A sob lodged in Neve’s throat, knowing what she was about to ask. What she needed her sister to do.
Even in her otherworldly grace, Red almost stumbled in her haste to get to her, charging over snowbanks churned nearly to mud. They fell into each other’s arms, light and dark.
For a moment, Neve let herself relax into her sister’s hold, let herself pretend this was just a homecoming.
“You’re here,” Red murmured into her hair. “You chose to come back.”
Neve didn’t respond, other than the harsh sob she couldn’t quite swallow. Red’s arms tightened around her, the leaves braceleting her wrists rustling against Neve’s thorns.
The howl of the Kings rose louder in Neve’s ears, nearly deafening, drowning out the string of comforting words that fell from Red’s lips. Something about home, about healing, I can fix this I can fix this I can fix this.
There was only one fix.
Her grip on herself was shaky, glass vibrating at the shatterpoint. Valchior and the others battered against her mind, against her bones, against her soul that held theirs. Her fingers were blackened as if by frostbite, wanting to bend, wanting to force this world to bow to the might of her shadows.
My world, Valchior hissed into her ear, slithering around her skull. We’ll have such fun, Neverah. There are other vessels you could pour me into, once you realize that we’re all better off together, once you see all the incredible things we’ll accomplish. You could find one to your liking, another body for me to stay in. Even Solmir—
“Stop.” It came through chattering teeth, slicing through whatever comfort Red had been trying to give. It was a directive to the King’s soul she held, but also to her sister. She couldn’t take comfort now. It was too late.
Red closed her mouth, held Neve out at arm’s length, hands firm on her shoulders. Her green-brown eyes were filmed with tears. “Tell me what you need me to do, Neve.”
A soft sound from the snow beyond them where the dark-haired man lay. He stirred, amber eyes opening. “Red…” The Wolf. It had to be.
Red’s eyes squeezed shut, a single tear falling down her cheek. “Tell me what you need,” her sister murmured, the tendons in her neck standing out with the effort of not turning to the Wolf on the snow. “Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it.”
“Do you promise?” Neve whispered.
And her sister’s eyes opened wide, horror and understanding and a sorrow sharp enough to cut.
Inside Neve’s head, in her hollow places, the souls of the Kings rattled her bones like prison bars. The power of the Old Ones they’d killed swirled and spun, darkness that eclipsed everything else. She held all the power of the Shadowlands, the perfect dark mirror to her sister’s Wilderwood light.
You are ours, Neverah, Valchior said. How did you ever think you could be something different? You’ve been ours since you bled on the branches in the Shrine. Ours since you decided you were always right.
Neve closed her eyes, gasping like she’d run miles, blood still dripping down her forehead as the iron crown grew from her brow. She wanted to collapse into Red, wanted to tell her sister she was sorry, but her control was so tenuous. She was so close to breaking.
And when Red reached out, her golden-veined hand cupping her cheek, Neve did.
Her jaw opened to scream, but instead it was a rush of shadow, pluming from her like she’d held a mouthful of black smoke. The shadows whirled around them like a cyclone, like the force of her grief and her regret and her rage held them in perfect orbit, fast enough to whip their hair and tear at their clothes.
“Red!” The Wolf was fully awake now; through eyes that wept black-ink tears and a blur of shadows, Neve could see him staggering toward them, face twisted in horror. “Redarys!”
His shouting woke Solmir, outside the barrier of her shadowed wall. The former King pressed up from the ground, hair wet with melting snow, blue eyes dim and then brightening with fear and rage. He ran toward them with a snarl on his mouth, like he expected the darkness to part for him.
It didn’t. Not for him, not for the Wolf, blocking both of them out, sending them sprawling when they tried to run forward again. The only ruler the darkness acknowledged was Neve, and she knew that she couldn’t allow anyone to stop them now.
She didn’t know if Red understood, or if Red merely acted at the behest of the Wilderwood. Either way, it was what had to happen. The Wilderwood and the Shadowlands, two halves of a whole, just as they were.
And if Neve had this right, there would be only one left in the end. Only the Wilderwood, golden and shining, all the dark snuffed out.
Red closed her hands around Neve’s, golden veins against shadowed. Teeth bared, she held on tight, and let her magic go.
At first, it acted like a dam. The rushing of both powers stopped, golden and dark, each frozen at the onslaught of the other. Even the swirling shadows around them paused, arrested mid-motion.
Then the magic crashed.
It was a wave meeting a shoreline, lightning breaking against the ground. Two opposites, feeding endlessly into each other, making a void between them that neither could fill. Canceling each other out.
And when both of them simultaneously fell to their knees, each held up only by the other’s death grip on their hands, Neve realized the truth of it.
One couldn’t live without the other. Both of them were part of this magic, two points of the same arrow. Their souls were so steeped in it that neither could sustain being drowned in opposite power.
This would kill them both.
In Neve’s head, Valchior raged, his calculations proven incorrect, his plan not accounting for all variables. He’d thought Red couldn’t bear to kill her sister. And maybe that was true—Neve hoped it was—but Red was the Wilderwood now, all of it in its entirety, and the Wilderwood knew what had to be done.
Neve tried to pull away, animal instinct opting toward self-preservation, but it was too late. Her hands stayed in Red’s like they’d been shackled there, this outpouring of magic too overwhelming for either of them to stand against. Around them, the very atmosphere roared with swirling streaks of golden light and deepest dark, the two of them the eye of their own hurricane.
Red’s green-haloed gaze said she understood. Said she wasn’t angry. She tipped her forehead against Neve’s, ivy-threaded hair whipping. “I love you.” It was so quiet, lost in the chaos, but Neve heard it bell-clear.
She swallowed. Her body felt brittle and weak, draining magic into her sister and life into the wind. “I love you.”
Her vision was hazy. Her heart was a drumbeat thud in her chest, slowing, slowing. The howl of the Kings in her head faded to whispers, all of them realizing this was it, they were done, their host’s soul fading and taking theirs with it, here in the true world where death couldn’t be cheated.
Then she knew nothing.
Chapter Forty-One
Eammon