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

hidden in a bower of wide pink blooms— clearly, this conversation wasn’t meant to be overheard.

But Neve didn’t move.

“Impossible.” This second voice was brusque, vowels clipped and precise. Also familiar. “The Wilderwood has twisted, its power has grown weak. It will no longer accept paltry things like teeth and nail clippings. Not even blood, if it’s not from a fresh wound.”

There was something leading in the tone. As if meaning hid behind the words, things implied rather than spoken.

That tone locked the familiarity into place. The red-haired priestess.

“No,” the priestess continued. “A dead sacrifice will no longer do. It would require more, if it could be accomplished at all, a heavier price both in the bargaining and in the aftermath. Our prayers have told us so.” A pause, then, cadenced like a litany: “Blood that has been used in bargains with things beneath is blood that can open doors.”

Neve’s brow furrowed, but the other voice sounded too distraught to try to puzzle out the cryptic nonsense. “There has to be a way.”

“If there is, dear boy,” the priestess murmured, “you must be prepared to give, and keep giving.” A pause. “The Kings take much, but they give much in return. Serving them brings opportunity to your door. I know.”

A rustle as someone stood from the bench hidden in the blooms. Cursing silently, Neve spun away, tried to make it seem like she’d been absorbed in examining a flower bed on the other side of the path.

From the corner of her eye, a flash of white. “Do come to me with any further questions,” the priestess said. “Our prayers this morning, after our less dedicated sisters left, proved most . . . insightful.”

A disheveled-looking boy stepped out from behind her. “I will. Thank you, Kiri.”

Neve froze, fingers on a wide yellow bloom.

Arick.

The priestess— Kiri, she finally knew her name now— looked once at Neve. Her smile was cold as she dipped a nod and glided back toward the castle.

If he was surprised by her presence, he didn’t show it. Arick ran a hand through hair that looked like it hadn’t been combed in a week. “Neve.”

“Arick.” A stone-heavy second of quiet. “We’ve been worried about you.”

The worry was well earned, it seemed. His face was pale and drawn, hollows carved beneath his green eyes. He jerked his head toward the flowering trees and disappeared.

Neve cast a look around before ducking beneath the boughs, though it was ridiculous to fear being caught— he would be her Consort, after all. Cementing that sea route for Valleydan trade through Floriane.

A dull ache started in her temples.

Neve pushed aside pink blooms, revealing Arick already sitting on the bench beneath the arbor. The wan look of him, waxen skin and shadowed eyes, was incongruous against the backdrop of flowers.

He said nothing as she settled beside him, the bench so small she couldn’t help the press of their legs. They’d been easy friends before sixteen and betrothal, and even after, when Red was still here, a buffer between them and the inevitable future. Now she didn’t know how to act.

She shifted on the bench. “How are you?”

“Not well.”

“Me either.”

Silence bloomed around them. No words felt right. All she and Arick had in common was grief, and how could you build a conversation on that, much less a life?

“I tried.” Arick leaned forward, running both hands through his already-wild hair. “The night of the ball, I tried to get her to run.”

“We all tried. She wouldn’t listen.”

“There has to be a way to get her back.”

Neve chewed her lip, thinking back over the conversation she’d overheard. Thinking of who he’d been having it with, and of ruined shrines and bark shards. “Arick,” she said carefully, “I don’t want you to do anything foolish.”

“More foolish than running to the Wilderwood to throw rocks at the trees?” There was a ghost of levity in his voice.

She smiled to hear it, though it was a tired, faded thing. “I suppose I’m not one to talk.” In more ways than he knew.

Arick’s shoulders slumped, the momentary lightness gone as soon as it had come. “I’m going to find a way to bring her home.”

Neve glanced at him sidelong. She knew he loved Red. But she also knew Red didn’t love him and never had. She’d certainly cared for him, but her sister hadn’t wanted to shatter any more lives than she had to when she crossed into the trees. And though Arick’s feelings went deeper, he’d seemed to understand. Neve had expected his mourning, but she’d expected it to pass quickly. Arick was resilient.

“I know you thought I’d get over it,” Arick said, as if her thoughts were something he could see in the air above her head.

“That makes me sound cruel,” she murmured.

“I don’t mean it that way. I just mean . . .” A sigh. “Things have gone easily for me, Neve. Mostly because I’ve let them. I’ve never fought for anything, never taken a path that offered any great resistance, because I wanted things to be easy.” His teeth gnashed on the word. “But I can’t just let this go. If there’s anything worth fighting for, it’s her. And not even because I love her. Just because . . . because it isn’t right. She deserves a life, too.”

The sliver of hope in Neve’s chest was a splinter, small and mean and terribly bright, sharpening her grief to a razor-edge. She didn’t know how to articulate it, not with all the added complications of her and Arick and Raffe and the tangled threads connecting them, priestesses with strange necklaces and ruined white trees in a stone room.

“Good,” she replied, because it was the closest thing she could shape that barbed hope into.

He looked at her, nearly surprised, then relief softened the tendons in his neck. Like he’d been waiting for her benediction. “I’ll be gone for a while,” Arick said. “Didn’t want you to worry.”

“Back to Floriane?”

No answer. After a moment, Arick stood. He offered his hand.

Neve took it,