Fox Heir Among the Wolves

Chapter 1

The trees shiver. Their last leaves cascade around us as the icy wind howls through the Spires of Annwyn. It sounds like a pack of hungry wolves.

Above us, the sky darkens as black clouds roll over the mountain peaks. The oncoming storm feels like a living thing, tearing leaves from branches and hurling them through the darkening forest. Thunder shakes the ground beneath my feet.

We have to reach Gwyllion Castle before the winter storm swallows us whole. I haven’t come this far just to die from foul northern weather.

Behind us, another massive pine crashes to the forest floor, cracking and splintering like breaking bones.

The Dead Queen’s skeletal hand flashes in my mind and my stomach roils.

I shake the grotesque image away. As it is, I barely slept at camp last night with the nightmarish queen haunting my dreams. The dead don’t need rest, so she traveled ahead of us.

She’s already at Gwyllion Castle by now. Waiting for me.

Tristan runs at my side, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration.

His hands are outstretched, casting shadow power from his palms in swirling clouds of inky black.

He’s blasting fallen branches from the path ahead, but we’re like moths caught in a turbulent sea.

Thrashing will only keep us alive for so long before we drown.

Once the storm gets here, no power—neither his shadows nor my light—will be enough to protect us.

He shoots me a glance, his gray eyes unreadable.

I keep my mouth in a grim line. If I die out here, it will be just another tally to add to his long list of offenses.

Tristan, the Wolf, is a liar and a cheat, and I haven’t had sufficient time to lick my wounds.

We both know that I’m only in Annwyn because of one thing:

The Wolf has outfoxed the Fox Heir.

Or the former Fox Heir, at any rate. Now, I suppose I’m just Sienna.

Fury prickles my skin, and I clench my jaw to keep from screaming in anger. Hail hammers through the tree canopy, knocking down whatever autumn leaves remain overhead. I hold my hands up to shield my eyes as hail bites my skin like tiny teeth. Mighty pines creak and rain their needles around us.

Above the sound of wind and crashing thunder, something else makes my skin prickle.

First, it's just a distant howl so faint I almost mistake it for the screaming wind.

But then Tristan stops, his feet sliding on the wet leaves scattered across the path.

His arm sweeps in front of me like a barricade, forcing me behind him.

The move is instinctive, protective. Infuriating.

“They're tracking us,” he says, his voice low.

I listen. Another howl. Closer this time. And I’d bet my life these are no ordinary wolves.

“How—" I start, but Tristan’s already scanning the trees.

I follow suit and grip the bronze hilt of my knife, drawing it from the sheath tucked into the ankle of my boot. The moths engraved along its silver blade gleam in the dim light. It looks delicate, but it’s all the more deadly for it.

As heir to the Fox Throne, I’ve learned this above all else: men always see femininity as fragility. It’s their favorite delusion, mistaking beauty for something that cannot bite.

Tristan’s hand closes around my elbow, tugging me closer than I want to be. If these were ordinary wolves, Tristan could use his shadow power to stop their hearts in their chests, killing them instantly. But corpse beasts can only be stopped by severing the spine.

“Stay with me,” he whispers. His breath is warm against my ear, and a reluctant shiver runs across my skin.

He nods toward the left, and I follow, darting off the main path and down a game trail. Out of the corner of my eye, I see movement, flashes of dark fur blurring between pine-green branches. Corpse wolves. My eyes strain to see them through the trees.

My ribs ache and the cold air makes me cough, but we can’t stop. The silver moth necklace bounces against my chest as I sprint behind Tristan. I tuck it safely out of the way beneath the collar of my dress.

Up ahead, the first corpse wolf lurches onto the trail.

It’s massive, larger than any wolf should be.

But that’s not what makes me recoil. Its black fur is matted with dried blood.

Several ribs poke out from its side, the muscles between them glistening with rot.

Its maw is filled with broken, jagged teeth, ringed crimson with blood from a fresh kill.

Luminescent eyes stare at us, devoid of life.

Behind it, more shapes dart through the darkening forest.

“The trees,” I say, my voice firm.

Tristan nods once before we bolt off the path. Howls echo around us, mixing with the crashing storm like an ominous symphony. My boots slide on dead leaves as another gust of freezing wind nearly knocks me sideways. Tristan steadies me with a hand at my back.

The temperature is dropping so fast my fingers are numb, but I don’t loosen my grip on my knife as we sprint through the forest. Trees groan and bend under the onslaught.

Branches snap above our heads and crash to the ground.

I glance at the sky through gaps in the canopy.

The storm front is closing in on us with a curtain of snow so thick it obliterates everything in its path.

I reach for my light power, but it slips through my grasp like fog. Ever since I exhausted my abilities escaping the battlegrounds of Llwyn, my power has been inaccessible. Burnout is a fickle thing. Even now, when I need my power most, it refuses to resurface.

We leap over fallen trees and push branches aside. Sticks slice at my skin, but I can’t slow down. Speed is the only thing that will save us now. My red cloak whips around me with each gust of wind.

A corpse wolf lunges at me from the trees, teeth bared.

I sidestep and slash out with my knife. The blade bites into fur and flesh, scraping against its shoulder bone.

Black blood sprays, but the corpse wolf barely notices.

I spin around, narrowly avoiding its jaws as it snaps at my throat.

It bears down, bending its knees as it readies itself to pounce at me again.

We both startle at the sound of a thunderous crack. An enormous oak crashes to the ground, pinning the corpse wolf beneath it.

I stand there stunned, but not for long. Tristan catches up, and we continue running from the snarling wolves still on our trail. He yells above the thunder echoing across the sky.

“We’re nearly there, Red!”

That's when I see her.

She stands motionless between two ancient oaks, her long, pale dress untouched by the violent wind.

Her eyes are bottomless pools of black. Her long fingers curl around the trunk of the lichen-covered tree.

When our eyes meet, her mouth stretches into a grimace that splits her face, revealing row upon row of needle-sharp teeth.

It doesn’t seem possible, but my pulse races faster. There’s something deeply wrong with this woman who remains untouched by wind in the middle of a northern snowstorm. She watches me with hungry eyes that make my skin crawl.

“Red!” Tristan’s voice barely carries over the howling wind. “Look!”

I tear my gaze away from the woman and toward the break in the trees ahead.

Finally, Gwyllion Castle looms in the distance.

Beyond it, a cluster of dim lights huddles against the falling snow.

My stomach drops. It’s a town, if you can call it that.

Even from a distance, I see the sagging roofs, the listing buildings, and windows glowing with flickering yellow light.

It may look inviting compared to the raging storm, but I know better. The people of Annwyn would sooner kill me for being the daughter of the Fox King than offer me a warm bed or a cup of ale.

To my left, a flash of white draws my eyes. It’s the woman again, but that’s impossible. Nothing can move that fast. Her head tilts at an unnatural angle as she watches us. Snow stings my face, driven sideways by the storm. I blink it away, but when I look up again, the woman is gone.

“Did you see her?” I gasp. “The woman in the trees?”

Tristan shakes his head, but he isn’t paying attention to me. Movement flickers in my peripheral vision, but when I turn, there’s nothing but shadows and swirling snow. We burst from the forest, out into a wide valley. At the far end, the crumbling Gwyllion Castle sits upon seaside cliffs.

My foot catches on a rock, and I stumble to my knees.

Gravel scrapes my palms. Before I can right myself, a nearby snarl makes my breath catch in my throat.

Through the strands of my windblown hair, I glimpse black fur between the trees.

The corpse wolf’s eyes watch me, luminescent white in the growing darkness. My stomach lurches.

Tristan's hand seizes my arm, hauling me up as I hiss at the pain in my knee.

“We can’t stop.” His grip lingers a fraction too long before he shoves me forward.

We break into a sprint as the storm descends in full force. The pressure on my knee brings tears to my eyes, but I can’t slow down. I hazard a glance behind us. More corpse wolves emerge from the forest—six, seven, eight of them. Their massive claws tear at the ground as they chase us.

The snow falls heavier, reducing visibility to mere feet. Ahead, Gwyllion disappears into a wall of white. The oppressiveness of it makes me feel claustrophobic, and I fight down the rising panic. Wind and snow sting my face as I squint through the whiteout.

I follow Tristan, trusting that he knows the way, even in the storm. Step after blind step, we push through, focusing on what’s ahead instead of what’s behind us. From out of the storm, a tall, stone wall appears, blocking our path into the castle grounds.

The corpse wolves howl.

“How are they still following us?” My voice is edged with fear.

“They’re corpses. They don’t care about the cold.” Tristan grabs my hand and pulls me to the right. “The gate is this way!” He yells above the wind.

My eyelashes are coated in ice and my cloak is frozen. My hands and feet are numb, but we push through the building snowdrifts. Relief melts through my veins when a tall, wooden gate looms before us.

Remarkably, the gate is raised a few feet, as if someone was expecting us. Tristan shoves me to the ground first. My knee screams in protest, but I roll through the gap below the gate.

Tristan crawls under without a second to lose. A corpse wolf snaps at his heels. When I look through the gap beneath the gate, it leaps toward me. Its bloodied, rotted face scrapes against the wooden gate, and the bones in its jaw crack. Not that a little broken bone would stop the dead.

For once, the corpse wolf’s unnatural size is its greatest disadvantage.

I stare in horror as it attacks the gate, clawing, gnawing, and slavering against the wood.

It forces its head through the gap along the frozen ground.

Its dead, white eyes pin me as its skin scrapes away from bone in its attempt to fight through.

Tristan scrambles for a lever in the stone wall. The gate slams closed with an echoing thud, decapitating the creature on the spot.

I stare at the corpse wolf’s bloodied, rotted head. Snow slowly buries it, covering its vacant white eyes, one snowflake at a time. The wolf is dead once more, its spine severed.

From my spot in the mud, I listen as more corpses arrive and attack the other side of the gate. I grab my silver moth necklace in one hand and hold it against my pounding heart. My limbs are trembling, but I refuse to let Tristan see how deeply shaken I am.

We’ve come closer to death than this, but something about being shut behind a heavy, locked gate keeps my relief at bay

Tristan drops to the ground beside me, panting.

My power stirs inside of me, so faintly I almost don’t notice it. I try to access it, to pull it up from the depths, but it sputters out, silent. Good-for-nothing power.

I close my eyes and take a steadying breath. If I’m to face whatever waits for me inside the snow-battered walls of Gwyllion, I’ll need every ounce of strength I have … because this is the castle of the Dead Queen.

And a Fox Heir must keep her wits about her if she’s to survive in a den of Wolves.