Page 79 of The Fox Heir

“What do you want me to do?” he snaps, the words misting white in the air. “Lie down? Take a nap? Brave men boarded that ship with me. Believed in me. And I—” He breaks off, eyes dark with grief. “I brought them here to die.”

“This won’t bring them back,” I answer softly. “Hurting yourself won’t help.”

He looks past me toward the direction of the roiling gray sea. “I was a fool to follow you.”

“I never asked you to.”

“And you never need to. That’s the whole point, Sienna.”

We stand in the hush of falling snow, the flakes large and fluffy as feathers. I ache for him, for all the ways I’ve hurt him. But we will never get out of this pit of darkness if we can’t speak plainly to one another.

“Talk to me. Please.”

Hunter kicks his fallen sword. It skitters a few feet before landing in a snowbank.

“About what?” His laugh is low and humorless. “How your grandmother is our sworn enemy? How the Wolf and I nearly cut each other to shreds? How I’m here on a fool’s errand and every decision I make seems to end in death?”

“Yes. All of it.”

He drags a weary hand through his damp hair. His shoulders are shaking with exhaustion. When he finally speaks, the anger has cooled to a hard, steady heat.

“I don’t know who I’m more furious with. Your new queen. The Wolf. Your father. Myself.” He lifts his eyes to mine. “Or you.”

The pit in my stomach deepens. “I know. And I deserve it.”

“I should hate you.”

I nod. “You should. But I need you to hear why I’m doing this. Why I’ve sided with Annwyn.”

He looks away and shakes his head in disappointment and disgust.

“Nothing about Annwyn is what we thought.” I step closer, my voice urgent. “This place is not a realm to be conquered. There are fae in the cellars and old magic lingering in every ruin.”

He raises his eyes to study me. To him, the fae are still folklore and fairy tales. But I need him to see how wrong we’ve been. About everything.

“Yes, the people here are …” I search for a polite word. “Thorny.”

Hunter raises a skeptical eyebrow at me.

“But they love this place so fiercely, they’d rather die protecting it than flee to the south. Gwyllion used to be so much more than this crumbling castle. I’ve seen the paintings. I’ve read old books about what Annwyn was like two thousand years ago, when the fae and humans lived in peace. It was real, Hunter.”

I search his eyes, trying to make him believe. His eyebrows are drawn together, like he’s not sure what to make of me. But I know this man. I can see the cracks of doubt in his warm brown gaze and in the curve of his mouth.

I reach out and touch his arm. “That’s why the people here still fight, even though they’re worn down to rags. They dream of making Annwyn safe again. Of stopping the endless war.” I look past him to the Spires. “And my father will destroy what’s left of them.”

Hunter chews the inside of his lip for a long moment while he considers my words. “Your father is up to something. He wants to take Annwyn, and it’s more than just a family legacy.” He heaves a weary sigh. “It doesn’t help that he hated your grandmother, and now she sits on a throne.”

“No, it doesn’t.” I swallow hard. My father is like a fox in a henhouse. Nothing is safe until he’s taken his fill. “But, Hunter, Grandmother is dead. I promise you that. The queen may wear her face, but she’s not the same woman.”

He draws a breath and coughs, then leans his arms on one of the sandbags. Snow has gathered along his shoulders and in his hair. “I don’t trust her.”

“And you shouldn’t.” My voice is firm. “She’s no saint. The Dead Queen has ulterior motives, I’m sure of it.” I swallow. “But so do I.”

“Such as?” He turns his head to watch my face.

“We may need her now. But, someday, I will destroy the Dead Queen.”

He studies my face for a long moment before nodding. He knows me as well as I know him. I don’t mince words, and I am not one to threaten lightly. When I promise to do something, I do it.