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

it again. Something tall and straight beyond the tower, by the gate.

Another sentinel.

And next to it, on his knees— Eammon. The sharp edge of the dagger in his hand caught the dim lavender light.

“Wait!” Red gathered Merra’s skirts and rushed barefoot over the moss, the beat of her pulse a reminder of the blood on the floor. “Eammon, wait!”

His head shot up, shoulders straightening like she’d caught him at some forbidden thing. The blade angled toward his palm for a second longer before he pulled it back. When he stood, it was slow, as if his bones were too heavy for his muscles to lift.

Red stopped when she reached him, chest heaving. The sentinel sapling stood just inside the iron gate, stretching half again as tall as Eammon, the knobby beginnings of branches at its pale crown. “I saw the corridor,” she said between breaths. “Why did you move them all at once?”

“I had to.” Eammon’s fingers curled inward, as if to cover the slashes on his palm, leaking sap. “Fife checked them this morning. Shadow-rotted, halfway up the trunks.” He ran a tired hand over his face, left a streak of scarlet and green on his brow. “If I didn’t move them back to their places now, I wouldn’t have been able to at all. They would’ve rotted away where they stood. And I can’t . . . the Wilderwood can’t manage having that many weak spots.”

The shadow-infected sentinel stood thin and pale in the unnatural twilight, stretching toward the starless sky like it could escape the ground.

“I don’t understand. I’m using the magic. We got married.” Her fingers curled to a fist, like she’d strike the bone-white bark. “Why isn’t that enough?”

Eammon’s eyes traced her face, something sorrowful in them. He didn’t answer.

Red set her teeth. She took a tentative step forward, closing the fog-covered distance between them, and reached for the dagger in his hand.

Eammon snatched it back. “No.”

“What else am I supposed to do? My blood is the only thing that’s made any damn difference so far!”

His eyes flashed, grip tightening on the dagger. “No,” he repeated, the word like a shield.

“There has to be something else we can try, then. Something without blood.” Her lip worked between her teeth, eyes flickering up to his. “What about the magic?”

Eammon looked away, almost a flinch. A hunch in his shoulders, as if he was suddenly hyperaware of that extra inch of height that had never gone away.

The changes scared him. And he was ashamed. Of the alterations the Wilderwood made, or of his fear of them, she wasn’t sure.

“Maybe the changes won’t linger,” Red murmured.

“They did last time.” Kings, he sounded so tired.

“You were doing it alone, then. You won’t be anymore.”

It took him aback, made a swallow work down his throat. A dart of amber eyes, from the sentinel to her, like he was cataloging the distance between. “I don’t like you being close to them, Red,” he said quietly. “Even when there’s no cut for them to get into, no blood. I know what they want to do.”

“And I know you won’t let them.” She crossed her arms, fingering the embroidery on her sleeves. “We got married, and it made magic come easier, but me growing ivy in pots clearly isn’t helping you. So let’s try this.”

He didn’t like it. Every line of his face said so, the full lips pulled flat, the heavy brows lowered.

“I trust you.” She tried to say it lightly, but the words wouldn’t come out flippant. “You should trust yourself.”

Silence. Then Eammon sighed. Another swipe of his hand over his face, and when he looked at her this time, he finally noticed the dress, eyes going wide. “Where did you get that?”

“Lyra and I found it. I was tired of wearing your clothes.”

Color flared across his cheekbones. “Fair enough.”

Hairline fractures of shadow-rot crawled the sentinel sapling’s trunk, stretching farther than they had moments ago. Red turned to it like it was an oncoming army. “Tell me what to do.”

A heartbeat, then Eammon finally sheathed his dagger. “Show me your hands.”

She held out her upturned palms. Eammon took them in his, scars rough against her skin, peering closely for any trace of a wound. Satisfied, he dropped them, and cold air rushed in where his warmth had been. “The placement of every sentinel is deliberate.”

“Like bricks in a wall.”

“Right. Like bricks in a wall.” Eammon reached out, settled his hand on the white trunk. “In order to keep the Shadowlands from leaking through— in order to keep the wall strong— we have to put the sentinels back where they’re supposed to be. When we heal them, they return to their place.”

“So how do we heal them?”

“Directing magic to drive back the rot.”

“Through touch, I assume.” She didn’t know why it came out so low, so hoarse.

Eammon’s shoulders went rigid, his own answer graveled. “Yes.”

The old scars on his hands were white, a match for the sentinel’s bark beneath them. Instinctually, Red reached out, covered his hand with her own.

“The tree, Red,” Eammon murmured.

She lifted her hand, cheeks flushed. After a moment’s hesitation, she gently touched the sentinel.

It was like a current, as soon as her hand met the trunk, running through every limb and drawing up her spine. The power in her middle unfurled, blooming outward to press against her palm, a compass needle with the sentinel as north star. For a moment, her skin felt like an unwelcome barrier, holding back the union of something long torn apart. Red hissed between her teeth.

“What?” Eammon’s voice crackled with anxiety, his frame all coiled tension.

“It feels different than I thought it would.” She gave him a tiny smile. “What now?”

It seemed he might call the whole thing off, in the space between her question and his answer. Eammon’s jaw worked, gaze flickering from her hand to her face. Red firmed her lips.

Finally, he sighed. “If sentinels are bricks in the wall, we’re the mortar.” Eammon’s eyes shifted from her to the white