Page 38 of The Fox Heir

I throw the covers aside and dart into the hall. At the far end of the corridor, the wraith waits, her form half-dissolved into shadow. She gives me a sly grin before slipping around the corner. It’s a game of chase, and I have no choice but to play. My grandmother’s knife is at stake.

The castle is so silent, it feels abandoned. My eyes are wide as I peer through the dim hallways. As I follow the wraith past the quiet kitchen, I pause. Given the bone-deep shadows of this place, I’d rather keep firelight with me. Here and there, long-cold torches wait in iron sconces along the wall, and I grab one. I dart into the kitchen, hoping the wraith will wait for me. In the giant hearth, the barest flicker of embers still glows. For a moment, I’m not sure they’re enough, but when the torch ignites, I breathe a sigh of relief.

Just as I expected, the wraith is waiting for me when I step back out of the kitchen. She casts me an impatient look before continuing around another corner. At the end of my torch, the flame sputters as if in protest, but there’s nothing to do but follow.

The wraith lures me through cobwebbed passages and past windows laced with ice. She leads me down an old staircase, into the castle’s depths. Even with the torchlight, my eyes strain against the dark. At my approaching footsteps, rats scurry away through holes in the crumbling walls. Somewhere unseen, water drips, slow and steady. The air down here smells of wet dirt and mildew, like a soggy grave.

The spiral staircase ends in another corridor. When I step down, I kick something in the darkness. It skitters just out of the reach of my light. When I bend to get a closer look, my breath catches in my chest.

It’s a human bone.

I hold up my torch to see the corridor more clearly. The walls are lined with skeletons still bound in chains, prisoners of some forgotten sin.

A shiver creeps through me. The nearest skeleton is draped in the tattered remains of a gown. It’s faded, filthy, and covered in holes, but I can tell it was once quite fine. The fabric’s delicate floral pattern is still visible through the filth. A courtier undone by royal intrigue, maybe? Or an ambitious lover passed over for a younger woman?

As I walk, the air seems to press tighter around me, and dread blooms in my chest. Everything in me is telling me to turn back. To return to my icy room and leave the wraith to her twisted games. But every time she appears ahead of me, Grandmother’s knife glints in her ghostly hand. I can’t leave it. It’s all I have left of the grandmother I loved.

Further down the corridor, another body lies collapsed in a heap of bones. Its arms are pinned high above the pile, its wrists shackled to the wall. Faded linen molders away with the remains. When I look closer, I realize it’s the remnant of an apron. A scullery maid? A woman from the kitchens? It’s hard to tell, but it leaves me feeling deeply unsettled.

A sudden realization hits me like a slap.

They’re women. All of them.

At the end of the corridor, the wraith watches me. She’s standing in front of a door. At first glance, it looks much like any prison door with aged wood and a barred grate in the center. Except for one thing: it’s wrapped in thick iron chains. They’re woven together and locked with heavy bolts.

Someone truly doesn’t wish for this door to be opened … or to let whatever’s inside out again. On shaky knees, I approach the door and peer in through the grate in its center.

At first, all I see is blackness. Then, a voice thick with disuse calls from the darkened corner.

“Well, aren’t you a pretty bug?”

I jump back from the door, my heart in my throat.

The strange voice in the darkness laughs low.

I push my torch through the iron bars and into the cell. Inside, a creature scurries toward the farthest corner and huddles away from the light.

“Get it away!” It hisses.

I pull the torch back, but only slightly. The creature is thin and knobby, almost human if not for the unnatural angle of its limbs. He’s wearing nothing but a torn loincloth around his waist, and stringy hair hangs limp from his pale skull. His skin is ashen gray, and when he glowers at me through the flickering light, I see that his eyes are black.

Fae.

He’s standing on a massive nest made of what appears to be straw … and human bone. The sight makes bile rise in my throat. I take an involuntary step back, pulling my torch out from the grate.

From behind the darkened door, I hear the creature limp forward. Each step pops and grinds as it walks, like its joints no longer fit in their sockets. My skin prickles at the sound as it echoes down the corridor behind us. From the darkened cell, long fingers, tipped with cracked, black claws, curl around the iron bars. He leans forward, squinting against the light.

“Does the little bug like my house?” His wide eyes gleam with interest as his mouth stretches into a grotesque grin. A hundred tiny points glimmer along his blackened gums like razor-sharp baby teeth.

I shake my head. “I was just leaving.”

“So soon, little bug? But we haven’t had dinner yet.” He tilts his head in mock disappointment.

I pause, willing my heart to stop racing. I glance around, remembering the wraith that led me here, but she’s gone, disappeared back into the shadows.

I turn back to the fae in the cell. “Who are you?”

He laughs, his face twisting in a horrible grin. “Who am I? I’ve nearly forgotten, so long have I been down in this dungeon.”