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

in deference to Neve’s grief. “It has weakened, this past century, but not enough. She couldn’t escape even if she tried.” Moonlight caught her eyes, made them glitter. “At least, not right now.”

Something toothed and hopeful leapt in Neve’s chest. “What do you mean?”

The priestess lightly touched her odd wood-shard necklace. “The forest is only as strong as we let it be.”

Neve’s brow knit. The night air chilled them into a frozen tableau.

“Your secrets are safe with me, Neverah.” The priestess gave a small bow then glided away, her pale robe disappearing into the dark garden.

Cool breeze on her arms, the scent of early-summer flowers heady in her nose. Neve concentrated on these things, grounded herself with them. In her head, a scarlet cloak flickered in and out of a dark, dark forest.

Chapter Seven

T he water in the tub was cold enough to make her teeth chatter when she dipped in her hand, but Red was too filthy to care. She pulled off her tattered white dress and black sash, kicking them into a pile on the floor— those, someone could burn. Shivering, she sank quickly into the tub before the cold could change her mind, and scrubbed at her hair until her nailbeds turned blue, extracting twigs one by one and letting them clatter to the floor.

Leaves matted her hair, too. As she pulled them out, Red noticed they were each blushed with green along the veins.

She frowned at one of them, tracing the lines with a fingertip. Addled by fear and confusion, her memories of the Wilderwood were probably less than reliable. But she’d swear that every leaf she saw outside the protection of the Wolf’s gate was gray and withered, the colors of autumn leaching rapidly into winter.

Red flicked the leaf from her wet fingers with more force than necessary.

When her nails were free of dirt and her hair free of forest, Red stepped from the tub, teeth clenched against the cold. Naked, she skulked across the room, feeling strangely exposed to the vines on the window, and grabbed the dark-green gown off the bed. She pulled it on without bothering to dry off, fabric sticking to her wet skin.

As she stood in front of the age-spotted mirror and attempted to untangle her hair, her stomach rumbled.

There’d been breakfast, before the procession left the Valleydan capital, but Red hadn’t managed to eat much, and couldn’t even remember what it was. Since then: a bloodthirsty forest, a surly Wolf, miles run on adrenaline alone.

Red set her teeth. This room was clean and safe and isolated; the last thing she wanted was to go wandering through the ruined Keep on the off chance she might find some toast. But her stomach twisted again, its growl more insistent.

During her earlier exploration, there’d been that small door with rusty hinges at the back of the dining room. The one behind which she’d heard the curse and the laugh. Red still didn’t feel quite brave enough to face who-or whatever made those noises, but she was pretty sure that room was a kitchen. And maybe the things she’d heard in it were elsewhere by now.

Thief-furtive, Red crept from her room. It was too cold to forgo shoes, really, a pervasive chill in the air that the half-forest walls didn’t cut, but her boots were still caked in enough mud to make her clumsy. She wanted to be able to run if she needed to.

The sky through the cracked, domed window above the foyer was mostly unchanged. Maybe slightly darker, if she squinted, but still twilight. The Wilderwood seemed caught in a perpetual gloaming, trapped between day and dusk.

A murmur came through the broken arch across the hall, too muffled to make out, but the cadence and low, graveled tone were familiar. The Wolf.

Red kept her back against the wall as she inched closer to the arch. Feeling the stone behind her was somehow reassuring, even moss-furred as it was, a solid thing to hold on to.

“She’s here?” A different voice, answering Eammon’s indistinct mutter. It at least sounded human, touched with a melodious accent that reminded her of Raffe’s. The laugher from before? “So that’s why the Wilderwood seemed so restless.”

“Restless is one way to put it,” Eammon grumbled.

“I would’ve gone with desperate.” This from a new voice, masculine and deep, but not as rough as Eammon’s. The voice she’d heard from behind the door, cursing after the clatter. “The Wilderwood needs two, and it knows she’s here now. You’ve held it alone for too long.”

A pause. “We’ve had this discussion,” Eammon said, clipped and stern.

No answer, though Red thought she heard a sigh. A moment, then the musical voice spoke again. “Well, did she find you?”

“In the library,” Eammon answered. “How’d she know to go to the damn library?”

“It’s not like there’s anywhere else to go, really. You can’t hide from her, Eammon, no more than you could from the others. What’d you expect?”

In response, Eammon grumbled a long and mostly unintelligible curse, something about the Five Kings and what they could do with certain appendages.

“Where is she now?” the second, masculine voice asked. “Do you know? Or did you just turn her out of the library and hope for the best?”

“I told her to stay in the gate and away from the trees,” Eammon answered. He neglected to mention the third rule, Red noticed, the one about staying out of his way. The omission seemed deliberate.

The masculine voice, admonishing: “Do you think that will change anything?”

Silence, tense as a bowstring. Red found herself holding her breath.

“There’s a breach to the east.” The other, melodic voice gently changed the subject. “Nothing’s come through from the Shadowlands yet, but I’m sure it won’t be long. The sentinel tree was half covered in rot when I saw it earlier, and sinking fast. I threw some blood on it, but it didn’t make much difference.” A light sigh. “There’s been more breaches than usual lately.”

Shadowlands. Here was another fairy