Page 116 of The Fox Heir

The Fox King takes a deep breath, tilting his face up to the rising sun. “Annwyn is such a gorgeous land. Truly. I thought I’d see it for myself.”

The Dead Queen waits.

Father tuts. “You wound me. It’s like we haven’t known each other for decades. Like we’re not family.”

My nostrils flare. “How dare you use that word in front of us?” The words slip out of my mouth before I’ve had a chance to consider them.

Father’s eyes slide back toward me, lazily. “You’ve always been a petulant child, but you’re mine, nonetheless.”

“Parents don’t try to kill their children.”

He shrugs. “Clearly, you haven’t had any children.”

I glare at him. “You locked me in a place of forgetting. You sicced your foxhounds on me.” My eyes dart to the Dead Queen. “Just like you did to Grandmother.”

He sighs. “Ah, so she told you, did she?” He shakes his head. “No matter. I’d assumed you’d find out sooner or later. I’d just hoped to acquire a new heir before that happened.” He mimes a check mark in the air with one finger.

Tristan lets out a low laugh, speaking for the first time. “Odd how you use the word ‘acquire’ to describe a legitimate son and heir.” Tristan’s voice is light, almost contemplative.

Father’s face grows dark. “What are you implying, Wolf?”

Tristan merely smirks.

“I grow tired of this game.” Father sniffs. “Hand over your castle, return that rebellious daughter of mine, and I will let your people live.”

The queen’s voice is firm. “No.”

Father gives her a disappointed look. “I’d thought death would make you come to your senses. It seems not.”

I tighten my grip on my horse’s reins. “What could you possibly want with a crumbling castle in a land that isn’t yours?”

Father narrows his eyes at me. “You understand what she wants, don’t you? Your precious grandmother and all the Dead Queens who came before her?”

“For you to leave Annwyn alone, I expect.”

He gives me a patronizing smile. “Still so naïve. After an entire winter in Annwyn, you never thought to ask her?”

I don’t respond. I can sense my father’s traps a mile away.

“She wants to bring back the fae.” He drops the words like a swing of a mace, but he miscalculates his aim.

“And here I thought that’s what you desired with Annwyn.” I say before I think to conceal my cards.

My father studies me for a long moment. I believe I’ve truly surprised him. He never suspected I’d know his true motives for marching on Annwyn.

He leans forward in his saddle. “And do you know what that means? To bring them back?”

I stare at him, refusing to play along.

He sits up straight in his saddle and tuts. “It means she wants the realm to go back two thousand years, to a time when humans were slaves. When we existed only to satiate the appetites of another species.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Tristan says to me. “Don’t listen to him. There was peace between the fae and the humans, Red. It was the humans who trapped the fae kings and queens, not the other way around. We were the ones who killed and tricked the fae.”

My father watches me, his eyes waiting to see how I’ll respond, but I keep my face a mask. He sniffs. “Well, I, for one, will not be a slave to the fae. I will not let the Dead Queen turn the hourglass back two thousand years.”

“You’d rather be on the good side of the fae, you mean?”

“Better than their bad side.” Father turns from me to address the silent Dead Queen. “I will have your bloody castle either way, you know. Either you hand it over without a fight, or I will take it by force.”