Too late for that.
“It won’t take you.” Eammon murmured it like an echo from the past, a battle already fought that had come to their doorstep again. “We didn’t do all this just for the fucking woods to take you, Red.”
But she felt the knowledge that it would take her humming between her bones, all the places the Wilderwood had seeped in and made her something else—not really a god, not really a monster, not really human. Red had never felt the weight of staring down the well of possible eternity, like she knew Eammon had. She’d assumed it would come with time, that the countless years would come to rest on her the same way they rested on her Wolf as they walked hand in hand into the belly of forever.
Their forever had been so short.
Kings, it hurt. Tears sprang to her eyes at the idea of leaving Eammon, of sending him back to solitude. It felt like a hole punched in her chest, like floating in the dark without a tether.
Is that what it would be like? Endless dark, and no one to be lonely with?
“Red, stop!”
Arms around her waist, strong and familiar, anchoring her to the ground—Red hadn’t even realized she was moving toward the wall of shadow until Eammon caught her.
“Stay with me,” he murmured, low and hoarse and pleading. “Red, stay with me.”
He understood now. He knew. The Wilderwood rustled in Red’s chest, another bloom of recognition—she needed it all. All of the forest, all of the magic. Saving Neve would require becoming what Eammon had become to save her, a circle coming back around to the point where it began.
The Wilderwood, entire. Girl made god.
At the edge of her vision, across the snow, Fife stiffened.
It would be different this time, someone becoming the whole of the Wilderwood, taking in every bit of its magic. She’d have to gather it all up, then walk into the shadow that was its antithesis and face whatever Neve had become in the dark.
Eammon didn’t care about the magic—he knew he could call her back, just like she’d called him, love a line they could always follow back to each other.
But that darkness. That shadow. Neve changed, Neve waiting.
That was where he didn’t want her to go. That was where she had to.
And neither of them knew if she’d come back out.
“It’s selfish of me to ask.” Eammon’s hand cradled her face, warm and rough; a tear broke from his green-haloed eye and ran down his cheek, bisecting the scar he’d taken from her in a library that smelled like coffee and leaves. Red had never seen Eammon cry. She’d seen him get close, but never this close, and that more than anything else made anguish chew at the bottom of her heart. “Shit, Red, I know it’s so selfish, but…” He stopped, leaned his forehead against hers. “Please stay,” he whispered. “I know you want to save her, and I want you to, but I can’t… there has to be a different way.”
A way that didn’t make her walk into that churning dark, leaving him forestless and human and alone. A way that let the world have both of the Valedren daughters, the one meant for the throne and the one meant for the Wolf.
Such a way didn’t exist. Hadn’t since Gaya died, since the Kings broke the Wilderwood. The world had never been big enough to hold both the First and Second Daughters unbound and free.
It had to change. This was the only way.
“I love you,” she said, murmuring it against his lips. They tasted like salt, and she didn’t know which of them it came from. “I love you.”
He didn’t say it back. He didn’t have to. The pained catch in his throat said enough.
Red kissed him. It wasn’t heated, wasn’t full of need the way so many of their kisses were. She refused to think of it as a goodbye, but it was a benediction, an ending of something. Her hand curled in his hair and tipped his head down to hers, and with a ragged sound, he wrapped both arms around her, crushed her to him so hard she nearly lost her breath.
Then Eammon went rigid. His spine stiffened, chin tilting up to the snow-filled sky.
Behind him, Fife, his hand on Eammon’s back, his face twisted in concentration. The Mark on his arm blazed green and gold, bright enough that he had to look away, painful enough that his mouth was a rictus.
His new bargain, the one none of them had understood until moments ago. Until realization snapped into place for Red, the Wilderwood growing and budding to help her know what was required.
Fife’s new bargain was to be a conduit. A vessel, however temporary.
The look Fife gave her was sorrow tinged with rage, but it was the Wolf he spoke to. “I’m sorry. Eammon, I’m so sorry, but I knew you wouldn’t give it to her, and she has to have it.”