Oak is dreaming of a red fox that is also his half brother, Locke.
They are in a forest at twilight, and things are moving in the shadows. Leaves rustle as though animals peer from between trees.
“You really screwed up this time,” says the fox as he trots beside the prince.
“You’re dead,” Oak reminds him.
“Yes,” agrees the fox who is also Locke. “And you’re close to joining me.”
“Is that why you’ve come?” Oak looks down at his muddy hooves. A leaf is stuck to the top of the one on his left.
The fox’s black nose scents the air. Its tail is a wavering flame behind it. Its paws pad sure-footedly along a path that Oak cannot see. He wonders if he is being led somewhere that he doesn’t want to go.
A breeze brings the scents of old, drying blood and weapon oil. It reminds Oak of the smell of Madoc’s house, of home.
“I am a trickster, like you. I am here because it amuses me. When I am bored, I will go away.”
“I’m not like you,” Oak says.
He’s not like Locke, even if they have the same power. Locke was Master of Revels, who spirited away his sister Taryn to his estate, where she drank wine and dressed in beautiful gowns and became sadder than he’d ever seen her.
Locke thought life was a story, and he was responsible for introducing the conflict. Oak had been nine when Taryn murdered Locke, with his tenth birthday soon after. He would like to say he hadn’t known what she’d done, but he had. None of them tried to hide violence. By then, they were used to murder being an option that was always on the table.
At the time, though, he hadn’t quite put together that Locke was his half brother.
Or quite how much Locke was a terrible person.
The fox’s mouth opens, its pink tongue lolling out. It studies Oak with eyes that look alarmingly like his own. “Our mother died when I was just a child, but I still remember her. She had long red-gold hair, and she was always laughing. Everyone she met adored her.”
Oak thought of Hyacinthe, whose father had loved Liriope too well and killed himself because of it. He thought of Dain, who had desired her and then murdered her.
“I am not like our mother, either,” Oak says.
“You never met her,” the fox tells him. “How do you know if you’re like her or not?”
To that, Oak has no answer. He doesn’t want to be like her. He wanted people to love him a normal amount.
But it was true that he wanted everyone to love him.
“You’re going to die like her. And like me. Murdered by your own lover.”
“I’m not dying,” the prince snaps, but the fox scampers off, sliding between the trees. At first his bright coat gives him away, but then the leaves become scarlet and gold and withered brown. They fall in a great gust that seems to whirl around the prince. And in the shiver of the boughs, Oak hears laughter.
