And another glint of silver, closer— Valdrek. Slowly, he crept toward the Wilderwood, keeping low to the dark ground between the twisted grove and the edge of the forest. His sword was drawn and at the ready, his eyes trained on Solmir’s back.
Satisfied that Eammon was held, Solmir turned to Red, eyes admonishing. “Things would’ve been over and done by now if it weren’t for you.” Solmir shook his head. His long hair shifted in the night breeze, and the moonlight caught the raised ridges of small scars on his brow, equidistant and deliberate looking. “If you’d stayed in Valleyda, he would’ve given up.”
“He wouldn’t.” Red tried to push up from the ground, but her body wouldn’t obey. “He didn’t give up before me. He wouldn’t give up after.”
His expression was one she hadn’t seen him wear before, no longer anger or boredom or contempt. It was almost sorrow, and she hated him for it.
Something shot past his head— Lyra’s tor. She and Fife had joined Eammon at the edge of the Wilderwood, as unable to leave it as he was. Lyra’s face was a snarl, her teeth bared.
“That was foolish.” Solmir sighed. “Once the Kings arrive, you’ll want a weapon.”
The Kings. Five of them, including Solmir. Five priestesses in the grove. And Kiri, headed toward them with a knife in her fist.
“Keep her from killing them!” Red yelled to whoever would listen, craning her head back just in time to see Kiri slip between the inverted trees. “You have to keep her from killing them!”
Her voice, hoarse from pain, might as well have been a whisper. But still, it was enough to make Solmir turn, enough to make his eyes scan the tall grass. Enough to make him notice Valdrek, crouched and waiting for an opening.
Valdrek didn’t hesitate, once he knew he was caught. The silver rings in his hair glinted as he leapt, roaring, swinging wildly.
Almost casually, Solmir lifted his dagger and punched the hilt against Valdrek’s temple.
Eammon lunged against the Wilderwood, shouting, but it held him fast. Red tried to get up, tried to struggle toward Valdrek, but something that felt like a wall of ice slammed her back down.
Tears trailed into her hair, her back pressed flat to the ground. It was the same cold Kiri had attacked her with in Valleyda, that made her organs feel iced and her throat rimed in frost, but stronger and heavier, born of years in darkness rather than blood on branches— Shadowlands magic, all that power twisted up into a prison, leaching into him as he served his sentence. The same magic he’d tried to use against her in the dungeon, and this time she wasn’t full enough of golden light to fight it back.
Pain still roared through her, agonizing, contorting her muscles as the Wilderwood fell and fell. She cried out, though her mouth tried to clamp around it.
“It’s not so tangled in her as it is in you.” Solmir spoke casually, voice pitched to carry over the yards between him and Eammon as if it was a tavern table. “The forest in your Lady is new, easy to uproot. You know how to fix this. How to stop her pain.”
“No!” Red arched up off the ground, nearly in half, craning so her eyes could meet Eammon’s. “No.”
A rumble, a deep reverberation that make her teeth clatter together. Red tried to aim her blurry eyes toward the grove, just enough to make out a white-robed figure falling to the ground, trailing scarlet.
The first priestess, dead. Four to go.
“She’ll die if you don’t.” Solmir gestured toward the grove behind them, the distant horror happening on its roots. As he did, another priestess fell.
Two down.
“Bringing them through— what they’ve become— will kill the Wilderwood and everything attached to it. It’s been part of you too long, Eammon. There’s no way for you to escape it.” Solmir’s hand touched Red’s hair, lightly, and she flinched away as much as she could, when her body was a battleground for the rip of the roots and the cold weight of shadowed magic. “But she can.”
Eammon’s chest heaved. His eyes shone above the agonized rictus of his mouth. Fife had pulled Lyra away, had an arm wrapped around her shoulders as they stood and watched in horrified, helpless silence.
“Why?” Eammon’s voice sounded shredded. “Why bring the rest of them through? They brought you down with them! They’re the reason for all of it!”
Solmir’s eyes were like chips of ice. For a moment, his mouth worked, like he might actually offer an explanation. But then he shook his head, almost defeated. “Because it’s inevitable. Their return is inevitable.” A pause, his voice growing serrated edges. “And the longer they have to prepare, the worse it will be.”