Chapter 23
When I return to the room, Hunter is sitting up in his bed, awake.
The second I step through the door, I hear his voice. “Well, I have to admit. I’m a little confused.”
In an instant, all my tension dissolves into a puddle of relief. I rush to his side and throw my arms around his shoulders, like old times. I am so blissfully happy to see the glow in his cheeks, I could cry. In fact, I do cry. It’s messy and gross, and I don’t care.
“I’m fine.” He tries to pry my arms from around his neck, but he’s weak and I’m holding on so tightly, I may not ever let go.
He coughs. “You’re suffocating me.”
I pull away slightly and give him a giant kiss on the cheek. He stiffens, but, given his brush with death, I’ll forgive him that.
I wipe my tears roughly from my cheeks and sit back on his bed.
Dim light from the overcast sky makes the room feel cold, even with the fire in the hearth burning strong.
I shiver beneath my red cloak, then pull Hunter’s blankets higher up his chest. He pushes them back down.
I know I’m fussing, but I can’t help it.
His eyes widen as he takes in my leather pants for the first time. His eyes drift up to mine, one eyebrow raised.
“They’re practical.” I sound defensive.
“I bet.” He squints at me, studying me for a long moment. “A lot has changed over these last two months.”
“It has.”
He leans back into his pillows and closes his eyes. Exhaustion etches his face. “I don’t know where the hell I am, but they sure have nice pillows.”
I laugh. “You and I both know these pillows are shit.”
“I was trying to be polite.” A weary smile cracks his face. To me, it shines like the light of a summer day in Llwyn. He opens one eye to look at me. “I sure would like to know what happened.”
“We’ll get to that, but first, are you sure you’re alright?”
He nods. “I am.”
I punch him in the shoulder as hard as I can.
He shoots straight up, his eyes accusatory. “Ow! What the hell, Sienna?”
I point at his face, my finger a mere three inches from his nose. “What were you thinking, sailing a ship north in the dead of winter?!”
He snaps his jaw shut and rubs his arm where I hit him. I hope it leaves a bruise.
“At least you have the decency to look chagrined.” I glower at him. “Seriously, Hunter, of all the harebrained, foolhardy, misguided things you’ve ever done, this—”
“It was for you,” he says evenly.
I stop, mid-sentence. “What?”
“I stole a ship and sailed north for you.”
I can’t hide the bewilderment I feel. I blink at him several times. “Wha … I … how …”
He sighs and leans back into the pillows again. “They all died, didn’t they? The men? My crew?”
I nod slowly.
“We knew it would be dangerous. I just thought we’d at least make it to shore before we all died.”
“Hunter, it wasn’t just dangerous. It was suicidal.” I stare at him hard. The past couple of months have changed him too, I realize. He’s thinner, and his eyes have dark circles beneath them. I’d wager he’s had more than a few sleepless nights since I left him on the battlefield at Ellyll.
“We didn’t have much of a choice,” he says, the corners of his mouth turning downward.
I bite my lip, thinking of how to proceed.
There are a million unspoken words between us.
How I broke my promise to marry him. How I convinced him to help me save the Wolf from my father’s prison.
How he gave me his body and soul before I abandoned him on a burning battlefield, to follow the Wolf into Annwyn.
I heave a weary sigh. “Hunter, but why come here? We both know I made my own choice to leave Llwyn.”
To leave you, I don’t say. Still, behind his deep brown eyes, I can see the words there. The pain of betrayal shows when he looks at me.
“I swore an oath to protect the royal family, and I intend to keep it.”
“You’re not a member of the King’s Guard anymore,” I remind him.
An involuntary look of disgust crosses his face. He tries to hide it, but not well enough. He turns his face to look out the window. “You wouldn’t understand. Some of us value our words. Our promises.”
Shame, thick and heavy, burns its way through my chest. I’ve broken many promises in my life, especially to him, but I never did it without a reason. Someday, I hope he’ll be able to see that.
The fire crackles in the hearth, doing little to cut the sudden chill between us.
Hunter’s eyes stare out at the snow-covered landscape of Annwyn, but I don’t think he really sees it.
It’s just an excuse to keep from looking at me.
Out his window, the frozen north awaits in an immense forest. He doesn’t even know about the fae yet.
How they’re real. How they can be both whimsical and utterly terrifying.
How they’re out there, in the wilds of Annwyn, just out of sight.
When he speaks again, his words are raw, honest. “An oath doesn’t mean you give up when the path gets too difficult, or complicated. I may not be a King’s Guard anymore, but no one can break the oath I made to the rightful ruler of Llwyn.” His brown eyes shift to meet mine. “You.”
“Don’t you mean my father?”
He shakes his head. “Your father lost his right to the crown when he disowned the rightful heir and used the Llwyn people to feed his lust for power.”
He sits up and reaches for my hand. I suck in a breath.
I thought I’d forgotten, the feel of his skin on mine, but I didn’t.
The memory of it comes crashing back into me, like the sea in a storm.
My hand knows his. My skin remembers the warmth of him, the hard calluses from years of training with swords, the surprising sureness of his grip …
but something isn’t the same. There was a time when Hunter’s touch sent shivers down my spine.
When his voice sent my heart skittering.
Now, he’s familiar, and yet not. There’s a distance between us.
“Hunter, I can’t just be the heir again. My father disowned me. He tried to kill me.”
He shakes his head again. “It’s not a matter of if you can or cannot. You are the rightful heir. You may not have chosen this life, but it chose you. And I chose you too. Even if I won’t be your husband, I will always be a knight in your service. Until death takes me.”
Hunter’s eyes burn with determination and sincerity, like a warm flame.
I know this look. I know this man. He believes in honor and virtue above all else.
When faced with a difficult choice, he will always do the right thing, even if it comes at his own expense.
It’s why I fell in love with him all those years ago. It’s why I had to let him go.
“Whatever happened to living a quiet life?”
He shakes his head slowly. “That was a fiancé’s promise to his betrothed. We’re not those people anymore. They died back in the borderlands, in the fires of Ellyll.”
In many ways, he’s right. I certainly don’t feel like the same woman who crossed Llwyn on a mission to find her grandmother. Now, I want only one thing in life: to kill the Fox King.
I’m almost afraid to ask, but I do anyway. “What happened after Ellyll?”
He nods and chews his lip for a few seconds before deciding where to start. “I couldn’t go back to Caerwen. I’m a fugitive.” His eyes flicker up to meet mine. There’s no blame in them, but I feel the bite of guilt all the same.
“Mostly, I traveled from village to village, asking for odd jobs. There were plenty of farmers in need of a strong back to finish the last of the harvest or ready their fields for winter. I meant what I said when I told you I wanted to be a fisherman. To live a simple life.”
I nod. “I know you did.” It’s why we never would have worked.
He sighs, growing weary again. “But then the snow came, and there was no need for hired hands. After Ellyll, things were different. You were gone. I suppose I just … drifted.”
It’s difficult for me to imagine Hunter wandering from town to town with no mission, no purpose. It couldn’t have been easy for him.
“But then, I started to notice something … concerning.”
“More concerning than normal, you mean?” I raise an eyebrow.
He nods. “The soldiers are heading toward the borderlands. There were so many of them. And King’s Guards too.” He gives me a meaningful look. “I knew he was up to something. And it wasn’t good.”
My face pales.
“So, I went back to Caerwen. To the Fox Palace.”
“Hunter, you could’ve been killed!”
He nods, looking sheepish. “I was careful. But I couldn’t just sit back and pretend nothing was happening. I needed to find out what your father was up to.”
Of course, he did. A pang of fondness strikes my heart. Hunter, forever the noble knight, with or without his copper armor.
“And did you?” I ask, almost afraid to hear the answer.
His mouth forms a grim line. “I heard stories. None of them good.”
Fear strikes my heart, and my body stiffens. “Tell me. I can handle it.”
Hunter studies me for a reaction. “Your brother,” he says the word like he knows it’s a lie. “Is fine, it seems. Or, as fine as any child can be when he’s raised by nursemaids and an evil father.”
“Fennec is still a baby. My father can’t do much damage yet.”
He shrugs. “Maybe not. But, Elena …” his voice breaks.
My heart sinks. I know where this is going. No woman lasts long with my father. Hunter’s cousin wouldn’t be the exception.
He nods, sensing I know. “She disappeared.”
“Dead?” The word sounds hollow in my mouth.
“I think that’s safe to presume, knowing the king’s track record.”
I suspected as much, but hearing it aloud makes it feel real.
Elena, despite being my father’s mistress, had once been my friend.
She didn’t deserve the life she got. Nor the end.
I remember the cold, dark dungeon that my father locked me in when he left me to die.
I refuse to think of Elena there, dead with hundreds of rats in that damp darkness.
I reach out toward Hunter hesitantly. When he doesn’t flinch away, I set my fingers gently over his where they rest on the blanket.
“Hunter, I am so, so sorry.”