Chapter 40 #2
I hear my voice before I even register that I’m speaking. “Do you regret it? Becoming the Dead Queen?”
If Nalina were still alive, she’d protest my audacity. The thought makes a small smile flicker a cross my lips.
The Dead Queen pauses, then raises her thin black veil. It blows behind her, caught in a breeze. She sets her dead, opalescent eyes on mine.
“I regret being unable to feel the same emotions I did when I was alive. Peace, tenderness, love. I regret being unable to smile.” Her gloved hand reaches up to her face, to touch the permanent grimace left after being torn to shreds in the borderlands.
“Most of all, I regret not being there for you when you needed me.”
I study her, but it’s no use. You can’t read a corpse the way you can read a living, breathing human. It’s like staring at a stone and expecting it to cry.
“But I don’t regret becoming the queen of these lands.
” She drops her hand slowly, then looks out toward the Spires.
“I will never regret my mission. Tearing down the Fox empire and restoring balance to the world. It’s what I lived for.
What I sacrificed so much for. What I died for.
” She pauses. “I failed in life. Now, I have a chance at redemption in death.”
We stare out toward the Spires, at the wild expanse beyond.
Much of the snow has melted from the lower altitudes, but the jagged peaks are still tipped with ice.
Annwyn is a treacherous land, the stories always said so.
This winter has proven it to be true. But the stories never spoke of how strong and beautiful it is too.
How the Annwyn people hold their wild secrets to their chests out of protection, not cruelty or spite.
How this land carries magic, just below its surface.
My eyes flicker to Tristan, but he’s lost to the flames and whatever dark thoughts consume him.
“If I’m to do this,” I say. “If I’m to work with you to kill the Rogue King, then I need to know one thing.” Smoke scrapes my throat raw and my eyes won’t stop watering, but I don’t waver. I stare right into the Dead Queen’s eyes as I ask, “How do you kill someone who’s been reanimated?”
She knows what I’m asking. And why. It’s not just to end my father, it’s to end her too. Beneath her grotesque grimace, I think I can see the hint of a smile on the Dead Queen’s face. “You can’t.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “If that were true, then five centuries of Dead Queens would be roaming this castle.”
She nods, as if pleased with the holes I stabbed in her story. “Cutting off his head won’t do. We are not like corpse beasts. Our power will just make us whole again, to continue the torture of eternal life.”
“I figured as much.”
She nods in assent. “If I tell you, Granddaughter, you must promise me one thing.”
I nod.
There’s fire in her opalescent eyes when she speaks. “He must die first.”
I snort. “You’d trust me to keep that promise?”
She lifts her chin. “I would.”
“Why?”
“Why trust you? Or why do I ask you to wait?”
“The latter.”
She steps slowly toward me through the shifting pyre smoke. “Because I want to watch as the shadows leech from his traitorous, murderous body for what he did to my daughter.” She stares at me, as if challenging me to push back.
“Fine,” I say. “It’s as good a reason as any.”
As much as I detest this woman—this corpse—I can’t help but admire her. I’m in awe of this queen’s immense power. How her fury consumes everything in its path. How her need for revenge will stop at nothing.
I see myself in her. It is both terrible and empowering at the same time.
“But first,” she says, holding up one skeletal finger. “You must find his heart and stop it from beating. Only that will make him vulnerable to true death. No part of his body can live.”
“So, your heart still beats somewhere then.”
She nods slowly.
“I assume you have it hidden.”
“In a place you will never find it.”
It’s a challenge; I can see it in her undead eyes. And we both know I’ve never been afraid of a challenge. We stare at each other for a long moment before I nod.
“Fine. If this is the only way to end my father, I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“You won’t be able to do it alone.” She turns her undead gaze to Hunter, where he lingers behind me. “And what of you, Heir to the North? Where do your allegiances lie?”
Hunter’s mouth forms into a determined line.
“I think I’ve seen enough of the Fox King’s cruelty to last me a lifetime.
I’m not interested in giving him the opportunity to do it for a thousand more.
” He turns to me. In one swift movement, he unsheathes his Fox sword and kneels.
He places the tip of his sword in the dirt before him and bows his head to me.
“I once vowed to protect the Fox Heir. I will keep that oath.”
The Dead Queen raises an eyebrow. “Even now that you’ve learned you’re the Heir to the North?” The Dead Queen asks, her voice pitched with curiosity. “In many ways, you are enemies.”