Chapter 4
My old rooms are just as I left them three years ago. My fingers trail along the silk bedspread, cool and smooth to the touch. But the linens smell fresh, as if someone changed them in anticipation of my return.
When I open the carved wardrobe, its hinges creak. Inside, new gowns hang in orderly rows, a rainbow of rich fabrics and intricate embroidery. They’re beautiful, yet impractical compared to the simple clothes I’ve grown accustomed to. Dresses this elaborate take weeks to sew.
Clearly, even the tailors knew I was coming home before I did.
I take my time washing and dressing into a court-appropriate gown.
The skirts hang heavy, the fabric itchy and stiff against my skin.
This is attire for a woman of leisure, not the working healer I’ve become.
Nothing fits quite right, but it’ll have to do.
The sleeves are too tight around my shoulders and the bodice threatens to rip at its delicate seams if I bend too far.
I’ve grown stronger from my years in the borderlands. Hard labor does that.
With a deep, steadying breath, I leave the sanctuary of my quarters.
Palace corridors stretch before me, a gauntlet of curious eyes and hushed whispers.
Sunlight streams through the windows, casting long shadows across the polished stone floor.
As I walk by stunned nobles, I nod politely, feigning nonchalance.
From the corner of my eye, I see walking parties slow to a halt, their conversations dying mid-sentence.
The heir has returned.
My long copper skirts whisper against the stone floors as I pass, keeping my chin up and my eyes forward. I may as well let them all stare and get the shock over with. Soon, they’ll hear of my engagement, then they’ll have new gossip to entertain them.
I just want to go back to my old habit of hiding in the library while the nobles wonder what’s wrong with me. The heir who detests her court.
I wish I could explain that I don’t loathe them. It’s everything else here. The parties, the gossip, the petty problems of the wealthy. The superficiality of it all. The allure of the castle intoxicates everyone. Everyone except me, the one person stationed to inherit it when the time comes.
When I reach the safety of the royal library, the tension melts from my shoulders like spring snow. I take a deep breath, drawing in the familiar scent of aged parchment and leather bindings.
Bookshelves line every wall. Their dark wood stretches toward cathedral ceilings so high they seem to touch the sky. Light glows from gilded sconces, creating a maze of shadows and illumination. The aisles of books extend so far they could be mistaken for a labyrinth.
The silence is welcome. Few nobles ever venture here, preferring the noise and glitter of social gatherings to the quiet of books.
I take my time reacquainting myself with the tall stacks, my fingers trailing along the book spines as I weave down the aisles. My footsteps echo softly against the marble floor.
In the distance, I hear the muffled rumble of wheels, likely a librarian pushing a cart. As the sound nears, an elderly man in brown robes turns down my aisle. I look up to greet him and he freezes mid step, nearly tumbling into his overflowing cart. His face pales as if he’s seen a ghost.
“Sorry, to startle you,” I say.
He closes his eyes and puts a hand to his chest. “No, Your Highness. It’s just, for a moment, I thought you were your grandmother.” A relieved smile brightens his face. “You look so much like áine.”
This small compliment takes me by surprise. In the court’s hostility, I rarely expect to encounter kindness.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He nods. With quiet efficiency, he resumes his task, the soft creak of the cart’s wheels fading as he disappears around a corner.
It seems I’m not the only one who still remembers my grandmother.
She used to tell me stories of the great deeds my ancestors did with our light and healing powers.
My family inspired entire armies to fight against the northern Wolves, the Dead Queen’s most gifted warriors.
My great-great-grandfather lit the midnight sky to high noon for surprise attacks in our ancestral lands.
Before I was born, my paternal grandfather famously survived the Kiss of Death from the Dead Queen herself—proof that light and life are stronger than darkness and death.
“Light power is inherently good,” Grandmother always said.
“You can never use it to harm.” Unlike the corpse-makers in Annwyn, whose power is dark—raising the dead, manifesting shadows, and inflicting pain.
This is why our kingdoms are forever at odds.
Well, that and the fact that they keep moving into our ancestral lands.
It’s why my family has been fighting the Dead Queen for centuries.
Only now my father just sits in our gilded palace and plays war games with other people’s lives.
Like our citizens are nothing but living, breathing pawns in a morbid chess match.
If you throw enough peasants at the corpse beasts along the northern border, you’ll keep them too busy to attack the wealthy cities further south.
I’m no fool. I know my impending marriage is just another of my father’s strategies.
The real question is, to what end? How far is he willing to go to distract people from the threat lingering in the north?
The same threat my grandfather fought, and his father before him.
There’s a long line of powerful, ferocious Fox Kings who’ve protected the Llwyn Kingdom from the Dead Queen and her corpse army.
This engagement shouldn’t feel like a death sentence, but it does. I’m not ready for marriage. Especially not one that’s foisted upon me.
Slow, steady footsteps echo along the library floor. I don’t need to turn to know who it is.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Hunter says.
I spin to face him. He’s leaning against a bookshelf, rubbing his upper arm.
It’s an anxious habit he’s had for years.
He’s changed out of his copper-plated armor and now looks more like himself, or at least like the Hunter I remember.
His simple white tunic and brown breeches show the court’s superficiality hasn’t completely consumed him.
Then I look down at my gown with its cinched, silken skirts and realize I’m no better. Not that I have much choice over my clothes now that I’m back. Even less so as an heir about to be married.
“I’m sorry,” he says, keeping his voice quiet so it doesn’t echo down the aisle. “I didn’t mean for you to find out like this.”
I close my eyes and hold in a breath. As much as I know this isn’t his fault, it still hurts. I still feel trapped. Used.
“I know.”
When I open my eyes again, he’s giving me a familiar look. “Kind eyes” I used to call them.
“You look nice,” he says. “Though I miss the smell of horse.”
I snort. I can’t help it. He knows me well.
He moves closer, closer than anyone else would dare, but this is Hunter, my dearest friend. And, if I’m going to be honest with myself, my old love. His closeness both comforts and tortures me at the same time.
I sigh. “Hunter, I …” but I can’t go down that road. It’s a dangerous path. Instead, I look up into his brown eyes.
He waits, patient as always.
“How could you have let them blindside me like that?” I ask, all anger at him now depleted, like an empty waterskin. “Why didn’t you tell me about the engagement the second I arrived?”
He reaches out to take my hand in his. I let him, my skin tingling at his touch.
The familiarity feels both strange and thrilling after three years with no friends, no comfort, no touch.
No one to confide in. At the borderlands, there was work to distract me from emotions.
And more work. I learned to cut off any feelings of isolation or longing.
I learned to not want companionship. Not to desire the warmth of someone else’s skin on mine.
When you need to go without, it’s best not to want. It’s best not to need anything. Or anyone.
Hunter swallows hard, and his eyes drift down to our hands.
“I was just truly happy to see you, Sienna.” He runs his thumb over my knuckles lightly. “When you first saw me, your face lit up, like old times. I didn’t want to ruin that. I hoped you’d remember what we had once. Before…” He shrugs. “I didn’t want to be the one to disappoint you again.”
And there it is. The “Before”. I can see it now, the guilt that plays around the corners of his brown eyes. He betrayed me once. We have never been the same since.
I bite my lip. As much as I wish I’d had some warning, I can understand Hunter’s reluctance to be the bearer of bad news.
He bends forward to catch my eyes.
“And, really, is this so bad?” His face is filled with timid hope.
My hand feels warm in his, and I can’t decide if it’s from our shared power or the heat that he used to ignite in me. Maybe some embers remain, buried deep beneath the scarred coals in my heart. The thought both thrills and terrifies me.
For a moment, I let myself wonder if my initial reaction to the engagement was just my usual rebellious response to my father.
Maybe this could be something good. Maybe Hunter and I could rebuild what we once had, but stronger than before.
The image of a shared future flashes through my mind—laughter, warmth, belonging.
But then reality hits me, cold and unforgiving.
I remember why I came back here. This time, I’m going to find out what happened to Grandmother.
Why she was in the borderlands. Why she never came back.
I won’t let my father keep his secrets. I can’t allow Hunter or a royal wedding to distract me.
There’s no peace in domesticity for me, not when I still have so many unanswered questions.
Not when I suspect that Grandmother’s death was no accident.
“I’m sorry, Hunter.” I shake my head. “This isn’t what I wanted. For either of us.”
“What if it’s what I want?” He asks softly. “What if this could be something truly great? You and me, like old times.”
I can’t do this. I can’t marry someone of my father’s choosing, no matter who the groom is. No matter that I feel the long-forgotten softening in my heart for a boy who understood me like no one else could.
I stiffen and take my hand away from his.
“Sienna, it’s been three years. Haven’t you punished me enough?” The pain in his voice takes me by surprise.
“Hunter, I didn’t leave to punish you.”
“Then why?” His voice has lost its earnestness now. He takes several steps back, bumping into the bookshelf. “Why did you abandon me here with them? Why else if not for what I did?”
My voice catches in my throat. He watches my face intently.
The truth is, as much as I loved Hunter—as much as I still love him—he broke my trust. He shattered my heart into a million pieces. I ran away because I had nothing left to lose.
He puts his hands on a high shelf and rests his forehead against the books, his eyes closed. He takes several slow breaths.
“I have hated myself every single day since you left.” He stands up again to face me. “And I promise you, Sienna, that I will never betray you again.” There’s a fire in his eyes that I’ve never seen before.
He kneels down in front of me.
“No, Hunter ...” I try to pull him back up, but he takes my hands in his. I notice now that there are tears in his eyes.
Tears of guilt.
“Please forgive me, Sienna. We can move past this.” He pauses. “It’s been so long. We’re both older, more mature. I know what matters now. Do you?”
Yes, I want to say. I do. But it’s not him.
“It’s us,” he insists. “We matter, Sienna. You and me. We’ve always been what matters most. I forgot that once, but I vow to you, I will never forget that again.”
I search his eyes, trying to find some way to convince him that his priorities may have changed, but mine haven’t. I can’t just ignore what happened to Grandmother. That’s what’s most important to me. And I can’t hunt down her killer if I’m expected to be a docile bride.
Yet, I also know that father’s decisions are final.
I’ll have to marry Hunter whether I want to or not.
My life will be forfeited. I’ll be sent to some remote fortress with my new husband, to live a domestic life away from the hustle of the Fox Court.
Father will expect me to be an obedient wife and birth future Fox Heirs.
Goodbye, independence. Goodbye, freedom to search the kingdom for answers. Goodbye, Grandmother. For good this time.
But I won’t go down without a fight.
I nod. It’s as good an agreement as any to Hunter. He leaps up and spins me around again, like he did out in the stable yard. His good-nature is restored, like a tempest blown over.
I can’t help but laugh at his renewed enthusiasm. That’s the thing about Hunter. He’s always been able to make me smile. And there are certainly worse qualities to have in a husband than that.