Eammon followed her gaze. “The sea is that way,” he said. “The fog is so thick you can’t see more than two inches from your eyes. Apparently, anyone who sails in it gets hopelessly lost, turned around in circles.”
“Has anyone tried?”
“Not in ages.” He jerked a finger over his shoulder in the opposite direction. “Same thing to the east, it’s just too far away to see. Endless fog.”
“And you can’t pass through that, either?”
Eammon shook his head. “The Wilderwood was very thorough, after the Kings wounded it. Everyone unlucky enough to be stuck back here has no way to get out.” His hand pressed against his side, mouth thinning as he turned to stride toward the city walls. “Come on. We need to make this quick.”
Red watched him go with a line between her brows, the rigid way he moved at odds with his usual stalking grace. Bones wrapped in vines, a tether pulling him back. Another reminder— much as he might look human, he wasn’t.
Still, her hand was warm where he’d held it.
Eammon rapped against the wooden doors. Red winced, used to the crushing quiet of the Wilderwood, but against the backdrop of village noises, Eammon’s knock was barely heard.
The door creaked open, just a crack. A scrutinizing blue eye peered out. “Name?”
“Who do you think it is, Lear?” Eammon rolled his eyes, but it was with a grin. “I brought a guest.”
The gatekeeper’s eyes widened, as did the crack. Beyond, Red could see a bustling village, not unlike the Valleydan capital.
“My lady.” The man had hair the dark auburn of autumn leaves and a handsome, clean-shaven face. She recognized him— he’d been in the forest the day she saw the vision and came after Eammon.
Lear pushed the door open wide. “Welcome, Wolves.”
Chapter Twenty
T he cacophony was deafening after weeks of near-silence in the Wilderwood. Children ran and shouted, donkeys brayed, sheep bleated. Dirt roads branched off the stone-paved main path, leading to earthen huts with grass roofs, the wooden lintels carved with the same graceful arabesques as the gates. They’d called it a village, but this was a city, almost as large as the Valleydan capital. Centuries of explorers’ descendants, trying to make their own world since they couldn’t get into the one beyond the Wilderwood.
Beyond the thoroughfare, Red could glimpse fields full of crops, distant grazing animals. It appeared the cold and barren soil that made Valleyda difficult to farm wasn’t as much of a problem here. She wondered if it was some facet of magic, the Wilderwood making the land fruitful since it had them trapped here with no way to trade, relying only on what they could grow themselves.
No one seemed fazed by Eammon’s presence, but Red drew their attention. Women whispered behind their hands as they passed; children stopped in their games to watch with wide eyes. All of them wore old-fashioned clothes, in shades of mist and forest and earth.
“They’re looking at me like I have three heads,” Red murmured.
“You’re the first person from beyond the Wilderwood they’ve seen in a century,” Eammon replied. “Something with three heads would be less conspicuous.”
In a century, he said. Not ever. “So you brought the others here?”
He stiffened, just slightly. “Merra came once.”
“Only once?”
“It was all she had time for.” Eammon quickened his pace, and Red had to nearly run to keep up. Still, her eyes narrowed at his back.
The path opened into a wide market square, open-air stalls hemmed in by larger structures of wood and rock. Musicians gathered around a tree carved of stone in the square’s center, so realistic that Red half expected the leaves to rustle. A pretty girl with silver-blond hair to her knees whirled in graceful circles to the drumbeat. She winked at Eammon, but when her eyes caught on Red, she faltered in her spinning. A quick recovery, then she tossed Red a wink, too.
The square was loud and crowded, sellers hawking everything from livestock and produce to jewelry and furniture. Red tried and failed to keep from staring. “Is the Edge their only city?”
Eammon caught her arm, pulling her out of the way of a laden cart. He kept his hold once the cart passed, and Red made no move to pull away.
“There are a few others, farther from the Wilderwood,” he said. “Not many, though.” His eyes tilted up for a moment, like he was calculating in his head. “The whole territory is about the size of Floriane, I think.”
An entire country, hidden in fog and frozen in time. Red cocked a brow. “How do you know how big Floriane is?”