A strange grief shone in Eammon’s eyes, a regret she couldn’t quite make sense of. “I don’t understand,” he murmured. “I thought—”
“You don’t understand? I saw you the night it happened! You’re part of it! I saw your hands when it all rushed in, right before it stopped!”
That changed him, altered the harsh line of his jaw and the wounded light in his eyes. “It stopped.” As if the words had been the scaffolding that held him fast, his shoulders dropped, relief in their shape. “I stopped it from happening.”
“Stopped what from happening?”
Eammon didn’t answer, gaze on the ground as he pulled in a deep breath. “I couldn’t keep it from you entirely. But I stopped what mattered. I kept it from . . .” He trailed off into silence, hand passing over his face, leaving a streak of green-and-scarlet blood across one cheekbone. “It could be different this time.”
Red gritted her teeth. “What do you mean?”
“Your power. It’s a piece of the Wilderwood. Part of it making a home in you.”
“I gathered.”
“I understand wanting to hold it back, to push it away. But if you learned to use it, maybe the Wilderwood wouldn’t have to . . . to take anything else.” Hope was a barb in his voice, something that could cut. “Maybe it would be enough, just for you to use what you have already.”
“I don’t understand. The Wilderwood wants to take something?” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “It hasn’t taken enough already?”
“You don’t need to worry about that.” His voice was the steadiest it’d been since fighting the monster at the tree. It was almost enough to make her believe him. “All you should concern yourself with now is learning to use the magic the Wilderwood has already given you.”
“I can’t use it.” Red barked a laugh, another plume of smoke into the twilight air. “Maybe you can, but I can’t.”
“If you can control the power enough to keep it contained, you can control it enough to turn it to your will.” The Wolf rubbed at his jaw again, thinking. “I’ll have to figure out the particulars—”
“Figure out the particulars? You don’t even know how it works? But you just—”
“This is different. You’re different. The others . . . they were connected to the Wilderwood, too, but not like this.” Again, that knife-point hope, so raw it nearly hurt to hear. “This could fix it.”
It should’ve been comforting, that she was different from the Second Daughters who came before. Different from the three women the Wilderwood had consumed. But all Red could think of was blood and branches and the slumped body of her sister, a four-year-old memory still fresh as the day it happened.
The taste of dirt was still in her mouth, no matter how much she swallowed. Red shook her head. “It’s dangerous,” she murmured. “It’s not something that can be used.”
“We don’t have much of a choice.” Eammon finally stopped fidgeting, peering at her sternly down his twice-broken nose. “I will do my best to keep you safe from the Wilderwood, Redarys, but you’re going to have to help. I can’t do it alone. I’ve tried.”
That awful, echoing voice thrumming through the fog. You can’t bleed enough to hold it off forever.
He watched her, in that quiet courtyard under a starless sky, and Red had to drop her eyes from his. The ache there was too sharp, pain and weight she couldn’t put words to. She thought he probably couldn’t, either.
After a moment, the Wolf turned toward the Keep. Wordlessly, Red followed.
Eammon stopped just inside the door. His face was carefully neutral, but his eyes still sparked. “Are you satisfied, then?” A twitch of scarred hands. “Did I give you reason enough to trust me?”
Red nodded.
The Wolf stalked up the stone staircase. Behind him, the moss and twigs rose, blocking the way, closing him in.
Valleydan Interlude II
T he book wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
Neve frowned at the paper in her hand, a reference with author name and shelf number. It was a book of poetry she was after, one written by a trader who had a rhyming system for navigating Ciani rivers. Not exactly a popular item. It was forbidden to take things completely out of the library, anyway, though Red did it all the time—
She stopped, pressed a hand against her stomach at the sudden ache. Kings, she had to stop doing that. Thinking of Red as if she were still here. It’d been only a day, but every hour felt like a dagger.