When the vision finally came, it was blurry, even more than usual. Wherever Neve was, it was dark. She lay on her back, unmoving but for the slight rise and fall of her chest. Indistinct shapes flickered around her, but Red saw a flash of an auburn braid and a white robe, and someone tall with a face like smeared paint, shifting between one thing and the other.
Kiri and Solmir.
As she concentrated, the darkness above Neve slowly coalesced to a night sky, midnight blue, scattered with stars. Valleydan countryside sky. A line of deep violet split the horizon— the edge of the Wilderwood.
Slowly, Red came back to herself, relief making her breath shudder. “She’s alive. In Valleyda, but near—”
The words choked off into a scream of unexpected pain. It flashed down her spine, the roots around it twisting, branches spearing across the inside of her skin. Eammon’s eyes flashed, his hand reaching out as he tried to come toward her, but his knees buckled before he could, hitting the floor with a muffled groan.
“What are they doing?” Raffe’s voice, somewhere between shock and fear.
“The roots,” Fife breathed, face blanched.
Outside, a low keening noise, a gathering wind, and a crack of falling branches. The autumn colors muting, fading, winter seeping in again.
Eammon was on his knees, fist pressed against his side, jaw an agonized ridge. He tried to move, but another slice of pain lanced through them both, turned his forward motion into a fruitless spasm. Something cut away, something taken.
Raffe backed against the wall, wide-eyed. “What happened?”
“Wilderwood.” With teeth-baring effort, Eammon lurched toward Red, pulling her up with a steady hand despite the pain. His palms ran over her arms, looking for wounds. “They’ve taken more sentinels.”
It felt like a hundred knives, the way the forest skittered in her chest, the way it fought to close itself around the unimaginable tear— dozens of sentinels, ripped away at once. Her veins were a rush of sap, her heartbeat clattering against stretching branches, all of it agony.
At the bottom of the tower, the door banged open, footsteps rushing up the stairs. Valdrek topped the rise, Lyra behind him, both of them out of breath. “What is going on, Wolf? The Wilderwood was open when we entered, then an awful—”
He stopped cold, eyes wide as they took in Red’s and Eammon’s drawn faces and what they must mean. “Kings and shadows.”
“Apt.” Eammon’s lips were white. He steadied Red against him.
“They’re doing it,” she murmured. Words in a dungeon, before she took the roots—the Wilderwood will fall, the Kings will be freed. “Solmir is freeing the rest of the Kings from the Shadowlands.”
Outside, the Wilderwood’s keening had subsided, but the silence it left was almost worse. They’d left the tower, unsure how its magic-heightening influence might be affected by such violence done to the forest. Red leaned against Eammon, all but limping. Eammon walked tall, but pain lived in the line of his mouth.
Raffe pushed open the door to the Keep, and Red nearly collapsed on the bottom step of the staircase, teeth clenched against the sting of so many missing sentinels. Eammon leaned against the banister, his fingers white-knuckle on the newel post.
Lear had accompanied Valdrek and Lyra, and took a place near the wall, armed to the teeth with weapons that should’ve been ancient, glinting in the light of the burning vine. His blue eyes were sad and tired. “When I said you could always ask for help, Wolf, I was thinking more about finding material to rebuild the Keep, or maybe getting your input on crop rotation. Not the whole damn Wilderwood collapsing.”
“We were halfway here before it started.” Lyra, voice low, fingers on the hilt of her tor. “Everything was fine, then all of a sudden, it . . . tore.”
“It sounded like the trees were screaming.” Valdrek shook his head. “I’ve never heard the forest make that sound before.”
“We have to go to the border,” Raffe said from the shadow of the staircase. “We have to, if that’s where he has Neve.”
“The Wilderwood won’t let us out. Not now that I have the roots, too.” Red stood, though the effort drove her teeth together. “You’ll have to find her, Raffe.”
He nodded.
“Eammon, Fife, Lyra, and I can go as far as the tree line,” she continued. “Raffe will go look for Neve, and we’ll heal whatever breaches are close until he finds her.”
Eammon shook his head, slightly, like the movement hurt. “Solmir is there, Red. You can’t get that close—”