Nerves sparked, sending her floundering for some distraction to stall the inevitable. Red sank into the chair across from him, mug clenched tightly between her palms. “Why does the magic affect growing things?”
“When Ciaran and Gaya made their bargain, the sentinels rooted in them. Became part of them.” The belabored chair legs squeaked as Eammon leaned back, reciting history to the paper sun. Willing to let her put this off, if having every question answered would make her more comfortable. “So the Wolf and the Second Daughter can control the things of the earth, the things with roots. They’re under the sentinels’ influence, and thus under ours.”
Her mind riffled through all the times she’d had to steel herself against her seed of magic, miles and miles from the Wilderwood. “For having such a limited purview, the sentinels’ influence seems to stretch rather far.”
“I wouldn’t know. It’s been centuries since I could leave this damn forest.” The four chair legs clattered to the ground. “It traps Wardens better than it does shadow-creatures.”
“Wardens?”
“The words for ‘Warden’ and ‘Wolf’ are remarkably similar in most of the continent’s ancient languages.”
“There has to be more to it than that.”
“Ciaran was a huntsman.” Eammon stood and strode across the room to one of the vine-carved windows. A small ceramic planter sat there, green ivy curling over the edge. He picked it up and brought it to the table, bracing his hands on either side. “Before he ran off with Gaya, his proudest achievement was slaying a giant, monstrous wolf that prowled at the edges of his village— a child of one of the things trapped in the Shadowlands, before they all died off. They called him the Wolf long before he came here, and the word for ‘Warden’ wasn’t different enough for them to stop.” He flashed her a sharp smile and slid the ivy in her direction. “To be honest, I prefer Wolf.”
“Maybe people wouldn’t think you a monster if you were called the Warden instead.”
“Maybe I don’t mind them thinking I’m a monster.”
It was meant to sound fierce, and on the surface it did. But there was something about the depth of belief in it that plucked a chord in her chest. Red lightly twisted one of the ivy tendrils around her finger.
Eammon sat properly in his chair this time, no precarious tipping backward. “We’ll keep it simple.” He gestured to the ivy. “You’re going to make that grow.”
Red slid her half-drunk mug to the side, hoping he couldn’t see the tremor in her hands as she settled them on either side of the pot. “How exactly do I do this without calamity, then? We made the magic easier to manage, but I’m still not exactly confident.”
The mention of their marriage, oblique as it was, made their eyes dart away from each other.
“Focus your intention,” Eammon said after a laden moment. “Once you have it clearly in your mind, open up to the forest’s power. It’s . . . intuitive.” He looked up from his scarred knuckles to her face. “It’s part of you.”
Part of you. She thought of the changes magic wrought in him, the bark and the green eyes, the height and layered voice. A scale tipping back and forth, man to forest, bone to branch.
The bloom of magic in her middle stretched upward. Something she could wield, if she was brave enough. If she could swallow down the memories of the times before—
Red closed her eyes and gave a slight shake of her head, like those thoughts were something she could physically dispel. “I’m ready.”
“I’m here.”
The quiet reassurance soothed some of the anxious tension in her limbs. Letting out a long, slow breath, she tried to quiet her racing thoughts, to focus her intention. Growth, roots digging deeper into the soil as ivy leaves spread wide.
When it was clear in her mind, she reached for her power. Tentative, the barest touch, but it opened like a flower.
And for a brief, gleaming moment, Red thought she could do it.
But memory was a current, and the deliberate touch of power pulled her under, drowned her in panic. All of it ran behind her eyes like it was happening over again: an eruption of branch and root and thorn, blood spraying, rib cages shattered by sharp trunks, Neve slumping to the ground—
“Red!” She heard it through a haze, distant as shouting into a cyclone. All she could see was black forest, black sky, all she could taste was soil and blood. Distantly, she felt her spine locking up, her throat working for air that wouldn’t come, her body shutting itself down in a final attempt to keep her magic shackled.