For the Wolf (The Wilderwood Books Book 1)

The cacophony was deafening after weeks of near-silence in the Wilderwood. Children ran and shouted, donkeys brayed, sheep bleated. Dirt roads branched off the stone-paved main path, leading to earthen huts with grass roofs, the wooden lintels carved with the same graceful arabesques as the gates. They’d called it a village, but this was a city, almost as large as the Valleydan capital. Centuries of explorers’ descendants, trying to make their own world since they couldn’t get into the one beyond the Wilderwood.

Beyond the thoroughfare, Red could glimpse fields full of crops, distant grazing animals. It appeared the cold and barren soil that made Valleyda difficult to farm wasn’t as much of a problem here. She wondered if it was some facet of magic, the Wilderwood making the land fruitful since it had them trapped here with no way to trade, relying only on what they could grow themselves.

No one seemed fazed by Eammon’s presence, but Red drew their attention. Women whispered behind their hands as they passed; children stopped in their games to watch with wide eyes. All of them wore old-fashioned clothes, in shades of mist and forest and earth.

“They’re looking at me like I have three heads,” Red murmured.

“You’re the first person from beyond the Wilderwood they’ve seen in a century,” Eammon replied. “Something with three heads would be less conspicuous.”

In a century, he said. Not ever. “So you brought the others here?”

He stiffened, just slightly. “Merra came once.”

“Only once?”

“It was all she had time for.” Eammon quickened his pace, and Red had to nearly run to keep up. Still, her eyes narrowed at his back.

The path opened into a wide market square, open-air stalls hemmed in by larger structures of wood and rock. Musicians gathered around a tree carved of stone in the square’s center, so realistic that Red half expected the leaves to rustle. A pretty girl with silver-blond hair to her knees whirled in graceful circles to the drumbeat. She winked at Eammon, but when her eyes caught on Red, she faltered in her spinning. A quick recovery, then she tossed Red a wink, too.

The square was loud and crowded, sellers hawking everything from livestock and produce to jewelry and furniture. Red tried and failed to keep from staring. “Is the Edge their only city?”

Eammon caught her arm, pulling her out of the way of a laden cart. He kept his hold once the cart passed, and Red made no move to pull away.

“There are a few others, farther from the Wilderwood,” he said. “Not many, though.” His eyes tilted up for a moment, like he was calculating in his head. “The whole territory is about the size of Floriane, I think.”

An entire country, hidden in fog and frozen in time. Red cocked a brow. “How do you know how big Floriane is?”

“I’ve seen maps, Redarys.”

“Not any recent ones, I’d wager. Geography has changed in the past five hundred years, Wolf.”

“Perhaps you can teach me, then.”

“Perhaps. You seem studious.”

“One of my many admirable qualities.”

“Bold that you think I meant it as a compliment.” But she grinned as she said it, and so did he as he lightly pinched her arm.

Eammon led them across the road, stopped before a stone building with a colorful stall set up in front. Bells hung from the corners, and swaths of fabric made the stall’s roof. Clothes were folded on tables and hanging from beams, a fluttering army of gowns in forest colors, made in designs out of the past.

A woman with charcoal-silver hair braided elaborately around her head smiled when she saw Eammon. A younger woman sat beside her, hair strawberry gold, worn loose and threaded with flowers.

Eammon nodded to the older woman. “Asheyla.”

“Wolf.” The woman’s blue eyes moved to Red, appraising and wondering at once. “And this must be the Lady. I’d heard you’d bestowed the title, finally.” She dipped her head. “Congratulations and blessings on your marriage, Lady Wolf.”

The title made Red’s spine straighten. “You can just call me Red.”

“I have one more thing to add to my tab,” Eammon said, gesturing to Red’s cloak. “Can you mend this?”

“I can mend anything, boy, even a cloak that looks like it’s been shredded for thread.” Asheyla looked Red up and down, scrutinizing. “It looks like everything else you ordered for her will fit. Someone”— her eyes flitted to Eammon— “didn’t give me precise measurements.” Gracefully, she turned toward the building, calling over her shoulder to the other girl. “I’ll be back momentarily, Loreth.”

The shop was empty, and the stone walls muffled the noises of the market outside. Wooden mannequins in the corners wore pinned-together gowns. Looms with half-completed bolts of fabric lined the back wall, and the counter held boot soles and strips of leather.

Inside, Asheyla gave Red’s cloak another once-over, pale brows pulling together. “Are you sure you don’t just want a new cloak?” she asked. “This one has enough holes that mending it will come to nearly the same amount of fabric.”

“Mended,” Eammon said from behind Red, close enough that his breath stirred her hair. A brief pause. “I’ll send Fife with more instructions.”

Her brow quirked, but Asheyla didn’t argue. Red shrugged out of the cloak, running the tattered length between her hands before handing it to the shopkeeper. Her reluctance to part with it must’ve shown on her face— the older woman’s expression softened. When she folded the cloak in her arms, she did it with obvious care.

“It’ll be good as new,” Asheyla said softly.

Red swallowed. “Thank you.”

A gentle nod. “The boots aren’t quite done,” Asheyla called over her shoulder as she crossed to the counter, where a stack of clothes sat tied with twine.

“Fife can pick them up,” Eammon said.

Asheyla chuckled. “Tell him I’ll find a bottle of wine Valdrek hasn’t watered down. He’s—”

A muffled roar cut her off, freezing the three of them in place. Caught between horror and madness and pain, the roar came again, this time with the sound of something scraping across stone. It reverberated from beneath their feet, somewhere under the floorboards. Red didn’t realize she’d grabbed Eammon’s arm until he made a small noise of protest when her grip tightened.

One more long scraping noise, one more roar. This one faded slowly, becoming almost a whimper at the end.

Eammon looked at Red like he thought she’d move away once silence fell. When she didn’t, he put his hand over hers on his arm, large and rough with scars. “How bad is he?” Softly, as if he was afraid of being overheard.

“He lasted two weeks in the tavern.” Asheyla used the same near-whisper as Eammon, slipping the clothes on the table into a rough-spun canvas bag with a drawstring top. “Bucked at the basement beams over and over until he finally snapped one. He’s been here ever since, but . . .” She trailed off, blinking to keep the shine in her eyes from spilling over.

Bormain. They were talking about Bormain, shadow-infected and weeping the last time she saw him. Something worse now.

Red swallowed past a dry throat. Part of her still felt like it was her fault. She’d healed only the breach, not the man. She’d left the job half done.

You begin and begin, yet never see it finished. The Wilderwood had screamed it at her, that night the corridor collapsed. It was right.

Eammon sighed, taking his hand from Red’s to rub at his temple. “Why has Valdrek not taken care of it?” It would’ve sounded callous were his voice not so pained. “If he still hasn’t improved, Ash, it will only—”

“He’s Valdrek’s son-in-law.” Asheyla’s voice was stern. “He’s family. Valdrek won’t . . . won’t take care of it unless there’s absolutely no chance of recovery. Elia would never forgive him.” The woman kept her eyes to her hands, busily tying packages in string, but all her awareness was on the Wolf, and her words came measured. “You’ve healed the shadow-infected before. Long ago.” Her eyes flicked up. “You’ve lived long, Wolf, but our stories live longer still.”

The line of Eammon’s jaw tightened. “If I could do it, I would,” he said softly. “But I can’t. Not anymore.”

Asheyla’s eyes darted from Eammon to Red, lips a thin line, but she stayed silent.

Eammon turned to the door. “We should go. Fife gave me an extensive list.” He walked past the threshold into the sunlight.

Asheyla’s eyes followed him, still puzzled, but once she turned her face to Red she’d arranged it in a tired smile. She held out the canvas bag filled with new clothes. “Come back if something doesn’t fit.”

Red slung the bag over her shoulder. It was heavier than it looked. She shifted from foot to foot, a question on her tongue she couldn’t quite shape.

“Before,” she began haltingly, “when Eammon . . . healed people. How did he do it?”

“I wasn’t born,” the older woman hedged, picking at a roll of twine. “I heard the tale from my mother. According to her, he could do it with a touch.” A sigh, a slight shake of her head. “But the Wilderwood wasn’t quite so weak then.”

Red thought of sentinels, of black rot and hands on trunks, sending light to conquer shadow. She nodded, gave Asheyla a smile, and followed the Wolf.

Outside, the sunlight made her blink, eyes still unused to brightness. Eammon leaned against a post on the porch, arms crossed, but when she emerged he pushed off. “Fife said we need—”

“We have to help Bormain.”

He stopped, a soundless sigh raising his shoulders and letting them fall.

Red walked down the short steps of Asheyla’s shop, stopping on the one below him. The stair gave him even more height on her, but she kept her spine straight. “I can help you heal him,” she said firmly. “Like I did with the sentinel. It’s the same concept, right?”

“It’s far more complicated than that, Redarys.” Eammon’s eyes were stern. “Chasing the shadow-rot out of a person is dangerous. It takes more power than I have anymore—”

“But you aren’t doing it alone.” Red shook her head. “You don’t have to do everything alone, Eammon.”

His mouth was a tight line, hair shadowing his eyes. There was something waiting in the space between them, something vast and terrifying, but it narrowed down to this: the itch in her fingers to smooth along his jaw. The certainty that her palm would never feel right again unless it swept his hair off his forehead.

Red dropped her eyes; his were suddenly too much for her. “Let me help you, and we can help Bormain. We can at least speak with Valdrek about it.”

He searched her face, lips slightly parted, as if looking for something he was both eager and terrified to find. Then he turned sharply, headed for the other side of the square. “Have it your way, Lady Wolf.”

A wooden building stood directly across from the stone tree. Music and raucous laughter could be heard even before they mounted the stairs, and when the doors opened, they wafted scents of sweat and ale.

“Valdrek is usually here.” Eammon shot her a warning look. “Stay close.”

A bar stood across from the door, packed with people drinking and laughing and playing card games. The floor near the band was clear of tables and chairs, and dancers swirled in time to the music, some more gracefully than others. Eammon’s broad figure cut through the crowd.

The back of the tavern was somewhat calmer, occupied by those more intent on drinks than dancing. Valdrek sat with his back to them, cards in his hand and a sizable pile of antiquated coins by his side. Red’s eyes widened. She hadn’t seen currency like that anywhere but a history book— it still featured the likeness of the last Krahl of Elkyrath, back before the country broke into city-states.

“Wolf,” Valdrek said, selecting a card. Then, as if sensing her presence, he turned, raised a brow. “Wolves.”

She didn’t recognize any of the other men at the table, faces ranging from interested to wary. Eammon jerked his head toward the corner, turning without looking to see if Valdrek would follow. Red hovered between them, lost in unfamiliar politics.

The older man heaved a sigh, setting down his cards. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I’ve a Wolf that needs attending to.”

Eammon sat down in the back corner, running a tired hand over his face. Red moved to follow, Valdrek behind her.

“It appears you’ve worn him out, Lady.” It could’ve been lascivious, but Valdrek sounded only curious. He gave her an assessing look as he brushed past, sinking into the chair across from Eammon. Brow furrowed, Red settled between them.

Valdrek had brought his tankard with him; he took a long swallow before setting it on the table. “Drinks, anyone?” He looked archly at Eammon. “Might improve your temper.”

“Sorry to pull you away from your cards.” Eammon sat forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. “I wasn’t sure if your fellow players were aware of the . . . the situation.”

He didn’t have to clarify what situation. Immediately the bluster drained out of Valdrek, sinking his shoulders. “We’ve kept it fairly quiet.” He shrugged, but the movement was pained. “The basement needed repairs after he got . . . agitated, but we passed the damage off as a wrestling match that got out of hand. Ash’s shop is stone-built and should last longer.” His mouth thinned, a spark of determination in his eye. “Until he gets better.”

Eammon made no comment, but his clasped hands tightened between his knees.

“We’re going to try to heal him.” Red made her voice as confident as she could. “Eammon and I.”

Valdrek didn’t hide his surprise. He sat back in his seat, brow climbing. “Can you do such a thing now, Wolf?” Ragged hope in his voice. “I wasn’t going to ask, with the Wilderwood so weak, but if you’re strong enough with the Lady’s help . . .”

“We can try,” Eammon said shortly.

An assessing look darted between the two of them before Valdrek threw back the rest of his ale. “Differences abound.” He snorted. “Marriage changes a man.”

Eammon’s jaw tensed. He stood in a rush, pushing his chair in behind him. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

Outside the shop, Valdrek told Asheyla the plan in a low voice. “I’d wait there,” he told her, pointing toward the tavern. “Just in case. If you want wine, let Ari know, and tell him to skip the watered-down stuff.”

Behind Red, Eammon stood still as the stone tree. He’d given Fife’s list to Loreth, Asheyla’s shopgirl, with instructions to have their supplies waiting with Lear at the gate.

“Healing someone shadow-infected is different from healing a sentinel.” He used the same low, even tone he did at their lessons, though every line of his body was held bowstring-tight. “You have to direct power specifically to the affected places, rather than just letting it all go.”

“Humans are somewhat more complex than trees,” Red said. She held out her palm so he could check it for wounds, a now-familiar routine.

Eammon took the proffered hand but didn’t inspect it, instead giving her a stern look from under lowered brows. “Don’t touch him.”

Red frowned. “Then how am I supposed to—”

“You touch me, I touch him.” Scars brushed against her knuckles as he lightly squeezed her outstretched hand. “I told you, it’s deft work, and it could be dangerous. You let your power go into me, I’ll let it go into him.”

Her lips twisted, but after a moment, she nodded. Eammon gave her hand one more squeeze, then dropped it, turning to follow Valdrek to the basement door.

It was thrice-locked, with a board nailed over it for good measure. Eammon and Valdrek hauled the board away, and Valdrek fished a key ring from his pocket.

“Restraints?” Eammon asked.

“All four limbs. Torso, too.” Valdrek said it like it pained him, a visceral reminder they were speaking of his kin. Red thought of the name Asheyla mentioned— Elia, who must be Valdrek’s daughter, Bormain’s wife. Her eyes flicked to Eammon, still and stoic next to her, and sympathy speared through her chest.

The last lock fell away. Valdrek sighed. “It isn’t pretty. Be prepared.”

The room was dim. Tiny slats in the walls high above provided the only light, dust motes dancing in the glow. A harsh smell hit Red like a wall as she stepped over the threshold after Eammon and Valdrek, acidic and cold, intense enough to make her press her arm against her nose. The room was small, barely big enough for the three of them to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, and the short ceiling nearly brushed the top of Eammon’s head.

In front of her, Eammon went rigid, stepping to the side as if trying to hide her in his shadow. Red pushed at his shoulder. After a moment of resistance, he moved enough for her to see.

They’d tried to make it as comfortable as possible, and that somehow made it worse. Bormain lay in a bed covered with thick blankets and surrounded by pillows, almost enough to hide the lengths of chain running from beneath the bedding to shackles set into the stone floor. One for each limb, and another that appeared to wrap around his middle, attached first to the bed frame and then to metal rings on the walls. Despite the restraints, there were gouges in the floor where he’d managed to scoot the bed from side to side. Red remembered the noises they’d heard above in Asheyla’s shop, and shuddered.

Bormain didn’t move. His eyes were closed, swollen black veins spidering from his eyelids to stretch down his face. The shadow-infected arm lay outside the blankets, at least twice its normal size and with skin fragile as a rotting fruit, staining the bedding dark and damp. The nails on his hands were hooked and overlong, the bones in his face too sharp.

The shadow-rot wasn’t just making Bormain sick. It was . . . remaking him.

The grit of Valdrek’s teeth was audible. “I haven’t let Elia down here in a week, since he started . . .” He didn’t finish.

Eammon’s expression was unreadable. He put out his hand, gently maneuvered Red back behind his shoulder.

She let him this time. Red leaned close, standing with Eammon before her like a shield. “Is he asleep?”

“Not sleeping.” The voice sounded like it came through a cut throat, thready and ragged. “The shadows stole my sleeping.”

Slowly, Bormain lifted his head. The angle of it had to be painful, restrained as he was, but he showed no discomfort. His smile stretched too wide, nearly ear-to-ear, and he closed his milk-blind eyes to take a long, exaggerated inhale. “Smells so sweet. Barren soil, rootless soil.” His eyes opened, snapped to Red, unnaturally quick. “There’s blood on the wood, rootless Second Daughter. Blood to open and blood to close, old things awakened. Eons of patience rewarded.”

Red fought the urge to press her face against Eammon’s shoulder, to block out the whole scene in his warmth and library scent. Instead she fumbled for his hand. “We’re here to help you,” she said, and the words came out clear even if they were quiet.

“Help me?” Bormain threw his head back, braying at the ceiling. The dark, swollen veins in his throat pulsed. “Sweet Wolves, poor Wolves, I’m not the one who needs saving. He’s waiting, they’re waiting, everyone will get their chance.” His head, still held at that unnatural angle, swung back and forth as he sang under his breath. “They wait and they spin, they spin nightmares new and old, remake the shadow and let the shadow remake them . . .”

Eammon glanced down at her, a question in his eyes, the expression easy to read. If she’d changed her mind, he’d take her out of here the moment she said so.

Red bit her lip, that sour guilt in her throat again. You begin and begin and never see it finished.

One nod, sharp.

With another burning look, Eammon started forward, moving almost soundlessly over the stone floor.

Bormain’s singing dropped to a tuneless hum, his eyes closed and his head swinging gently back and forth like he’d lost interest. Red took a deep breath of the stinking air and tugged at the power curled in her middle. It spiked upward, blooming toward her fingers and Eammon holding them, veins greening and the taste of earth faint on her tongue. They stepped forward carefully, soundless as possible, Eammon’s body drawn up like a spring set to snap.

Eyes still closed, Bormain stopped humming. “Your knotted string of death is fraying, Wolf-pup,” he said, his voice ringing clear and precise. “They have help now. They’re coming home, Solmir and all the rest.”

The name stopped both of them cold, Eammon with his hand half outstretched. Bormain’s laugh was broken and ugly. “So many endings, Wolf-pup, and you’ve seen them all—”

He was silenced by Eammon’s hand slamming over one of the only places on his body left untouched by shadow— his mouth.

Tendons stood out on Eammon’s neck as Bormain thrashed beneath his palm. “Do it,” he gritted through his teeth. “Red, if you’re going to do it, do it now.”

Her teeth drove together, and Red let forest magic cycle out of her, flowing instead into Eammon.

Like before, when they worked together to heal the sentinel, her mind’s eye beheld what her physical sight couldn’t. Her own power was dim in comparison with Eammon’s, only a thread running through her body, snaking in and out of her bones and organs. But Eammon— a riot of gold, light shaped like roots twisting through him, blooming, growing.

It almost made her stop, seeing how ingrained in him it was. Almost made her cut off the thin thread of her power when she remembered how it changed him, how it took him in pieces. Fear rioted, fear that somehow he’d be taken from her, and it would be her fault for making him do this and feeding power into the roots that grew beneath his skin. She opened her eyes with a gasp to see him looking at her, the shadow-sickened form of Bormain twisting on the bed beneath his green-veined hand.

“Don’t.” Clipped, focused, but with something in it that spoke of surprise, and a kind of longing. The whites of his eyes were wholly emerald. “Red, I’ll be fine, don’t stop.”

A deep breath, his scent of falling leaves and coffee and paper drowning out the sickroom stench. Then she closed her eyes, and gripped his hand like a lifeline, and let the power blooming out of her keep feeding into him.

Behind her eyelids, Bormain looked like a void. A complete absence of anything, a vaguely man-shaped hole in all that golden glow. At first, the magic flowing from Eammon seemed almost eaten by it, swallowed. Each golden thread was deft and deliberate, like Eammon was sewing something up, mending a sock rather than a man. Eventually, the golden glow began to overtake the shadow, consuming it and canceling it out. She felt Eammon sway, heard Bormain’s pained gasp as, slowly, light eclipsed the dark.

When Eammon finally let go of her hand, Red opened her eyes.

The man on the bed looked waxen as a corpse, but his skin was no longer threaded through with darkness. The nails on his hands were short and pale, not clawed, and the bones of his skull were the right proportions again. His chest rose and fell, shallow but steady.

Eammon hunched over the bedframe. Bark on his forearms, evident from where his sleeve had rucked up, height made greater by the magic he’d called. His veins were green, in his wrists and his neck and the bruised skin below his eyes, but darkness shot through them like heartbeats, flickering shadows.

“Eammon?” Alarm made her voice sharp.

He shook his head, once. Ground his teeth in his jaw. Slowly, slowly, the darkness stopped beating in his veins. They turned to green, then faded to blue, changes and shadow leaching out of him like blood from a wound. He shuddered, a grimace drawing his lips back from his teeth.

Pain has to be transferred. Eammon had taken the shadow-rot, let it cycle into him, and drowned it out in Wilderwood magic.

Her knees suddenly turned to water, exhaustion and relief coming like a fist to the temple. Red sagged sideways, and Eammon wrapped his arm around her, his veins now the color a man’s should be, though the whites of his eyes still held a tracery of green. “I’m fine,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m fine.”

“You did it.” Tears streamed down Valdrek’s cheeks, and reverence lit his face. “By the Kings and all the shadows, you did it.”

But Red didn’t hear him, because she’d fainted dead away.