Chapter 218: The One Child the Queen Had Not Yet Met (A Tragedy, Apparently)
The Kitsunegawa Territory was a beautiful territory.
The mountains that framed its borders rose in great, sweeping arches, their peaks disappearing into low-hanging clouds that drifted lazily as though they, too, had nowhere particularly urgent to be. The forests that spilled down from those peaks were dense and ancient, deep jade where the canopy thickened, bright where sunlight broke through in long, shimmering columns. The air carried the scent of earth and sweet fruit and something faintly floral that clung to the skin long after one had stepped indoors.
And in the middle of it all — winding between orchard rows heavy with fruit, through clearings where the grass grew thick and soft underfoot, past hedges trimmed with the particular obsessiveness unique to fox demons who believed disorder was a personal failing — was the private garden behind the Vulpyr estate.
