Page 124 of The Fox Heir

Horror dawns on me. “There’s no iron in copper ...”

Nalina nods slowly. “None. Your Fox ancestors figured that out, at least.” She pauses, considering. “Though it’s strange that your Fox King father never told you.”

“No,” I say as a hollow pit deepens in my stomach. “It isn’t.” The truth leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Father didn’t want me to know. My ignorance was one more advantage he held over me.

I look down at the iron shackles clasped around my wrists. My skin is rubbed red and raw against the rust. A memory rises to the surface of my mind: Tristan, chained in my father’s kennels in Caerwen.

A humorless laugh bubbles out of me. He couldn’t have used his power to hurt me, locked up in those irons. His power comes from the remains of fae blood in his veins too. When he was imprisoned in Caerwen, I believed he was a great, terrifying Wolf. But he couldn’t have killed me with his shadow power, even if he wanted to. He was nothing but a man in chains.

I may not have known about iron, but Nalina did. She knew iron weakened me, and she still shackled me.

“Why ...?” I rasp, my throat dry. “People are dying out there! What are we doing down here?”

She doesn’t answer. Her jaw tightens, and she turns, pulling the chains, and me, behind her. I pull and fight, but it’s no use. Nalina is stronger than I am by far. Without my powers or my knife, I’m useless.

“They need you on the battlefield!”

Need us, I want to say, but I know I’m next to useless in my current state. I’m nothing but a liability. But Nalina could still fight. Why is she wasting precious time chaining me up and dragging me through the castle dungeon?

The corridor narrows, the stones growing slicker, blacker. More bodies line the passageways. All dead women. Some corpses are so old, they’ve crumbled into little more than mummified rags and bone.

I gag, bile rising in my throat, but Nalina doesn’t slow. She pulls me past them as if they’re nothing more than furniture.

A sound builds ahead, a faint scuffling. We pass through a broken archway that’s coated in a layer of black soot as if it’s been licked by flames. And there, in the farthest corner, I see it.

Moribund’s lair.

A putrid scent wafts from the corner where his nest of burned human hair sits. It’s far less impressive than it was the last time I saw it, with its long, blond strands escaping the towering mound of golden hair. Now, it’s barely more than a pile of ash. Blackened bones poke out of the nest like flowers sticking out of a fresh grave. And at the center of it, half-shrouded in shadows, something shifts.

The revolting fae rises from his bed of ash, unfolding like a spider emerging from its web. He moves quickly and jerkily, all elbows and angles, scuttling over what’s left of the burned hair with bare feet. His parchment-thin skin is covered in soot. As he grows closer, I see his flesh is bubbled and blackened in patches, with the unmistakable mark of burns.

When he grins at us, I grimace. My stomach lurches as revulsion mixes with fear.

“Well, well, well.” His voice is childlike with interest. “Look what treasure you’ve brought me this time. Is that my little fox-haired bug?”

Nalina steps behind me, then shoves me forward. I stumble to my bruised knees, and the iron cuffs scrape hard against my wrists. Panic floods my chest. I need to get out of here. My eyes scan the walls, searching for something I might have missed before, some way out. A weapon, a door, anything. There’s nothing down here but soot-painted walls, and what’s left of Moribund’s char-blackened nest.

I need to fight. But without my power or my knife, I’m nothing more than dead weight. And Nalina knows it.

“You said you'd help us,” Nalina’s voice is taut. “That you’d help save Gwyllion if I brought her to you.”

Moribund’s smile widens. His overlong fingers steeple together like a pastor deep in thought. “And so I did.”

He crawls closer to us, a new tattered loincloth flapping with each movement. As he circles nearer, I can smell him. The stink of his breath is thick as rot.

“Such lovely copper hair,” he purrs. “Such sweet blood singing beneath her bug skin.”

I jerk away instinctively, but there’s nowhere to go. His hand brushes a lock of my auburn hair. I flinch, but Nalina doesn’t stop him.

“You can’t do this,” I hiss at her, fighting to keep my voice steady. “We’re in the middle of a battle! We’re fighting for the same people!”

Nalina’s mouth twists, and something like guilt flickers across her face, but it doesn’t stop her. “That’s exactly why I’m doing this. My loyalty is to my people. To Annwyn. And, unfortunately, we need him.”

“You can’t be serious,” I scoff.

Nalina whirls on me, her face inches from Moribund’s. His wide, black eyes flick to her, and his grin widens.

“Listen to me, Fox Heir,” she hisses. “Your life means nothing to me. Your family has slaughtered mine for centuries! As far as I’m concerned, your only worth is whatever I can haggle to save Gwyllion.”