Chapter 25 #2
I let out a shaky breath, and nod.
“And now, you wish to fight for them.” He studies me.
I swallow hard. “I do.”
“I just …” He pinches the bridge of his nose, then sighs up at the gray sky. “I can’t believe it’s her. After all these years of searching. Your grandmother is …” He stops, as if he can’t bear to say the words.
“The Dead Queen, yes.”
He shakes his head at the snow-covered castle.
“It was difficult for me to come to terms with that, too.”
His shoulders sag as he studies me again. “How did you?”
“I didn’t. Not really.” I shake my head, trying to keep the bubbling anger from rising up in me again. “I just can’t dwell on it. She isn’t the same person. She isn’t alive.”
Hunter stares at me for a long time. Snow falls silently around us, muffling all sound but for the two of us.
“It must have been terrible for you,” he says finally. “Finding her after all this time. Like that.”
I swallow and blink away the tears. Beneath my red cloak, I wrap my arms around myself. “It was,” I whisper.
Hunter heaves a sigh and tilts his head up toward the sky.
Snowflakes fall across his flushed face, reminding me of how I used to touch his skin, kiss his lips.
My fingers twitch, wanting to reach for him again, but that time has long since passed.
It will never be again. Like how I’ve had to accept that Grandmother is gone, and the Dead Queen sits in her place, I will have to find a way to accept this loss as well.
Hunter is not gone. Not completely. But in many ways, he will never be the same. Not toward me, in any case. And I have no one to blame but myself.
Snow catches on his eyelashes as he turns back to me. “I’m still angry. But …” He exhales heavily. “I didn’t come here to drag you home. I came here to keep you breathing.”
“Then keep me breathing here.” I try to keep the pleading tone out of my voice. “Fight for Annwyn with me. Help me stop my father.”
He looks down at his raw knuckles. “If I say ‘yes,’ I’m not saying it to her. I will not kneel to the thing that wears your grandmother’s face.”
“I understand completely.”
Hunter’s eyes are warm despite everything.
He steps closer, close enough that I can see the green flecks in his brown irises, the tiny white crescent of an old scar beneath his left eye.
Snow gathers on the shoulder of my red cloak; he reaches up without thinking and brushes it away.
The small, familiar touch unspools something terrible and tender inside me.
Hunter takes a deep breath, then turns from me to face the ruined castle. The snow continues to fall around us, coating everything in a blanket of white. After a few muttered swears, he turns back to me.
He sniffs. “Alright.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Alright?”
He rubs the snow out of his tousled blond hair, as if in frustration. He stares at me, considering his words. “My entire life, I’ve trusted you above all others. You’re reckless. Stubborn. And, at times, infuriating. But I’ve never known you to be wrong. Especially when it mattered.”
My throat tightens, and I’m too afraid to say anything. Afraid I may break whatever spell this gentle snowfall has cast over us.
“I don’t like it.” He hits the sandbag again, for good measure. “Actually, I hate it.” He turns back to me. “But I trust you.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Even after …” I can’t finish the sentence. After we crossed Llwyn together, and I abandoned him on the fire-engulfed battlefield at Ellyll. After we made love in an enchanted forest, and I broke his heart.
He sniffs, and nods. “What’s happening here, between Annwyn and Llwyn, it’s bigger than us. I have to keep everything in perspective.”
“Of course.” He hasn’t forgiven me. But he’s a bigger man than most to put that aside for the greater good.
“I don’t know how we can stop your father.” He squints up at the crumbling stone and shuttered windows of Gwyllion. “This castle is in shambles, and the people here are no match for the Fox Army.”
“But we have to try.”
“Unfortunately, I think you’re right.” He nods slowly. “I’m going to do this, Sienna, but I want you to understand one thing.”
Snow falls harder all around us, and the wind picks up again. I look up to search his face and find his eyes boring into mine.
“I’m going to do my best to help save Annwyn. For the oath I made to serve the Fox Heir for the rest of my life.” His mouth twists. “For you. Even if ‘for you’ hurts.”
I squeeze my eyes shut for a heartbeat. The ache of relief is almost enough to make me cry. I let out a shaky exhale. “Then I have a condition.”
He arches a brow, amused despite himself. “Of course you do. Aren’t you the one recruiting me?”
“Yes.” A slight smile catches me by surprise. “You need to go take a nap.”
Hunter’s laugh is laced with exhaustion, but I’ve never heard a warmer sound.
I tilt my head toward the doors. “I don’t want to steal you back from Death a second time.”
He studies me for a long moment, then nods once. “Only if you promise me something in return.”
“What?”
“Don’t let this place turn you into a monster.”
“What makes you so sure I’m not one already?”
In reply, he reaches out and brushes a snowflake off my cheek. My heart stills. The touch lasts just for the slightest moment, but it’s enough. It has to be.
I think of the Dead Queen’s black veil, of the silver moth that rests against dead flesh.
I think of all the horrible decisions I’ve made in my life and all the heartache I’ve left in my wake.
I’m not convinced I’m not a monster already.
But if a brave, truehearted Hunter believes in me, maybe I can believe I’m not completely lost yet.
“I promise.”
We stand there too long for friends and not long enough for lovers, while the snow blankets the world and the wind whistles through the Spires.
I’ve ruined everything with Hunter. And I truly don’t deserve him. Yet here he is, standing before me in the gently swirling snow, the wilds of Annwyn behind him. Wherever this journey takes us, whatever the spring thaw brings, I know one thing will always be true.
Hunter is the greatest man I have ever known. And I am the luckiest woman in the world to know him.