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

Despite her aching head and still-watery legs, Red’s lip twitched to a hopeful smile. “He’ll wake, then? We did it?”

Eammon’s lips pressed together, strange-shaded eyes alight with some layered emotion she couldn’t quite read. “We did it,” he said quietly, pressing ahead toward the gate.

Red trailed after him, lips still curved. She’d helped. She and Eammon had healed Bormain, cleared him of shadow-rot. Maybe that meant they could heal the whole Wilderwood.

But the smile faded as fragments of memory slipped in, the things Bormain said while still riddled with darkness. A name, in particular.

Solmir.

The first time Bormain mentioned the youngest of the Five Kings, Eammon had passed it off as ravings. She’d left it at that, albeit uneasily.

But for the man to mention Solmir twice made it seem like more than ravings.

Lear gave them an appraising look when they reached the gate. Loreth stood next to him, a full canvas bag clutched in her hands. She passed it off to Eammon in a hurry before slipping into the crowd, shooting Lear a conspiratorial glance.

Eammon sighed. “I assume you heard.”

“Don’t think too ill of her.” Lear cranked the lever that opened the wooden gate, the screech of hinges soft against the sounds of the bustling city. “An attempt to heal the shadow-rot is quite a lot to expect someone to keep to themselves. What’s the verdict?”

“It worked.” Eammon’s voice sounded like his throat was raw.

The only sign of Lear’s shock was the widening of his pale-blue eyes. “Well, shadows damn me.” A chuckle as he looked from Eammon to Red. “All hail the Wolves.”

Eammon didn’t reply. He shouldered the canvas bag, full of Fife’s requested supplies.

“You know you can always call on us, Wolf,” Lear said, the humor gone out of his tone. “If you find yourself needing help.”

“I appreciate it,” Eammon said as he walked through the gate. “But I think things are beyond anyone else’s help at this point.”

Lear’s expression went pensive once Eammon passed. “Watch him, Lady,” he murmured to Red. “The Wolf and the Wilderwood twine together so, and the weakness of one is the weakness of the other. He looks like he’s worn himself to frayed seams.”

“He does that.” Red watched the Wolf, a broad shadow against the distant forest.

Beyond the gate, Eammon stood stiffly, looking toward the northern horizon, away from the Wilderwood. Every line of his body seemed to strain forward, like he wanted to run in the opposite direction of the trees. But he couldn’t. The roots around his bones might as well have been shackles.

Red gave Lear a tight-lipped smile. He nodded, cranking the gate shut, muffling the sounds of the Edge.

Slowly, she walked to Eammon’s side. He didn’t look at her, eyes still trained on the hills to the north disappearing into a haze of fog and fading sunlight. After a moment, he turned toward the forest. Above, the sky shifted toward twilight to match the Wilderwood’s horizon, the two of them fading from blue and lavender to meet somewhere in violet.

Red followed him over the moss, fingers tapping nervously at the still-unfamiliar shape of the dagger on her thigh. “He mentioned Solmir again.”

“I’m aware.” His stride barely faltered.

“That’s twice now.” She paused, waiting, but he didn’t offer to fill the silence. “It seems like more than a coincidence.”

“Does it?”

The venom in his voice caught her off guard. Red stopped, yards away from the dark maw of the Wilderwood. “It means something. You know it, and so do I.”

Eammon stopped walking, but stayed silent. A breeze ruffled his hair.

“I don’t know if you’re trying to protect me, or if you just don’t want to bother telling me anything.” Her hands curled and released, loose fists that held nothing. “But I can only help you as much as you let me, Eammon.”

He’d half turned as she spoke, the line of his profile sketched dark against the trees and the encroaching edge of twilight— jaw rigid, a lock of escaped black hair hanging over his forehead. Red wanted to pummel him and pull him close at once, but settled for crossing her arms over her chest.

“In the old stories, Solmir was supposed to marry your mother.” She said it softly, like she could stitch the story together even with uneven seams. “She ran to the Wilderwood with Ciaran instead, and Solmir ended up trapped in the Shadowlands with the other Kings. But there’s more to it, isn’t there?”

Eammon’s sigh seemed to echo, to bounce off the trees at the edge of the Wilderwood. The battle within him was evident, to stay silent or to speak, but after one laden moment, the fists at his sides loosened, like holding them tight was suddenly too strenuous a task. A deep breath, and when the words came, they were threadbare. “He killed my parents.”

They’d had so many conversations about grief. Here was one more. Her hand was on his shoulder before she had the conscious thought, before she knew she’d moved forward. She half expected him to flinch away, but instead Eammon sagged into the contact.

He spoke faster, like a dam had been struck and the river was waiting. “My mother always felt guilty that Solmir shared the Kings’ fate. She didn’t think he deserved it, said he’d been caught up in their schemes without an escape. They’d been friends, apparently, before they were betrothed.” Eammon’s teeth set sharp against the word friends. “I heard Gaya and Ciaran talking about it sometimes. When they thought I wasn’t listening.” He shook his head. “Nearly a century and a half of the same circular argument.”

So nonchalant, the way he discussed centuries. His lifetime stretched over so many of hers, like the hundreds of years it took a sapling to fully grow— it made sense, when he was born to parents who made him shortly after they’d tangled themselves with a forest. Red had never thought to imagine Eammon as any different from the man she met in the library, not quite human, held in