Chapter 9 #2
I pick up the remaining pail and splash the water over the Wolf’s face.
He wakes with a groggy start, water droplets clinging to his dark eyelashes and full lips.
His eyes drift as he takes in his surroundings—the iron shackles, the damp stone walls, the faint light filtering through the sconces in the hall, the barred cell door, and the discarded, bloodied arrow on the floor.
Eventually, his eyes land on me. He doesn’t look as afraid as he should when he props himself up on his elbows.
I’m relieved to notice his arms are trembling.
Hopefully, that means he’s too weak to kill me on the spot.
“I just saved your life.” I hope I sound braver than I feel.
As if an afterthought, he reaches up to his chest, his shackles rattling with the movement. He feels the spot where the arrow once pierced. Now there’s nothing but a starburst-shaped scar.
He raises an eyebrow. “So you did.” His voice is hoarse.
I cross my arms, defiant as always.
He stares at me for a long moment. “Aren’t you afraid of me? Knowing what I am?”
I scoff. “Killing me wouldn’t help your position, seeing that you’re locked up in a cell.”
“I wouldn’t kill you.”
“Says the natural killer.”
“You don’t know me.” He coughs, wincing.
“I know enough.”
He doesn’t respond, just lies back on the ground with a groan.
“What? Tired?”
He closes his eyes. “Turns out nearly dying is hard work.”
“Try healing someone who’s nearly dead.”
He opens one gray eye to look at me. “You healed me?”
I put one hand on my hip. “Who else do you think pulled that arrow out of your chest?”
He looks around, feigning bewilderment. “Oh, I don’t know. Anyone but the Fox King’s daughter? Seems a bit beneath you.”
I glower at him. “Well, maybe I stooped so low for a reason. And as payment—”
He turns his head to look at me squarely. “You charge for your services?” He scoffs. “So much for the holier-than-thou Llwyns who help others selflessly.”
“Don’t speak that way about my people.” My voice is low, threatening. Not that I could do anything to this man if he tried to hurt me. “My fee is answering some questions.”
He lets out a low, humorless laugh that I almost don’t hear above the snarling of the foxhounds.
My heart thrums in my chest. “What happened to my grandmother?”
He closes his eyes and sighs, as if I’m too much. After a few moments, he sits up again and juts his chin toward the door. “What are those things?”
I pause, listening to the awful sound of the beasts growling low, scratching stone, and rattling chains against iron collars.
“Foxhounds.” An anxious lump forms in my throat at the word. “They’re my father’s pets.”
“They don’t sound like normal pets.” He eyes me, watching my face for signs of something, but I don’t know what.
I will not be distracted. “You’re surrounded,” I say with feigned confidence. “And unless you’d like to become their next meal, I recommend you answer my questions.”
“Listen.” He gives me a pointed look. “I can’t tell you what happened to áine.” He pauses, thinking. “But I know who can.”
“Who?”
His pale eyes watch me closely. “The Queen. She was there when your grandmother died.”
“You mean the Dead Queen.”
“Some might call her that, yes.”
“Why would the queen of Annwyn be at the border when my grandmother was killed?”
My heart races anew. Was it an invasion?
No, Father would have used that information to his utmost advantage.
He’d have sent criers to every village to tell them we were under attack.
Then he’d spin it so the people knew that he would protect them.
Even if that just meant sitting in his audience chamber, plotting, while he sent those very same people to the borderlands to die.
A scouting mission, then? Seems unlikely to be a queen’s duty. Was Grandmother sent as an envoy for peace talks? I almost bark out a laugh at that thought. As if Father would ever trust her enough to speak for him.
For the first time, the Wolf in chains looks away. “It’s complicated.”
I narrow my eyes. “If you think you can trick me into setting you free, just so you can get out of answering my questions, you’re sorely mistaken.”
He holds a shackled hand up to his chest. “I would never. Despite what you may have been told, we Wolves live by a code of honor.”
I scoff. “You call causing pain and murdering innocent people honorable? Or bringing corpses back to life to fight your battles for you?”
“There’s honor in death, same as in life.”
“Of course you’d say that.”
There’s a definite shift in the pitch of the foxhounds’ cries. I stand up, on alert. I’ve been here too long. The real servants might arrive to feed the animals at any moment. My eyes dart to the Wolf. He studies me curiously.
“You’re not supposed to be here, are you, Red?”
My lips pinch closed.
“You saved me when your father would rather I die a slow death.”
I say nothing, but the panicked look in my eyes gives me away.
The Wolf sets his jaw. “You may be honorable, even if he isn’t.”
It’s time to leave. I step out of the cell door and close it behind me with a bang. The Wolf watches me through the bars as I lock it.
“For saving my life, I would take you past the border,” he says. “If you truly want an answer to your question, that’s where you’ll find it.”
I glare at him, not sure how he suddenly has the upper hand. In the cell behind me, a foxhound snarls and leaps toward his door, his chains rattle behind him.
The Wolf and I stare at each other through the cell door, assessing one another. Crossing the border into the Kingdom of Death is a fool’s errand. It would only end in my own grisly demise.
And yet.
I believe he does know what happened to Grandmother.
And that the answers do lie in the north.
And he really would take me there, if I freed him.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my years sewing people together again and bringing them back from the edge of death, it’s this—Annwyn can’t be trusted.
And if I dive that deep into my obsession for the truth, then I’m as good as dead.