Chapter 40
No funeral should ever be this large.
All through the night, Gwyllion’s survivors labor in silence, gathering the broken bodies of the dead.
The old move stiffly, stooped with grief, hauling their neighbors and kin through ash-choked air.
Children collect sticks and dried grass to build the pyres.
Their small hands shake as they place offerings beside their siblings, their grandparents, their friends.
By the next afternoon, the eastern side of Gwyllion Castle is stained black with soot from so many fires.
The wind carries the pyre smoke westward in a veil of ash that clings to everything.
I wonder if the black scar will remain here forever, etched into the castle like a curse.
Like a memento from when the Fox King invaded Gwyllion and was reanimated as the Rogue King.
I can barely see through the stinging haze as I drag the body of a fallen Fox Soldier toward the nearest pyre.
My arms burn with effort. His copper breastplate is torn open, jagged and bloodied, likely from Moribund or a corpse beast. He may be my enemy, but I don’t enjoy the sight.
His mouth is still parted, frozen in a last gasp, his face slack with disbelief.
One of his eyes is gone. The other stares blindly up into the ashy sky.
Flies crawl across his face in greedy spirals.
I shoo them away, then lay a hand over his face to close the remaining eye. His skin is tacky with blood. I feel the moment his eyelid shuts beneath my palm, and something in me shudders.
The farther I drag him, the more rage grows inside me like a storm.
I want to blame this man, to scream at him, to curse him and all the other men in copper armor.
But I can’t. Even as fury runs thick and black beneath my skin, I know the truth: he didn’t choose this war.
He didn’t choose to become a monster or a martyr.
None of us did. We’re all just pawns in a game we never agreed to play.
Only one man chose this path. Only one player watched from afar while the rest of us bled for him: my father. And if there’s an old god left in this ruined world, I will end him. One way or another, I will kill the Rogue King for good.
Out of the corner of my eye, something moves through the smoke.
I blink through stinging eyes and realize it’s a funeral march.
The Wolves—or what remains of them, anyway—trail behind the Dead Queen as she walks past the burning pyres.
The Wolves carry a plank on their shoulders.
A body lies atop it, wrapped in a white shroud.
I don’t need to see her face to know who it is.
The strong frame of her body, the careful way the others carry her—it can only be Nalina.
Tristan leads the pack, his face still as granite. I know how devastated he is to lose Nalina. And I also know he must be so, so proud. Because in the end, Nalina did exactly what he said she would. Her methods may have been unconventional, but she always did what she believed was right.
At the tail of the procession, I see a familiar golden head. Hunter follows the Wolves, his head bent in respect. And never in my life would I have expected to see Hunter fight alongside the people of Annwyn. Never would I have believed he’d mourn the death of one of their Wolves.
The scent of death is thick in the air, a bitter perfume of scorched flesh and dried blood.
Flakes of ash drift down like snow, clinging to my hair and clothes.
Somewhere out on the battlefield, my red cloak lies beneath mud and rubble.
Good riddance. It’s a reminder of my hubris and failure. I never want to see it again.
I abandon the Fox Soldier at the edge of the pyre without ceremony.
His weight slips from my arms and hits the ground with a dull thud.
My legs are leaden, and my boots drag through the mud as I fall into step behind the mourners.
The world feels distant, muffled, as though I’m moving through water.
My chest is numb, and each breath feels heavy.
The sky darkens with smoke, turning the sun into a dull glow behind the clouds. I keep my gaze fixed on the white shroud ahead, where a thin strip of linen billows in the wind. It’s jarring, seeing something so boldly white in a muddied, blood-soaked battleground, but it feels appropriate.
Nalina hated me. But still, in the end, she sacrificed her life for mine. She saved us all.
I keep my distance as the Wolves set Nalina’s plank down on a small pyre.
For saving Gwyllion, she gets the honor of her own fire, rather than being piled on top of other bodies.
A man carries a torch and kneels respectfully in front of the pyre.
He lights the edge of Nalina’s white funeral shroud.
It catches, igniting the sticks and grasses beneath her within moments.
We all watch in silence as the linen burns away, revealing Nalina, her thick blond braid aflame. I’d expected to see her silver sword at her chest, but it isn’t there. Even a death like Nalina’s isn’t immune to scavenging for the war effort. It’ll be reused in the fight against the new Rogue King.
Eventually, the Dead Queen nods to her Wolves, wordlessly dismissing them to continue the cleanup efforts.
Tristan’s head hangs low as he stares at the pyre, unmoving.
The Wolves place their hands on his shoulders or touch his arm as they retreat, off to continue the work of gathering the dead.
They disappear into the smoke, but Tristan remains, his eyes fixed on Nalina’s burning corpse.
Hunter remains too, keeping a respectful distance. His eyes meet mine, and I know he’s waiting to see what I’ll do. But I can’t seem to make my legs move. I can’t draw my eyes away from Nalina, the woman who was so infuriating, so confusing and complicated. The woman who saved my life.
“She didn’t really hate you, you know.”
I jolt at the Dead Queen’s voice. My eyes are watering, burning with the sting of smoke and ash in the air.
I cough. “Fooled me.”
“She was lost in grief.” She turns to look at me through her sheer black veil. “I think you, of all people, can understand what that feels like.”
I don’t respond.
The Dead Queen sighs, as if her lungs need air. “The Fox King has presented us with a new problem.”
“I should’ve seen it coming.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“Perhaps not. But I do know him. I should have suspected a trap.”
The Dead Queen doesn’t say anything for a long time. We watch as Nalina’s clothes burn away and her hair curls and turns to ash.
Near the pyre, Hunter shifts on his feet.
It almost feels like old times, him a King’s Guard, following me around, protecting me, loving me.
But this isn’t Caerwen. We’re not the same people we were back in Llwyn.
We’re not even the same people we were three months ago.
Everything has changed. I look at his soot-smeared face and his filthy Annwyn clothes.
His father’s fox sword still hangs at his hip, but there’s no other copper in sight.
I speak before I’ve had a chance to convince myself not to. “There’s something you still haven’t told me.”
The queen turns to face me. “And what’s that?”
My voice trembles, but I don’t let it stop me. “Why did you choose Annwyn instead of me? Why was leading the Sympathizers more important than I was?”
It takes her a long time to respond. We watch as Nalina’s skin grows charred and black. “It was for your mother,” she whispers. Beneath her veil, I can see her opalescent eyes close, as if she truly does still feel pain.
Her words trickle over my skin like spiders. Burrowing into me, nesting in my bones so that I can never, ever forget. No one speaks of my mother.
I shake my head, confused. “How?”
The Dead Queen stares at me, unblinking behind her sheer veil. “I had to make sure she didn’t die in vain.”
And somehow, I can understand that. It doesn’t make it easy. It doesn’t even make it right. But I can understand forfeiting your life in service of another. In that, we are the same.
There’s something here between us, finally. Not a fondness, not by any means. It’s not love or even friendship. It’s more like an agreement. We don’t have to like each other to fight against a common enemy.
A realization trickles over my mind like unexpected rain.
I have finally come to terms with Grandmother’s death.
Her murder brought me great sorrow and pain.
It brought me horror and death. It almost killed me.
But it also brought me here, to Annwyn. It taught me that I am stronger than I knew.
It taught me that I’m capable of both great and terrible things.
And I’ll need both to end the Rogue King.
From the far side of the pyre, Tristan kicks a rock into the flames, then pulls his shoulders back. He walks toward us, finally ready to face the queen. He joins Hunter at my side. Together we stand in silence for a long time, each lost in our thoughts.
“There can only be one.” There’s a worried note in the Dead Queen’s voice that I’ve never heard before. “Two dead rulers upend the balance. Two cannot be trusted with this level of power. Especially if the Rogue King doesn’t respect the sanctity of life, both fae and human.”
“There shouldn’t even be one.” My voice cracks, my throat scorched and dry.
I expect Tristan to react to this, but he doesn’t. His eyes don’t move from Nalina as she’s swallowed by the flames.
“That may be,” the queen agrees. “But the Moon Goddess created the first Dead Queen to preserve order, to restore the balance between the humans and the fae.”
“It doesn’t sound like you’ve done a very good job.” I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice, but I hardly think it matters.
“In many ways, I’ve failed.” She looks out toward the battlefield. “But all is not lost. Not yet.”
I’m not so sure about that. Hunter’s eyes watch me protectively. He’s ever a King’s Guard, even without the copper armor.