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

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