She thought of what the red-haired priestess in the Shrine had told her, what had happened to Red when she crossed into the Wilderwood. Tangled in the forest, bound to it. It’d been at the back of Neve’s mind all day— her sister threaded with vines, fodder for a ravenous wood.
But alive.
And hadn’t part of her known that? She would’ve felt it if Red died. There would’ve been something, some sort of absence, and Neve still felt horribly whole.
Raffe didn’t dispute her. Still, there was nothing like faith in his eyes, and the thought of trying to explain it to him, to put the thing into words, was exhausting.
So Neve pulled in a deep breath, measured it so it wouldn’t shudder. “The gardens,” she said, pasting on a smile. “Not exactly exciting, but it’s somewhere to go.”
“Better than lessons.” Raffe stood, gallantly offered his arm. “Will Arick be joining us?”
He said it lightly, but there was worry in his tone. Neve’s pasted smile fell. “No.” She threaded her arm through his. “Honestly, I’m not sure where Arick is.” She hadn’t seen him since they returned from the Wilderwood, the three of them packed into one black carriage, lost in separate silences. Neve remembered thinking that was the only thing redeeming in the whole day, the whole year. If they had to lose Red, at least they could sit with the loss together, find a way to hold it together.
But then Arick slunk off to lick his wounds alone.
Raffe sighed. “Me either.”
She squeezed his arm, unspoken comfort. Then the two of them drifted through the library doors out into a sun-filled hall.
Neve wasn’t exactly sure why she’d suggested the gardens. She and the red-haired priestess had cleared the mess she’d made, and she’d assured Neve no one would notice. Still, it was probably wise for Neve to keep a wide berth of the Shrine, at least for a few days. But she felt drawn out there, like probing a bruise to see how badly she could make it hurt.
As they turned the corner, the glass double doors to the gardens opened, emitting a procession of white-robed Order priestesses.
Most of them had left by now. After the midnight vigils, when it became clear the Kings weren’t returning, the priestesses who’d traveled to see Red’s sacrifice departed, back to their own less revered Temples. Neve had seen them file out of the Shrine that morning, after she’d woken from scant hours of broken sleep, the remnants of scarlet candles in their hands as the sun blushed the sky.
The vigil stopped at sunrise and it was now well past noon, but this group of priestesses had the dark-circled eyes of people just released from prayer. There weren’t many of them, fewer than twenty arranged in double lines. At their front, a tall, thin woman with ember-colored hair.
The priestess from last night. Her odd branch-shard necklace was nowhere to be seen.
Neve didn’t recognize all the faces with her— some of them didn’t hail from Valleyda, must’ve stayed behind when the rest of their sisters departed. The fact made a vague, unformed disquiet coil in her chest.
The red-haired priestess’s eyes flickered over her, but she showed no sign of recognition. Instead she turned and spoke with one of the other sisters behind her, too low for Neve to hear, before walking away down a different branching corridor.
Relief made her stomach swoop, though she wasn’t quite sure why. Still, Neve frowned after the redhead. The only thing down that hallway was another door into the gardens, and hadn’t she just come from there?
The rest of the priestesses walked slowly past them, and Neve moved on instinct. She grabbed the closest one’s arm in a grip tight enough to bruise.
“Neve,” Raffe whispered.
To her credit, the priestess showed no emotion other than a widening of her eyes. “Highness?”
“What were you doing out there?” Neve had no patience for pleasantries, not today. “The vigils are over. Clearly, the Kings aren’t returning.”
Halfway to blasphemy, but again, all she got was a slight widening of eyes. “The official vigils are over, yes,” the priestess conceded. “But a small number of us have kept up our prayers.”
“Why?” It was nearly a snarl. “Why keep praying to something that doesn’t hear you? Your gods aren’t coming back.”
Oh, she was fully heretical now, but Neve couldn’t bring herself to care. Beside her, Raffe stood rock-still.
The priestess smiled mildly, as if the First Daughter of Valleyda wasn’t seconds from clapping hands around her throat. “Perhaps not. The Wilderwood holds them fast.” A pause. “Help may be required for it to let them go.”