Chapter Thirty-Six

Red

The voyage was supposed to take three days. But with the strange waves and the whipping wind, they made it in barely two.

Neils didn’t know what to make of the rogue waves, which came up with enough force to push the ship but never threatened to capsize it. “I’ve never seen something like that,” he said, shaking his head as he hauled on ropes. “And never once has it knocked us off course.”

“Thankfully,” Eammon muttered. He and the grizzled captain had fallen into a quick, unlikely friendship, since Eammon’s seasickness—still present, though not as forcefully—kept him up on the deck more often than not. Red couldn’t tell if Neils bought the story Kayu hurriedly told him as the galley left the harbor about a strange strain of gangrene, but he didn’t question Eammon’s bark-covered forearms or the green along his veins, both of which were more vibrant than they’d been before.

The changes were evident in Red, too—the ivy in her hair grew lush, the ring of emerald around her irises almost eclipsing the whites the closer they drew to Valleyda. The Wilderwood flourishing as it neared home, she’d think, if it weren’t for the sting of it, the pull deep in her gut that told her something was happening, something that golden thread of consciousness beside her own didn’t know how to tell her.

The waves, the quakes they’d felt—all of it tied back to the Wilderwood and the Shadowlands. To Red and Neve.

It was night when they reached the Florish shore, a full moon floating in an indigo sky. The harbor was somewhat busier in the very late hours than the very early, but there still weren’t many people on the docks other than a few sleepy fishermen. The cold of autumn chilled even worse at the coastline, and no one was eager to sail when the wind blew over the water like a cracking whip.

Neils steered them to an empty dock, slapping a calloused hand on the wheel before dropping anchor. He turned to Red with the look of someone who had a lot of questions but wasn’t sure if he would ask them or not.

In the end, he decided not to. “Whatever trouble you ran into back in the Rylt,” he said, “I hope you’re far enough away from it now.”

“Unfortunately,” Red murmured, “it’s the kind of trouble you can’t really run from.”

He snorted. “Been there.” A moment’s hesitation, then he clapped her quickly on the shoulder. “In that case, I hope it’s a trouble that resolves.”

It would. One way or another. Red gave Neils a wan smile and pushed away from the railing at the prow, going to get her bag from below. She passed Eammon on the way, who dropped a kiss to her forehead before heading toward the captain. He said something too low for her to make out, and Neils responded with a hearty laugh.

Kayu emerged from the hold, looking somewhat better than she had when they left the Rylt. She’d combed out her hair to its black, straight waterfall again, and the dark circles beneath her eyes had softened after a full night of sleep.

Yesterday, after Raffe left and Kayu was alone with her head tilted against the wall and her eyes closed, Red had gone to thank her. She’d stood there, unsure of how to start the conversation, the gentle roll of the ship making her legs unsteady.

“You can slap me with a vine or something.” Kayu only opened her eyes enough to confirm it was Red before closing them again. “Whatever angry forest gods do to those who cross them.”

“I’m not going to slap you with a vine.” The idea was so ludicrous that it broke the tension. Red slumped next to Kayu, arms braced on her knees. She could rehash everything—the plot, Kayu foiling it, thanks given and denied—but the thought was exhausting.

“You did what you thought you had to do.” Red shrugged. “I think we’re all familiar with that.”

A pause. Then Kayu turned to look at her, a quizzical twist to her mouth. “You’re letting me off entirely too easily.”

“Would you prefer to talk to Eammon about it?”

“No, I’m fine, thank you.” Kayu sat up and rubbed a hand over her face. “Whatever you need to find your sister, I’m here to help. It’s the least I can do.”

“I wish there was something I knew to ask you to do,” Red murmured. “All I can think of is to go back to the Keep and… and wait, I guess.”

Wait to see if Neve would decide to come back. Wait to see what happened when the Shadowlands broke apart. Wait to see what was left of her sister when it did.

“Then I’ll wait with you,” Kayu said.

So now, that’s what they were all headed to do. Wait.

As Red descended into the dark of the hold and grabbed her bag, she couldn’t help but think of Neve, those long days after Red had disappeared into the Wilderwood, stretching into weeks and then months. Waiting to see if her sacrifices would bring Red back. Waiting to see what her blood on sentinel branches bought her.

She paused before going back up the ladder. Her scarlet cloak was stuffed into her bag; Red pulled it out, took off the gray one she wore, swirled the bridal cloak over her shoulders instead. Golden embroidery glinted in the gloom.

Better.

At the stern, Raffe was looping rope, doing some vital ship activity Red had no context for—two voyages in a week, and she still had no idea how boats worked. He’d been quiet. The most she’d heard him say was when she overheard him speaking with Kayu, his voice too muffled to make out specifics.

“Need help?” she asked.

“I’ve got it.”

Kayu and Lyra helped Neils shove down the gangplank, ready to disembark. Kayu went first, walking up the shore to where the horses were stabled and the carriage parked, beyond where the sand turned to grass. Raffe watched her.

Red chewed her lip. “I know it’s none of my business—”

“Here we go,” Raffe muttered.

“—but you should know you don’t have to feel guilty, Raffe.”

He stopped in his endless looping of rope, tilting back his head so his breath plumed toward the sky. At first, she thought he would ignore her or brush it off. But then he shook his head and turned back to his rope. “I know I don’t. And yet.”

Red didn’t push. She leaned against the railing.

Raffe spoke without her prompting, like this was something he’d been waiting for. Knowing him, it was. “The way we left things, Neve and I… well. That’s the point, I guess. There wasn’t a thing to leave. I told her I loved her, and she never said it back, even though she showed it, or at least that she cared, and I…” He ran a hand over his head. “Now I feel like I don’t know who she is. I only know who she was.”

“We change,” Red murmured. Not an indictment or an absolution, just a statement of fact. “We grow in different directions sometimes.”

“I still care about her,” Raffe said.

Care about. Not love. “I know.”

“And when she comes back, I…” He lost the words and couldn’t find any more that fit. Raffe shook his head.

“When she comes back,” Red said decisively, “you will be an excellent friend to her. You two will talk. You will figure out what kind of relationship you want to have.” She gave him a tiny, reassuring half smile. “All of this is complicated, Raffe. It always has been. You don’t have to know exactly what you’re doing all the time.”

He huffed a rueful laugh. “Even half the time would be welcome.”

The coach clattered up the road that led to the docks, Kayu driving. As the horses stopped, a rumble moved over the ground, shaking the docks, the sparse trees, making the waves in the ocean grow taller.

At the wheel, Neils boomed another laugh. “This keeps up, and I’ll be down to Karsecka in less than a week!”

Red gave him a tight smile, dread chewing at her spine. The Wilderwood sent a skitter of thorns across her ribs, a branch stretching over her collarbone, sharp and pinching.

Kayu drove fast, but the earthquakes were faster. They felt at least three in the two hours it took to travel from the Florish coast to the edge of the Wilderwood, growing in intensity the closer they got to Valleyda. By the time they crossed the border, only minutes from the Wilderwood, Kayu had to stop the carriage each time one started, the horses prancing nervously in place as the ground shook. It’d snowed while they were gone, white drifts of it lining the roadway, flakes spinning off to twirl in the air as the earth vibrated beneath them. Snow always started early this far north, barely giving summer time to fade to fall.

“The quakes are too close together.” Lyra shook her head, fawn-colored eyes glassy with worry. “How do we know the Shadowlands haven’t dissolved already?”

“We’ll know.” The forest within Red rustled, a bloom of a vine along her shoulder blades, the snaking of a root down her spine. Not for the first time, she half wished the Wilderwood could speak to her in words again, wither part of itself as a price for speech. “We’ll know when they dissolve.”

Across the carriage, Fife’s face was pale, his hand clamped tight around his forearm. Red watched him with her lips pressed into a thin line, waiting to see if the Wilderwood spoke to him in ways it wasn’t speaking to her.

It tells me the things you don’t want to hear.

But Fife stayed silent.

Another painful twist of root in Red’s sternum. Eammon’s hand tightened on her knee—he felt it, too. Not the deep, piercing pain of the sentinels being ripped out, nothing like what they’d felt the night of the shadow grove when Neve disappeared, but the ache of the forest doing… something.

Something none of them were sure of yet.

“What then?” Lyra asked. “Will it be like a breach? A million shadow-creatures erupting at once?” Her hand flexed to the hilt of her tor, its scabbard on the floor by her feet. “Do we just fling blood at them again?”

“No.”

Every head turned to Fife, all of them surprised that the answer had come from him. He kept his gaze on the floor, his jaw a ridge of discomfort, his Marked arm held close to his body. “No blood. The blood was always a bandage, it didn’t truly fix anything.”

Red slipped her hand over Eammon’s scarred one, holding tight.

Another quake shook the carriage, snow sliding from the hills at the side of the road. The horses squealed, Kayu’s soothing voice jagging up toward a shout as she sawed on the reins. The carriage lurched back and forth, tipping up onto two wheels.

“Bail out!” Raffe’s voice sliced through the sounds of the horses. “The thing’s about to flip!”

Fife shot up, levering open the door; he pushed Lyra out before jumping after her.

Eammon tugged Red with him out the door to tumble into the snow. One of the wheels broke, sending the whole structure leaning in their direction; teeth bared, he swept her up against his chest, rolling out of the way just as the entire carriage crashed to the ground exactly where they’d been.

The earth ceased its shaking as the horses galloped away, cut free by Raffe as he jumped down from the driver’s seat. He and Kayu stood at the edge of the road, breathing hard; her palms were red and welted from trying to hold on to the reins.

“Well,” Kayu said, voice surprisingly even, “I guess we’re walking.”

They were close, thankfully. The trees of the Wilderwood speared into the sky ahead of them after half an hour, more snow twirling in the air between the branches. Another low quake rumbled through the ground, calmer than the one that had crashed the carriage, but enough to make them all stop and brace against the road.

Raffe turned to look at Red after the third quake in fifteen minutes, the border of the Wilderwood visible up ahead. “What if the Shadowlands dissolve while Neve’s there?” His eyes sparked. “What if Solmir keeps her there, and she can’t get away even if she wants to?”

She shook her head. Her voice came out hoarse. “I don’t know what to tell you, Raffe. I can’t make her leave.”

He stared at her a moment, eyes glittering. When Neve first disappeared into the Shadowlands, he’d asked Red how they were going to save her. Then, too, she hadn’t known. And he’d told her that wasn’t good enough.

It still wasn’t.

Red couldn’t save Neve, any more than Neve could save her. She wondered if anyone could, really. Saving someone else was a wall you couldn’t scale unless they threw you a rope.

As they reached the tree line, Red gave an involuntary sigh of relief. A tension she hadn’t known she was carrying softened in her shoulders, the forest beneath her skin opening wider blooms, stretching out longer branches. Next to her, Eammon let out a deep breath, the sound like rustling leaves.

Fife rubbed at the Mark on his arm, flickering them a surreptitious look from beneath ginger brows.

“So we just go to the Keep?” Lyra asked. The bright light off the snow gilded her curls in silver. Even though she wasn’t connected to the Wilderwood anymore, being close to it still seemed to soothe her. “Wait for the shadows to find us?”

Another quake, this one enough to knock Red off-balance. She slid in the snow, Eammon catching her arm. Down in the village, hidden beneath all the white, she heard the sounds of frightened animals, distant calls of alarm.

The key in her hand pulsed more quickly, its heartbeat speeding up. And something about that made the dread in her middle spike higher, a connection that, once made, seemed obvious.

It was Neve’s heart. She could feel Neve’s heart in her key.

Which meant she was still alive. Still alive, and still choosing to stay in the Shadowlands, to finish the Kings in whatever way she and Solmir could.

Red pulled the key from her pocket. The threads of gold in the bark had grown, were still growing, nearly eclipsing the white. It glowed as bright as a miniature sun in her palm, glinting off the snow. The heartbeat—Neve’s heartbeat—sped and sped, nearly visible, pounding to a crescendo.

“That has to mean something,” Raffe murmured.

“I think so.” The Wilderwood in Red expanded, new leaves unfurling, flowers opening wide. “I think she’s—”

She cut off with a yelp, the warmth of the key flaring suddenly to a bonfire-burn. Red dropped it, stumbling backward into Eammon, holding her hand to her chest.

The snow melted where the key dropped, hissing as it fell through the drifts, finally coming to rest on the earth.

Then an explosion threw all of them back in a burst of blinding light, as a white-and-gold trunk burst from the ground and reached glowing branches toward the sky.