Page 31 of The Fox Heir

We follow the Dead Queen out of the throne room, past villagers who bow as she passes, and out into the snow-covered yard. Despite the clear skies, the air is bitter cold, but the queen doesn’t even flinch at the biting wind.

I pull my red cloak tighter around me and follow her. Her long black gown drags over the snow like liquid night, and her thin veil ripples in the wind.

Surprisingly, she leads us to the stables. Inside, we’re sheltered from the icy breeze, but the horses still puff clouds of mist from their nostrils. At the sight of the undead queen, they grow nervous, dancing and whinnying as they back further into their stalls. They want to get as much distance from the Dead Queen as they can.

I don’t blame them. She’s unnatural. She shouldn’t exist, and someday she won’t. Not if I can help it.

The queen leads us to the furthest stall, then unlatches the gate. She steps back. “For you,” she says, her veiled face turned toward me.

I hesitate.

“Go on,” she says somewhat impatiently.

I step forward, my boots crunching on the straw-covered ground. In the back of the stall, standing as still as stone, is a horse I could never forget.

“Nell?” I whisper, confused.

It can’t be. My beloved horse was torn to pieces by corpse wolves months ago. There’s no way … I lean in to take a closer look, and there’s no mistake.

It is Nell. But it isn’t.

Her brown fur is patchy and her nose glistens with blackened blood. Her dark mane is matted and littered with forest detritus. Decayed leaves, clumps of mud, and small twigs are knotted in her hair. My eyes drift over her body, and I take in the gaping hole in her side. Where once there were strong muscles and ribs, there’s now a rotten hole where the corpse wolf devoured parts of her. I fight the urge to vomit.

Nell looks up, noticing me for the first time. Her eyes are the worst thing of all. They’re the horrible opalescent white of the undead.

“I wanted to give you a gift,” the queen says behind me, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. “To help ease your homesickness.”

When I say nothing, she adds, “Her body froze before too much decay set it. I had my sentries fetch her before the worst of the storms arrived.”

My ears begin to hum. “This ... is severely misguided,” I whisper.

The queen looks back and forth between me and the horse that was Nell. “Was she not your favorite horse?”

I close my eyes, banishing the sight from my mind. Nell is yet another beloved friend who’s been defiled by this horrible place.

“Please.” I wince at the pleading in my voice. “Put her back in the ground. She deserves peace.”

The Dead Queen tilts her head to the side, as if I’m a curiosity. “You don’t like her.”

Nausea claws at my stomach. “No!” I shout, anger clouding the edge of my vision. “I don’t like that you brought her corpse back to life. She isn’t Nell. She’s one of your undead pets!”

The Dead Queen watches me for several seconds, as if trying to process my words.

It takes all of my strength to regain my composure, to keep from flying off the edge. “Look,” I say, my voice shaking. “I recognize that this was intended to be a gesture of love, but it’s horribly, terribly twisted.”

She nods once, then steps back so I can leave the stall. She latches the door behind me.

On the other side of the stable, Tristan watches us with an unreadable expression, his arms folded across his chest. His Wolf pin shines in the dull light.

“You’re wrong,” the Dead Queen says behind me.

I swallow the urge to scream. But before I can get a word out, she cuts in.

“It is not a gesture of love.”

My fury dies in my mouth, tasting like bitter ash. I must have misheard her. Why else do this if not for love?

“I do not feel love,” she says, watching my face through her veil. “Not anymore.” She rests one black-gloved hand on the stall door. “And I do not ask you to love me, either.”