Bonus Scene

15 of Wilder in the 7th year of the Morning King's reign, Sumber's Day

The Morrowlands looked exactly as it did in all of Willa’s memories.

     The twin suns blazed overhead, and she lifted a hand to shield her eyes as she looked out across the moors that rose and fell in grayish-purple waves, their long grass swaying in the wind. She laid her hand on the rough bark of a tall, curved oak tree as she passed.

     She breathed in a lungful of the dry, sweet air and felt it linger at the back of her throat like smoke.

     Willa started through the moors—slow, at first, and then she broke into a run, her legs moving of their own volition, following the path to Middel as if they hadn’t forgotten the way, even after all this time. She trailed her fingers through the feathery grass, savoring the feel against her skin. 

     She crested a hill and looked down at the town spread below her. 

     In the bright sunlight, she could make out the individual buildings and the wooden stalls that marked the street. There was no sign at all of the damage that had occurred under the Wicking Queen’s reign. 

     Willa tossed back her head and laughed into the wind. 

     She ran the rest of the way to the house where Tulliver lived with his older brother, tripping several times in her haste, and her knees were beginning to bruise by the time she reached the field of elderberries. 

     She drew to a stop suddenly, leaning against a tree for support, as the memory of Tulliver’s words on that final day came back to her. 

     “I would choose you,” Tulliver told her, his voice breaking like waves against the rocky shore. “I would always choose you.”

     “I know. I’m sorry.”

     He whirled on her suddenly, his eyes cold and hard as obsidian. “If you leave,” he said, “I won’t forgive you.”

     Willa flinched, feeling his words pierce her heart like needles, but still, she told him, “I don’t expect you to.”

     “What then?” he said. “Do you intend for me to mourn you as if you had died at the hands of the queen? As if you were something that I could simply fold neatly into a drawer to be forgotten, until one day, some other girl asks about the braid in my hair, and I tell her that it was a story meant for another time, another world, that perhaps wasn’t so cruel and unjust?”

     “I intend for you to be happy,” she told him, “however you can. Even if that means forgetting me.” 

     She hadn’t considered before that moment the possibility that he had moved on. Perhaps he had moved to the city like he had always wanted to. Perhaps he had met a lovely green girl at a Midlorne celebration and they had married beneath the full moon. 

     And what if he hadn’t? Would he still make good on his promise not to forgive her? 

     She didn’t think she could stand it, not after everything.

     Willa doubled over, clutching her abdomen, as bile rose in her throat. A string of spit dribbled from her lips into the dirt. 

     She squeezed her eyes closed.

     What if—

     “Willa?”

     She had been so tangled up in her own thoughts that she hadn’t heard the approach of footsteps. She looked up from beneath the curls that had fallen into her eyes, noticing first a pair of worn leather boots and then dark trousers and a loose white tunic. 

     She slowly straightened, arms still wrapped her abdomen, until a strong jaw and a braid adorned with silver and gold beads came into view. 

     She lifted her gaze to the black eyes that were staring at her in something like awe and astonishment. 

     “Hello, Tulliver,” she whispered.

     He fainted.

Tulliver’s lashes fluttered as Willa smoothed back the silvery-white hair from his forehead. 

     He looked—good. His hair was longer than she remembered, curling softly against the nape of his neck, and the skin of his cheeks were tinged pink from the sun. The sleeves of his tunic, likely a hand-me-down from his brother, strained against the muscles in his arms. 

     She didn’t know why she had expected to see the boy from her memories. But this was not a boy—this was a man.

     As soon as coherence returned to his gaze, Willa snatched back her hands and started to scramble away from where he lay in the grass.

     “If you leave, I won’t forgive you.”

     But Tulliver’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, and Willa drew in a sharp breath at the brush of his calloused fingers against her skin. She stared down at the spot where they intertwined. 

     She felt the hot sting of tears at the corners of her eyes, and in the next moment, she was crying, great hulking sobs that racked her entire body. She leaned into Tulliver, and he did not recoil or push her away or curse her. 

     Instead, he gently cradled the back of her neck as she clung to his tunic. 

     He said only one word: her name, over and over and over, like a prayer.

     “I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m sorry.”

     “You came back . . .”

     “For you,” she told him, and the body beneath hers tensed. “I came back for you, Tulliver. It’s always been you.” 

     “Willa—”

     “And I know you don’t forgive me; I wouldn’t forgive me. But I’ve thought of you every day since I left,” she said. “And I’ll apologize as many times as I have to or slay a thousand queens or crawl on my belly over broken glass, if that’s what you want, because I’m sorry, Tulliver, and I—” 

     Strong fingers gripped her chin and tilted her head back, and her words cut off sharply as Tulliver covered her mouth with his own. The kiss tasted like salt water and honey and sunshine.

     Willa’s eyes fluttered closed. 

     She was home.