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

hair away from her face. “So I’m not sad about my mother’s death, and I’m a murderer.” She gave him the shaky edge of a smile, shattering before she could make it whole. “Two terrible confessions in one night.”

“Nothing about you is terrible,” Eammon murmured. “I’ve told you that before. You should believe it.”

The moment seemed to stretch as they sat there, close and warm on one bed. Then Eammon stood gracelessly, running a hand through his hair. He picked up the glass of wine on the desk and took a sip before handing it to Red. “Fife is attempting soup. Do you want some?”

“I think I just want to sleep.”

Eammon nodded, headed to the staircase. “Good night, then.”

“You have to sleep, too.”

He stopped, glanced over his shoulder with a raised brow.

Red took a swallow of wine. “No more all-nighters,” she said firmly. “You’re exhausted, Eammon.”

“I promise I will sleep.”

“Here. With at least a proper blanket. Not slumped over a table in the library.”

The heavy brow climbed higher, the corner of his lip following. “Any other orders, Lady Wolf?”

Her cheeks flushed, but Red angled up her chin. “Not at present, Warden.”

Eammon inclined his head in mock deference. Then he disappeared down the stairs.

Though not Meducian and certainly watered, she finished the wine all the same. Red settled into bed, movements stirring wafts of old books, fallen leaves.

But when she closed her eyes, she thought of Arick.

Arick, who was now the Consort Elect to the Queen, not just the First Daughter. Arick, passionate and brash, whose brain was the last organ he made decisions with.

No part of her was jealous, not anymore. Never truly had been— their relationship was one built of friendship and convenience and aching loneliness, and she knew it wouldn’t last. The complicated feelings she’d had for him were stars in a noon-bright sky, memories drowned in new light.

But if her feelings for Arick were faded shadows, her feelings for Eammon were the pitch black of a room she hadn’t had the courage to explore. The door was cracked, but if you didn’t look too closely, you didn’t have to think about what waited inside.

Slowly, the crackle of the fire lulled her to sleep, thinking of shadows and cracked-open doors.

Valleydan Interlude VI

T he cloak was far too large, and Neve felt like a child in it, measuring her steps as she walked toward her silver throne. Her gown was silver, too, and so was the dagger strapped to her belt, all heavy pieces of ceremony. Behind her, two priestesses clutched the cloak’s black velvet edge, angling it so the silver-stitched names of former queens along the hem caught the light. The threads of her own name were loose, embroidered in a hurry.

Everything about this was hurried.

The coronation was just a formality— by the laws of Valleydan matrilineal succession, Neve was effectively Queen the moment the life left Isla’s body— but still, it seemed portentous, heavy. Her heart hammered like she’d run miles, even as her feet took small, precise steps, ever closer to the throne.

The morning after Tealia was confirmed as the High Priestess, Isla’s condition markedly worsened. No amount of cosmetics could hide it, and she took to her bed, barely stirring other than to take a sip of broth now and then. A week, and she was gone.

A week, and Neve went from First Daughter to Queen.

The thought was a constant in the back of her mind, movements clicking along like clockwork. My mother is dead. It echoed as she ate, as she met with Kiri and Arick and the others in the Shrine. It reverberated between her ears even now, as Tealia watched her approach with wary eyes, flanked by white and scarlet candles. My mother is dead, my mother is dead.

And an extra layer of resonance, buried as deep as she could send it: My mother is dead, and I’m not sad.

Neve’s emotions were an ocean of history and feeling, and sadness was just the foam. She thought for the thousandth time of that last dinner together, the tiny tells in the way her mother held her wine, how her eyes flickered— this had hurt Isla, too, hurt her in a way Neve couldn’t begin to fathom. Had some small, indefinable thing gone differently, maybe they could’ve been united in ending the Second Daughter tithe and bringing Red home.

Neve couldn’t think on that for long. It ached too much.

The strange, terrible synchronicity of it all still left her reeling. The High Priestess, then the Queen, sick then gone, making way for her plans even when she thought they’d gone awry. Neve was the eye in a storm of death; it swirled around her like a train on a gown.

Guilt climbed her throat as the silver crown descended to her brow, Tealia’s fingers flitting away so as not to touch her skin. Even though the deaths were natural, they still felt like rocks around her neck, waiting for a sea. She made herself cold against them because it was all she could do, the only way to shoulder the weight.

She’d cried for Isla only once. That first night, alone in her room, clutching the darkened wood-shard pendant Kiri had given her until it cut into her already-sliced palm.

There’d been a strange moment of stillness then. An awareness, cold across her shoulders, like someone peering in at her through a fogged window. A breath of sound, but it seemed to be only in her head, like a word that wouldn’t quite form.

She’d rubbed her blood off the branch shard, wrapped her hand in a bandage. Once the pendant was clean, the odd feelings passed. Still, she hadn’t touched the thing since, and she regarded the drawer she’d shoved it in as one might look at a snake’s cage.

Now, clad in heavy silver jewelry instead of wooden, she felt the heat of hundreds of candles making her cheeks flush. Half of them white, to symbolize the purity of her purpose, and half of