Page 133 of The Fox Heir

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.

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.