Gritting teeth that felt like bark and tasted like sap, Red tugged at the Wilderwood, spearing her intention back into the ground just as she’d done when she began.
Not like this, she thought, sending the words like arrows. Give me another way.
And the Wilderwood sighed, as if it’d been wanting that all along.
Her consciousness collapsed back into a humanlike shape as Red pulled herself from the earth. At first, her fingers were still roots, white and thin, but slowly they retracted into the form of a hand, skin instead of bark. It hurt, and she shuddered.
A shape lay in her palm. Too clumped in dirt to make it out, as if she’d tugged something from within the earth. She didn’t have time to puzzle over what it was—the ground rumbled beneath her, lurching like the back of a waking beast. It was enough to toss her off-balance; Red shoved the shape into the pocket of her tunic and braced her hands on the ground.
As soon as it had begun, the rumbling stopped.
And in the mirror, there was still nothing but dark tree roots.
The bitter tang of dirt in her mouth tasted like failure.
Across the clearing, Eammon’s eyes blazed, brown and green, the veins above his bark-armored forearms standing stark against scarred skin. He looked more like a forest god than a man. They stared at each other, the air between them crackling.
“What are you doing?” It gritted through his teeth like a curse. “What are you doing, Red?”
“This made the most sense.” She stood on shaking legs. “It’s how the Shadowlands have always been opened before. I knew you would stop me if I told you.”
“Damn right I would.” He stepped forward, moving like a predator. “Damn right I would stop you from coming apart for no reason. From doing the absolute most dangerous thing you could, when you don’t even know it will work.”
“She’s my sister, Eammon.”
“And you’re my wife.” Almost a snarl, and his hands curled into claws. “You expect me to just sit by while you unravel?”
“It’s what you expected of me, wasn’t it?”
His mouth snapped shut.
Red closed her eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath. “I couldn’t just not try.”
Eammon shook his head. “You should’ve told—”
“What do you want?” A new voice, pierced through with so much vitriol it distracted both of them from their fury. Two pairs of forest-altered eyes turned to the edge of the clearing.
Fife, teeth bared and face stormy. One sleeve pushed up, his opposite hand clasped around his forearm. Beneath his fingers, the Bargainer’s Mark blazed like a beacon.
The noise in her head, the burn in her arm. Fife must’ve felt it, too, Eammon’s desperation making the Wilderwood send out its call.
Lyra stood behind Fife, expression unreadable, fawn-brown eyes wide. She looked at Red and Eammon, pressed her lips together, and turned away.
“Fife?” Confusion laced Eammon’s voice. His hand wasn’t on his Mark; he didn’t look like he’d felt the call, though it’d struck through Fife and Red like an arrow.
She’d never seen Fife look quite so angry. Freckles stood out on his pale face, and his chest heaved as if he’d run miles.
“You called.” A snarl through his clenched teeth, like the word was something he could bite in two. “We were almost to the Keep, but you called, and I had to come. So here I am.” His hand slashed toward the surrounding forest. “What the fuck do you want, Eammon?”
Red swallowed. “It’s my fault,” she said quietly, moving to stand between Fife and Eammon. “I did something foolish, and it… Eammon panicked.”
Lyra still faced away from them. But at the word panic, her shoulders stiffened, and Red heard her let out a single, rattling sigh.
“It was an accident,” Eammon rumbled behind her. Red looked over her shoulder—his mouth was held that particular way that meant he was angry, but at himself, and his eyes were shaded in the sunlight. “That’s not an excuse, but I promise, Fife, it wasn’t intentional. You know—I hope you know I would never command you that way.”
“And yet you did.” Fife let go of his arm; the throbbing of the Mark seemed to have subsided, though pain still lived in the line of his jaw. “You, the Wilderwood, whatever you and it have become reeled me in. And it hurts, Eammon. Kings and shadows, it—”
“He knows it hurts.” Red’s voice cut across his, jagged and angry, at herself, at Fife, at Eammon, at everything. “No one knows how much the Wilderwood hurts better than Eammon does, Fife. He told you he didn’t mean to.”
“Did you feel it, too?” Fife’s hazel eyes swung to Red. “Or are you exempt? Is it just those of us that aren’t magic who get the pain?”
“I felt it,” Red said, and in the corner of her eye, she saw Eammon’s shoulders slump.
Still, he stepped forward. “We’re all trying to figure out how this works now—”
“How it seems to work is that the Wilderwood hasn’t gotten any better at communication, and you haven’t gotten any better at listening.”
Lyra’s hand landed on Fife’s arm, cutting him off before things could devolve further. “We’re going back to the Keep.” She glanced over her shoulder at Red and Eammon. “I don’t think you should follow. Not for a while, at least.”
Her voice was steady, but there was steel in it. She was upset, Red could tell, rattled and barely held together. There was a faraway look in her eyes, like she was turning over something new in her mind, some piece of information she hadn’t yet had time to square with.
Understanding came quick. Fife still hadn’t told Lyra about his bargain. It seemed that Fife’s being called by his new Mark was the first Lyra had heard of it. The two of them needed a minute alone. And from the venomous looks Fife and Eammon kept shooting each other, they needed some space, too.
“We’ll talk later,” Red said quietly. Lyra would need someone to talk to. Red knew what it was like, to have someone you loved make difficult decisions on your behalf.
She knew it twice over.
With one last burning look, Fife followed Lyra into the forest. Before they disappeared into the shadows, Red saw Lyra take his hand.
Sighing, she turned to face her Wolf.
Eammon loomed over her, eyes sparking, the veins in his neck blazing green. His voice was all leaf-layered resonance now, one she felt as well as heard, and she knew he did it on purpose. “That was exceedingly stupid, Redarys.”
“I couldn’t just leave it, not knowing whether it might work.” She couldn’t loom like he could, but she matched his glare, and felt the brush of leaves over her scalp as the ivy threading through her hair unfurled. “I can’t leave a path untaken just because it might be too hard, not like you can.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not. But she’s my twin.” She shook her head, voice climbing. “You don’t understand what that kind of loss is like, losing someone who’s a part of you!”