Chapter 34
At dawn, I wake to the sound of bells. A deep, persistent clanging echoes across Gwyllion.
Hazy morning light spills in through the open tower window, and spiderwebs sway in the corners above our heads. Next to me, Tristan jumps to his feet, all signs of sleep vanished. I’m momentarily distracted by his delicious nakedness before I remember what the bells mean.
They’re here.
Tristan reaches out a hand to help me off the ground where we’d slept, warmed by the power purring inside of me.
Of course, the first night I sleep wrapped in a man’s arms, he’s my enemy and we’re hidden away in a ruinous watchtower.
So be it. I will face the Fox Army with kiss-swollen lips and dirt smudged on my defiant face.
I tug my tunic back over my head as I run to the window beside him. Beyond the castle’s defensive walls, mist clings to the ground. The field is nothing but swirling shades of gray in the early dawn.
Then, I see them. Shimmers of copper in the distance, caught in the first rays of morning sun. The Fox Army waits along the edge of the distant forest. And several yards ahead of them, sitting on the white stallion he favors, is my father. The Fox King himself.
My power flares like fury inside of me.
Part of me had expected he wouldn’t come. That he’d stay behind in his gilded palace and let his army do his dirty work. That’s his usual tactic, but this battle is different. This is personal.
I humiliated him by running away with Hunter and Tristan. I escaped his grasp again and again. Just like Grandmother did. And if there’s one thing I know about my father, it’s that he knows how to hold a grudge. And he’ll want to be here to watch me suffer.
A smile grows on my face as I watch his copper banner wave in the distance. Because if Father is here, it means this is the day I finally get my revenge.
I’m going to kill that man today.
Finally clothed, Tristan and I run down the crumbling stairs and into the courtyard below.
The villagers are awake. They’re sharing final goodbyes and rushing to their assigned posts.
I watch them one last time. A mother sobs on the shoulder of her young son, who stands with a rusted pike in his hand.
The expression on his face makes my heart ache.
He’s trembling, but the hardness in his eyes makes it clear he’s determined to fight.
At the front gates, still as stone, the Dead Queen waits. Her long veil blows in the breeze as she sits astride a black, undead stallion. It isn’t Nell, and I find myself grateful for that small mercy. The horse’s opalescent eyes stare blankly at the gate.
Beside the Dead Queen, Nalina waits on her brown mare. She doesn’t meet our eyes as we approach.
I glance around, but I don’t see Hunter. He’s probably in the castle armory, giving last-second advice to the Annwyn fighters. I wonder how much Father knows about him. Does he think Hunter died in Ellyll last autumn? What would Father do if he found out Hunter is here, helping Annwyn?
A sudden thought strikes me. Is it possible Father knows Hunter is the Heir to the North?
Is that why he kept him so close all these years?
Could that be why he wanted me to marry him?
If so, then Hunter needs to stay out of sight.
Father can’t see that he’s alive. If I’m Annwyn’s secret weapon, then Hunter is too, if not more so.
A groom brings out two more horses. He leads them toward us. The horses dance nervously, their eyes glancing toward the dead woman astride the dead horse. You’d think they’d be used to the Dead Queen, living in her stables, but it appears instinct is stronger than training.
I climb onto my anxious horse and gain control of the reins.
“What are you smiling about?” Nalina shoots me a disapproving glare.
“Committing patricide.”
She shakes her head. “Not right now, you’re not. If you kill the Fox King before the battle even begins, his army will capture you before you’re able to be useful to us.” She grips the hilt of her sword. “You’re supposed to be our great weapon, not a reckless child.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. “I’m not going to kill him right now.” I move my head from side to side. “Eventually. Today, preferably.”
Next to me, Tristan grins atop his black horse.
I can’t see the queen’s expression behind her veil, but I can feel her dead eyes on me. No doubt she’s wondering if I’m too much of a loose cannon to parade in front of the Fox King. If I’ll give away our biggest secret and show my harnessed powers too soon.
In front of us, the gate begins to rise, and a scout gallops through.
“They’re waiting to parley,” he says to his queen.
We’d assumed as much. Even the Fox King would prefer to have his demands heard before the battle begins.
Behind her veil, the Dead Queen nods. Nalina tightens her grip on her reins and urges her horse forward, ahead of the queen.
Tristan takes the queen’s right side, and I hover at her left.
I’ve traversed this field many times over the last few months, but it has never felt so wide.
My heart pounds in my chest as we get closer to my father.
Morning mist swirls around our horses’ thudding hooves, scattering with each step. I feel very much like a child again, resigned to meeting the displeasure of my father. Only this time, I’m not helpless. This time, I’m not alone.
In front of us, the wall of copper-clad soldiers appears to go on forever in both directions. They’ve built a long, impenetrable wall of men. Their message is received: there will be no escape.
Ahead of them, my father waits, his copper crown gleaming atop his graying auburn hair. His armor, darker bronze than the others, is etched with a snarling fox with teeth sharp enough to cut.
As we near the parley point, our horses pant with excitement. Except for the undead horse, whose exposed ribs don’t hold breathing lungs. Its dead flesh glistens in the morning light, punctuated by splinters of white bone.
Father hasn’t changed in these past few months.
I’m not sure what I’d expected from the man who always seemed so immovable, so put-together.
I feel like an entirely different person now.
I suppose I thought he would be too. But here on the battlefield, he’s still remarkably calm.
He’s the perfect, poised Fox King, except for the barely restrained fury behind his eyes.
It must be difficult for him to look at us, his deceitful daughter and his loathed mother-in-law. Two women he tried to dispose of, both united against him now. It feels empowering. Despite the poor odds, I’m glad to be here fighting against him.
“Ah, at last,” my father says as we approach. “I was beginning to suspect you hadn’t seen us coming.”
We halt our horses a few yards away from the Fox King and his guards.
His eyes narrow at the sight of me. “Daughter.”
“Father.” The word tastes bitter on my tongue.
“I never thought I’d see you here, in allegiance with our enemy.” His eyes flicker to Tristan. “The Wolf, however, I did expect.”
Tristan gives him no reaction.
“Then you don’t have much imagination,” I say. “Or faith in my ability to learn the truth, despite your efforts to …” I pause, considering how to word his years of obstruction and his attempts on my life. “Keep me in the dark.”
His mouth pulls into a tight line as he redirects his attention to the queen. “It is polite to remove your veil in the presence of a king.”
“The queen does not remove her veil upon request,” Nalina snaps.
Father gives Nalina a patient smile. “Then how am I to know she is truly the Dead Queen and not some imposter?”
“How dare you—” Nalina begins, her hand shooting to the hilt of her sword. She stops mid-sentence when the Dead Queen raises a gloved hand.
“I will remove my veil for His Majesty.” The queen’s voice is as cold as a tomb.
She releases her horse’s reins and slowly raises the hem of her long, black veil. She pulls it up over her face, allowing the wind to carry the fabric behind her.
The Dead Queen stares down the Fox King with pearlescent, dead eyes. The hole where her nose should be is black with rot. Her torn cheek flesh exposes broken teeth, giving her a permanent, gruesome grin. She raises her pale chin to give him a better look.
“After all, he has seen this face before,” she says, exhaling her words with a death rattle. “In the borderlands, where he left me to die at the teeth of his foxhounds.”
If Father is shocked at the sight of the queen’s true form, he doesn’t show it. His horse backs away, and his guards pale. But not Father. He merely smiles.
“The visage suits you.”
The Dead Queen doesn’t bite. “Why have you brought your armies into my territory?”
The Fox King takes a deep breath, tilting his face up to the rising sun. “Annwyn is such a gorgeous land. Truly. I thought I’d see it for myself.”
The Dead Queen waits.
Father tuts. “You wound me. It’s like we haven’t known each other for decades. Like we’re not family.”
My nostrils flare. “How dare you use that word in front of us?” The words slip out of my mouth before I’ve had a chance to consider them.
Father’s eyes slide back toward me, lazily. “You’ve always been a petulant child, but you’re mine, nonetheless.”
“Parents don’t try to kill their children.”
He shrugs. “Clearly, you haven’t had any children.”
I glare at him. “You locked me in a place of forgetting. You sicced your foxhounds on me.” My eyes dart to the Dead Queen. “Just like you did to Grandmother.”
He sighs. “Ah, so she told you, did she?” He shakes his head. “No matter. I’d assumed you’d find out sooner or later. I’d just hoped to acquire a new heir before that happened.” He mimes a check mark in the air with one finger.
Tristan lets out a low laugh, speaking for the first time. “Odd how you use the word ‘acquire’ to describe a legitimate son and heir.” Tristan’s voice is light, almost contemplative.
Father’s face grows dark. “What are you implying, Wolf?”
Tristan merely smirks.
“I grow tired of this game.” Father sniffs. “Hand over your castle, return that rebellious daughter of mine, and I will let your people live.”
The queen’s voice is firm. “No.”
Father gives her a disappointed look. “I’d thought death would make you come to your senses. It seems not.”
I tighten my grip on my horse’s reins. “What could you possibly want with a crumbling castle in a land that isn’t yours?”
Father narrows his eyes at me. “You understand what she wants, don’t you? Your precious grandmother and all the Dead Queens who came before her?”
“For you to leave Annwyn alone, I expect.”
He gives me a patronizing smile. “Still so na?ve. After an entire winter in Annwyn, you never thought to ask her?”
I don’t respond. I can sense my father’s traps a mile away.
“She wants to bring back the fae.” He drops the words like a swing of a mace, but he miscalculates his aim.
“And here I thought that’s what you desired with Annwyn.” I say before I think to conceal my cards.
My father studies me for a long moment. I believe I’ve truly surprised him. He never suspected I’d know his true motives for marching on Annwyn.
He leans forward in his saddle. “And do you know what that means? To bring them back?”
I stare at him, refusing to play along.
He sits up straight in his saddle and tuts. “It means she wants the realm to go back two thousand years, to a time when humans were slaves. When we existed only to satiate the appetites of another species.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Tristan says to me. “Don’t listen to him. There was peace between the fae and the humans, Red. It was the humans who trapped the fae kings and queens, not the other way around. We were the ones who killed and tricked the fae.”
My father watches me, his eyes waiting to see how I’ll respond, but I keep my face a mask. He sniffs. “Well, I, for one, will not be a slave to the fae. I will not let the Dead Queen turn the hourglass back two thousand years.”
“You’d rather be on the good side of the fae, you mean?”
“Better than their bad side.” Father turns from me to address the silent Dead Queen. “I will have your bloody castle either way, you know. Either you hand it over without a fight, or I will take it by force.”
The Dead Queen does not hesitate. “You know I won’t do that.”
“Do you want to watch your kingdom burn?” Father asks, his voice low. “To hear the screams of your people as they die on the end of a copper-tipped sword? I will show no mercy.”
“You don’t even know the word.”
He grins; his mouth seemingly full of too many teeth. “Exactly.”
My blood runs cold. He knew it would come to this. He’s been looking forward to it.
The Fox King kicks his horse, and it steps back, turning toward his unending line of copper soldiers. He points one gauntlet-clad hand toward a distant mountain peak to the west. “You have until the sun reaches that point to change your mind.”
He rides off, his copper King’s Guards galloping at his flank.
Half a day. That’s how much longer the people of Gwyllion have to live. By mid-afternoon, the copper axe will fall.
“You should have let me kill him,” I say, staring as he retreats. Even as I say it, I know it isn’t true. If the people of Gwyllion are to have any chance of survival, it falls on me, the Dead Queen, and the Wolves.
In the distance, thunderclouds gather at the edge of the Spires, rumbling and ominous.
Nalina ignores me and turns to the Dead Queen. “What are your orders?”
Through the hole in her face, I watch what remains of the queen’s tongue as she speaks. “We fight.”
Nalina nods once, then turns back toward the castle to ready the troops. When she’s gone, I watch the Dead Queen for a long moment, wondering if she fully understands what she’s asking of her people. They will be slaughtered.
If there was ever a time for honesty between us, it’s now, on the edge of death.
She needs to know who she’s dealing with.
Who I truly am. I will not slink off into the shadows to plot and kill in secret, like my father does.
I will not hide in castle towers, creating undead creatures to do my bidding for me, like the Dead Queen.
I am not my father. And I am not what remains of my grandmother. Secrets are what got us into this mess in the first place. I choose to live my life with brutal honesty.
“There’s something you should know about me,” I say, my voice unwavering.
“And what is that?” The Dead Queen barely even turns to acknowledge me.
“After I kill my father, I have other plans.”
“I’d expect nothing less of a Fox Heir.”
I turn to face her straight on. “Someday, I will end you.”
Not even a hint of emotion crosses her face when she whispers her response. “I know.”
At least, in that, we have an understanding.