Page 17 of The Fox Heir

I scoff. “Naturally.”

“But …” He sighs. “The fact remains that there are many unexplainable events that happen here in Gwyllion. Not that I believe the fae can be blamed for all of them.”

“Why do you think they’re still here?”

He nods, pondering for a moment. “I suppose they’re just ... waiting.”

Tristan stops outside a simple wooden door. I lean out a nearby window and see a familiar sight. A training yard covered in snow. Frozen, straw-filled dummies and bags of sand hang from ropes, like nooses.

“Waiting? For what?” I raise an eyebrow.

“For the Heir to the North to save us all, of course.”

Chapter 6

An hour later, the training yard is choked with shadows. They swirl around my legs and creep up my spine, curling into my hair. The shadows blind me, thickening with each failed attempt to summon my power. I plant my feet and reach inward again, clawing for the spark buried deep in my core. Nothing. Only the familiar emptiness.

Frustrated, I spin in place, heart pounding, eyes scanning the shadows for the Dead Queen. But she’s vanished into the void, leaving me alone, grasping for light that refuses to come.

“You must learn to banish the darkness.” Her voice is close, but I can’t see her through the oppressive black.

“I’m trying,” I grumble through my resentment.

Day one of training, and I already feel like a helpless child. I close my eyes and try to focus on the place where my power used to live, curled like a sleeping creature behind my sternum. But all I find is stillness. I grit my teeth, dig deeper, and drag it forward with everything I have.

The most I can manage is a faint stirring in my chest. A feeble spark, like a match about to sputter out. Then it dies, vanishing as if it never existed at all. A colorful curse slips from between my lips.

Somewhere behind me, the Dead Queen tuts. “And here I thought you were the Fox Heir. The woman with the power to heal legions and ignite battlefields.”

“You heard exaggerations.” I rip off my gloves and throw them onto the frozen ground. The cold bites instantly at my skin, but I ignore it. Pressing my fingertips to my temples, I take a deep breath and refocus. Slowly, my power begins to stir. It pools in my chest so sluggishly, it’s torturous.

A dark wind snuffs it out like a pathetic candle.

“How is this teaching me anything?!” I yell, whirling around, trying to find the queen in the pitch blackness. “You won’t even give me a moment to get my bearings!”

“And neither will your Fox King father,” her voice whispers, smooth like black velvet. “He will murder you on the spot.”

“I already know that!”

I can’t see anything in the snow-covered training yard, but I pick a direction and start walking. If I can escape the queen’s shadow, maybe I’ll find some clarity at the edge of the yard.

“Perhaps. But I did not know how weak you’ve become in my absence,” the queen says.

Her words grate like broken glass against my nerves. Absence? She abandoned me for a realm that was never hers, for a throne that stands in direct opposition to the one I was supposed to inherit. The kingdom I was going to rule before my illegitimate newborn brother was handed my birthright. Now, I stand to inherit nothing. Unless I take it for myself.

My feet are freezing, but I keep walking, careful not to slip on the icy ground. “You say that like I had anyone to help me after you …”

Left me, I almost say, but I don’t. I will never again grieve for this woman. I believed her dead and gone, and I suppose that’s still true. Whatever stands in this yard now, speaking to me as if she still knows who I am, it isn’t my grandmother. It’s her corpse.

My shins slam into a crate filled with blunt, wooden practice swords.

I smother another curse and hop on one foot as I rub my aching leg. My boot stomps the snow-packed ground like I’m a temperamental child. “What good is learning to fight against your powers when I should be worried about my father’s?” I shout.

“If you can’t control your own light, then how do you expect to battle his?”

Instead of responding, I gesture silent curses into the darkness. My frozen breath disappears into the black mist around me.

“Control. That’s how.” She says evenly, as if she can see my rude motions through the darkness. “You must learn to control yourself and your power. To use it to its best advantage, in order to defeat the Fox King and his knights.”