Page 80 of The Fox Heir

“So,” he straightens. “You are a basilisk waiting for an opportunity to strike?”

“I can’t let her keep Grandmother’s face for all eternity.”

“No,” he agrees. “She deserved better.”

“She did.” I clear the knot in my throat. “We’re allies now because we have to be. Annwyn’s living need the dead to protect them. At least until we can survive without her. When it’s over, when the border is safe and my father is dead, I will end her.” I straighten, meeting his eyes. “Then we’ll give Annwyn back to the living.”

His gaze flickers. “Does the Wolf know you plan to kill his queen?”

“Tristan knows what I am.” My heart stills. “He knows I’m loyal to no one but myself.”

Something sad crosses Hunter’s face. “You sell yourself short.”

I scoff. “Says the man who I left on a battlefield to die.”

He shakes his head slowly. “I think you pretend to be selfish to hide the hurt in your heart.”

My eyes flicker away from him, too embarrassed to admit that he hit close to the bone.

He isn’t deterred. “You say you can’t trust anyone in this world the way you can trust yourself. But here’s the thing, Sienna.” He leans toward me, meeting my eyes. “You can trust me.”

“I want to.” The words come out in a whisper. I straighten my spine and face him. “And I need you to trust me now, despite everything that’s passed between us. We must save Annwyn from my father, Hunter. There’s more at stake than any of us truly understand. I can feel it in my bones.” I press my hand to my chest, where my heart beats with certainty. “I know my father is up to something. I’m sure the Dead Queen is too. And we can’t let either of them win.”

“Why?” His question is so sharp, it takes me aback. “Why bother saving this place?” He gestures toward the crumbling castle. “What’s here that’s truly worth saving? Truly worth risking everything for?”

It’s a valid question.

The world around us is dusted in shades of white, and the silence is all-consuming. Large, fluffy snowflakes stick to Hunter’s hair, his shoulders, his eyelashes. It’s … beautiful. The thought surprises me. For the last couple of months, I’ve hated this place with its frozen landscape and icy people, but somehow, I find my heart has changed.

Hunter watches me as I raise my face to the gray sky. Snowflakes kiss my cheeks as they float all around me, like the gentle caress of a moth’s wing. It’s peaceful.

“All I’ve seen of Annwyn is snow,” I admit. “But as cold and inhospitable as it is, it’s also beautiful.”

Hunter scoffs. “It’s not beautiful.” He turns back to hit another sandbag. “This place is miserable.” He punches. “Cold.” He hits it again. “Dead.” He kicks the sandbag and it swings wildly between us.

“That’s what I used to think too,” I say, almost to myself.

Hunter turns to squint at me. His breath puffs out in bursts of fog. “Used to?”

I pause. Somehow, I’m no longer at odds with this place. I no longer hate it. Something in my chest tugs, insisting I be honest with myself. Amid this frozen, stormy landscape, I’ve found that I care about Annwyn. I admire its fierce loyalty, its wild lore, and the magic that winds through every folktale, every cellar, and every ruined castle corridor. I care about this land. And I care about its stubborn, headstrong people too. How they managed to worm their way into my Fox heart, I will never understand. But here we are.

I let out a shaky breath, and nod.

“And now, you wish to fight for them.” He studies me.

I swallow hard. “I do.”

“I just …” He pinches the bridge of his nose, then sighs up at the gray sky. “I can’t believe it’s her. After all these years of searching. Your grandmother is …” He stops, as if he can’t bear to say the words.

“The Dead Queen, yes.”

He shakes his head at the snow-covered castle.

“It was difficult for me to come to terms with that, too.”

His shoulders sag as he studies me again. “How did you?”

“I didn’t. Not really.” I shake my head, trying to keep the bubbling anger from rising up in me again. “I just can’t dwell on it. She isn’t the same person. She isn’t alive.”