Saketan
Narayan—Highborn lord
Prem—Low prince of Saketa
extras
meet the author
Photo Credit: Shekhar Bhatia
TASHA SURI was born in London to Punjabi parents. She studied English and creative writing at Warwick University and is now a cat-owning librarian in London. A love of period Bollywood films, history, and mythology led her to write South Asian–influenced fantasy. Find her on Twitter @tashadrinkstea.
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if you enjoyed
THE JASMINE THRONE
look out for
FOR THE WOLF
Book One of The Wilderwood
by
Hannah Whitten
The first daughter is for the Throne. The second daughter is for the Wolf.
As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose—to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in the hope he’ll return the world’s captured gods.
Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can’t control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can’t hurt those she loves. Again.
But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn’t learn how to use it, the monsters the gods have become will swallow the Wilderwood—and her world—whole.
CHAPTER ONE
Two nights before she was sent to the Wolf, Red wore a dress the color of blood.
It cast Neve’s face in crimson behind her as she straightened her twin’s train. The smile her sister summoned was tentative and thin. “You look lovely, Red.”
Red’s lips were raw from biting, and when she tried to return the smile, her skin pulled. Copper tasted sharp on her tongue.
Neve didn’t notice her bleeding. She wore white, like everyone else would tonight, the band of silver marking her as the First Daughter holding back her black hair. Emotions flickered across her pale features as she fussed with the folds of Red’s gown—apprehension, anger, bone-deep sadness. Red could read each one. Always could, with Neve. She’d been an easy cipher since the womb they’d shared.
Finally, Neve settled on a blankly pleasant expression designed to reveal nothing at all. She picked up the half-full wine bottle on the floor, tilted it toward Red. “Might as well finish it off.”
Red drank directly from the neck. Crimson lip paint smeared the back of her hand when she wiped her mouth.
“Good?” Neve took back the bottle, voice bright even as she rolled it nervously in her palms. “It’s Meducian. A gift for the Temple from Raffe’s father, a little extra on top of the prayer-tax for good sailing weather. Raffe filched it, said he thought the regular tax should be more than enough for pleasant seas.” A halfhearted laugh, brittle and dry. “He said if anything would get you through tonight, this will.”
Red’s skirt crinkled as she sank into one of the chairs by the window, propping her head on her fist. “There’s not enough wine in the world for this.”
Neve’s false mask of brightness splintered, fell. They sat in silence.
“You could still run,” Neve whispered, lips barely moving, eyes on the empty bottle. “We’ll cover for you, Raffe and I. Tonight, while everyone—”
“I can’t.” Red said it quick, and she said it sharp, hand falling to slap against the armrest. Endless repetition had worn all the polish off her voice.
“Of course you can.” Neve’s fingers tightened on the bottle. “You don’t even have the Mark yet, and your birthday is the day after tomorrow.”
Red’s hand strayed to her scarlet sleeve, hiding white, unblemished skin. Every day since she turned nineteen, she’d checked her arms for the Mark. Kaldenore’s had come immediately after her birthday, Sayetha’s halfway through her nineteenth year, Merra’s merely days before she turned twenty. Red’s had yet to appear, but she was a Second Daughter—bound to the Wilderwood, bound to the Wolf, bound to an ancient bargain. Mark or no Mark, in two days, she was gone.
“Is it the monster stories? Really, Red, those are fairy tales to frighten children, no matter what the Order says.” Neve’s voice had edges now, going from cajoling to something sharper. “They’re nonsense. No one has seen them in nearly two hundred years—there were none before Sayetha, none before Merra.”
“But there were before Kaldenore.” There was no heat in Red’s voice, no ice, either. Neutral and expressionless. She was so tired of this fight.