Chapter 10
When my eyes snap open in the middle of the night, I know I’m not alone.
Moonlight drifts in through the tall windows, casting beams of silver onto the stone floor. It must be after midnight. The silence is all-consuming, suggesting everyone has long-since gone home for the night.
I sit up, my blankets pooling around my waist. Goosebumps prickle all along my skin, and my breath makes misty clouds in front of my face. This cold is unnatural, even for Gwyllion.
At the far side of the room, a shadow stirs.
Instinctively, I reach for the moth blade on my bedside table. My eyes are wide as I try to peer past the streaming moonlight and into the shadows beyond.
“Who’s there?”
Slowly, a pale figure emerges from the darkness. Dread pools in my stomach. I’ve seen this woman before. It’s the ghost from outside the castle gates. Her long dark hair floats on an invisible current, and her torn white gown billows around her.
The wraith hovers at the foot of my bed. Her dark eyes bore into mine, silent and unblinking. She doesn’t show her ghastly teeth this time, just watches.
“What do you want?” My voice trembles. My hand is slick with sweat where it grips the bronze hilt of my knife. I’m not sure the blade would matter, not against something like her.
I’ve faced spirits twice before and nearly died both times, but my gut tells me this woman is different.
She doesn’t appear to be mindlessly bloodthirsty or trapped in an endless death loop.
There’s no gnashing teeth, no wailing or shrieking, just calculating stillness.
Like she’s sizing me up, same as I’m doing to her.
We stare at each other for a long, breathless moment. Then, without warning, she turns and slips through the door like smoke.
My heart pounds, loud and urgent. Something pulls me to follow her.
It would be wiser to stay here, within the supposed safety of my room, but there’s something odd going on here in Gwyllion Castle.
I can feel it. I see it in the tightness around the villagers’ eyes, and hear it in the brittle silence that fills the halls.
Whatever the secret is, I intend to find it.
I wrap a blanket around my shoulders, slip my feet into boots, and follow her into the hallway.
The wraith lingers at the end of the corridor, hovering like an invitation.
Then she turns left, vanishing from sight.
I rush to follow. She doesn’t glance back as she glides into a different wing of the castle.
She knows I’m behind her and keeps just far enough ahead to stay visible, but never quite reachable.
Eventually, I find myself in a long hallway on the opposite side of the castle.
One wall is lined with the remains of portraits.
Ripped canvases show grim, faded faces of important people long-since dead.
Whoever they were, they’re now forgotten here in this dusty corridor that has a distinct smell of dead rodents in the walls.
I wonder if this used to be additional living quarters, back when Gwyllion was a bustling fortress.
Before most of Annwyn was laid to waste in the Llwyn wars.
I’m beginning to wonder if the wraith has a purpose beyond leading me in circles. But just when I’m certain she’s playing some silent game of cat and mouse, she slips through a doorway and disappears. I draw the blanket tighter around my shoulders, then reach out to open the door.
The hinges creak, as if they haven’t been used in a long time. Inside, the wraith has disappeared.
The room seems to be a rather ordinary bedroom. Or was, before it fell to ruin. Now, everything is coated in dust. A small hole in the window seems to be a passage for birds seeking shelter from the weather. Beneath it, scraps of nesting material lie scattered in a loose heap.
Tiny creatures have chewed away portions of the bedding, and the curtains around the wooden bedposts are dulled from age. At the center of the ceiling, an ornate chandelier droops. Cobwebs sway lazily from its crystals, illuminated by the moonlight streaming through the filthy windows.
This was clearly once the room of a lady.
I open the wardrobe to see moth-eaten silks and furs hanging limply.
Some have fallen to the floor and become homes for mice.
The clothes used to be quite fine. The cuts and colors suggest a young woman wore them once.
Maybe not more than a decade ago, based on the fashion.
I move toward the window, unsure why the wraith would lead me here of all places. Outside, the view overlooks the southern forest and the path to the front gates. Was this the wraith’s room when she was alive?
“What are you doing in here?”
I spin toward the voice. Tristan stands in the doorway, his expression outraged. His dark hair is disheveled, and his chest heaves beneath a loose white shirt that clings to his skin. The hem hangs untucked over black trousers.
He storms toward me. “You are never to come in here. Do you understand?” His voice is tight, seething.
I meet his glare without flinching. “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do.”
“You think this is a game, Red?” His tone cuts, sharp with anger. “You’re being reckless. This isn’t Caerwen!”
“You think I don’t know that?” My chest is heaving beneath my nightclothes. How dare he lecture me? As if I don’t know I’m an entire kingdom away from Llwyn and the Fox Court. As if I’m not reminded every second of every day that I’m stuck here, in this awful, freezing place.
His hand closes around my wrist, and he drags me out of the room, slamming the door behind us. The sound echoes through the corridor.
I twist free of his grip and whirl to face him. “You don’t have to manhandle me!”
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d just stay out of places you don’t belong.”
“I don’t belong anywhere!” The words slip out before I can stop them, but it’s too late to quiet the storm raging inside me now. “Isn’t that the point? I’m not a Wolf. I’m not even really a Fox anymore. I’m nothing.” I glare at him, daring him to tell me I’m wrong.
He glares back, gray eyes dark and threatening. His chest heaves with each furious breath, but he doesn’t protest. He doesn’t defend himself or his people for making me feel entirely unwelcome in Annwyn. The look in his eyes tells me he knows I’m right.
He turns and braces his forearms against the thick wooden door, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles are white.
He lowers his head against them and shuts his eyes.
His shoulders are tense, and they rise and fall with each seething breath.
Every line of his body radiates contained fury, like a storm caught inside a cage.
He doesn’t answer me. He just stands there with his back to me, rigid.
When he finally speaks, his voice is low and even. “How did you find this room?”
Something warns me not to show all my cards. The wraith is trying to tell me something, and I suspect Tristan doesn’t want me to know what it is.
“I was exploring.”
Finally, he whirls around to look at me. He knows I’m lying. His eyes are dark with fury and mistrust. But there’s something more there. Something familiar and deeply unexpected: grief. Heart-wrenching, soul-tearing grief. I should know. I’ve experienced it myself.
For a moment, we’re too close. The corridor feels small with his body so close to mine. And yet, I don’t step back.
His gaze drops to my mouth, lingering there for only a heartbeat. His eyes snap back up to mine. “Go back to your room. The castle isn’t safe to ‘explore’ after dark.”
I purse my lips but decide not to argue with him. I turn to leave.
He calls after me. “And don’t come back here again.”
I give him a heated glare over my shoulder.
“Please,” he says in a less demanding tone. Something in that word pulls me in a way I wish it didn’t.
I make no promises, but I find my way back across the darkened castle to my room. And, just as I suspected, there’s a new note waiting for me when I return. It sits on my bedcovers, bathed in moonlight.
“Go now!”
My eyes dart around the darkened room, but I know I won’t find anyone hiding in the shadows.
Who is leaving these messages? The wraith seems an unlikely suspect.
A being who floats through walls seems hardly capable of holding a quill.
Nalina? She’s ominous and hates me enough to stoop to intimidation.
But she knows it’s certain death for me to leave Gwyllion Castle in the middle of winter. Are fae literate?
There’s more here than meets the eye. On top of that, I can’t help but wonder why the wraith brought me to that dilapidated room. It could’ve been a set-up. Maybe she knew it would upset Tristan to find me there. But why?
A chill runs down my spine as I remember the fire that crossed Tristan’s eyes. Perhaps the wraith was trying to issue a warning. Maybe the Wolf is not what he seems.