Page 49 of The Fox Heir

“Who are they? What do they do exactly? Who is their leader now that you’re, you know …”

“Dead?” the queen says humorlessly.

“Exactly.”

Next to the queen, Nalina narrows her eyes at me in silent threat. Her fingers curl tighter around her sword’s hilt. I can practically feel her disdain for me, the Fox in Wolf territory.

The Dead Queen doesn’t seem as ruffled. “Sympathizers are Llwyn people who seek to overthrow the Fox King. You know this.”

“That isn’t enough to understand them.”

She pauses, studying me. Though her eyes are hidden behind the black veil, I can feel the weight of her gaze on my skin. “Alright. They meet in secret. Distinguished only by the sign of the silver moth. Which I believe you’ve already guessed.”

Her eyes flicker to the hilt of my silver moth knife where it sticks out of my boot. Its bronze handle is strapped against my ankle. Without the skirts to hide it, it’s on full display like all the other weapons in this court.

She continues, “Sympathizers exist in every city, every town. Even the palace at Caerwen.”

Nalina stiffens, no doubt fearing the queen is telling me too much. The queen ignores her hesitation.

“Besides you, who else was a spy in the Fox King’s court?”

“Your mother.”

I blanch outright at that. My mother, the woman who has an ornate, marble mausoleum in the royal cemetery. Who was the Fox Queen, if only for a short while … she was a Sympathizer.

“You seem pale.”

I blink several times. “Yes, well. This is quite a revelation.”

“You wanted to know.”

“I did.” Then I add, “Thank you for being forthright.”

I didn’t truly expect the queen to tell me the simple truth. My beloved grandmother, before she was reanimated as the Dead Queen, was the leader of the Sympathizers. And my mother, the Fox Queen, was her spy.

“How?” I ask.

“How what?” the queen asks, her tone annoyed. “Be more specific.”

I sputter. “How did you do it? How did your daughter become the queen of Llwyn?”

“That is a story for another day, I’m afraid.”

But I’m not done yet. There are too many unanswered questions whirring in my brain. “How did father not see what you truly were?”

“Your father … he had his suspicions. Then, he found out the truth.”

“That’s why he killed you, isn’t it? You were trying to destroy the Fox Throne. My throne.”

She nods slowly. The motion is so slight, I almost don’t notice it.

While I understand hating my father, I’m struggling to see why my own grandmother would work to destroy a legacy I was supposed to inherit. A throne that I was someday supposed to sit upon. Maybe things would’ve been better once my father was out of the picture. Maybe I could have actually been a good Fox Queen, like my mother. But there my grandmother was, loving me one moment, then destroying my future the next.

Outside, the wind picks up. The clouds are so dark with swirling snow, the windows show nothing but a blanket of gray. The tapestries shudder against the stone wall, threads like shifting leaves in a storm.

I take a deep breath, realizing I’ve been holding it for too long. Dizziness plucks at the edges of my vision, but I force myself to focus.

The outline of the Dead Queen’s opalescent eyes are barely visible beneath her veil, but I can feel them studying me.