Chapter 31
The weeks spent traveling through Llwyn did nothing to prepare me for the brutal climb through the Spires.
Trees twist up rocky paths slick with rain.
In some places, the slopes are stripped bare by punishing winds.
Most of the leaves have fallen now, and the bitter cold chafes at my exposed skin.
Even the mud puddles are coated in a thin layer of ice. Autumn is truly gone now.
Tristan remains a mostly silent companion, like a dark shadow leading me through this miserable landscape. He spends his days scouting ahead and his nights squinting up at the moon through the branches.
The searing pain in my legs and chest has faded, though the first few days of climbing were agony. Now, over a week into our mountain crossing, I may not move with the Wolf’s grace, but at least I’m not slowing us down. Not much, anyway.
I reach for a branch to pull myself up a steep stretch of the path. It snaps in my hand, and I stumble—forward or upward, I can’t quite tell at this angle.
Thunder rumbles off the mountain’s face, and a sharp gust of wind makes me brace myself for the cold. As much as I detest this red cloak, I’m grateful for its warmth. Without it, I’d likely be dead by now.
Like Hunter probably is.
The thought feels like a stab to the gut, but it’s nothing compared to the ache in my chest over losing my best friend.
No, not losing. Abandoning. I left him on the edge of a mountain surrounded by unnatural beasts and a blazing inferno.
And I did it after he saved me from certain death and helped me travel hundreds of miles with a fugitive.
I feel like the worst person alive. My father being a notable exception. I’m not sure I’m worthy of my grandmother’s good name or her reputation. Maybe it’s a mercy that she’s dead, so she doesn’t have to see me stoop so low.
“Do you need to stop?” Tristan asks, a few yards ahead of me.
I’m straining every single muscle in my body to climb this damnable mountain. Meanwhile, the Wolf prances ahead like we’re on a relaxing stroll in the garden.
“No,” I snap, regretting it the instant it’s out of my mouth. I grab onto another branch to help pull me upward and onward. Even in the growing darkness, I can see the corners of his mouth turn up slightly. My foot slips on a patch of gravel and I fall onto my knees. I wince.
“You alright?” he calls, his tone clearly unworried.
I nod.
“There’s something up here I want you to see.”
All I can do is clench my jaw and nod at him from my spot in the mud. I can do this. I’ve already crossed an entire country, battled thieves and foxhounds and corpse wolves. I can handle a measly mountain range.
A white owl soars ahead of us, disappearing into the trees beyond.
These woods are quiet. In Korrigan Forest, the trees felt alive with creatures scuttling, crying out, and watching us constantly.
Here, there’s nothing but the wind in the branches above us.
Somehow, nothing has harassed us on our journey through the mountains.
But, then again, maybe no human or creature is foolish enough to make the crossing so late in the season.
Just when I think I can’t take another step, I notice Tristan standing ahead, silhouetted against the stars. He’s waiting for me at a clearing on top of a rocky outcropping.
My legs are wobbly underneath me when I step out onto the flat rock.
He’s right at the edge, clearly unafraid of falling.
The wind howls a song I’ve never heard before, warning of the dangers of mountain peaks and a winter that’s bound to start any day now.
My hair blows wildly around my head and the red cloak flies out behind me.
I inch closer to him at the edge of the cliff.
Tristan’s face is pale in the moonlight. His eyes are closed as if savoring the icy wind on his skin. He looks … calm. Even after everything we’ve been through. When I look away from his face and out beyond the cliff, I gasp.
We are standing at the edge of the world.
Spires, as far as the eye can see, are aglow in moonlight and shadow. Beyond them, stars. Billions of them. More stars than I ever knew existed. It’s as if Annwyn isn’t even under the same sky as Llwyn.
“It’s …” I’m at a loss for the correct word.
“Terrifying? Treacherous?” Tristan asks without looking at me.
I shake my head slowly, not wanting to blink and miss even a second of this view. It’s as if the world has suddenly opened its soul wide before me, a vulnerable heart in a horrifying time.
“Majestic,” I whisper, my word lost in the wind.
Tristan must hear me because he opens one eye to look at me curiously, then he lifts his hand to point toward the east. “There, look.”
I squint against the darkness until I see what he’s pointing at.
In the distance is a dark slice of sea. And there, nestled upon a cliff, is a castle.
It stands black against the silver moonlight.
Even from this distance, I can see it’s ancient, with leaning towers and sagging defense walls.
It’s little more than a shadowed ruin. But it’s still magnificent.
“Gwyllion,” Tristan says. “That’s where we’re headed. It’s the current seat of the Dead Queen.”
“It’s crumbling.”
“Everything is this far north. But it’s not as ruinous as Ellyll.”
“Yet.”
Tristan nods, deep in thought.
A cloud slips across the moon, casting the castle in shadow, like a shroud pulled over the eyes of the dead.
“This is what he wants to take next,” Tristan says quietly, beside me.
He doesn’t have to tell me who he is.
The Wolf’s mouth hardens into a grim line. “He’ll destroy this place. Destroy everything in his path to get the queen.”
I draw in a steady breath, then turn to him. “Then we won’t let him.”
Tristan looks unsure. His lips part like he wants to tell me something but can’t.
Beneath my heel, the cliff’s edge begins to crumble.
Tristan reaches out to grab me, catching me before I slip.
He pulls me against him, and for one breathless instant, we’re chest to chest, his arm locked around my waist. It lasts only a second, and yet it stretches—an endless, suspended heartbeat.
In the hush that follows, the first snowflakes of winter begin to fall.
One lands on his cheek, and my gaze lifts to meet his.
Our eyes lock. In this moment, I finally see what I’ve done to my life.
I gave up everything—everyone—for the promises made by a steely-eyed Wolf.
I am standing on a true precipice, and there is no turning back now.
He steps away, dropping his hands like they’re on fire. It leaves me momentarily dizzy. Behind him, something catches my eye. A shadow moves against the gently falling snow.
“Tristan!” I gasp in shock.
Tristan turns around slowly, his eyes lingering on mine longer than they should.
From beneath a twisted, ancient tree on the edge of the cliff, steps a tall, thin woman.
She’s wearing a black gown, her hood pulled low over her face.
This close, I can see more of her than I wish to.
Her lips are black with rot and dead skin peels away from the bone along her jaw, exposing some of her lower teeth.
Next to me, Tristan kneels in deference to his queen.
The dead woman speaks. “Have you found that which we seek?” Her voice rattles like dying breath.
My skin crawls as if it knows to be deeply afraid.
Tristan gives the Dead Queen a curt nod.
Her shrouded face turns toward me. While I can’t see her eyes beneath her hood, I can feel them linger at the scar across my throat.
“She saved me from the Fox King,” Tristan sounds almost defensive.
The woman tilts her head, her spine cracking with the movement. “How curious.”
“She’s the—” Tristan starts, but the queen interjects.
“The true heir to the Fox Throne, I know.” She steps closer to me and I steel myself against the instinct to flee. “A fox is a curious creature. Solitary, not like wolves who live in packs. Foxes look out for themselves.”
A large white moth emerges from the gloom beneath the trees. It flutters against the wind and gently falling snow, straining to reach its target.
It shouldn’t be alive in this cold. The realization strikes low and hard in my gut. No, of course it shouldn’t be. And it isn’t. My eyes follow the moth as it flutters around the Dead Queen, then lands on her shoulder. Its tattered wings open and close as it fights against the gale.
It’s a sign. I square my shoulders, steeling myself for the battle ahead. I cannot lose. My entire life has led up to this moment.
“I require payment.” I steady my voice. “Answers about a woman who died on the border many years ago.”
The Dead Queen laughs ominously. “But there have been so many of those. I couldn’t possibly know every dead woman in the borderlands.”
“I think you knew her. Her name was áine.” My voice is iron, immovable. Uncompromising.
The Dead Queen pauses as if studying me from underneath her black hood. She shouldn’t be able to see me from under there, but, then again, I don’t know how dead eyes work.
“I think you’re right,” she says, finally. Her black-gloved hands reach up to pull back her hood, to look me directly in the eyes for the first time.
I’ve seen much horror in my life, from cruel kings to undead creatures made of nightmares. I’ve watched men die gruesome deaths and felt the breath of monsters on my neck.
But no horror has ever been as awful a sight as the Dead Queen’s face.
It’s not her white, opalescent eyes or the claw marks across her flesh that disturb me so. It’s not the oozing wounds or the putrefied skin that send me reeling on hands and knees, sick and dizzy. No, her dead flesh doesn’t frighten me. It’s what’s underneath.
I will recognize that woman until my dying day.
The Dead Queen takes off one black, silken glove and reaches toward me with a skeletal hand.
“I hear you’ve been searching for me, Granddaughter.”