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

“And that’s what holds back the shadow-creatures,” Red said, choosing not to comment on the blush. “The sentinels.”

“Been studying, have we?”

“Fife explained. Reluctantly.”

More expectant silence. Red couldn’t quite cobble together what she wanted to say, how to say it. An apologetic overture didn’t seem right anymore, not with her hair in his fingers. Not when he was her husband.

So when she spoke, it was blunt. “Do you still want me to try to use the magic?”

His eyes snapped to hers.

“Because I will.” Shadows flickered over the walls. She watched them instead of Eammon. “It scares me, and nothing good has ever come from it. But I think us . . . what we just did will make it easier. And if it will help you— help the forest— I’ll try.”

Eammon said nothing, but his hand arched toward the wooden shard in his pocket, the token of their binding. “You don’t have to,” he murmured. “I don’t want to make you do something you don’t want to do. Anything you don’t want to do. This is entirely your choice.”

“And I’ve made it.” Too far in to back out now. “If you can teach me to use the Wilderwood’s magic, I want to learn.”

Firelight carved hollows into his angular face, flickered in his eyes and made them honey-colored. No green in them, which relieved her more than she quite understood. “Meet me in the tower in the courtyard when you wake.” A pause, and his next words were quiet. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt you. Or anyone else. I promise, you have nothing to be afraid of.”

She nodded. The air between them felt like something solid, something that could be shoved out of the way.

Eammon opened the door into the twilight-painted corridor. As he stepped over the threshold, he pointed at the fire. “No need to worry about dousing that before you sleep. The wood won’t burn out or let the flames move to anything else.”

“How did you manage that?”

He gave her a wry grin. “Perhaps that will be our lesson tomorrow.” Her new husband turned and walked into the darkness of the hall, leaving her alone in her room. “Good night, Redarys.”

Chapter Twelve

R ed’s breath was one more cloud in the fog-covered courtyard, spiraling from her lips in the chill air. She craned her neck upward as she followed the wall to the tower. From this angle, the windows at its top lined up perfectly, forming gaps of sky in the stone.

The moss-covered door creaked slightly as she pushed it open, startlingly loud in the silence of the Wilderwood. Beyond it, a staircase climbed up into darkness. Overgrowth lined the walls, leaves and pale blooms papering the gray rock in shades of white and green. Unlike the Keep, it didn’t seem sinister here— part of the structure, rather than an invader. Still, she took care not to touch it.

The staircase spiraled upward far enough to make her winded before finally ending right in the center of a circular room. No greenery here, but four equidistant windows set into the curved wall with flowers and vines carved into their sills, a wooden imitation. A merrily crackling hearth stood between two of them, filled with wood that didn’t char, and a small wooden table flanked with two chairs sat near enough to feel its warmth. The midnight-blue ceiling rose to a point over the central stairs, where a paper sun hung, crafted in layered gold and yellow.

Painted silver constellations spangled out from the paper sun, exquisitely detailed— the Sisters, hands stretching from north to south to meet in the center; the Leviathan, cutting through the western sky; the Plague Stars, clustered together above the rough outline of a ship. According to legend, the Plague Stars had appeared to guide the vessel carrying traders infected with the Great Plague back to the mainland. The stars had snuffed out the moment those afflicted were suddenly, miraculously cured.

“This is beautiful,” Red murmured, turning in a circle with her eyes still on the ceiling.

A brief snort snapped her attention away. Eammon leaned against the windowsill behind her, one hand in his pocket, the other clutching a steaming mug. His hair was tied back, the short tuft where she’d cut it for their thread bond sticking out awkwardly behind his ear. “The handiwork of the Wilderwood. The tower and the Keep sprang up when Gaya and Ciaran made their bargain, fully furnished.” He sipped from his cup. “A housewarming present. Ciaran built the rest of the Keep around it.”

Ciaran. Gaya. He never referred to them as his parents, only by their names or titles. Turning them into distant people who didn’t require warmth.

She knew the feeling.

Red went to the hearth and chafed her hands. The windows had no panes, and the room was as cold as the forest outside. “So the Wilderwood made these?” She gestured to the paintings on the ceiling.

“No.” Eammon walked to the table in the center of the room and poured more coffee from a waiting kettle. Another mug sat next to it; he looked to Red, eyes a question. At her nod, he filled the second mug, too. “Gaya painted them.”

Her eyes turned to the constellations again, an odd, weighty feeling in her chest.

“Any particular reason to meet here?” She picked up the mug he’d poured her, wrapping her hands around its warmth. “Pardon the observation, but you don’t seem to like it much.”

He made a gruff noise that might’ve been a laugh. Eammon sank into one of the chairs, tipping it back on two legs. “Because this place was made by the Wilderwood, so its magic is stronger here.”

The knot of her magic still felt looser this morning, teased apart, untangled. The result of their quick thread-bond marriage, she knew, but now that she turned her thoughts to it, some of the ease might come from the tower, too. Blooming along with the flowers on the walls as she moved up the stairwell.

Still, the thought