Chapter 11
The twilight around me is eerily quiet. Twisted branches and overgrown hedges cast dark shadows on the ground.
I’m crumpled in the dirt, focusing on steady breaths, when someone wraps their arms around my shoulders.
The metallic scent of copper mixes with the aroma of night-blooming flowers. It smells like a nosebleed in a garden.
Hunter’s armor digs into my arms uncomfortably, but I don’t push him away even though we’re in full view of anyone passing through the grounds.
“Sienna, I’m so sorry.” His voice hitches.
I shut my eyes, trying to banish the memory of Hunter hitting the Wolf again and again. Of the sickening thuds echoing off the stone walls of the decrepit cell.
“I didn’t want to do it,” he says. “Please believe me.”
I do. But that doesn’t stop the memory from playing in my mind like a bad dream on repeat.
I rub my hands over my face and take a deep breath, trying to get ahold of myself.
I’ve spent my entire life inventing new ways to outwit my father.
I can beat him at his own, vicious game. I just have to figure out how.
But this felt different from his usual cruelty. This felt like a test especially for me and Hunter. A test of our loyalty at another man’s expense. A man who refused to fight back.
That’s not how the stories go.
In the lore about Annwyn, the Dead Queen rules with an insatiable blood lust. Her people kill for sport, using shadow power in creative ways to induce torture and pain.
Llwyn nannies tell stories of horrible creatures brought back from the dead and sent to naughty children who refuse to behave.
As far as I’ve been told, the Annwyn people are monsters.
But today, we were.
Everything I thought I knew is wrong and I feel like I can’t breathe.
My thoughts are racing so fast I can hardly make sense of them.
I’m the only one who knows the man in the kennels is a Wolf.
He could have killed us all, or at the very least, revealed my secret.
But he didn’t. My father nearly killed him, but he protected me. Why?
The twilight deepens as the last rays of the sun cast an eerie glow. Fireflies flicker among the stalks of dead flowers. An icy breeze causes the dried topiary to shiver in a death rattle. Somewhere in the distance, the unmistakable giggle of a lovers’ tryst reminds me we aren’t alone.
I pull away from Hunter. His face is worried, his eyes wide. The cracks in his knuckles are still stained with blood. I shake them off and stand, brushing the dirt from my red dress.
Hunter scrambles up after me. “Sienna, we need to talk.” He tries to catch my eyes. “Somewhere away from here. Where no one will listen.”
The last thing I want to do right now is talk to Hunter, but I know this wasn’t his fault. He is as much a prisoner of the Fox King as I am. We can’t just sit here in the dirt, falling to pieces. That’s what my father wants. That’s how he wins.
I straighten and nod. “Meet me in the cemetery.”
“The … cemetery.” He nods. “Yes, that would work. No one there to listen.”
“Look for my signal.” I turn toward the palace with its glowing windows and harden my heart. “It’s time to get dressed for supper. We’re expected.” Then I head back to my rooms to burn this dress that’s tainted with the smell of the kennels and the memory of a tortured Wolf.
I sit through an entire supper next to Father, wearing a new red dress and a placid smile like nothing happened.
I can’t stomach a single bite. Everything reminds me of the Wolf, from the roasted pig with its splitting flesh to the ripe, red fruit with oozing juices.
The dark wine looks so much like the Wolf’s spilled blood that, for a moment, I can’t help but wonder if this is another one of my father’s sick tests.
My mind keeps returning to the man in the kennels. Guilt gnaws at my insides like maggots feasting on dead flesh. The Wolf is likely dying because of me. Again.
When it feels like I’ve been present for an appropriate amount of time—like a pretty display pony all dressed in red—I excuse myself from the table.
The chair scrapes against the floor as I stand, drawing unwanted attention.
I force myself not to flinch, my smile still plastered in place.
From across the room, I give Hunter a look that I hope anyone witnessing would assume was an invitation for a secret lover’s rendezvous.
Back in my rooms, I change out of the voluminous red skirts and back into my stained woolen dress from the borderlands.
It’s still damp from my most recent bathtub washing, but it will have to do.
This time, when I climb down the wisteria outside my bedroom window, I have the enormous picnic basket over my shoulder.
The night air is cool with a breeze that makes me shiver.
A few apples fall to the ground below when I lose my footing. The soft thuds echo in the stillness.
I don’t light my path as I cross the palace grounds toward the outskirts where the royal cemetery lies.
The moon peers out from behind thick clouds, and it’s enough light to see by.
I don’t want to draw attention to myself.
If anyone notices me in the dark, I’ll just look like a silly palace maid off to a secret picnic with a forbidden lover.
Gravel crunches underfoot as I enter through the large, black gates surrounded by ancient, moss-covered walls.
This is where most of my ancestors are buried.
The air is thick with the smell of autumn decay and damp stone.
Enormous gravestones pepper the ground. They’re etched with images of knights doing daring deeds and ladies wearing elaborate gowns, all last-ditch attempts to frame the dead in veils of glory.
In truth, most of them spent their lives in gossipy parlor rooms or in wine-fueled gambling dens.
I never come here. I’m not proud of the family I hail from. The one person I’d love to visit isn’t buried here. She isn’t buried at all. The story claims there wasn’t enough of her left to inter, not after the corpse wolves finished with her.
Determination fuels my steps. We should have had more time together.
I should have been there when she died. But I wasn’t.
No one was. Carved stone and grand mausoleums don’t tell you what sort of person a deceased ancestor was, the legacy they left behind does.
And for my grandmother, I am that legacy.
I continue down the cemetery path as my resolve solidifies into something hard and black as obsidian.
I have to reach the Wolf. I have to know what happened to her.
I move quickly, the oppressive darkness pressing in on all sides, my footsteps muffled by the soft, damp ground.
As I weave through the maze of gravestones, twisted trees, and mausoleums, their shadows stretch like they’re reaching out to ensnare me.
I feel the weight of the past bearing down on me, the whispers of long-dead ancestors rustling through the leaves.
Their judging eyes seem to follow me, their disapproval palpable even in death.
There’s a pond in the center of the graveyard that seems like the most obvious place to meet Hunter. As I grow closer, I hear the telltale songs of bullfrogs singing to the night, followed by the splash-plop as they jump into the water.
A single, white marble mausoleum stands at one end of the pond, overlooking the reeds that serve as home to waterfowl. It’s decorated with delicate-looking moths carved into the stone by expert hands.
It belongs to my mother.
I’ve never felt drawn to this ornate house of the dead before.
I never knew my mother, the queen, but I respect her as the daughter of the greatest women I’ve ever known.
For just a moment, I feel a pang of sadness and loss pierce my heart.
How different would my life be now if she had lived?
If I hadn’t been born, she would still be alive, possibly bearing heirs that Father wanted.
Through the windows of the mausoleum, the outline of a statue waits inside. I squint, trying to make out the graceful features of a woman I’m said to resemble. But I see no familiarity in the smooth, white skin and empty eyes. She is nothing but someone else’s memory etched into stone.
A faint mist rises from the pond, swirling around the base of the mausoleum. The silence is oppressive, broken only by the occasional splash of a frog or the distant call of a night bird. Until footsteps sound in the distance.
I step away from the mausoleum as my eyes strain in the darkness.
“Sienna?” Hunter whispers.
In the moonlight, he looks more like my old friend again. The stress on his face melts when he spots me. He walks faster to meet me at the edge of the pond.
“I was afraid I’d never find you out here,” he says. He’s changed out of his copper and bronze armor and into a warm tunic to protect from the autumn chill, back into the casual wardrobe of a common man. The way I prefer him.
His eyes pass over my wardrobe change. A shiver runs down my spine, and I pull my cloak tighter around my body.
“Most people would hardly recognize you,” he says.
“But not you.”
“No, I could never forget your face.” He reaches out to caress my cheek with the tips of his fingers. He treats me like I’m a piece of art, fragile and precious.
For just a moment, I forget everything and everyone else.
We are just two souls, learning to love each other all over again.
What I wouldn’t give to go back in time, to start anew with him before the world destroyed me.
Before Grandmother was murdered. Before he was trained to be my father’s copper-clad pet.
Before I fled to the borderlands. Before he betrayed me and broke my heart.
But we can’t go back. Living in a fantasy won’t fix anything.
I clear my throat and turn to face the pond. Hunter drops his hand, a small sigh of disappointment escaping his lips. A muskrat stands in the shallows, watching us.