For the Wolf (The Wilderwood Books Book 1)
For the Wolf: Valleydan Interlude VII

The sunlight in the gardens hurt Neve’s eyes after so long in the Shrine. Unthinkingly, she lifted her hand to shade her face. Blood smeared over her cheek, the new slash in her skin tugging with a slight but aching pain.

With a curse, she rubbed the blood away, then peered at her palm. She’d taken care to slice herself in different places every time; thin, precise cuts of Kiri’s dagger. They never seemed to completely heal.

Stealing pieces of the Wilderwood was bloody work.

Bleeding on the branches pulled at the rest of the tree they’d been cut from, made them fall away from the forest to appear instead in the cavern of the Shrine. They grew strange and inverted, resisting, but they came. There were at least a dozen now, an unnatural forest encased in rock, growing from stone and watered with blood.

And if you offered the blood, you received the magic, sharp and cold as daggers of ice. Magic from the Shadowlands that left frost on your fingers, darkened your veins. Felt like winter slithering around your bones.

Magic she’d finally stopped denying herself.

She’d resisted, for a time. This strange power was never her objective— Neve didn’t care about anything other than weakening her sister’s prison, making a way for her to return. But the more she bled for it, the more it tugged at her, shadowed and seductive. Promising control, at least over this one thing.

At the end of it all, she couldn’t make Red run, and now she couldn’t make her leave the Wilderwood. But she could wrench power from it. Here was something that rested entirely in her grasp, and the more time went on, the more foolish it seemed not to wield it.

With a touch, Neve could wither a flower. A flick of her fingers could turn a leaf from green to brown, and sometimes it seemed like shadows grew longer when she drew near them, like they were waiting for her command. The delicate tracing of darkness in her veins took longer to fade away each time she used it.

And Red was still gone.

Guards were stationed in the village nearest the border, watching for her return. Kiri said they had to be cautious— even if the bonds holding Red to the Wilderwood loosened enough for her to escape, they might not let her free entirely, and there was no way to know how she might be altered by them. But nothing emerged from the edge of the trees.

Frowning, Neve gestured at a green bush by the path. Cold across her fingertips, veins running like ink. The leaf curled in on itself, brown and brittle, before dropping to the path.

Kiri emerged from the shadows of the Shrine, blue eyes avid as she deftly wrapped her bleeding palm. She always cut deep, gave more blood than necessary. Neve didn’t think it gave her any more magic than it gave the rest of them. She thought Kiri just enjoyed bloodletting.

Other priestesses filtered silently into the gardens behind Kiri, bandaging their own wounds. Around each neck, a branch-shard pendant, white bark brushed with subtle shadow.

The new High Priestess reached up with copper-smeared fingers, lightly touched the matching pendant at her neck. Her eyes fluttered closed, a brief moment of calm, before opening again. A slight smile crossed her face, untouched by any sharpness, only seen in these brief moments when the blood was fresh.

Neve’s own pendant was still in the drawer of her desk. She hadn’t touched it since that day she accidentally marked it with her blood, the day she had that overwhelming sense of being watched. Kiri seemed irritated by this quiet rebellion at first, but didn’t push. Arick, who for reasons unknown to her had never received an odd necklace of his own, seemed almost . . . relieved.

But the other priestesses still wore theirs, each pendant produced by Kiri after they’d made their first blood offering, wielded the magic of the Shadowlands for the first time. Neve didn’t know where she got the wood; it wasn’t from any of the trees now crowding the Shrine. She didn’t ask.

News of the changes in the Order had trickled slowly across the continent. Not the concrete details, but how they were doing more to free the Kings than just sending Second Daughters, how the candles in the Shrine had changed from scarlet to shadowy gray. Neve had braced for backlash, but it turned out Kiri was right. Whatever Valleyda decided, the other Temples fell in line, especially as the rumors of what they’d done in Floriane Harbor spread.

None of them knew the full scope of what was happening here— Neve didn’t even know how one would begin to explain it— but some priestesses from other countries were curious enough to come to Valleyda, to be part of the movement. The Order was still smaller than it had been before banishing dissenters to the Rylt, but its growth was slow and steady.

One of the priestesses exiting the Shrine carried a bloodstained cup— Arick’s daily contribution. Neve had never known him to be squeamish, but recently he’d either sent his sacrifice with a priestess or brought the cup himself, rather than offering straight from the vein. It still worked. Blood was blood, and Arick’s was what had woken the branch shards in the first place, made them able to draw the white trees out of the forest.

“The Consort Elect will arrive shortly to observe the new arrival,” Kiri said, coming level with Neve. “Are you planning to stay?”

She wasn’t. Neve was headed to the garrison, where she would ask Noruscan, her captain of the guard, if he’d received any reports from the Wilderwood. Kiri knew this. Still, she asked, like she was daring Neve to come up with a different answer.

“I’m retiring for the evening.” Neve turned away, headed down the path. “Tell Arick to meet me in my chambers, when you’re finished.”

She needed to talk to him. Arick was uncharacteristically cautious about Red, too, warning Neve that the woman who returned might not be the woman they’d lost, that the binds of the Wilderwood were difficult to untangle. The way he spoke about her was almost cold. It made Neve wonder why he was doing this, sometimes, when she had the energy to wonder such things, but Red and Arick had always been a complicated equation. The threads binding them all were wound in inextricable knots.

She was halfway down the path when Kiri spoke again. “We made you a Queen for many reasons, Neverah. You seem to only think of one.”

Her footsteps faltered, stopped.

“Not just to bring Redarys back.” Kiri’s voice snapped on Red’s name. “Not just for revenge against the Wolf. For the restoration of our gods. I begin to worry that you might falter in your work should your sister reappear.”

Would she? Neve didn’t know. But the cold magic coiled in her palms felt like reassurance, like safety and control, and that would be hard to give up. “That won’t happen.”

“I certainly hope not.” A pause, and Kiri’s voice slanted low. “Perhaps we were too hasty, in the making of your reign. In the making of you.”

The words recalled a familiar idea, a dark shape in a dark room Neve kept carefully closed off. It haunted the corners of her mind when she couldn’t sleep, a shadow of a thought that wouldn’t leave her alone.

So Neve didn’t think. Instead, she strode to the priestess. She touched Kiri’s arm and let all that strange, dark power go.

It had been an accident, the first time she did it, touching the back of Arick’s hand to ask him to pass the wine. Cold had sparked between them, like recognizing like. It was enough to make him yelp.

She’d tried to apologize. He’d shaken his head. “Nothing to be sorry for.” His fingers had twitched on the stem of his wineglass. “You’ve taken to this in ways I couldn’t have imagined, Neverah.”

Her cheeks had flushed, inexplicably. Neve turned to her own wine, but she’d felt his eyes on her, glinting with an emotion she couldn’t read.

Now she meant the release of this cold magic to hurt. And the hiss of breath between Kiri’s teeth said it did.

“You didn’t make me.” Neve curled her fingers like claws. Frost crusted her palms, her veins inked black. “Whatever else you’ve done, you didn’t make me.”

Blue eyes narrowed. “I gave you power, Neverah. Don’t forget that.”

“You showed me where it was. I took it myself.” Her grip tightened. “There was no giving, there was only taking.”

She let go of the priestess’s arm. A bluish handprint was left behind, like frostbite.

Kiri covered the mark with her other hand. “Don’t presume to take too much, Your Majesty,” she murmured. “This is bigger than you. Bigger than your sister. And even if she does return, she’ll be tied to the Wilderwood in ways you don’t understand. If you want her back— fully— you need me.”

It worked a shudder through her spine, to know Kiri was right. “We’ll see.” Neve turned sharply on her heel, pulling the hood of her black cloak over her head, and left the High Priestess behind.

The garrison was nearly empty. Half the fighting force was in Floriane, guarding against the eternal threat of uprising, and more were at the border of the Wilderwood, watching for any sign of Red’s return. It was probably foolish to leave the capital so lightly guarded.

Neve flexed her hands. The grass growing through the cracks in the cobblestones browned as frost limned her fingers. Not so lightly guarded after all, perhaps.

Noruscan waited near the door, like always. Neve peered up at him from beneath her hood— a poor attempt at disguise, but enough for the short distance. “Anything?”

“Not today, Majesty.” There was a note of relief in his voice, and it set her teeth on edge. They’d always feared Red, thought her more relic than girl, proof that the world was wider and more terrifying than they’d prefer it to be. A flicker of that same fear twisted to Neve now.

Part of her liked it.

“When she comes,” Neve said, an echo of how she always responded, “bring her to me.”

The commander nodded, just like he always did.

Her errand complete, Neve swept toward her rooms. She hadn’t moved when she became Queen— sleeping in the same place Isla died didn’t sit well with her. Dinner was already waiting on a cart before her desk. When she took meals at all, she took them here.

Someone else waited here, too. Forearms braced on his knees, head bowed.

Raffe.

Neve’s pulse jumped. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Raffe. These days were a blur of bleeding and planning, little food and less sleep. Her hands went to her hair, the hollows of her cheeks— she didn’t spend a great deal of time looking in mirrors these days, but she knew she didn’t look well. She hadn’t thought to care until now.

“Forgive me for intruding,” Raffe said, still looking at his hands.

“You aren’t intruding.” She pressed her back against the door, spine straight against the rush of feeling the sight of him brought. Sorrow, heat, shame.

They stayed like that, anchored in opposite corners. Neither of them knew how to navigate the space between.

Raffe sighed as he stood, a sound deep enough to drown in. His eyes went to her cut palm, then away. “Spending time in the Shrine again?”

Neve closed her hand to a fist. The edges of her cut stung. “Order business.”

Raffe made a low noise in his throat. Tentatively, like he thought she might rebuff him, he took a step closer. When she didn’t object, he closed their distance and took her hand.

He tilted her palm back and forth, even though they both knew he could see nothing in the dim light. This was just an excuse for touch.

“I’m worried for you,” he murmured.

And Neve couldn’t dispute it. Couldn’t tell him not to worry, couldn’t pretend there was nothing to worry about.

So instead, she kissed him, because Kings and shadows damn it, maybe one thing could go the way she wanted it to, if only for a moment.

Raffe never did anything by halves, and kissing was no exception. By the time he pulled away, making space for fears and misgivings to come rushing back, Neve was breathless, hair mussed and lips bruised.

Raffe tilted his forehead against hers. “Whatever you’ve done,” he whispered, “it’s not too late to undo it.”

“I can’t.” Had she thought of undoing it? Maybe, deep in the night, when the darkness of unwanted thoughts loomed too large to ignore. “Raffe, I have to do this. If it can free Red—”

“Red isn’t here.” His whisper was fierce, and Neve pressed her forehead farther into his, like she could drown it out. “You can’t bring her back. She’s gone.”

Her fingers dug into his back, and she kissed him again, not gently. A kiss to swallow things. For a moment, he let her, then he broke away, his fingers winding in her hair.

“Neve.” He pulled back enough to look in her eyes. “There is nothing you could do to make me stop loving you, no matter how terrible. You know that, right?”

The word was a thud in her heart, heavy and light at once. The first time he’d told her, and it was under the pall of this.

Kiri’s words echoed in the garden—perhaps we were too hasty in the making of your reign.

When she spoke, it was barely sound. “What do you think I’ve done, Raffe?”

“I have truly awful timing, don’t I?”

Raffe released her, stepping back like she was a coal that could burn. Neve turned in a whirl, nerves and inexplicable guilt twisting in her stomach.

Arick stood in the doorframe, a smile with no warmth on his face. The look in his eyes wasn’t anger, exactly, but they held a strange light as he looked from Neve to Raffe. “It’s good to replace you here, Raffe. I’ve been meaning to speak with you.”

“It’s been a while.” Raffe lifted his chin. “You’ve been busy.”

“Both of us have.” Arick dipped his head toward Neve, indicating the other half of both. “Kind of you to help your Queen relax.”

Moonlight reflected on Raffe’s bared teeth, but it was Neve who stepped forward. “Arick. Don’t.”

He stopped mid-stride, a momentary flicker of surprise on his face. The bright moonlight gave his eyes a strange blue cast. “Apologies.”

Fraught silence. When had it become like this with the three of them? Furtive and secret and harsh, when it had been easy once?

Neve swallowed against a bladed throat.

“You said you needed to speak with me,” Raffe said finally. “Speak.”

Arick’s grin was lazy, but his eyes were sharp. “What are you doing here?”

A beat of surprise. Then Raffe sighed. “Look, I understand that you and Neve—”

“Not that.” It didn’t sound entirely true, like there were waiting emotions that had to do with the kiss he’d interrupted, but Arick wasn’t addressing them now. “What are you doing in Valleyda, Raffe?”

Raffe’s eyes narrowed.

“You’ve known all there is to know about trade routes for years now. Your family is eager to have you home.” Arick shrugged. “Don’t you want to see them?”

No answer at first, Raffe’s eyes flickering between Arick and Neve. “Of course I do,” he said quietly. “But I wanted to be here for Neve, after . . . after everything.”

“You’ve certainly done that.” Arick was so different lately, but the three of them had known one another long enough that she recognized his pain when she heard it.

Her puzzled gaze darted to him, made shadowless by the wash of moonlight. He looked almost as taken aback by that pain as she was.

Raffe looked to Neve, swallowed hard. “We’ll speak later. Remember what I said, Neve.” He spared one final glance for Arick, then walked out. The door closed behind him.

Neve slumped into her desk chair, forehead in her palm.

There was something almost unsure in the way Arick held himself, lingering in the center of the room. The discomfort looked odd on his frame, usually languid and nonchalant. “You should eat.”

“Not hungry.”

He didn’t press. From the corner of her eye, Neve saw him cross his arms. “What was he asking you to remember?”

A strange slant to his voice, as if he both wanted and didn’t want her to answer.

She didn’t. Instead, she asked a question of her own, giving words to the dark thing in her head, the suppositions that kept her awake. “Arick, what happened to my mother?”

A moment of lead-heavy silence. “Why would you ask that?”

And that was an answer in itself.

Neve’s head sank lower. A low, pained sound escaped from behind her teeth. She should’ve known. Isla’s sickness, how it came on so fast . . . she should’ve known.

The worst part was that a piece of her had. Had recognized that something strange was happening, and ignored it, because it got her closer to what she wanted.

Her sister, home. Some Kings-damned control.

She heard Arick’s footsteps cross to her, felt the shift in the atmosphere as he reached out a hand. He didn’t touch her, as if he knew that would be a bridge too far, but she felt his desire to. A deep, begrudging ache to comfort.

“And the High Priestess?” She stared at her hands, interwoven like vines, bloodlessly clutched. “Her, too?”

“Yes.”

Not twists of fate. Not proof she was right. Murders. “Who else knows?”

“Only Kiri.” A pause. “Kiri killed them both.”

Kiri, with her disapproving mouth, her smugness. There from the beginning, orchestrating the fall.

She heard him swallow. “My plan didn’t include so much death, but it . . . it served its purpose. I didn’t tell you because it wouldn’t have made a difference.” His hand finally moved, landing lightly on hers. It was cold, but she didn’t pull away. “We do what we have to do.”

An echo of the night after Isla died. Not the night everything changed, but the night they crested the hill of it and began careening down the other side. She’d set the wheel in motion, and now she had to hold on until the end was reached.

A deep breath. Numb lips. “We do what we have to do.”

All this death had to pay for something.

“You are an extraordinary woman, Neve.” He used her shortened name so rarely these days. Every time he did, it came out like something he wasn’t sure he was allowed to say. “You’ve risen to every challenge, you’ve held up under burdens no one should have to bear. You are a better Queen than this place deserves.” His thumb twitched slightly, like he wanted to run it over her knuckles. He didn’t. “You are too good for this.”

Neve looked at Arick, confusion and uncertainty freezing her in place. In the silver light through her window, his eyes looked almost blue instead of green.

He squeezed her hand, once, before dropping his. “It will be over soon.” Then Arick bowed, and slipped out into the dark.