“I’ll see you again,” she whispered. “I’ll find a way. I promise.”
Her tone waited for an answer. But Red didn’t want to lie.
Their mother’s shadow fell over them, darker than the shadows of the trees. “Neverah. Return to the carriage, please.”
Neve didn’t turn to look at Isla. “No.”
A pause. Then Isla inclined her head, as if in concession. “Then we’ll say our goodbyes together.”
This should be a moment, Red knew. Merra’s mother had been so distraught when they sent her daughter to the Wilderwood, she’d nearly abdicated. Sayetha’s mother had to be sedated for days after. Kaldenore’s had to be sedated before, going half mad when the Mark appeared on her child’s arm, when it was finally discovered that all Second Daughters born to Valleydan queens were bound by Gaya’s bargain with the forest.
But goodbyes were reserved for people who knew each other, and Isla had never bothered to know Red.
The Queen’s arms twitched beneath her cloak. “I know you think me cruel.” The whisper plumed from her mouth like a ghost. “Both of you.”
Neve said nothing. Her eyes flickered to Red.
Years of silence dammed in Red’s throat, years of wanting emotion she could never quite hold. “I would’ve preferred cruel,” she said, knowing the words meant she owned the cruelty now. “At least cruel would’ve been something.”
Isla stood corpse-still. “You never belonged to me, Redarys.” A tendril of gold escaped the black net holding the Queen’s hair, long enough to nearly brush Red’s cheek. “From the moment you were born, you belonged here. And they never let me forget.”
The Queen turned, striding toward her carriage. She didn’t look back.
Slowly, Red faced the trees, following the gentle, insistent tug of her Mark. Leaves rustled, dim on the edge of her hearing, though she should be too far away for the sound to carry. Deep in her chest, her splinter of magic, the Wilderwood’s twisted gift, opened like a flower to the sun.
Neve turned with her, peering into the forest with fear and unveiled hatred. “It’s not fair.”
Red didn’t respond. She squeezed Neve’s hand. Then she started toward the Wilderwood.
“I promise, Red,” Neve called as she walked away. “I’ll see you again.”
Red looked back over her shoulder. She wouldn’t stoke the embers of things that couldn’t happen, but she could speak a truth uncolored by them. “I love you.”
The answer, the end. The tears in Neve’s eyes spilled over. “Love you.”
With one last look at her sister, Red tugged up her scarlet hood, muffling every sound but the beat of blood in her ears. She stepped forward, and the trees swallowed her up.
It was colder in the Wilderwood.
The temperature dropped instantly, cool enough to make her glad of her cloak. As Red crossed the tree line, pressing into that infernal hum, bruising pressure built against her skin. It was almost enough to make her stumble onto the forest floor, almost enough to make her cry out—
But the pressure and the hum were gone as soon as she settled both feet beyond the forest’s border, leaving her in leaves and deep, undisturbed silence. The only thing that moved was the fog, a sinuous crawl over the ground.
Beneath the sleeve of her gown and the heavy crimson of her cloak, the Mark gave one more twinge. Then the feeling of that subtle pull was gone. Red rubbed at it absently.
The trees were strange. Some were short and gnarled, but others grew tall and straight, their bark unnaturally white until it met the forest floor. There it bent and twisted, dark rot standing out in ropes like corroded veins. Some of the trees had the rot only around the roots, but on others, the corrosion stretched up taller than Red.
The white trees had limbs only at the crown, swoops of graceful bone-like bark. Just like the branch shards in the Shrine.
One white tree stood just inside the forest’s border. Black rot grew over halfway up its trunk. Even the ground around it seemed dark, and smelled somehow cold. The nearby trees, brown-barked and thatched with irregular branches, had no rot on them at all.
Other than the trees, Red was alone.
With deep, shaky breaths, she willed her heart out of her throat. Her unwanted magic curled through her ribs, a languid unfurling, a subtle hint of green etching her veins. She expected it to riot, to race for release, and she clenched her teeth in anticipation of every tree in the damn forest reaching for her.
But her power stayed docile. Almost like it was waiting for something.
Still, there was an awareness here. Red was seen, Red was marked. The trees knew her, they remembered— her blood on the forest floor, a terrible rushing, a gift of power she didn’t want and couldn’t control.
For a brief, blinding second, Red wished for a match, even though it’d do her no good. Sayetha’s mother tried to burn down the Wilderwood, and so had Neve. It did nothing.
The back of her wrist pressed against her teeth, a hissing breath pulled through her nose. She didn’t want the Wilderwood to see her cry.
When the threat of tears passed, Red tightened her grip on her bag of books and peered into the gloom. No use prolonging the inevitable.
“I’m here!” It reverberated, echoing and distorting, tuned to minor keys by space and silence. Then the mad specter of a laugh in her throat: “Am I acceptable?”
Nothing happened. Fog drifted silently, tangling and curling through branches, dead leaves.
Frustration drove her teeth together, the despair of seconds ago transmuting into fierce anger. She felt roots arching toward her under her feet, felt bone-colored boughs stretching over her head. Instinct told her to fight the magic down, but this was the Wilderwood, where it belonged. Where it’d been born. “I’m here, shadows damn you!” she screamed into the gloom. “Come collect your sacrifice, Wolf!”
The Wilderwood seemed to bend toward her. Anticipating. Like she had something it wanted.
The recklessness was gone as soon as it came.
