We’re going, too.”

Behind Lyra, Fife crossed his arms, Bargainer’s Mark standing out in sharp relief against his freckles. He gave one confirming nod.

Eammon’s eyes were shadowed hollows. He looked to Red. She squeezed his hand.

“Let’s go, then,” he murmured.

Every tree in the Wilderwood was thorn-jagged and winter-sharp. The leaves on the ground were gray and skeletal, leached of autumn color as if months had passed instead of minutes. Above their heads, the sky mottled like a bruise.

The hilt of the dagger strapped around Red’s thigh brushed her wrist. Knives glittered in the shadows of Eammon’s coat. She wondered if they’d be able to use them. She wondered if what they went to face was something that could be fought. Kiri could be killed, and so could Solmir while he was on this side of the forest— she assumed— but if the rest of the Kings came through . . .

Heal the breaches, rescue Neve. She kept it up like a litany, this recitation of the two things she knew they could do.

“Do we have a plan?” Lyra murmured. Her tor was a crescent of silver in the dark. With every step, the bags at her and Fife’s waists clinked, filled with vials of blood.

“Stop him.” Eammon didn’t pause in his unflagging pace.

“He’s mine.” This from Raffe, walking behind them and thus far silent. He turned his eyes from the ground to Lyra, dark and glittering. “If Solmir is there, even if he’s where you can get to him, he’s mine.”

She nodded, once.

Silence fell, broken only by the sound of boots over leaves.

The pain of the torn sentinels had flagged to a dull ache. Still, Eammon walked stiffly at the front of their strange procession, like every movement taxed a limited store of energy.

Red picked up her pace until the back of her hand brushed his. Eammon hadn’t touched her since they left the Keep, when they’d rushed upstairs for weapons. Then he’d pulled her to him, kissed her like he could impart some protection through the weight of his mouth.

“Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it,” he whispered. “Whatever I have to do to keep you safe.”

Red traced his scars. “I love you.” Her mouth quirked halfway to a smile, then fell. “I’m for the Wolf.”

His thumb had brushed over her lower lip. “I’m for you.”

Now there was no softness in him, like he’d spent it all in that moment. Eammon was harsh angles and sharp edges, and he moved with vicious intent.

“I’m sure, if you ask nicely, Raffe will bring him past the border and let you have a turn.” The words were toneless, hollow. She said them because there was nothing else to say. Because it will be fine sounded too much like a lie.

There was no humor in his eyes when they met hers. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Red grabbed his hand. He let her.

Up ahead, the trees thinned, rising twisted from the ground. Their small war band stopped, motion arrested by shock.

The border of the Wilderwood was a wasteland, trees scattered and broken, those that still stood contorted into tortured shapes. Pits of rotten earth pockmarked the ground— one directly before them, the edge of another visible in the shadows to the left. The sky split in a sawtooth line, plum-dark twilight crashing into