For the Wolf Hannah Whitten (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📖

“You’re lucky the boy’s improved his control,” Arick continued. “He tried to hold the roots back from the others, but the Wilderwood had its way in the end. You’re the first who’s had a choice in the matter.” His eyes narrowed. “You could’ve left at any time, saved your sister a world of heartbreak. There was never any Wilderwood in you at all, not enough to make any difference. You’re rootless, Redarys. Nothing but bones and blood.”

Arick crouched so they were level. Surely it was just the dim light and the haze in her head, but his eyes seemed strange, not quite the right color.

“You won’t let yourself be saved.” His not-quite-right eyes searched hers. “That’s what he told me. Not by him, not by Neve. Determined to be a martyr.”

“Let her be a martyr, then.” Fervor in Kiri’s voice, in her claw-like hands. “Her only use was to keep the Queen in line, but she couldn’t even do that.” She pointed to the handprints on her throat. “She went rogue, we need to—”

“Kiri.” Her name was a slap of sound, and the High Priestess dropped her hands like a cowed child. Her eyes were ice chips.

“We’ll keep her here,” Arick continued. A pause, and his tone softened. “Neve’s already lost too much. I won’t let her lose her sister, too.”

It should’ve been comforting, but his face made it clear— Neve was the only thing saving Red. There was bitter, spiking irony to it.

“Besides,” Arick murmured, almost to himself, “she could prove useful yet. I’ll need total surrender from the Wolf for this to work.” His eyes caught the light of the sconce, glittered cold. “He’s familiar with bargaining.”

“Arick.” It was a whisper, a plea. Red’s cracked lips tasted of copper. “I don’t understand.”

Behind Arick, the shadowy mass in the other cell moved. Groaned.

Kiri whirled, poised to strike, but Arick held out an open palm. “No.” His eyes cut from the priestess to Red, considering. Then he shrugged. “Let her see. I tire of holding the illusion.”

Arick’s arm fell, and the lines of his face rearranged, seeping shadow like smoke.

Red blinked, sure her head injury affected her vision. But the drip and merge of his features continued, like water thrown over a still-wet canvas. A sharper jaw than Arick’s, edged in a short, dark beard. Long hair, past his shoulders, somewhere between brown and gold. Pale skin, blue eyes. Handsome, in a cruel way.

Not-Arick rolled his shoulders, a slight smile picking up the side of his mouth at her horrified expression. Next to him, Kiri’s teeth shone predator-bright. “Ask his name,” she whispered, fierce and low. “Ask his name, and tremble for it.”

The man grinned at Red. “I think she knows.”

“Solmir.” It came out hoarse, it came out sure.

The youngest of the Five Kings nodded. “Astute.” He stepped to the side, waved a regal hand at the cell bars behind him. “But another desires an audience, Second Daughter.”

The shadows coalesced, like he’d given them permission, and became a body. Familiar eyes blinked against torchlight. A familiar face, though grimed in blood and dirt. Arick’s hands, covered in cuts, closed around the bars. “Red?”

Red tried to make a sound, tried to call to him, but all she could muster was one sob. Her bleeding hand pressed against her mouth. “Arick,” she murmured, tear tracks clearing dirt and dust from her cheeks. “Arick, what have you done?”

“What he had to.” Solmir stood like a jailer, arms crossed and brows low. “He saw a chance, and he took it. We all do foolish things for love. To feel like we have a purpose.” He nodded to Kiri, who picked up a battered cup from the floor, the edge rusty with old blood. “Go on and tell her, Arick. I’m sure she’ll want the whole sordid tale.”

Arick’s eyes closed. He titled his forehead against the bars. “I bargained,” he said quietly as Kiri picked up his hand, as she cut into it with a tiny dagger. “I went to the Wilderwood, I found one of the white trees near the border. It . . . leaned. Leaned over, like it was about to fall, like the ground around it was close to giving way. That’s how I could touch it. Just one branch. Just barely.” He shook his head, slowly. “It hurt, the hum, like someone’d stuck a whole sawmill in my ribs. But I got close enough.”

“Why?” She shook her head, stars spangling in her eyes. “How? The Wilderwood doesn’t bargain anymore, it’s not strong enough.”

“But the things in the Shadowlands are.” It didn’t sound like a boast. It sounded weary. Solmir leaned his back against the wall.

“A living sacrifice.” Kiri smiled beatifically. “A living sacrifice, fresh from the vein.”

Black and scarlet welled from Arick’s palm, shadow swirling through his blood as it dripped into the cup.

“And once blood has been used to bargain with the Shadowlands,” Kiri continued, “it can be used to invert the Wilderwood. The boy’s shadow-tainted blood awakened the branches in the Shrine, set them to a nobler purpose. And all who offered more blood afterward reaped a harvest of power, just as promised to me in my long years of praying.” Apparently satisfied, she shoved Arick’s limp and bleeding hand back through the bars, rounded on Red. “You think you’ve won by defiling our grove, cursed thing? You know nothing. Five lives are—”

“Shadows damn us, woman, do you ever stop talking?” One long-fingered hand covered Solmir’s eyes. Kiri’s teeth snapped shut.

“That’s why you don’t have a shadow.” Instinct made her hands curl despite her injuries, and a new wave of pain drove Red’s teeth together. “You’re Arick’s shadow. And he’s yours, when he has to be.” She shook her throbbing head. “All this, and you aren’t really here.”

“Oh, I’m here.” Solmir’s hand dropped, eyes glittering. “Here enough.”

“The white tree was easy to see.” Arick spoke low and almost slurred, like he was recounting a dream. An exorcism, the whole bloody tale spinning out of him now that