Page 2 of The Fox Heir

I stand there stunned, but not for long. Tristan catches up, and we continue running from the snarling wolves still on our trail. He yells above the thunder echoing across the sky.

“We’re nearly there, Red!”

That's when I see her.

She stands motionless between two ancient oaks, her long, pale dress untouched by the violent wind. Her eyes are bottomless pools of black. Her long fingers curl around the trunk of the lichen-covered tree. When our eyes meet, her mouth stretches into a grimace that splits her face, revealing row upon row of needle-sharp teeth.

It doesn’t seem possible, but my pulse races faster. There’s something deeply wrong with this woman who remains untouched by wind in the middle of a northern snowstorm. She watches me with hungry eyes that make my skin crawl.

“Red!” Tristan’s voice barely carries over the howling wind. “Look!”

I tear my gaze away from the woman and toward the break in the trees ahead. Finally, Gwyllion Castle looms in the distance. Beyond it, a cluster of dim lights huddles against the falling snow. My stomach drops. It’s a town, if you can call it that. Even from a distance, I see the sagging roofs, the listing buildings, and windows glowing with flickering yellow light.

It may look inviting compared to the raging storm, but I know better. The people of Annwyn would sooner kill me for being the daughter of the Fox King than offer me a warm bed or a cup of ale.

To my left, a flash of white draws my eyes. It’s the woman again, but that’s impossible. Nothing can move that fast. Her head tilts at an unnatural angle as she watches us. Snow stings my face, driven sideways by the storm. I blink it away, but when I look up again, the woman is gone.

“Did you see her?” I gasp. “The woman in the trees?”

Tristan shakes his head, but he isn’t paying attention to me. Movement flickers in my peripheral vision, but when I turn, there’s nothing but shadows and swirling snow. We burst from the forest, out into a wide valley. At the far end, the crumbling Gwyllion Castle sits upon seaside cliffs.

My foot catches on a rock, and I stumble to my knees. Gravel scrapes my palms. Before I can right myself, a nearby snarl makes my breath catch in my throat. Through the strands of my windblown hair, I glimpse black fur between the trees. The corpse wolf’s eyes watch me, luminescent white in the growing darkness. My stomach lurches.

Tristan's hand seizes my arm, hauling me up as I hiss at the pain in my knee.

“We can’t stop.” His grip lingers a fraction too long before he shoves me forward.

We break into a sprint as the storm descends in full force. The pressure on my knee brings tears to my eyes, but I can’t slow down. I hazard a glance behind us. More corpse wolves emerge from the forest—six, seven, eight of them. Their massive claws tear at the ground as they chase us.

The snow falls heavier, reducing visibility to mere feet. Ahead, Gwyllion disappears into a wall of white. The oppressiveness of it makes me feel claustrophobic, and I fight down the rising panic. Wind and snow sting my face as I squint through the whiteout.

I follow Tristan, trusting that he knows the way, even in the storm. Step after blind step, we push through, focusing on what’s ahead instead of what’s behind us. From out of the storm, a tall, stone wall appears, blocking our path into the castle grounds.

The corpse wolves howl.

“How are they still following us?” My voice is edged with fear.

“They’re corpses. They don’t care about the cold.” Tristan grabs my hand and pulls me to the right. “The gate is this way!” He yells above the wind.

My eyelashes are coated in ice and my cloak is frozen. My hands and feet are numb, but we push through the building snowdrifts. Relief melts through my veins when a tall, wooden gate looms before us.

Remarkably, the gate is raised a few feet, as if someone was expecting us. Tristan shoves me to the ground first. My knee screams in protest, but I roll through the gap below the gate.

Tristan crawls under without a second to lose. A corpse wolf snaps at his heels. When I look through the gap beneath the gate, it leaps toward me. Its bloodied, rotted face scrapes against the wooden gate, and the bones in its jaw crack. Not that a little broken bone would stop the dead.

For once, the corpse wolf’s unnatural size is its greatest disadvantage. I stare in horror as it attacks the gate, clawing, gnawing, and slavering against the wood. It forces its head through the gap along the frozen ground. Its dead, white eyes pin me as its skin scrapes away from bone in its attempt to fight through.

Tristan scrambles for a lever in the stone wall. The gate slams closed with an echoing thud, decapitating the creature on the spot.

I stare at the corpse wolf’s bloodied, rotted head. Snow slowly buries it, covering its vacant white eyes, one snowflake at a time. The wolf is dead once more, its spine severed.

From my spot in the mud, I listen as more corpses arrive and attack the other side of the gate. I grab my silver moth necklace in one hand and hold it against my pounding heart. My limbs are trembling, but I refuse to let Tristan see how deeply shaken I am.

We’ve come closer to death than this, but something about being shut behind a heavy, locked gate keeps my relief at bay

Tristan drops to the ground beside me, panting.

My power stirs inside of me, so faintly I almost don’t notice it. I try to access it, to pull it up from the depths, but it sputters out, silent. Good-for-nothing power.